Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,
I'm a bit late tonight because I'm at home (off til Sunday morning), and so I tried to cram as much stuff into my evening as I could possibly accomodate, including my full 5 mile walk all at once, reading my two Dr. Farrell books that I'm working on ("The Third Way" and Volume 3 of his "God, History &Dialectic" series), and also listening to the entirety of the new Bill Nelson album ("All That I Remember", just wonderful music) while working on my new drawing for August. I may have mentioned that I'm doing 12 this year, one for each month......
I also watched a movie (yes, I did all of this starting at 7pm, which is why I'm writing to you so late), called "Horatio Hornblower" from 1951, starring Gregory Peck and Virginia Mayo. I couldn't remember if Hornblower was a real person or fictional (he's the latter), but I knew I remembered him from Junior High, and probably the study, in History, of Napoleon's battles against England. Anyhow, what an epic movie! I have always loved the Hollywood "Swashbuckling" pirate movies of the 30s and 40s, like "Captain Blood" and "The Sea Hawk" with Errol Flynn (one of my favorite actors), and a bunch of others. This movie was like those, except it was military instead of pirate, but it had all the requisite cannon battles, naval language, swordfights, and a heartfelt romance between the ultra-handsome Peck and the beautiful Virginia Mayo.
And on top of all that, the story went on forever, through all kinds of plot, and it was shot in glorious Technicolor, well restored on the dvd. I actually had not heard of this film until I did a library search for director Raoul Walsh. I'm running out of movies I've never seen, so I search old time directors and actors to see what I can come up with. But anyway, it was really good, a classic even. :)
I hope your day was good and your weekend off to a good start. I didn't see any new posts, although the "posts You like" feature sometimes puts posts from 2015 up in the top spots, so I don't know if that means you just now "liked" them, or what. Some I recognise from last year, and some I don't. And then FB will also just "freeze" into it's logarithm, and show the same "posts You like" for eons, and I don't know if that means it's just FB being FB, or if you haven't made any new "likes" that particular day. It's all pretty confusing< I know, and it's not the easiest way to communicate, but it's all good, and I'm trying as always. I hope your editing is coming along well. :)
Last night I said I was gonna explore "The Attack of The Ex-Neighbors", and I shall begin now, with a brief outline. The trouble with this event is that, besides being inexplicable, it also exists somewhat in isolation in my memory. In other words, I have no continuum to connect it to, in the way I can connect Concord Square to the event at Northridge Hospital the same night, and waking up in the empty apartment the next morning. That is a memory continuum that I have been able to reconstruct for almost a full 24 hour period, from one even to another. The same with Wilbur Wash. I know it lead directly to the event at the Howard Johnson motel.
But with "The Attack Of The Ex-Neighbors", I have no "before" point and only a vague, chaotic "after" point. Nothing to form a continuum in the sense of "what happened before and after".
At any rate, the memory is as real as any of the others. At some point in the twelve days (my estimate) that the events of September 1989 took place, I was at home. And there's that conundrum again : how could I simply "be at home", on and off, with all that was happening to me? Unless it was an experiment of some kind? I have no idea. But my memory, which is very real, shows me that I was at home, late one afternoon, perhaps 4 or 5pm. My parents were there with me, and this means my Dad must have come down from his HUD apartment a half mile up on Reseda Boulevard, to which he had moved in March 1989, when my parents separated for good. So, Dad was there, and Mom was there, and we were in the living room, and I remember I was at my wit's end. I felt like I was living in an upside-down world, where wrong was right, and evil was okay, nothing that was happening to me was being addressed, not by police, and it seemed okay to the world at large that I was being persecuted. I am sorry if this all sounds heavy, but I have to describe my reality and my mindset at the time.
I thought, basically, that somebody was gonna kill me sooner or later, and that the neighborhood was just gonna watch, like they all knew about what was going on. In retrospect, I don't know how much I knew of what I had experienced during the overall 12 day event. I don't know know if I was aware of my kidnapping by the crazy Rappaport, or if that event had happened yet (though it probably had). This is what amnesia - deliberately induced amnesia - will do to you. Amnesia and state of shock.
But I was very lucid in our living room that afternoon, and I certainly knew the Overall Gist of what was being done to me, because I was shouting at my Mom and Dad, that "nobody cares". I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone, like "what kind of world is it where there are no laws"? And where people's behavior turns insane, and yet the cops do nothing at it seems to be protected?
In my living room that afternoon, I literally thought I was going to be killed pretty soon, in some kind of insane game that was being played against me, in which I was the target. The events had been going on for days, and I was lucky to be alive thus far.
So I was really trying to get my parents' attention, as I figured they were the only allies I had left. The cops were nowhere in sight, and were powerless, as we had seen several nights earlier at Northridge Hospital. My neighbors either seemed to be in on it - as with Jared Rappaport - or aware of it but happy to just spectate. And I thought the world had gone insane and that I was gonna die.
In reality, it is simply impossible to put into words just how crazy and terrifying the whole situation was to me. It was like civilization had broken down entirely, towards me, and whatever anyone was gonna do was okay.
So I was trying to enlist my parents' help, and what I remember was that my Dad suggested going up to the Devonshire Division Police Department (part of LAPD), which is located about a mile and a half north of 9032 Rathburn Avenue. And I remember a sense of urgency to go up there. And so we exited the house, Mom, Dad and I.
And about three seconds later, as we were walking toward the sidewalk, a Madman came charging across the street, across Sunburst Street, which intersects Rathburn. The crazy man was very large and moving very fast, and within another three seconds he was upon us.
I have said I am not gonna name names, except in the case of violent criminals, and when this man came charging at us - out of the blue - I recognised him immediately. But because his sudden appearance was so incongruous, it took me a couple of seconds to register :
"Oh my God.......it's Ray Tippo!".
And then Ray Tippo was upon us, but instead of attacking me, he attacked my Dad. ////
To be continued. Sorry it's so grim and, but I have to tell it so I can analyse it. I have been living with this for 27 years this week, and no one has ever even acknowledged that it happened, let alone discussed it with me, so it has been a millstone around my neck ever since.
It feels Biblical in it's implications, something truly Unusual. And I am gonna see it through if it takes me the rest of my life, because it's simply not possible for me to do anything less.
However, I still live my life in the now, and I am greatly blessed.
But What Happened In Northridge is leading up to some kind of revelation and resolution, and so it is imperative that I not give up on it.
I will continue tomorrow. That's all I know for tonight, SB.
I Love You. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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