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...

The Mutant Micro Venice Zoo (Hippies Included).

Now, that Chewbacca fell in love with this "miracle cat," Lazarus, our house was only getting wackier and wackier.   Along with our motley tribe of long-haired hippie-types (AKA the Wolf Pack), the dreaded Veloci-Rooster in the backyard, the snakes held captive in the cages on the third floor, the mice we bred for snake feeding, a Mynah bird that cussed like a drunken sailor in the front entry, a billion guinea pigs, turtles, a giant frog,the Iguana Del Diablo (blog 8/1/13), a bazillion rabbits (that kept multiplying), chickens, and Poochie the Wonder dog - we now had this ugly, black, almost-hairless, scabby cat that was now added to the menagerie at my house.

We had a micro-zoo of mutant animals - including my brothers who were becoming more and more full-fledged hippies!

Someone accused us of stealing one of the monkeys that we let out of the zoo and thought we had smuggled it home, but that wasn't true.  The monkey we presently had came from the new neighbors across the street. Somehow it was turned over to me and was now baby sitting the thing indefinitely.  Monkeys were kind of cool - because not everyone had one, but this one sat on the wainscot ledges around the first floor. The monkey was a boy and was obviously happy that it was a male. The depraved - naked little primate, flaunted his male parts to everyone who dared entered our house.   "Gross!"

By feeding the nasty looking cat (that had cheated death) on the kitchen table, and allowing the ugly thing to walk all over the counter tops - Chewbacca surrendered complete authority and power to the insidious cat to rule over the rest of us mere mortal human beings.  I think Chewbacca's brains had become a conduit to the planet where the far superior Cat Species were sent to earth from - to subject humans to their rule. It might have had something to do with the tinfoil pyramid that Chewbacca wore on his head while smoking the leaves from the "Mexican Tomato Plants...out in the hippie cave in our backyard called "Wall Drug!"

My brothers thought all this was groovy - while, I on the other hand, was down right embarrassed. Embarrassed by the monkey with dangling male parts; embarrassed by the zombie cat that walked unhindered on the top of the table and had absolute authority to lick the butter and open containers of sour cream; embarrassed by the swearing Mynah bird; the mess and junk and stacks of National Geographics magazines; embarrassed by the cars outside on blocks and boats parked on the lawn; and by the fact that the police department made routine visits with warrants in hand - but this was my family and my house and my story and I had to make the best of it.


The good news for my brothers was that with the Fraternity House burned down to the ground, which meant that we had inherited more parking for our armada of hot rods, trailers, boats, broken down cars and old trucks we used as trash barges.  

Hum...? Possibly a motivation for arson - BUT I don't think my brothers burned down the fraternity just so that we could park more of our cars.

All the hippies were accounted for and had alibis - so, I still have to find the perpetrator of his horrible crime - that could have easily been murder.

I understand all of this might be hard to imagine... and that I often compare my house to The Addams Family or The Musters, but there really is no comparison!  This was the 60's, this was funky Venice California, this was hippie-ville... this was my house... this was the Dahlins...where truth is indeed stranger than fiction.  

To turn a chapter...With all this going on at home, I thought that maybe I would take a try with the Boy Scouts in order to escape from time to time. I was inducted into my older "way-overachieving-Eagle-scout" brother's troop.   Troop 32.

By the time I joined the troop in 7th grade - the troops only two eagle scouts had graduated away and we resembled something that look more like F Troop (a show on TV).  At Camporees and camp outs we were a band of notorious little thieves that cut the tent strings of other boy scouts and pelted our enemies with dirt clods.

My Family:

The Lennons who lived across the street.

 

As you can tell, we were definitely not normal... by any stretch of the imagination.  Next time "The pit of despair!

                   EXTRA EXTRA read all about it!

Why...Chewbacca...Why?

I really don't understand a lot of stuff... i.e. here we are in the middle of a terrible fire that is consuming a grand old home with the daring rescue effort by my hippie brothers and a neighbor in underwear and two of the most bizarre things happen.  Let me set the stage:  Not only were there firemen and policemen that you would normally expect to find at a typical 3 alarm fire, but this particular event also drew the special interest of these mystery Men In Black - members of the President's Secret Service detail who had been staying in the Lennon house for their protection. These Men in Black began sniffing around like bloodhounds for information and asking questions about Chet Young and were concerned that this Molotov Cocktail bombing might have had something to do with Charles Manson.  The crazy-man, Chet Young, had made assassination threats against the President and Charles Manson was plastered on the front page of every newspaper in America for the gruesome Tate and La Bianca murders.


With the ensuing chaos of fire and smoke and firemen, and police, and paramedics, and anxious Secret Service, and my hippie brothers, and my dad and my near-naked neighbor rescuing half-clad college drop-outs - who were now homeless and walking around like dazed Zombies - it was totally crazy right! Picture - cars blowing up - people screaming, smoke hovering and flaming ashes falling... imagine if you will -  Night of the Living Dead, conspiracy - threats and big things to worry about - which in light of that brings me to the two things that I don't get:

Number 1) At a time like this, in the middle of all of this chaos with everything that is at stake - why would my second oldest brother, affectionately known as, Chewbacca, feel compelled, at this moment to make some type of emotional connection to a dead feral-cat that nobody in the neighborhood cared for anyway.                  

                           WHY?                   Weird?  Right!

He had lots of hair and the charred cat had lots of hair at one time I suppose - was that it?  Was it some strange hippie thing that I didn't know about? Did it have to do with some form of Arrested Development? Did it have something to do with those funny cigarettes and those hidden "Mexican Tomato Plants" the older boys were meticulously taking care of in our backyard.







I understand that I'm only 12 and in seventh grade, so I guess I have a lot to  figure out...but I just didn't get it.


Okay, now with all that said, why this next part?  Take your stupid dead cat that the cosmos has directed you to fall in love with and leave me out of this.    This leads me to number 2).

Number 2). Why on earth did Chewbacca feel he had to bring that char-broiled cat which had stunk like burnt hair and that had looked like some 4000-year-old thing buried in a pyramid in Egypt alongside of Tutankhamen...AND SHOVE IT IN MY FACE?  

Why Chewbacca?   Why?   What did I ever do to you? What did I do to deserve the 732 titty-twisters, a year of being squeezed to unconsciousness(blog post 6/26/13), 532 wedges, 321 monkey bumps to the leg...and now a dead, stinky, burnt corpse of a despised cat shoved in my face?  

CAN ANYONE TELL ME?   He could have taken that cat to the backyard and happily had some kind of hippie ritual for all I care, but why did he feel it was necessary to torment me on the way?  I was watching the show minding my own business and out of nowhere he shoved that disgusting thing in my face and you know what happened!   That's right - my superpowers kicked in - I bent over gagging and heaving and threw up 13 times on the Blaser's front lawn... and before everyone could clear the blast zone - Tommy, Ricky and even one of the escaping Lennon brothers had puke all over them.

There I stood despised by everyone - making matters worst, I was in my hand me down shirt, my holey jeans, my miss-matched socks - looking like a complete moron...besides all that, I knew that Mr. Blaser was sure to be mad at me in the morning - as if this was all my fault.

Later the next day, Mr. Blaser made me wash the puke off of his lawn and it was there that I determined to find out who started this whole thing. That's why I felt like I had to take investigative matters into my own hands and find out who started this thing in the first place - and why I figured that the Secret Service and the Fire Marshal needed my help is solving this terrible arson case.  

It turns out that it was neither Charles or Chet, which meant that my list of suspects was dwindling.

To my shame, I am not happy to report the next incident, which turned out to be an unbelievable miracle of epic proportions and the beginning of a new saga at the Harding House!

My Apologies...and Arrested Developement!

Everyone I apologize...for leaving you on the cliff hanger.




I've been running crazy and am working on making another Video for this blog, which I am shooting in the morning. I will be telling the "LA Zoo" story in front of a live audience. This is the story where my family managed to let all the monkeys out.    Blog Post 4/29/13  








Oh, and I guess it is better to be telling the zoo story in front of a live audience instead of a dead one! Right?

As soon as I come back tomorrow, I will continue the story of the tragic and horrible accident that happened at the McIlliot's pool.





It involves an older brother, my younger sister and the baby Lennon girl  - Annie. She is pictured to the right circled in red. Of course she's not that young...she's my baby sister's age, who is 9 at the time of terrible tragedy that took place at the McIlliot's pool.  Trust me - the tragedy is not the horrible trick that my coarse older brother pulled to make me vomit... NO! It was simple tom-foolery that involved slippery, wet bodies and a large glass wall just adjacent to the pool.

By this time in 1968 a couple of the Lennon boys had begun to migrate off the Lennon family compound and had dared venture into the Dahlin backyard...with the snakes, the alligator, the snapping turtles, the chicken-eating giant bull frog, and the dreaded Veloci-Raptor - attack rooster. 

Those Mexican tomato plants must have some powerful magic to get the hippies to fend off the rooster for their horticulture project.

I don't know why it was... but Annie began to come home with Kjersten for lunch - TO OUR HOUSE!
It just didn't make any sense! After all those years of parents being Hüber-protective...now either they didn't know about this or Annie just threw all caution to the wind and passed by her own house (that I'm sure had real food) and joined me and Kjersten at our house for lunch where we would have to scrape the moldy penicillin off our Pioneer sour-dough bread.   I thought I would throw in "Hey Jude" for the sound of 1968.

 Hey Jude by The Beatles

  
Annie and Kjersten were friends and tomorrow she would join me, Tommy, Urich and Ralph for the fateful day at McIlliot's pool.

Mark Twain said, "Familiarity breeds contempt - and children."  

and let me tell ya... between us and the Lennons we had a lot of kids on Harding Ave and at our house a lot of "arrested development".


 

God Bless You - More tomorrow!



 

Big Mistake Hutch! Come on Baby Light my Fire!

First, let me apologize for all the "throw-up" talk. It might be grossing some of you out, but you have to understand - that is where I lived. I practically threw-up every single day. A lot of it came by way of Wolf-Pack terrorism and some just because...

Just because... someone "cut the cheese" or spit a gross loogie - BAM there it was...heaving - gagging and vomit! (You think I liked that, NO! It will eventually add to my Arrested Development - Hey, that might make a good name for some demented TV show- ah...who knows). 

It wasn't like I planned it...I'd be the first to admit it wasn't pretty, but it just happened. So I apologize if you feel there has been too much description and detail, but I am trying to be accurate in my reporting to you THE HISTORY OF THE 60'S ACCORDING to Markie D.


I can't make this stuff up! This was true... plus or minus ten percent.


Anyway... Gherhing and Great and I had sprayed each other off with a hose and were back at my house ready to "rock and roll" with the rest of the crew.  Gherhing always wanted to be right in the middle of things - NOT ME!

Yeah us... that we didn't smell like pee or vomit! Could you just image how much fun the Wolf Pack would have had with that? We would have been unmercifully bullied by the older boys, stripped or used in some devious prank. 

Everyone was laughing when we walked in, as Gustav was recounting how he outran and outfoxed the Venice Police Department.

Remember no adults were home.

 Mom and Jerry "TT" had taken poor Chewy to the hospital. I could still hear his string of pain-filled "Ave...Maria" ringing in my head as they lifted him into the Dodge station wagon and drove off down the street! 

The jumper cables had been taken off the "fire-pole" to eliminate the evidence that his fall from the pole (at the second floor level) was precipitated by the surge of electricity, switched on by my conniving, ingenious, and scheming older brothers (not-so-affectionately know as the Wolf-Pack).

The little old lady next door had a brother named Hutch, who came to her house every Saturday night drinking from a bottle concealed in a brown paper bag. Hutch was as mean and cantankerous as she was and the boys figured, they had time left before it got completely dark to pull off one prank that would be a grand "twofer."  Never mind messing with her precious car, this time...they figured they could make this  one up-close and personal.

Dooh-Dooh Pants had scooped up a big, warm pile of dog-dooie and put it in a brown-paper lunch-bag.  I knew what was up and was smart enough to know that if I were within 20 feet - it would be a "three-fer." I had nothing left in my stomach to give to this newest enterprise and scrammed. I climbed out the second story window and scaled the valley of the steep roof and watched all the excitement from the top of the roof. I figured that from that distance, I was safe from the awful smell.

Just as Hutch was rounding the corner by the Lennon Sister's house (where they were gathered in their living-room practicing for Mass on Sunday), Ulrich and the band of angry little men placed the paper bag and it's contents on poor Edna's front porch and lit the paper sack on fire.

It was a pretty substantial blaze by the time Hutch reached his sister's front Porch. She came out screaming and hollering and threatening the call Police... and Hutch figured he'd be the hero and stomp out the fire!

Big Mistake Hutch...as he stomped on the flaming bag, poochie's pooh-pooh went spraying in a million different directions. He stomped that dookie all over the place and even got some on 'O Edna herself. She grabbed her garden hose and began spraying him off (I could identify). He was yelling and screaming... she was yelling and screaming as she sprayed off her porch and then just stood blaring out threats as though she were the siren on top of a police car and sprayed her hose into the air in the hope of dousing at least one member of the ornery Wolf Pack! 

                                                            She was fit to be tied!  

If my mom was home...we'd probably, all be under the "Pain of Mortal Sin!" 

FIRE!      

That was it... Gustav had a brilliant idea. 

In this case, however, he had no contingency plan - should things go terribly wrong! 

What could possibly go wrong...go wrong...go wrong...go wrong...go wrong... the record player below began to skip... come on baby light my fire...fire...fire...fire...fire..fire...

I think it was an omen.

 Tune in next time to catch the incredible end to a very long day.