Muhammad Ali, Moldy Bread and Markie D

March 8^th, 1971 Moldy Bread. 

A tribute to my hero and the greatest.    

I felt like I had dug a hole and put my heart in a box. It was shrinking and turning to stone. I buried it to keep it safe. I wanted one thing—to know genuine love and to feel accepted. I put on a pretty good show, but in reality I was terribly afraid of rejection and burying my heart six feet under was one way to cope.  

Without a heart I was nothing more than a robot—a robot with skin—a freshman in high school who was a mere collection of mechanical parts and all kinds of gears that turned inside. I fooled most people into thinking I was human—like I was a real person.  But I wasn’t and they didn’t know.  My family didn’t know me and the shame was so great that I couldn’t share any of my secrets with them—with anyone. 

Maybe it was better that my brothers and sisters didn’t care to really know who I was. I was damaged goods and didn't want the world to know. 

My best friend, Tommy, didn't know. Jeffrey didn't know.

The Blasers didn't know and the Lennons didn't know. Maybe it was better this way.  

My faint pulse was only the beating of the metal pistons beating up and down. I cried when I watched the Wizard of Oz because I was the Tin Man. Like Pinocchio I wanted to become a real boy. I hoped against hope that Andrea would show me the way. 

But,NO!  She hugged that other boy and now my heart was broken and dreams dashed. I dug a deeper hole for that vault that contained my heart. Thankfully that crazy skater kid who I ran into at the ruins of POP, Tony Alva, offered me pot and that made me feel like I could be real someday. Maybe there was some hope for this piece of moldy bread—Tin man—Zombie.

 Thum-thump thum-thump  

My oldest brother was a fanatic fan of World Heavy Weight Boxing Champion, Muhammad Ali.

Though Tony was the mad genius and instigator of inventive sibling torture, he had been kind to me. He and his girlfriend, Patty took me shopping and bought me clothes in the Sixth grade. 

What you don’t know is that the turtleneck sweater I’m wearing (in the picture above) is not really a turtleneck sweater. It’s a dicky—a turtleneck thingy attached to two small squares of fabric. Don’t ask me why they invented something so ridiculous.  But the truth is that I have no shirt on under this jacket—just this square, phony dicky. Goes to show ya - "Things on the inside aren’t always what they appear to be on the outside."   

And because Tony liked Muhammad Ali, I like Muhammad Ali. Ali may have said this to the world, but he may have well said to me, "If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you."  

“God, I don't know who 'they' are but could you please make something out of this moldy bread. Turn me into penicillin or something.”

Ali is the greatest and tonight he returns to the ring. We had something in common. Like me, he had wrestled an alligator and tussled with a whale. Me too. Me too. Unless of course, he really didn't wrestle an alligator or have a run-in with a rogue whale like he said in one of his famous saying—I did. 

"I done wrestled with an alligator; I done tussled with a whale.

Handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail.

Only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick.

I'm so mean I make medicine sick."

Ali was the greatest and tonight at Square Garden place in New York he would pummel Joe Frasier, who was also an undefeated champion in 

The Fight of the Century.  

But we had to wait until the newspapers tomorrow to find out. I think the reason I had so much interest in the fight was that it wasn’t Ali in the ring—it was me. He said I could become something and I believed him. We had a contract. 

It was me against all of my fears. It was me and all of my secrets. This victory tonight meant that I had the chance to become real—a human—a person. There might still be hope that I could find love and be loved.  

Our house was full—full of hippies and brothers and family and strangers who had been welcomed and brought in from the outside. 

But I was on the outside looking in as if only occupying space in our big Venice house. 

You get the Idea!

So I had a lot at stake this fight—it was me against the world. Tony was fan and wanted to see a good fight, but I needed Muhammed Ali to win. 

That thing Andrea did. That hug. Put me on the ropes. My personal Zombie Apocalypse was on the line.  The faint sound of Thum-Thump Thum-Thump you hear is the faint sound of my heart coming through the floor boards like in Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart"    

I needed Frasier to go down in six. I needed a victory. I needed to know that I would one day free my heart and that I could be kind-of-human. “If I only had a heart.” 

When a man's an empty kettle he should be on his mettle,

And yet I'm torn apart.

Just because I'm presumin' that I could be kind-a-human,

If I only had heart.

I'd be tender - I'd be gentle and awful sentimental

Regarding Love and Art.

I'd be friends with the sparrows ...

and the boys who shoots the arrows

If I only had a heart.

photo credits:

Dicky: http://nocef.com/crochet-dicky-pattern/

Frasier v. Ali Poster:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_of_the_Century

Pistons: https://www.pinterest.com/ian6394/work-stuff-very-cool-stuff/

POP ruins: credit in prior post 

To Toke or Not to Toke - The Law of the Jungle

Captain's Log: Star-date 1971  

To smoke or not to smoke?  That was the question (this is where I left off last time).

Tony Alva offered me an olive branch or a “peace pipe” of acceptance. 

I was in.

By smoking his doobie I could freely roam the ruins of Pacific Ocean Park pier. This certainly took the edge off the feeling that I had been rejected by Andrea—my one true love.  

In that second, I thought about love and how desperately I wanted to know the feeling that other people feel. When Andrea wrapped herself around the neck of that surfer-dude from Santa Monica my dreams were now dashed like a shipwreck being tossed back and forth on an angry tide on the jagged Santa Monica breakwater rocks.  

This kid inhaled and held it out to me. 

If I was going to toke on a joint for the first time—it should be with the Wolf Pack.  

Smoking pot just might be my way in.

Maybe my older brothers and the other Harding Hippies would accept me and want me around for something more than just a play toy or to experiment with some newfangled trap of some sort.   

Waving him off, Tony frowned, shrugged his shoulders and passed it along. He and his tribe allowed me to slip away from the domain of his rat’s nest unharmed.  

POP was nothing like it's glory days.  

The walk home to Venice was a good time to think. I paused under the 200-year-old Banyan Fig tree at Hollister Ave and Neilson Way and eventually crossed over at “Heroine Park” at Main Street and Westminster.

I walked down Washington Blvd that was nothing more than a bunch of old vacant and rundown buildings behind the ghetto.

I thought about visiting Dego who lived on Electric, but decided to head back to Hippy Central at my house—via the Venice Troop 32 Boy Scout House near the railroad tracks.  A bounce returned to my step. 

Even though I had a dark secret I was not a victim.         I had friends. 

I belonged to a group of water polo players and swimmers at Saint Monica’s. 

I belonged to Troop 32. Heck yeah, we were the most disorderly Boy Scout Troop in the world, but I belonged and had fought my way to the top of that kingdom hierarchy. 

  

So Andrea chose another…so what?  I had a best friend next door and the craziest family in the animal kingdom.  

 

Still?

I wanted to belong to my own pack at home. I wanted to be accepted by my own and protected.  

Maybe Tony Alva was on to something. 

Maybe the way to join my brother’s club was to be become a reefer-smoking-junior-hippie. 

But, what if I said yes and what if I took a hit and what if they still rejected me—what then?

 

I wanted in—I think?

NOW this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky,

And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.      

As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back;       

For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

Walking up Crestmore Ave Mrs. Gass saw me talking to myself—arguing with God really, but she didn’t know that.  I smiled and waved. 

God is this too much to ask for?

I nodded to Leland as I rounded the corner and eventually made it home to the most exciting house in America or in California—certainly in Venice. 

"Hi Mrs. Mcclain"

"Hi Mrs. Tripp"

"Hi Mrs. Blaser"

    yep—yep I could hear Mrs Nargie.

It was late and by this time, the backyard was bound to full of a menagerie of Lennons, Blasers, Grants, the H Club, Kleghorn, stragglers and strangers.   

I was finally home to scheming hippies and hibernating turtles. Home to the infamous Veloci-Raptor who made war with a Catholic nun. 

Home to vagrant carburetors and leaning towers of a half-century’s worth of decaying National Geographic’s. Chickens outside of cages and rabbits inside poorly constructed ones. 

Cars on blocks—three sailboats and a 1956 MG cohabitating under the palm tree. 

Rusted bikes with missing wheels, outboard motors in trashcans full of water, lawnmowers that I don’t think ever worked and several tools we borrowed from the Blasers (borrowed in the loose translation of the word). 

And lots of cars that didn’t work and trucks used as trash barges.   

I was home. Home to the snakes, the chuckwallas, the Iguanas, Leopard lizards and two new kittens on the porch. 

Best of all, I was home to my favorite person on earth—my little beagle Pooch.  Now, all I would have to do is go to the back and smoke some hooch. 

Yes I was home, but with a hole in my heart and contemplating my future being spurned by Andrea and being apart.

Home without a girlfriend or Pack –tree trunk forward or back—no strength—no place in the jungle in a law as old and as true as the sky, no way to prosper—and feeling like I wanted to die. 

Why Andrea? Why?

I took two steps and stopped and couldn’t bring myself to go back—there was someone I feared in the Pack.

I strapped on my boxing gloves and lay down in bed—I pleaded or fought or yelled at God and told Him it was His fault and then asked for His protection against the evil we had unleashed into the world.   

Next Stop: The Venice BSA Infection spreads to the Sacramento Deltas via the concentration camp at Dachau... and who let Lyman drive the houseboat anyway?   

And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.  

Images credits: 

Kids running at ruins of POP Facebook post (don't know who to credit)

POP ruins: Facebook post the rise and fall of Pacific Ocean Park 

POP bubbles: Facebook  Photos of Los Angeles by Bill Gabel

POP in its Glory days Postcard: Facebook (don't know who to credit) 

All other pictures: mine 

  

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