valley view vigilance

I remember a Halloween, I am going to guess it as 1979, 7th grade- cruising around the neighborhood with a friend or 3 on our bmx bikes. Do old to trick or treat , too young to do much else, but pretend to be keen. Not long after lurking around, we were attacked by the brother of a girl that we all liked/crushed on. The laconic blonde in ditto jeans and feathered hair, looking good like a stone fox should be. Of course she was nowhere to be found, as she was off getting down with the two local bad boys and another of her mates, h.alloween party girls ont he baseball diamond. Older brothers were trouble then, just like they were almost always, hindsight here in 2020. These freshman footballers were organized , but on foot, so we took an egg or two pedaling away, all dressed up in adolescent angst , whilst they went back to the bushes to plan the next candy raid on the candy carrying younger kids. Somehow somewhere , we made it to my future uncles house, who lived nearby on a little bike shortcut block that was ruled in our age range by a pill popping friendlier bully who was a permanent resident of junior high, and happened to be my future uncle’s next door neighbor. This loon psst us over to his garage as he heard our excitement about the failed freshman footballer raid on our eggless well being. We had the toilet paper, but no eggs. Well as luck would have it, he was not a fan of these fools, and had a freezer full of frozen eggs. He explained that if you aimed for the body, it would hurt like hell, so aim for the head. I think that we all surmised that leg shots might be better for our legal standing, but ya know, adrenaline and bad decisions are as endemic to the1979 southern california teenage experience as farrah Fawcett and a tube sock. So we collected ourselves, jumped into the back of another uncle’s former Datsun pick up truck, and headed out in search of these fucking egg raiding freshmen footballers, these perceived cock blockers, these oedipal wrecks. It didn’t take long, to find the fuckers, they were on the corner we saw them last, divvying up another plastic pumpkins worth of pilfered candy. With Apocalypse Now fresh in the mind and Van Halen subbing for Wagner, ‘runnin’ with the devil’ cranked as loud as the hissy 8 track would take it, attack we did, scared shitless screaming and putting those east whittier little league skills to use bombing the footballers with frozen eggs and the trees with two ply. More kids came running from garages and porches to toss their candy corn and apples at us as we screeched away, high fiving and heading home.

Dire tribe

It/s that time of year again, kiddos. Layer up time, sweater weather, Canada douche days. Hunker down or bundle up. And yet, as the days shorten and the temperature drops, there is always that boob shuffling and shivering like a Sunday morning smackhead at the donut shop. Through all of the underfed and overfunded days they fail to realize that daddy’s dough doesn’t discriminate against the cold. There’s always that guy, you can spot em a mile away- perfectly coiffed hipler hairdo, a just trimmed tuchis tickler, mask on the chin because they are outside and about to swill from their sweet new scobie- hatless and scarfless of course. You know the type- sockless in boat shoes and form fitting distressed jodhpurs, like they are in Nassau Bahamas and not drizzly Nassau avenue. I mean , there is always a members only jacket shrunk down to the elbows to accentuate the yinyang tattoo and apple watch. These motherfuckers are fighting some serious battles here on the fashion front , crows my inner Cassandra, over hot coffee and sour grapes. I mean, it/s not as if they have shat themselves at some post hook up shithouse and they have scarpered in shame out the window in the borrowed duds of some diminutive time traveler. This is a calculated look, and it is omnipresent and perennial. Kind of like a new york city rat. And yet, who gives a flip if there are a gang ofm paid off hiplers in uncool 80’s apparel and filson bags. I mean who are you to talk , senor dinosaur, in your tattered tour swag and knock off nikes. These mustachioed motherfuckers are modern day players, if their coffee companions are anything to go by. Vintage store valentinos, laid off lotharios. Bread locked trustafarians. And you, my friend, are just some has been with opinions and good albums. A twentieth century idea in a twenty first century world.

home school blues

you have 30 minutes 30 minutes to care 30 minutes to despair 30 minutes to cut your hair 30 minutes until the next class 30 minutes to sit on your ass 30 minutes to feed the beast 30 minutes to cook and eat. 30 minutes to replay your life, 30 minutes to watch last nights highlights. 30 minutes to send a cover letter and 30 minutes to make it better 30 minutes to probe and pry 30 minutes to curl up and cry 30 minutes to make a plan 30 minutes to take a stand, and 30 more to fuck the man

Spice of life

10/26/20 Ya know, these are dark days. I haven’t really done shit since march, save a trip or three to the rockaways. I walk or bike around the neighborhood sparingly and eat my feelings. The latter outweighs the former, more often than not. I wear the mask, but struggle with extended periods, though I remain vigilant, I feel with my pulmonary history of asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis, and pleurisy that I am firmly at risk, so I stay home rather than spend much time maskless out and about. Let’s be honest, all huffing and puffing and love of walking, I am afraid. I am afraid of the virus. I am afraid of the psychosocial effects of the virus. I am afraid of the dumb and the feckless. I am afraid of the chodes and the maskless. I am afraid of teeing off on some ignorant maskhole. The way I see it, my industry doesn’t come back anytime soon because selfish ignoramuses feel that it is more important to be able to go to fucking walmart without as mask than it is to consider their fellow citizen. All lives matter, right. Spare me. This type of behavior is tiresome, and policing it is often left to a teen or twenty something making minimum wage. Folks that staff our favorite local haunts commuting and putting themselves out there to bring us our luxury goods and essential items, keeping my money from the maws of amazon and other needless online purveyors of needless consumption. I am a brick and mortar creature to a fault. And frankly, my neighborhood has it all. Because of the pandemic, and a former half assed excuse for employment, I have been home 11 of the last 12 months. It has been 23 years since that last time I have been locked into the 11222 as such. So getting out of the house regularly, and enjoying even the most minute and distanced social interaction is very important. With remote learning, sobriety, and however many years of telecommuting, the coffee shop is my haven, my safe harbor. The place I can go be miserable and alone and not be so miserable and alone. Now with the closed restrictions on any indoor idling, my wonderful local coffee joint, tar pit, is a nonstarter. Pity , because I love eating day old baked goods off of chipped plates and savoring a lovely Americano out of a thrift store mug in the window , talking of fatherhood and music and sobriety with my old friend jack martin or talking movies and music with one of the kids that works there, and marveling at the musical tastes of another employees ‘best of flying nun’ mix on whatifi. But we cannot currently do this, so hunched over my phone sitting in a board by the curb whilst some local character screams for tampon money to keep their you know what running out of their you know where. Neither relaxing, nor awesome. Luckily, we have a plethora of options to caffeinate in the hood, and the nearest bestest option for me is Variety, a little oasis on mcgolrick park. They have constructed a lovely outdoor seating area on Russell street, which is enjoying the relative perks of the current closed streets program. Pre pandemic, I am not a super regular sitting inside here, as you have to fight the the laptop crowd who assume that any wifi connection and two top is their home office for the day. Once could argue that the price of 2020 pour overs times 20 days per month, and it might be that the premium cable that they likely eschew due to the price is pennies on the dollar, but hey, fuck the man.. All that aside, I have been bringing my caffeinating custom here almost exclusively, of late. This corner is people watching central- dog walkers, families, yoga Nazis, cyclists, walks of shame, decoupling couples-, which makes the short jaunt from home worth braving the elements, provided you time it right. Given that I am an old fart that keeps fogey hours, this usually plays to my advantage. There’s nothing worse than being in the midst of a flock of sheeple unable to get their coffee order together at volume. The place seems to be playing a pandemic blinder in observing covid protocol and maintaining some semblance of their business model. I am sure that they are taking a hit financially, but there are almost always 3 people behind the counter keeping the traffic flowing and the atmosphere stress free. Of course there are the occasional exception of air kissing eurotrash straw slurping their respective macchiatos over the milk tray with their mask around their chin for . It is at these times that I wanna scream ‘you fucking idiots are not drinking bespoke cocktails at the dog and vomit lounge. Mask up and get the fuck out before you are wearing plate glass with that eau de gobshite’. But ya know, I don’t wanna lose a fight to some hair cut in boat shoes, nor do I wanna waste my Americano on their pret a porter. I sigh and bear it to the dulcet tones of leslie feist and Emily haines whispering through “anthems for a 17 year old girl’. I don’t want to cause a kerfuffle and instead lose myself in the music . as I am leaving , I overhear one of the kids behind the counter saying(in reference to the airkissing covidiots) “I better not die because of people like that”. I feel for them . they didn’t escalalte a situation that was likely going to solve itself more safely by allowing the tone deaf to leave without conflict. I leave knowing that I have found my spot. The kind of place you can enter in any mood- good , bad, or ugly- and exit a lighter person. The simple and supercial social interaction of ordering a coffee and being able to say thank you to someone in person and actually mean it. Hearing snippets of glorious music somewhere other than your own apartment , and exiting to sip a delicious brew in the cool autumnal air, knowing that life exists beyond your four walls.

dinner and dreams

I once went to dinner at the basement apartment of a beautiful young woman whom i/d met recently , doing blow backs in the bathroom of the east London pub I was working in at the time. ½ weegee and ½ Nigerian, she is to this day, the most exotically stunning i/ve ever been with. A real fucking knockout. 6 foot plus, sloe eyed , caramel skinned, doc adorned get away sticks for days and ass lengthed dreads- her beauty and aura were beguiling. I took the 253 bus from my place in hackney to Camden town- from crustie ville to rock and roll paradise. That bus, if you could stay awake and not find yourself at 5am face down on the floor in some London transit garage, was a meditative delight, as the sights of north London flew by. It was a quick jaunt down Camden high street to her shared basement flat. Electricity and running water- statistical anomalies in my life at the time. I brought the booze- Bulgarian red , irish black and irish brown-the social equalizers of 1989. We listened to tapes on a little boombox, workld party and the water boys, as she struggled in the kitchen with the meal and the permaspliff on her lips. ‘ need any help there? ‘ , yep, skin up , she says. Oh dear. I was very intimidated by her beauty and confidence, and the hash was not helping. We were in super model territory in my eyes, and I was some underfed oversped slob decked out in a dust bins best. As tins were opened and food fell over the floor, the spliff never left her lips , until she began to speak of her two older brothers and the damage that they would do to her for shagging a white boy. Shagging? Well at least the cards were on . the table, and I was scared as hell, especially as she described what they would do to me after they were done terrorizing her. Fortunately we were 400 miles from Glasgow and hogmany was 6 months away. I would roll the dice , however pot paranoid I became. The booze was not helping the evening, as it normally did. The joints were too savory and the food was shit. Cooking was clearly not her strong suit. It was a shambles of tin peaches, tescos peas, and small curd cottage cheese. Admirable ingredients on their own, but god awful as a culinary pre coital combination. We were two post adolescence feeling each other out before feeling each other up. North London was rapidly dissipating in reality one fork or toke at a time. I am too high and not drunk enough. The spotted dick was not gonna involve clotted cream, it was her way of dragging me to bed, but the tales of castrating brothers and the taste of tinned peaches and morrocan hash were killing the mood no altogether, no matter how many Glaswegian was whispered in my ear. I wanted to see a drag show at the black cap , I wanted her to have finals in the morning, I wanted her flat mate to come home and send us out for last orders. Anything to waylay the inevitable awkward coupling that was approaching more quickly with the removal of each article of clothing. The closeness of our skin, the electric buzz of touch, the soft Scottish whispers about tomorrow and next year where fighting with the uneasiness of acclimation, and the cold spoon of the reality of being profoundly outclassed. I was nervous and lost, naked and trembling side by side, speaking of hopes and fears. ‘this’, she said, ‘is as far as it goes today’. I tried to hide the exhalation of the pending fear of failure I was experiencing , the profound dissolution of the pending disappoint we averted. We embraced , holding each other tightly , til she tells me to get my skates on, that her flat mate was soon home, that she has to study, that I can get the last bus home if I hurry. Relieved, I dress, we kiss , deeply, goodbye and see yis soon. I run towards the last bus, and miss it and proceed to drink my way from the black cap to the Dublin castle to the good mixer to a long stumble up the chjalk farm road, busting for a piss towards the marathon kebab shop , home of post gig rock and roll revelry with overpriced can and the promise of soakage in kebab form. Somewhere between the sausage machine and falcon crowd, there is the potential for late night anonymous sexual redemption with legging and combat clad rock and roller. I awoke in the wee hours, dying to piss and not prepared to brave the rickety ladder from my basement room to the next floor in barefeet and underpants. I shutter awkwardly to the hermetically sealed French door and remove the waist high piece of cardboard covering the broken pane specifically in place of the late night leak. Turning around, momentarily confused, I realize that I am indeed home at my basement squat in Clapton, I fall back into bed next to a warm body snoring lightly, spiky short black hair on the pillow, mascara run on the sheets. There is a pile of interchangeable boots and clothes piled next to the futon on the floor. As I light a cigarette to kick start the day, I vaguely remember meeting at last call at some stoke Newington karaoke joint. It all comes flooding back with the inhalation of a strong irish cigarette and the dawn of the day, one drunkenly spliced frame at a time. One last broken karaoke warrior, one atonal song at a time. One more chance to take back the night.

Leave Lebron Alone

Oct 12, 2020 Hey yo, the lakers win number 17 and the world still hates lebron. They hate his intensity and success. They hate is pride and focus. They hate his self assuredness and his outspokenness. They hate his blackness. Now I can certainly attest to a who cares fuck you response when he took his talents to south beach via ‘the decision’, but the domino effect of that success in Miami is inarguable. They made champions of themselves and villains for television, they further built on a brand that was quality to begin with. They realized dreams and brought others along for the ride. A band of brothers, if you will. They brought in unpolished gems and proud veterans. They won . They won in Miami and lebron took his talents back to noertheast ohio. He brought champion swagger to punk rock Valhalla, basketball bravado to the mistake by the lake. He helped make champions of more men, and gave the nay sayers more cause to say nay. He realized the dreams of children , brought a little bit of joy and a little bit of heartache to the dying rustbelt region. For a year or three , he brought hope. He built a school with unprecedented value to the community, and the internet raged on. He came back , historically, from 3-1 down against a modern dynast and the warriors of the keyboard continued ill informed and misdirected diatribe. He moved his family to los angeles to further build his brand and watch his son play basketball .He appeared to be the ultimate dad , the self made man who had no dad. The world blathered on. He joined a young Laker team , and the Laker faithful dreamt of glory at the thought of lobs and screens and 2 way hoops for years to come with the young nucleus or ingram, ball, kuzma, and hart learning from lebron and rajon rondo. Lebron got hurt and the team was tired and uninspired. He let his body language do the talking and it didn’t say nice things- Walton gone, magic gone, young core gone to new Orleans for a talented but professionally unproven Anthony davis. I certainly had my misgivings, and the internet cried foul. Lefraud they cried. There was snafu in china with obvious corporate undertones, and the internet cried foul. They lost to the clippers on opening night, and the fairweather fans and keyboard klansmen lit up the chat rooms. They proceeded to go on a historic run with a team of misfits and cast offs . the return of Dwight howard on a nonguaranteed contract seemed a public relations albatross that paid dividends til October. They were animated and inspired, they were fun to watch and internet highlights were a dime a dozen on the daily. They played together and played the right way,a s the pundits say. They listened to their coach who listened to them and coached them with an even hand. On a dark Sunday in January, kobe Bryant, his daughter and 7 other people died in a helicopter crash in Calabasas on the way to a kids basketball game. The sporting world mourned . I found myself crying at various times throughout the day. My son actually called me upon hearing the news to ask me if I was ok. I don’t think I was, nor am I still , and it’s clearly not all to do with kobe. Watching all of these players young and old struggle publicly was heartbreaking. Role model, hero, villain, father, husband, icon. Lebron vowed to win it for Kobe. I will never forget allen Iverson approaching Dwayne wade at the all star game, and falling into wades arms crying. Our infallible heroes are fallible and human. Then in march, the whole world came to a halt. The season was suspended until further notice, and Lebron was one of the players to lament the potential of playing to empty arenas. We locked into our house for months until the Minneapolis police killed George Floyd on camera for a fake $20 bill for the whole world to witness. The players called for accountability and change, and the internet called for them to shut up and dribble. The whole world took to the streets, and the blow hard in chief raged on and Lebron and athletes across the globe stood up and spoke out. Lebron started a voters rights initiative and enlisted basketball arenas across the country as polling places and vowed to fighting voter suppression . White Americans claimed to be done with sports. Still calling for the NBA to shut up and dribble and dribble they did. 22 teams went to Orlando and sacrificed themselves and their private lives to play in conference rooms and ballrooms and goodness did they hoop it up. Summer camp for professional hoopsters. And as much as they dribbled and balled, they did not shut up. They spoke up, they stood up, they advocated , they took a knee and played some of the highest quality hoops in recent memory. No red eyes , hometeam hinkiness in visitor locker rooms or hotel shenanigans. They balled, and in the words of the great rasheed Wallace, ball don’t lie. Lebron and davis and vogel and co led the team onwards and upwards towards the finish line. Slowly towards number 17. Doin it for Kobe. Through a tough Portland team dealing with their own personal social justice issue back home. They tore through and overhyped Houston team that disappeared at crunch time, and into a young and determined Denver squad that were finally overmatched and out of gas after their previous heroics. And through it all , 35 year old Lebron james persisted. He persisted in making his teammates better by getting them the ball for an easy bucket or picking them up when they were down. He was the hero and the facilitator to others heroics. He was a triple double machine putting on a basketball clinic for the ages. To many, and me, he was the obvious MVP of the league, a no brainer that the best player on one of the best teams should be honored as such. Which was of course bestowed on the greek freak-the best player on the best team. On to the finals , and the debate of greatest hooper of all time(can we dispense with the term GOAT, that is a word I will forever associate with erratic pitchers in big moments, or a four legged creature of a a generally ornery disposition) rages on. Fueled in no part by televidiocracy of bayless, smith and Kellerman, 3 blowhards that should be wearing a sandwich board on 3 corners of an intersection opposite pat o’briens selling bullshit on bourbon street to bovine America. Give the dude his due. Most of these keyboard bashers and internet savants never saw MJ play in real time, they get the edited highlights, the candy coated scheisse and a glossed over history, glorious as it may be. So we get a very tenacious mIami heat team , that has been dominant , led by mother fucking jimmy butler. I have been a fan of jimmy butler for years. I am scared of jimmy butler picking the heat up and pushing them over the hump on sheer determination and will.jimmy butler sounds like a westie leg breaker who has gone off the reservation. As a fan , I am compelled by the multiple story lines for the series with all of the commonality with Lebron and Riley between the two franchises, and the two coaches with comparable styles and familiarity. And Miami are as tough as expected, Lebron and the Brow and company matching the heat blow for blow , the thrilla in manila as the double in the bubble. Historic individual performances and heroics are on display each night. It is television sports gold, so much as an empty arena could be. It is all back and forth until game 6 when the combination of stellar defense and veteran leadership overwhelm the pesky heat. Lebron, AD, and co have won it for Kobe. Lebron has delivered on his promise of march 2019 , and February 2020. He has won his 4th championship with his 3rd team and 4th finals mvp. I can’t wait to see this team at the white house with Joe biden and Kamala Harris. Hopefully Obama will be around that day. Leave Lebron alone.

And I saw her face (3/24/20)

The are so many memories these days, so much time to reflect. Music has been such a big part of my life for so long now, it is safe to say that music , for better or worse, is my life. For that lifelong love affair, today we pay the price. We pay the price for our love, as we so often do. If life has taught me anything it is that with love comes loss, abandonment, disappointment, and despair.- in this instance it is The loss of one’s livelihood on an industry wide, international level; the abandonment of hope , the disappointment and despair of witnessing the catastrophic collateral damage playing out in real time- A global natural disaster of cataclysmic proportions. That said, it is not all gloom and doom, right? You gotta stay positive. My musical memories are legion. Songs still bring joy- the togetherness of being deep in the midst of a raucous , boozy Brooklyn Hibernian crowd shouting “SPITS OUT BRITS OUT, ONLY SMOKES CARROLL’S”, art the top of their lungs- that melds into a mist of confetti world wide, as the Unified Scene gather from near and far to show their love for their band and their peers. Killer parties almost killed me, indeed. In hindsight, I am a lucky man indeed. But it starts so long ago, a half century or so, give or take a month or a year. Could it be the summer of 1970 in Big Bear or Crestline or Arrowhead or somehwher up a long and winding road in the southern California mountains. My very young parents are still married. They were so young, that I am sure that I listened to all of the hits of 1966 in utero. Lyndon Johnson and the man on the moon, Richard Nixon, Walter Cronkite and the nightly distorted body counts, may of 68 and my subsequent fixation of this era in history. But I digress, it is the summer of 1970, or maybe 69 or 71, and we are on a family holiday in a cabin in the woods. And by family, I mean the whole family, the only time I remember the whole family in one place at the same time outside of my grandparents house. It is remarkable, a postman’s holiday. I am obsessed with the Monkees, and the television show which must be in syndication at this point- my telenannies – Mike , Peter, Mickey, and Davey. Here I come on the last train to Clarksville, baby, because I’m a believer, don’t ya know. I’m a 3 ½ year old believer with a black tambourine and arrhythmic dance moves correlative to a pissed up step parent at a suburban shit house soiree. I am electric and atonal on the landing of the staircase of the rented vacation home. I am a toddler tom cruise risking my business in my sears and roebucks underoos. I am 5 minutes of entertainment for the blue nun fueled adults. I am 5 minutes of perpetual entertainment when you had to flip the side every 2 minutes and 32 seconds. I am the first grandson and nephew, the only child , the prodigal son. I am the apple of my mother’s eye. I am a positive member of the human race, a distraction from Vietnamization and the Culture wars. I am a believer, and brother, I am hooked.

obit

A more macabre twist on the late night bs- They both croak it/ closed casket funeral of epic proportions/ a mysterious jet has left from some private airstrip with 2 people and some large suitcases on board to an epsteinian destination. Sales of maga merchandise skyrocket, filling the family coffers. Like Noah’s ark, the cracker spawn depart from the celebrations into a fleet of black suburbans whisked away to secret service protection in perpetuity. All is hunky dory til the following morning until a Saudi knock off gucci suitcase is found in the middle of 5th avenue with the well coiffed head of what appears to be the former first escort and mail order bride with a micro cassette recorder shoved in her mouth. As social media erupts with speculation, and what’s left of traditional media scramble for the story and family interviews , the family is in the ether. And simultaneously at 9am, they flood the plain with shit from their individual twitter accounts- all the usual bravado and infantilism , instagram photos of junior and his bass mouthed minx face down in a pile of what appears to be high quality South American racket. The only problem of the whole charade is the reflection in the mirror of one Stevo bannonstan. And stevo wears an ankle bracelet, and before you can say royale with cheese, the feds converge on a faux gothic mansion on the intracoastal waterway somewhere in south Florida, surrounded by 400 heavily armed teletubbies in Hawaiian shirts and tactical gear who were thought to be in town for the first annual booga luau. With ruby ridge and Waco in mind, the feds are in a standoff with the teletubbies. Some would call it a Mexican standoff but not the feds or the teletubbies because ew, they’re americans after all.Honest to god bovine Americans . But we will get to that later. At this point , the bimbozo in chief , shillelagh Macarena lights up the fake news feed with a list of insults and demands. 1. A gilded extra large toilet(portable) 2. A private jet and safe passage to any shit hole country besides this one . 3. At least 100 happy meals, at which point the faux parrot heads begin to grumble 4. Full pardons for all from the acting President, who was last seen leaving the funerals waiting for an uber xl to an unknown destination in rehoboth beach with what looked like the youngest child of the former president. As she is attempting to get to the 5th point, a large orange presence in a diaper and shaven head and face like a powdered donut a la apocalypse Brando bum rushes the rostrum and firmly plants his small hands between her legs and tries to take her away. “I told All you fake news sucker, grab em by the p.......” as it appears he is stroking out live on air on all channels but fox and oan - an explosive charge of excrement flying all over shillelagh and the cameras , a last rosebudian bellow emanating from the paidoff twitler wanna be , before dying, for the whole world to witness and ruminate over “primantis”