Phyllis Diller Girls and Alien Abduction

Circa 1971: You know that old couple in the rusted Ford truck rolling down a lonely two lane highway at night and they get sucked up by a tractor beam and abducted by aliens―well that's me.

I'm trapped in a car with a bunch girls and going completely out of my mind. The station wagon was crammed packed full of all the girls on our street―headed to Saint Monica's High School.

This is my new Monday to Friday morning ritual―purgatory.

The clamorous ride from Venice to Santa Monica was a cacophony of high-pitched girls all talking at the same time broken up with intermittent cackles, ear piercing screeches and singing―if you could call it that.



They carried on multiple conversations about boys along with the occasional whisper-speak in code with me in the back completely invisible―not understanding a bit of it.

Contributing to the din of noise from Mimi Lennon, Sally Lennon, Theresa Blaser, Theresa McCarthy and my sister Marylee was Debi Gas who flipped back and forth between radio stations about every ten seconds. KRLA...KHJ...sound-bites of familiar voices Wolfman Jack, Robert W. Morgan and Rick Dees and tantalizing morsels of songs―none longer than 8 seconds.

Being bombarded with fragments of The Jackson Five ABC; Simon and Garfunkel Like a bridge over troubled Water; BJ Thomas Raindrops are falling on my head―I felt like one of those humans who had been abducted by aliens and whose brains were being blasted by gamma rays.

My little gray-cells were moosh by the time we rounded the corner at Ocean Avenue and turned right onto Wilshire Boulevard where Lawrence Welk was in the initial stages of building his Welk Towers.

I smiled as we passed looking into the giant hole filled with all of the busy construction equipment. Let me tell you, bulldozers and cranes were easier to understand than high school girls suffering from estrogen overload. I also smiled because I felt connected to that construction-site on top of the bluffs in a weird sort-of-way―LENNONS

Not only did we have two Lennon cousins in the car ride but we also had one of the younger Lennon girls. Although we could literally call her a Lennon sister, she was not technically a "Lennon Sister."  The four oldest Lennon girls had performed on TV every week on the Lawrence Welk show for nearly 15 years and the girl who is busy flipping the radio stations―her older brother was married to DeeDee Lennon.

As far as I was concerned that new high-rise going up was mine (well, maybe not mine, but it certainly had something to do with my street in Venice―of which I boast).

If you don't know who Lawrence Welk is, go ask your Grandma. She could tell you. Everyone over 60 watches the guy with the bubbly champagne music who began his show every week with the words, "Wunnerful wunnerful" in his thick German accent.

Anyway, I hoped my brain could recover from my journey through purgatory so that it can function by  4th period at least. Phyllis Diller made a promise to me and it wasn't working out so well.

She told me that I would be the Mayor of LA and that I would marry Andrea. You see every year at Saint Mark's grammar school, Phyllis Diller would show up and read her prophecy for all the graduating students.

Only Phyllis Diller was my mom in costume. With her hair ratted and the cigarette thingy in her hand she looked and sounded just like the famous comedian.

Darn you Phyllis Diller...ah...mom!

I've been in high school five months and haven't been able to say a single word to Andrea. I was too shy, too timid and felt so dimwitted that I couldn't even figure out what to say when I got near her―lips unable to form coherent words. 


I thought playing water polo and hanging-out by the pool in my speedo would give me a chance. But No!

Come on dumb prophecy! Do what you're supposed to do.

My heart leaped every time I saw her, but I had no idea how this boy―girl thing was supposed to work. Nervous and scared I began to think that it had to happen either through osmosis or that she had better do something. Take charge. Be on the advance because my brain had been gamma-rayed by aliens and turned to jello every time I get within 20 feet of you Andrea.

COME ON PHYLLIS DILLER!

COME ON ANDREA! Marilyn? Theresa? Do something―help us out here. I'm too retarded.

I had been blown-up, electrocuted, the oxygen had been cut off from my brain, wrestled alligators, left behind at The Dead Sea been fired as an Altar-Boy and my self-image is so low I could stand up and walk underneath a wiener-dog.

HELP ME. I am in a quest to find out what love is all about and can't even say hi to a girl!  RIGHT?

               (pictured―6th grade, when I first fell in love)








I'd sue Phyllis Diller but she was my mom―what? Ughhhhhh  Can't even get that straight.

Dig your hole Lawrence Welk. I've got hormones problems, brain issues and have my own pit that I'm trying to dig out of and besides I've got to head off to swim practice with Phyllis Diller's step-son! (pictured here in this Saint Monica swim team photo).            

 THE IRONY of it all.






BTW the picture on top of this post (at least temporarily) was the end of a fishing trip with Dad. With fishing poles in hand this was the moment the older boys concocted the plan to catch the biggest land-shark in the history of the world (photo credit Donny Blaser)






Wolf Man Jack (photo credit) Facebook post

Welk Show (photo credit) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lawrence_Welk_Show#/media/File:Mancinimercer003.jpg

Wilshire and Ocean 1970 (photo credit) Posted in "You Know Your From Santa Monica" by Michael Hayasha

Peanut Butter and Unrequited Love...UGHHHhhhh!

Picture of my 4th or 5th or 6th oldest brother (depending one who gets counted into the mix), but this picture says it all. 

This just happens to be taken in the exact location we almost lost Kurt to the paddle-board-over-the-falls and the botched-rope-around-the-neck-rescue!  

As I said last time, I prayed for normal - but with the alligator, the attack rooster, the monkeys at the Zoo, the resurrected cat, with Iguana Del Diablo, the rattlesnake escapes, the Ouija board and the crop of well taken care of "Mexican Tomato Plants" anything to do with normal was well behind us. I always thought that normal lived next door to us or across the street at the Lennon Sister's house.  

As Catholics we weren't allowed to say the "Damn" word in our family. The Blasers next door were forbidden to say, "Darn it." Darn was just too close to "damn" and would count as a venial sin that could add to your purgatory time.  Being all grown up at 13, I dipped my toes into the shallow waters of Venial sin and said "Darn it" a couple times in front of Tommy Blaser, Kippy Lennon and Jeffery Lennon just to show them that I was older and more mature. On three occasions, I said the "Darn" word while thinking "Damn" in my head and wondered what my penance would be at my next confession.  I was a sinner!

 us - irregular

Them  - normal 

Us -  in front of our house

Them - in front of their house  

(continued) The morning I got back to Saint Mark's grammar school from the zero period for advanced math at Saint Monica High School -  wouldn't you know it, but the very first person I bumped into was Andrea!         Literally. I literally ran into her like a car wreck.

I think Marilyn Jones or Theresa Modesti pushed her into me - because they had been trying to set us up (that's how you do it when you're 13-years-old). I wasn't upset about running into her... as a matter of fact I liked how it felt to actually come into contact with a member of the opposite sex - who just so happened to be my - one "true love."  "Ah honey you are my candy girl"   This could have been good news on any other occasion...well, on any other occasion that I wasn't tattooed like a circus freak. "Darn" slipped out of my lips in the middle of our CATHOLIC school... what people didn't know, was that I was so mad at Chewbacca, that my brain - screamed that four letter word "Damn" inside! "DAMN IT...CHEWBACCA!" as anger and resentment filled my heart towards him.

Yes, I deserved to go to hell. I bent over to help Andrea with her books when I heard Sister Superior call my name. When I stood up and turned around in her direction - she screeched and called me into her office.

Charlie Brown once said, "Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter like unrequited love." Today my peanut butter would taste like gravel in my mouth. "Lord..." I offered up as she stood there and screamed at me for drawing the disgusting images all over my body "...normal, wouldn't be at all bad from time to time." I drifted off as she droned on about the Blessed Virgin Mary and others things I paid no attention to.

It was pretty embarrassing that she intentionally kept the door to her office wide open...so that the entire student body could hear her chew me out by name. I felt like she was the jury foreman rendering the verdict of guilty to be hung by the neck until dead in front of the entire school. I sat quietly and looked through her to the wall behind her...picturing...wondering...imagining the devious prank I intended to pull on Chewbacca as pay back. At the moment I couldn't think of anything better than a rattlesnake up his pant leg, but he had already survived that once before. NO, this time it would be more creative. He had it coming and I would have to tap into the evil ooze to get back at him for ruining my life and for the destroying the one shot I had at discovering what love really was.





While suspended from school, I intended on dreaming up ways of getting back at Chewbacca then eventually heading over to the Venice Police station to play football when the regular kids from Saint Marks and Venice High school got out.

After all this was the beginning a new decade - the beginning of the 70's and Hey, this was Venice - if you have ever been to Venice beach - you would know that with all my body art and tattoos - I would have fit right in!  

                                                                               Picture taken from the Venice Ocean Park Santa Monica 20^th Century Face book 

"Peaches Flowers and granola"   Good bye for now, I have to go eat my gravel, plan my revenge and hope Mrs. Blaser doesn't want to wash my mouth out with soap... my peanut butter gravel was bad enough.

       

Werewolf II: Terry, Don't mess with youngest member of the Wolf Pack!

(Continued) 


The cool kids in our seventh grade class rarely ever picked Harry for kickball. He was tall and lanky and a little slow and I felt sorry for him. I felt sorry for stray dogs, for big fat Pinky (who was now living with us), and for anyone I felt was an underdog! 

Go figure! With a hundred older brothers and nine hundred of their friends who all tortured the baby brother - that's me - I thought it was my job in life to protect the "least of these" and to stand up for widows and orphans. You would think that when I dished out Terry's punishment the Nuns at Saint Marks would have been happy with my cause - especially since it had to do with justice and caring for a "slow" kid in class. 

No.  As it turned out, they weren't happy at all! 

As a matter of fact Sister Schultz, who was built like a NFL linesman and outweighed me by 200 pounds, put me in a headlock and I figured that Jesus wouldn't be happy with me if I took her down like I did Mike "Curtzy" back in the fifth grade (Post 6/29/13). I fell on the ground and pretended to pass-out hoping they would send me home.  No such luck!  I would have to go in and smell the sweaty aftermath of recess. 

Here's what happened. I could have cashed-in on the "bloody-knuckles thing" and get a higher pick for one of the kickball teams now that my approval rating was at an all time high, but I chose instead to do the ridiculous helicopter thing with Harry since he was left out again. He wasn't just picked last, he wasn't picked at all. Don't ask me how I did it, but I even managed to recruit Ralph to the silly nonsense that was making Harry so happy. 

Terry was one of the big kids and I'm sure he had hair coming in under his armpits. You could always tell when that was happening, because these guys were the ones who smelled like a garbage truck after recess. It was the same with eight grade boys too...they were plagued with this thing called puberty, but hadn't learned to take showers yet - like the high school boys had, so our end of the hall at Saint Marks always smelled like the rotting carcass of a dead cow that had been left in the sun too long. 

Terry was upset because I had stolen Ralph away from his team and Ralph could kick the ball over the church roof. Anyway, Dino had a mean kick and sailed the ball out-of-bounds over mean 'O Mr. Schneider's fence (who lived on the other side of the chain-link on Garfield), which meant that the kickball game was over.  Now Terry, was not only one of the big kids - I'd say in the top three, but was probably the brightest among the tallest and he like to let every know how smart he was.

Because he was upset that his team lost without Ralph he came over and began making fun of us twirlers. I was okay with it, it didn't bother me or Ralph that much, but when he started calling Harry hurtful names - THAT WAS IT, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.  I had been attacked by a rooster, whacked by a Nun, and totally humiliated in front of all the girls. This was not the day to sweat and stink and have hair under your arms or be too tall and pretend to be too smart and pick on the underdog -"slow Harry." 

I had to use restraint. I didn't want to just jump on his head and take him down. I had to think of a way to show how stupid he was at the same time. You know, like, cut him down a notch or two in his own eyes. 

Epiphany! The idea came to me. I asked Terry if he had ever taken the "Viking-Neck-Strength-Test?" (say that three times fast). I felt if Terry was too stupid to fall for it then he double deserved it. I told him we did this at home all the time and then proceeded to show him how to do it. I stood in front of the concrete wall and let Ralph demonstrate on me. He pretended to pull really hard and I pretended to fight back the best I could. I said the object was to see how far he could pull my head away and we would measure the distance and see who had the stronger neck muscles. The bet was on and all the boys gathered around for the Viking challenge. Since Ralph had just demonstrated on me, I "let" Terry try his strength test first. (Grin) 

You know that story in the Bible about wolf in sheep's clothing... well... I smiled on the outside as the inner werewolf went to work. I pulled Terry's head...the kids cheered.. he really thought he was something - UNTIL...

Until I had planted my feet against the wall and had his head out from the concrete wall some four inches and LET IT GO! 

"Whack" Cracked his recoiling head against the wall that sounded like a watermelon that had been dropped from the top of our three story house. 

Bam  Went Terry's limp body to the ground. 

I stood over the top of Terry in a symbolic jester of victory, foot on his chest, raised my hand and said, "Yeah! Who's smart now..Huh?" and called him one of the names he had insulted Harry with. Applause from the smelly 12 and 13-year-olds, prompted me to go into my "Wicked Witch" routine, "I'm melting...Good bye cruel world!" Laughter! 

Then  thud... I was on the ground, tackled by a 290 pound female linebacker dressed in black in white in a police choke-hold. She thought I killed Terry, but I knew he was only unconscious and would wake up momentarily seeing stars. 

I decided not to take out the Nun, because she was Jesus' wife and knew that it wouldn't have bode so well for all the Purgatory time I already had coming, but Terry? He DESERVED IT!  Poor...poor...Terry! 

Sister Schultz pinched my ear, dragged me inside and made me sit next to her desk for the rest of the day in front of the entire eight grade class to give Sister Edith a break.  "Yuck!" Those guys smelled worst than seventh graders. I sat there and stared down David Smith for the rest of the day and only managed to heave twice.  

                      It was a good day after all!  

"In a city known as Venice, there's a grand old school
Pledged to God and to our country, hail all hail to you.


Joyous days. Happy Days. Spent with in our hearts. 
Hail to you, our Alma Mater. Hail, all Hail Saint Marks!" 

P.S. Alma Mater.. means pregnant mother or something like that in Latin.        
 

Last Supper, Jalapenos and The Creature!

Last Supper and Jalapenos Pt 2

I have a lot of Superpowers, but most of them are in my imagination! Whenever I am buried in a pit, dropped out of a window, shot with needle-tipped arrows, electrocuted, tied up in a rope, or shoved in a hamper, those circumstances provide the opportunity to pretend!  I pretend that I am Superman or Spider Man... and in this latest adventure of the diabolical scheming by older brothers (AKA the Wolf Pack) I wished I could have been the new action hero - Iron Man - mainly because he doesn't feel anything. In the times when I'm been tortured and I receive the gift of adrenalin that pulses through my body and I get the strength of about 3 or 4 boys my size...like the mom who has the superhuman strength to lift up a car to free a trapped baby, I have to be reminded that I am only human. DANG IT! I come to the painful realization that I am like most mere mortals.

Anyway, getting back to the story about the Hawaiian, Luau themed party in the backyard. Everyone was having a good time outside at the party until it came to a screeching halt when they heard the piercing shriek of horror coming out of my mother's bedroom window.

Mr. and Mrs. Nargie heard it
Mr. and Mrs. Blaser heard it
All of those at the (now ruined and infamous) Luau in the backyard heard it!

The Steadmans across the street
The Lennons down at the corner

The Nuns at the convent around the corner
The old grouch next door- and her drunk brother, Hutch, heard it!
The Tripps
John Gillemonster on Naples

and Mrs. Gass over on Crestmore Ave
the Grants down on Angelus Place heard it
The Vasquez'
and Bobby Manriquez  - they all heard it!

I'm sure some heard the terrible screams of the 7-year-old all the way to the Venice canals... and if you were alive back then, it is possible that if you think really hard you might just remember hearing this awful screaming no matter where you might have been in the world at that time.

If you didn't hear me screaming in pain, then you heard my mom, shouting out furiously for Roy (that's what she called my dad) to do something!  That was nice I thought. It was good thing to know that she still cared and still went a little berserk from time to time when bad things were happening.

I don't know exactly why they did it...or whose idea it was to cut open all the left over jalapenos and smear the skins and the juice all over my tender little body. They took off my shirt, held me down and wanted to see what the hot chili peppers would do to human tissue when rubbed over its entirety! By that, I mean everything that was exposed - like arms, legs, upper torso, both arm pits, face and lips.  Everything turned red and swelled, I looked like a red Pillsbury-Dough-Boy that had caught on fire.

I was burning up and wanted to jump from the window, but they held me down until they heard the rushing footsteps of Mr. D tromping up the stairs, then they vaporized into the four corners of the globe (i.e. cluttered bedrooms on the third floor).

Dad picked me up and began running down the stairs and mom began shouting for him to take me to the emergency hospital...she thought I was going to die. My eyes burned and were swelled shut, but I could tell he turned right instead of left. This was not the way to the front - instead he was headed for the backyard!

The pain was too great...I screamed...She screamed and had begun to shout down curses on the older boys and said stuff about "Pain of Mortal Sin" and about how they would never see their way out of Purgatory!

Embarrassed, people left the party quickly yet somber like it was a funeral dirge... as they cleared a path for my dad who was holding an unrecognizable hideous red creature in his arms. Instead, of the hospital, he flung me into the pool! More screaming by Mrs. D...which launched Jerry LaFountaine on a rampage in a search and destroy mission through the the house for the boys. Boy, did he enjoy that! Poor Jerry, however,was sorely disappointed because he could not find a single soul to punish as my clever siblings hid in the secret crawl space behind the walls up in the third story across from the rattlesnake cages.

After recovering from the shock of being tossed into the pool, I emerged from the water CHANGED! Something happened in the chemical reaction to the burns that interacted with the chemicals that had been release by the adrenal glands located in the cortex on top of my kidneys.

I emerged from the water as if i were The Creature from the Black Lagoon bent on revenge. Frightening the remaining guest away, I went on a pillaging rampage... and ate all the cowardly older brothers, drinking all of their blood and letting the helpless reptiles out of their cages (seeing that now, I was related to the scaled reptiles).

I walked the earth all the rest of my days alone and hunted, a reptilian fugitive surviving off the flesh of humans and yearning to drink blood.

Okay, so the last part - the part after I was thrown into the pool and went around eating everybody was only something conjured up in my puny brain while I had been intoxicated with drugs to numb the pain.

Though I was a hideous little red creature for the next couple days and looked like an actual relative to the monster from the Black Lagoon - or something that lived in the snake cages upstairs, I laid in bed, draped in damp towels having weird thoughts and mostly thankful that I hadn't eaten any family members or drank their blood.

A week later, however, I did manage to sneak up stairs when no one was home and opened the door to a rattlesnake cage.  Hehehehe...  

Someone sounded the rattlesnake escape-alarm and raised the flag to alert the neighbors.  Havoc reigned and neighbors complained... but it was just another regular day on Harding avenue...where we all survived - not perfectly unscathed, but enough to share the infamous and crazy stories that made life worth living.







 

 

Invention of the "REVERSE MOHAWK"

This next story happened on the same Sunday that Jeff snorted cups-full of gangling, thick-green boogers at the altar which activated my Super-Powers in a volcanic eruption of  vomit that ended up all over Ricky and on the feet of the Priest and over the front of Saint Mark's Church - but thankfully missing Jesus who was being help up high over the head of Father Bond in the form of the consecrated Eucharist.

Ulrich had decided that shaming my family in front of the entire Catholic Universe and almost being excommunicated...used as bad example in a sermon homily, having to say a quadrillion "Our Fathers" and put on Altar Boy Suspension - apparently wasn't enough punishment for me. He had other plans in store, but I guess God must have seen things differently.

We had move up from the old handheld can opener to a wall mount, not because we were "keeping up with the Jones" which happened to be the Blasers next door - but because if something wasn't screwed down in our house you just couldn't find it.  Many a Thursday "basketti night" (spaghetti night) ended up as hamburger helper without the hamburger with all kinds of leftovers and some of expired food Frank Nargie brought home from the Safeway Food-Bank (and occasional dumpster) all tossed in and missed into a meatless "Helper Goulash" YUKE (superpowers)!

                       We went from this                         to                  this  (now we were "uptown")

So the good news was that now we had a can opener attached to wall that couldn't be buried under stacks of National Geographic magazines, newspapers and the mountainous pile of debris conjured up daily by the 72 inmates who lived in our house. If you drove a small car into our living room it could get lost by the end of the day.
And now we could actually have tomato sauce in our "basketti" ("spaghetti" for all you people that don't speak "broken-12-year-old").

Android users: The Thing Song

Anyway, it was one of those days that the flip-had-switched in Ulrich's head and he decided he wanted to kill me for throwing up at Mass and bringing shame on our family or because I had grown a little and was just an inch shorter than him. I was short twelve-year-old and already catching Urich in height who was a 10th grader in High School.

Ulrich set a ambush and hid behind the cage of fouled-mouthed Mynah bird in the entry. When I came through the front door smelling like this mornings warm-oatmeal-and-sour/powered-milk-concoction-mixed with-bile the "dirty" bird squawked off a curse word  (not acceptable in a Catholic home by-the-way... purgatory was too good for this bird)... the monkey in the living room jumped and it scared the whits out of me and I flinched (remember my childhood PTSD) at the exact second Ulrich jumped out at me in surprise and caught my freaked out flying hand RIGHT IN THE CHOPS!  Yep, I had just busted Urich in the mouth...now I was really in for it. He had something more than just the usual beating in mind...A hamper (blog 6/5/13), an electrocution (blog 4/26/13), hung out a window, buried in a pit(blog 2/27/14), or perhaps smothered under a mattress, all I knew was that I had better run and run quick!  Ulrich had a broom in his hand and promised I was going to die.  What was Sister Edith's Prayer? Do I dare say it again? Have I over used it? Maybe I deserve this for what I did at Mass (last post)...Running... running... running for my life...oh well, here goes, "Dear Lord I love you, forgive me for my sins" Yep, it tasted like captain crunch tearing up the roof of my mouth.

Wrong turn into the kitchen! Trapped with  nowhere to go - for sure this was going to end in death.  GUESS WHAT I SAW?

You know what? I'll leave you in suspense until next time...and tell you exactly how I invented the "Reverse Mohawk" And I guess I should also tell you that it was a fad that did not catch on.  Oh well, If I have a moral for this part of the story - don't bring home boxes with thumping things inside and for "Pete's Sake" whatever you do - don't throw up at Mass all over the Priest!

Altar Boy Madness and streaming Mucus.

Worst Sunday Ever! I was in an awful quandary over Communion this past Sunday. Mike was on one side of the isle holding the paten for Father Kwansi and Ricky was on my side of the church carrying the paten for Father Bond. Either way I knew I was in trouble. Last week I got a good jab in on Ricky's Adam-apple when it was his turn to take communion and ever since I beat up Mike in the 5th grade for taking a bite of my sourdough toast, he has been looking for payback.




I knew my number was up and that one of these two guys would try to jab my throat with the brass, communion-plate thingy that is nothing more than an implement of torture in the hands of a seventh grade boy.

Seventh Grade altar boys are like little devils with halos hanging from the pointed horns that stick out of our heads. You can't see horns, but if you were to touch a seventh grader on the head, you sure can feel them just below the surface of the hair.

I didn't know which side of the isle to go down. I figured I'd take my chances with Ricky and stick to my side of the church. Now regretting what I did last Sunday, I was hoping that Ricky would show more respect  for the Altar Boy uniform than I did last time. I grabbed my neighbors, Tommy Blaser and Jeffery Lennon, for moral support and nervously walked down toward the altar. I could have opted out by appealing to the fact that I had not sufficiently fasted before communion. Since Vatican II, a couple years ago, all we had to do now was fast for one hour before Mass, but I didn't even make that. It seemed like Tommy was always chewing bubble gum and he gave me piece on our way to Mass. I could have refused to go up and take communion and find myself waking up in the middle of the night asking, "WHY DIDN'T I OPT OUT?"  

 The reason I was afraid not to go up was because everyone stares at you and makes you feel like you'll spend the rest of your eternity in Purgatory...you know "Under Pain of Mortal Sin" and all that. After this particular incident, I'm pretty certain that I'm probably going to skip Purgatory altogether and go right to the bottom of that other hot place- where the Devil lives.

Anyway, one of my older brothers told me that if the old guys from The Knights of Columbus (like Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Downey), find that you're not taking communion, they'll write down your name, take you out back in a dark alley and beat the snot out of you. I believed my brother and went down to communion even though I had just swallowed my gum.  I didn't look it up in Canon Law or anything, but it might have been a Mortal sin to have Jesus in my stomach along with some bubble gum. The way I got around this was by telling myself that Jesus was going to be in my stomach with some old oatmeal (see post XXX) and sour milk (see Post 7/13/13)anyway.  I thought He might like the gum!  Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa!

Hands folded in proper form and head bowed low - not to provoke or catch the eye of Ricky, the priest put the Eucharist on Tommy's tongue. I was next, followed by Jeffery.

"The......Body....of...Christ" said Father Bond in the slow, boring monotone, required of being a Catholic Priest.  Just as I was sticking my tongue out..WHAM...went the blunt metal thing Ricky was holding - like a sharp Karate chop to the neck.


(Okay, I need to put this on pause for just a second... because I had been smothered and electrocuted and buried and placed under mattresses and tied to trees and tied up and thrown over cliffs - and proven to be pretty indestructible. To be honest it actually made me feel good to be the center of attention - like I mattered or that I was somehow connected to my tribe...SO I WAS MENTALLY ILL, what of it? Anyway, there was no way one-of-me could fight off something like ten of the marijuana-smoking, hippie Wolf-Pack.

So I had developed a "Superpower."  I don't know what planet it came from...don't ask me...but it did work! Vomit! That was my power! I could take out 5, 6, 7, or 8 of them at a time (post 7/8 and 7/11/13).

Don't fart.. don't make me scoop the dog poop and whatever you do DON'T touch my neck - seriously!

BACK TO THE STORY: Ricky, paying me back for last week (for doing the same thing to him), had absolutely no idea what he was about to trigger. As the Eucharist was about to reach my mouth - tongue hanging out in anticipation-  before I could even say, "Amen" I gagged and began heaving. I threw up twice in my mouth and managed to swallow it back down...hallelujah...I was winning!  The Priest stood there angrily and held Jesus up so he would not get contaminated as I went through my violent convulsions at the altar rail. Jeffery thought it was funny and tried not to laugh and did everything he could kept his lips tightly sealed shut... only problem was, Jeffery probably never missed communion and the old guys must have never beat the snot of him...his entire sinus cavity was so full when he snorted through his nose, out came a billion gallons of boogers.  HELLO!

That's all it took...a steady stream of green mucus to trigger my "SuperPowers" Yep! This morning's 98.6 degree oatmeal and sour milk went everywhere. All over Ricky, yay me! All over the black, government issue, jack-boots of Father Bond, all over the altar, and all over Jeffery.  Sorry Jeffery!

Next week, the Priest used me as an object lesson for an illustration of what it means to be a bad catholic in his Homily, but poor Jeffery got the worst part because everyone thought it was his fault and he had to say like a bazillion Hail Marys and  five hundred million Our Fathers.

Jeffery only snotted like that one other time, that's when he and Tommy and I were at Mr. D's restaurant in the Marina. Yep.. you guessed it, we were just monkeying around and Jeffery tried to hold back a laugh when 500 gallons of green snot drained out of his sinus cavity and filled his salad plate. HELLO SUPERPOWERS! I threw up all over the restaurant and the three of us were thrown out and never allowed in there again.  Guess what? Didn't have to pay - but as good Catholics, we did say some Our Fathers on the way home.

The Night Walker and...THE FIRE!

The large turn-of-the-century home was a blazing inferno... windows were shattering from the heat and cars in the parking lot were bursting into flame.  Tires sent up black smoke as the gas tanks in those cars blew up one after another. It looked like a scene from the battle-lines in Vietnam. The Vietnam War vet, who was renting a room across the street, began having flashbacks and climbed the to top of  the three story "Pink-House" with a broom - holding it like a sniper with a M16. Hthe crazy guy sat up there taking shots of the enemy as though he was reliving some hellish nightmare that no one should ever have to experience. He shot me twice; once I fell down pretending to be dead, but thought -that maybe -it wasn't too cool.  Though he was perfectly harmless, the poor fella had to be talked down by the police in the midst chaotic mêlée on Harding Avenue that night.

Meanwhile, the clandestine guest - i.e the girls who had been smuggled in, were trapped on the second floor and screeched louder than the sirens of the long awaited firetrucks in blood-curdling cries of shrill terror. The temperature on the second floor was close to reaching flashpoint and old dry timber of the wainscoting was not far from combustion. By this time the stupid Frat-guys on the second floor realized they were trapped and began running around in their underwear screaming louder than the girls, knowing that they had only seconds to escape before being incinerated into a pile of carbon ashes.

Before I finish that story...let me clear some names from my previous list of suspects!

Last time, I have removed the Nuns and Walter Daniels from my list and had discovered that the "Gillemonster" had a perfectly good alibi (that's the "dog-poop story" - which I'll share later). For now, I think it's important to eliminate by bestest friend Tommy from the list. Although he was the youngest person who was considered a possible arsonist, the unique and complex nature of his two-fold condition placed him squarely at the top of the Fire Marshal's suspect list.

Although Tommy was several years younger than me, being right next door, we were best buddies!  Tommy liked to light matches... he would find his dad and my dad's Real Estate Business matchbooks and set fire to just about everything he could. Nothing big, but it did bother his mother. She was pretty concerned about him chewing his fingernails, but was even more worried that he might set fire to something someday and spend much of his eternity in purgatory.  To make matters more complicated, Tommy had a very rare disease; somnambulism. Yes, he was a somnambulant.  I know what some of you are asking:
 "What the heck is somnambulism?"

"Idoes it have to do with haviing air bubble in the blood-veins near his brain stem?"

"Somnambulance...hey, does it have something to do with an ambulance?

"What, does the kid do? Does this disease make him run around like a chicken with its head cut off screaming as though he were an ambulance."

"Is it medical? Delusional? What is it?"

In answer to your questions it does as a matter of fact, have to do with the word ambulance! But first, let's clear this up...it's not really a disease- his mother told me, rather it's a very rare condition. The word ambulance comes from the Latin word 'ambulare' which when translated means to move about. Hence the words ambulance and ambulatory.

"Is he retarded?"

No, he's not a retard... just a little special. When most people are fast asleep he has the propensity to move about... Turns out...Tommy is a certified Sleep Walker!

I was at his house one time and stopped him from going pee in the refrigerator; another time I stopped him from going pee in the kitchen trash and on another sleep over I stopped him from walking down to Kippy's house. Kippy is his cousin, one of the Lennon's who lives on the corner opposite from the fire. The poor kid did all kinds of weird things in the middle of the night and when it was all over - had no recollection at all. TRUE!

With his predilection of lighting things on fire and walking around in the middle of the night -all fingers pointed to him. Even his own mother thought he might have been responsible. So I guess the best news was that on this particular night I was having a sleep over in the two story fort that his dad built in their backyard.  They didn't have snakes and a Veloci-Rooster and a chicken-eating-frog and a mosquito breeding pond in their backyard - they were just normal people. Well, mostly - whatever normal means...but around 11:00 O'clock at night.. I did have to get up and play kick ball for a couple minutes while Tommy was in one of his sleep-states, but the fire didn't happened until much later - after he was settled back in and strapped into the loft in his sleeping bag.  I WAS HIS ALIBI.

Tommy's name goes off the List.

1) My tribe...the Wolf Pack

2) Mr. Blaser

3) Mr. D (that's my dad)

4) Mr. Lennon

5) Frank Nargie

6) Rita Nargie

7) Sea-Shell

8) Leeland

9) Weenie Tripp

10) Johnny Gillemot

11 Tommy Blaser

12) Four boys dressed as girls

13) The Nuns at Saint Marks who lived just behind the house.

14) Walter Daniels 

15) Crazy, Anti-War, Peace-loving members from an opposing Fraternity

16) The Owner of the property.

As for the "Tighty-Whities" (that's what we call tight, white underwear in the United States), Mr. Blaser believing his match wielding - night-walking son may have had something to do with and feeling a sense of responsibility, shot out of bed and ran across the street in his bun-tight skives after hastely slipping into his "Sunday-come-to-meeting" Black polished Real Estate shoes.   WHAT A SIGHT!

His underwear provided him with the alibi he needed as someone who was in bed at the time that the explosive devise went through the window of the old house.
Therefore Mr. Blaser goes off the list.  

1) My tribe...the Wolf Pack

2) Mr. Blaser

3) Mr. D (that's my dad)

4) Mr. Lennon

5) Frank Nargie

6) Rita Nargie

7) Sea-Shell

8) Leeland

9) Weenie Tripp

10) Johnny Gillemot

11 Tommy Blaser

12) Four boys dressed as girls

13) The Nuns at Saint Marks who lived just behind the house.

14) Walter Daniels 

15) Crazy, Anti-War, Peace-loving members from an opposing Fraternity

16) The Owner of the property.

Weenie didn't do it! Her sister Kathy was out on a date...she didn't do it. Their brother Bobby was on top of the Tripp house right next door with a garden hose trying to prevent their house from catching their house on fire.  It wouldn't have made any sense for any of the Tripps - so I they go off the list - yep, all them including little Ricky!

 1) My tribe...the Wolf Pack

2) Mr. Blaser

3) Mr. D (that's my dad)

4) Mr. Lennon

5) Frank Nargie

6) Rita Nargie

7) Sea-Shell

8) Leeland

9) Weenie Tripp and family: brothers sisters, mom, dad.

10) Johnny Gillemot

11 Tommy Blaser

12) Four boys dressed as girls

13) The Nuns at Saint Marks who lived just behind the house.

14) Walter Daniels 

15) Crazy, Anti-War, Peace-loving members from an opposing Fraternity

16) The Owner of the property.

My list was shrinking... meanwhile my dad had joined Mr. Blaser in the rescue of the guys and girls who were trapped on the second floor.  My hairy brothers, along with Donny Blaser, climbed up like cockroaches on top of each other to the balcony and formed a human ladder for the half-naked half-intoxicated refugees to use as a human fire escape.


By the time the firemen got there, half-clad people were running around all over the place. To me it seemed like the scene that I pictured in the the bible where it describes the resurrection in Jerusalem when bodies came out of the grave and began walking around.       ZOMBIES!

Our neighborhood was now filled with wild Zombies...  the pandemonium from a blazing inferno... that included cars exploding and a crazy guy on top of third story turret taking shots at people with a broom handle. Let me tell you - it doesn't get any CRAZIER THAN THIS... A real Helter Skelter it was... Paul McCartney can thank us for the lyrics to the Beatles new song.

The night was still young and Chewbacca has spotted something below the ancient palm in the front yard of the blazing inferno...

For you android users Paul McCartney Helter Skelter

Oh, by the way...just in case you were wondering, the first ambulance was developed in France by Dominique-Jean Larrey in the 1700s.

The Nightmare of Christmas Present

1:43 am (middle of the night) after Midnight Mass

You know that moment in a horror flick when the hand comes up out of the ground, or out of the water, or out of grave... (it doesn't really matter what it comes out of) - but in any case, it scares the snot out of you...well, this is exactly what happened at our house on this particular Christmas in the dark hours of the early morning.


Out of nowhere, a hand - "The Hand" shot up through the 4-foot strata of wrapping paper and grabbed one of Pinky's thick ankles. Ejected out of his chair like a misfired rocket, Pinky screamed bloody murder if he had just been attacked by the legendary one armed hatchet murderer. In a dizzy head-rush, Pinky began to spin in circles as though he were about to fall over and the Wolf Pack panicked, scrambling to get out of the way - for fear of being squished to death...as if by an 8 ton tree.






As I mentioned before, our house was haunted, so I wasn't worried too much about being Pinky falling over on top of me. I was more concerned about "The Zombie Hand" of the Boogie-man - so I freaked out and jumped up on the back of couch while Matilda climbed up and perched herself on top dad's head.

Screaming...Panic...Fear and Mayhem broke out... This was our house on Christmas.




I'm pretty sure this is not they way it is most normal families.  My friend, Julie, at Saint Mark's told me about their Christmas. She said they had a fake, white Christmas tree and had the cool colored lights...the kind you see in the window displays at department stores. If she said this to make me jealous - it worked. The best part about the picture was not the green ornaments on the Styrofoam flocked Christmas tree or that she was still taller than her little brother, but the mini-skirt!  

That was was pretty cool - I guess!


32 minutes earlier: 1:11am.



My mother remembered back to the days when we were young and in control and longed for those days again - but they had been lost forever.








But the fact that my Brothers had grown up to be full fledged hippies - never stopped her from trying to make our Christmas like they used to be.

Good luck with that one Mrs. D.  So on the way home from Mass...by the time we were passing by John Gillemot's house Mom was already screaming for us to pay attention. She was about to give the annual "Pre-Christmas-Speech" on how we were to open our presents.

 It didn't help that we had to pass the Famous Lennon sister's house...it only served to make things worse. I swear you could angels signing "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" as we rounded the corner and passed by their statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Mom looked towards the Lennon with begging eyes as if hoping her kids could be more like Bill and Sis's kids: sweet, obedient, kind, thoughtful, intelligent, musical, reverent...(I think the list was pretty big - because her pause was long).

As if she were herding a bunch of feral-cats... she screamed all the way to the front door of the house and charged inside in front of the motley crew. Throwing herself against the two great big sliding door that lead into the living room (where the presents had been delivered by Frank Nargie while we were at Church).

Mom gave us her list of demands...as though we were prisoners of war and was threatening to withhold our weekly rations should we not comply.  I wanted it mom's way but nobody listened. The older boys tried to open the doors and prior her fingers off as she shouted her famous last words. "Over my dead body!" 

That didn't work... then the list of names and the "Clause"  GustavBjornKnutLeifUlrich...hell...whatever your name is...UNDER PAIN OF MORTAL SIN!" she screamed hoping to get our attention.

SILENCE for one split second as the Wolf Pack contemplated purgatory then rushed head long into the room and assaulted the presents as if they were a dead caribou that lay under the Charlie Brown Tree.

Whoosh…wizzzzz…Bam
Presents were chucked and flew across the room like misguided missiles striking members of the brood in the forehead!

Picking up a present and reading the label...someone would say "Here...this one's for Dooh-Dooh Pants" and  fling it - not really caring whether or not it got broken or where it ended up - other than hoping someone got hurt in the process. 

"This one's for... Puke-Breath" another brother would say, just before the indiscriminate tossing of projectile that nearly cracked a window. 

 Whoosh…KaBam!

Presents flew... Mom fumed...Dad mumbled...and Kjerstan and I "stopped, dropped and took cover" as if the Air Raids Sirens were blaring in alarm.

There was no soft golf clap of appreciation after each patient unwrapping that neither honored the gift-giver or acknowledge the person receiving the gift.      My mom's biggest nightmare had come true. 

1:26 am 
Shredded rapping paper was carelessly flung into the center of the room like the living room was the Sepulveda Dump.

1:42 am 
The loud chaos... the present opening frenzy continued at a fevered pitch and the strata of torn-up wrapping paper began to pile up higher and higher. 4 feet high - a record and that was when the Zombie attack happened. 

1:43 am  The Hand emerged from under the strata of crumpled paper and clawed Picky's ankle, which set off an unfortunate chain of events...

I will share the rest of the story on Christmas Day... until then be blessed and be a blessing! On this Christmas Eve know that you are loved dearly - the message of Christmas!