Feedback to this article HERE

I heard this big boom the other night, went outside to see a massive limb had dropped from a tree across the street, narrowly missing a guy in a toyata who was turning around. The limb must have weighed over 200 lbs because the driver (named Don) and I could not even move it. It was blocking the entire street at it's narrowest point, and no car could get passed it. Luckily I have a chain saw.

Everybody, including the salesman at Sears thought the idea of me handling a chainsaw was a bad one, but I somehow got it home with little protest from the neighbors and loved ones. The first day I used it my finger went down over the blades along the top ridge and wore a slight groove in my nail without breaking the skin- Whew, that was a close one! Almost as close as the moment the blades burred across the toe of my boot, just as I was letting off the trigger.
"Hmm" I said to myself, "A more 'present' frame of mind, with a nod to safety, might help me save a limb or two during the life of this new tool" -just a thought.
Since then, I have been hesitant about getting the dulling blade sharpened for fear of eventually seeing blood .
"You going to stick around and help me with this thing?" I asked Don, my new best friend and captive. "I have no choice" he said "it's a dead end street, and I'm on the wrong side of this tree to do anything but stand here and watch."

So true, so we went to work chopping the thing up and moving it.
A few moments later, one of my neighbors pulled up, and honked her horn.
"I live down the street" she said. "That's nice" I replied, and went on sawing off branches. "I need to get by" she said through her window . "I can't help you" I said, "I'm working as fast as I can".
"Well, can't you just pick it up and move it?" she asked. Now I was getting impatient. "If I could move it, I wouldn't need to cut it, would I?" Hoping she would get the hint that she was annoying me."Well, I need to get home!" she insisted, "What do you expect me to do?"
"Well, I suggest you park your car and walk (the 50 yards to your dump you stupid bitch!)" "That's not acceptable " she barked, and now, she was becoming unbelieveable.

"What made you decide to do this now anyway!" she asked again, and I practically dropped the saw. "Honey!" I said "Look up. You see that big tree above you? Well, this big branch JUST fell out of that tree, and if your not careful, another one is going to fall on you, so move it on out of here!"
"You don't have to get nasty!" she said, and I looked at Don in disbelief.
"Ignore her man," he said, "She's obviously an idiot"
"I'm calling my husband, he'll come up here and move that thing, and he'll kick you ass while he's here" She got on her cell phone to make a call to the house 300 feet away.

A few moments later her husband came up the driveway, all 5' 3" of him in a wife-beater tank top and sporting a mickey mouse tatoo on his left shoulder.
His wife came out of her car and talked right over me "Honey. move this thing so we can get to the house!"
He looked at her like she had three heads, and then at me. "You're nuts babe!" he said, "This thing is at least a couple of hundred pounds. Park the car and walk down, when these guys are done we'll walk up and get the car"
She huffed back to her old chevy, and drove off to park it.
"She give you guys some shit?" he asked me. "Yeah, she threatened to have you beat me up". I was so happy to see he wasn't one of those morons who let their wives fight all their battles for them. He was really a nice guy, who understood the situation at a glance. "Ha Ha!" he said "yeah, she's a handful, so lazy she can't be bothered to walk up a flight of stairs"
"Yeah, well she got pretty nasty" I said, "I was about to walk away and let someone else call the city to move this shit"
He thanked us for handling it, and sauntered home. I never heard a thing from his wife.
If I see her again I am going to be painfully nice- that would probably really bother her.

Another fun filled evening on Silver Ridge ave.

Feedback to this article HERE

Eucalyptus smells good, and wears out your saw blades fast!

Sunset Junction Festival!

We're pretty much over it all. We make an appearance, walk the loop, hear some music, look at the little temp-shops set up, and head home. Our reasons for being there used to be to eat, drink a lot, hear a band, get a tan, and BE SEEN! Now, none of that really applies. We're still glad it' there though, I guess I'm getting old.

Feedback to this article HERE

I'm Under whelmed

Didn't have much fun at the roadmovie show that night. It's been years since I have ventured into that scary part of Hollywood where it's customary to put a new neon sign above an old taco stand and rename it a theatre.
We waited outside in the warm night air until about 8:30, for a show that was supposed to start around 7. The building was one block north of Santa Monica Blvd. on McAdden, so of course the boy-hookers were out in full force.

Fat little Latin boys in lingerie, shook their asses at us and the cars going by, talking trash. It really has been a while since I have been verbally accosted by a transvestitute.
Once inside the building a woman who was totally blind tore the cork of a bottle of Ernest and Julio chardonnay and had the nerve to charge me $3 for glass that was half full, or was it half empty? I would have taken the beer, but like me, it was warm and domestic.
The "Theatre" was a 12x12 room with theatre seats (surprise), a couple of tables with chairs and Chex party mix on a paper plate. Classy.
I stuck around for the first few songs, realizing I have all this stuff on my ipod.
Lately my back allows me a small window of time for extracurricular activities, and the clocked had ticked down while waiting on the curb, so after the first 2 or three songs I straddled the scooter for a long cold ride home in the dark.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Roadmovie, and I want to support this band as much as I can, but visiting venues like this one is on a parallel line with root canals and Diverticulitis.
Lexington and McAdden Lex Theatre/Taco stand is a far cry from the venues where they started out. Places like The Hotel Cafe, the Derby, Ghengis Cohen or the Knitting Factory are all awesome houses where they have played to rapt audiences, so I guess I felt this LEX theatre was far, far beneath the quality of stages I've become accustomed to.
The next day I pulled out a piece of paper I keep in a drawer, listing all the things I Vow I will never get talked into. I scanned the list before jotting this one down and I was surprised to see it was already there.
"Don't go to an independant theatre show in Hollywood, it will suck!"
This entry was dated November 1993- after I went to to see Sean in a show at a place called "The Complex"- two blocks from last nights gig at "The Lex".

Coincidence? I think Not.

Feedback to this article HERE

Feedback to this article HERE

Feedback to this article HERE

Like in a deja Vu, I got my shuttle from the DAZE Inn at 4:30, and made my 6:20 flight to JFK easy. jetblue is STILL the most comfortable airline I have ever been on. These seats are like Lazy-boy chairs, so soft and comfy. My ass is in butt-cheek heaven.
Michelle drove me to Syracuse last night, her and I and the little baby-boy Race, talking for 2 hours on Rt. 81 south, it went quickly.
I wanted yesterday to be all rainbows and butterflies as I made my exit into the sunset, but I knew better than to force it. I called upon my siblings to help me do some errands and fix-ups for Mom and Dad before I go, stuff they can't really do anymore because of their health.
We traded a set of beds from one house to the other, got the weeds clipped, and painted the bare wood in the eves. Dad was very happy, and gave me a big hug before I left. That felt right.
Now I'm on the six hour flight home, and not a minute too soon. It's been a total of almost 6 weeks since I've slept in my own bed, and as soon as tomorrow I make plans for the return trip to Dominica in 4 weeks. Ugh, I'm tired already.

On Friday night I built a fire in the firepit and burned some extra items that were lying around the house. I thought about something Michelle had said, about life being a light, that once turned off cannot be turned back on again. She thought of the reality check MC's shooter must have made, when he realized what he had done, and turned his gun on himself. "He just could not face the consequences of what he had done" She said, and we stayed silent for a minute, in deep memory of MC, and mulling on the profundity of it all.
Watching cardboard boxes burn into ashes in the firepit, I imagined it was MC's body, one moment here, the next-gone. I though of how her Mother had chosen to commit her body to flames, and how at her wake, a recent photo of her was leaning against her urn, and surrounded by images of happier times. The cold, undecorated stainless steel can was a sharp slap of reality, posing among all these images of what we all were desperately trying to focus our thoughts on; happier moments in time, a girl we knew and adored, all the love she had to give. That urn was such a strong reminder, that where there once was a presence, a living person, is now just ash. She's physically gone, those hands I held, those eyes that smiled up at me for all those years, that body I held to me on the curb in front of my apartment four years ago in L.A., the last time I saw her, as we said goodbye. I hope I told her I loved her.
Since then she bore two children, and her daughter looks just like her.
Michelle and I and our whole family watched this girl come into our lives 25 years ago, and then, like the closing of a book, her life as we knew it ended. Seems so strange to witness an entire life like that.

This journey seemed a lot longer than these few weeks it was. Thinking about my reason for going home, my 20th high-school reunion, then MC's murder, the journey to Dominica, San Juan, the building of the sign, the family reunion, Dad's hospitalization , the fact that three trips to the Chirporactors office showed no need for adjustments after years of never being right.
All these make chapters of a long and complicated story. If combined with the wedding in Sonoma, it's more interesting than a Michael Chabon novel, to me anyway. It was all so eventful, dramatic, and I'm walking away from it with a significantly stronger understanding of life, mortality, and what love is. Overall, it was a good trip, but emotionally a rollecoaster.
I'm looking forward to the normality of my life in L.A. again, and the gift that is my realtionship.

Feedback to this article HERE

August 4, 2004

. . . And you'll be living in a trailer, down by the River!
I'm leaving for Home on Sunday, at 6: 05 a.m., so I guess I need to do the old 'Get Me A Hotel Room at the Airport!" thing again. Damn that Jet blue.
I've wrapped up the sign project, in that we are all satisfied in the condition that I'm leaving it, and that the local sign company is going to handle the gold leaf, the painting and installation.ABC McLeary was so instrumental in the production of this project, I feel confident leaving it in their hands.
Aside fom a few snafus on my part, I'm real sure the project is going to turn out o.k., and I'm not worried about it.

Feedback to this article HERE