Death at The Moon Fire Temple (and Hormones—of course).

1972: The Doors The Temple and The Hormones

Last time, I left off I was being chased by a bull and held as a prisoner in the sloshing-outhouse-brig on a Boy Scout houseboat.

Between my freshman and Sophomore year over the summer, there has been BIG changes. Part of those changes has been the hair under my armpits—finally—about time—which means raging hormones have kicked in.

Yeah! UGH!

I think for the regular guys who went through puberty when they were supposed to like Rick Arredondo, who had a mustache in 7^th grade, this hormone business might have set in gradually. But to a late-blooming sophomore like me was as subtle as a tsunami tidal wave of sexual awareness.  

I read somewhere that guys think about sex every seven seconds—that might be the stat-line for those regular guys who have had time for this thing to settle down a bit. For me, however, it was like EVERY SECOND. I was in trouble; every thought was about girls.  

Too much information right! 

Regardless of what was going on below the belt and everything that was happening down there I was still VERY MUCH interested in finding out what this “love thing” was all about. I hoped that this hormone flood and "lust business" would not derail this sacred quest.

I want to know what real love is all about. I want to feel it—experience it and finally be able to grasp the meaning of what it means to be loved.

 

BUT, I almost did not get the chance to find out because of the DEATH RIDE down Tuna Canyon Road earlier this morning.  It all began with a fundraiser yesterday at Saint Monica’s and a group hike we took last night to the mysterious Moon Fire Temple –something hippie in origin that could rival the Dahlin house and anything in Venice.  

We had recruited our new water polo coach from UCLA, Terry Palma, to join us. All of a sudden my sister and her Venice gaggle of estrogen-groupies were suddenly interested in our rag-tag team.

Mary and Theresa Blaser and Theresa McCarthy and Mimi Lennon and Debi Gas were now followers in our social-media-site in the Water Polo corner of the school lot that we controlled. 

This new “Street-Cred” had given us more status and power to rule the roost—veloci-rooster-status.  We were cool. We had a following. We wore Speedos, had shiny hair from chlorine and reigned supreme on the bench by the music room.  

  

Yesterday, Michael Moore, the big brother of my water polo buddy, James, brought a 55 Ford and parked it in the center of the lot along with a giant 50-pound sled hammer. As one of the school fundraisers, he charged twenty-five-cents-a-swing to destroy the car. Bob Rooke must have had a couple bucks—he smashed windows and took it upon himself to crush the front end of the sad dying beast as if slaying a dragon itself.  

He did it mainly for the girls—damsels in distress!  Heck yeah.  Hello, hormones—I get it.

SEVEN SECONDS.  

Well, we decided that for our fundraising project, we would sponsor tricycle races.

This turned out to be more popular than smashing the car. After the first couple rounds of true competition, girls decided they wanted in on the fun. Girls sat on the trikes while the boys pushed them around the small-orange-coned obstacle course. Boy and girls touching each other—oh yeah. Need I say more?

Anyway, we had all of these tricycles we had amassed from the greater Santa Monica and Palisades area that we had to return.

Our water polo team recruited our new coach, Palma, and in true Dahlin-Wolf-Pack fashion we invited our new groupies to join us in a dangerous midnight hike to the eye of the Moon-Fire Temple. More girls increased the chances and the odds of budding romantic interest and thoughts of well—you know—hormones and the seven-second rule.

This turned out to be like the hikes my brothers used to take to the Albino Camp to scare their girlfriends so they would run into the “strong, protecting arms of the brave boys” who were kept them safe by holding them tight. 

Uh-huh! Right? 

You know what the boys were thinking about EVERY SEVEN SECONDS.

The staging area was the Moore house at the end of Bainum Drive in Topanga. They had just put in a huge built-in pool with a bubble over the top that stayed up with air pressure from a giant air pump. It was kind of cool, but I knew in the wrong hands if someone from Venice (like a Dahlin) were to pull electrical cord it could spell disaster—suffocation and murder. Nervously, I looked around for any of my people who might be suspiciously hovering around the outlet before I decided to enter the bubble. My older brother, Tony, wasn’t there so I didn’t have to worry about electrocution.

About midnight we drove up Tuna Canyon Road towards the top of the mountain range where it intersected Saddle Peak Road. We turned off our lights and rolled quietly onto a dirt road and ditched the cars. There was a big locked gate that we had to climb around to get in.

The moon was only half-full. This gave us enough light to see the path in front of us and also made it dark enough for this clandestine operation.

We heard footsteps approaching that scared the beegebees out of all of us. We took some minor injuries by jumping off the road. Boys and girls huddled together—this part was good—seven seconds, remember? But we could not see the security guards armed with machine guns who were slowly moving along the path searching out intruders. Some alcohol and other herbs were involved, and though hunted, giggles still prevailed.

 Sheeze Louise. We were goners.

 

The armed security guards turned out to be two curious llamas. As we walked along the windy ridge road towards the Moon Fire Temple, James Moore told us the story behind, Lewis Beach Marvin III, the eccentric who built the place and the animals he had brought in – like llamas and camels and “Lions and tigers and bears—Oh my!”

James knows everything. Even though some people believe that the Temple was built for the 1966 movie called Harper, starring Paul Newman and Lauren Bacall, he said that wasn’t true.

He said, Mr. Marvin, the heir to the S&H Green Stamps fortune built the place. James said that this Marvin person had a bunch of artsy-type friends and musicians who came and performed there—like The Doors, Van Morrison, George Harrison, and Janis Joplin.

 

Where it gets weird, is that James says the Manson Family was also part of Marvin’s motley crew who painted bizarre cultic circles all over the place just a couple years ago that lead to a raid by the FBI.

Coming around the ridge we saw the round temple and quietly stepped onto marble flooring with the round moat that had a giant fire-pit inside in the shape of eye. The top was open to the sky and we could feel the eclectic vibes of the hippie ranch and the eerie feeling of crossing paths with the likes of the Charles Manson cult.

 

Whispers grew. Giggles and wonder abounded. Shushing from the “shushing-police” died. We spun, taking in the 360-degree view from the top of the Santa Monica mountains. We jumped back and forth across the dry moat and explored some of the abandoned side rooms as budding romantic-relationships bloomed.

I had my eyes on a couple girls, but I struck out—dang that seven-seconds.   

This would become the first of many trips to Moon Fire or "The Temple in the Clouds." 

On the way out we heard the llamas approaching and walked boldly towards them until we saw the oncoming lights of two jeeps that must have had key access to the large front gates.

Back into bushes.

Quiet this time. The threat was real. Apocalypse pending, we crawled through the rugged chaparral and prickly manzanita bushes. We made it to the cars and escaped.

Hours later, Palma and the girls and the groupies and the casual followers left the Moore’s house that left a small group of us water polo guys who spent the night, for the even more dangerous frivolities that followed the next day. 

DON’T! 

Please don’t, ever allow stupid guys with tricycles loose on the top of steep mountain roads. Trust me it only spells disaster.  

NEXT TIME.

Death on Tuna Canyon Road.   

Oops another second.  hehe 

   

Girls at Saint Monica's credit: Mark Mullineaux Facebook Post 

Harper Movie Poster credit: http://www.impawards.com/1966/harper_xlg.html

Moon Fire on side of cliff overlooking ocean credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/30369681@N03/9317732954/in/album-72157634692817677/

Moon Fire pics Credit: Wall Street Journal “A Cosmic Crash Pad”   http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324705104578147121874414006

Charles Manson credit: http://history1900s.about.com/od/1960s/p/charlesmanson.htm

S&H Green Stamps credit: http://myauctionfinds.com/2010/06/09/licking-and-gluing-s-h-green-stamps/

The Red Light District in Amsterdam and the Fat Lady.

Summer 1971: I am fourteen-year old from Venice, stuck in a giant flying-sausage—a metal apparatus with wings and on my way to Europe. Just because I'm skinny and look like a twelve-year-old, I think the airlines thought it would be okay to stuff a fat lady next to me. Parts of her rolled over the armrest and shared a third of my seat without me giving consent.

Sigh

She didn't cover her mouth fast enough when she sneezed and I was hit at least 200 times by blast of warm, toxic, germ-laden winds coming at me at well over hurricane speed in excess of 100 miles an hour.

I tried to stick my head in the small crack between the other seat next to mine to breathe air from behind. This worked fine for about the first 63 sneezes until something warm, gooey and dripping got jammed into my mouth.

The snotty-nosed kid behind me decided to share his Tootsie Pop (and whatever childhood diseases he was carrying) with me by cramming the half-chewed lolli-pop in my mouth.

I thought of the hamper. I thought of babies and diapers and somewhere over the Atlantic I began heaving and gagging.

This is the point that I typically make a run for the bathroom. But I couldn't get out—I was stuck—wedged in by the behemoth next to me.

Violent heaving.

My brain involuntarily communicated with my stomach (it was some form of psychosis, said my Aunt Mary—my brothers used other words). Doesn't matter, the result is the same. Vomit filled my cheeks and I didn't know about the throw-up bags in the back of the seat in front of me.

I pressed my face tighter between the seats and projectile-puked on the little kid. He deserved it—it was probably brought on by some kind of fungus living in his nostril cavities. After that initial stream, when I turned around, it was like a broken hose from a firetruck. I didn't mean to get the business man to my right (who wouldn't give me the window seat) but by the time I finished, the eruption from Mount Vesuvius mostly ended up on the large lady whom I had been forced to share a seat with.

Although there was a lot of panic and most everyone was mad at me, we were too far across the Atlantic to turn the plane around. I didn't broadcast to everyone that I had mental problems. I just made them think I was airsick.

One stewardess cleaned me up, cuddled me and put me in first class.

Hum? Kindness! I wasn't used to that. She held my hand (and not in some kind of sick way - like the senior girl on the bus - the Santa Monica 3 Lincoln).  Human touch. Compassion with no strings attached. A new feeling. Love?
       
I watched the regular people sleep and had lots of time to think about love and my place in the universe.

The Chittys picked me up at the Munich Airport. I was the first one off the plane—I needed fresh air and to be free—claustrophobia!

The American school teachers stationed at the US Army Base were wonderful host to me.

 




They took me to the site of where they were busy building for the 1972 Olympics in Munich next year.
















The Olympic tower was completed but more construction was underway—fast and furious.












They they drove up me alone the Rhine where we visited magnificent castles. I found out that the Germans ate mayonnaise with their french fries - YUCK!

We went into France and the Netherlands and stayed in Amsterdam. They even took me to the infamous "Red Light District." Hormones were setting in (FINALLY), needless to say I was intrigued by the half-naked women in windows, but it made me feel dirty - GROSS!  (No pictures for you to look at)! 

The owner of one of the houses we stayed at told me that the Apollo 11 moon landing 2 years ago was a hoax and was filmed on a sound-stage in Hollywood. WOW!



Windmills
Tulips






Then to Austria—to Salzburg—where I got to slide down the wooden ramps to the underground salt mine tour...









....then to the alps and to Hitler's eagle nest.

I



Think I would have hated it had we been to Dachau first, but at this point, I was just a stupid tourist.

Hitler's Great room .

From there we went to Dachau.

I saw the places where they did awful human experiments and the hideous ovens where they did detestable things that sickened my stomach.



I realized that the world was bigger than Venice and Santa Monica and my few visits to B and B Hardware and Tito'sTacos in Culver City.














There was true evil in the world. There were sinister forces of hatred, racism, injustice, intolerance and evil that lurked the basement of humanity for centuries.



I had seen it here at the Nazi concentration camp and had experienced that darkness in a way that does damage to the heart of a child.

I vote for compassion and kindness and wanted to know even more what this elusive thing called "love" was all about.

I wish I could go back in time and tell the large lady next to me I was sorry for making fun of her—even if it was only in my mind.

    "I are now a world traveler."


And it is good to be back home in Venice, to a place where crazy was normal. To my house and to the Boardwalk with King Solomon the Snake Charmer....

...and Milo, the dude with dreads, on roller skates with a electric guitar and an amplifier strapped to his back.


Home to the normal I knew.


Credit Picture of Venice http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/11652599


     

Hormones. Hodads. Harding: Nothing Makes Sense

The more I try to make sense of the world, it seems that the more nothing makes sense.

I am short and skinny and look like I’m a seventh-grader.

Impatiently I pray at night for more reluctant hair to show up under my arm pits—infuriated at the practical joke God was playing on me. Here I am, FOURTEEN in high school among towering mature oaks—gorillas with hair all over their bodies. 

I’m in love withAndrea, walk among the apes and have only two freaking hairs under my right arm pit. The small pond of choice at Saint Mark’s has grown into a very large sea at Saint Monica High School. 

I am frightened that Andrea now had the option of picking from the slick-surfers donning mustaches from the Palisades. I am merely minnow in the vast ocean.

It was spring – something was happening in my body that I couldn’t explain other than the fact that I was officially twitterpated.  It is time to take matters into my own hands. I wrote her a love letter (Though Paul Anka and Annette Funicello may see it as nothing more than puppy love – It is real to ME!). Never-the-less, this is a secret to keep from the Wolf-Pack. Couldn’t let my family find out about my secret crush–they would most certainly use this information against me somehow.

I tucked the note into my Pee-chee folder and was determined to give it to her at school.

Lunch.  

At lunch!  

That was my plan. 

I begged AlexDelgadillo for food.  As with our new tradition, he opened the bun on the hamburger his mother made him and handed me the pickles. 

“STOP!” James Moore charlie-horsed me in the thigh, to stop the nervous jitters of my leg that had been driving him crazy. 

“Hyper” I said, as an excuse—never knowing when it was happening.  Everyone had been calling me hyper for so long that I figured I might as well use it as my alibi. 

This. Was. It.

This was the moment of truth. 

I saw her—she looked my way. My heart stopped or my breathing or something.  Shock.  Excitement. Nervous. She still had a thing for me. YES! I still had a chance.

I stood. She walked in my direction. I fumbled pulling the folded paper out of my pee-chee folder. I crushed it in my fist. I breathed—I tried to.  Nervously, collecting my thoughts I took a step towards her and looked down for one second at the hand that held my undying declaration of love for her way back since sixth grade. I looked up as she walked right past me and right up to a guy standing in the ally way between the gym and the music room.

She wasn’t looking at me. She was looking past me. I glared. She smiled and giggled and even tilted her head. TILTED HER HEAD. Did you hear what I just said? You know the tilt girls do when they are “in-like.” She tilted her head to a stupid surfer kid from Santa Monica. 

UGHhhhhh...someone help me please! 

I was ruined. Where were you in the spring of 1971? If you were anywhere on the West-coast, the odds are, you probably heard the sound of my heart breaking?  

Minnow yes—plankton maybe –in a large ocean filled with sharks, hairy apes and giant oaks. I placed one of Alex’s pickles in the love-letter and ate it. The swim-team guys thought I was retarded.  Nothing made sense—not love—not hormones or puberty—NOT girls.

Words I thought I’d never say: “Today I need you Wolf Pack.” I was numb. “I needed to be put in a pit or hung out of a window. I needed to be electrocuted or tied up in a straight jacket and thrown over a cliff. I needed to get into a fight with someone.  I needed Richard to steal my chocolate. I needed Erick and the band of Angry-Little-Men to ambush me.” 

I am a Zombie in need. I was drifting. I needed James Moore to try to hit me in the leg one more time.

Despondent, I skipped swim practice and hitchhiked—home, half-hoping to be kidnapped, and got only as far as POP.

Surf-rats turned skater-rats were hanging out at the ruins. 

Dude it was on. 

Here I was in my catholic uniform completely out of my element right where I needed to be. Two rough looking kids screamed profanity at me and walked up as if I had invaded sacred territory—in surf talk—a “hodad.” This was my day to die. This was my chance to be pummeled, to feel pain, to feel alive.

“Dahlin?” one of them asked.  

I came straight out of the Dahlin cookie-cutter mold and looked just like my brother Karl who, along with Bruce Grant and Jeff Ho, surfed there all the time. I nodded. 

"Cool." Knowing I was a Dahlin from Venice this kid, Tony, offered me a toke of a joint they were smoking.   

                      I had a decision to make. 

To toke or not to toke that is the question?

Oh BTW two years later...  

On March 15, 1972, DJ Robert W. Morgan played the Donny Osmond version of Puppy Love for 90 minutes straight on KHJ in Los Angeles. The LAPD mistakenly raided the station studios after receiving numerous calls from listeners. Confused, the officers left without making any arrests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppy_Love_(Paul_Anka_song)     (It was right for people to call the cops it was torture)!

Pee chee folder Picture credit https://www.flickr.com/groups/peecheefolderart/pool/

POP picture 1 credit: Facebook post the rise and fall of Pacific Ocean Park 

POP picture 2  credit: Facebook post ?  

Pride Prejudice and Zombies

He had lips that looked they were good for kissing, the kind you see on women in the movies.  Although he was Mexican he had this pasty skin like a desert gecko that looked as if it had never been out in the sun. I don’t why for sure but my stomach wanted to heave whenever he got within a yard or two. Every day in class I tried to be as invisible as possible and did everything I could to avoid making eye contact.

One way was to spend most of my time flying jet airplanes outside in the wide blue yonder. I could be Chuck Yeager or some fighter pilot doing loops and flying upside down while Earnestine and Alex and the other poor ordinary-humans in my history class were in their seats—attentive—slaves to his gooey words and scary eyes.  

      Not me.  I was free. Sometimes.  

Sometimes—not. 

When he yelled my named it was like getting hit by a missile and downed behind enemy lines.  So much for my flight of fantasy. I didn’t mind the fact that all the other kids were staring at me—I was used to that by now. It was something in the way he stared at me that literally sickened me.  He smirked with a grin like the Cheshire cat about to eat the head off a mouse. I shivered and slunk down in chair feeling like he had caught me half-naked in the janitor’s closet again—only this time he gloated as if he had been the one who undressed me and I was his cat-nip.  

I didn’t like Brother Michael. I broke from his yucky gaze by pretending to read the textbook. I had no idea what page we were on—heck I had no idea what chapter we were in. The other kids seemed to like him—not me. He would walk up and down the isles with his soft-pasty-skin and brush against my chair as if trying to send me a message—and look—and grin.

I prayed against my vomit superpowers—and prayed to have them at the ready.    

He walked back to the front of the class and made some gross sexual innuendos about how Catherine the Great died—American History or not, this his favorite story year after year. It was above my pay grade. He talked about a horse or something and laughed and got excited as he watched the other boys laugh. He seemed to take more pleasure in it all than he should have.  

                 Gross, right?  

                            Am I right?

Was I wrong to feel this way about this priest-type-person, a Catholic Brother—whatever the heck that means?  

I never read the textbooks—I was too busy flying jet airplanes and daydreaming about Andrea.

You and I must make a pact, we must bring salvation back

Where there is love, I'll be there

I'll reach out my hand to you, I'll have faith in all you do

Just call my name and I'll be there.

It was here at Saint Mo’s I thought I would find out the meaning of love.  I didn’t know. We didn’t use the “L” word in my house. Never heard my mother say it.  Never heard my father say it. I wanted to know and I hoped Andrea would save me before I become a completely numb to human emotions—a Zombie.  Don’t leave me Andrea—make a pact with me—save me.  Show me what love is. Help me. Help me discover what it means to love and to be loved.         

Just call my name and I'll be there

And oh - I'll be there to comfort you,

Build my world of dreams around you, I'm so glad that I found you

I'll be there with a love that's strong

I'll be your strength, I'll keep holding on - yes I will, yes I will.

Andrea don’t you know that I’m too stupid, too small, too insecure. I don’t want to lose you—hold out your hand—look over your shoulder—say something.  Take initiative and rescue me—I’m here and I promise I'll be there.

Still talking to my textbook, the room was empty and the class had been over for who-knows-how long.  

Stupid!

I sat and stared at Andrea’s chair. Puberty had hit. Hormones were exploding my brain cells and I wanted her to show me what love was. I wanted to feel it. I wanted tender human contact.  I wanted someone to say the word to me. I wanted to know that it existed in the universe and that it was real—like I belonged here on this planet—like earth was my home. 

It was World’s Finest Chocolate day. School was over and I had a ginormous box of fundraising chocolate we were forced to sell. 

Two of the kids who were at least a foot taller than me—the guys who had gone through puberty in the sixth grade and sporting mustaches in the seventh grade—caused a ruckus at the bus stop. It was the 3 Lincoln taking all of us Saint Mark kids back to Venice and the Saint Gerard kids back to Culver City.

 These prideful jerks played football and were prejudice against water polo players—especially water polo players with blonde hair. 

Pride and Prejudice. No two ways about it. 

Towering over me, Ricky poked me in the chest, but I stood my ground because Marilyn and Theresa and Julie and Andrea were there. Pshaw, I don’t think Ricky knew that I had to fight just about every single day at home against the Wolf-Pack. He had no idea that I had to take on two, three and sometimes four at a time. He didn't know that I bested an alligator and a veloci-raptor. He didn’t know that I a condition and lacked the ability to feel physical pain whenever adrenaline set in.

I set my box of chocolates down and hoped that I didn’t kill him if he attacked me—it would be his fault. I would probably go for the head like I did with “Cursey” in the fifth grade. Big guys hate it when you jump on their head.

He did that lame thing where he acted tough by thrusting his chest and head forward in my direction. I didn't flinch. I tried to keep the inner Pit-bull at bay. I looked him in the eye. I don’t think he liked what he saw and he walked away making some snide remark that all the kids laughed at—at me. Big deal. I was used to it. Lie. You never get used to it. I spun around to pick up my box of chocolates and it was gone.

The whole thing was a ruse. Jim had slipped away with the box when I was being distracted. I stood there and looked like an idiot.  Zombie-like I got on the bus and made sure not make eye contact with anyone because I had been played for the fool.

Andrea, I don't know how this thing works. Phyllis Dillar, Please be right. Love if you’re out there find me! 

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