Been Around the Block. Got Some Stories. These are Them.
Mount Shasta, California, December 28, 2019 — When I was a child and a teenager, I was very insecure. And needing reassurance all the time, in the tough-guy culture of Northern Texas, I became a loud show-off smart-alec, even though I was actually an introvert.
As a result, even when I gained confidence over the years, I had to *learn* how to talk to strangers, and how to approach women. I did learn. However I wish I’d seen this article, which is both simple and [Read more…]
Specs Bar in North Beach, San Francisco, September 1975 — It was because I was dating a writer named Barbara Austin, whom I’d picked up at San Francisco State using a fancy pick-up women technique.
And Barbara had a pal named Suzie.
At that time there was a fancy fellowship to a woodsy place all scenic as hell back east, perhaps Connecticut. And if you applied, and if they accepted you as a proper artiste, then they’d put you up for several weeks in a cabin in the scenic woods and while you worked on your art. Now Suzie was a painter who specialized in pictures of Navajo blankets draped on chairs, and Barbara wrote poignant novels. Since both of them were accepted at this ritzy fellowship this summer, worked on their respective art, and became friends.
Now it seems that Suzie and her boyfriend, Jules Pfeiffer, whose cartoons adorned the New Yorker, and newspapers, and Playboy magazine which me and my friends often read because we liked the articles so darn much.
And that’s how it was that [Read more…]
North Texas University, Denton, Texas, 1965. Heartbroken, after running off my high-school sweetheart, envious met her new flame, a boisterous trumpet player driving a red MGB.
Shortly thereafter when crazy Becky Jarvis said, “You ought to get a Morgan.” I said huh? And then …
I bought a Morgan Motor Car in Dallas from a garage guy named Big John, who imported them and raced them. This one was blue, with tan upholstery and black top. Three thousand dollars.
Built with a wooden frame atop a steel z-frame, whatever that might be. The whole car flexed. Weighted 1400 pounds and had a 1.5 liter engine, hopped-up Ford Cortina with Lotus modifications, Jaguar trannasaurus, ran like hell, whining high-pitched, a redline at 9000. About four inches from the ground. That would be your butt, flying above your asphalt.
The first night, driving it home, in the dark, was terrifying. It was so fast. Seemed like piloting the bolt from a crossbow, rocketing down that dark backwoods highway. Later discovered it had the wrong speedometer; and my highway trip at 65 was really around 90. It did seem sprightly.
The jack arrangement was to insert the jack through a hole in the floor. This hole normally was covered by the rubber floor mat. However, on rainy Dallas days I have seen the puddle splash up through the hole, lifting the floor mat, to spash against the windshield, on the passenger side. Kind of a defroster system.
Paul Miner drew up cartoons of our gang at that time. Mine was ‘Richard, the sports car nut’. It showed me in riding pants, saying “Of course, she won’t start on cold mornings, but at $2999, she can afford to be a little temperamental.”
Paul was right on the money. One of my proudest moments at that time was during an astounding snowstorm. On Dallas freeway and headed back to Denton, I let the air out of the tires down to about 15 pounds. Then, my 1400 pound car could walk up the icy hills where the big sedans just skidded and spun. Got me through. Good thing. That heater. I probably would have died out there.
A year or so later, living in Dallas in an apartment rented from Dunia Bean, which had a swimming pool, driving to work at the Cabana. And a fool oncoming lost it and bent my car. That was the end of the Morgan.
Regarding that swimming pool. It had an underwater light. Have you ever, at night, on LSD, opened your eyes underwater to look at a light? No?
Well, that Morgan was something.
Medford Oregon, March 13, 2018 –– A Facebook friend of mine named Alvin Curren raised a question today. His post said —
“A friend asked me what I was looking for and this was my answer: I’m looking for the total package. Someone that will be a friend, partner, lover, companion for life, travel buddy, inspiration, and that we can work together to change the world.
“What is the statistical probability of actually achieving all those criteria? In the natural world, it would be considered a mathematical operational impossibility. So I don’t hold my breath. And I don’t worry. There is one thing worse than being single and lonely, that is being married and lonely.”
And in fact I know a workable approach to finding a best solution to this kind of problem, this kind of desire. And today I’m going to [Read more…]
Beverly Hills, California, 1969: As the night clerk at the Beverly Rodeo Hyatt House, on fashionable Rodeo Drive, I met interesting people.
I’ve seen Hendrix stumble out of the elevator, on his way out to gig, so stoned that he couldn’t get through the door because he was holding his guitar case sideways.
Chuck Berry signed in one night with a young woman, giving me his American Express. He wasn’t doing his duck walk, so I wasn’t sure it was Chuck Berry, and later I called American Express. As it turns out, they called his home. He wasn’t there, but his wife was.
Ginger Baker (of the rock band Cream) and I broke into the kitchen one night to make sandwiches. Taj Mahal said hello. David Nelson was in and out. Miles stayed there sometimes.
But the most interesting guest was Ralph D.
Ralph D. was a well-to-do guy in the real estate business, short and squatty, nicely groomed with nice suits, from La Jolla. Often, he stayed overnight at the Beverly Rodeo Hyatt House. He liked dinner in the Chez Voltaire room, and he liked the bar pretty well, too.
In that bar, a hooker named Gina was often in and out, in a manner of speaking, and she was Ralph D’s favorite. Alas, she appeared to fall in love with him, and this didn’t really work out for her. But that’s another story.
One day I asked Ralph D. how he made so much money. He didn’t exactly answer my question, but what he said was much more valuable. He said, “If you want to make a lot of money, you need to work in a field in which it is possible to make a lot of money.”
I’m embarrassed to say, now, that my paucity of vision, then, only let me see part of this truth. I did see that working as a desk clerk would not be a field in which it would be possible to make a lot of money.
I pondered this idea, and realized that, as long as I worked for someone else, they would be making part of the money from my labor. Therefore, I figured, it would be wiser to work for myself. Then I could collect the payment to the worker (me) and also the payment to the employer (me).
Now, looky back, it’s clear that he really meant: you can make more in some fields, like Real Estate, than in other occupations, but I didn’t really grasp that key point then.
Years later, in San Francisco, I made my first attempt to use the valuable information he had given me. I decided to become a freelance bookkeeper. I would work for myself! I’d make the money of the employee (me) but also the money of the employer (also me), since I was working for myself. What a great idea!
Yes, bookkeeping would be the field in which I would make a lot of money.
Haw, haw, haw, haw, haw!
Yep. Live and learn, bucky, live and learn. Some of us slower than others. Yep.
On Facebook, circa March 4, 2018 — Cathy Gentry posts: Some people have been a bit offended that the actor, Lee Marvin, is buried in a grave alongside 3 and 4-star generals at Arlington National Cemetery. His marker gives his name, rank (PVT) and service (USMC). Nothing else. Here’s a guy who was only a famous movie star who served his time, why the heck does he rate burial with these guys?
I didn’t know the extent of his Corps experiences. In a time when many Hollywood stars served their country in the armed forces often in rear echelon posts where they were carefully protected, only to be trotted out to perform for the cameras in war bond promotions, Lee Marvin was a genuine hero. He won the Navy Cross at Iwo Jima. There is only one higher Naval award … the Medal Of Honor!
And he credits his sergeant with an even greater show of bravery. [Read more…]
Shady Shores community, near Dallas Texas, 1964: Paul H. was the largest roommate, and visiting his girlfriend in Fort Worth, he drove that highway often. A large and quiet guy, when he returned that day, all excited, we knew something was up.
“What is it?” asked Hardy M., the art student, a rugged fellow of sour demeanor. Paul lowered his voice.
“It’s a boat, with two big Evenrude motors,” he said, “It’s just sitting on a trailor beside the highway!”
My roommates, and myself, instantly became criminals.
“You mean … just sitting there?” asked Pat M. Always affecting calm, always worried.
“Trailer hitch,” Paul said. “I’d have grabbed it but I don’t have a trailor hitch.” On his car, he meant. They all looked at me. My car had a trailor hitch.
“OK,” I said. And so off we drove, to steal a boat.
Along the way, Hardy in the back seat was dozing. Each time he nodded off, Pat jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow. “Stop it!” Hardy said, irritable. Pat told him not to be leaning on him. Hardy said ok, and a short time later, was dozing again.
With the two of them bickering like children, we drove. The day was late, and daylight fading. I’d forgotten a ham in the oven. We found it the next day, much smaller and very salty.
Watching for the boat as we drove, it seemed like we’d never get there. And finally, Paul said that either we’d missed it, or somebody had picked up the boat. So we turned around.
By now, Hardy was deep asleep in the back seat. He woke occasionally, but Pat told him we weren’t there yet. This continued until we were pulling into Shady Shores, where we lived lakeside in a concrete-block house.
About a block from our house was a small copse of wood, and, as it was now full dark, instead of going home, I pulled my car into that tiny wood. And in the darkness, the nearby houses were invisible from within the trees.
Hardy woke as we exited, but we told him we were going to get the boat, and we needed him to stay with the car. Sleepy, he agreed, and promptly fell asleep again. We walked to our house, and stayed up late, talking about our big adventure — failing to steal a boat — and then eventually everybody went to bed.
Hardy, of course, woke up sometime during the evening, but didn’t dare leave the car. He didn’t want to be stranded in an unknown place near Fort Worth.
In the morning, about coffee-time. Hardy came through the door.
“That’s not funny,” he said.
In one of the last scenes in the fun movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean,” the heroine makes a statement about the leading man. She says, lovingly, “He’s a pirate.”
As you may recall from the movie, that young man started out hating the pirates, and yet, in the course of his adventures, he’s become bolder and he has dared great things, and by golly he has become a pirate. And that’s a good thing.
And so … why is it a good thing to be a pirate?
