I’m working at a Witch’s shop off Hollywood blvd. just past Vine. I pretend to believe in this crap to placate the shop owner as I fix her credit card machine. I end up invited to a big Witchs and Warlock Halloween party in about two weeks at her house. As she gave me the address, I laughed out loud. I knew the house alright. It was Errol Flynn’s old place on Flynn Ranch Road. I have the old forties fridge out of it in the blue barn, right now. Anyhow, I end up at Stan Winstons ‘Creature Factory’ near the Van Nuys airport industrial complex, later on in the day. Stan used me on side jobs all the time. He also fired me four or five times over twenty years. Another story for another time. One of his techs of special effects showed me this little item he had been working on for a joke. In short, an enormous, inflateable penis. It inflated by a mini hand pump you hid in your pocket. A small plastic tube fed it, run past your nuts…It took quite the whinning and crying, plus, some trade items, to get this weiner out for a test run Halloween night. I end up having to take the guy from Stan’s with me, to see how it worked…It’s the big night. I wear boxer shorts with my unit taped in place to spring out correctly. I already knew the house, so, positoned us next to the big stone and brick fireplace in the big living room of the forties era house. Finally, it’s almost Midnight. The Witching hour. I had on loose sweat pants, but still, this big dick had chafed the inside of my legs and I was ready to dump it hours before…The head Witch brings about fifty of her inner circle with candles in front of her, sitting down, the rest of the gang, all dressed in various masks and costumes, crowd behind. She does some latin stuff, then says, “I feel your presence, dark one. Let your presence be known!” It was now or never, I slid next to her since she’s in front of the fire, pretend to be in sort of a trance, then, drop my pants and pump like crazy on the hand pump. OH MAN! The gay guys went WILD!!! The viens and the throbing, swelling red head on this sixteen inch monster made it seem to have a life of its own. Sadly, the magic moment lasted about ten seconds. This Witch, rips it off me and starts beating me over the head with it….We ran for our lives, sans the demon dick…
The little woman is always giving the dog huge bones to gnaw on. I’m constantly tossing them off the living room floor and out the front door. Yesterday, I notice the dog dissapearing into the brush after slinking out of the barn. I decide to follow him. His trail led to a small aperture in the mountain side, covered by brush. I crawl inside. After a short crawl, I’m stunned. The dog has almost completed a life sized T-Rex skeleton from all the bones the wife has given him inside this huge cavern. He gives me the ‘sad dog’ look. I then spot some of my missing tools. I say, “Bad dog”! Then, I cut him some slack. “Hey, nice job doggie, but, how do you intend to get this thing outside”? He just thumped his tail. I didn’t like the sound of that….
His nickname was the Falcon. I worked at the phone company with him for thirty years. He rode a Harley too, so, I was always teamed with him as a repair/Installation team…He lived in the Falcons Nest ( Viking house ) at PHONEHENGE for 18 years. This is the story of the night he arrived, then, stayed awhile….I come home from work late. I’m on my cycle. I see lights on in my guest house. Huh? The people I had just rented it to said next Friday to move in. I roll down the drive, spot Townsends bike. He comes out on the 2nd floor balcony, says, “Hey dude, I just moved in”!….Over some brews at the local Mexican joint, I find out why….His story, “Well, I’ve been sharing a house in Pasadena with Sheri. We’ve been fighting alot. I called her at work today, told her I was working late. That I’d see her after midnight. She comes home sick, pass’s me with a Vago chick on the back seat of my bike!” Sheri’s driving this old station wagon from the sixties. A great big job. She whips a ‘U’ turn on Rosemead Blvd., then starts splitting traffic, trying to run me down. I finally get away. I sneak home around three a.m. No lights are on inside the house. ( He had a long down driveway leading to his house. I once moved a fridge for him ) I coast quietly into the garage. Her car is gone. As I head for the front door, lights come on and a car is speeding down the driveway. Its the bitch! She slams my Harley in the carport, right into the side of the house. Then, engine screaming, she tries to back off the cycle, stuck under her rig. I go for my sawed off shotgun, hidden in the garage, start smashing her windows with the butt. Her car dies. I go inside for some crank and a beer. I lock the door behind me. The bitch comes in through a side bedroom window. She attacks me in the hallway. I give her a hard shot to the jaw, then, choke her against the wall. I hear a crack, and let her go. I think I broke her neck”!…Now, I have my helmet off. I have to hear the rest of this Jerry Springer moment…Townsend continues…”I leave her wheezing on the floor, head for the fridge for another brewski. As I open the fridge, all the power in the area goes out from a lightning strike somewhere down the street. As I grope around the dark fridge in the now totally black kitchen, I hear this sound. The sound of something crawling towards me. I flick my lighter and jump back hitting the sink and losing my lighter on the floor. I had seen enough anyhow”! …Now I’m staring at him, waiting for him to finish. He lights a smoke and finishes his tale…”It was her. Sheri. The bitch was crawling towards me with her head bent at an odd angle. She had a butcher knife in one of her hands. Dude, after driving around all day, your the only place I could think of to crash. I’ll pay the rent on time, no problem”! ….One story on this guy from an easy thousand…
Received a late subpoena to be a witness for an upcoming trial. I already gave testimony, so, what the hell do they want from me now? …The case? Some psycho tries to kill his girlfriend is all. In my driveway. Its about eight in the evening. I’m in the barn at Acton, helping Leo fail some class. We have a pounding at our bridge door. Now, no one uses that door. Well, the N.A.T. Team does, but no friends. I grab a flashlight since no porch light there. A wild eyed woman’s face is illuminated in my lamp’s beam. I say, “Yes”? She informs me her old man just tried to kill her. I nod my head, then ask her in. As she blurts out her story to Pat, I wonder where Mr. Wonderful is right now. I didn’t have to ask her. I hear an SUV roaring under the bridge, heading towards the Danny Devito stairs. Opening the upstairs door, I hit the stair lights, just in time to see the vehicle crash into my custom chicken coop…Since it had just rained, the dirt road was not the road to speed on. This man is now wedged into the vehicle by the deck railings. He ends up climbing out of a rear side window. A big skin head with lots of tattoos. He starts jumping up and down on the roof, then, switches to some Karate kicks to the doors and windows once he fell off. He then starts to come up the steel stairs with a gun in his hand. I have my .12 gauge behind my back. I say, “Hey Bub, hand over that gun and we’ll talk”! He stops, stares at me, then hands it over. SO far, so good. I notice he’s dripping blood from his left hand. From beating on the car most likely. While I take care of his wound, I’m talking to this obviously drugged out guy to calm him down. I look past him through the barns big picture window. Cop car after cop car are coming up the road from the highway. Guess where. By the time the cops take this guy away, they Tazzered him TWICE! Oh man, this guy on the first go around, just didn’t get the message. When the Sheriff hit him the second time on wet ground, this guy danced like an out of control meat puppet, then, did a Curley of the Three Stooges break dance on the dirt drive…Note: When tazzered it seems you lose control of all bowel functions…
Still unloading boxes from the quickie move. Leo finds some old photo albums. He brings one over while pointing out a much younger me with some hot babes showing cleavage and naked butt cheeks. He say’s, “Give me twenty bucks or I’ll show mom”! I laugh in his face. Tell him to go right ahead. The ‘girls’ in the photo are all guys. He stares at me like a wooden Indian. I tell him to ask his mom….While he was gone on a fact finding mission, I checked out the photo again. Wow! The good old days. The picture was taken at a plastic surgeons Halloween party in Pacific Palisades, back in the early 80’s. He invited me after I did a phone system at his office off Bedford. The ‘lifemate’ he shared this monster house with that over looked the ocean, was also a Doctor. He specialized in sex changes. Men to women. Naturally, after a few drinks, I ask this roommate if I can check out his trophy room of weenies he’s removed…Oh man, did he give me the look of death. He then slams down his drink and grabs me by the arm. He pulls me into an office in the house and jerks me into an overstuffed chair. I then get a lecture, with photos, on just how hard it is to make a man into a woman. First of all, he screams into my face, spittle flying, “You DON’T CUT OFF THE PENIS, MORON”! I pretend to be straightened out and keep a straight face. Turns out, Mr. Weenie is SPLIT down the middle, then reformed into a tube deal, reusing the nerve endings. I nod my head and pretend to be sensitive. I then hear how long it takes for the recovery process that involves a lot of pain and suffering. I nod some more. He lets me out of the chair. As we go back into the living room, I say a clinical sounding, “So, when can the space dick party with a stock dick”? He attacked me. Once again, thrown out of a party for no reason…
Finally met the neighbors, the Meth family. They just moved in more pals. We call them, ‘The red truck people’, and the, ‘Sons of Antonovich’, clan. We’re not sure whether they’re at all related, but, since they all do ninety down this steep drive they have, its seems some genetic makeup is shared. Or, the same drugs, its a pick ’em…So, two of the Red truck people, bury this overloaded Toyota half ton to the rims, spinning away in vain on this DIRT road (No decomposed road base, just fucking dirt ) As they jump around like monkeys humping a jukebox, trying to lift it out of its own hold it just made, here comes the alpha female of the Sons of A., naturally, doing ninety. She’s also towing an empty trailer. Even her super sped brain molecules from all the crank, can’t compensate in time. Hitting her brakes, the truck slides. Not the fourteen foot trailer. It passes mommy and flips upside down, flying in the air, OVER MY 250 GALLON PROPANE TANK …As the dust is settling, I stroll over while slipping my all steel, 28 oz framing hammer into my coveralls loop. Good to be ready. Might have to nail a meth head, me thinks. Nope, their all sweet as pie. “Gee, sorry. It will never happen again”! I smile and nod. Then say, “You can bet a million dollars on that statement”! They stare at me as I walk backwards away from them…I go for my tractor. I sit on my backhoe drinking iced tea, a pleasant smile on my mug. They finally get the trailer away, down MY DRIVE. I whip the tractor around, put it in power take off, and go to town digging out pole holes. Soon as I hit four foot, drove down to the barn, grabbed a 12’er brought from the destruction of PHONEHENGE, set it in said hole, then, repeated, four more poles. Now, these are nice fat, solid, treated poles. After the rest of the poles are in, its beam city between them, then, some stained glass panels for looks boxed near the tops…We’re thinking of a lottery on when we hear some screams then a CRUNCH. Hmm. Maybe a WHAM? Or, just glass?….We’ll see…
We now have another member of the family. Blessed events are few and far between, so, there to be cherished. Actually, its not really blessed. More like somethng we’re stuck with….Being so far out in the country, we have lots of visitors from the surrounding hills and mountains. Our cats take care of most of the small stuff, so, I usually toss the remnants of successful hunts out the front door in the morning. Sometimes it sounds like an old time bar brawl as a cat chases his prey all around the front room, the kitchen, and sometimes the bathrooms. One of our closets was getting linens and sheets chewed up, so, I placed a small catch ’em alive trap inside. I tried leaving the door open, no dice. The door would get shut and more damage would ensue. I catch the little prick. A round eared wood rat. He was so calm, I let him go far from the cat…I’ve now caught him FIVE times. So, he now bunks in a cage with Rick, AKA Tent boy…
Another day at New PHONEHENGE. Up at five am, met George Sack, ‘THE JACXKNIFE KING’ (Stunt 18 wheel driver) and the crane guys at old place to move the 7,500 gal and 5,000 gal steel water tanks. After lifting and strapping down these MONSTER tanks and putting over sized banners on truck, had the crane guy put a 6,300 pound river rock into my dump truck. ONE rock maxed out my truck…So, now we’re on the road to Tehachapi. We take the back roads through the giant turbine country. Nice ride. Until we round a curve on a downhill through some valleys. ANOTHER, oversized load with a giant turbine cowling on it is yards away. Man on man, good thing Sack is a stunt driver, he had his Dozer trailers back wheels locked in a jack knife, then, slid past the other driver, missing by INCHES, the giant turbine. I was behind Sack. I lock eyes with the other driver as he slides past, still locked up on his brakes with both feet. Big as saucers…
I’m coming out of a cable vault at Cedar’s hospital. It puts me right next to the long driveway where all the ambulances park. I spot about five drivers laughing their asses off over some sheets one of them is holding up to the overhead lights outside the emergency entrance. I wander over to see what’s so funny. They had seen me around with my tools on my shoulder, so, decide to trust me. The driver with the large item shows it to me. It was a blown up x-ray. I stare at it, not sure what I’m seeing. I say a hushed, “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing”? , since some people we’re wheeling a patient by. He nods. We all start laughing like crazy. It was nine Barbie heads turned this way and that. You could make out the ponytails and some of the profiles. I point at one in the middle, “Hey, there’s a Ken mixed in there”! More laughs….Some nut had shoved these heads up his ass, then, shows up at emergency wondering why he can’t take a dump…
I’m resident repair tech at Cedars Sinai off Beverly in West Hollywood. I did all the repair cases in the hospital and doctors towers, a nice black chick nick named Chocolate did all the installations. If one of us was swamped, they helped out the other tech. Now, big hospitals have big morgues. Cedars has a hundred gurney slots, reached in high rows with mechanical lifts. it took a special key to get down there. The main phone room was right next door. One of the forensic docs tells me in the elevator a paging speaker is out. I tell him I’ll come by before lunch and replace it. One of those round, flush ceiling types. As I promised, I knock on the double steel doors. A doc inside points down a long hallway to the defective speaker. I walk past about a dozen stiffs under sheets awaiting his attention. I set down my three foot ladder, climb up with the speaker. A hand shoots out from beneath a sheet and grabs me. Oh, yeah, they got me. They got me good…
