hallford's Blog

I was in San Francisco the other day, drivng my 92 year old father around. We were in the Polk Street area when we ran into a street called Frank Norris. A small street no wider than an alley. I know who Frank Norris was and I know my father knew who Frank Norris was. At least at one time I know he knew. We had a distant acquantance who lived and owned Frank Norris’ old  family estate south of San Jose, California.

Frank Norris was a muckraking journalist, according to the owner of Frank’s old place, a wealthy lawyer.  True. But he was better known as a novelist. In the tradition of Emile Zola and he was considered the first naturalist in the English laguage. His books, The Pit, The Octopus, McTeague were widely read and one, McTeague, has been made into a movie a number of times. The reason there is a Frank Norris Street in San Francisco is because the hero of the novel, McTeague, had his ficitional dental office on that street. Okay, so I knew my father knew who this old author was.  I asked him did he remember. I saw see the wheels turning.

-Yeah, he  says, he was a wrestler.

-A wrestler?

-Yeah. His nickname was Man of Steel or Ironman or some metal that made him sound tough.

-No that was Superman and another super hero named Ironman. Did you ever see him wrestle?

-Not in person but on TV. I think he was fighting The Sheik when I saw him.

-The Sheik?

-Yeah, you remember. The guy who wore that arab headgear when he wrestled.

-Yeah, I remember The Sheik but that wasn’t Frank Norris.

-Yeah,who was he?

-A writer from a long time ago.

-Yeah, what’d he write?

-Books about California.

My father didn’t seem to care. Didn’t say anything more about it. Was it because he couldn’t remember shit or was he pulling my leg? Who knows? But this I know, more and more things get less important as you grow older. Even trivia. 

-

I was at the airport last Thursday to pick someone up and I got out instead of meeting him curbside. It was late Thursday afternoon and the flight was Southwest.  I saw a lot of single ladies taking a flight to Las Vegas and was curious. I approached a uniformed cop and asked him, Is that what I think it is?

He nodded.

-Yup, he said. It’s Thursday night and a lot of them are leaving town for a long weekend in Sin City.

-Some nice looking ones.

-Oh yeah. They do it on a regular basis. Some every two weeks, some once a month, some every week until they make enough and then take some time off. They disappar for qwhile then come back on a regular schedule. Some never. That’s when we figure they found their sugar daddy.

-Do you know any of them?

-Sure, he said. 

He pointed one out. A blonde. Not very tall but well proportioned and long tumbling curls. Dressed in a light gray pant suit with black heels. Didn’t  look like one but who am I to tell?

-That one is Darcy. She lives up in the foothills on a ranch. She has a husband  and three kids. Pretty nice looking.  Looks professional and all.  She takes a flight every two weeks.  Stays a week and then comes back next Thrusday.

I scratched my chin.

-How do you know, I asked.

-Las Vegas Metro called us up and gave us a BOLO. We found her, interviewed her and let her go. She wasn’t wanted but they called us to make us aware that she’s got quite a business going there and maybe we should search her sometime just to rattle her cage.

-Hard to tell…

-Sometimes. Sometimes they look just like business women on a business trip. But Thursday afternoon or evening, traveling alone to Vegas. Chances are she’s a hooker.

-That’s pretty much profiling, isn’t it?

-Yeah, but it works.

He pointed to another woman wearing jeans, flip flops and a loose fitting shirt with a Vuitton bag slung over her shoulder. Short brown hair, almost mousy.

-I seen her every Thursday afternoon for the last two months, same flight to Vegas.

-She doens’t look like one.

-Yeah, some of them dress down but when they get to Vegas they put on their come fuck me shoes and and slit skirts and low neck sweaters and they look entirely different. I saw her coming back one Sunday night dressed up and she was hot. I’d pay for it.

-Could you afford it, I laughed.

-Probably not.  But Sundays is a good night. They’re all coming back then and some of them are wearing their working clothes, too obvious. They got different moods too. Some are happy, some look downright mad, some come slinking back like they just got beat up. Who knows? Just depends on how much money they made, I guess.

Reminds me of friend of mine who likes to frequent prostitutes. He’s  a lawyer and can afford it. Better than a nagging wife, he says. There was one prostitute he used  a lot and spent thousands of dollars on. One year there was an opening for an associate in his firm and he was on the interview panel. Yeah, that’s right, you guessed it. Who came in for an interview? He shook his head just thinking about it. He estimates he must have paid for at least a year and half of her law school.

What’s that Neil Young song? It’s better to burn out than it is to rust… 

Does anybody believe that?

Long after the politics and the art of personal attacks perfected by him are forgotten and he is relegated tolthe trash heap where he belongs, his memory and legacy will be, like Bill Clinton’s, hypocrisy, faithless narcissism and a sense of unclean anxiety from his low and sewer dwelling personality. The man is a true creep.  Just ask his mistresses. Not the ones he married.

Many Dead Iranians…

Burritos:

Thai Chicken Burrito:

Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce with Chicken, Cilantro and Red Onion

The Big Hawaiian:

Sweet Red Chili Sauce with Chicken,  Pineapple, Rice and Red Onion

The Californian:

Pesto Cream Sauce with Chicken, Rice, Red Bell Pepper and Red Onion

The Arizona:

Chipotle Barbeque Sauce with Chicken, Rice, Cilantro, Black Beans, Roasted Corn Salsa, and Red Onion

They also have a regular Mexican Burrito in case you want that but why bother? You can go to a Chipotle’s fast food for that.

Tacos:

Spicy Thai Chicken Taco:

Spicy Thai Peanut Sauce, Cilantro, Lime and yeah, Chicken

Southwest Chicken Barbeque:

Chipotle Barbeque Sauce, Black Beans, Green Chile, Red Onion, Cilantro, Lime

Pesto Chicken Taco:

Pesto Cream Sauce, Red Bell Pepper, Red Onion

Of course, they have regular Mexican tacos also.

Smoothies:

Blended Macchiato

Chai Smoothie

Also assorted fruit smoothies.

They also have Louisiana Red Links, Hot Dogs and Hamburgers which occasionally get ordered.

They also have Thai chicken breakfast with eggs in it. See above for ingredients. Also with regular eggs, sausage and bacon which occasionally gets ordered.

My favorite is the simple Thai Chicken Curry with rice, which is the sometime Wednesday special.
On different days they have specials, the Monday special, the Tuesday special etc.

Samples from last week:

Monday: Pho Ba

Tuesday: Satay Skewers

Wednesday: Pho Ga

Thursday: Yam Yai

Friday: Som Tum

Saturday: Pad Thai or  Louisiana Red Dog with Sweet Potato Fries

Sunday: Won Ton or Cheeseburger(finally, something we can recognize)

This place is run not by Asians or others Foreigners but two white guys who like to spice it up and display their cooking skills. If they didn’t close at four  o’clock in the afternoon I’d go there for dinner too.

Have a guy working for me at the house, remodeling the kitchen and bath. He likes to talk about the family he once had.

-Got three kids  seventeen, fifteen and eleven.

He also had a wife who took his house house, his car, his boat and anything else that he hadn’t hidden or nailed down. He told me she recently went out on a date with a  guy who then began to stalk her.

-I told her there ain’t nothin I can do about it. She went out on the date with the guy now she has to deal with it.

-She can call the cops and get a restraining order, I suggested.

He nodded his head in agreement.

-But I ain’t going to tell her that. She knows what to do. She’s the one who left me and took all my shit. 

-Happens a lot, I said in sympathy.

-Yeah, she left me for an eighteen year old kid. Can you believe that? She said she loved him and he loved her. Didn’t last too long though.

-How long?

-Couple years.

-That’s long for an eighteen year old kid.

-With a woman in her thirties, yeah. Then reality set in. He had to go get a job and support the kids. I  got nothin’ against her. She’s a good mother. She loves the kids and sees they get to school and tries the best she can with  them. But moving in with an eighteen year old kid? Come on. He left because he couldn’t take it anymore.Shes’ good in bed but that ain’t all there is. So she’s dating again and this last one is a stalker. I don’t wish her no harm, just I can’t do anything about it. 

Then he started telling me about his youngest son, Lacy. Seems Lacy was having problems with the bus driver who drove him home from school everyday. She gave him four tickets in a month. Apparently the school district  Lacy is in lets  bus drivers cite the kids in some sort of penalty system that brings them to the attention of the school administrators  as a trouble makers.

-I told Lacy to quit lying to me, boy, he said. I ain’t got time to listen to you. You must be doing something wrong or else you wouldn’t be  getting all those tickets.

Lacy was the innocent party in these  matters, so he told his Dad. He was being bullied by the school bus driver. A little old lady at that. Yeah, sure, was the reaction of his parents.                                      

-So after four of these things I went to the school principal an asked to see the tapes, because they tape the bus drivers  and the kids on the bus every day. At the time she wrote up Lacy I wanted to see what he was doing. I looked at them with the principal and surprise, Lacy wan’t  doing nothing. The bus driver was giving him a bad time.

-So what are they going to do? I asked.

-They are going to ask the driver what exactly was the problem and then they are going to confront her with the tapes where she seemed to be picking on him, giving him a bad time instead of him being the little asshole.

-Good.

-Yeah, I was going to take away something he loved more than anything.

-What’s that?

-His weed, man. That kid loves his weed more that anything he’s got. When I told him that he swore up and down he didn’t do nothing wrong and that convinced me to look at the recordings. He was right the little shit.

So Lacy got to keep his weed and Dad was proud his son told the truth. Sort of variation on the I cannot tell a lie fable with an offbeat happy ending. In  a twisted sort of way.

No, not a compositional technique but a state of…a dissociative disorder, “an altered state of consciousness in which a person may move about purposefuly and even speak but is not fully aware.” I live in Callifornia where this is not something that is generally diagnosed or talked about, maybe because a lot of residents of this state are in a dissociative state already and to give it a name would be only stating the obvious. But I say this beacause an old couple down the street went on a tandem fugue and disappeared for a week. It could have been worse and their bodies could have been found in a ditch somewhere. I first noticed two police cars parked in front of their house and the  frequent comings and goings of their children. Uh oh, I thought to myself, someone in that house is dead. I walked over and asked how Stella and Charlie were to a cop standing outside. They’re fine, we guess, he replied. Except we don’t know where they are. 

-What?

-They’ve disappeared.

One of the kids came out of the house. A middle aged woman in conservative business attire. Tall, blonde and wearing glasses with a look of deep concern and worry, as it should be.

-Mom and Dad were on their way to the store yesterday and I haven’t heard from them since. I call them every day or they call me. I came over but their car was gone and I don’t know where they are.

-We searched the supermarket parking lot but no trace of their car there, the cop said. Have you seen or heard from them in the last couple of days?

-I haven’t,  I replied. Saw them and waved last weekend but that was it.

The two missing old people were Stella, a woman in her mid eighties and Charlie, a retired cop who was pushing ninety. I wished I could have been of more help somehow but I just shook my head and mumbled something about how I hope nothing terrible has happened to them.

-We’ll find them, the cop said with assurance.

Yeah, but in what state? I imagined I would be joining a  search party soon, walking into nearby ravines and canyons along the highway looking for Stella and Charlie trapped by their seatbelts in a wrecked car, dead. The next few days I noticed the comings and goings of relatives, each hour seemingly more frantic and impatient as the kids, the blonde kid being the spokesperson and looking like chief organizer. Then on the third night the newpapers and local TV got involved. They held a new conference on their front lawn with a stack of microphones and cameras, a couple of TV trucks and young reporters taking notes. They pled for the safe return of their parents and even one of the grandkids sobbed for gammy and papa on camera. After another evening of of especially heart rendering speculation of what might have happened to Stella and Charlie, they returned early one morning when everybody was still asleep. I witnessed them pulling up as I walked the Golden. I saw Charlie sturggle out of the driver’s seat and then go around and help Stella out of the passenger seat. Before I could get over there the house emptied out with shouts from their older children and grandchildren who had been keeping vigil. Stella and Charlie looked confused but grateful for the attention and hugged and kissed everyone.

-What a nice surprise! I heard Stella say.

Hell yes, surprise. For everyone who expected them to be dead someplace. Instead, two oldsters returning from a state of double fugue. I wonder if that’s possible? Or even if it’s a fugue?  I didn’t get too close but watched form afar. They brought Stella and Charlie in, both still overwhelmed at the reception they were getting. Later, I talked to the spokeswoman/kid who told me they had been to Oregon.

-Oregon? I said. I thought they were only going to the store?

-That’s what they said, she explained.  They were but instead found themselves in Oregon driving around Medford someplace. They went to see the Harry and David factory AND THEN CAME BACK.

-At least they remembered where they lived. Did they go anywhere else?

She shook her head no and then shrugged.

-They can’t remember anything but Oregon and buying a few things at the Harry and David outlet. And eating just that for five days. And then coming home because they had to go to the bathroom.

-What?

-Yeah, they used the car as a bathroom. My mother took pills for incontenence and ran out.

-Jesus.

She shook her head and went in the house. I offered her my condolences and said I, along with other neighbors, would try and keep an eye on them more.

Which would have been a good thing but in a few days Stella and Charlie’s house went up for sale and in a month they were both moved to an assisted living facility. They had  come out of their fog long enough to realize that Oregon wasn’t anywhere near the shopping center supermarket. But it was too late to save them from themselves and their children took charge. Another step in the  direction we all are going toward. I have a guarded feeling. One of hope mixed in with despair, an amalgamation of surly chemicals which, when comingled, makes feeling sympathy difficult and my own predicament hopeless.

“Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those (who say this) are witless. Islam says: kill all unbelievers just as they would kill you all…Islam says: kill in the service of Allah those who may want to kill you!…Islam says: whatever good there is exists thanks to the sword and in the shadow of the sword! Peope cannot be made obedient except with the sword! There are hundreds of other pslams (from the Koran) and Hadiths (sayings and acts of Muhammad) urging Muslims to value war and to fight. Does all that mean that Islam is a religion that prevents men from waging war? I spit upon those foolish souls who make such a claim.”

From the mind of the great Islamic leader of Iran. I think he also said: “There is no humor in Islam.”  No kidding.

Since I couldn’t found a male book club, believe me I’m still trying, I might as well write about a cigar club or cigar gathering that I go to. Maybe eight men, loath to call it a club, wandering in and out once a week at a cigar smoker’s house, backyard I should say. What we do is…smoke cigars. Then talk about the cigars and just generally bullshit about nothing in particular. What is different concerns the fact that these are older guys. So invariably the talk turns to health and health related problems. As of now, I don’t have any health problems. I’m not as old as these guys either. I’m the golf  champion of my club, I play a superior game of competitive tennis and raquetball  and I have an intimate life that I’m not going to talk about. The main heath problem seems to be the prostate. Not mine, theirs. Although I know my time is coming. Most of these guys piss every three hours. One gets up five times a night to pee and another just had his prostate removed. Another announced, through the smoke haze, that he had a cancer that would require him going through stem cell transplants, that is after he went through chemotherapy. So right then he quit smoking cigars but he would sit and get the second hand smoke which gave him a little enjoyment. His hair gradually fell out at each weekly gathering. He is now in the hospital doing his stem cell treatment in complete isolation so he can’t catch anything and he is be sick as beached whale. What is so pleasurable about smoking cigars that he would go against his doctor’s order to quit and not be around the smoke? Maybe because it gives you an hour of time off from thinking about other things. I remember playing golf with a bunch of old guys at a short course near my home. They usually had a fourth but he didn’t show that day so they let me play with them. One guy ws almost blind so he  couldn’t really see where the ball went after he struck it and he would ask everybody where it went.  Usually straight ahead and once in middle of his where’d it go? his partner said, “Shut up Jim, it’s one foot from the cup.” And they laughed at that one all the way to the next tee.  These guys were in their eighties, long dead now, but loved the game of golf and had been playing with each other for upwards of 40 years.  Sitting on the bench with them I remember one said, “I love the game of golf because it takes your mind off other things.” Like he had been repeating that for awhile. I supposed like impending death or when they were younger and had a lot of anxiety, or maybe because of  their jobs, or their wives or messed up children or anything else that could cause them grief. And the cigar smoking is like that, moves your thoughts away from other things into the moment that lasts for maybe an hour or so, stuck in the streambed of the now and only the now, not the before or after or eventual nothingness. Not the chemotherapy or having things cut out of your body and the ugliness of your old face but a moment not to worry about that and the smoke swirling in a haze around your nostrils and maybe a glass of armagnac poured out in a snifter  or a good red wine, a cabernet, and the ability to piss again without wearing diapers or the thought of it happening sooner than later and and having that thing cut out of your body replaced by another thing which isn’t just as good but will do and then watching it wear out too but hopefully not too soon but long enough so you can see your grandchildren if you have any and do that thing you always wanted to do but because life got in the way before and you weren’t able to do it til now…big gulp…yes now before it’s too late and you still got some money and don’t have to hoard it for anybody’s education or your old age and you can throw it in the wind as long as you catch it before somebody else does and you don’t give a shit about that smoke because you’re are gonna die anyway and again probably  sooner than later because you’re not the healthiest and what the hell you gotta die doing what you love and after you’re gone no one will give a shit anyway if it cuts your life short by two years and even that would only be a theory because you died and who’s to say that you would have had those two years if you didn’t smoke these goddamn cigars anyway? At least that’s what I imagine some of them are thinking and because I can think, it too it swims through my head like some fish in an aquarium hitting glasss walls and wondering how am I gonna get outta here…not too soon before my days are occupied by those thoughts because I can’t play golf forever or tennis or racquetball and hike up those old hills… but I can, eventually, turn on the television and watch myself tune out with the passing news.

Yes, that’s right. Death Valley in the back edge of summer. The place is so hot, 115 degrees farenheit plus, no one is around to keep the  golf course open. Except for one old goat who took my money,  let me have a cart and said there was ice out on the 9th hole and then left. Maybe he didn ‘t work there at all. It’s called Furnace Creek Golf Course.The grass in the desert course is brown, but still there is grass. The lowest elevation golf course in the world and probably hotter than the Sahara. Do they have golf courses in the Sahara?. No, only in American Deserts. Although a friend told me he played in the dirt when he was stationed in Afghanistan.  Eighteen holes of dirt with fake grass tees. A makeshift golf course made by American soldiers. Really.  Americans are an ethnocentric bunch. They don’t care whose desert they violate. And can you imagine some Afghanis scratching their heads thinking, what the fuck will these Americans do next? No, only in the U.S. do they have that sort of shit. All I wanted to do was break ninety there in the desert. The smart thing I did was bring two gallons of water and drank liberally from it. I walked 18 holes once in 105 degree heat, carrying my bags, wearing a pith helmet. But that was in Palm Springs and the grass was very green and there were houses all around and if I fell in a heat stroke I could always crawl to one of the backyard swimmng pools and fall in.  Here there was nothing but coyotes, crows, lizards, sand (I mean brown grass) and interminable heat. Maybe a couple of small lakes, strangley enough, that seemed to boil as I walked past. Maybe it was just the heat mirages I occasionally saw as I finished my swing. I saw a foursome ahead of me. A group I never caught up with and I could never hit into. I saw a golf cart tricked up like a small Mercedes, just like they have in Palm Springs. I  saw a water spout in the distance, coming out of the Pamamints.  Although I didn’t have a pith helmet this time I had one of those large floppy brimmed caps with a long string like thing that tightened up to my chin.  I drove one ball two hundred and fifty yards. The ball doesn’t go as far in the heat so you are supposed to use two clubs down to compensate. But with the driver being my longest club it wasn’t possible to compensate for anything. When I went ot check the distance on the drive it turned out to be merely 150 yards. Mirage. Mirages all around me. A coyote wanderd out of some bushes and stopped right in front of me, eyeing my sweaty coprse like I might be some kind of future meal. l was sure he was mirage so I took aim and hit toward him. I expected the ball to go through him but it brushed his tail and he took off in a direction I couldn’t discern. Sure, it felt  surreal and the body didn’t seem quite attached to the spirit. I finished the round with a 90. I wanted to shoot lower but throughout I didn’t feel as though I was really there. There were no other golfers on the course despite what I imagined I saw. The only real thing was the coyote and me, hacking up and down the course, drinking two gallons of water which wasn’t enough. There are other things to see in Death Valley in the Summer…or even Winter… which might be a better time to visit so you can at least keep hold of your senses. But I didn’t really remember them. When I  got back to my hotel/motel, Rancho Furnace Creek, whatever it was, I drank a half  dozen LongIsland iced teas and woke at the edge of the pool, real people in it, no mirages. Girls speaking different lanaguages, Euro babes in bikinis because this was America and no topless or naked women allowed in the motel swimming pool. I was ready to go out again the next day but realized what I wanted to live to play again. So…what did you do on your summer vacation?