Egg on my face

Good evening all. Thought I'd pop my head in for a minute. Yesterday I left my my-oh-my tower up the winding street from the art deco building of Dark Passage and trudged down the hill's steep wooden stairs to meet friends in the design district for brunch at an Indian restaurant, the Mahabharata. It is decorated with drawings of temple sculpture. My friend Bob was with his latest, a biker from Placerville.

"Placer-ville!" I exclaimed, "Rimbaud was born in Charleville."

"Is that in the Sierras?" The biker asked.

"No," I sneered, "it's near the Belgian border."

The conversation switched to the Mahabharata and Phillipe Stark. No one seemed to have seen the nine-hour stage production nor played the video game. The biker, who was sort of a male version of Eliza Doolittle, seemed perfectly happy wolfing down his Tandoori chicken. Read the amazing and absolutely true story of Tandoori here.

Where Dreams Come True

His thankless job was to patrol the hotel grounds each morning looking for dead bodies. The Disneyland Hotel had the highest suicide rate of any lodging in the United States. At a park with such a cheery public image it was important that any "situations" be handled quickly and delicately. He did not wear an obvious security guard uniform, but a blue blazer pinned with an oval ID badge. It said "Ruben" (not his real name), "Disneyland" and had a Sleeping Beauty Castle embossed in gold.

It was a month and a half since he had found a dead body. We are falling behind, he thought. He smiled a wicked smile. That was bad luck. He retracted the thought. Then his heavy shoe hit a stiff leg encased in a nylon stocking. On the ground was the body of a woman about 5'10". If she had fallen a couple of feet to the right a topiary hippo would have saved her life. She had blond hair, disheveled from the fall, expensive makeup, a string of pearls and a tight green dress. Hither and thither on the perfectly trimmed grass past the sidewalk were her very green high heels and her black briefcase that almost made it all the way to the miniature remote-control Jungle Boats in the lagoon.

He collected the heels, which aroused him, and the briefcase. Inside the briefcase was a faux leather daytimer. It showed her schedule for a sales convention that day at the Anaheim Convention Center. Organizations were not required to have conventions in Anaheim, but the city had excellent convention facilities, many hotels and, of course, Disneyland. No doubt she billed the $350 a night corporate hotel rate to her company. They trained trainers to train salespeople on how to sell more products. The training they sold was called Framework for Enterprise Empowerment (FEE).

Maybe she was going through a divorce. Maybe she had blown that big sale. These answers were too simple. What was it that all the departed guests of the Disneyland Hotel had in common? The stress of a vacation or a conference? Why was he thinking so much as he nervously hid her body with his shadow? He should be radioing for a tarp. In his seven years he saw a chorus line of dead bodies and he wanted an answer. This was the Kobayashi Maru of Disneyland. What was it about Disneyland? Maybe it did not always provide the promised happiness .

Shadow Boxer Bear Brick Bento Bingo

Landron and I were having sushi in San Francisco's Japantown on Sunday. He mentioned Joseph Cornell. I realize how much Cornell's pieces resemble bento boxes. Technically, bento boxes should be of wood, painted in black lacquer and have a lid that a heartily interested person lifts to reveal the steaming, colorful contents. The box should not be a rhomboid like the one pictured, but a rectangle based on the golden mean. After lunch we went to New People, a multi-level J-pop shopping center. They had BE＠RBRICK toys(left). In fact they had a Never Mind the Bollocks BE＠RBRICK (the version with the Queen). I would die for one. Wish list! It would go great next to my Sid Kubrick toy. Collectible vinyl Japanese toys could become an addiction; however, I don't believe in be@rbricking. I always play safe. In New People's basement there is a cinema playing the manga Twentieth Century Boys. Didn't we just post about Marc Bolan? Barenomore is the collector pictured. Buy his BE@RS!

The Shuffleboard Community

Being a longtime member of the shuffleboard community I practice at Doc's Clock. It's not too far from the now defunct Twelve Galaxies, a music nightclub named after a delusion. Doc's brings back memories because I would never venture into its dive environs unless I was an avid member of the shuffleboard community. In the earlier 70's I once had a tete-a-tete with another young man like myself, a bartender at Doc's. He was married, but also had a male lover who lived downstairs. This was not so unusual on the tail end of the bi-sexual androgynous 70's. A lot of musicians like Marc Bolan appeared to be gay back then when they probably were not, but kinda represented gaydom, or at least discodom. Let's just say that all that glitters is not gay. The wearing of glitter is forbidden at Doc's Clock, not because of homophobia, but because glitter may fall onto the shuffleboard table prematurely causing a disc to stop. Here is a poetic quote from the official rules of shuffleboard: "It is legitimate and often desirable to cause disks to knock into each other. " This is a picture of Doc's Clock official mascot. His name is "Intro."

The Paint Dries Quietly

The paint dries quietly.
The soundtrack begins on low,
trucks honking; workmen yelling.

Down below two men kiss each other on the street,
whispering good bye.

The sun coming up makes him sleepy.
He flops on the coach,
Pulls a koi-patterned sheet over his head.

A calico enters,
examines the painting with her little black nose,
and leaves a white whisker in the work.

13:15

13:15 are the proportions of the state flag of Belgium. This is in case you ever on on Jeopardy!

Must do's

You must click on this word, darlings:
Couture

Hasn't Kathryn Crosby suffered enough?

1977: Bing Crosby dies on a golf course in Spain.

Bing's body is barely cold when the Bing Crosby National Pro-Amateur Golf Championship becomes the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Kathryn boycotts for years (though she recently returned to see her sons play like no get out). Adding insult to injury Microsoft names their new search engine Bing. "When it comes to decisions that matter, Bing & Decide." What's next, Proctor & Bingle?