FREAKSHOW

FUCK YOU, AMERICA

2007-02-12T23:29:00.000-08:00

LONG LONESOME ROAD

2007-01-04T20:14:00.000-08:00

No noises, up in the crawlspace or next door. All quiet on the western front. Maybe too quiet, as they say in the old movies.

I THINK ABOUT THAT LONG LONESOME ROAD ALL THE TIME

2006-12-20T19:53:00.000-08:00

The Beans

2006-12-19T09:39:00.000-08:00

Back home I ran into Jane. She said he'd been 86'd from the casino, and that this wasn't the first time. She wanted an accounting of the evening's festivities, so I gave her a quick summary of what went down. As she was getting into their gigantic truck to go get him, she clarified a few things. He'd never spoken with her on the cell phone regarding the evening's outing or the money he pulled from their account. His claims about his winnings there were totally bogus. In fact, according to her, he'd lost upwards of $350,000 there in 18 months. He doesn't work, he lives off of his father's real estate investments, rental properties. He lied to me about working for the Parks Department. She claimed he spent six months in San Quentin on a DUI. I didn't bring it up at the time, but THAT is weird.

His mother was with her. "He's really a nice boy," she croaked as she staggered into the truck.

"So is Charles Manson," I replied.

"It won't happen again," said Jane.

"No," I said. "It won't."

Like I said: I feel right at home.

In The Pit

2006-12-15T13:26:00.000-08:00

Dick spotted me $60 in chips. His idea had been that we would sit at the same table and play off of each other in some overly elaborate conspiratorial scheme he'd not quite worked out. I was pretty pissed off already. The place is soaked in bright fluorescent light and you can't smoke. Drinks are not comped -- you actually have to PAY for them. The clientele is just what you'd expect to see at a welfare office. Dick got hung up flirting with some gal carrying drinks around, and it took me all of about 15 minutes to lose his $60. I didn't care, I just wanted out of the place.

I found him, still chatting it up with this waitress, and advised him that I was going home. We went to the bar, where he tried to convince me to pour vodka on my already fairly murderous bad mood. I took a beer instead, and then I found my way home on my own.

BAY 101, SAN JOSE

2006-12-14T19:19:00.001-08:00

I've been in a lot of casinos. I'm from New Jersey, lived in Vegas for a while. I've partied in Reno and Tahoe. I have no desire to visit Biloxi. My personal favorite is the Bellagio, in Vegas. I know casinos. If I were of a mind to design an anti-casino, something exactly contrary in every way to the expectations of a seasoned visitor to such enterprises, it would be San Jose's Bay 101.

This place is far worse than a Wal-Mart. The lighting in Wal-Mart is better, and it is not quite as deep and fecund a genetic cesspool. People are more refined at Wal-Mart by all comparison.

The squirrels are having an orgy up in the crawlspace. It sounds like Pink Floyd up there. So far nothing from next door.

FRIDAY THE 13TH FALLS ON A WEDNESDAY THIS MONTH

2006-12-13T10:45:00.000-08:00

Chittering And Howling

2006-12-12T21:46:00.000-08:00

That scratchy noise kicked in up in the crawlspace just a few minutes ago, followed immediately by an explosion of violence next door. Perhaps tonight she will finally chop him into little pieces, attain unto the talk show circuit, find her way to brief fortune in the infomercial industry. He's crying and whining in an incoherent Irish brogue, and she's yelling at him like a pro dominatrix jamming a Jeff Stryker dildo up the ass of a rich Rabbi.

This odd connection of the Irish and the Jews brings to mind an old joke. A Rabbi is walking down the road. He comes upon a small boy playing with a pile of horseshit. "Little boy," says the Rabbi. "Vot are you doink?"

"I yam makin' an Irishman, faddah," replies the boy.

"Ohhh, ho ho HOOO," laughs the Rabbi. "Vy are you doink dat?"

Beaming, the little boy replies, "Because I don't have enough shit to make a Rabbi."

And So Forth

2006-12-12T21:18:00.000-08:00

First he had the cab driver take us to an ATM, where he made a withdrawal I did not observe, preoccupied as I was with placating the driver, a splendid fellow from Bangalore who was feeling alarmed by Dick's vehement insistence on a flat rate to the casino. The cab was a metered cab. When Dick got back from the ATM, smiling like a happy pig and resuming his haggling with the driver, I pounced on his superstition and Jew-hatred like a wolf spider on a hapless fly.

"Didn't know I was ridin' with a Jew," I sneered.

"SSSHHHH! SSSHHHH!," from Dick. "I'm just doing business."

"Yer tryin' to screw a workin' guy who happens to be driving us to a casino. You are hexing us. This is bad luck."

"NOOO!" screams Dick. "Don't talk about BAD LUCK." But he did stop tormenting the driver about a flat rate. Turned out when we got there the flat rate of $20 which Dick had been offering and insisted was the true fare was just less than half of the $35-plus on the meter.

Naturally, he didn't tip the guy.

And So Forth

2006-12-12T21:05:00.000-08:00

Dick began ranting about the urgent need for us to take some of his money and head over to the local casino. This casino was an enterprise I had only just heard of: Bay 101. He faked a cell phone call with Jane for my benefit, ostensibly obtaining her permission for a Big Night Out with the new neighbor. After a fair minimum of argument, he relented to my position that we were both too drunk to drive and called a cab, offering a $20 tip if it arrived within 5 minutes. He then retired to the confines of his house, leaving me to attempt to entertain the cab driver as we waited for Dick to emerge from his San Narciso hobbit hole.

The Turn

2006-12-10T13:58:00.000-08:00

A week later, on the heels of participating in a week-long simulated lunar excursion research study for NASA down at their Ames Research Center, I'm playing penny poker with Dick, drinking a few of my beers and guarded amounts of his hooch. Texas Hold 'Em, of course. I'm way down. He's bragging about all the money he's made playing poker, just over $4000 per month right nearby at Bay 101.

"You're going down," Dick grinned. "You're no poker player."

I went all-in on an inside straight at the turn and got it. Did the same thing again with the next hand and cleaned him out. Took him for $3.17.

Drownded Flea

2006-12-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

Drownded flea, little drownded flea
What wrathful god
Hath extinguished thee?
'Tis easy to sup
On kitten or pup
But ye'll drown
If ye sup from me

The Still

2006-11-30T08:40:00.000-08:00

The Sunday after we arrived, Dick came by with two big glasses of vodka. He claimed he distilled it himself. My vodka days ended several years ago, and I am extremely wary of homebrewed anything except wine or beer, but I didn't want to appear rude to our new neighbor, so I took a sip. The product was remarkably smooth. Dick said he worked for the Feds, for the Parks Department.

He and I drank up the vodka and my beers in short order. By then we were too drunk to drive, so I suggested we stroll over to the Mexican market a couple of blocks away and replenish the supply. Dick suggested another outlet.

We took a long, meandering trail through backyards, alleys, and sidestreets to a convenience store a few miles away. Dick insisted on stopping to visit people along the way. It was like some weird little independent movie, sunny suburbia all filled with unspecified menace. They all seemed quite wary of him. No one welcomed us. One guy openly told him to get lost, advising Dick that he didn't want him anywhere near his kids. Great, I thought: my first day wandering the neighborhood and I'm in the company of the town leper.

We drank our way home. Jane was out working on their front yard when we got back, and immediately lamped into Dick for being drunk. I staggered in through my front door with my hat askew and went to bed.

The Crawlspace

2006-11-29T00:07:00.000-08:00

Let's call them Dick and Jane. There's only the sound of the freeway now, but last night was Dick managing to simultaneously whine and bellow at the same time, howling that he didn't do ANYTHING and Jane hissing some incomprehensible curses back at him. Lots of big thumping dull sounds. The rain fell sporadically through the night as I played virtual Texas Hold 'Em at bodog.com and listened to the accelerating violent episode next door. There's a compost heap on my side of the fence. Sometimes I can hear it hissing when things get really quiet. Maybe it's just the freeway.

Directly above my desk, which faces Dick & Jane's back yard fence, there is some sort of scratching-clawing kind of activity that's reminiscent of the opening of THE EXORCIST. The door to the crawlspace is in the tiny hallway that acts as a nexus between the rooms excepting the kitchen. I haven't opened it yet. I think there are squirrels up there, and I'd prefer not to antagonize them.

I met Dick the day I moved in, invited him over for a beer. That gesture falls into the category of inviting vampires over your threshold, but I was trying to be what I wanted to see.

In The Valley

2006-11-28T19:43:00.000-08:00

People ask me if I miss New York. Hell, I say: I missed it when I lived there. New York died a long time ago. Andrew Lloyd Webber had something to do with it, as did Disney, Giuliani, the whole fucking race-relations industry, Best Buy, Home Depot, Olive Garden, and a host of other plagues too appalling to remember. For me, it was like waking up one bright and sunny morning to discover that the wife you have faithfully adored for 30 years has decided to embark upon a career as a crack whore.

Now I live in a small town in the heart of Silicon Valley. I'm in a cute little apartment which costs half-again what it's worth. It has a garden, which is something new for me. It's on a quiet little street, which is also something new for me. The neighbors seem okay, except for the couple next door.

They're a pair of pathological liars who fight constantly. He's a hulking Irish drunk with one of those gigantic new Dodge Ram pickup trucks popular with incompetent drivers with a fondness for flouting the speed limits and gratuitous lane changes. He's probably hung like a roll of dimes. He has that unfocused gaze indicative of fetal alcohol syndrome. I've met his mother, and I'm pretty sure she was totally shitfaced the whole time she carried him. The wife is a classic enabler, always bitching about how he lies and beats her and always covering his ass when John Law comes sniffing around. She's pretty hefty, and when they go at it, it's LOUD.

One day there's going to be a murder next door. That part of this life is not new to me at all. It makes me feel right at home.