Baby Jesus and the Veloci-Raptor

(Continued...from Who stold Baby Jesus? )

Footsteps pounding
Adrenalin pumping through my veins
Unbeknownst to me, my drug addiction Drug Addiction was being satisfied - thanks to my fear of the Wolf Pack heading up the stairs as if the angry mob with pitch forks and torches who were after Frankenstein.

They were coming for me: Fight or Flight!

I was trapped in my room - and I knew that if they got through my door- it would be me in a losing brawl against 12 stoned hippies that would likely end in some elaborate form of torture that could involve electricity and a pool or ropes and a straitjacket.

There was no good ending to this!

My mind rushed - knowing that this could be my last Christmas, yet I also possessed the secret knowing that I had some kind of power that gave me superhuman strength to survive whatever torture they could dish out and live through it...(I had the Joseph dream and it worked at Salton Sea).

Hair standing up on the back of my neck and goosebumps on my goosebumps... Frantically, I had to come up with a plan.

Our house had old door handles that had been equipped with ancient skeleton keys back at the turn of the century when the old Victorian was built. The keys had all been lost for like a bazillion years and none of the doors in our house had locks that worked (except my mom's door - which had eight locks installed so mom could keep herself safely locked inside away from the mayhem when we were trying to kill each other - smart mom).

I stuck a chair under the door handle...to buy some time, grabbed baby Jesus and stuffed clothes under my covers in the shape of a 13-year-old...to fake them out; if only for a minute. With the sound of furious fist pounding on the door I quietly, climbed into the sun room, over the junk and out one of the front windows. Inching my way along the bottom trim of the windows I came to the end and leaped off onto the carport roof just as the gang of vindictive hippies burst into my room...chanting my name in a monotone drone like cannibals under some hypnotic spell who were about to put their victim in a giant stew pot.  



It did take long for the brood to discovered they had been duped by the dummy under the covers when one of them spotted the open window.

Unfortunately, none of them chased me out the window - I knew I would have lost a couple of them that way. "Shucks!" Instead, they turned and hastily descended the chairs as mom yelled from her room, "Under pain of mortal sin!"    No one listened!  No one ever listens.


On top of the carport roof... I was faced with a life or death decision, "front or backyard?"  A voice said, "backyard" it might have been the plaster baby Jesus speaking?!  I don't know! None-the-less, that's the way I chose to go. Quickly, I scampered back and leaped onto a stack of decrepit cardboard boxes full of moldy stinky old National Geographics. The boxes I cursed so many times, broke my fall and I found my self face to face with the Veloci-Raptor.  I didn't have time to pull out my "Saint Francis, positive-pheromones, love-for-animals" - thing that I did. But the attack rooster softened its crazy eyes as though it pitied me and allowed me a free ticket to pass go and collect $200 (not really $200, that's in Monopoly - but you get the metaphor).



I took baby Jesus and climbed into the thickest part of the secret cannabis forest that my hippie brothers told my parents were "Mexican tomato plants."  To tell you the truth, I don't think they were tomato plants of any kind - they never did grow tomatoes and the plants smelled like skunk! Gross! I buried myself like a rat in the thick growth with my baby Jesus and watched as the Wolf Pack came out the back door as if hunting down a wounded gazelle.  Jesus and I were trapped and I tried not to breath. As the angry mob weaved past some leaning boxes of National Geographics, by the old tear-drop trailer with flat tires and by an old outboard motor they headed right in my direction as if they had smelled me.

The cunning Veloci-rooster stood directly in their path.  I looked at Jesus and shrugged. The raptor flung itself on the pack of hippies and began piercing the flesh of the long-haired hippies with its 4-inch razor sharp talons. The older boys began screaming like a bunch of junior-high girls as they stumbled over each other trying to make it back into the house where they would be safe.



Giggling from inside the marijuana plants, I winked at baby Jesus and mocked the tribe of would-be trouble-makers by mimicking the words of my eight grade homeroom teacher, Sister Schultz,  "You shouldn't have put yourself in that position." (of course that conversation was all in my head).  Feeling like I was my brother Bob who was in Vietnam and making my way through a hostile jungle, Baby Jesus and I made it to the tear-drop trailer where we spent the night.




I took the bloody rooster-attack on the herb-smoking Wolf Pack as a good sign. I know that normal kids in regular families didn't have to go through any of this crazy stuff - Not Tommy Blaser...Not Kippy Lennon... Not Ricky Tripp, but I felt lucky in a way... Weird right?  I felt blessed to be forged in the furnish of fire that would shape me for whatever destiny that lies ahead for me as if every incident of sibling torture as a milestone that help me learn about me and the crazy world in which I lived.



I looked at the plaster cast of Jesus and said, "Well, it looks like it's gonna be a good Christmas after all. And with your help Jesus, I'll make it to celebrate the 1970 New Year."


Like Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream, I had a dream and that dream will keep me going!


                          Happy New Year!  

Christmas at the Dahlins and Who stole baby Jesus?

I'm the baby in this picture... 

Erick and Mary 

Kurt  and Mom with Mary and Erick

Kurt and Karl 

Mary and (baby sister) Karin 

See! We really were adorable...at one time.  But all of that had changed.

Last time,  we left off with my brothers who had ambushed me and left me hanging by an ankle from the rope that was tied off to the top corbel of the highest most point of our roof. They plugged in the Christmas lights and quietly sneaked back to the hippy hut out back and left me dangling as night fell and people from all over Venice, Mar Vista, Culver City, and Santa Monica came to marvel at this years best Christmas light display!

Eventually, after swinging myself back and forth like a bazillion times, I gained enough momentum to thrust my body to grab the rope that was tied to my leg. Hand over hand, I used my Troop 32, Boy Scout, rope-climbing skills to make my way to the top of  the roof where I was able to catch my breath, untie the rope and also finish the job of pulling up the lights. When I got to the top, I had assumed the crowds that had gathered in the street watching my heroic performance would have applauded the intrepid accomplishment of a 13-year-old, instead they hissed and boo'd that the show was over and quickly dispersed.

Lazarus, the cat, was particularly grumpy that I had not fallen. She had waited the entire time to see if I would have landed on my feet - had the old, worn, rope broke. It was now just the two of us - me and the stupid cat. Standing on the peak of the roof, I stuck out my tongue taunting the scaly thing and shouted "there!" as if I had won and also to formally dismiss the disgusting creature that lingered - still hoping I would have fallen to my death.

By now, since I had survived all various episodes of being buried in "pits," the "arrows," the "monkeys," the "hamper of death," the "veloci-rooster," the "electrocutions," the "jalapenos," the "templates," the "alligator," the snake" and "Salton sea" I had proven to the proud cat that I indeed had more than nine lives (I WAS WINNING).  I grinned like the Cheshire Cat as Lazarus who raised it's head like a stuffy British Nobel - turned it's back on me and walked into the house.

Anyway, I had proven that I had a high threshold for pain and was pretty much unbreakable... and figured out the "Someone up there must be looking down on me."  

I went in by the manger scene we had on top of the piano in the entry and stole baby Jesus. The mynah-bird cussed as usual, and since no one was around and I was in no mood to tolerate the foul language - I slapped the cage and headed upstairs with Jesus. I had intended to have a conversation with the Baby.

We had eventually found poochie, our dog, that had been trapped in one of the cars in our fleet of non-operational piles of junk that we had pushed to the Thursday side of the street (for street cleaning) and had been trapped in there all week long.   Poochie, like me was strong. She a survivor. I think that's why we got along so well together.

Poochie.   Me.   And an antique, plaster-cast of baby Jesus.
                         The three of us were going to have a serious Christmas talk!

I barricaded myself in my room to prevent any kind of sneak attack by the notorious herbal-smoking "Wolf-Pack" and/or Ulrich and his angry little-man-crew, so I could have this serious Christmas chat without too much interruption.

I stared at the baby Jesus for a long time and then realized that if God did come down to earth - there were a whole lot better ways to do it.   But, He didn't consult me on it.  Chariots of fire.  Machine guns.  As Superman.  In a spaceship with laser beams or on fire with one foot setting down on one continent and one foot on another.

Take control. Show everyone who is the boss.

That's the way I would have written the story.  A Baby!  In a manger (an animal eating trough)? Pshaw...No way.

In a barn? Who wrote this story - God probably should have talked to me about it.

Stinky smelly animals.

Hay.
 
I don't think it was the plaster Jesus who had spoken to me, but this thought suddenly occurred to me... "vulnerability."

Like a mother and a new born child... I figured that it was only by this extreme act of ultimate vulnerability could humans be invited into this level of intimacy with the Creator of the universe.

If God came to this planet like a powerful super hero and exercised his authority all over the place as if to Lord over - who could draw close to him(or want to).  He came in vulnerable and he went out the same way. He took all of that power and surrendered it... humbling himself to die in such a disgraceful fashion on the the cross.

Hum...I looked at baby Jesus in new light and realized that he could totally identify with me... he chose to be vulnerable... he chose to be arrested... falsely accused... he chose to be the object of racism to the scorn of the proud Romans.. he chose to be mistreated... beat and crucified... This Baby came and lived in a way - not as the crazy king Herod... or Caesar Augustus... but as a human just like you and me.  

I figured this way he came and lived in a way to identity with me so that he could feel what I felt every time I was  mistreated so that I could identify with him... It was Brilliant actually...what better way to draw us into intimacy with the majestic power of the Universe.  The voice in my head said there was no better way. I smiled at baby Jesus and was glad that he didn't consult me in regards to his grand entrance into this world. Boy, would I have messed it up.

I tenderly tucked the painted, plaster-cast of baby Jesus on my pillow next to my head pondering the troubled condition of the world...floating off to sleep in deep thought...wondering if intimacy with God was something to be grasped... yet yearning for it...

...when I heard someone downstairs screaming,

"Hey, who stole baby Jesus!"  followed by the pounding of furious footsteps as an angry mob ascending the stairs - marching towards my room.

  God Jul ... Merry Christmas!  

Grumpy Cat started it all!

Continued...(Christmas lights and three things I feared most)

Believe it or not, when we weren't in training to kill each other....(see pictures below) we really were angels at one time.

Look at how cute we were... sometimes we were even saints...

But with the advent of The Beatles, long hair, marijuana plants and the Ooze- those days are long gone. 

Because my mother has locked herself in her room and refuses to come out... my older brothers are meaner than junkyard dogs with mange, and this time it was the stupid grumpy cat that had riled them up. The "Law" in our house was that boys could not pick on girls and since I was the youngest boy... all sibling torture fell on my plate - it was a tough job, but somebody had to do it. 

In the last episode, Lazarus, "The Miracle Cat," had lost the rat which upset the older boys to no end... that caused a riot to brake out in the living room when one of them caught a glimpse of me climbing out the window. With an old smelly rope slung over my shoulder that I had pulled out of the murky bottom of one of the two sailboats on the front lawn, I tried to sneak onto the carport roof without being seen. My job was to scale the steep pitch of the old turn-of-the-century house so that I could pull up the Christmas lights that Karin, Pinky and I had laid out earlier on the front lawn (lawn is a loose translation- but go with it). 

Those little stinkers - Tommy Blaser and Jeffery Lennon and Michael Lennon kept breaking our Christmas lights and I was content to have a good third of them working when we tested them while the boys were betting inside.

After the wrestling match inside, older boys had retreated to the hippie-hut out back and I had gotten to the tippy-top peak of the old house without incident. 

                                           

I figured that with 38.2% of our light bulbs working and the fact that I had made it to the top of the house without being spotted by my big brothers (the Wolf Pack)...                                                                                                                                     ...THIS WAS GOING TO BE A GREAT FINISH to a hard year.    

In order to pull off this Christmas light project every year, it meant that I had to face three of my greatest fears. The first: Fear of the dark. I had to climb into the dark cluttered basement - home of the portal to hell in order to retrieve the lights. As usual, I threatened my little 9-year-old sister, Karin, that Santa would not bring any toys if she did not go into the basement with me and lead the way. I told her that I didn't want her to trip over all the junk down there, that I needed to go second to "have her back" and that I needed to hold her hand so that I could protect her...(all lies).

I was thirteen, but was smarter than her and knew the boogie man lived down there.

I had overcome my first fear with the help of my little sister - but I'm not going to admit that to anyone.

My second fear was heights.

My job was to climb to the top - shimmy out along the peak (hurting my boy parts) as I straddled the high roof and lean out over the edge to lower the rope down to Pinky who would tie a boy scout approved square-knot to the middle section of the enormous string of lights.

Not gonna lie - this freaked me out! I had to sit there leaning out over the edge of the roof some 900 feet up in the air... (okay 35 feet or something like that) but I couldn't show negative pheromones because as soon as the Wolf Pack were to discover this weakness they would certainly exploit it.

The third thing I was afraid of was being discovered by the Wolf Pack with a rope... To me, it was like sending up the bat-signal into the sky showing the Wolf Pack my location as though it were a beacon that invited them to come and torture me. It reminded me of the story in the Bible with Abraham and Isaac. Isaac was told to carry the wood to the top of the hill...the very wood he was to be sacrificed with...gulp!

There I sat on top of the roof with the potential that all of the negative stars in the universe could line up against me.

But with the hippies out back smoking it up - everything was groovy - "all copacetic" as Bruce Grant would say.

With the ropes clearing the third-floor window I nearly had it all finished when I heard the clamor of Santa's Reindeer right behind me - it was a Christmas miracle!

Hearing the commotion of all of the reindeer hooves and panting and the noise of the sleigh settling on top of roof behind me, I turned around expecting to see Santa himself. Actually, I turned around praying it would be Santa...for I had a foreboding feeling in my gut.

YES, Kids never...ever...ever climb to the top of a very tall building with a long rope slung over your shoulder in the presence of older brothers or near the edge of a cliff or near a tree or near an abandoned well... if you happen to be the baby brother - LET ME JUST SAY THIS NOW - you are only asking for trouble.

The Bat-signal was up.. I had sealed my fate. The Wolf Pack plotted revenge on me for laughing at them when the retarded grumpy cat attacked them.  Somehow it was all my fault and now I was tied up by the ankles and being dangled over the top and swung back and forth by half of the motley crew who were on the ground racing back and forth across the lawn with the strand of Christmas lights.

Okay so... we weren't normal...but who has ever seen a kid hanging by his ankles from a rope off of the top of a giant three story house swinging back and forth? The Blasers might have had the straightest Christmas lights, but by golly who could top this show - not even the Lennons (who were in show-business) down the street...The rest of the world- eat your heart out!

All of this to say - I guess it is good that my parents had especially trained me in advance for such occasions...

The grumpy, mean O' cat came out of the house, as if to see, if I could land on my feet if the rope broke...and wouldn't take his eyes off me as if betting against me.
I stared the sucker down as if to show the dumb cat that I had more lives than it did and was thankful that Kris and Donny didn't bring out the BB guns and use me for target practice...

So you see in the end, it wasn't all that bad - it could have been worse!  

I'm sure my homeroom teacher, Sister Schultz, would tell me that, "I shouldn't have put yourself in that position."  

I'm wondering if she would have told that to poor Issac!

Merry Christmas

Grumpy Cat and the Christmas Lights

After Thanksgiving it is a tradition for "normal people" to put up Christmas lights. Though we lived in Venice, we had families on our block that liked to consider themselves on the fringe of normalcy and engaged in this annual yuletide ritual like the Blasers, the Nargies, the Tripps, and of course - the best Catholics in the world - the famous Lennon Sisters who lived across the street.


Mr Blaser, right next door, was a perfectionist and needed to have his strings of lights "high and tight."  They had to be perfectly straight and symmetrical... AND if you could believe it or not EVERY ONE of his light bulbs had to light up - or it was considered a high crime against the civil order of a 1st-World culture. (pictured above Tommy, Mrs Blaser and Grandpa).

(Pictured is Frank Nargie, the Mail Man). He and his wife Ida, spent an inordinate amount of time with their extensive "Annalee" doll collection and put up grandiose miniature city display inside their house that took up the entire living room).

 (Pictured Ida with collection)  

At this time of year Bob Lennon, the Vasquez family, and the Tripp family were busy with putting up Christmas lights as if they really didn't live in Venice, but were instead normal and  "All American"...like the families portrayed on TV: for example the Cleavers; Ozzie and Harriet; My Three Sons and Father Knows Best!

 (Pictured Leave it to Beaver)

 (Pictured Father Knows Best)

 (The Lennons - just look at 'em)

We, on the other hand, were completely out of the range of what normal Americana looked like!

 

 (Our front yard with the Lennon house in background)

 (Our Backyard: clearing bamboo for more marijuana plants )

(Even a trip to Kings River was a mob event - 17 of us pictured here). 

 (In the street...) our cars and bare feet.

 (At Tuna Canyon in Malibu) 

 Somewhere

  our house

The normal people at the corner - their house 

 



The Normal People in their backyard

             On the other hand - there was us. 

 While the Blasers had a new Lincoln Continental parked in their driveway, here is a couple pictures of our driveway 

...everything at our house was an event. Nothing just happened that was normal or in the way that regular people did things. Everything was a gang activity that eventually included water balloons, BB guns, ropes, makeshift straight-jackets, that eventually turned into a dog fight... and if you were lucky - it didn't include Electricity or a Water hose and a Pit.

Everybody knows that it is absolutely mandatory for all Catholics to leave their Christmas lights up until the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th - the time we celebrate the visitation of the wise men. HOWEVER...if we finally got around to taking our Christmas lights down- it was usually late summer and about a month before we had to put them back up again...the big advantage was when we didn't take them down at all. 

Now that the guys were older, they were all too busy pruning the "Mexican Tomato Plants," harvesting the buds and hanging out in the hippy hutch in the backyard to be of any help in doing anything constructive.  

ONCE AGAIN the arduous task of putting up the annual lights would probably be incumbent upon me and Pinky...  (Pinky shown to the Left).












...sometimes I could get Karin (my little sister) to help, but she was 9 and didn't know how to tie a square knot - which was absolutely essential to success of this enterprise.







Today, besides what they were smoking out back, the greatest stumbling block to get any of my hippie brothers to help -  was due to the spontaneous fiasco that was taking place in the dining room when a member of the illustrious Wolf Pack clan discovered that  Lazarus "the Miracle Cat" (gag me) had brought a rat into the house and began to play with it...


The Disgusting Cat would let the poor rodent go and as it raced across the room for freedom and the scaly feline would pounce on it and bring it back to the starting point. Each time, Lazarus the cat would let the rat get further before the eventual pounce.

  This cat and mouse affair brought all of the hippies into the house which incited a wild betting frenzy.

Betting on the fate of this besieged rat turned out to be of more importance than helping little brother with the annual duty of putting up the Christmas lights.  RIGHT!?

I could hear them below hollering, screaming, some cheering on the rat others the cat... meanwhile some of us had more important things to do then to be wasting time betting on the life a rat.

I always voted for the underdog, so I was hoping the rat would eventually make its escape. Downstairs where all the revelry was taking place in our Mutant Zoo:  Johnny, the pigeon, was flying overhead, the spider monkey played with itself as it watched from the high wainscoting, and the foul mouthed Mynah-bird cussed at the boys for being locked up in its cage in the entry.

Grumpy is not even the word to describe the cat's disposition after losing the rat. With claws fully extended, the Grumpy Cat was downright fit to be tied and began throwing himself at the hippies in a tantrum.



I laughed! They deserved it!

I didn't think any of them heard me laugh. I had experienced the consequences of their wrath too many times to know that it wasn't a good idea - and tried to bottle up my secret jubilation inside.

I thought I had gotten away with it...but...little did I know that the older boys had retreated to the hippie-hut out back, the dark ivy cave we called Wall Drug, and began conspiring.  

Meanwhile, in order to begin putting up our Christmas lights meant that I had to face three of my greatest fears...





One of those had to do with the rope I threw over my shoulder that I was going to use to pull up the strands of lights to the tippy-top of the house...

To be continued...