February 28, 2024

It's the weirdest thing. I'm having the strangest notion lately, ever since the revelation of the 1992 ELP concert came to light. I think she came to get me, and I think I rode in her car, as late as 1993. I've had a "trigger image" emerge out of the blue, of the sidewalk down near Rayen Street at the end of Rathburn. In it, I am walking south on the west side of the street, and I am passing under a mulberry tree, the leaves of which are mottling the sidewalk with shade. It is Summer, maybe late July or August. And I stop at the corner of Rathburn and Rayen, because she is coming to pick me up. She has chosen this corner because she doesn't want anyone to see us, but alas, here they come, Chris and Terry. In the imagery, which is moving now (triggered by the mulberry leaves), they have either followed me down to the end of Rathburn Avenue, trailing me as I walk, or they've found out I'm headed there, within minutes of my departure from the house, and they've hightailed it to intercept me before she arrives.

They are down there because they have their interests to protect. Their secrets. And they're worried that she's picking me up. They don't want her alone with me, because of what she could say. What she could tell me. There were times, at 9032, when that lowlife Terry lived there, that she'd call, and he'd pick up, and he wouldn't give me the phone. I'd say, "Who is it? Is it for me?" He'd keep talking, and it would only be minutes later, when he finally handed me the phone, that I'd find out it was her. And I'd wonder, "Why was he talking to her for so long?" And the reason was that he had his interests to protect - his secrets - and he probably was trying to make sure she was "on board", hoping that she was, perhaps making insinuations of what he'd do, what he'd say, if she wasn't. But I wouldn't have known any of this then, because in the early 1990s, I had no memory.

Now, I have a lot of my memory back. Its actually kind of funny, because in 2008, when I finished the first edition of "What Happened in Northridge", I estimated that I "knew" 70% of what happened in 1989. Now, since the avalanche began four months ago, I realize I only ever knew 10 - 20 %, at best. It is only now that I can say, with assurance, that I know 70 - 80%, and I'm learning more every day. I used to think the entirety of What Happened in Northridge was a 12-day event that began on September 1 and ended on September 12.

And that was gigantic enough, by itself.

But good grief, Charlie Brown, and Holy Smokes, and what have you: It turns out that it lasted all Summer! 

And some of the worst incidents took place in July and August, and some of the worst violence was committed by a few goons we all know very well.  

But let's not talk about them now. Let's go back to the corner of Rayen and Rathburn in 1993. She has just pulled up. Lys is with her. They want me to get into the car, but Chris and Terry are hassling them. But wait a minute, because Pat Fordyce is there, too. He arrived a few minutes earlier. Maybe he knew what was happening, and followed Chris and Terry just as they had followed me. Pat also had "interests to protect" (his own secrets), but in cases like this (or at the ELP concert), he usually sided with The Good Guys (which is not to say he was a member of the Good Guy Team, but he sometimes tried to do the right thing). On this occasion, he "runs interference" against Terry and Chris, who are there strictly to harass her when she arrives, to make sure she tells me nothing.

Threats are insinuated if she talks. One of them says, "I'm here to make sure nothing is said about me." Lys gets out of the car to help Pat get rid of these guys.

In April of '93, she called me - unsolicited - to offer to take me to lunch. I of course said yes. But it never came to pass, and she never called to cancel. And when I called her, wondering what happened to our lunch date, she had a reason why she didn't come over. And I accepted it as legit. But now I wonder if someone coerced her to cancel. Coincidentally, I gave Chris and his friend Kurt a ride to the airport that day. But that's probably just a coincidence......right?

The "trigger" image of the shady sidewalk near the Rathburn/Rayen corner first came to me about a week ago. Since then, it's gotten stronger and has built into a (probable) memory. I can see Lys getting out of the car, to assist Pat, who is arguing with Chris and Terry, telling them to "go home", or "get lost", but they aren't leaving. I can also see Lys driving the car, when we finally got rid of them.

Though the memory is only "probable" at the moment, and needs more context to confirm it, I believe that it happened. I can feel it. And I believe she came to pick me up more than once, in 1992 and (mostly) '93. I think one time we even went to a movie. It may have been the re-release of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" or it may have been "Tom and Jerry: The Movie". She loves T and J. I see us having lunch afterward (maybe at a Chinese restaurant). This "movie and lunch date" is still only a notion. It doesn't yet have a context, but it's been persistent enough that I'm willing to bet that it happened. It's from a different "car ride" than the one with Lys.

And I find these "clandestine car rides" (as I've named them) not only fascinating (in the way they seem dreamlike, i.e. buried in my subconscious yet very real), but also inspiring because they mean that she never gave up. At least through 1993, and maybe longer. That makes her Marine Corps in my book, and also My Hero.

I know we went on these rides in her car. They had a purpose, she took me places and told me many things. The Rayen/Rathburn "pickup spot" is emerging from my subconscious and into my conscious memory. The imagery is becoming fluid. I have other "car ride" notions (think of notions as emergent memories) that are thus far only snapshots, but include things like the (possible) aforementioned movie-and-lunch date, and trips to see Ann at a building, possibly in NoHo or Burbank. And Lys was along at least once. She is a Hero, as well. We love Lys.

So I just want to say "thanks for being there." It's amazing that you came to get me. Thanks for stepping up to the plate, and being hardcore and Marine Corps. It's been 30 years, but I've never given up. I hope you haven't, either, and I love you.

February 22, 2024 (ELP)

In working on my book, I've been writing about the year 1992, and on August 28th of that year I attended an Emerson Lake and Palmer concert at the Universal Amphitheater. In the decades since then, I had casually remembered it as a good show, one that I attended alone (or at least went to alone). I also went to another ELP show the next day, at UC Irvine of all places, with a group of friends (or "friends" as I think of them now). Pat drove us down there in a pickup truck that I think belonged to his brother. I rode in the back, in the pickup bed, with two other people, and that was a good concert, too. But in writing about the first show at Universal, something was bugging me, and when something bugs me I have learned it is for a reason. It is my intuition trying to tell me something, so I stop to figure it out.

What was bugging me about the ELP concert at the Universal Amphitheater on August 28, 1992?

I didn't know at first. 1992 was the year Emerson Lake and Palmer reunited after a long hiatus. If you're a fan, you'll remember they had a two-thirds reunion in 1986, when Keith and Greg teamed up with Cozy Powell, and there was another short-lived group in 1988 called "3", featuring Keith and Carl with Robert Berry. 

But Keith, Greg and Carl, the one-and-only Emerson Lake and Palmer, broke up in 1979, a year after "Love Beach" was released, and they didn't get back together for 13 years, until 1992. And they toured that year. They had a new album out called "Black Moon". It wasn't exactly "Brain Salad Surgery" but it had some good stuff, and you knew they'd be great in concert, even if Greg's voice was a little rougher. It was ELP! How could they not be incredible? 

I took the bus down to Universal City by myself; that was the first thing I specifically recalled about attending that show. The #35 bus (or was it the #135?) ran all the way down Reseda Boulevard, turned east on Ventura, and took you to Los Angeles, if you were going that far. I got off at Lankershim, the Universal Studios stop, but I didn't walk uphill to the venue right away. You see, I'd brought a couple of drinks with me (those little 8oz Screwdrivers in a can from Seagram's), and I stopped to surreptitiously sip them from their brown paper bag. I was standing on Lankershim Boulevard across from the steep access road that leads to the Universal parking lot.

And was I thinking about someone. That was the next thing I remembered. And I'm wondering now why I would've been thinking of her at that particular time and location. Why, in memory, was I associating her with the ELP show, and specifically with my activities before the show? That, I couldn't figure out. As far as I knew, she was not an ELP fan (nothing wrong with that; they weren't everyone's cup of tea). But why would I have been thinking about her prior to that concert? Did I think she was going to be there? No, that didn't make any sense, and something like this can present a challenge in psychic work, not knowing if a thought or "mental association" was present at the time of an event (in this case the ELP concert) or if it "arrived in retrospect" (years later, when considering that concert). The exact question I am currently debating is: "Was I thinking about her when I arrived at Universal, or am I associating that thought with another circumstance?" But you have to trust your intuition, and mine tells me that I was thinking about her for some specific reason before that concert. 

When we say, "trust your intuition", one of the most important components of that trust is the mental picture you get when you are considering something that makes you curious. "Where did I leave my keys?" for instance. You "ask yourself" where you might've left them, then you mentally retrace your steps, and you receive a snapshot image of where they might be, and voila! You find them. That is trusting your intuition.

It's a little more complex after 30-plus years, but the principle is the same, and when I thought of that ELP concert, my immediate "mental image" was of standing on Lankershim, drinking my drinks (across the street from the access road leading to the Universal parking lot), and thinking of the person in question. This doesn't mean I was associating her with the concert. It could've been in another context. I'd recently seen her at the Lollapalooza show at Irvine Meadows. Pat invited me to that festival at the very last minute, on the morning of the concert. He called and said he had free tickets and did I want to go? Of course I did. Soundgarden and Pearl Jam were playing (so was Lush, but I wasn't aware of them then). 

And after Soundgarden's set, Pat pointed several rows down and said "look who's here." I did, and then Pat went and got her, and brought her up to say hello. I was nervous because I was pretty scroungy that day, having had no chance to shower and shave when Pat called me to go to the concert. So I was nervous to see her, but also very excited and happy. We had a nice time talking in the intermission before Ice Cube played (or was it Ministry?) and then she had to go back to her seat because she was actually working PR at that show.

In hindsight, though, I have to say that I've wondered if she and Pat "pre-arranged" that meeting. Of course it could've been pure coincidence, but in working on my book I've had some amazing revelations about the early 1990s, which is why I think that meeting could've been pre-arranged. Keep in mind that I say "could've been" and not "was".

But back to the ELP concert, it took place only about five weeks after Lollapalooza, so that could be why I was thinking about her (and I thought about her all the time, anyway), but it didn't seem conclusive as an answer, so again, I wondered, "why is this concert bugging me so much?" and I bypassed the intuitive pre-concert imagery to consider the unusual circumstance of how I got to that show. I thought "Hmm, I took the bus there, alone. Why was I going to an ELP concert by myself? Why wasn't everyone going?" And then I remembered, "Well, I did sit alone, but Pat came to visit me during the show". It was the kind of detail I wouldn't have remembered unless I considered the entire event. 

And I thought, "Okay, I rode the bus alone, and I sat alone, but Pat once again had a record company seat, and he drove to the concert separately from me, after he got off work." And I thought, "Okay, but why didn't anyone else want to go?" meaning any of the other "friends". That seemed unusual, given that they were ELP fans. I remembered that Pat, when he visited me during the show, was critical of the band's performance (he could be a bit jaded when it came to concerts) and I just wanted to enjoy ELP, who I'd waited 15 years to see. I thought they were fantastic, so I was glad when Pat went back to his seat (which I think was on the floor. I was in the loge). But before he went back to his seat, he offered to give me a ride home.

I would never have remembered this if I hadn't considered why the ELP concert was bothering me.

Pat offered me a ride home, and probably either came back up to my seat after the show was over, or I met him in the lobby. And while considering this, I visualized us walking to his car in the Universal parking garage.

And then - boom! - all of a sudden, Dennis was right beside us. He has a habit of turning up in these stories, doesn't he? He'd somehow seen us in the parking garage, and caught up, and now he had stopped me because he wanted to talk. I remembered that Pat was in a hurry to get going, and was trying to blow Dennis off. But Dennis kept talking, and he said to Pat, "It's okay, leave if you want to. I'll give Adam a ride home", and I said "no thanks" because Dennis was riding his motorcycle. No way was I going to ride home on the back. So Pat said, "well, if you're riding with with me then let's go". And I tried to leave but Dennis kept talking, saying very specific things, which upset me, and then Pat got upset and came over and started arguing with Dennis, accusing him of "stirring up shit", and at this point I said, "okay guys, I think I'm just gonna stick to my original plan and take the bus home". I'd checked the bus schedule before I left my house. Now I looked at my watch and saw I still had time to catch the last one. "If I start walking now, I'll make it. I have about 25 minutes." Pat was pissed off. "No, no. Don't walk to the bus stop. I'll give you a ride. I just wanna know why Dennis is being such an a-hole." Pat and Dennis were now in a dispute that had seemed to come from nowhere. All I wanted was to make sure I got home, but now Pat was grabbing Dennis by the arm. Was there going to be a fight? I hoped not.

As I was remembering all of this (and the memory was vivid), I thought "Aha! Now I know why this ELP concert was bugging me, because of the argument between Dennis and Pat after the show."

But then, as will happen these days, the memory continued to develop past that point. Something else happened after that argument. And when it happened, Pat said to me, "that's why I was trying to get you to leave, so now you know." And then he said to Dennis, "thanks for being such an a-hole, Dennis! Now you've ruined Adam's night."

Dennis protested that he wasn't the one who ruined the night. The way he saw it, he was trying to help me, by showing me something I didn't know.

And now, in 2024, I was amazed yet again at how memory works, and how I was able to take a single thread - of being "bothered" by the memory of the ELP concert (but not knowing why) - and "pull it out of the water" of my subconscious (like reeling in a big fish) - and astound myself with the results.

Something major happened in the Universal parking garage after the ELP concert ended. And it was preceded by an argument between Pat and Dennis, who seemed to make a point of trying to delay me. Pat wanted us to leave, asap. But then it was too late, and the "major thing" happened.

Wow. To remember that was huge.

But then I remembered something more. Something even bigger and more important. After Dennis left, and the bad situation calmed down, I was asked to go sit in a car so that the incident could be explained to me. I didn't want to sit in this car, but Pat persuaded me. He said "Ah, c'mon Adam. Go talk to her. She's waiting for you in her car. She just wants to talk to you for five minutes." I agreed to do it, and was very glad I did, because she explained the entire situation to me and I felt much better. 

February 15, 2024

I had a dream the night before last, or rather very early that morning, on Valentine's Day. It occurred maybe an hour or two before I awoke, and it wasn't long enough to really be considered a dream. It was more of an impulse, like a Mental Button that was pushed while I slept, similar to the movie triggers we've been talking about that make you think of something from the past.

It wasn't really a dream, because it lasted all of two seconds, and yet it happened during some level of sleep. I'm a light sleeper, so it's hard to discern the state of consciousness I'm in when I receive certain dreams and impulses. But when it came, boy did it wake me up. I wanted to get out of bed and turn on my computer right away, so I could write it down, but I didn't.

I knew I'd remember it, and I decided to go back to sleep because I'm no good for the day unless I have at least six hours. Seven is preferable, eight is the best (but rare), so I thought I'd shoot for seven and laid back down.

But I couldn't get back to sleep because I was thinking about that impulse. If you consider that word and take it literally, the prefix "im" is variable (and can mean "negation"), but "pulse" is obvious, and that's what the two-second dream felt like: a thought-image that was "pulsed" to me in a state of "sleep before wakefulness" (but still mostly sleep). And it was weird. It was like a Thought/Pulse/Quake. Lasting two seconds. An impulse that got sent to me, either by my subconscious (which is wide open these days), or by my higher self, or by God and/or my helpers.

But it woke me up, because it set off a light bulb, and this is what it was: I saw myself in a van. How I'd gotten there I did not know, but I felt I was in an altered state. I immediately thought of Shecky again (we mentioned him in the last blog), and in the waking part of my mind, I knew he once had a van. I thought, "This is Shecky's van, and I'm in it, and I'm in the front passenger bucket seat and I am looking out the windshield. I am "scanning" because the driver (Shecky) wants me to scan, because he says this is a game of "radio tag". And that's all I had to begin with. I thought I was in an altered state, like I'd been hypnotised yet again, and that the purpose for me being there, in the van, was to "scan" the street (side to side through the windshield) because Shecky, who was driving, said: "you're part robot, Ad". Then he went "hahahahaha" like he always did, because to Shecky, everything was a joke. Or at least most things. He was one of those guys who was always joking. As an aside, do you know anyone like that, who is always joking, never serious, and do you get tired of it because you know it's a front? Well anyhow, when I finally woke up and had my coffee, I knew what part of the day's work had to be: "Figure out that dream, asap." And I did. It took me about fifteen hours, but by 10 pm last night, I knew that it was a real occurrence and that I had gotten into Shecky's van voluntarily. I should mention that, at first, I thought I'd been "kidnapped", in the way that hypnotizers have "kidnapped" me in the past, but in this case I was thinking of friendly hypnotizers, not the violent kind, and I thought of Ann.

Ann had been part of the impulse, coming in at the tail end of the two seconds. If I had to put it into single words, the impulse consisted of "me, van, game, radio, tag, Shecky, windshield, Ann." Two seconds. And we were driving, somewhere near Pierce College, though Ann was not in the van. For some reason, Shecky remarked about her, which initially caused caused me to wonder: how would Shecky know Ann? It just didn't add up.

And yet it did add up, because it felt natural during the impulse. Considering this over coffee, I thought "Shecky and Ann are both in the impulse, and it feels natural that he mentioned her". And as always, I knew that my mind does not conjure. That's a saying I have about myself: "My mind does not conjure", which is not to say it doesn't produce abstract imagery now and then, but I can tell when the imagery is natural (meaning that it represents Something That Really Happened) and, in the case of Shecky mentioning Ann, I knew, while I was still half-asleep, that it came from a real occurrence. I knew that he really had mentioned her. And I thought, "well, I don't know how Shecky knows Ann. And in fact, he says he's never met her. But he knows, at the very least, who she is", which meant I was onto something. 

By 6 pm last evening, I knew I'd been in a van with Shecky and a guy named Les, who was renting a room from him at the time. I guessed the date to be Christmas 1989 (later amended to possibly be Christmas 1990). And I saw myself riding in Shecky's van, and I was very stoned on pot (in retrospect the most dangerous drug for yours truly, and possibly for the world. Don't smoke pot, folks). And I thought that was why, when I initially felt the impulse, that I was in an altered state in the van. It wasn't because I was hypnotized, but because I was very stoned. Anyone who knew Shecky, knows that he would almost insist you smoke pot when he offered, and I admit I almost never turned him down.

But Shecky had gotten me into his van on false pretenses. We were supposed to "ride around" and "listen to music." I think he called me up and said he just wanted to "hang out" on Christmas Eve (or Christmas night), and because I was home by myself I said okay. But now, we were driving down by Pierce College and we were playing something Shecky called "radio tag", and I didn't know what that was. Les, his roommate, was now getting pissed at Sheck. Les had some kind of electronic device in his lap, which looked like a remote control, only bigger. Actually, it looked more like a transmitter, about the size of a small radio, and it had an antenna and dials. And Les was supposed to be "homing in" on whatever car we were trying to locate. Sheck was now cluing me in on the game, saying we were "playing hide and seek" with another car. "It's like a treasure hunt, Ad. And the treasure for you is......." He mentioned someone by name, and when he did, I knew how he knew Ann.

Les was really angry now, in the back of the van, holding the radio device in his lap. Shecky said, "I'm sick of your bitching, Les! Either stop bitching or get the fuck out." But Les did not get out because he didn't want to walk home from Woodland Hills (or wherever we were), and yet he kept bitching at Sheck, because he thought what they were doing was wrong.

There's a lot more to this story that I'll leave out for now, and a lot that I still don't know (but of course I will figure it out). But what happened was that Shecky and Les eventually "located" the car we were "tracking" in this game of "radio tag". All I knew was that I'd gotten in his van after he offered to come get me on Christmas Eve (when I was home alone and bored) in order to, in his words, "drive around, get stoned and listen to some music" just for something to do. I didn't know anything about "radio tag", didn't know what it was, nor that I was going to be the object of a very mean-spirited prank that night, one which sent me home crying. That was why Les (Shecky's roommate) was so upset in the back of the van. He knew it was going to be a prank, or turn out bad, and he thought it was very uncool because it was intended to play on my feelings.

This is not to say it began as a prank. That's the part I still don't know. Dennis was there, you can ask him. He was in one of the other cars that we "tagged". Those cars pulled over, and Dennis was trying to act as a "mediator" but was not successful. Les was really angry at him.

This really happened, and so far, I have the date as either Christmas Eve or Christmas night 1989, or 1990. I think it is definitely one of those two years (and I am now leaning toward 1990), and I am still open to it being another holiday, like New Year's Eve or even Halloween, but I think it was Christmas Eve or Christmas night.

And certain people were in the other cars that we "tagged", or whatever the hell Shecky and Les were doing, whatever this game was, and whatever Les was doing with that electronic device in his lap. He was furious by the time we pulled over. In his own words, he was ready to "punch someone in the face" that night. 

I briefly knew Les. I had Thanksgiving dinner with him and Sheck, at Sheck's house, on that holiday in 1989. Les was a very serious guy, about my age, who was a recovering alcoholic. He was also on probation for domestic violence, but was trying to get his life together. He smoked a lot of pot like Sheck did, but he didn't drink (neither did I at the time), and he wanted to complete his probation and be out of trouble. And he felt Shecky was manufacturing trouble by tricking me into this game of "radio tag". But perhaps it wasn't supposed to be a trick. Maybe the outcome was supposed to be nice. I didn't know Ann that well myself, but on the few occasions I met her she seemed very nice, and not like a lady who would prank me, especially in such a mean-spirited way as this night turned out.

Les got so angry with Shecky, that on the way back to my house, he threw his share of the money they'd been paid at him. "I don't want this fuckin' money!" Sheck was beside himself with apologies, because the night had gone so wrong. "I'm really sorry, Ad". I still didn't know exactly what had happened, nor why. I didn't know what the intention had been.  And because I didn't remember it for over 30 years, I don't know if it was supposed to be a prank or not, but on that night it felt like one, and it hurt. It hurt even more because it was Christmas Eve.

I think I even said, to the people in one of the cars, "don't you guys have anything better to do, on Christmas Eve, than hurt my feelings?"

Shecky wanted to give me all the money he and Les were paid (fifty bucks), as "compensation" for the night gone wrong. I didn't want that money and said "no thanks", and "no" to the pot he offered in the bargain. Les even said, "don't take it, Adam. It'll justify what they did to you." I didn't say much as we drove to my house. When we got there, I took the cassette tapes I'd brought (because the plan had been, as I was told, to "listen to music") and I got out of Shecky's van. Then I went into my house, and sat in my bedroom with Alice my dog, and I cried.

And I wondered how people could be so mean.

Now, well over thirty years later, I'm amazed at the power of my memory, and that I could bring back that incident well enough to verify that it happened, with only a two-second impulse to go by.

And I have so many other things to work on. 

February 9, 2024

Hi, folks. Sorry it takes so long to write these days. We had an earthquake a little while ago, which is always scary because you recognize them the moment they start, and you hope they will not get worse. That's always my immediate thought: "please don't let it get worse." And this one didn't, so no big deal. But it was a little above average on the "oh no" scale.

I've been working (as usual) on my book. Not the two that are all ready to go (except for lyric licencing), but the one that's to come, the one about 1989. It's an extremely involved effort, not only because I am learning that it's not just about 1989, but about other years, as well. Take 1991, for instance. Who knew stuff happened in that year? I'm talking about at 9032, of course. Researching 1991 has been a whopper for me. But now, I'm working on 1992, and so far, things seem to have settled down. I was in Shecky's band by this point, and I was also taking the bus down to UCLA every three weeks to have my teeth fixed, in what would take 22 appointments over an 18 month period, from apprx. January 1992 to July of '93. 

Shecky asked me to join what he planned to be his new band in late 1991. I'm not sure of the month, but let's say November. It was gonna be his music, and he was going to be the front man. He wasn't going to play drums (his main instrument) but rhythm guitar. He was also going to be the lead singer. He'd written a batch of pop songs, some of which were pretty good, in a retro-1950s way. They weren't complex. He wanted me for lead guitar (and to double the rhythm), and also on backing vocals. I thought, "what the heck" because I'd been playing in my room. It was a chance to be in a band again, and to learn to sing and play at the same time, something I'd never done before. As an aside, singing high harmony lines would come in handy 20 years later when I became a choir singer, one of the best experiences of my life that I hope to do again one day.

For the first four or five months, it was just me and Sheck. He taught me all his songs (around 20) until I had them down cold. Then he wanted to build the band. I don't know how David Friedman was suggested (and I will leave out his well-justified "Evil" moniker for now), but maybe Shecky knew that Friedman played keyboards, well enough to be in the group, and soon he had joined us. Now we were a trio, and we stayed that way for most of 1992.

Shecky was a slow mover when it came to bands (I was too) and in his case it was because he was mainly what he called "a gardener". You can guess what that is, if you don't already know. Yes, Sheck was a gardener; that was really his main gig, though he was a fantastic drummer. But at any rate, I kind of shrugged when he told me what he intended to call the band. "We're gonna be 'The Insect', Ad". When he said that, I thought, "The Insect"? To me, it sounded kinda.....(well, you can fill in the blank). And I said, "The Insect, huh?" Like "are you sure about that, Sheck?" And he said, "no, not the Insect. It's the In-Sect. Two words, or like a hyphenated word. We're like the In Crowd, only we aren't a crowd, we're a Sect. Like a cult, you know what I mean? And we're "In", like it's hip to be in our sect. We're The In-Sect, get it"?

I sort of got it then, but I really get it now. Especially the part about being in a cult. Only I was never in one. But I see that Shecky was definitely in a cult, and it wasn't related to his gardening.

Well anyhow, that's a little bit about 1992, which seems more "toned down", in hindsight, than 1991. 1991 was a tough one for me. I really shouldn't give away any details from the book, but there's a couple hints for you. I always wondered why Shecky showed up at that phony "intervention" they tried to pull on me in May 1994, and now I know the reason. What a freaking joke that was. Talk about a sideshow, designed to distract. That's what that "intervention" was, a sideshow. Sheck moved back to Chicago toward the end of the '90s. My goodness, Sheck, we hardly knew ye. Until now.

On to other subjects:

The thing is, you've gotta stick to your guns. You've gotta keep your vows. If you claimed to be Air Force in 1989, then you've gotta be Air Force now, in 2024. You can't say, "well, too much time has passed" or "I changed my mind" or "I'm older now" or "my life is too comfortable now" or "I'm too set in my ways" or "I said it in the heat of the moment". No, none of those are any good, those "reasons" or "excuses" or whatever you want to call them. If you wanted to join the Air Force, you joined the Air Force and there's no backing out. Once you're in, you're in. 

It's like being Marine Corps. You either are Marine Corps or you aren't Marine Corps, but the difference is that, in the Marine Corps, you aren't the one who decides. The Marine Corps decides for you. The Marine Corps will tell you if you are Marine Corps or if you are not Marine Corps, and the number one criteria is:

How Semper Fi are you? If you are not 100% Semper Fi, you are not Marine Corps. The Marine Corps doesn't leave a Marine behind, or anybody else worth saving for that matter, so if you are the type to cut and run, don't even consider being Marine Corps because you aren't Marine Corps. And even then, you might not be, even if you don't cut and run.

How do I know all this, being that I've never been in the military? Just because I'm me. I may not be official Air Force, or Marine Corps (and then again I might be), but one thing is for sure, I believe I am Air Force. More than that, I know it in my heart. I've always been Air Force, and in the Summer of 1989, I even signed a couple of guys up for the Air Force. They were brothers, if I recall correctly. I signed 'em up right there in my kitchen. I think my stump speech convinced 'em to join.

We were having a hamburger cookout that night. I was doing the cooking. It was an indoor bash, not a huge crowd, just me and a handful of others, including these two guys I mentioned. They were both "stuck in a rut" in their lives, "stuck" being the key word. They were involved in stuff they wanted out of, they wanted a life change, and it may have been me who suggested they join the Air Force. Or, it may have been the elder of the two brothers who said he wanted to be "on the good side when the shit hits the fan". Or maybe he called it "the winning team". But he joined up, and then his brother took the vow.

I hope those two brothers have not forgotten that they are still in the Air Force. Because once you're in, you're in and you can't back out. It's a lifetime gig.  

On to election season: this may be the first Presidential election since I reached voting age that I am not going to vote in. Keep in mind I said it may be; I didn't say I won't vote. But I am thinking I won't, and it's not because of Biden versus Trump (which is bad enough), and I don't care if Trump wins because he is only a man playing a role. And if you think he's going to be "convicted" of anything that will keep him out of the Presidency then you better think again, because that is not going to happen.

Me? I really don't care (too much) if Donald Trump - excuse me - when Donald Trump is elected, because if you think Biden is gonna win, well.....hand 'em over, hand over your Dipstick Papers, now.

No, it's a certainty that Trump will be elected, and why don't you do yourself a favor and ask: why do you even care? Why are you still glued to CNN and MSNBC and Fox? If you can't tell a carnival when you see one, then why waste time talking about it? Hey - I'm not trying to give you a hard time. I'm not knocking you. I mean, I was a knucklehead too, when it came to politics. It took me many years to see for myself, that it really is a sideshow. But it's you who are dumbing yourself down by continuing to watch those channels, and continuing to participate. Me? I may not take part this time. And if I do, I may vote for Trump. But why would I vote for Trump when I was officially, at one time, the Number One Anti-Trumper in the universe? (it's true, you can look it up).

I would vote for Trump, first of all, because at least we still (barely) had a country when he was President, and we didn't have 11 dollar frozen pizzas, and gas stayed at 3.79 the whole time he was prez, and milk was two bucks, and when you think about it.....what was so bad about meeting with Kim Jung Il, aka Elvis Presley Jr.? All Trump did was meet with him. What was so bad about that? If AOC did it, you'd pop the champagne and call her a peacemaker. And there were no wars when Trump was President. 

My favorite Presidents, for the record : Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, George Bush, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan. I like Joe Biden as a person, he's a heck of a nice guy, but it's just not working out. And he probably does have a good memory like he said yesterday, and anyone who makes jokes about Alzheimer's ought to be ashamed of themselves. You might have dementia one day and then let's see how funny you think it is. No, I like Joe. I just think his presidency has been a disaster. And no, I don't want AOC to run, or any of those left-wing commies. And I certainly don't want Marjorie Taylor-Greene. I wish Hillary would run again, or Al Gore. Those are my kind of Democrats. My kind of real politicians. And the right needs more George Bushes, and Bob Doles. I'd take Liz Cheney in a heartbeat and you would too and you know it.

Returning to my book, I've mentioned that I use movies as memory "triggers" to take me back to a certain date, usually the day the movie was released. I've also mentioned that this acts in the same way as a favorite old song does, to remind you of a time gone by. I use my movie memories very specifically, however, not just to remind me of something general, say, my high school years, but what was happening in my life on the day or week they were released.

For my original version of the 1989 book (completed in 2009), I created a master list of every film Lilly and I ever saw. It wasn't as hard as it may sound; IMDB helped, and there are other comprehensive websites listing movies released in the 1980s and beyond. I've been able to determine the release date for any movie on my list that I've needed to look up, and this has helped a lot in maintaining a chronology of our dates, because we went to a lot of movies. And because movie dates, like favorite old songs, trigger history as well as nostalgia, these triggers have been valuable resources.

I can look at a movie title and recall, in broad terms, if it was a "happy" date, an "unhappy" date, or otherwise. And then I can study it and make the memory more specific.

But then there is what may seem like an unusual phenomenon: I've found titles from movies that Lillian and I didn't see, but which also act as triggers. These titles also bring back memories from the time they were released, the only difference being that they were movies we didn't see.

I have one trigger classification that I call a "Black" movie title. This is a movie that triggers a Black feeling in my heart, a feeling of hopelessness, or of knowledge that something terrible happened at around that time, or a feeling of dread. I don't have many Black movie triggers, but I know one when I see one.

And the Black ones are bad enough.

But then I have a few I call "Blackout". Not Blackout like you passed out. Just: "this movie is associated with something so Black that it's a Blackout." And these are movies I didn't see. It's just the titles that bring back the Blackout.

"Talk Radio" is one such movie, and in fact, in looking over my Movie Master List, it is the Blackest of the Blackout titles. But for years, I haven't been able to figure out why I feel this way about it. I checked it's release date (Christmas 1988), and what I do is put myself back in that time frame and ask my subconscious "what happened then"? And sometimes it has an answer, but it's not always easy to get to. "Talk Radio" has vexed me for many years. Ditto "Baron von Munchausen" (which would be bad enough being a Terry Gilliam film). I have probably between ten and twenty Black or Blackout movie titles. "Cujo" is another one, and I'm still working on why it Blacks me out. 

I have techniques I use, which have proven to be accurate and very helpful. But "Talk Radio" was the Blackest of the Black, and then a thought came to me, in the form of my voice. I once said: "I don't like Talk Radio I'm not going to see Talk Radio you can't make me see Talk Radio I don't like Talk Radio", and the pattern repeated like that, as if I were mouthing a stream-of-consciousness, made up of those few sentences.

At that time, Christmas season 1988, I'd seen the TV ads for Talk Radio and found them unpleasant. I didn't like the Eric Bogosian character (and did he presage Howard Stern?) and by association I didn't like Eric Bogosian (which may have been unfair). But once I had that "sentence stream" in mind, I knew I was onto something. And I kept working on why Talk Radio bothered me so much, and then I saw myself in the living room at 9032, on Christmas Day 1988......and then I really had a blackout.

Finally, I want to mention that I still have the Snoopy nightlight. This part of the blog is for You and no one else. Yes, I still have it; somehow it has stayed with me for 43 years. I must have had it plugged into my bedroom wall at Rathburn, and somehow it made it out of that house after the earthquake, and (where did it go then?) (I don't know) (into storage?) ....

But I lived at Rathburn until March 1995. So maybe it stayed plugged into my wall, even after the quake. It had been in my wall since 1981. Or maybe I put it on my bookcase, I'm not sure. Because the bulb would probably have burnt out at some point, maybe in the mid-to-late 80s, and the thing is, you gave me that night light, of Snoopy hugging Woodstock on a red background, after you had it for a while yourself. So, you probably had it in your bedroom for a while before you gave it to me, and then I plugged it into my wall.......and the bulb must've gone out after a few more years........and then a decade went by.......and......

But the thing is - and to me this is amazing, astounding, and every other superlative - it somehow tagged along with me through all the moves I've made, from Rathburn to my Dad's apartment to Burton Street to Mom's apartment (and it was probably in a box in storage for a while in the mid-90s).......but it kept hanging in there, like it had a mind of it's own (and persistence), and my goodness Lillian.....as I write, it is sitting on my cabinet less than three feet from my left shoulder. The Snoopy night light.

It's been with me all this time, and I am telling you, woman.....I didn't do that by myself. The nightlight has a mind of its own. Because as you know, my life was somewhat hectic there for a spell. But the nightlight somehow stayed with me. Could Snoopy himself have had anything to do with it? (remember Snoopy helicopter ears? You are the only person besides me who knows why that's funny).

And, I have something else that's still with me after 43 years. The Angel you crocheted for me in 1981. Do you remember her? Her wings are powder blue, her hair henna. She sits on my bookshelf just above my head as I write. Somehow, like the Snoopy nightlight, she made it through 43 years of life changes with me, and is still by my side and is physically close to me right this very minute.

I remember when you gave that Angel to me. You said she represented you.

I just wanted you to know that I still have those two special gifts, the Snoopy nightlight and the blessed Angel.

And that is all I know for today.

February 4, 2024

One thing I will always have, that no one can take from me, or "attach to" by hivemind, is Bert's Store. Bert's Store is probably the first store I ever went to. I think I went there right after I learned to walk.

Imagine learning how to walk. Can you even believe you learned that? It's mindboggling, eh? Now, you did it on your own, because you had the instinct to walk built into you, but you have to give your parents credit because they were always egging you on to walk, when you hit that walking age at around 18 months or so. And momma took me to Bert's Store right after I started walking. She'd hold my hand, and we'd walk down Saticoy to White Oak, where there was a stoplight so we could cross the street, then we'd walk back the way we came but on the other side of Saticoy to Bert's Store, just west of White Oak.

And there was a field just south of Saticoy, on White Oak, near where the white Bank of America drive-thru now stands. Mom said that she and Dad were walking near that area one night, and they saw a UFO in the field. I used to think my Mom was being "far out" when she said something like that, because Mom talked a lot about psychic phenomena when I was an adolescent, and I just thought, "okay sure Mom" because everyone has seen a UFO, right? And nowadays, even a UFO sighting is old hat because now you have to upgrade to abduction. And even that's not a claim to fame anymore because everyone on Earth has been abducted, right? I tend to be "snoozeville" on UFO stories (except the legit ones) and almost no-go on abductions (except Travis Walton and Betty and Barney), but with Mom.....given what I now know......I 100% believe her.

If Mom says she saw a UFO, she saw a UFO. And what she said was that she and Dad were walking near the field by Saticoy and White Oak, and they saw a UFO in the field, and they saw it lift off. And it wouldn't have been far from Bert's Store. Me? I don't have a Reseda UFO story, but I was present for the Murmak's fire. Try Googling that one, hivemind, and see how well you do. You won't find anything on the Murmak's fire. And yet I was there, with Dad and Roy, watching the flames burn through the roof, and listening to the popping of the paint cans (Roy said it was turpentine; Do they even sell that any more?). I may have asked if it was bullets going off. Dad may have asked Roy if they sold ammo in that store. Roy said "no, it's the turpentine cans". Dad and Roy both thought it was an insurance fire. Murmaks was located at Sherman Way and White Oak.

Switching subjects now, I find that friends are an interesting thing. What is a friend? Someone you pal around with, share common interests, a sense of humor, someone you get along with and can confide in? Okay fine. But let's reverse the question to ask (and please excuse the grammar): "what is a friend not"? It's safe to say a friend is not someone who stabs you in the back, or does deceitful things against you without your knowledge. I'm not talking a little gossip now and then; we've all done it (unless there's a Saint in the room), we've all said "have you heard this-and-that about so-and-so"? But while considering this simplified version of what a friend is, and is not, let us ask another question: how many friends have you had in your lifetime? I mean real friends, not fair-weather types, and not acquaintances. Some people take pride in how many friends they have, and even identify in that way, if they are socially active.

But how many friends do folks really have?

I'll use my Dad as an example. Dad was not super social, especially later in his life, but when he was flying high, he knew a lot of people, especially in the business world. Los Angeles was not his hometown, so he didn't have high school friends here, or childhood friends. But he made a lot of "friends" or "acquaintances" in the Motion Picture Industry. Dad was a go-getter when that term meant something. And yet, toward the end of his life, he never talked about Hollywood at all, or anyone he knew there. He talked about being a soldier. And whoever his "friends" were, from Hollywood (and Dad was an executive who knew a boatload of people), well - they were all gone. Even Uncle Earl, who was a true blue friend.

At the end, Dad's friends were, I'd guess, his closest family. I know I was Dad's friend. For me, he was one of my two best friends, the other being my Mom. What I'm saying (and it's pretty obvious) is that friendship in business doesn't mean a thing. Dad, a high flyer, didn't retain a single friend from his business days, and only talked of intellectual pursuits (history was a big one), or art, or being a soldier, which was his proudest accomplishment in life. Dad was a soldier. He was Air Force all the way. But he only told anecdotes about the war. He didn't talk about what I think he really saw (what I am certain he really saw), because it would've been too difficult. But in getting back to friends, how many real friends did Dad have? Not many from Hollywood, that's for sure.

Me? I was not social, nor accomplished like my Dad. I was a shy kid, but I always had friends. My adult friends were not from business, like Dad's were. My friends were not from school, either, once I got out of school. I mean, I had plenty of school friends (and they were real friends in a "school way"), but we went our separate ways when our school days were over (and that's fine, too). My longest-lasting friends were almost all from the Rathburn Avenue neighborhood, where we moved when I was 10.

By my 20s, my best friend was Dave Small. But just what is a best friend, anyhow? Someone you can confide in to a higher degree than with other friends? Someone who truly "gets you"? Okay fine. Dave was also my bandmate for many years, and his easygoing personality was compatible to mine. He also seemed to understand the fine points of life and what we'll call the "subterrain". And, he loved Celtic Frost. I met Mr. D (as I dubbed him) when we first moved to Rathburn, and I attended his 9th birthday party in September 1970. But I didn't start hanging out with him until I was 19 and had formed a band. Dave heard me and Dennis jamming one day in February 1980 and asked if he could join us on bass. Prior to that, he'd gotten the Taco Bell job that had been passed down from Dennis to me to Lashbrooke and then to him. I knew he worked there, and would say "hi" when he walked by the house on his way to work, but I really had not known him since 1970. He was from Etiwanda Street, and kids from Rathburn, for whatever reason, did not hang out with kids from Etiwanda, even though both streets were on the same block. But after he knocked on my garage and joined the band, we became close, and that led to our long-term friendship. It began with a musical bonding, and Dave became my best friend in the early '80s. He was my bass player from 1980 to 1988. Then I didn't see him for five years (except a few times, mostly in 1989), and then he joined Shecky's band in the summer of 1993. I was already in that band as the lead guitarist and backup vocals.

In the Fall of 1993, Ryan came back into the fold, playing football, and the speed trip began. After jamming on the stuff, Dave and I got so inspired that we quit Shecky's band and were writing new music with a whole new sound, when memory lane came calling for yours truly. Boom! Life changed then, and the earthquake happened, then the Meadows trip followed, and man, it was the all-time mindblower.

The span of October 1993 to Summer 1997 was the all-time mindblower, never to be surpassed. And I went through that time period with Dave, and because it was so extreme, I even told him, "dude, we went all the fucking way" (and Ryan went most of the way with us). That trip will never be topped. I felt like Dave, and Ryan to an extent, were fellow warriors, even if Ryan didn't go as full-on Meadows as Dave and I did.

I once wondered if the Meadows experience killed Dave, and I think it may have started the process.

But what really killed him, and I've long known this, was drugs and secrets. And drugs were just the means. What really killed him was the secrets. The drugs were just to cover the secrets, so he wouldn't have to think about them. Which at least means he had a conscience (I guess). It's the friends who aren't bothered by the secrets that I am more concerned with, because they might not have consciences, which would make them sociopaths, which is spooky. In talking about drugs, Dave and I both used speed. And I liked it. No one liked it more than me, not even Lemmy. But when I quit using it, I quit. And that was over 26 years ago, and I quit pot, too. Marijuana was a worse drug for me than speed, believe it or not (and don't take drugs, folks, don't even think about it, and pot is a drug and a gateway drug too). But the deal with me, concerning The Meadows and speed and death, and that whole trip we were on, is that I didn't have secrets, and therefore had nothing to cover up. Dave did have things to cover up; he had plenty of secrets, and he kept taking drugs and he died.

And after he died, I still thought of him as my best friend for many years. I didn't have many friends left, and those who remained were falling by the wayside. But then slowly, slowly, slowly (but steadily) I learned that some (or most, or almost all) of my friends had never been my friends at all.

Most had never been my friends at all. And I began thinking of those folks as my "friends" instead of my friends. And now, because it's harder to think of Dave as a friend any more (though I am trying to), I am wondering if I ever had any real friends, or if I just had "friends"......and it's a little bit perplexing.  

The changing nature of friendship can be affected by all kinds of things. I knew a guy I thought I was friends with, from 1973 - 1994. He was living at my house that year, in 1994, and we had an earthquake, and "something else" happened and he moved out as fast as he could pack his belongings. I didn't see him after that, or hear from him ever again, and he died in 2023, so we can say that he wasn't my friend for 29 years, which was longer than I thought he was my friend (20 years), and when his wife told me that he'd died, I only considered the years of our so-called friendship. And even though I knew he'd done some rotten things behind my back (and even though I knew I'd almost died in his apartment after he zapped me with a stun gun) I still opted to take the high road upon receiving the news of his death, and I even wrote a slightly sympathetic blog in his memory: it's called "In Memory of T" and you can look it up and read it if you wish.

But what a difference a year makes. Now, I can't believe I wrote that blog. Why would I write even a semi-sympathetic blog to a guy like that? I can't answer that question except to say that - given what I knew about him in 2023 (which was limited) - I still opted to take the high road (which was stupid, I should've offered no eulogy at all). But now things are clearer, because in 2024, I not only know that this guy was never my friend, but was one of the worst people I've ever known, if not thee worst (and that's some tough competition).

Ever since I've known that he was not only never my friend, but was in fact rock bottom scum, I've been tempted to take down or delete that sym(pathetic) blog I wrote in his memory. But I've decided to leave it up, as an example of how knowledge of a person, or the lack of knowledge, can affect one's attitude towards a friendship.

I thought I knew all about this guy (and I even knew he tried to kill me with a stun gun), and I was still sym(pathetic) enough in the aftermath of his demise (which, as reported to me by a source, was fucking horrendous and deservedly so), to want to take the high road, and eulogise the "good points" of our "friendship".

But now, I know there were not any good points. There were never any good points, because he was a lowlife among lowlifes. So it just goes to show, you never really know who your friends are until you really know them. And sometimes it's better not to have too many friends. 

This guy I am talking about was from a predatory family. His mom (one of the most evil people I ever encountered, but I didn't know it until recently) was a predator. She likely had a long-standing incestuous relationship with her son. He was an alcoholic from age 9. What would cause a 9 year old boy to drink hard liquor and keep drinking it so that it became a habit? Um.....an incestuous mother, anyone? Two of my other so-called friends referred to this woman as "The Illustrious (Jane Doe)". They even said it to her face, and always with a flourish: "Why, if it isn't The Illustrious (Jane Doe)!" Now, in the interest of completeness, it must be mentioned that this woman had three major tragedies in her life. Her small son was killed in an accident in front of her house, she had a severely disabled daughter (institutionalised), and she'd had a double mastectomy.

But others have suffered tragedies and not succumbed to villainy, nor taken out their anguish on other people.

No, this woman was evil, and a predator through and through. And her son was even worse.

And the thing was, I thought this guy was my friend for a while in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s. 

It just goes to show that a "friendship" is only as good as your knowledge of the so-called "friend". For me, it took being alerted by a man with knowledge of the situation. He told me, "they aren't your friends, Adam. They're (POS)." And it turned out he was right. I would even use a stronger term, though words don't describe "people" like this. These are some of the worst "people" on earth. 

The evil woman's husband had a completely fake identity. He was a German, who somehow "landed" in America, and his wife (a former schoolteacher) had taught him phonetic English so he could "pass" as American. And a fake biography was concocted for him, in which he was part of an Iowa farm family. What a load of shit. But he was compromised because of his fakeness, and could not (or would not) stand up to his wife who was "attending" to their son, who turned into the world's biggest POS. The kid was an alcoholic from age 9. But there's a kicker to all this stuff, and especially the part about the fake American father, the man who was actually a German with a fake bio and a created backstory who only pretended to be American.

Here's the kicker: I did not discover this on my own. So if you think it's some crazy conspiracy on my part, you are an even bigger dipstick then you thought you were. 

No, I did not make up or theorize anything about the fake American Dad. It was told to me by another "friend" (a compromised friend but not as bad as the others) who knew a lot of shit about people, and liked to insinuate things, and liked to "stir up trouble" (according to my Mom) and who was one of the two guys who referred to the evil mother as "the illustrious Jane Doe". Yes, the particular "friend" who revealed this stuff did know a lot of secrets, and he was the guy who told me that Elmer was really a German posing as an American. He even presented evidence, saying "think about his accent". And it was true that the Dad had a weird way of mumbling his words.

And when I thought about it, and considered Elmer's strange accent (his phonics) (which we kids even parodied in a super 8 film), it was not a stretch to believe what my "friend" told me, given what I now know.  

At any rate, I will leave it at that. I've seen a few movies, the best being "Redhead"(1941) starring the beautiful June Lang. We've seen it before but it merits a second view. And that is all I know for tonight.