Wolf Pack Leprosy: All was Well (almost)!

Since the "elephant man adventure" to the Russian River  - ALL WAS WELL!

My left leg (that had been cut in half a year ago) was fully operational and completely healed.


My arm was out of a cast.





I had graduated from Saint Mark's...didn't know anything - but I graduated.

It was summer and several hippie members of the Insurgent Wolf Pack were inflicted with leprosy... poison oak really.

My dad liked to tell stories and from him we had learned to embellish everything. 

Every story grew upon retelling.  And now the Minions of Venice hippies (my brothers) laid wallowing and writhing in red-blistery, pus-oozing pain at my hands. I was a one man boy Avengers.  


THERE WAS JUSTICE in the world...after-all and Markie D was basking in the sweet aroma of victory.




I had gone Into The Woods a boy and not much has changed other than the fact that I felt like there was stardust in the air and it was as if I could hear angels singing.



I let my blonde bangs grow, went body surfing at 27th Ave with the Blasers and the Lennons and thought about Andrea.

No Pits

             No BBs

                          No Arrows

                                           No cliffs

                                                             No ropes

                                                                               No Templates

                                                                                                         No Electrocutions

                              "What a wonderful world this would be"

Jeffery's mom, Jeanette Lennon, came out and accused me of being too happy (AGAIN).
She made me aware that I was oddly happy.

Too happy?

I don't know.  Maybe?  

Maybe I was. Couldn't tell my family that I felt alone. That would have been ridiculous. Who would believed this about a kid that lived in a big house (full of people) that was the center of universe.

Animal House

We were the crazy family with the run-away rattlesnakes, chuckwallas, iguanas and one alligator!

We had the monkey, the Veloci-rooster, and grew the "Mexican tomato plants" for all of Venice, Santa Monica, Mar Vista and Culver City...

Social-media was my front lawn... and although I lived there - I felt disconnected...abandoned and alone.  I had to fend for myself...feed myself and constantly fight the heinous hippy hoards.



























Weirdly too happy.  

Maybe I was retarded. My psyche was crushed by the continual betrayals and I knew that I had no right to be this happy. I couldn't explain it.  Hope?







Even though I felt like damaged goods I felt protected by the universe... like something up there had its hand on me... in a guardian-angel-kind-of-way...  I could sense a ray of light...  "Love?"


"Love" was a word we had no use for in my house. I had never heard it used by a parent or by a brother or sister. I had heard other four letter words, but not this this one.

I longed that one day a member of my family would look me in the eye (mom or dad - anyone) and use the "L word."


If not someone inside - then maybe it would come from someone outside... A girl? Andrea? Anyone?

I had learned all about God from the nuns at Saint Marks and yet knew nothing about Him. Was He real? Could I reach out and touch Him? Could I know Him...or at least ... would He allow an orphan like me to feel what it means to be loved.

Lost and numb, (trying to make contact) I stepped onto the makeshift stage on the front lawn of the Harding house and danced in the flood-lights.

I sang all the "Pizza Pizza Daddio" songs with Mimi Lennon and Mary and Theresa Blaser and Darleen Tripp.

 "Theresa, has a boyfriend. Pizza Pizza. Daddio"
        "Who told you? Pizza Pizza Daddio"
"You told me Pizza Pizza... Now shake it!"

 ... and "shake it" I did ... as I danced and sang for the summer night shows we put on for the whole neighborhood.


We danced
We body-surfed
We ate potato-chips with sand in them...

Saint Monica's here I come...

Then we heard the news about the bloody hand-print and the arrest for murder....

Next time... THE VENICE MURDERERS IN HUMBOLDT!  You can take us out of Venice, but you can't take the Venice out of us...                          (it's all true).

  

The Pit of Despair and the Hippy Oxymoron

On Saturday, I saw one of the strangest sights I've seen in a long time. The lazy hippies were industriously working in the backyard.  Ha!  It was ironic... these guys digging a hole in the old sandbox play area.  It must have been important. They probably wanted to grow more "Mexican Tomato Plants" or something like that.  They seemed to be having a good time, but knew that I wasn't included in what-ever-it-was they were doing. 

At 12, I was still too young to be inducted into the ways of my older brothers and the hippie Wolf Pack! I wanted to feel a part of the tribe, but knew that was still a couple years off.

My leg was healing, I had returned to school and to kickball at recess and was interested in fitting in with my 7th grade friends and being noticed by the little cutie-pie I had my eyes on.  

My brothers were busy growing hair and burning draft cards and smoking.  I was a tenderfoot in the Boy Scouts and just tying to find my way through the world, trying figure out what life was all about and where I fit?

I didn't particularly care too much about grades. I didn't care too much about sports. I wasn't too motivated by anything except for survival and desperate to discover the meaning of Love. My life sounds like an old song from Sam Cooke

"Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology

Don't know much about a science book

Don't know much about the French I took

But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too

What a wonderful world this would be

Don't know much about geography
Don't know much trigonometry

Don't know much about algebra

Don't know what a slide rule is for

But I do know, one and one is two
And if this one could be with you

What a wonderful world this would be"

                                                                         Android users Sam Cooke Wonderful life

I'm not sure that I had heard the word "Love," ever mentioned in my house. I called it the "L Word," because I was too embarrassed to say it in front of people or that I might get beat up if I used it. 

It was a foreign concept - and I figured that at the rate we were making progress on our NASA mission to land on the moon, that earthlings would know more about the foreign object some 239,000 miles away in the sky and conquer it - before I knew about this foreign concept that was right in front of me. I knew that the truth about love was out there somewhere - I heard about it... longed for it, but just couldn't quite make contact with it other than my brief encounters with Irene on Fridays (post 7/15/13 "20 Minutes with Irene").

Anyway, we had a great big area in our backyard that used to be a sand-play area. With the Veloci-Rooster defending its dominion territory, it has long since been forgotten.  But the long-hairs bagged the dreaded raptor(Blog Post 12/3/13) and had locked the hideous beast up in the chicken coop and now the hippie-types were working harder than I had ever seen them work before (many of them were not known for their sense of drive and ambition - other than Anti-War demonstrations). There they were stirred in delirious ecstasy digging a hole to the center of the earth for no apparent reason.

                            How do you spell OXYMORON?

I had no idea whether they were digging for lost treasure...archaeological finds from ancient ruins...remains of dead pets we may have buried there or old carburetors; no matter what their intended purpose - they were happy and passionate.  It was cute to see hippies -  both working and happy - that's not a sight you see everyday.   After watching the show for a while, I decided to make my way inside for lunch where I had to beat off the mangy cat - put up with with a few choice cuss words of the foul-mouthed Mynah-bird and find something in the refrigerator that wasn't covered in moldy green fuzz (which my dad claimed was good for us because it was penicillin). 

I had found some bread, cut off the green spots and popped it in the toaster when I heard the fire alarm clang on the back porch stairs.  I heard a thousand foots steps making their way inside the house, but smelled the brood before I saw them come around the corner. Bounding in my direction, I saw the hopeful gleam in their eyes, and the sudden light of epiphany about the purpose of the pit caused me to gulp in terror as my life flashed before my eyes.   

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT: Baby Brother dies in Pit Accident!  

Accident my foot! I jumped, scrambled over the table, took out two of the hippies... went through the legs of a third - shot under another table in the dining room like a greased pig, stepped on the cat's tail and knocked over the Mynah-bird's cage before being brought down by four of them.  I could usually hold my own against about 3 or 4 of them, but not 15.  They tied me up, dragged me outside and I knew I was going to die.