There was a constant hum in the air during the day and yells and screams at night.
Dad dancing outside to music… was one of those times life seemed endlessly youthful… ya we were all dancing to Suzi Quarto.
Twenty years of fireworks over our home was what I was born to. Across the San Fernando Valley the Woodland Hills Golf Course was a private club that displayed colorful bangs and loud lights across the valley. We enjoyed these free fireworks close over our home each year. Neighborhoods were tight and my whole family was together. BBQ, potato salad and sparklers at night highlighted the wild nature of the 4th of July during the 60s and 70s of my life. Watermelons soaked with booze were ready and waiting and the German Telefunken radio was put on a bar stool outside. The music blurred all day along with the bang-bang from our mini canon gun. It was a day of constant motion and movement and thrills of youth. There was a constant hum in the air during the day and yells and screams at night.
The many phases of life are like a bell curve. This was on the top and a great part of life. Now with Mom and Dad gone this 4th is especially a time of grieving for what once was. Ya, the low part of the bell curve. Yet, I know times will change again when my kids grow up and the family grows.
All around me I feel the invisible walls. Maybe a cell membrane that holds me in.
It is a cocoon.
The darkness melts my body and whispers stories of weeping, hate and betrayal. As the full moon ascends on the horizon, I feel the depth and heat of her breath as she addresses me. She is dark and hides the light. This is the process of metamorphosis.
Living in the patriarchal world this process is outright ignored. Yet, women throughout history know it well, for those of us who pass through it. I am not talking about the happy, good, rise-above women who functions as if in a dysfunctional relationship to men. I am talking about the women who hold owls, serpents, and insects.
The mermaids and sirens that men can not violate or listen to.
Women bear up children, and mysteries, which are not meant for the souls of men. Women hold within them those freaky looking, metamorphosis looking, creatures in their wombs.
Tadpoles, tails, and big heads swim in the hot environment.
Asleep she was drawn to the being-0f-light outside the open window; upon the wall of the old garage converted into a boy’s room.
“Come with me there has been an airplane crash.”
She flew and followed the being-of-light over the valley. They both whipped through the air. They were swimming through the air. Her belly felt as if riding on a swing.
“That does not look like an airplane crash,” she said.
The fire and flames turned into a spacecraft. There was a large door. It opened and there before her and the-being-of-light was a small little grey-being with elaborate clothing. Not a word was spoken but a beam of light, like a razor beam, focused from the little grey-being to her.
“What is this? All these images are pouring into my brain. Symbols, numbers on and on they go… I cannot manage this…I think I will collapse.”
She then noticed the beam of light stop. It was over.
The being-of- light flew her back to where she was sleeping.
I shall keep moving forward no matter what the gossip, criticism or silence…
The above image is of a written interview I did some years ago with Coagula Art Journal. I am a resurrected personality from days gone by. I felt the need to remember those days and share them. So, I went to places where I use to express myself, which are… fanzines. Mat Gleason, the creator of Coagula Art Journal, is an old-time buddy of mine. He promotes and educates his community about art, which is beyond my expertise.
Yet, Mat was willing to humor me by publishing this little introduction of my dream to awaken people to the long-lost days of late 70s and the 80s punk rock culture. Hark Hark… wait a minute. As the ghostly fog cleared over the next few years, I witnessed that the world remembers. Punk nostalgia has since overwhelmed me, as the old days used to. My goal was to remember, write and express myself. Yes, this is achieved!!!
In “Hudley Flipside’s Public Image,” located here on my WordPress site, I show the journey I have taken to get the word out. I have been interviewed by individuals that I respect, and to my amazement, respect me back: enough to interview me about my days as a co-editor and publisher of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine.
As an introverted Gemini I then made my connection with MySpace, Facebook and other online business and social networks. Anytime I feel myself ‘sinking in the quicksand’ of another person’s manipulation or control: working for them over working for myself. I pull myself away. I have painfully earned my individuation and need to vibrate this to the world on my own terms. I am gentle too!!
My goal is to create a place to publish what I wish to share.
I’m thrilled finding WordPress and to see the vast ocean of others who are doing the same thing as I which is writing and sharing their stories!!
“This is it” I thought.
It has been over a year now.
I am creating a wonderful promotional page on WordPress. I share my stories by writing about what interests me. Quality over quantity is my ambition. I still have many goals… but I am on the right independent path. I shall keep moving forward no matter what gossip, criticism, or silence…
The Seminary of Praying Mantis is my achieved goal. It is natural for a crone woman to sit back, reflect and remember and tell her tales and adventures… there are always a couple of people interested… or maybe just my cats, or the muses that echo back on this oracle called computer.
Bernie Wrightson Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein Unused Illustration Original Art (c. 1975), ca. 1975
We lived in a little art loft over a quaint bookstore up town Whittier. Ames is the name of the bookstore. A funny fellow with a beard owned the place. To get away from the overwhelming nature of the business I was involved with: I found this cave in the city. A new world opened to me at Ames. Books came alive and one of the most influential books I found there is the classic story, Frankenstein Or The Modern Prometheus. Mary W. Shelley’s novel inspires me on so many levels and I cannot thank her enough.
This is a quote for the day. This quote speaks of life and freedom resonates there. I love the reflective and subjective nature of her book. I recommend this gem to everyone: read it and life will not be the same…if you have read it already, “so it goes!”
“If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows, and a chance word or scene can surprisingly mean a great preciousness to us.”
I think and feel Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote The Modern Prometheus. Or maybe Mary and Percy authored the book together. Percy’s poem Mutability was written before the novel which seems very revealing to me.
“We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.
We rise; one wandering through pollutes the day.
We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;
It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free.
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but mutability!”
Page 99: Chapter X
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
Mary Shelley
Mutability
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon; How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver, Streaking the darkness radiantly!–yet soon Night closes round, and they are lost forever:
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings Give various response to each varying blast, To whose frail frame no second motion brings One mood or modulation like the last.
We rest.–A dream has power to poison sleep; We rise.–One wandering thought pollutes the day; We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep; Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same!–For, be it joy or sorrow, The path of its departure still is free: Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow; Nought may endure but Mutability.
It was a cold winter’s night, like this one, when I heard a soft knock on the door. I was alone. I did not see my kitty Dudea around. When she gets outside she makes a similar sound on the front door when she wants in.
“Ok Dudea, just a minute!”
I got off the couch from the warmth of the fire while reading a book and listening to some Jazz. Yes my blissful moment was interrupted. I opened the door. I looked around and I did not see my kitty,
“Hello, it is very cold tonight. The rain is coming down. I only have this scarf to keep me warm. I smelled the fire smoke from you home. Would you mind if I stood in front of your fire to warm up?”
I blinked and then blinked again.
“Sure!”
He came in the house with a push of the wind and the smell of the earth came in with him.
“Oh what a lovely hearth you have my dear!”
“Thank you!”
The elf then became very still and quite. He has been with us for about five years now. I do not bother him. I only touch him to clean him. I have heard that the “little-folk” come and go and sometimes stay. Their time frame is much different then ours.
This evening is much like the one five years ago when our little elf came to rest; by the fire, by our hearth.
ose picking is not a popular topic but we all do it, some more gracefully than others. My music teacher, who was also my voice teacher, did it on stage with a tissue. When she sang opera on stage she could transform from being a 40-year-old woman to a youthful angelic being, and just as lovely while waiting for the class to get ready, with her finger up her nose. I watched her put that tissue with a finger way up there and then she pulled it out and acutely looked at it. She was not embarrassed or self-conscious about it either and I thought to myself,
“How does she do that…to pick ones nose and not care? Doesn’t she think about all of us watching her?”
My dad told me a story once. He was on Hollywood Blvd. and a big limousine pulled up alongside his car. They were both waiting at the stop sign when he saw a woman picking her nose in the back of the limousine. I guess in the 1940s not all big limousines had tinted windows. She looked over at Dad and seemed to blush and then she gave him a big smile. It was a youthful Elisabeth Taylor.
Hollywood and Santa Monica was the “cat’s meow” back then for movie stars, gangsters and the common folk. They mingled nicely back then. Things were spread out and people were intimate. Dad said that at some of the night clubs that he went to there were a number of actors and gangsters present. One night he said hello in passing to Bugsy Siegel while in a Santa Monica restaurant. He said his eyes were piercing blue and as cold as ice. I think this was a few days before he was actually found murdered. Maybe he wasn’t killed by the mob for money laundering or for his wheeling and dealing in Vegas; maybe they caught him picking his nose.
I looked up and saw gray and white clouds. I looked down and saw large symbols, circles and angles, as if I was kneeling on a ritualistic spot. A thought came to my mind, while sitting on folded knees, about this mysterious surface.
“This is upon the place that was once a lawn near my parents’ home. I played football and baseball here. I saddled my horse and played kick-the-can on this spot.”
Then I realized I was dreaming. I looked up and saw a large flangiprop object coming forth from the soft clouds towards me. It was a mighty object and was suspended in the air above me. Compared to the clouds this structure seemed firm like concert.
It was in the shape of a triangle and it had three large rims that resounded strength. This prop was held in the clouds on a magical stage in a paradoxical place that supported and sustained a message for my eyes only.
The apartment was adjoined at the hip to the subway. Every time the subway went by the building shook. It was either Queens or Yonkers New York where we watched; looking down from the tall building to the streets below.
We were staying only for a few days while the bands where in town. At dusk, the produce stores closed and locked up, pulling down their metal roller type garage doors. Later, the limousines drove up.
The tall mannequin looking young women and the old gray-haired men were stepping out; the sounds of disco, a terrible kind, blared below. It was the luck of being young and beautiful. It was of being old and foolish… with loads of dough. We watched and listened until the sun came up.
~ Excerpt from The Seminary of Praying Mantis: A Punkalullaby: In New York by Hudley Flipside
Canoga Park, West Hills and Woodland Hills have something interesting going on. On every block you see them. Three types of businesses are booming here. Psychics, tobacco stores and massage parlors. They are on the increase. These cities are up to something that I have not figured out yet. It feels like the kind of wheeling & dealing that smells fraudulent.
The tobacco stores are not so strange. In fact, most of them look manly and are rather attractive. The psychics are not so bad. They are growing in number. If they are not doing so well with their crystal balls, you can always see their boats, trailers, and expensive appliances for sale. The massage parlors seem more sinister.
These places are not legally run by a chiropractor or homeopathic doctor because these types of doctors are licensed practitioners. When you open the door to the sound of a jingling bell at these local massage parlors whom do you think you will see?
We need to legalize prostitution. I say this to protect the women who are working at these places. I am focusing on the possibility that we are ignorantly supporting human trafficking at any zip code.
If we are not going to be honest about these places and legalize prostitution, then we should close them down.
I understand men have their needs. I am not talking about their need to get a carrot massage or table shower. (whatever the hell that is?) I am asking these customers to think about who is stroking their carrots? Is it some young foreign woman who speaks extraordinarily little English with high heels? Human Trafficking is most likely the truth here. A mother, a daughter, a sister … yes.
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.
I think dad will be ninety-three this year. He once was an exceptionally good storyteller. He would sit out on the back porch looking over the San Fernando Valley and tell a story to whomever sat 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 repeatedly 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 will never 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 investigation.
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 mom put the picture up on the refrigerator for viewing as dad confessed.
Dad has a substantial 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.
My favorite post from the past fourteen years. I dedicate it to Saturn, the song below highlighting a classic song about love and life. It explores our strengths, limitations, and Saturn’s softer side, which I am learning to appreciate. At times we must be determined, vibrant, and set boundaries for ourselves. At other times we realize that love has its own boundaries too. Somehow there are songs and poems that explain this so well, at least to me. My life lived is a witness to these things.
“Do you know the land where citrons bloom,
Golden oranges glow among dark leaves,
A gentle wind blows from the blue sky,
The myrtle is still, and the laurel stands tall?
Do you know it well?
It is there! – there
That I would go with you, my beloved.”
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It was a strange time of learning. Unfamiliar faces as if I were in a dream. English, statistics and singing all blended within my brain and heart; expanding me from the inside out. A certain composer found me and expanded my heart even more.
A man who experienced joy and suffering, and like me, did not try to shy away from either one. I still to this day turn to his music, for it is only he who understands the darkness of the soul. This is how we met.
One day while in the university library I was deep in study. Sitting cross-legged I pulled my leg out and knocked a book shelve. A book fell to my lap. I looked at the book. It was a biography of Hugo Wolf.
“What a strange name?”
For a month I was overtaken by his life. His music and lyrics opened a strange long-ago world for me. His crazy passion for life thrilled me.
He adored the composer Richard Wagner and wrote music for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s lyrics. I did not really have to know what the music was about because my heart already knew.
One story I remember reading about him is when he was living on the street. He was extremely poor. He was sick and starving, yet he carried a large object around with him. It was wrapped up in cloth. One day a dear friend saw Hugo on the street. He asked his friend to his home for food and a place to sleep.
The friend asked what he was carrying. He told him that he had lost everything, and this is all he had left. He carried it around with him and never left it unattended to. Hugo unwrapped the object. His friend saw that it was a large breast of a man. It was of the great composer Richard Wagner.
And to the one song by Hugo Wolf that escapes me….
“Did you ever notice when you close your eyes and look up at the sun that you can see a mandala? Red and orange colors flashing out in bursts of color. It reminds me of a Mosque. A vast ceiling in my eyes. This is what I am thankful for.”
The sushi restaurant was not open on Turkey Day. My son called earlier, and no one answered the phone so we thought we would drive by and just see,
“Maybe they will be open?”
We planned to do this a couple of weeks ago.
“Na, it is dark. No one is there.”
My son continued to drive on while we decided what else to do.
“Well, I cooked up a turkey breast, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and yummy pan gravy at home. How about just going back home?”
“How about Coco’s or Niko’s restaurant?”
“Ya lets go to Niko’s!”
Niko’s is a coffee shop that we have eaten at many times over the years. We know most of the workers there; it is down and homey to us.
On the way there I was having the holiday blues. It was nice to get out of the house for a drive.
The streets were easy except for one slicer, which is a car that races in and out of the other cars without signaling.
I looked up and over and saw a bus with only one passenger at a bus-stop getting out.
“Hey, look at that guy on the bus all alone.”
“Don’t forget the bus driver!”
“Ya…, I see him too.”
Kentucky Chicken’s was open on Topanga Blvd. with a few people eating there. I also saw a few older people walking the streets. I felt a lonely freedom in my heart.
We drove past Coco’s, and it looked open and packed.
“Should we stop?”
“No let’s go to Niko’s.”
We drove up, parked, and walked up to the restaurant. I saw the host getting menus ready for us.
“Good evening.”
“Happy Thanksgiving,” we all said. Then we sat at a booth.
Our friend the waiter greeted us. We gave out smiles and said our greetings. We really like this guy because we have known him for years and he makes the best smoothies.
“I’ll have a third eye.”
“What is that?”
“It is mango, carrot and banana…”
We all gave the drink a try, and then the youngest son said,
“That is what I love about Niko’s they make the best smoothies and they put all sorts of things in them that I would never eat. They make it taste so good.”
I smiled at my son as I ordered the chief’s salad. He ordered a Monte Cristo sandwich. He powered down his hot coco already. I knew this meant trouble due to lactose intolerance, but hey it is Thanksgiving. My oldest son got his usual gyro sandwich.
We talked about friends, astronomy, and family. I left as the oldest son began to finish the youngster’s sandwich off.
“Sometimes you just got to let it go.”
“Why? I am hungry and it is Thanksgiving…everyone eats too much on thanksgiving.”
It was a world of mostly boys. It was a time of the real Mad Men. I was born in the 1950s. All Thanksgivings, until I was in my thirties, were celebrated at the same place every year. Uncle Royal and Aunt Louise lived on a beautiful farm in Orange County California. Acres housed pomegranates, tangerine, and avocado trees.
As kids we ate all of them until our hearts content. Knots Berry Farm was only a few miles away, being a small amusement park, where we would chase chickens around before they were caught, butchered, and fried up. It was a country fair more than the multi-media corporation it has become today.
Turkey was put into the oven early and mom did most of the cooking. Louise always baked up her famous mini-pumpkin pies. She put in all the pie ingredients together so whimsically fast before you knew it a warm pie tin was in our hands.
The most delicious pie I ever had. It was because her crust was perfect; I think this pissed off mom because she never could get a good pie crust down like my aunt did. Louise talked while she baked until your head felt like it would explode.
I had a huge family of realities that came to dinner. The adults played poker after the meal was over. It was not family poker it was nasty ruthless cards. Dad was not the only one to get rip-snorting drunk, but he was most likely the loudest.
I remember once he danced like a Native American in the kitchen, as Royal made up his famous hot-buttered Rum cocktails. We would follow dad around mimicking his moves to the irritation of my mother who knew he was plastered; at the time I thought he was just having fun. Maybe it was a little of both.
Royal always had a glint in his eyes while smoking his cigar. The night held sounds of quiet, then yelling depending on the hand of the game. The kids outside played kick-the-can, or sometimes we threw tangerines at passing cars, while hidden in the large branches of avocado trees; hearing knocking at the door while panting with older cousins but never confessing to the accusations of these strangers whose cars showed the damage.
Mom always made time to play poker with the men. Sometimes I rested against her warmth while she silently played the game.
Thanksgivings are much smaller now and Turkey is not always invited. This year my two kids and I are going to go out for sushi. It is hard to believe that the freedom I feel now is based on the control of a family long ago, but it is true.
It was nice to be part of such a big family then, but I like it much better now. I think I will smoke a cigar this year in memory of Uncle Royal and Aunt Louise.
As I smoke the cigar I will watch the smoke whirling up to them, imagining where they are with the great mystery of death, and similar to the inspiration of a Native American Indian prayer I will evoke their spirits in gratitude by saying,
“Thank you Louise and Royal for the memories, and for the old farm-house with the steep slanted stairs that led up to the room where Grandmother haunted us kids! Thank You for the delicious Turkey skin, mashed potatoes and stuffing galore. “
Living in Van Nuys in the 1990s was difficult because we endured isolation, discrimination, and frustration, but we were a family and had each other and a college community that supported our goals. In those challenging times, the struggles we faced seemed overwhelming; however, it was our unwavering bond that kept us strong.
While navigating the complexities of life in a less-than-welcoming environment, we found solace and hope in the connections we formed with others who understood our plight.
One call from Los Angeles Valley College’s daycare center changed our lives forever, opening doors to new opportunities and pathways to success that we had previously thought were out of reach. The support from the college community became a lifeline, empowering us to dream bigger and work harder toward a brighter future, filled with possibilities we never imagined.
Los Angeles Valley College
Van Nuys California is the place for mothers and their children. Driving through this city you will see lots of mothers pushing their strollers around. It is a busy city and a dirty city. Restaurants, laundromats, and discount stores line the streets. When I was seventeen, I used to cruise Van Nuys Boulevard with my friends. We listened to music and looked for boys and had lots of fun doing it. It was a teenager ritual that started back in the 1950s.
I never would have believed then that I would end up living in Van Nuys for seven years on the second floor of a tree fort apartment. We lived in a Latino community, and we felt isolated. Yet, when our son JF started to go to school we made friends and soon blended into the community.
I loved going to the Russian produce store near our apartment where we could buy fresh herbs and vegetables. They had giant buckets of fermented coleslaw, tomatoes, and pickles for sale. Each Christmas the owner gave my son a Russian bunt fruit cake covered in dry fruit and as hard as a rock. Next to them was the Italian deli where we purchased feta cheese and olive oil.
We lived off of sixty dollars a week for food which was doable in the mid-1990s. Occasionally when my son and I saved our pennies we would go to Jack in the Box for some hamburgers and French fries. The toy from the kid’s meal brought so much joy to my child that life was extremely sweet.
Our tree fort apartment only faced another apartment on one side, otherwise we had windows all around us. We could look out and over the world below which was mostly asphalt, noisy children and gangsters often rooming around. My son told me that there was a tree he could see from his bedroom window. (We all sleep together in one bedroom)
He enjoyed watching the seasons change while watching the tree over a year’s time. On sweltering summer days, we went on walks through nearby residential neighborhoods. We went looking for sprinklers watering the lawns and ran and danced through them. Magical as it was for my son and I to share, I dreamed of having a home of our own someday. There were many pockets of people with different identities and communities that lived around us that at times seemed foreign and odd to us.
John, my husband, had a dead-end job working for a furniture restoration business down in Los Angeles. We only had a large old green monster van to get around with. Most of the time my son and I took the bus, or I pushed him around in a shopping cart.
Back then in my desperation to find a job or go back to school, I put my son’s name on a long waiting list for daycare at Los Angeles Valley College’s Day care center. It was only a few miles from where we lived. Unexpectedly they called me, and it changed our lives forever. Within a day’s time I had my son sign up for daycare. I also was signed up for twelve units.
I had all the financial aid I needed to attend school. Within a year I talked my husband into going back to school. He majored in science and then earned a degree in Respiratory Therapy It was a dream come true for us, and due to the government financial aid programs offered to us, John went on to find excellent work, and I went on to continue my education at Cal State University Northridge.
When humans participate in ceremony, they enter a sacred space. Everything outside of that space shrivels in importance. Time takes on a different dimension. Emotions flow more freely. The bodies of participants become filled with the energy of life, and this energy reaches out and blesses the creation around them. All is made new everything becomes sacred.
~Sun Bear
Betty MaCusic’s husband was a nuclear physicist involved in the top-secret Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, which he revealed to her only after it was used in war, profoundly affecting her perspective and psyche. They later divorced, leaving her life irrevocably changed.
The Orange Warriors / Painting By Hudley/ Holly D Cornell
1990 Betty and I met at a little coffee shop in Rochester New York. She was drawn to my stick figure tattoos on my left arm which looked like Native American Kachinas.
“Are those Kachinas on your arm?”
“No, but they do look like them. They are actually a design I created.”
I was having a cup of coffee and some apple pie. I asked Betty to join me. We talked for a few hours about life. I was new to the east coast, and she had lived there for years. I just turned thirty and she just turned seventy. It seemed like a friendship that was predestined to happen. We had many common interests. Two of them them being an interest in Native American spirituality and art.
Betty talked about politics, spirituality, and architecture. As her life unfolded before me, I was amazed to find out how beautiful and emancipated she was, and how tragic her life had become. She was a teacher, mother and grandmother but was now unemployed, divorced, and distant from her grandchildren. She had lived on the street when she did not take her lithium.
Yet, during the short time I lived in New York our friendship grew and continued years later even after I moved back to California. Writing letters was still an art form then and we wrote to each other for many years. She would send me index cards with special quotes on them to inspire me.
While living in Rochester my white ford sedan took us on rides along the Erie Canal and into local wine country. My car was purchased on the east coast, so I had snow-tracker radial tires and windshield wipers that sprayed a special solution to stop freeze build up.
One trip that I especially enjoyed with Betty was to the New York wine country of Naples. It was very cold during November and the farmland and vineyards were bare. The hills seemed to roll on forever. Some of the farmland and hills went through forests and over rivers.
I remember one hill being very steep with an amazing view that looked over a frozen lake covered with snow, but even with my snow-tracker tires we almost went over this hill. I was new to driving in the snow. As I was making a turn, I put on the brakes too fast, and the car did a 360 and then slid to the end of the hill …very slowly. We almost went over a 30-foot cliff.
After surviving this trauma, we drove silently for some time on our way back to the city of Rochester. We stopped off at an apple farm on State Victor Route 444. In the middle of this large apple farm was a friendly barn converted into a store where products of all kinds were available for purchase. Anything and everything pertaining to apples that is, even bee-apple honey. A big barrel was set up on a country table that served the most devious apple cider I ever tasted; perfect to take off the cold chill of the autumn day and near-death experience.
Today I watched my beautiful white Himalayan male cat mock pee on the outside brick fence. Male cats turn backwards and then spray their territory.
The male cat does this by vibrating their tail. Mr. Po Po is different because he is a very clean cat. I know he learned the pee ritual from Flash our other male cat.
Flash does the real thing. He marks his territory all over the yard. This is what male cats do. Mr. Po Po is a very intelligent kitty.
I think he realizes that peeing around is a filthy thing to do, but he is respectful of the social ritual and etiquette required of all male cats.
It is an important ritual to uphold. So he mocks his territorial pissing. My son and I laugh about it all the time.
“I have seen the dark universe yawning Where the black planets roll without aim, Where they roll in their horror unheeded, Without knowledge, or luster, or name.” ― H.P. Lovecraft
The Monster
One impression from my childhood was of the invisible monster. This is how I remember the monster which is my first impression from my macabre youth.
The whirlwind went round & around. As a child I watched it while sitting on the concrete steps. Was a monster in the whirlwind? All week the kids talked ’bout the monster. They were chasing the monster. They were running from the monster.
This week was the week of the monster. A pack of kids from the neighborhood grabbed me. They encircled me. We ran down the hills. We hung from the trees. We dug for thin white crystals deep in the earth. Playing, laughter and stories filled our days. One of the kids said,
“There over there, there it is the monster!” They were all now pointing their fingers at something I could not see. I yelled,
“Where, where?”
Then I ran with the others to the safety of a home.
Gales of wind and rain outlined the monster while looking out the windows. The storm ended and we all raced outside. Our rain boots left footsteps in the mud. A child yelled,
“Look I found a large footprint. The monster is here the monster is here too!”
We all looked at it and yelled. We all ran down the muddy dirt road. We ran by some trees. As we passed the trees a strange coolness ran through me. These were the same eerie and cold pepper trees that were always moving, was this the place where the monster lived?
Another impression from my macabre youth is an image based within a story told to me by Gigi.
She was my best friend at eight. On Friday we walked down to Gary’s market on Topanga Blvd and for twenty-five cents each of us got a bag of candy. This would fill a pillowcase and was necessary for our Friday night sleepovers. There were only two channels to watch on Saturday mornings on TV. It was either cartoons or scary movies.
We watched The Werewolf, Frankenstein, and The Mummy. Gigi’s room was on the other side of the single-story house, which was far away from her parents, giving us a lot of privacy and time together. Gigi had a fantastic way of telling stories. I did not talk much so I was always listening to her narratives. This is the one that made a deep impression on me. Etched, inked, and printed in my memories.
Gigi’s Story.
All the lights were out in the house. There was a thunderstorm over the valley. The light of the thunder lit up the rooms. The trees scraped the windows. The howling of the wind blew past the house. I was all alone and walked into the kitchen to turn on the lights for a glass of water. The lights were not working. Then … then I noticed a shadow outside the kitchen window. I hid behind a curtain. I saw nothing. My parents were coming home soon.
They did come home with lots of candles and some food. We lit the candles and had our supper. My brother and I were then put to bed. Later that night I heard more scratching and scraping on the windows and could not sleep.
I got up to get another glass of water when I stopped and listened. I heard a scratch at the front door. It got louder and louder. I had to pass the door to get to my parent’s room. I walked very slowly, very gently like a cat. I stopped breathing as I looked at the door. It was open and I felt the cold from outside.
The only thing holding the door from opening was a gold chain lock. I closed my eyes and continued to walk. I had to take one more look before I burst into my parents’ bedroom. There before my gaze was a long black strand of hair and hands pushing at the door. The fingers glowed white with long fingernails.
Our Fairy Land
The last impression that I will share here with you, the reader, is about a place that still mystifies me. I don’t remember how Linda, Gigi and I found out about the fairy land. It was a couple of miles up the hill from where we lived. It was on a very round mound surrounded by eucalyptus and pepper trees.
Our trek took us past many homes while walking up a winding country road. We would sneak away to go there. We kept this place to ourselves. We only visited there a few times as children and lost interest as we grew older. I think at 11 years old we may have visited it about five times in the month of Autumn. I noticed, while passing a few homes on the way, women looked out of their windows at us. The neighborhood caught on to our journeys to the hill. We knew this. It was a magic place to be protected.
A path led us up a hill to a small church. There was also a small house and a watermill on the side of this structure. A large waterwheel was part of this without any water to move it. We often strolled over a broken wooden bridge that arched over a dry stream bed. A miniature deep empty swimming pool was found as we walked down stone filled steps.
Here was placed a large statue or totem pole. Strange faces were engraved on this that frightened us. We took long moments to wonder about these things. Funny, the buildings here were built for people smaller than 11-year-old girls. It was a magical place, we imagined, just for us. We played and dreamed in our fairy land.
The fairy land still haunts me. We never thought to take pictures of this enchanted place. Which is now gone. Bulldozed over with new homes placed upon it hiding its magic secrets. Yet, cameras and cellphones were not an option back then. The only renderings are here in my mind.
This ends my three impressions from my macabre youth. Stories told by an adult about a time “without knowledge, or luster, or name.” No Mr. Lovecraft, I disagree there is a luster for me still each time I remember!
While driving my long drive home home I noticed a sign outlined in bold red,
“Reiki treatment for shyness.”
I hate this. Sometimes Wellness clinics go too far. I don’t see anything unhealthy with being shy. As though it is an illness to be healed. This in-your-face culture is what we have become and it gets me down. To many reality shows galore to bore bore us. Why should we all be confident, outspoken and extroverted? This sounds like death death to me and it gives me a headache too.
Today at Trader Joe’s I went to get some free yummy coffee coffee. I noticed the pot was bubbling and empty. I said to the mature lady behind the counter,
“Hey, The coffee cow is empty.”
Saying this directly and softly to her as she avoided my face.
She must have heard me because she quickly replaced it with a new full pot of hot hot coffee. Talking the whole time with a group of mature women. I was not included in the conversation. I felt it. I became a shadow shadow that bothered them for a short time. Was it because I was too young, or was it my tattoos, or maybe the pimple on my chin?
No that was not it. It is because these ladies had the talk down. That talk talk that is so peer peer la de da older women talk. They talk low and from their deep voice. Vacuum intense where the whole world is just focused in on them them. In this maze of healthy shopping charts. I am not part of their hub hub.
Professors and older christian missionaries with PhD’s are like this too. I’ve been around them too much at the university university. They give their their lectures of the century. Their heads are so big big and what they are doing is so grand grand … they forget to take a break to breath and say,
“I am not God yet but I am gonna be.”
Man this makes me sick sick with fervor when I get around these types of women.
Being shy, lack of confidence and being an introvert is a normal part of life and I like it. I am so tired of hearing that it is strange, weird and stupid.
“Your son, he is so quiet?”
The nice lady teacher says to me, while the rest of the kids all bazooka out. Hey, you should be happy happy that a child is paying attention and is sensitive to their environment Mrs Teacher Teacher.
Being Shy and introverted is cool. It means one is respective. Being respective means being engaged with the world around you. The activity of the brain, heart and mind is an amazing quality to have… one is in tune like a tuning fork!
This is why we all love love beer, poetry, beautiful art, Carl Jung, surfers, punks, beatniks, Ross from GBH and James Dean. I include my two sons and myself in this gander of shyness.
We tend to stand obscurely behind the lines making faces at the loud important people who are so full of themselves they forget to squeeze out a fart fart.
So full of themselves that they can not even realize that there are others more intelligent than they are, and unlike them, have instead chosen not to brag about it.
Braggadocio braggadocio take a look at yourselfcio and get over yourself!
When I lived in New York, I stayed with a family where happily every Thursday morning the trash truck would come to pick up the trash. At about nine in the morning the women in this house got up quickly and ran to the windows.
I did not know what was up, but I found out. The trash truck was not a fully automated one with a fancy robotic hand instead it was swarming with about four guys. I would say anywhere from 16 to 25. Hey, it was a rough job, no shirts seemed logical. We put some good men out of work by replacing them with robotic animated trash trucks.
Then a few years later when I lived in Santa Cruz California, I noticed that chairs were set up around the local car wash. It was a small one and had fresh delicious Santa Cruz Roasting Company Coffee inside the little car wash cafe-store.
It was early one morning when I decided to sit down in one of the chairs. Then slowly the cars started to arrive and went into the wash.
One by one I saw the ladies drive up. Hey you reader,
“I said ladies no men!”
The guys came out with their rags and cleaning solutions ready to dry the ladies’ cars. These guys were surfers working part-time jobs. That day I was asked to get up from my chair by a happy lady who whispered,
“If you don’t have a car in the wash, you lose your seat.”
She pulled the chair out from under me.
Now the blowers at most car washes or gas stations don’t quite do the same kind of job as the part-time surfers. Tan muscles, long hair, and the female eyes watching them.
Ladies’ hands leaving big tips in the trim of their pants or a little higher, seemed more productive to me.
Yes, it is much more interesting to me than big fans blowing my car dry. Technology sucks sometimes.
“President John F. Kennedy, speaking on civil defense, advises American families to build bomb shelters to protect them from atomic fallout in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. Kennedy also assured the public that the U.S. civil defense program would soon begin providing such protection for every American.”
We are thrilled that our backyard is concealing something unique, silent, and strong. Originally the insurance company did not know how to insure it. The miniature palm tree, jasmine plants and miniature lemon tree hide it. A concrete frame and solid foundation hide deep within the living earth.
Many years now it lurks there as if it were a tomb. It has a white metal door where spiders wait at its threshold. The big metal door makes a loud metal banging and squeaking sound when opened. Enter and it will take you downstairs. The stairs are steep and twelve feet down under the ground. It contains a small room with a closet. Much enthusiasm goes into what will be done with it. Over time our family, friends and acquaintances all have found out about it. As we sometimes whisper in their ear,
“We have a cold war bomb shelter in our backyard that was built-in the 1960s.”
What will we do with it or what have we done with it? Have we converted it into something? A Hobbit house sits on top of this bomb shelter. The backyard does have a middle earth feeling to it. This house has a big green round door with a doorknob in the middle. Open it and there is a lovely room. Under the golden tapestry rug, in the right corner, is a trap door that leads down to the basement. Here is where we keep our grains, vegetables, and fruit. A garden grows on top of our Hobbit house and to either side are fruit trees.
Instead, I may have a beautiful studio hidden down there where I create my art and author my stories. A wood banister runs all the way down to the bottom of the stairs. It is stained rosewood. This matches my large desk and chair. Here I frame my art and listen to music. A turntable, stereo, vinyl records, and speakers enhance my creative atmosphere. In front of the white metal door hangs a small sigh. It often says do not disturb or something a little more curse. It is great that this bomb shelter has electricity. I am thinking about promoting an art show here or maybe starting Bomb-shelter publishing soon.
It is also possible that we have beer bottles filled with beer down there. Many bottles of homemade beer and root beer are stored down in our bomb shelter. A large kettle or two and the proper space for the fermentation process might make this a truth. Two large fans on the ceiling ventilate the room. We have all the tools we need for this excellent microbrewery. Sometimes our bottled root beer pops from the pressure and ants get excited and are a mess to clean up. We are working on a wine recipe for this fall.
There may be a low humming sound coming from this hidden enclosure. Seven twin mattresses are down there. They are framed in with plywood which muffles the noise. The small music studio is great for musicians. A drum set, two guitars and keyboards fit exactly right. The endless travel through the backyard has made its toll on the lawn, but the noise keeps the annoying squirrels away. There is talk now about turning it into a small recording studio.
Who knows? One late night at the local pub when everything got a little too funky, a long-term acquaintance listened to us talking. His ears perked up when he overheard that there was a bomb shelter in our back yard. He is into hydroponics. He said it is good money. He could teach us everything we needed to know to start an underground business. He was interested in setting us up. I then imagined the neighborhood surrounded by police and then being taken away in handcuffs. This I can say, with all honesty, did not happen.
This fallout shelter is only a place where I meditate and become inspired. I am in the process of writing a murder mystery story about the bodies found down there just recently. The detective, the femme fatale and innocent victims are included in this story. The bomb shelter is the perfect focal point of this modern-day noir thriller, The Bomb Shelter Mystery.
Our bomb shelter can be anything we want it to be. Maybe we have tried all the above and maybe not. Someone told us to put a big metal brace on the white metal door and lock it tight so no one can get in. We do not have tornadoes in California, so it will not serve as a shelter for protection against such a storm.
I watch the cats rest above the shelter at night before prowling the yard for food or play. At times I witness a praying mantis resting on the jagged concrete that is under the lemon tree. A black widow sometimes makes a web near the opening of the white metal door. This autumn it will become covered with leaves that will be brushed away. This bomb shelter never withstood an atomic fallout or War of the Worlds. I hope it never will!
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, and dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.
