It wasn't the Somnambulant and it wasn't Bill Lennon

(Continued from 1-18-14) I stood across the street and felt the dry heat of the flames as the old mansion continued to burn. The smell of the smoke did not betray the age of the old place. It didn't smell of new pine, but like old wood mixed with ancient dust that was being incinerated. The chaos of a ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST continued to loom as I watched the all the aimless and dazed half-naked zombies who had been rescued by Mr. Blaser in his underwear - and by my tribe - to which I was very proud, but also a tad bit miffed for making me stay across the street "out of harm's way."



It was dangerous as cars continued to catch on fire and blow up... I don't want to sound morbid - this was indeed another sad chapter in the story of Harding avenue...but I can't lie, it was entertaining to see O' Mr. Nargie behaving like a teenage cheerleader at football game, as he frantically rooted on Bobby Tripp who was on the roof with a garden hose (with very low water pressure) trying his best to keep the Nargie -Tripp duplex from catching on fire.

I made up cheers and began - chanting them to Tommy who was standing next to... as though they were Mr. Nargie's words... who was across the street moving back and forth like a crab and waving his arms up and down for the home team.

"Douse it out...Douse it out...WAY OUT! Keep it back... Keep it back...Way back!  Douse it out...Keep it back...Put it out...WAY OUT!"  I had Tommy in stitches... until I was interrupted.

Pat Lennon looked down at me, shook his head and said, "You're weird!"

The first thing that came to my mind was, 'of course I was - I've been electrocuted...left behind...tied to trees...buried in pits...choked...knocked out...attacked by a rooster...shot with needle-tipped arrows...wrestled an alligator...had to contend with the revenge of Sister Godzilla in the fifth grade and suffered oxygen loss to the brain...OF COURSE I'M WEIRD! Hello!?'

Then it suddenly dawned on me who it was. It was Pat Lennon!  I looked up at him sadly and asked what he was doing here.

"Climbed out of a window and escaped!" he said. "Couldn't miss this."

"Where is everyone else" I asked.

"Danny snuck out with me and is around here somewhere, but everyone else is under lock-down by the Secret Service. When the cars started blowing up, man, they thought it was gun shots and went ape on us."

"Hey, Pat...I'm sorry!" That's all I could say... and probably all I needed to say!  Like I said before this was the third biggest crime to ever happen in the history of Venice California. The first biggest crime happened just a couple weeks prior to this with a bunch of craziness when a lunatic who had been stalking the Lennon Sisters also made assassination threats against the President of the United States. In trying to be sensitive to that event, I'm not going to go into that story at this time... but suffice to say that with a Secret Service detail at the Lennon House and with the entire the family under protective custody we can cross Billy and Joey and Kippy and all the other Lennon's off the suspect list.

1) My Brothers - the Wolf Pack
2) Mr. Blaser and his whitey-tighties 
3) My Dad - AKA Mr. D
4). Mr. Lennon
5) Frank Nargie
6) Rita Nargie
7) Sea-Shell
8) Leeland the hot-rodder
9) Weenie Tripp and Family
10) Johnny Gillemonster
11) Tommy Blaser the Somnambulist
12) Four boys dressed up as girls
13 The Saint Mark's Nuns
14 Walter Daniels
15 The Anti-War Crazies
16 the Owner of the property.

For my brothers...they were out in Wall Drug doing some hippie stuff back there and had not sent up any... UFO's i.e. flaming dry-cleaning bags...recently so it wasn't them. They go off the list (Blog Post 8/24/13). As for the four boys who had dressed up like girls - even though everyone's feelings were hurt, Tommy and I had seen them through the fence in the backyard smoking leaves from their precious "Mexican Tomato Plants" in those funny shaped cigarettes.



1) My Brothers - the Wolf Pack
3) My Dad - AKA Mr. D
6) Rita Nargie
7) Sea-Shell
8) Leeland the hot-rodder
12) Four boys dressed up as girls
13 The Saint Mark's Nuns
15 The Anti-War - peace-loving Crazies
16 the Owner of the property.

My oldest brother, Gustav was out in the Rat Killer racing Leeland and had brought home a pocket crammed full of cash to prove it...so that accounts for all of my brothers and unfortunately, also gives Leeland an alibi.

1) My Brothers - the Wolf Pack
3) My Dad - AKA Mr. D
6) Rita Nargie
7) Sea-Shell
8) Leeland the hot-rodder
12) Four boys dressed up as girls
13 The Saint Mark's Nuns
15 The Anti-War - peace-loving Crazies
16 the Owner of the property.

I pretty sure dad wasn't involve - he had just driven in late from West Covina selling new, all-electric gold-medallion track homes out there so that eliminates all the Dahlins.

3) My Dad - AKA Mr. D

I was now down to four possible suspects, although Ricky Tripp came over to where Tommy and I had been standing and said something about his mother smiling a lot with all the firemen running through their house. I didn't know what to make of that - but I still don't think she set it on fire.

1) Rita Nargie
2) Sea-Shell
3) The Anti-War, draft-card-burning, peace-loving Crazies
4) The Owner of the property.

As for Johnny Gillemonster... I really liked him as a suspect and when I went over to his house with my detective note pad... and  interrogated him... this is when he told me the of story of the dog-poop payback - did jive with me - so I'll tell you that story next time.

In the meantime...Chewbacca had discovered a dead body at the foot of the 60 year old palm tree which turned out to be the only fatality of the Great Fire of '69.  Chewbacca fell to his knees, leaned over the corpse and cried.

Until next time..my friends...Gud välsigne och Hej då

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.