I just noticed that i'm coming up on the 100th blog marker. That's unbelievable to me. It seems like only yesterday I was *trying it on*; looking for a voice. i wondered what kinds of thoughts and ideas would lend themselves to the format. And now - oh how we've grown! Ha ha ha. But these are my favorite writing pieces I've ever done.
I'm not certain of this, but i believe that it's the uncertainty of readership which creates the blog's wonderful tension. I write from a place of not knowing whom, if anyone will actualy read it. I know that some people read my blog regularly, such as my mother - but I'm never sure of anyone else.
The blog then is addressed: To whom it may concern. This is my message in a bottle. Volkofsky described my writing as a plea to be understood. And though I shuddered from embarrassment at the time he said those words, I've come to see that he's 100% right. If anyone cares to hear me, then I shall keep talking.

i made the decision to spend the summer in new york. I know the impact of this decision will be felt long and profound for the duration of my existence, and so i'm not even really considering it. That would just freak me out too much. We have begun rehearsals of Shivah Proper. I have not undertaken a theatre project nor so much as held a script in my hand since 1998, when i was doing THE ALL GIRLIE LIVE CLOWN REVUE. It was during our final week of rehearsals that i was mugged and beat up on the Williamburgh bridge, and my clown I put away after that. My next live appearance was a Muay Thai match on my 30th birthday, in which I hit one of my friends so hard in the face that his mother climbed into the ring and screamed at me that I was a bad man and I must leave her son Hanson alone. This poor woman was so angry that she was shaking.

Today I began the work of learning the text of the play. I sat in a coffee shop most of the morning, putting off the the inevitable first breaking of ground that would eventually be a vast underground chasm of words. That's what learning a script bears the greatest resemblance to (yeah i know, thats a preposition: i don't give a shit - it's my blog). The first sentence begins:

No one lives. Forever. Anyway.

Pacing around Kirsten's apartment, I engraved the words into my quick access storage-brain. And that was the the spade's first cut through the grass and clay. As I move along further down the first monologue I reach the point that I can recall the entire first five lines. I find that I've dug a tunnel: I begin to add shoring in the areas that are weak. I go back and work over and over on the more complicated word groupings. It's like I'm adding a fourbyfour here and there (don't want a catastrophic cave-in). Some dust and plant roots fall from the earthen ceiling onto my head, but it seems to hold.

I'm asking myself: How do I make it shine? This role has only ever been performed by Volkofsky himself. The very words he wrote are now coming from my mouth. It's as if we are melding into one being. I have to give myself over to his direction entirely. I've never tested a friendship so.

The last few days Volkofsky and I have gone to play baseball at a riverside park in astoria. We take turns pitching to one another, each of us trying to outjunk the other with interpretations of victorian era pitches. We attempt knuckle balls and exaggerated sidearm breaking balls. Some Dominican kids came along yesterday and challenged us to a game of three on three. That's a concept that doesn't really work, unless you love to run. I had rollerskated to the park and so I had no shoes to wear. Each time the biggest of the kids nailed a pitch into the deep outfield, with a resounding KLINK from the aluminum bat, I tore off through the field after it, all the while trying to watch out for broken glass. Those kids thought i was some kind of wild old dude.

Lately i've thought the same thing myself.

The last flashes of my time in Mexico are only glowing now. I've received a few e-mails from friends there, all promising to come up to California, or else insisting that I return to the D.F. It's almost as if I wasn't ever there. I feel the weight of emotion on my chest. The loss of so much new love and life. I had to remember why I went there in the first place: It was a job. And now the job consists of unpacking our freight on monday, and getting my check from keith and moving on with my life.

That's the only view that's consistent with my survival.

The last time I saw Tulo was at Papagoyo Tabares in the center of Acapulco. Him and some of the other guys dragged me back to the famous stripclub for one last insanity, even though I protested that I was sick and feverish (which I was) there in the hotel parking lot, and that I hadn't had any sleep in 32 hours, and that I had a plane to catch at 5am. No matter, they said. Better I should have some tequila to attack the fever, and stay awake with friends at tabares.

Tabares was on. just a few nights before some of the other Americans had gone there on my reccomendation, but they complained that the girls were ugly and it took them forever to get their clothes off. Of course these guys had also gone with wives and girlfriends, and so they did not end up with their booth full of chicas, grabbing at their pricks and selling them sex and an end to all pain. Well of course they didn't like it! they were in a little bubble.

That night was my thrid trip to Tabares. I had literally become a regular. Tulo had also become a regular, and the to of us sat drinking beer talking about the Scorpions. Tulo's wallet had been stolen in tabares a week before, and one of the company grips - Noe - had been mugged at gunpoint on his way home, but no matter; we were right at home there. I loved all the girls. I told them they were angels. They understood my emotion. On the set us dirty bastards in lighting and grip don't get any attention from women in the comapany. For one thing we're too busy working, and then those chicks are alays occupied with the male talent - los putillos - whose hair they're brushing and clothes they're arranging.

Everyone in the company knew we hung out in tabares. Hell we left every dime we made there. If you stay in tabares late enough the fun show begins. Clowns and dwarves rollerblade around the place, and all the girls are carried out and deployed to dance on the tables in matching red sequin dresses. Some guys in the bar are dragged up on stage to receive their *privados* in front of the whole place, and they end up ith their clothes off, on stage, getting their dicks sucked to raucous aplause and approval from the bar's patrons.

And then the music changes. Metallica or whatever strip club standard is discarded, and there beginds the peeling violin of a drunken mariachi or ranchero. And then you're really in Mexico - timeless Mexico. I stumble seeing double to the bathroom, and not one table fails to salute this staggering gavacho with a tipped bottle of beer or a lecherous wink.

The last time I saw Tulo he was in the private dancing booth. i had looked all over tabares for him, because I had to leave to catch my flight. He was sprawled out on the rounded booth, and a girlwas lying naked atop him, perpendicluar to his body.

"Puta madre guey! Testoy buscando por todos lados!"
"Ya que onda guey?!" he yells back over the roar of the maricahi.

Me voy ahorrita. We kissed. i kissed him over and over, and then I kissed his putilla and thanked her for loving him. I reminded him to create the image of the *Virgen de Tabares* and i would have it tattooed on my chest, and then I left for the USA.

Oye que desmadre es esta programa..!

Mexico. I don't know how much more I can take. I had always heard that this land was more akin to a civilization than a mere country. Now I have this place running through me like a dialysis. I wish I had written more but i was too busy working and trying to finish the damn show honorably. From the first day we loaded in our trucks to the hero villa in Las Brisas we were massacred by inexperienced people above us. We survived on beer and late nights. the entire city hits it so hard.

I would have blogged more but i had no e-mail *contacto*. I'm living in Spanish, learning the nom enclature of set lighting. My vocabultry of Spanish slang has exploded. Of all the lighting terms I picked up here in Acapulco my favorite is the expression for gripping down a light source so that it has some shadows. the Mexicans call that *punishing* the light.

"hay que castigar mas a este 6K PAR.

I still love Mexico but I'm not sure how much more I can take. Everyone is exhausted of living in a hotel. I for one want nothing more than to take my espresso at my kitchen table, with the birds singing and the day's LA Times. I'm unable to socilaize anymore... But in Mexico there is no isolation. It's great for me. I can already hear the melancholy echo of all these wonderful voices from where I live. This job has been an outright sprint, and my head will still be in motion for longtime after.

Salud

Damn my email's been corrupted by the neon sleaze of pop-up ads. Like a vine these things grew into my mail and browser so that I have full page smut with no functioning close buttons. It juts goes to show you that things break down. The weeds start creeping. I get this abnormally high sprint bill which has a surprising new added service.

PCS Vision premium Pack $15.95/month

I called right away. That made me mad as hell. They make so much money off me it's not funny. They make it off all the hardcharging disorganized people who don't have time to read their bills. Leave it to Sprint to go and invent some service that has nothing to do with phonecalls. The Sprint operator informed me that I got that service automatically when I bought my new phone.
"But I never asked for this." I said. "What does it even do?"

"You did agree to it sir, when you signed up or the rebate on your newest phone." She said. "It's for downloading games and screensavers - worldwide webbing etc."
She sounded confident that she had me. 'The rebate you got - remember?' Her voice seemed to tease. I had taken the money she gently reminded me.

"I never got the rebate on this damn phone." I said to her. "I paid full price."

"I don't understand." The operator's voice on the other end of the line

"I paid something like $230 for this phone, and I never got the application in or the rebate."
She was silent on the other end. Is she calling or her manager?
"I just blew it off - do you understand? I never signed up or this PCS Gold vision pack."

How do these corporations function? Their M.O. seems to be to introduce a charge - weasle it in, and then cash in on the aggregate of disorganized people like myself who let it go by - just for being too busy to read the itemized section of the bill. The few customers who bother to go through the phone labyritnth in order to get it refunded - like I just did - will only get a credit back in a month. Sprint is able to generate a shitload of cash like that. I wonder what they call that practice, in their little dens.

What do they call it in those big companies when they lower the blade and take a thicker cut? I'm sure that there's a word for this.

I've been out skating at night. I went last night and another night about a week ago. Before I settled on my present skate spot I spent a long time looking for a place suitable for my particular brand of *shredding*. It had to be sufficiently close to the house that I didn't need to drive there, but it also had to be private enough that i could work out without feeling self-conscious.

The biggest condition of all for a skating area is that no one gives a shit that i'm there. If they're going to call the cops then it's not a good spot. I would walk all around the neigbhorhood with baby, trying to find a place that would make me feel comfortable to strap on my wheels. I finally settled on the Discount Tire Center on Hyperion Blvd where I can go to blow off steam and work on in-line tricks.

Quitting smoking is what set this off. I've simply got too much energy. So I skate.

I'm working on jumping. That's the basis of all in-line skating tricks. You have to be able to jump - and land - on-wheels. It's sketchy because I'm top-heavy like only a human can be. I get tired too. Skating is hard work. It's hard on the lega.

But the best thing of all is the time spent outside on the streets of LA. Skating in the city is very showy at any time. At night, hauling ass down city sidewalks all dressed in black, with a dog running behind is downright edgy. The city appears different when one relatres to it in such a way. Last night me and the dog were over on Sunset boulevard and we had the sidewalk to ourselves. I could skate backwatds down hills with baby galloping along behind me. There are little concrete ramps and culverts to jump and grind off. No one bothers us.

Last night I couldn't concentrate too well. I was busy thinking about the job I'm starting in Mexico. There's is so much at stake here for me. Each day as I talk to friends who have no work, I realize I was damn lucky to get this gig in Acapulco, keying a network show. My stock is shooting way up from this - after 10 months of having nothing. I've been doing AFI films just to keep my skills up, and now I'm making $2000/week cash, living in a *****hotel on the beach, overlooking Acapulco bay.

There is so much that could go wrong. I've been up nights reading books on stage rigging and large scale electrical rigs for television. I know this shit but i feel like I've kind of gotten out of it. Two very important friends in this business plugged me for this job. I have to rock them down there, and there will be many more high paying TV shows.

I've got this idea to recreate my oldsmobile as an Italian rallye vehicle. It all started with yellow striped tires. A sporty old American car pretty much has to have a white wall. That's what everyone says. But then I thought to myself, what's the matter with a yellow band on the tire wall, to offset the racey green paint job.

No one does that. It's awesome. My buddy Mike Gonzalez out in College Point, texas drives a black '66 Ford Galaxy. The thing's a John Birch mobile, except that Mike had the tires installed with the markings on the inside, so that all you see is no-name tirewall. That's very cop; I like it. A nice small subtle touch.

Janie says the Cutlass's green paint is a stock ferrari color. *Medio-verde* she says, echoing the bodyshop guys who did the paint job 15 years ago. But who's ever seen green ferrari? I asked an italian guy about it and he said there was never a green ferrari, anymore than there was ever a green Ducati. Italian cars and bikes are red, black, yellow or silver.

IL CUTLASS DI CORSA - EN MEDIO VERDE - i'm seeing my Cutty, the all-american grocery-getter with yellow striped racing tires, and a set of foglights racked on the two intakes of the grill. That would give the Cutlass six eyes total - that's enough to see everything - and look like a mean motherfucker at the same time. The fibnal touch would be a European licence plate - one of the square ones with two rows of letters. No one does that. It's fucking badass.

I worked the whole damn weekend in my garage (the hacienda) trying to get some of my stuff in there organized. jesus how boring can a weekend be? My little 22 year old roomate went galivanting around the town with her friends. Would I switch with her - and feel fabulous? Talking, hanging out, going to bars and clubs? Hell no, of course I wouldn't. It's fucking boring and there's nothing out on those streets.

But working at cleaning up the garage all weekend..?

This terrible bombing in Spain has really held my attention for days. i keep going back to the news, looking for signs of where the story is leading. I find all of this unsettling - yet fascinating. The most recent item was that the Spanish had tossed their government and elected a socialist one in its place - who then promised to extract all the Spanish forces from iraq by June.
Well, the people have spoken, and they want no part of the American/British war in the middle east. Nevertheless I find it surprising that this one attack managed to back them off so much. It's like walking up to someone and slapping them across the face... And they say: "whoah, okay man whatever."

I got to thinking that the real distinction between people's views on the iraq war comes down to whether one hopes that the thing works out. You can NOT support the war, but also hope and pray that it succeeds in its stated objectives. I guess that's the closest thing to a postion that I have.

So I learned I’m still stuck in my own head. I’ve always been stuck in my own head, except for a few hours of escape I achieved via sex or hallucinogens.
The pilot house of this vehicle, if you could call me that, is my upper palate. You can sit right on down there
In the captain’s chair, and take me for a spin. Look through my eyes – they’re a split windshield.
My septum is the dash board. It has leopard skin on it. Feel free to put your feet up. You can take me off road if you want.

When I was about ten years old I spent a lot of time alone, walking and hiking on my own adventures. I can often remember this feeling of a benevolent stranger sitting behind the windshield of my eyes, maneuvering the vessel.
He was a little man about 1” tall. He had the physical attitude of a super-keen 1950s gas station attendant.

I was always fascinated by mechanized creatures such as the Imperial walkers from Empire Strikes Back. Walkers were these big slow-moving metallic beasts of four legs, with long-barreled laser cannon on the sides of their head. Their drivers and gunners were inperial soldiers who sat behind armor plating in the walker’s head as it swung from side to side blowing the shit out of everything. I thought those things were bitchin’. I liked them so much I was probably a little self-conscious to even discuss it. That is how powerful I felt about manned animal-like machines.
How weird is that? It makes me think there’s something more to it than simple little boy truck fascination. There’s something funny and a little strange I recall from that age between nine and 12. Not to suggest that any age is more normal than another - but i seem to remember something unique about 10 years of age. It could be something to do with the development of consciousness. Maybe not the setting up of it, but the curing – where things really get hard, like Portland cement.

But what is it about trhe idea of sitting behind the controls of another creature that seems so far away from the adult thoughts people take on.It seems like a vestige of early consciousness from the hidden archives of inheirited memory. WhateverI gotta go to bed.
goodnight imperial walkers
Don't jump up and sleep on the couch

MONTREAL EXPOS TO MOVE TO MONTERREY, MEX

That's what I'm hearing in these parts. Sunday afternoon I was bored as usual and so I walked next door to mooch some barbequed meat from my neighbor Manuel. There were a few geezers over there, drinking beer in manuel's backyard. These guys are serious norteno cowboys. They're all related - suegros and cunados. They hail from Jalisco. They're pretty good neigbours i have to say.
Anyway they were talking about baseball and got to saying that the agreement was all but made which would see the Montreal expos ball club, players, real estate, Dominican farm teams - relocated to Monterrey, Mexico. Now that's a hell of a thing. With a mexican ball club the majors would really become a North American league. It's only a matter of time before there's a Dominican club, because that's where all the players seem to come from. Baseball could make a HUGE comeback, if there were japanese and Korean, Mexcan and Cuban teams in the world series.

And I predict that montreal will regret losing the Expos. The hapless ball club for Montreal will be like the old car they finally have towed off the property - which turns out to be worth $50,000. Relocating the expos will give them IMMEADIATE street cred. 80 million mexicans, not to mention Central America, will fall in behind the Los Expocisiones.

The Expos will be down and brown.

It's witheringly hot in Los Angeles this week. The heat has brought ants. I left a couple of water-logged dog food kibbles in the bottom of the sink this morning, and when I went to make lunch there was a dense black line of ants in the process of disassembling them and carrying them off. I can't deal with this kind of heat. Evenings are nice though; sultry, but cooled by gusty desert winds.

When will the rains come? We need it to rain. Everyone says it will be any day now, but the sky is void of clouds. I spent the morning yesterday cleaning out drainage sumps and ditches. i checked gutters, and tried to be ready for the deluge. The ground outside is hardpack, brown earth. Even the cactii look thirsty.

I got a call yesterday to work two low budget music videos. In the circumstance of my career drought, that call was like the rumble of distant thunder. Rain can take so many forms. Here in the desert when it rains, the first droplets only kick up the dust. That's what these videos will do. They'll make a muddy mess of my life, but the wildflowers will blossom. later the great rains will come and soak everything.

I hope the roof does not leak. Walter Mosely once wrote that when it rains in L.A., it falls straight down. I just want to stand on the porch and smell the water as it soaks into the ground.

Today I got a very slick package in the mail from Nissan Motor company. It was delivered in a hardback boxset type of jacket, of material of such uncertain origin that I was not sure whether to trash it or recycle it. It turns out this is a presentation of Nissan's new line of automobiles, in case I care to buy another one. Those guys...

Inside the *boxset* there are six or seven fold out brochures that each depict one of the Nissan family of cars. Well these brochures are so slick and colorful that the stench of ink could make you fall down. It smells like those old crank-out printing presses they had in my grade school.

Now each one of these brochures depicts some rich scene, more often than not completely unrelated to driving. In the lower right hand corner is the Nissan sales pitch SHIFT. So the first one in the smelly stack depicts a family rafting down some white water lined on its shores with tall verdant pines. The two little girls of the family (well, the kids they hired for the shoot) are in the foreground, splashed by the cold fresh water. They smile ecstatically with their crooked 12 year old teeth. Mom and dad are sitting further back in the raft. It sure looks like one hell of an unforgettable day. The caption in the corner?

SHIFT_bonding

Buy the 8000 lb. S.U.V. depicted inside this brochure, and you can have family experiences like this as well. Hey, it's even rated for 9,100 lbs. towing capacity, in case you come across a broken Freightliner on the way home, you can tow the poor bastard to a dealership.

"And because Pathfinder Armada is built on a rugged truckframe, it can confidently take you to the most remote, unspoiled spots to enjoy your outdoor toys."

One of the other brochures depicts a diver hitching a ride on the back of a Manta Ray! That one says:

SHIFT_sensation

More likely they'll be looking at the exhaust pipes of my bike, when i leave behind in unmoving traffic on the 405.

Later dude.

I really could not believe I made it. Today at 11am, with an hour to spare I rolled into the chainlink encircled compound of Dependable Auto Shipping in Linden, New Jersey. The last hour and a half of the drive was the most nerve-wracking I'd ever spent in a car. It was the rain that made things so crazy.

Yesterday after the wedding ceremony, mathew (the groom) and I went swimming in the choppy grey-green waters off Montauk. For days the forecasters said that Hurricane Isabel would come ashore somewhere off the east coast, and that prediction was made very real by the growing swells we encountered. The waves crashed hard on the steep beach, and then retreated at such a pace we were both easily upended by the surging waters. The afternoon light was hazy and wind blew the sand hard against the friends and family who watched us two kooks from lounge chairs on the sand.
I managed to swim past the bone crushing breakers so that I was bobbing up and down in the swell. I felt very intimidated to realize that I was in 12' deep waters, rising no less than 8' with each passing swell. It was indeed a hurricane coming ashore.

But the hurricane really hit back in the city, when i exited the lincoln Tunnel on the Union City side. After fighting my way across Manhattan, continually plagued by engine stalls and leaks in the weatherproofing, I found myself in rain so hard i couldn't exceed 20mph on the NJ Turnpike. I put on the hazards. wiped my brow and said "Goodness gracious!" It was not clear the Cutlass would make it home, oh on my friend, it was not.

Tonight i'm going to meet Cache (like hidden) the most beautiful girl I've ever met, who became my date at the wedding, and spent the night at my room (though nothing happened). She's a vetrrnarian from Trinidad, and she needed her sleep, she explained, becasue she had to spay two cats and neuter a dog today.

I really could not believe I made it. Today at 11am, with an hour to spare I rolled into the chainlink encircled compound of Dependable Auto Shipping in Linden, New Jersey. The last hour and a half of the drive was the most nerve-wracking I'd ever spent in a car. It was the rain that made things so crazy.

Yesterday after the wedding ceremony, mathew (the groom) and I went swimming in the choppy grey-green waters off Montauk. For days the forecasters said that Hurricane Isabel would come ashore somewhere off the east coast, and that prediction was made very real by the growing swells we encountered. The waves crashed hard on the steep beach, and then retreated at such a pace we were both easily upended by the surging waters. The afternoon light was hazy and wind blew the sand hard against the friends and family who watched us two kooks from lounge chairs on the sand.
I managed to swim past the bone crushing breakers so that I was bobbing up and down in the swell. I felt very intimidated to realize that I was in 12' deep waters, rising no less than 8' with each passing swell. It was indeed a hurricane coming ashore.

But the hurricane really hit me when i exited the lincoln Tunnel on the Union City side. After fighting my way across Manhattan, continually plagued by engine stalls and leaks in the weatherproofing, I found myself in rain so hard i couldn't exceed 20mph on the NJ Turnpike. I put on the hazards. wiped my brow and said "Goodness gracious!"

Tonight i'm going to meet Cache (like hidden) the most beautiful girl I've ever met, who became my date at the wedding, and spent the night at my room (though nothing happened). She's a vetrrnarian from Trinidad, and she needed her sleep, she explained, becasue she had to spay two cats and neuter a dog today.

I'm just sitting not believing that I made it here.
Today I left montreal, Waverly St. and the neighbours who always sit out smoking and juicing and shooting the shit. Behind me are those trees with little round green leaves that always seem to shimmer in the breeze, which comes all the way from the north pole.
We made it to the American border, where the men carry live guns, and they will mess with you, and into the state of New York we rolled in the old car, and every mile I couldn't believe that it still rolled along.
We got a flat, but a guy fixed it for twenty bucks, and mile after mile we made it into new York city, where everything demands that you engage with it, and yet friends were waiting, and it was warm and all was well, and i smelled like sweat and sun all the way from my head down to my socks.
I knew at night the old car would have to sleep inside, and i felt terrified to leave it in the garege, where the guys said they'd have to move it every hour, and i tried to explain how startying it can be a biot of a headache, but no matter, for i finally gave the guys a sawbuck and said try to take care, that car's been in my family since i was a little kid, and I just want to get it back to California.

Behind me, I could weep, for my friends on those familiar streets, on their stoops and around the town, where you're never forgotten, laughing over food, or canoing across the lake. Grace was visited upon me today, and for a time there is no sorrow, but only pleasure at still, by some goddmaned fluke, being fucking alive.

IS ENVIRONMENTALISM THE NEW RELIGION?

I was talking with a friend yesterday about such matters, and I was struck by the extent to which she sounded like a doomsayer. Concerning the ozone layer, she stressed that if we did not repent (stop burning fossil fuels) then we would live to see fire come down from the heavens (global warming) and the seas would rise to drown all but the faithful (actually, they're going to get it too).
It's all probably true, but it still seems straight out of the Book of Revelations. The sin here is materialism and greed: Avarice.

I had more weird dreams last night. In the first one, my room began to collapse around me, and I could hear studs snapping and rusty old nails screaming as they're wrenched from dry wood. I sprang from my bed and out the back door, like as if I'd accidentaly spooned a cobra... But as I regained consciousness, the room seemed to be its old crooked self. Still, I searched the walls for new cracks; it would be another hour before I could get back to sleep after that.
In round II I dreamed that Brad had come down from oakland to help me form out the foundation, only he'd brought with him this real asshole of a guy wo he called his "helper". He said I'd be billed $75/hr for the guy's work, which I wanted to protest, but it seemed to make more sense to just play it cool and get the foundation finished.
Then the two of them started randomly pouring cement slabs all over the backyard. That's when I told them to get the fuck out. In the dream I coul;dn't believe Brad would do such a number on me... But then i was also struck with the sense that nothing is so surprising anymore. That must have been real life bleeding into the dreamworld, instead of the other way around - which is how it usually goes.

I have to finish this project and get the house rebolted. It's driving me nuts to have my place resting on a stack of railroad ties I bought at Home Depot. Sometimes I walk into a room and do a sudden double-take at the weird intersecting angles of floor vs. ceiling vs. window casing... And I start to thinking that the house has moved again - while I wasn't looking!
Tonight I had cleaned up everything, but then I walked into my office, and it looked so completely catty-wompus that I hurriedly crawled back under the house and pumped the jacks a couple more times, adding lumber... Hoping for the best. What I'm seeing is that all the mouldings were added after the house had settled, so now the floor is level but the mouldings are off - instead of the other way around. It can really fuck with you.

L.A. is sure hot this time of year. It's been awhile since i've felt anything like this. It always makes me want to jump into a dark, cold lake up in canada.

Last night I had this dream I was in Montreal.

It was snowing - wet and sloppy - and there were people everywhere out in the streets and on the corners.

On what dreamily resembled the corner of Villeneuve and Jeanne Mance there was a little American-style diner that seemed to have a hip scene gravitating to it, and I decided to drop in.

I felt somewhat self-conscious and out of sorts, and I wasn't sure whom exactly I was going to visit up in the old neigbhurhood. I ordered a cheeseburger from the counterman.
"Fallen on hard times have you?" He asked me, as he began to set up the burger on a stainless steel grill.
"No." I replied. "I just like cheeseburgers.

I was trying to remember if anyone I knew still lived at my old apartment at 5969 Park ave. I was having strange visions - as if from previous dreams - of a large additional apartment at the back of that flat, which Mike K. and I had never discovered.

I realized it was Vali I wanted to see, and so I set out again towards the Mile-End. As I stepped out of the greasy spoon, a black Volkswagen squareback passed by in the wet slush - fishtailing left and right.

Outside on the corner, as big wet snowflaes fell, a crowd was gathered as some incident had occurred. A little slow moving old lady was trying to throw rocks at someone else, and everyone laughed at the pair of them cruely and exagerratedly. At first her throws were impotent and off-mark, but then I heard one of the stones striking a body with some power. A few people in the crowd turned to me with gay smiles, and silently mouthed the words "OW"...

The scene changed and I was in a warm, unfurnished house with Hanford Woods. He was pulling on wrist-bands in preparation to go play soccer at the Redpath resevoir. The moment was fleetingly poingnant and precious to me, as it was lifted straight out of childhood's most irretrievable moments. Hanford complimented me on my writing, but I wished he would invite me to play soccer.

And then just as suddenly I was back in California on a beach. There was an enormous aircraft carrier anchored just beyond the surf. Hanford was there, set to begin his soccer game. he explained to me that I had to ride out to the ship in a little remote control dinghy. It wasn't so much a dinghy as an inflatable - but a big, red floppy amorphous raft with a powerful outboard motor.
As I set off towards the massive warship, I was barely clinging to the gunwales of the raft. A woman appeared in the water behind me swimming fast in a breast-stroke. To my disbelief, she overtook the motorized raft to which I was clinging.

These are some of the things I see in my day..

There is a pair of Mourning Doves that come everyday and pick grubs from the little garden in front of Raf's place. I'm pretty sure they're a husband and wife team; I really appreciate them a lot, even though they take flight when ever I come around. They're a nice young couple - just starting out as I see it.
The problem is a couple of Tom-cats from the 'hood that I've actually seen stalking them. I fear it's only a matter of time before they take out the slower flying female. I'll kill those cats if they harm one single bird. I might kill them anyways because they keep going into Raf's place to eat L'il Mao's food - and they've sprayed it too.
The other day I found a lizard they wasted. It was eviscerated. I don't get the cat thing. People will "adopt" two or three cats - which means leaving a little food out now and again. They're still animals out of control in the city, and they eat everything.

Today a new avian friend came around, which I identified as a California Thrasher. He's about the size of a jay, with long spindly legs, an almost hook-like long beak, and tail feathers the shape of an axe-head. He really is a little thrasher too. He scampers through bushes and says: GAK! GAK! I dig him.

Next door to me is a decent old geezer named Ruben Ponce. He's a retired sprinkler fitter who fought in WWII and actually landed at Utah Beach on D-Day. He always tells the story about the mite-boat ahead of his getting hit by a mortar round, and the rain of helmets, canteens and human limbs that landed on him and his guys. Ponce was actually born on the same property next door where he's presently living. Back then there was just a little shack (like mine) way at the back of the lot. In 1962 he tore it down and built a massive stucco suburban number for him and his girl Jackie. She died sometime in the '80s, so I guess he's pretty lonely over there now.

On the other side of my house lives a Mexican dude named Manuel, and his crazy son Enrique. They're actually alright, but the kid is a little nuts. He's a hardcore gangster and always brags about "being up in the pen dawg!" He's got the L.A. Dodgers logo tatooed on the side of his head in 5" tall letters, and then some other huge gothic letters on the back of his head. His neck... Everyting. That kid has some mad ink, but I think like everyone else he just wants to be liked. I never know how far to go with people like that, cause I've had it backfire on me.

I'm lucky to live here man. It's never boring.

THE SONG OF THE FOUNDATION DIGGER

I'm wishing tonight I could just dissapear,
and vanish from everyone's sight.
I simply too proud to crumble before them,
and seeing that I'm wretched and useless- Well dammit,
Turns out all this time they were right.

I show up for life, as I've done in the past,
It's a habit one can't put away.
But inside there's a feeling which aches in my soul,
a pain I'll cast out - as sure as my shadow!
By means which I'd rather not say.

I ask o'er and o'er how it came to be,
That I landed in such a bad place.
Once laughter and love filled the rooms of my heart,
but like the poor children on so many milk-crates,
they've now dissapeared without trace.

So I'm under the house with a pick and a spade,
How fitting this ghoul I've become.
The company's good in the land of the dead,
with spiders and mold in my ears and my mouth,
In this cool ground I wish to be laid.

A mind is a terrible thing to have.

La vie c'est le desir,
Ralenti par le memoire
Le futur et le passe luttent,
Pour l'instant.
Enfin C'est ce que compose
le seul moteur de nos reves