I got stoned one afternoon with Panama Red. THE Panama Red, of the famous song. He was no longer in his namesake business, he said, but instead sold used computer hardware to Deadheads. He wouldn’t say where he lived, but it was somewhere in the mountains above Santa Cruz, tucked away, ever wary. The Man, he said. The Man. He gave me a suspicious look, then drew deep from an enormous reefer, and the room was filled with sweet blue smoke.
Author Archives: Brick Wahl
Dream
A bunch of us were jammed into an SUV somewhere in north Orange County when there was a distant boom and in seconds a mushroom cloud rose in the direction of downtown L.A. It’s OK, I said, we should be out of range of the blast, and I turned the car south to safety when another boom and a mushroom cloud rose a few miles ahead of us. This is it, I thought, and bolted upright in the dark, awake. A nuclear war dream. I hadn’t had one of those since the cold war.
Back patting
Back patter. I’m a back patter. Not normally, but give me a little juice and I’m a big Irish joker and back patter. I just never realized it. There was a party at our house and a lady went on a passionate oratorical bender. We were all rendered momentarily speechless with admiration. Then, drunkenly, I said great job and patted her on the back, lightly, twice. Pat pat. Surprised, she flinched. Holy shit, I thought, I’m a back patter. Suddenly it seemed touchy sleazy. Suddenly it seemed beyond the pale. I have not patted a back since, man’s or woman’s. Grown up or child. Dog or cat. OK, I have patted a dog on the back. But cats hate it.
Waverly Terrace
We just don’t live in Silver Lake anymore, we live in Waverly Terrace Silver Lake. Or is it Silver Lake Waverly Terrace? This is what happens when Katy Perry moves into the neighborhood. Maybe we’ll be a gated community soon.
Anyway they even invited us to join their private online network. But we’re too stuck up. Stuck up on Waverly Terrace.
Life is rough.
Undrinking problem
I remember the time a doctor told me I was an alcoholic. But I barely drink, I said. He gave me a look. Denial, he said, was part of my problem. But doctor, I scarcely drink. When I go out to I’ll have a drink or two, and just every once in a while at home. I barely qualify as a social drinker. I’m writing you a referral for our alcoholism counseling service, he said. But I’m not a drunk I said again. It will be OK, he said.
A friend asked if I went to the counseling. No, I said, I’m not an alcoholic. I barely drink. You didn’t go to the AA meetings? Of course not. But this is Hollywood, he said. A former drinking buddy of his met David Bowie that way. I don’t care, I said, I’m not going to go to AA meetings. It’s your life, he said.
Last night
Got asked for the zillionth time last night how we’ve been married forever. Well, I said, it’s been thirty eight years of me mansplaining to an Indian who’s not gonna listen to a white man no matter what. Fyl laughed. The earnest questioner was as bewildered as before. Maybe you think about it too much Fyl marriedsplained, and the tenor player began a gorgeous, perfect Skylark, Fyl closing her eyes as jazz love filled the room.
January 6
Today’s the day that all the Eastern Orthodox kids had their second Christmas. That’s all I knew about the Great Schism when I was a kid, that the Greek kids down the street got two Christmases and the Irish kids just got one. Anyway, Merry Christmas, Greek kids.
Xmas free again
The pad is utterly Xmas free again. Every year there is a Christmas explosion that fills the house, and then just as suddenly it reverse explodes back onto the closet shelf, all of it but the tree (which goes wherever sacrificed trees go), a crazed Christmas party’s worth of stuff reboxed with an inherited Germanic efficiency that my Irish half observes with lazy poetry.
Evolutionary dead end
Apparently if you slip your phone into your shirt pocket without shutting it down and then forget about it for a couple hours strange things happen. I’d retreated to the bar and between songs odd sounds were emanating from somewhere. I paid them no mind as I hang out in weird bars. As the bartendress did not seem especially interested in the story of life I reached for my phone to admire myself in my blog–I used to be so clever–when I realized it was on and the odd sounds I’d been hearing were from an enthusiastic Filipino/Filipina shemale thoroughly bespattered with DNA that had reached its evolutionary dead end. Imagine my surprise. Just as several women descended on me for drunken New Year’s Eve’s Eve hugs I managed to shut that particular window, and noticed between hugs and slurred Happy New Year’s that there were a dozen windows open on my phone screen, all safe for work, one of which, somehow, was my Hotmail spam folder, and either blind chance or fate managed to pop open the email titled “Hot Philipeno shemale!!!” and activate the link. Hence the odd sounds emanating from my shirt pocket. I never look at my Hotmail spam folder, and a good thing too, as it was full of videos of doomed DNA. I deleted its contents, ignoring the metaphor, then closed all the open windows, turned the phone off and thought safe, sweet analog thoughts the rest of the night.
Whew.
How bored we will be.
I’m really beginning to miss my CD player. This steampunk vinyl and just plain embarrassing cassette revival I’ve been living is getting old, and everything downloaded on the computer just gets dull, it’s so easy, an omen of how bored we will all be when computers and machines do everything for us, even posting things like this without any missteaks.
Brick Wahl 