Blissful Heart : Sonic Reducer

“Lots of people I know have bootlegged tapes of performances and if they play it I will be transported back sometimes with happiness, sometimes with horror.” ~ Chris Bailey,The Saints

This image takes me back to when I was 17. My eyes are closed with an inward feeling-look upon my face. It is the feeling of a blissful heart. This picture was taken by my first boyfriend who was a semi-professional photographer, graphic artist and print man. It became a romantic nuance when he took my picture. At the time I was young, foolish and in love with him. Looking at the image my face shows reflection, mockery and beauty. Time has taken its toll. I am a survivor of one crazy life, but with continuity I can still call upon the youthful and blissful heart of my youth.

This picture takes me back to a time during the 1970’s when mom and dad were alive. This is when taking a walk with your boyfriend meant something special. I was an open blossom of life fresh as a daisy, rose or yellow dandelion.

I threw away most of all the pictures Mike took of me. This particular image was rolled up in a paper towel container. My mom saved it for me. I found it recently due to spring cleaning, thank you mom. My wild ways and rebellion, that came a few years later, did not get to this image. I destroyed all images from high school and my school books. Today I am glad to see how I once was. My body has changed and beauty has faded but I still feel the same in my heart. A blissful heart is still youthfully present. I don’t deny that anymore, not now, not ever again. As I have learned recently this is the relationship between my Maiden and my Crone.

The song below is what Mike and I listened to at that time with a little help from our friends. In the 1970s pot was everywhere and mostly free. (ya… I am not talking to my generation here but for the youngsters who may not know this..)

As you may well know…this song came later… it was fun too. Maybe punk rock was or is a kinda rebirth or something!? Yet now I can blend both parts of myself together.

Banners from Kubrick’s exhibition or glorious rebellious madness.

Now some 30 years later his face mocks me.

Alex: What you got back home, little sister, to play your fuzzy warbles on? I bet you got little save pitiful, portable picnic players. Come with uncle and hear all proper! Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. You are invited.

My first printing project was with a hand mechanical printing press. I took print shop as one of my class electives: leading me on to West Valley Occupational School to take a paste-up class. This training got me a job working for a short time at a local adult book publisher on Venture Blvd. I pasted page numbers on each page. They were small paperback adult books.

But, back in high school the image I printed for my first project was the face of Alex from the film A Clockwork Orange. My project was stationary with Alex saying,

“Hello my little droogs”

With all of his glorious rebellious madness.

Now throughout the valley I am haunted by banners all over the place advertising the Los Angeles Museum of Art Stanley Kubrick exhibition, as I drive along the same streets where I grew up; there is Alex’s face grinning down at me with all of his glorious rebellious madness.

Everyone in the print shop class did not have a clue to who this character was: not even the teacher. Now some 30 years later his face mocks me. He takes me back to those beginning days of the 1970s ; to the place of that transforming rebellious power that stirred my soul.

Now I hold up a challenge. I am thinking of all the banners I now viddy around the San Fernando Valley .

I am saying this,

“Would you or could you rip-off one of these banners for me?”

I will make you a home cooked spaghetti dinner.

No lie… or maybe I will buy you a brew from my favorite pub.

The point being I would do it myself but my back is not what it was, so late one night if you find yourself under such a banner of Alex… it could be done.!?

Just climb up the pole and pull it down.

Regardless I find the whole thing pretty ironically & mockingly…weird.

Strawberry Nose

I think dad will be 93 this year. He once was a very good story-teller. He would sit out on the back porch looking over the San Fernando Valley and tell a story to whomever world sit next to him. Just make sure it was not past 5 pm …before the liquor hit his brain. This put him into a fighting mood and a meaner fucking son-of-a-bitch you will never find; it was always like this; between good and evil, and you had to be as sensitive as a cat; to stay and purr or take off and get away; to be domestic or wild.

To this day you can bet your cards on this about my dad. My siblings are in justification mode when it comes to his actions, or they rise above as if in some place of divine grace. I have always been straight with the man, as I told mom once,

“Mom if anything ever happens to you, I will not take care of that bastard.”

So be it this is how it is today. Don’t get me wrong I am kind to him now. He lives in an unimaginable place of dementia. I often lift my pint up to him and smile.

“Cheers dad!”

I realize he does not know if I am his wife, daughter, sister or some dame he has his eyes on? I really don’t care and just affirm again and again that,

“I am your daughter… Holly; the youngest of five children.”

He smiles and he is pleasant.

I hold firmly, in my mind and breast, that he needs to be accountable for the pain and suffering that he caused us. But, I also remember the times during the quiet, in the eye of the storm, when life seemed normal and even sweetly naïve, fun and magical.

This is a story I share with my sister. It recently came to my mind while reflecting on dad. Remember my relationship with him is always like clockwork based on the swing of the pendulum, and this story is when the pendulum was happy.

My mother was a stay-at-home-mom during the 50s and 60s while I was growing up. She did not drive so dad did the shopping for her. Their life was based a great deal on the conversation of “what’s for dinner honey?”

My folks always had lots of fruit around for the kids to eat. I never will forget one particular summer about the mystery of who was eating the strawberries.

In the evening mom would clean up the strawberries and get them ready for breakfast. I watched her rinse them and cut off the tops; putting the fresh, sweet, redness in a large bowl. The berries where then put into the refrigerator.

I said, “oh boy, strawberries for breakfast!”

“Yes, honey…we will wait until then.”

Morning came and there were no strawberries. I wondered about this. The whole family did. This went on for a couple of weeks, until someone did some investigational work.

It seems that my sister caught my dad in the act. He was getting up late at night and eating the strawberries. She then drew a picture of my dad with a strawberry nose. She showed it to me and instantly I knew who had been eating the strawberries. It was not a strawberry monster.

“Who’s been eating the strawberries?”

“Dad with the strawberry nose!”

We laughed together and I think mom put the picture up on the refrigerator for viewing as dad confessed.

Dad has a good size roman nose and at one time he had a dark mustache underneath. The drawing of dad induced an upside down strawberry, the uncut green top was his mustache.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Hold Your Head Up

In Jr High I had a certain kind of power that I never really accessed. Call me stupid or that I had a common unconscious decency, I never used it like some women did and do. Purple bell bottom hip huggers and waffle-stomper boots with a pretty elastic top gave a clear view to my exercised midriff. We were innocent and happy adolescents. One day while walking through the school yard towards the auditorium this song by Argent played on the school radio before a dance. I looked around and Brad Hodges was laying back looking at me. His mouth was open. He was in a trance. I walked by and felt the power I had to arouse a man. Even with all the complications of peer pressure, low self-esteem, and pre-teenage confusion, I will never forget this song or the power that Brad awoke in me that night.

Dear Lynn here comes another Autumn I can feel it and you…

The smoke filled her brown VW bug from her little pipe. It was something I never tried before. We then entered the theater to go see the 1977 horror thriller Suspira.
“Come on Holly you will love it. It is the scariest movie you will ever see.”
“Lynn where am I?”

Lynn is here. At the front door of my parents home. 1977

Lynn’s house is between the 6th and 7th hole of the local Golf course. It is a private golf course, but this did not stop the kids from playing on it. We lived in the San Fernando Valley where we played football, baseball, and golf every day. Saturday and Sundays, we sold Lemonade. I experienced many years as a child growing up with my friend Lynn. I lived a mile up the hill from her. I think the best times together were when we were adolescents. We did not see each other much as teenagers but Lynn did drive us to school in her brown VW Bug. We would often listen to the band Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young on the car radio.

As we grew older Lynn became competitive for men, friends, and drugs. She came between many of my new friends. She would hang out with the bullies at school sometimes as well. She had an exotic look about her. The long dark hair and dark skin made guys like her. This was extremely irritating to other girls. Yet, we were very close as kids and we played with the flowers and walked home from school together on rainy days. Then there were the foggy mornings when we could not see two feet in front of us. The smell of eucalyptus trees scented our stories as we searched through the morning. Life was so easy then. All we had to do was to get to school on time. I wonder how we did this while telling scary stories on the way to fourth grade.

One scary thing we liked to do had our fortunes told by the Ouija board. We asked it everything. We knew when we were to be married, how many children we would have, and when we would die. The Ouija board even materialized a dog. My family once had a dog name Peepers. She died a few years earlier. She was a red collie. One day while playing with the Ouija board our hands held tight on top of the planchette, the indicator below slowly spelled out Peepers on the Ouija Board. Lynn and I were spooked about this. We never contacted a person or animal that died. Later, I walked home from Lynn’s house to mine. It was just getting dark, so I ran most of the way. To play it safe I sometimes would jump from the street and roll-down the hill if I heard a car coming. No cars passed as I walked home. Instead, I saw a red collie. She looked very much like Peepers. She licked my hand and followed me home. I felt safe with her. She was sweet. When I arrived at the back door of my house my mother let me in.

“Holly, whose dog?”

“I don’t know Mom; doesn’t she look like Peepers?”

My mom tried to shoo her away. I went and got a bowl of water and put it outside. I looked at that dog from the window all night. The red collie was gone by morning never to be seen again.

The funniest dog adventure Lynn and I had been when a pet bulldog escaped form a neighbor’s home. We were eight or ten years old. The hills around our neighborhood were open and there were lots of trees to climb and dirt hills to dig in. We happened to be digging in the dirt when a pet bulldog came at us. Lynn and I ran away from it. I fell to the ground on a big dirt hill. Lynn pulled me up and went underneath me. I pulled her up and went underneath her. We did this as we were screaming and grabbing at each other and hitting each other. The dog was racing towards us and barking. I guess it would have been something to see at a distance. Years after this event, even when times get rough between us, this story always made us laugh. I can still see Lynn screaming and running away from the bulldog. She passed away a few years ago before her 50th birthday but this story still brings good cheer to me.

Lynn and I irritated our older brothers. They build go-carts that were so cool. We followed our brothers everywhere with their go-carts. One day they took the go-carts up to the hill we kids called big bruiser, which is the biggest hill that all the boys dared each other on. Lynn’s brother Mark and my brother Gus would not even acknowledge we were there because they knew we wanted to drive their go-carts down the hill. They kept saying no.

“Come on Mark…just one ride down big bruiser” Lynn said. “Yes, Gus you both got to let us ride them!!” I said.

We must have watched our brothers go down big bruiser fifty times. Then I guess they got tired and let us ride the go-carts. We were only half-way up the hill when we started out. They yelled,

“Ready set Go!”

Bang and roll and it was over. Lynn and I wiped out. It only took a few minutes, but our blood was everywhere. Lynn and I went home crying. We totaled their go-carts. That was the end of it. Gus and Mark did not talk to us for weeks.

The magic and mystery I felt growing up with Lynn is still with me. Autumn is her favorite time of year. I think Lynn lived her life exactly the way she wanted to. She always was joking with me even at eight years old.

“Here Holly try this. Put your nose up to it and smell it.”

“Cough, choke… what is this, Lynn?”

“Ginger Ale.” She said.

A Lark down Hollywood Blvd with Marilyn Monroe

I wanted to be treated as a human being who had earned a few rights since her orphanage days. ~ Marilyn Monroe

Ruth took this picture. Holly with Flowers.

The Crusstos moved into the neighborhood when I was twelve. This meant saying goodbye to my best friend Wayno who left the house they moved into.

I was sad. The neighborhood parents talked about the new neighbors John and Ruth. Later they all became good friends!

Ruth had beautiful red henna hair and a slim figure which she always showed off. I heard she once was a dancer in Las Vegas. I did not always listen to her stories.

I wish I could go back now and listen more intently. I do remember what she told me about Marilyn Monroe.

Ruth also came from a troubled past. She met Marilyn when they were living at a boarding house for young girls without families.

“Norma was her name then.” Ruth said.

“You knew an actress like her?”

“Norma always was a little dramatic with her gestures…she was not an actress then…we were just a couple of teenagers who liked going out on a lark.”

“What do you mean?”

“Norma and I would often break out at night and walk Hollywood Blvd and have so much fun together.”

Then Ruth said,

“She was a wild girl, that Norma.”

Looking at Ruth she still had a wildness about her. She pronounced her words very clearly and often made comments to me on how to pronounce words properly.

One thing I knew about her, that I found very strange, is that she did not wear underwear under her dresses or pants. The neighborhood parents talked!

John Crussto was a Fire Chief at the local fire-station. Ruth was a waitress at a local steakhouse on Ventura Blvd. I often saw Ruth drink her liquor straight up.

Ruth taught me how-to put-on mascara. It was vintage Maybelline mascara in a little red box. She carefully showed me by holding a little black mascara comb with a generous supply of mascara up to her eyelashes. Then she let the eyelashes do the work by blinking. The blinking put a generous supply of makeup on her eyelashes

There was always music playing on the stereo at the Crusstos. Frank Sinatra’s hit song “Tramp” was her favorite song.

Looking back, I am amazed that at fifty Ruth could still kick her leg up as high as a girl in a chorus line, just be careful where you were looking.

fin

Surf’s UP!

I listened to the Beach Boys a lot in the 70’s mostly because my older siblings had their LPs around the house and later cause one of my first boy friends played them. Surfin’ Safari and Shut Down Volume 2. I experienced their music when I would ditch-school to go to the beach in “Thelma Lu Mosbacker”, the name of my friends light blue station wagon. My first dance and make-out session was to the sound of the Beach Boys. Surf’s Up Then there was the stupid music essay on songs for english class, “Little Surfer” was the song I played in class. I was humiliated and after that all the guys thought I would score-four with them. I am going to get the new Beach Boy LP That’s Why God Made the Radio just because they are part of my generation. and once I tried real hard to be a surfer girl… got a D+.. but I tried!! Oh ya, my now x-sister In Law was the girl that the Beach Boys sang about in Fun, Fun, Fun.. !! She is the real Surfer girl…!!

To Lynn Lucero… i wish you loved us more and your addiction less… RIP this song is for you!!

I feel love: RIP Donna Summers

When I think of music and the late 70’s and early 80’s, I think of crashing rogue waves against me of all types of music. There were the discotheques and rock clubs to dance at. Most importantly there were the punk clubs to pogo at… the moving levels of sounds and adventure filled my every cell and heartbeat. The changing styles and then the big watery push to Hollywood High School to see Elvis Costello and then the Clash at the Santa Monica Civic. Donna Summers is part of this experience. I can still taste the sound of her music as a teenager during the 70’s when I engaged in the fright of local and east coast born serial killers, and films such as Looking For Mr. Good Bar.