Bullhead City. Weather? Hot, hot, blast furnace hot, hot enough you don't have to light up the barbecue grill, the reflection of the mobile home or the trailer wall is enough. Grill a burger, fry an omelet, melt your mind. Nobody cares, everyone's overheated, saturated with sun, and the water runs forever in this desert oasis, just runs and runs, finally ending in border runoff .
I should have stayed there, in Laughlin, at least a night. The food was good at the Black Bear diner. The rooms are cheap. The Mexicans own the border these days, but we own the water. Not sure which is more pressing, but drug trafficking won't stop, until we stop demanding it. All the water in the Colorado is diverted, dammed, channeled, carried by canal or aqueduct to California Arizona. The Mexicans get none.
Jet skis skim the water like flies jumping in the morning on a cool trout stream, cash-fat casinos drain wallets of sweaty travelers who like the cheap alternative to Vegas. Laughlin is small time. Bullhead City is the border town. Draws in all types of folk, you see them in the back alleys and the gravel drives, mostly staying indoors though, in the heat. They come out at night. The old run down trailers gather together in the trees along the shore of the Colorado, riverfront property, sheet metal homesteads on blocks.
The town looks hit and miss, come and go, people on the run, looking for the quick fix. They move on. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think so. They're there. The signs are all around if you know what to look for. Liquor stores on the odd corner, out on the highway standing alone. Asian Massage. Low rent rooms, all night buffets across the river, motorcycle shops and four wheel drive after-market parts where they put anything on a vehicle and make it desert-ready.
Down river, the Parker Strip is jet boats, water skiing, campgrounds, moveable vacation homes on wheels, an upscale version of Bullhead City. Floating beer bars. A veneer of respectability. But not much. It's beer soaked, less rust, but it still has that feel about it, like people there don't have too many choices.
Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think so.
Maybe I'm not seeing something. I don't think so.
I'll look, next time. Try and find what I'm missing. But I don't think so.
7.27.2009
7.24.2009
7.17.2009
LARRY KING AND THE POP
James Rainey had an interesting column this morning in the LA Times about Larry King and the elder's fascination with the death of Michael Jackson. Rainey details King's endless programs with speculation about the cause, who's at fault, even speculating on the speculators, like 'who's going to reveal the truth', 'where is this going', and the endlessly driven drivel of an aging talk show host who really, really, should just hang it up. I thought Greta Van Sustern was the stamina queen for driving shock stories into the ground, with the Natalie Holloway parade from the shores of Aruba and the live stand-up from the Jackson family estate in Encino.
Me? Of the three recent celebrity deaths that opened the summer with some notoriety; John Carradine, asphyxiated in a Bangkok hotel room (did he pay the bar fine?), Michael Jackson and another possible OD to add to LA's long lineup of entertainment-related cardiac arrests, and Arturo Gatti getting in in Rio from his young Brazilian wife, I have to say if I could choose, Gotti's is the way to go.
It's in Gotti's genes to have a bloody death, and we have the HBO2 trilogy on tonight to get right into the heart of Gotti's bloody heart and head. Legendary battles with Mickey Ward notwithstanding, Gotti gained fame fighting in the East Coast as a stylish brawler, the latest in a long line of brutes who please crowds and earn paychecks. With Gotti, you knew it was going to be bloody and you knew he'd go down in heroic fashion.
Carradine, what was he, in his early seventies? Hey, if I have heart palpitations or chest pains, I might just jump on a plane to Bangkok, grab me a bar girl and go out in some style. Better than OD'ing with a doctor at my side with a mouthful of prescription pills made out to Bret Bray or some phoney who's picking up my meds under a pseudo name.
Larry King, now how old is he, really? I mean, sans the badly colored hair and a few heart attacks, by-pass surgeries, what's in it for the former radio-meister gone cable host? Really.. Great career, Rolodex second to none, but dude, you're in LA, for God's sake, have someone spike your martinis at Musso and Franks, take a dive off the top row at Dodger Stadium and end up in the dugout, drive off the bluff at Griffith Park ala James Dean in 'Rebel'. . .just do it. You had a run, you had a go, you were the man. . .twenty years ago, and now you're holding on to celebrity through the death of a weird genius and we all need to move on. So let's move on.
I'm moving on.
Me? Of the three recent celebrity deaths that opened the summer with some notoriety; John Carradine, asphyxiated in a Bangkok hotel room (did he pay the bar fine?), Michael Jackson and another possible OD to add to LA's long lineup of entertainment-related cardiac arrests, and Arturo Gatti getting in in Rio from his young Brazilian wife, I have to say if I could choose, Gotti's is the way to go.
It's in Gotti's genes to have a bloody death, and we have the HBO2 trilogy on tonight to get right into the heart of Gotti's bloody heart and head. Legendary battles with Mickey Ward notwithstanding, Gotti gained fame fighting in the East Coast as a stylish brawler, the latest in a long line of brutes who please crowds and earn paychecks. With Gotti, you knew it was going to be bloody and you knew he'd go down in heroic fashion.
Carradine, what was he, in his early seventies? Hey, if I have heart palpitations or chest pains, I might just jump on a plane to Bangkok, grab me a bar girl and go out in some style. Better than OD'ing with a doctor at my side with a mouthful of prescription pills made out to Bret Bray or some phoney who's picking up my meds under a pseudo name.
Larry King, now how old is he, really? I mean, sans the badly colored hair and a few heart attacks, by-pass surgeries, what's in it for the former radio-meister gone cable host? Really.. Great career, Rolodex second to none, but dude, you're in LA, for God's sake, have someone spike your martinis at Musso and Franks, take a dive off the top row at Dodger Stadium and end up in the dugout, drive off the bluff at Griffith Park ala James Dean in 'Rebel'. . .just do it. You had a run, you had a go, you were the man. . .twenty years ago, and now you're holding on to celebrity through the death of a weird genius and we all need to move on. So let's move on.
I'm moving on.
7.16.2009
5.30.2009
CUT AND TRIM
Remington, Sunbeam, I don’t even know the brand, and I’ve got two of them but only one works, electric shavers and trimmers to tidy up sprouts of eyebrows and ear stuff that makes me look old and then I thought about Roy, seeing him walking with his wife and his dog and I stopped yesterday as I was driving by, dropped the window to say hello. Floyd came over to the car, leaned in, pulled a patch off of his right eye. He looked diminished.
‘How am I doing, or what am I doing?’ he said, arms on the window sill. I said how, and right then I knew it wasn’t good. His eye looked bad.
‘Got a huge melanoma in my eye. They take the eye out next week.’ He twisted his mouth, shook his head. He was fifty yards from his front door, next to the sidewalk around the greenbelt in our neighborhood, where tree trimmers hacked and buzzed the last two days, where dogs bark from behind fences and brick barbecues and under the canopies of hot tubs and gazebos, in the comfort of backyards in this comfortable neighborhood.
I stand in front of the mirror admiring my brown eyes and trimmed brows and yes, I have a few grey hairs I need to pry out or cut back like weeds that spring out this time of year—my hair grows well, Julie Ann said last week when I got mine cut—and I take pride in my well-cut short hair, I don’t have to shave it yet, the sign of either going bald or a mid-life moment gone awry.
‘Can’t talk about it,’ Roy said. ‘Or I fall to pieces.’ His wife stood by on the sidewalk holding the dog on a leash. I don’t know the dog’s name. I don’t know Roy’s wife name. I know Roy. I know Roy, who owned an auto repair shop in town that still bears his name and pays him rent on the land. I know Roy from homeowner’s association meetings and landscape committee walk-throughs where we inspect shrubs and trees, watch the lawn for other-worldly greens we need to eradicate, sterilize, do over-seeding and re-planting and the seasonal work that keeps the neighborhood property values in line even through the downward slide.
Roy knows where I live. He nodded when I reminded him. Anything you need, Roy. He nodded. I grabbed his hand and it was strong. Big hands for a man his size. He moved back to the sidewalk, kicked a pinecone, I nodded to his wife. She had a grim smile. Roy told me once he carried a gun in his compact truck when he rides around in the neighborhood, this coming after a punk robbed a person walking his dog up the street one night. The word about the robbery had gone around the neighborhood. Roy was taking no chances. Said he told the Police Chief he was packing. Wasn’t taking any chances with a gun in his glove compartment. He said the Chief didn’t seem too concerned. A Chief that let a citizen do what he thought was right and didn’t call in the National Guard or something, overreact, trusting a long-time resident in a moment of concern in a neighborhood that had a blip on the radar.
I trimmed out the grey this morning. It looks okay. Julie Ann does a good job on the hair. Two weeks before the next trim. Shampoo, a little conditioner, maybe Elia will have my neck over the bowl, rub my temples, Julie Ann taking her three-hundred dollar scissors across the top, along the sides, carefully around the ears, nice and short, little feathering around the bald spot on the crown. Nice. Check the brows next week for those little stragglers. Listen to the lawnmowers and the weed whackers and leaf blowers on Monday and Tuesday, all the machines and tools for cutting and trimming the unwanted. A scalpel going in to Roy’s eye to pull it out. A silent scream. And then what will the neighborhood look like?
‘How am I doing, or what am I doing?’ he said, arms on the window sill. I said how, and right then I knew it wasn’t good. His eye looked bad.
‘Got a huge melanoma in my eye. They take the eye out next week.’ He twisted his mouth, shook his head. He was fifty yards from his front door, next to the sidewalk around the greenbelt in our neighborhood, where tree trimmers hacked and buzzed the last two days, where dogs bark from behind fences and brick barbecues and under the canopies of hot tubs and gazebos, in the comfort of backyards in this comfortable neighborhood.
I stand in front of the mirror admiring my brown eyes and trimmed brows and yes, I have a few grey hairs I need to pry out or cut back like weeds that spring out this time of year—my hair grows well, Julie Ann said last week when I got mine cut—and I take pride in my well-cut short hair, I don’t have to shave it yet, the sign of either going bald or a mid-life moment gone awry.
‘Can’t talk about it,’ Roy said. ‘Or I fall to pieces.’ His wife stood by on the sidewalk holding the dog on a leash. I don’t know the dog’s name. I don’t know Roy’s wife name. I know Roy. I know Roy, who owned an auto repair shop in town that still bears his name and pays him rent on the land. I know Roy from homeowner’s association meetings and landscape committee walk-throughs where we inspect shrubs and trees, watch the lawn for other-worldly greens we need to eradicate, sterilize, do over-seeding and re-planting and the seasonal work that keeps the neighborhood property values in line even through the downward slide.
Roy knows where I live. He nodded when I reminded him. Anything you need, Roy. He nodded. I grabbed his hand and it was strong. Big hands for a man his size. He moved back to the sidewalk, kicked a pinecone, I nodded to his wife. She had a grim smile. Roy told me once he carried a gun in his compact truck when he rides around in the neighborhood, this coming after a punk robbed a person walking his dog up the street one night. The word about the robbery had gone around the neighborhood. Roy was taking no chances. Said he told the Police Chief he was packing. Wasn’t taking any chances with a gun in his glove compartment. He said the Chief didn’t seem too concerned. A Chief that let a citizen do what he thought was right and didn’t call in the National Guard or something, overreact, trusting a long-time resident in a moment of concern in a neighborhood that had a blip on the radar.
I trimmed out the grey this morning. It looks okay. Julie Ann does a good job on the hair. Two weeks before the next trim. Shampoo, a little conditioner, maybe Elia will have my neck over the bowl, rub my temples, Julie Ann taking her three-hundred dollar scissors across the top, along the sides, carefully around the ears, nice and short, little feathering around the bald spot on the crown. Nice. Check the brows next week for those little stragglers. Listen to the lawnmowers and the weed whackers and leaf blowers on Monday and Tuesday, all the machines and tools for cutting and trimming the unwanted. A scalpel going in to Roy’s eye to pull it out. A silent scream. And then what will the neighborhood look like?
5.26.2009
MILEAGE
Mileage, I call it. When you're surprised by what you hear, where you hear it, what you see and where. . .the signposts of life, the hawk flying close along next to you when you drive, veering up and off to a perch with a nod, letting you know he's there and guiding you along. We all have the 'moments' when things click, go straight down smooth track like ball-bearings on oiled rails, when someone's lovely eyes pierce through a smoky room and land on yours, and she doesn't look away.
When you hear Miles Davis in a store, in a little corner among the hip hop beats and the reggae jams that patter around the jeans and the Sketchers and larger-than-live cutout underwear models in black and white that are, well, embarassing, there's Miles, and pianist Red Garland doing Ahmad's Blues, largely a looping noirish-piano tune (actually, no Miles at all on this cut, from 'Workin' With The Miles Davis Quintet, 1956 on Prestige) that is unmistakable. So I stopped in the middle of the Alfani 'hip' section, smooth cotton t-shirts at half price, silk bowling shirts and wanna-be Tommy Bahama look-alikes, and truly, hip-hop and Reggae tunes coming down just an aisle or two away, but there they were, from a speaker or two, Red, jammin' it on the ivory, I mean really doin' it, right there in Macy's and before I could break out the American Express card and make a fool of myself buying every damn black T and scruffed-faded jeans and bowling shirts and calling to make an appointment to have my hair frosted, I just listened, to the American musical hero's quintet. Miles at Macy's. Last time I heard Miles in a store it was Barnes and Noble, and they sell Miles, of course, so no real Mileage there. But Macy's? Montclair Plaza? Come on, now, that's real, baby, Miles is the real deal, among the men's fragrances and bright blue dress shirts with electric blue ties, hell, I couldn't even FIND the Ralph Lauren Polo section--I think it's gone, and those shirts fit so good--but Red was getting down, romping 1956-STYLE, I mean Prestige baby, in Macy's. . .eleven thirty AM after plugging the Writer's Cafe event I'm co-hosting at the Epicenter in Rancho with twelve hugely successful LA Noir mystery and baseball writers, after hooking up for coffee with one of the beautiful ladies from the Q's staff I ran into when I picked up some posters, I end up at Macy's, the quintessential American store, with the great American jazzman of the 'cool', the Miles Man, for a little extra mileage. It was fine..it was fine..
When you hear Miles Davis in a store, in a little corner among the hip hop beats and the reggae jams that patter around the jeans and the Sketchers and larger-than-live cutout underwear models in black and white that are, well, embarassing, there's Miles, and pianist Red Garland doing Ahmad's Blues, largely a looping noirish-piano tune (actually, no Miles at all on this cut, from 'Workin' With The Miles Davis Quintet, 1956 on Prestige) that is unmistakable. So I stopped in the middle of the Alfani 'hip' section, smooth cotton t-shirts at half price, silk bowling shirts and wanna-be Tommy Bahama look-alikes, and truly, hip-hop and Reggae tunes coming down just an aisle or two away, but there they were, from a speaker or two, Red, jammin' it on the ivory, I mean really doin' it, right there in Macy's and before I could break out the American Express card and make a fool of myself buying every damn black T and scruffed-faded jeans and bowling shirts and calling to make an appointment to have my hair frosted, I just listened, to the American musical hero's quintet. Miles at Macy's. Last time I heard Miles in a store it was Barnes and Noble, and they sell Miles, of course, so no real Mileage there. But Macy's? Montclair Plaza? Come on, now, that's real, baby, Miles is the real deal, among the men's fragrances and bright blue dress shirts with electric blue ties, hell, I couldn't even FIND the Ralph Lauren Polo section--I think it's gone, and those shirts fit so good--but Red was getting down, romping 1956-STYLE, I mean Prestige baby, in Macy's. . .eleven thirty AM after plugging the Writer's Cafe event I'm co-hosting at the Epicenter in Rancho with twelve hugely successful LA Noir mystery and baseball writers, after hooking up for coffee with one of the beautiful ladies from the Q's staff I ran into when I picked up some posters, I end up at Macy's, the quintessential American store, with the great American jazzman of the 'cool', the Miles Man, for a little extra mileage. It was fine..it was fine..
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