Out of Touch

Hello Readers, Revolutionaries and Undecideds
I have been on the career path these days. Expanding my horizons, getting work where I can. What I have not been doing is writing. Shame on me. I probably will be out a bit with minimal tid bits here and there. But, I will be working on some of my longer pieces on the side and posting large portions very soon.
Missing Maui and the Mountains equally these days.
Guess that makes me a real nowhere man.

Except here.
Come on inspire me people!!!

Chubby Malone

Los Angeles - 1946
My father served 4 years in WWII and returned to his neighborhood on Pecan St in Downtown Los Angeles at the height of the Zoot Suit Era. I was his only child and was born in 1963. As a young boy I meet a lot of the cronies my Dad ran with in the late 40's and 50's. Zelsnik himself could not have compiled a more riveting cast of characters. My hope is to capture those years from 1946 to 1963 in my father's life. A period rich in story and for me, surrounded in mystery.
Too many years have passed and so many memories have faded, but I often wonder what was Alfonso Mendoza REALLY like and how did he come to be known as "Chubby Malone"

Baker and Bukowski

Damn it's HOT! There's something maddening about summer. Something has been sucked from me. Like a dried up piece of fruit. Asphalt, the hum of the fan, my cats half dead. Patiently waiting for the sun to go down. Night swimming. Hard to imagine some folks have never been underwater. Oh man, ain't nothing like it.

I have to admit, I need a little Chet Baker in my ear when I write. Bukowski said if you need to do SOMETHING to get you to write. Don't do it. I think Buck would approve.
So what's on the agenda? Well, nobody seems to be reading this shit, so I shall bask in the freedom of my craft. I have too many half written pieces floating around. I've never even contemplated "endings" for half these stories, but I must get to work. Work it out. Get it down.

The idea behind "These 28 Walls" is the story of a writer working on his pieces, while a parallel commentary/story carries on about that very same writer. it's not confusing to me. Hopefully readers will get it. I read a book called "The end of the island" or some shit like that about a guy who told his kids it was the end of the world and took them off to some deserted island. And while "mankind" eventually found him, it lead to his madness. While the dual perspective thing kinda worked for that story, I hopeful i can pull if off. Trying to blur the lines though. make it interesting and provocative.

There are millions of writers out there, getting their crap published. They have an audience. They are paid to write. I can't imagine that ever happening to me, but I have to keep going. I have to try. (Sorry Buck)

So I'm going to get organized. I'll only post actual work here once it's done. Done? When am i ever done? But I will interject my thoughts on this blog during the process. This tool is working for me, if for no one else.

God damn, my kids sure make me smile.

These 28 Walls

Mental Fatigue. Need to somehow reclaim the power to relax. This is the great challenge over the next few weeks/months. Example; a talented writer, no one reads. Reason; not so talented? Not good. Uninteresting?...more to ponder. I better just fight through this. I have never been more inspired, never had the access, tools and capabilities to break through. All the more reason to feel more frustrated. Can you hear me? Stop caring what they think. Just start writing damn it.

I've been going through old pictures. There is a lot there. Not a life wasted.

But now I am stagnant. Makes me feel worthless now. This body of work behind me, it was valid once. A young man's game. Too many temptations. Oh, that's the excuse. Now, what excuse is there? Perhaps, it has all just passed me by. So many times I remember wishing I had the tools to get it down, to work it out. Now the valve is running and the tap is all dried out.

I spend my days reflecting. Opportunity after opportunity...wasted. Maybe there are only a handful of Mondays left. Better make the most of them.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Campbell Stahlworth was a man of tedious discipline and tireless dedication. His mind never wondered, he had little time for distractions. He spent his days organizing and overseeing the home he had occupied for these some 25 years. He was master of this domain. He knew ever creaking floor board and the location of every novel, note and letter which had ever passed through his stainless, well manicured hands. But the one thing Campbell could not lasso was his destiny. You see Campbell Stahlworth had managed to isolate himself so deep in this self imposed exile, he knew little of the world outside his door. He was totally oblivious to the neighbors who spoke in whispers and the housekeepers who hated the very site of this lonely shadow of a man.

The New Journals of the Anti Everything...

He knew he was in trouble as he panted out of breath getting up for his grilled cheese sandwich. Achievements were nowhere near this frame of mind. Survival was barely in focus. But he liked to drive and see old faces. Even cats were starting to avoid him. But he felt better than ever. Happy. yes, happy. Happy to be one of the many. Don't let the headlines fool you. In simple times, thrives the simpleton....

stay tuned as we careen down the cul de sac of broken dreams.

Reprise

Sorry, the library had a copy of Fante's "Wait until spring Bandini", and I've been doing more reading than writing.
Everything seems out of balance.
I am trying to pull it all out of a hat folks.
Just a tease...

The doctors worked on him for almost an hour. They struggled with the final decision, but soon after 9:00 pm on a hot and muggy summer evening, Daniel La Fleur became as still as the night air. 45 years old, dead of a heart attack.

The heartfelt despair weight most heavily on Daniel himself, as he hovered in the sterile, sharp white hospital room. All the color washed out, all the pain suddenly disappeared, all the senses, still working. To Daniel, what had just happened was not so much the shock of his own death; but the wonderment of realizing he was watching this drama unfold right before his eyes. He humbly resigned to the fact that this journey was real. “Wow” he quietly whispered to himself. “So this spirit thing, it still works.”

In many ways, the turn of events over the past year led to this obvious conclusion. A sad, bitter, heart broken man, clutching his chest and feeling the pain of a disappearing life as it leaves his mortal body. A family left to pick up the pieces of a shattered life, a fallen anti-hero.  So many things Daniel did not do, so many regrets, such a shame. But now was not the time to try and reconcile a life wasted, what was to become of this little man in this little room? Was he a ghost? Was he not quite gone yet? Was he to forever watch the sorrow of his family as they mourned the passing of a specter right within their reach?

This was not going well. He remembered his last thought as he hit the ground moments earlier. He knew if there indeed was a heaven or a hell, he was doomed to spend eternity in some fiery cave, working on a rock quarry, or shoveling black hot coal endlessly day after day. But to wander the earth as a ghost, helpless to say or do anything, this was clearly the worst kind of hell.

Damn Sleep

So I have written 2 Grammy winning songs over the past two nights. Problem is, when I wake up I can't freakin remember them! But at least it leads me to early morning coffee and keyboard. It's been a mild summer this year so far in California. I guess the Easy Coast is sweltering. But here, it's so nice going out and enjoying spring like conditions in July. My Uggs just arrived after being is storage and I love to put them on in the cool mornings and.... Wait. Let's start over.

2 days later
The temp has gone up 10 degrees and I've lost my "job". (And the burritos downstairs were so good) Luckily, I'm able to scrape some projects together and with the help of the old sistas' I may get through this. But, looks like your hero is going to have to punch (out) a clock.

The good news...I have time to write.

My next entry or subsequent posts will be excerpts from my upcoming book. Which I will probably have to put out myself, I seem to be the only one who cares. If you want to become a publisher, send me $ 500.00 and I'll include your name in the liner notes along with something terribly witty.

In the meantime, I'll use this place to tease my audience. What's singular for audience? you?

So the big question is shall I start drinking again? I imagine now's about as good a time as any. Perhaps these pages will pop a bit more whilst I'm pickled.

But for now no waves, no job and no chart toppers. None, I can remember anyway.

Oh Hi there

Wow // Lethargic to a fault today. I guess some days you just pop in a movie and bam, you're out. Could be the last few days of stress have caused me to crash. Deep down, I want to do lots today. But I can't seem to keep my eyes open. Hope this passes soon. I thought maybe the typewriter WINK WINK would buzz me, alas seriously, if you are still streaming along these words with me, I would be greatly surprised. Let's hit the saved button and come back to this Charlie boy.

There are dogs barking incessantly outside today. Something is amiss....

Flags, Visions and Purple Drank

Today is the first day in a long while I feel I have some legs under me. Of course it all shakes out in the long run, but today I gotta pay the rent.

Reading Augusten Burroughs these days. So far the closest thing to Bukowski and Fante kickin around right now.

There have been a lot of people in my corner recently and I should do something to thank them. I know....I'll make a fortune. A fortune. What defines a fortune? I know, I'll devise a fortune, then I'll make that fortune.

What are the ingredients of a fortune? Do they involve Jolly Ranchers?

When is a great injustice justification for many injustices?

I think I'm finding out.....

Lupe in the sky with diamonds

Star Log July 1st 2010. Today my mother would have turned 79. There is a definitive sense of loss with her passing. So many things I would have been able to give her and do for her. But I never did. That is true emptiness.

Not fulfilling even her simplest dream haunts me. In the eyes of my children that she never gazed. In the laughs she never heard. My little one looks like her Grandma Lupe. Her fiery disposition too. Perhaps in that way she is still here with us.

My mother played piano, it's where I got the artistic side of me. Her life was an amazing script. I could go on and on but not just now.....

Basking in the drops of Jupiter.

Bits and pieces

I have unorthodox ways of doing things. How I drive, what I eat, how I save my files. I could never be in an environment where I needed to produce things in a certain way or conform to a certain format. I'd be lost. That “process” would totally take away from who I am and what I do. Whatever the hell that is.

So I struggle with people who feel they have to live their lives a certain way. Real jobs are a disaster. If it wasn't for spell check I believe I would be considered a complete moron. I guess there is no better time than now to be alive. I have these words to write and these means to share them. I'm feeling better already.

After day one of this journey, I feel I have a bit of a rudder. Of course my rudder is not always going to be in the water, but my sanity may have hope yet.

Mr Lincoln Mr Mendoza

“What on earth are you thinking about now?” my wife chimes in. “April 15h 1965 Ford’s Theatre, Washington DC.” I swear I was there in a previous life. I can almost make out the layout of the theater and hear the screams of the horrified patrons.

The shrill sets a sharp contrast as I stare into the blue Maui sky. Often the clouds here seem to not move at all. As if they have found a home and wish to spend eternity just hovering over our little slice of paradise. Believe me I have gazed for hours at the same billowing clouds in the distance. Just sitting there, stopped in time.

It’s in that moment that I see it. The outline of our 16^th president stove top hat and all. It’s right there in the clouds. Oh yes, surely I was there. Now he is here.

The mornings come quickly these days. The dry, strange taste in my mouth, most likely caused by the anti-biotics. It’s as if a switch has been flipped, but the power only reveals itself in sleep. I visited familiar places which are new to me. The solution is very simple actually; the key is to be able to shut everything off. I think the damn pills have helped me do just that. But now the bottle is empty and my infection has healed. So I’m left with my prose. A written snap shot of all that I have processed these past couple of weeks.

My father was a welder, blue collar and proud. He worked the same job for 30 odd years, never once calling in sick. The day he finally did call, he drove himself to the hospital and 45 minutes later was dead. An act of genius when you think about it. One day you realize it’s time to turn in your chips, cash out. That’s what he did. No will, no note, no goodbyes.

I thank my father for everything he gave me, but most of all for that last great act of selflessness. No painful memories, no agonizing hours spent in a Hospital waiting room. Just me 500 miles away emptying my bank account for the first time in what would be an on-going routine. Getting on airplanes I can’t afford. Buying houses, I have no business being in. Just me and my madness, and my time. Money and time. Both things I will never know how much I will ever have. And if I knew, who would I be? I’d be something else. I’d be one of the many folks I greet everyday. Being sold, no longer selling.

David Avila

Re. My dear friend David

“Is it bio-degradable?”- What you'd get from David if you chucked something in the gutter. Back then we called it littering.

My first memory of David Avila was in front of our tiny apartment on Cronus St. in El Sereno. I had happened upon a pretty impressive collection of Hot Wheels and David along with his cousin Ricky Medina came over after school one day to check out my rides. Hot Wheels and seven year olds lend for quite a ruckus and soon my mother was out on the front porch yelling and chasing my new friends’ home much to my dismay. No after school snacks, no “How’s your mother doing?” Just my mom, in a fit of “nerves” she use to call it, lashing out for no good reason.

You could imagine the horror of a young boy having lost the chance to gain friendship with the cool kids from school. Alienation, self loathing, fear. Not the first, not the last.

Perhaps it was my insecurity and their pity that compelled the Avila’s to take it upon themselves to go out of their way to make me feel welcomed in their home a few day’s later. At the time, my Hot Wheels collection was my world, a world that soon would be changed by a smaller, but much more impressive collection quite innocently revealed by David. His record collection.

I had heard the oldie’s records in my sisters’ room but the sounds seemed to fill the air like a dim soundtrack, a background to the urban sprawl we had been thrown into. Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, the music heard on the radio. I was somewhat curious but for the most part indifferent. Not yet nostalgic.

But in the confines of David’s room, the needle seemed to jump off the record to the punch, harmony and growl of Rock music.

Though the years those records would prove to be the glue that nurtured our friendship. A friendship that provided me with much needed stability in my life. A far cry from the dysfunctional, hectic, chaos that waited for me at home. The Avila’s power was never cut off; they always had food in the fridge and most notably to me, never raised their voices.

The household was a haven of joy, charm and groceries. Sarah Avila always greeting me with a smile, and exuberance in her voice I don’t recall hearing from my mother.

Not that mother was unloving; she simply lacked the ability to filter out the stress and harshness of everyday life. My mother wore it on her sleeve and was willing to pour it all over anyone who would come in earshot. I heard the pains in her voice loud and clear. Even at seven. Looking back I long for the wisdom and confidence to go back in time and free my poor mother of those burdens. She also wasn’t fortunate enough to have a second home to go to as I had discovered a mere three blocks away.

As the teen years marched on, life at my household did get better and I slowly emerged from my shell to help spread the laughter and song that I felt growing in me. A confidence and maturity that I was blessed to experience with great fiends like David Avila.

We grew up in a tough area and it was difficult to keep your wits about you. But we carried on thanks to The Beatles and The Stones and all those records that seemed to now be coming in waves. New ones, loud ones, strange ones and funny ones. Music propelled us into the stratosphere and our imaginations filled with the possibilities this music opened up. So much so, that David began plucking away on an electric guitar. Like everything else he put his mind to, he became great.

David was just that way. He had the golden touch. He was charming, popular and full of life. As we grew into middle school and high school our band of misfits became my sanctuary. We lived life to its fullest, laughed at our adventures and took in the big city with all its glory. All with David leading the way.

I knew that as school wound down I had to strike out on my own and start a new life for myself. I couldn’t go through life being a follower; I needed to spread my wings. Inspired I’m sure by the very song from Queen. When I made the decision to attend college some 500+ miles north, I was amazed at the heartfelt goodbyes given by the Avila’s. They had guided me through all those difficult years and now I was up and leaving. They were proud but seemed truly saddened by my leaving. No maps to guide me, just the hope of a better future. Off I went.

University soon engulfed me and changed my way of life. I had a new start and now was surrounded by a smaller, calmer way of life. I could take the lead on things. I was an adult. Well, slowly becoming one. That tapestry of a flowering young man is for another story. All I know is one night in the haze of books, bongs and co-eds I received a call from home with news that would change my world forever.

David had developed a rather large brain tumor that was invading his ability to do a lot of things we take for granted, like staying awake and focusing on daily tasks.

The days and weeks that past were filled with tests and uncertainty, more tests, more questions and few answers. The whole time David remained his gregarious self. Brave and almost cavalier in the face of this horrible menace. The first wave of treatments left David in a state of disorientation and confusion that morphed into a childlike state. A return to innocence that would give David the blind courage to endure through numerous reoccurring battles with the brain tumor.

Days and months pass, all the while David continually LIVES with this affliction. It becomes a part of life, but David knows this is not to define him. It’s as if he has been given a second and third chance, and fourth and fifth opportunity to laugh in the face of the unseen monster.

The months turn into years and I grow on with the many complications of life, love and the pursuit of anything meaningful. It soon becomes clear to me that David does not need to battle these altruistic questions; his map is so well defined. He is courage personified. The job interviews we face, the loves we chase, the children we raise, these paths all are well traveled and as we all fumble and rise above the challenges, David continues on, his challenges have been embraced, concurred and forgotten. He is frozen in time. Childlike and full of hope and joy. Grateful for all things. Things we take for granted.

David embarks on a new life of adventure and discovery. Almost with complete freedom from the day to day grind we face, he sets out on adventures never possible had he not been put in such a position. The path of daily survival has empowered him to fearless heights. He is very much alive. Not able to work, he is free to live. That same smile, that same joy, the songs still resonate.

The years and miles have not kept David and I close. I make the occasional phone call and make the very occasional trip to Southern California. Every time, refreshed in the knowledge that David is still David. The Avila’s are the same heartfelt family. No sorrow or misfortune can splinter their resolve. That same house on that same street holds frozen in time the endless possibilities of youth.

I am not a doctor, and I must admit, I have never pressed the Avila’s for too many medical details. But this I do know. The fact that David Avila is alive today is a testament to courage and faith. He is truly a miracle.

For me, he is always in my thoughts. Always a reminder that no matter what obstacle comes my way, I can reach back and think of my friend David and know deep in my heart that anything is possible. And everything is wonderful.

New Found Glory

Thanks to Larry Hulse for the encouragement.
Today is day one of the sweet hear after. My Blog. (yeah, I know)
The name reminds me of a place. A place to Ponder. hence Ponderosa. No big mystery there. This space is for my writings and short stories. I wont be here everyday, but when I write, I hope you take the time to enjoy my ramblings. they are for your entertainment. These writing or ideas generally stem from exhaustion. A fatigue brought on by the constant battle to overcome life’s mundane simplicities. People, places, things that all weight on me like a ton of bricks.

These writings are not with intent to “fix” but to share and hopefully endure. I am in a place right now where I must let my talents come to the surface. I must write and I must sing. These are things I feel I can do. In fact I must do before I grow too old. So this is for me and this is for you. Welcome.