March 20, 2024

For starters, did you see the SpaceX launch from Vandenberg on Monday night? I was driving home from Ralphs, when all of a sudden in the Western sky...wow.

In music news, I'm liking the new Judas Priest album, "Invincible Shield." I bought the deluxe edition with the extra songs and it's really good, sounding (almost) like 1980s Priest. The song craft is back, and Richie Faulkner has established himself on this record as a worthy successor to Tipton and Downing. I generally don't like shredders (they're to guitar as CGI is to movies) but Richie has melody. He solos in the shred style but has enough feel (something modern players are devoid of) to get you emotionally involved. And Rob, who will be 73 in September, has most of his high voice back. Amazing. I wish Scott Travis would do less of his double-kick thing but there was only one Dave Holland and he has passed on. All hail the Priest. These songs and especially Rob's lyrics will be my anthems for this year.

I am also listening to Cold Lake by Celtic Frost, an album Tom G hates but I love it. 

Now then: I'm currently working on August 1989, and a movie has jumped out that I hadn't previously given thought to: "The Package" starring Gene Hackman and Tommy Lee Jones. Lillian and I saw it on Sunday August 27. Since 2006, when I initially made my movie list, I've only ever thought of "The Package" as the last film we saw before the Timeline began, and until last Fall (October 2023), I thought it began on September 1, 1989. That date was so carved in stone, for so many years, that I never considered otherwise.

Now, however, I know The Timeline began in July and the things that happened in July 1989 were extreme enough, but August is off the charts. The assault I wrote about in the last blog occurred on or about August 22. Then Lilly and I saw "The Package" on August 27, just five days later. And I didn't have a mark on me. No black eyes, nothing.

No fractured eye socket.

I'm in the process of researching what happened in those five days between the two occurrences (the assault and the movie), and the preliminary evidence is so...unusual...that I'm not gonna say anything about it. It's gonna have to wait for my book, but I'll bet Ann knows what I'm referring to. I remember seeing "The Package", though, and there were a couple of weird things about that movie date that have raised my antenna. The first is that, even though it was a very bad time in our relationship, Lillian called and matter-of-factly asked if I'd like to see a movie, almost by rote, like it was a reflex. Keep in mind that this is only ten days after the cataclysmic debacle of the "Casualties of War" screening at UCLA, which we attended and about which much more is known than in previous reports on that subject. The "Casualties" screening (and everything else that happened on August 17, 1989) is now in my conscious memory. That entire day was as extreme, in it's way, as anything that happened that summer.

Other extreme things happened between August 18 and August 21 (also to be saved for the book, but if you were there, you know what I'm talking about). Then came the assault at Terry's apartment. That assault, in which I was severely beaten (see last blog) is an absolute fact, established beyond a doubt. The date seems to be August 22.

And yet Lilly called on the 27th (on a Sunday, which was rare) to say, "Should we go to a movie?" In my research, I strive for verbatim dialogue (as close as I can get), and this is what I remember about that phone call. First, it was unexpected. Secondly, her question was casual. It was like "we might as well go to a movie." Things were very bad between us. On that score, it's mind boggling that I had no awareness of what had happened at "Casualties of War" only ten days earlier, and also what happened after that movie. I am learning that my mind was being messed with on an almost daily basis in August 1989, mostly through hypnosis, but by other means, too. As I've noted many times in recent blogs, I've had an avalanche of new information since October of last year and I am still processing it, and one of the most intriguing questions I've had, is "how did things not register?" or "how did these incidents not accumulate in my memory?" What I mean is, let's say you've had a gargantuan argument with your girlfriend. Or let's say you went to an acquaintance's apartment and something terrible happened to you there. In the first instance, the next time you saw your girl, you would almost certainly discuss the argument. You might apologize, or she might, or you both might. But you'd say something about it, just to avoid it becoming the proverbial 800-pound elephant in the room. And in the second instance, involving the apartment, if you went there and something bad happened, it's doubtful you'd return. Yet, in the case of Terry's apartment at Concord Square, I went there several times in July 1989, because I had no memory of the incidents that were accumulating. I was, however, aware at all times of the state of my relationship, meaning that Lilly had by that time graduated college, was beginning her career, and had "outgrown" me (so to speak). So when she called to suggest a movie, it was not only a surprise, but strange because I thought by that point we were done. I thought two conflicting things: "Why is she calling to ask me to a movie?" and "Wow, Lilly is calling to ask me to a movie! Maybe we aren't done yet."

The question I find myself now asking, is this: was I entirely unaware of the incidents as they accumulated, and the extreme situation in which I was living?

In August, prior to the 22nd, I think the answer is that "I was aware, on and off." In other words, every time something extreme happened, I had my memory messed with afterward, by hypnosis, and/or electronic or electrical means (car batteries, anyone?), sometimes in combination with surreptitiously administered drugs like Rohypnol. On a side note, it is important to remember that I was sober that Summer. I had quit drinking, barely smoked pot, and did no hard drugs. But there were occasions when drugs were slipped to me to knock me out.

But getting back to "The Package", that movie date was also weird because, while barely a word was said between Lillian and myself (and in that sense I felt the estrangement), there were no bad vibes that I remember. We had worse dates in 1989. This one seemed prearranged or "scheduled", almost like someone "suggested" that Lilly should take me to a movie, by which I mean that a situation was being managed without my knowledge. And as I work on enhancing that memory, I'm trying to establish a "before" and an "after," meaning the connecting memories that provide continuity. 

One connecting memory that is now standing out for me, on the weekend of August 26-27, 1989, is another movie, "Millennium", which was released Friday August 25. "Millennium", for me, is another of the "black" movie titles I've written about in other blogs. The adjective "black" represents some incident associated with a film (even if I didn't see it) that is significant - and bad - but is buried in my memory. With "Millennium", I picture myself looking at a full page ad for the film in the LA Times, which showed an airliner caught in the beam of a UFO. In my first impressions of the memory, the ad for "Millennium" is bothering me. I have a very bad feeling about "Millennium". That's why it's a Black Movie Title.

In 2015, while at Pearl's, I was studying Edwards Air Force Base and I learned of a sector called North Base, about which I'll say no more. But the thing about "The Package", is that it exists as an "island of calm" for me and Lilly as a couple, in the midst of three months of total mayhem at 9032 and Concord Square. We had other nice movie dates that Summer, but they were mostly before the middle of July (and on a side note, I should mention to Lillian that I now remember going to Sambo's - and what happened there - after seeing "When Harry Met Sally"). 

As to the mayhem of that Summer, the screening of "Nightmare on Elm Street 5" at the UA Granada Hills on August 11 proves the whole thing. I attended that movie with Pat Fordyce. He insisted I go with him so he could show me what was going on behind my back and a major incident happened when the film was over. The guy who precipitated it (we all know him) threatened to wait in his car and shoot us when we came out of the theater. Luckily for us, he didn't do it. Pat and I went to Wendy's after that and the incident continued, with other people who had been at the movie, including David Friedman. Wendy's was right next to Sambo's in the UA Granada Hills parking lot. 

And what's bizarre is that I wonder if I am "the same guy" (if you get my drift) who went through all that stuff in the Summer of 1989. I think must be, because of my hernia scar. I popped my abdomen in August 1989 while doing sit-ups to tighten my stomach, and I had surgery in 1998. And the thing is, if I am a Different Me, how come I have a hernia scar? The answer (I think) is that I was only a Different Me for about a week, from August 25 to September 2 or thereabouts. It's so weird that I can't yet provide the details. But Ann knows.

On August 22, 1989 I got my face bashed in, and on August 27, I went to see "The Package" with Lillian, and I didn't have a mark on me. 

Thank You, Lord. Thank you, Ann. Thank You, Lilly.