Random Thoughts

Posted on February 28, 2012 by admin

It’s four a.m. The school bus recording telling us about no school from snow woke me up. Once I’m up, I’m up. I hear something heavy on the roof. Already dressed for an hour, I take the spotlight outside. I almost break my neck on the piece of shit ramp the Navajo Longrifle built and I haven’t replaced yet. I step away from the house and shine the spotlight up onto the roof. A big bobcat stares back at me. Guess I know where our missing cats have gone. Through his digestive system and out his ass most likely. He’s only in sight for a brief second, then gone into the dark. Sitting back inside warming up, a lot of things went through my mind. Especially this FaceBook deal. Who really cares about what I write? I figure if even one of my grandkids gets something out of my experiences, then it’s not a big waste of time. When I was 14, Frank the Navajo’s medicine man pal told me I was, ‘Many men’. I was to tell the stories… How many times do you just take it for granted there will be a tomorrow?… I’m standing in the middle of Outpost Drive with a warning sign in my hand. I’m bored stiff. I’m working one part of a street safety team to make cars stop or slow for a series of manhole trucks surrounded by orange cones and safety racks, working on installing a new cable from manhole to manhole. I can just see my partner down by the next curve. This part of Outpost is really dangerous because of a natural spring, weeping out into the street off a crack in the natural rock facing, just past the narrow sidewalk. In the winter, cars slide in the green gook, all the time. It’s summer, but some of the green slime is still prevalent. Especially the curve I’m directing traffic on. I hear the sound of a car coming towards me just above the sharp curve. Not much traffic since it was after ten a.m. and all the commuters trying to avoid the snarled traffic on Highland, just down the mountain, the usual route. Nope, Outpost was for the hot shots in the know on a back way into Hollywood. The sort that pass over double yellows and in the parking lanes. As the convertible sports car comes into view, there’s no traffic coming up the hill, so, I give them the ‘SLOW’ side of my paddle. The driver smirks at me, shifts down, then blows on past, not slowing at all. His passenger smiles at me as they shoot by. I hear my partner shout a warning. I see everything at once. The brake lights of the sports car as the driver spots a huge moving van coming up around the bend below. The sports car hits the green ooze, slides into a dozen or so bright orange cones, then, takes out the metal security gate around an open manhole. A tire goes into the open hole, flipping the sports car upside down. It goes the rest of the way on its journey, sliding wheels up. It hits the far curve, flips back to rightside up, then stops against a mailbox, just next to a driveway that headed up to a house out of view. I was glad another car had come down the street. It forced me to keep my position. I really didn’t want to look into that wrecked car. I didn’t think they would be smiling anymore… I’m leaving Formosa garage in my Pac Bell repair van. I’m stopped by Bill Granger, a forman I really liked. He asks me to come along to check on one of his techs who hasn’t called in for two days. I’m the union rep, so, it was company policy if a foreman was going to a tech’s home unannounced to have a union man along. I park my van and hop in his sedan. We find Tom’s triplex off of Willoughby and knock on the front door. Tom’s yellow El Camino is parked in his narrow driveway. No answer. I go through his side gate past his overflowing trash cans, then open the unlatched screen door to knock on the half glass wooden door. No answer, but, from the half opened glass window, I smell death. Granger slits the screen, opens the lock from inside, we go in. We find Tom in his bathtub with most of his head on the wall and the ceiling… I’m pulling off my helmet at work, hear some guys talking about Mike Brummet being dead. What? I was just with him at Dodger stadium, installing pay phones and riding around on the field with the electric cart the maintenance guys had loaned us. He had been out in the desert shooting with some friends. Setting his .45 on the lowered tail gate of his friend’s truck, someone tossed some gear onto the tail gate. The gun went off, hitting Mike in the chest… I’m on a pole just up the alley from another tech, Eric D. We’re replacing a bad drop line to a big party house up the street. The wind is blowing like crazy. I can see Laurel Canyon from my pole, so, I shout to Eric, “Lets have lunch at the Laurel store!” ( I once was in line behind John Lennon of the Beatles buying a sandwich. I say, “Hey, aren’t you one of the Beach Boys?” He smiled and replied, “Yep, surf’s up mate!”) Before Eric can answer, a gust of wind blows down one of those big toothed palm fronds off one of the sixty foot palm trees all around us. It comes down in one of those lazy back and forth deals, then, nails Eric in the head, cutting his right ear right off. I take him to Cedars emergency. They sewed it back on… A drunken supervisor is going home from work. His car breaks down just off the Los Feliz off ramp near Traveltown. He steps right into a fast moving car which knocks his leg, right off. I worked for this idiot once. He was later fired after all the surgeries for stealing on the job… Hmm, stealing… We’ll call him Williams. Mainly ’cause that was his name. He was going to be fired for selling phone equipment out of his van. Chief Special Agents for the phone company HAD HIM ON FILM. Williams walked. He told them it wasn’t him on the film, it was his identical twin brother who had escaped from a jail in Ohio, taken his truck while he was eating lunch at his aunt’s in Crenshaw, sold the equipment, the parked his van again while he was unaware. They found out he did indeed have a twin on the run. Williams was shot three times in a phone booth off Washington later on, so, he was retired early. Sort of a win win for him… Oh, Williams told me a neat story from when he was in the Navy. While on the air craft carrier Enterprise, all hands were excited about getting shore leave in Tokyo. They’re all made to stand at attention for five hours until the armory got back two stolen .45’s. He told me there was so many pissed off guys standing by their opened lockers, the pressure broke the thief…

Accidents

Posted on February 25, 2012 by admin

The wrong tool for the job is a good place to start. Once I drew an accident scene for a supervisor, I was soon the official accident investigator for Pac Bell from then on. It segued into teaching pole climbing and tool safety for awhile to new hires. I liked it. Especially the meetings and interactions with other companies while attending safety seminars… Otis Elevator man: “While repairing a stuck elevator off Wilshire, two of us were at the very top of the third shaft, using a mini electric winch to free up a jammed cable. It wasn’t working. Also, the cheap, crummy two way radios we were using, kept cutting out, or, not working at all. I kept arguing with my supervisor about the faulty communications between us and the guys working on top of the jammed car. He told me they had a big work load and to just live with it. He sends me down to our step van to get another electric winch. While I’m pulling out the winch, I hear sirens!”… It turned out, his supervisor, being in a hurry, had his head taken off in a split second, by the cable failing, then whipping back up the shaft like a steel anaconda, right into the cubicle the repairman had just been working in. For want of a good two way radio, a guy is dead. Plus, disregarding common sense… Ladders maim and kill more people then any other tool, in all trades. Ninety percent of the time, it’s the fault of the person using it. Once while I was fixing an elderly Jewish lady’s phone off Beverly Blvd., she wondered if I could use my six foot folding ladder to fix her drape loops. I get my ladder off my truck roof, set it up safely, start to fix her loops. She grabs my privates as my hands are busy. I fall off the ladder and land on my butt, the back of my head putting a nice dent in her drywall. I say to her, “What the hell was that all about?” She just shrugged her shoulders, then said, “Aw, you’ll get over it!” I didn’t write that one up. I also rode a 28′ ladder down a cement wall at a Coca-Cola distribution center iin Sylmar, just like in a cartoon. I only pinched a pinky. A small miracle. Some Coke truck drivers applauded as I jumped up, checking myself for broken bones. I had set up in a hurry and my rubber footings on the ladder were worn out. All my doing. I went down the face of the two story wall in about three seconds, then, bounced off the cement floor… I’m once again on the top of an extended 28′ ladder off of Fairfax and Hillside. A supervisor, Warren Hayes, is shouting instructions to Jeff Vaugn on the pole across the street, and to myself, balanced on the ladder top, working a two ton come-a-long winch to pull slack out of a six pair drop, attached to the balcony of a 1920’s two story house. I say down to Warren, “I don’t know Hayes, this house is pretty old, maybe we should back off!” Hayes, “Just winch it up, I’m already late for lunch!” I give it two more ratchets, then, “CRAAACCCCKKKK!” The entire top of the veranda roof, tiles and all, shoots out over my head, landing inches from Hayes feet, just below my ladder base. Jumping backwards, Hayes loses his feet, rolls backwards head over heels down the steep lawn, then, goes through some six foot high rose bushs, to land five feet farther onto the sidewalk. We kept that one quiet too… Ralphs store on 3rd street. I’m a cable flunky for senior techs, running 25 pair cable through the attic of Ralphs. I’m doing what I’m told. The attic is a good thirty foot up. I’m told in no uncertain terms, first thing on the job, “DO NOT WALK OFF THE RAFTERS!” In between the widely spaced rafters was insulation with dry wall below. Just like what happened to Chevy Chase in ‘Christmas Vacation’, happened to a supervisor. Off the attic entry you have a wood area. Anywhere past that, rafters. The ceiling is five feet over your head. It’s not well lit past your drop lights, plus, it’s hot and muggy. As the super is walking over to check our progress, he starts to wipe sweat off his face. Since he was talking to us, we were looking right at him as he stepped off the rafters, fell through the drywall, then plummeted thirty feet onto an empty cash register check out area. Luckily, he only broke his wrist… A tech nick named ‘Bullet’ since he worked so slow, always went gah gah over street hookers and hot babes. While taking his 28′ ladder off his roof rack (Not extended, its 14′) a girl roller skates past him in a skimpy out fit. With the ladder over his shoulder, he spins in a hurry to catch a look at her ass. The ladder spins with him. The end of it catches an elderly lady walking her dog down her front walk, knocking her out. The company paid a lot of dough for that one. Oh, on that same street, Hightower, just below the Hollywood Bowl, I once saw some Edison guys touch power to a strand wire between two feed poles, electrocuting about seventy pigeons that had been bugging them. The ones that didn’t fall onto all the parked cars and sidewalks, hung by their curled feet like odd upside down toys off the stand they had been roosting on, just seconds before… When guys fall into the giant meat rendering vats, they never stop the machines, EVER. They just hope no one gets parts of the guys wristwatch or shoelaces in their sausage. Ditto for guys getting wrenched into the industrial sized mulching machines for tree maintenance. Those suckers will shred a man in two seconds… Miscalculating weight causes many an accident. Once, some cable theives backed a one ton dually pickup to a cable truck left on a job overnight, put down the tailgates of both trucks, then used a sledge to knock out the blocks of wood, chocking the big steel cable reel in place. The cable reel, about seven foot high, slowely rolls onto the duallys bed, just as planned. Then, fully in the truck, it crushes the truck bed to the ground. The tires blowing, kill one of the thieves instantly. Gee, guess they didn’t notice it was sitting on a TEN TON truck bed… Big drills can lay the hurt on you, real fast. The first time I used a one inch chuck Milwaukee HOLE HOG, was almost my last. Like an idiot, I told the lead tech I was trained on the drill, so as not to look like the kid that I was. He took me around this huge mansion that once belonged to Charlie Chaplin, showing me the little yellow stickies stuck to the baseboards, letting me know where to drill. I’m using a four foot, two inch around bit, off this two handed giant drill. He turns me loose after doing the first hole for me. I do about three, no problems at all. I wake up with four guys shaking me and looking concerned. When I finally stand up, I see the blood all over my shirt, then, see where my face had slid down the white painted wall after the drill bit hit the cement subfloor, spinning me into said wall at about a hundred miles an hour. We didn’t write that one up either…

Classy Freddie Blassie

Posted on February 20, 2012 by admin

World Champion wrestler. He was the best, ‘HEEL’, or, bad guy, in the history of the business. He told me at the Califlower Ear Club, the first time I met him, nothing beat being a heel. Blassie: “I got so much pussy as a heel, I gave a lot of it to charity!” Before wrestling Italian Bruno Sammartino, a god to Italians all over the U.S., but especially at Madison Square Garden, Blassie took over the mic at a news conference: “This spaghetti eater knows nothing about wrestling. He’d never amount to a hill of beans if he didn’t have the promoter in his back pocket, always picking him weak sissies for opponents. Before he was a wrestler, he worked in a garbage dump, but got fired for eating on the job. He was on an escalator one time and they had a power failure. The thing stopped. But this pencil neck is so stupid, he waited until someone said, “You know Mr. Sammartino, you can walk down!” He’s the only person I know who moved onto a houseboat and built a basement!”… I’m putting some cable into my telephone truck in an alley, just off the beach in Venice, California. It’s a hot day and I wanted to watch the roller skaters and fortune tellers for awhile before heading back to Downtown L.A. A beach job is the best job you can get. I remember asking a supervisor my first month on the job, about how long it would take to get a transfer to Hawaii. Years later this guy would start laughing whenever he set eyes on me, be it a retirement party or a funeral, thinking of the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. Pretty soon I found out Burbank was even harder. Once Downtown and Hollywood, no garage Second level in his right mind would want you. You’d ruin his gravy train… So, back to the alley. A voice coming up behind me sounding like gravel being shaken in a coffee can, growls, “Hey, you pencil necked geek, how about a long phone cord for an old man!” Before even turning, I knew the voice was going to get anything thing he wanted from my truck. I grew up with that voice. My sister Wendy would give me an epileptic seizure, changing the channel, just as the Great Blassie, started to go off on his next opponent. Now, no remotes in the fifties. So, to guard the set, you had to block your nemisis with your body. It was that voice I heard. I turn and start laughing. He was in a tight swimsuit, wearing those flipper sandels, still a great physical specimen, shocking white hair and a fantastic tan. What made me laugh were his hands. He was holding them out in front of him like a mummy from a movie. In between his fingers were chess pieces. It was just so weird. He notices my eyes on his hands. “Hey, moron, I like an even tan. Now, how about that cord?” I had a big box full of disconnected phones that belonged to another company. I told him he could take his pick. He took the entire box. As he carried it to his apartment, I shouted, “Don’t you remember me from the Cauliflower Ear Club?” He shouted back, “You don’t have one, so fuck off retard!” As I’m leaving after lunch, Blassie is talking to some kids by my truck. He wants my phone number. “None of those pieces of crap will work!” I tell him about the control unit. To call me about it later. This begins my time spent with a god. I also became his personal phone flunkey. Hey, he made me laugh so many times, I would have shined his shoes. Turns out, Blassie was a sweet heart in real life. He gave off this aura of invicibility. Hell, everyone felt it. He made Regis Philbin. Regis was a nobody, until he booked Blassie on his fledgling T.V. show. His show went number one after Blassie tore up his script, roaring, “NO ONE TELLS BLASSIE WHAT TO SAY!”, then, tearing off Regis’s jacket arm while berating and insulting his other guests. One a pro football player. Blassie told the guy football players regularly kissed his ass so he wouldn’t pound them into the ground for fun. TO HIS FACE! No one had ever said such things on T.V. Ever. He caused full scale riots to break out when he hit the Southern circuit arenas. In those days, blacks had to stay in their own section. Blassie, coming into the ring to start his match early, to make ‘Heat’. To sell the bout. The more heat, the more money in fueds and such, so, he’s on the announcer’s mic. “I’d like to say a big hello to my fans here tonight. And not you white trash, grit eating pencil necked geeks. I’m here tonight for my Negro fans!” Bedlam. The heat is on… Leaving a match under a hail of bottles, rotten oranges, apples and even bags of shit, Blassie is followed by a large elderly woman, fighting with security to get to Freddie. Keeping an eye on her since he’s been stabbed and shot at, he slows to let her have her say, screaming fans along the tunnel watching. “Blassie, you no good, rotten stinking bastard. You filty, miserable son of a bitch!” Leaning towards her, Blassie shouts out, “For the last time MOM, go home!” Once, I told him I did Sinatra’s phones. His reply? “Sinatra will pass gas and 15 guys pass his fart around!” Heading for Japan to tour, Blassie was at the top of his game. Getting off the plane in Tokyo, the reserved Japanese press didn’t know a volcano had just landed. Asked about the Japanese champion’s rein, Blassie filled them in. “What? You call Rikidozan a champion? HE’S A BUM!” T.V. being scarce in those days, crowds of Japanese would watch shows on the sidewalk in front of the stores selling them. People would actually die of heart attacks from stunts Blassie pulled. Later on in life, he felt bad about it. He thought they were just selling the matches with stories. He never dreamed it was for real. He made fun of Yakuzas with missing digits, kicked two of their asses for blocking his cab, then, ended up partying with the mob boss… He also told me that ‘Judo’ Gene Lebell, was the most dangerous man he ever knew. Over Andre the Giant? I wondered. Blassie nodded, then told me that once Lebell got you in a arm or leg hold, it was all over. You quit or that part of your body would never be quite the same again… Freddie said the greatest day in his life, was when he was stopped by a man on the sidewalk in Santa Monica, then begged to come over to a car hurridly parked. The great Blassie said he would. At the car, an old man shouted with glee, “IT IS BLASSIE, I TOLD YOU IT WAS HIM!” Blassie yakked it up, gave an autograph, then begged off. The man’s son chased him down, then told him quietly, “That’s my father. He has advanced Alzheimers. He hasn’t spoken a word in months. He saw you and he was lke a kid again. I have to thank you so much!” Freddie Blassie, King of the Heels, started crying as he finished the story… God bless you Freddie, I think of you all the time…

Mr. Adallini

Posted on February 17, 2012 by admin

He was the boys dean at Hart High school back in the early sixties. He was a big powerful guy who had played pro football. He taught science, too. He also dealt with little assholes who needed to be straightened out. Now, in those days, it wasn’t touchy feelie, “let’s talk this out.” Nope. You got swats. Well, the boys did. I don’t know about the girls. Maybe they were talked to. Usually quite clever and cunning, I’m caught red handed shaking the small juice vending machine off the lunch area to get free plastic juice containers to fall into the chute. Frank and Brian, pals of mine, are also apprehended. Some of the janitors grabbed us and took us to the office. Once inside on the long bench outside of Adallinis office, we joked, smirked at the girls helping with the phones and such, and generally being annoying. There was another kid there ahead of us named Scott. No one usually hung out with him since he was a known booger eater. Like the kid caught spanking the monkey in the showers, you avoided them… Snot boy went in first. Mr. Adallini stepped aside to let him enter the small office with the venetian blind shades. Prior to his first customer, you could see him sitting at his desk, on the phone most of the time. As soon as he had company, those blinds were pulled shut. A bad omen. We noticed a difference in the office. As if everyone around us was holding their breaths. Then, the loud ‘SMACK’, and the scream. Followed by two more, even louder. Loud crying emmanated. The door suddenly swung open, a bawling kid snatched a note held out by an office gal, and away he went back to class. The bushy eyebrows of Mr. Addallini seemed on big long brow, as he gave us a quiet smile while saying in a low growl, “Inside, Mr. Thompson.” Brian looks at Frank and I, then back at the Dean. A curt, “RIGHT NOW!” Got Brian’s feet moving towards his fate. Once again, the door shut, some muffled words, then, ‘SMACK’. Brian cried out with each of the three blows. The door opened, a crying Brian gets his hall pass, off he goes, wiping the tears off his face. Mr. Adallini smiles at Frank. Frank Angelostro, a tough Italian just like the Dean, stands up and marchs in like a man, ready for anything. The sound of some conversation, then, once again, ‘SMACK’. The distinct sound of Franks voice shouting, “FUCK YOU!”, brings the sound of four more loud smacks. Holy shit! He gave Frank FIVE! The door opens and out comes a furious Frank, snatching his note and looking right past me. Those big eyebrows are all I can look at as I slip past the Dean to the chair in front of his desk. For the first time, I see the instrument of doom, laying on his appoinment calander, just a foot away from me. Long known from legend, I was about to feel its wrath. It was wooden, shaped like an elongated ping pong paddle, but drilled with half inch holes all across the business part. The hand grip was taped for a better grip. As the Dean told me why I was there, I barely heard what he was saying. My focus was on that well-worn paddle. I made an oath to not make a sound. Like all the heroes in countless comics I’d poured over and movies I’d seen. Now, it was my turn to drop my pants and put my hands on his desk. Having been in some juvenile halls and boys homes over the years, I got out of the habit of wearing shorts or boxers. In such facilities you get them tossed to you out of a big pile as you come out of the showers. I learned to pass on that deal. So, I’m to get mine totally bare assed. I grip the desk, and, ‘SMACK’. So much for being a Sgt. Rock of Easy Company, or, the exact double of ‘The Phantom’. I let out a scream the dopers heard, all the way out on the hill behind the parking lot. Then, falling to the floor, I thrashed around kicking and crying like Adallini had just cut my legs off with a rusty chain saw. I never did get the other two. He was so disgusted with me, he just told me to pull up my pants and go back to class… Takiing my hallpass, the smirks from all the girls made me perk up a little…

Con Men

Posted on February 15, 2012 by admin

They got me my first week on the job, working for Pac Bell in Hollywood. The big ‘Sucker’ balloon next to my mug drew them to me like bees to pollen. I’m standing in line at a check cashing joint just down the street from the original, ‘Tommy Chili Burgers’, off of Beverly, eager to cash my first pay check, then, hit that Tommy’s, hard. A van pulls into the crowded parking area next to the check place. As I’m walking back to my 1965 Ford Econoline van, praying it will start, just one more time, two men in this van get out and wave me over. Looks of confidentiality on their faces. I read on the side of the almost new van, ‘Georges stereo and T.V.’s’. I go see what they want. While looking around furtively, they bring me to the rear of their van, open the back doors, and start their spiel. “Look pal, our boss just layed us off. He’s going out of business and he’s not paying us. We’ve got some real deals here buddy!”… One of my new friends then shows me that the van is filled almost to the roof with brand new stereos, T.V.s and speakers. Taking a blade to the top of a sealed box, he shows me the color TV inside. A nice 26”. Or, any stereo and two box speakers for just a hundred bucks. I was in pig heaven! I forked over a hundred bucks out of my hundred and ninety dollar check like a thirsty man would a cold drink off a blazing desert. Not wanting to give me an unsealed box, I’m given a sealed one. They even carried it over to my van for me. Cool! As soon as I get to my little dive off of Beechwood drive, just below the Hollywood sign, I clear off my dresser top for my new prize. As I carry it in, I actually worried about the neighborhood junkies, breaking in and stealing my new prize. Whew, it was heavy! I set it on the floor and cut open the top. Inside are two cement cinder blocks wrapped in bubble wrap. They got lousy reception when I hooked up an antenna to them… Over the years, I must have been hit up by a dozen more guys pulling this same scam. I would pretend to be interested, then slide a new TV box from the stack and start to open it, getting them all flustered. Then I would laugh and tell them I already had enough bricks and cinderblocks. Off they would go, looking for an easier sale. Another good con is the shell game. Usually these guys worked in teams. Setting up a folding table with a metal top, the ‘Operator’, would have three cups, or, ‘shells’, which he would then place a round bearing underneath the middle one. To entice betting, a planted partner in the small crowd forming around him, would watch as he spun all the cups in a confusing blur, then, you put down five bucks and picked the one you thought the ‘pea’ was under. Oh my gosh, she won! Looking perplexed, our con man seems a bit out of sorts. Asking her to give it another try, “Double or nothing!” He again moves them around, then lets her choose. OH MY GOSH! Guess what? She won again! Acting miffed, he ignores her pleas to go again after paying her off, then lets someone else take some easy money. The winner fades away, to wait back in their car, the next ten people lose. Darn! How does he do it? A Bunko cop filled me in. There’s a ‘pea’ under all of the cups. He spins them, making the ball, magnetically stick to the underside of the cup. To make which ever one drop or not, you just squeeze the cup a tiny bit and the ball will drop… ‘LOST DOG’. This one can make a con a lot of money. Plus, if busted, it’s a misdomeaner. Always watching for an expensive car with a dog left inside, or, out in an old ladies yard. One way or another, that dog will get loose. These dog nappers sometimes have over a dozen dogs they’re waiting to see ads for or signs going up, pleading for help for Muffy to come home. Yep. They move around town, working fresh streets until the cops get hep, or someone wises up. Then it’s off to another city, to repeat the scam. Some people in Beverly Hills will pay thousands for a ‘found’ pet. Paid no questions asked… You also have the ‘move ins’. Usually done just after dark, the new tenants are in and all comfy in a few hours. Since no one has met them yet, no one knows who the heck they are. What the owners of the empty house find out later, is all those big boxes carried inside with such effort, were empty. Not on their way back out to the rental van though. Inside are the rental’s air conditioner, ceiling fans, washer and dryer, garbage disposal, toilets, wood trim, heaters, stove, leaded glass kitchen cabinet doors, or what ever else they can move through middle men, all over L.A. Now a day, they’re taking the copper pipes right out of the walls and pulling the electrical wiring for scrap value… Just before moving, some electric cable thieves were fried while stealing the cables out of Edwards Air Force Base’s repeater station on the mountain across from Phonehenge. The wires tested dead. Then, the timers kicked in, right as these guys were cutting the one inch cables. Adios. One of them had his arm blown right off, landing forty feet away with the cutters still in the hand… Out of dozens of such cons, none made me laugh as much as ‘Freddy the Flop’. Freddy’s forte was fat rich people in big fat expensive cars. He had his favorite parts of town, but usually worked big name store parking lots. Especially in Beverly Hills. Keeping his eyes peeled, he would spot a victim backing up, then, from out of nowhere, Freddie is over the hood and flopping on the ground, screaming in pain, or, even better, unconcious. I once told him he should get a job as a stuntman. He looked at me like I was insane. He usually would take a handful of cash, claiming he had a warrant or some other reason not to get the cops involved. Most people were happy to pay him off… Oh, have to get in the car scam… At all the expensive eateries, they have red, green or whatever color vested car park attendants, running up to customers cars to park them easily so the people can hit the bar or get a table. Knowing this some enterprising cons, found vests the correct color, waited for the right moment, then, smiling and opening the drivers door, they would tear off a stub, tell the people, “Have a nice dinner!”, then drive that Mercedes or Porche, right to a chop shop. Since the people thought he was legit, the thief has at least an hour before they’re looking for their ride… More on cons some later…

Mongolian Death Worm

Posted on February 13, 2012 by admin

In scientific circles, ALLERGORHAI-HORHAI. About two foot long and shaped like a sausage, rumored to achieve even larger lengths. Said to have the ability to give an electric shock, amped enough to kill a camel and its rider. Also, emits a shrill shriek, just before its shoots out venom in a directed stream. Hmm… The real ‘Indiana Jones’, Roy Chapman Andrews, just returning from a trek in the vast Gobi desert, had found out about the creature from his head camel driver the hard way. His driver, named Tserin, should have his own book. Tserin would leave weeks ahead of Andrews’ expeditions, to prepare the tents and camps for Chapman’s large party of explorers, and, usually Roy’s first wife, Yvette. A real kick in the pants as women in the field go. More on her later. Chapman wanted to save a weeks travel by cutting across an area in the Gobi, that Tserin would not put one toe into…Chapman had to give up on that idea. Tserin told him to get another camel train master. He wasn’t going into that area because of the ‘Horhai’. In some ways, I0 find Tserin even more facinating then Chapman. Roy had some of his supplies stolen and one of his men killed on his first expedition outside of China and the protection of the Chinese army. This was in the early 1920’s. The Chinese General wouldn’t go into the Gobi, so, he suggested Tserins band of nomads. Chapman hires him to get his goods back. And, to bring back the murderers for justice. A save face deal. In less then a month, Chapman is contacted by the General that the thieves are in hand, and, at his very compound. “Come collect them and pay your reward!” Chapman always travelled with an extremely bulky and heavy, short wave radio, that took up an entire Dodge travelall car. It was worth it, countless times…So, bringing his entire expedition of nine such cars to see justice, they park outside the palace in Peking, to await the general and to watch a hotly contested polo game going on between some hard riding tribesmen. As the game came closer to the parked cars at the end of the long field, they catch a look at what Tserin and his friends are using as a ball. One of the bandit’s heads. The rest were in a pile, awaiting another game, most likely. Roy used Tserin exclusively after this incident. So, when a man like this won’t go into an area, you had best pay attention. Yvette, Roy’s wife, really wanted to see one of these Death Worms. She also wanted to bring one back alive. Roy shot all of his specimens. Not Evette. She would find the babies left by these, ‘hunts’, then nurse them along, turning them into pets. Roy would get steamed. Until her hobby saved all their lives. Taking in a baby Vulture she found in a canyon, she would set it to perch on a fifty cal. machine gun they had mounted on a car’s back seat to ward off bandits. She would feed it on this gun, twice a day from animals Roy brought back. In a dispute at a watering hole with another tribe, one of the headmen noticed the Vulture perched on the gun and ordered his men back. It was too much of a bad omen… Since the hot desert sun heated up everything, the camel riding tribes wore a long, robe-like garment called a ‘Del’. Underneath they kept all their weapons out of the sun. So, you never knew what the hell they had underneath. You knew for sure they had a long curved sword. That’s how they settled all personal disputes. After a few expeditions, tribes folk would travel long distances to Roy’s camps. They had heard of the doctors Roy usually had along for specimen study and such. Not really medical doctors, they still did amputations, and set broken bones. You can’t have enough friends in the Gobi. Some desert storms can easily bury cars up to their roofs overnight with sand. Ditto for quick sand and fine flowing sand that would overheat all the Dodge cars instantly. With over a hundred and twenty five camels in one of his trains, Tserin would pull them all out by camel power. These men took so many crates of fossils and specimens out of China and Mongolia, entire warehouses are still full of them in countless museams, all over the Eastern part of the US. NEVER OPENED. Yep, just like at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie, but this is real. Chapman never did find a Death Worm, but, I did a search on the web. A large Chinese scientific team is heading out this summer, to try and find one…

Downtown L.A.

Posted on February 11, 2012 by admin

When the work slowed down in Hollywood or Beverly Hills, or, if you were a smart ass who needed straightening out, you ended up working Downtown L.A… Not the nice parts either. You go where the cables go. They usually start out in a Central Office (C.O.) then, like a hub of a wheel, cables left it like giant spokes, then turned into even smaller cables, the farther out they went. I always hated it, yet, sort of liked the challenge in a sick sort of way. Mainly because of the people. If you’re cable maintenance, you work big cutovers after six pm. Don’t want to piss those big clients off. Into the breach you go. Cables don’t run in front Downtown. They run underground. In big long dark alleys. Through brush in Griffith Park. Brush so thick it rips your sweatshirt and jackets to shreds. Once you’re out of the glaring lights, you find the Lost Souls. The ones who live in the hidden camps, grottos, the abandoned zoo, freeway underpasses.‎.. Or, the other side of the coin. The rich, the late night movers and shakers. Private clubs. Every sort of bar and hang out, for every sort of person. You get pulled off your regular work, all the time if you were a special circuit man. Heart monitors, alarms, traffic signals, data transmissions, railroad switch signals. All kinds of stuff. Since I was always causing trouble in crews, I end up on the Specials crew, Downtown. Boy, was it wild. I go out with a guy named Rick L. on my first night on the new crew to learn the ropes. You worked noon to whenever you felt like. Techs were hauling in over a hundred grand in overtime in six months. In the sixties, no one cared how long you worked. Just get it done. Rick was an alchoholic, but a working type. He was the first person to show me the underground city, sometimes multiple stories, underneath the street lights and towering buildings packing the miles above. In between jobs, Rick hit his usual bars and clubs. It’s easy to get a tab anywhere in town if you play ball and do favors. Favors? The kind that could get a guy killed. ‘The little bird on the shoulder’, was one such favor. Here’s how it would go down. You’re in a bar, replacing a credit card machine gooey with Coke spilled in it. Maybe a Coke kicked over by some almost nude gay dancer, T bagging a customer off the bar, right next to you. Your a phone man. There’s one thing a phone man can’t say. “I’m not going!” You’re instantly unemployed. You go where dispatch tells you. Period. If a dispatcher doesn’t like you, it’s one turd sandwich after another. Hate to climb poles? Those will be the only jobs you get, forever. So, back to the bar. A voice from behind you, shouts out it needs to talk to you over the blaring music. You turn and see the owner of the joint, looking weird from the flashing stobe lights and lazer going off all over. You nod, finish your repair, meet him in the almost quiet rear office. He pushes out a chair, wonders if he can fix you a drink. He then gets down to business. Someone is doing him/her wrong. They want to tap into some lines. If you don’t get up and walk, money will then appear. Here’s where it gets tricky. You read the paper a few days later, after accommodating your new pal, and see that someone got themselves killed. Maybe it will say for ‘no reason’. Maybe you’re the reason. People say all sorts of things on the phone that aren’t true. I’m no different. You’re protected by that void. It’s just a voice. Not reality in a way. You gave someone ‘the little bird’. Maybe they heard just what they didn’t want to hear. They snap and in the blink of an eye, they do something foolish or crazy. Another phone man, Big Ed, told me a story along these lines and I never forgot it. It can be tough not to pick up bunch of hundreds shoved at you for five minutes work. I was sorely tempted on many an occasion. I found a lot of other ways to get in trouble, but never line tapped. Plus, I was a snot nosed kid. On top of that, a lousy phone man. It took YEARS to become a good phone man. Adequate was all I ever was. My forte was schmoozing pissed off customers. I’d keep them under control until a real phone man arrived. For thirty seven years, the dog and pony show kept me jumping. Usually right into a fire…

Kids Like Me

Posted on February 10, 2012 by admin

We would buy a giant bag of dried peas, 21 cents, for our pea shooters, then, knock down our plastic soldiers with ’em, for hours. Do your paper route, then, roll by Winchells and get a bag of day-old donuts for a buck, sell them for a quarter a pop at the Slot Car tracks… Slot cars. Every small town had one. You would ride your bike to one with your pals, your box of cars and parts rubberbanded on your rear bike rack. Put up quarters on lap bets. Put a penny in the other guys track when hes not looking and make his car flip in the air. Get chased down the street by his pals. No one ever got hurt. We would have BB gun wars in the orange groves at Villa Cabrini. Toss oranges at the giant hogs they would slaughter. Make forts in the trees. Climb down into the dried up storm reservoirs at De Bell golf course, with flashlights and packs, plus, plenty of kid weapons. Twenty five pound bow and target arrows… Wrist rockets. A good shot with a wrist rocket is equivalent to Kirby with his B.A.R. on the show, ‘COMBAT’, with Vic Morrow. I talked to the Second unit director on ‘The Twighlight Zone’, location, when the out of control chopper, cut off Vic Morrow’s head, and the two kids he was running with for the scene… Another story… Always had a good pocket knife. Boy scout multiple if smart. The ones with the tiny fork and spoon you tried once, then, never pulled out again. A special pocket for your ball bearings, collected in the alleys behind the machine shops while taking your pop bottle returns to Bill’s Ranch Market. A ball bearing made a hobo see god once as he chased me down some tracks in Sylmar. I missed his melon by an inch. You can put a bearing right through a stop sign, no problem. Oh, and walking sticks, like little John in ‘Robin Hood’. Sticks are a must. Poke snakes, fight each other, make you feel confident. Anyhow, once into the water works basin, a short climb to the cement overflow lip, then into the abyss of black, the start of an L.A. storm drain system. As you head downhill, sometimes there’s a small stream of water going down the middle of the fifty foot wide, thirty foot high cement drain. As you leave the sunlight, it becomes green with algae. If really young and scared, you would be left behind by the bigger kids to catch tadpoles and frogs, then, go home with the dogs that always followed you. In my day, dogs sort of belonged to everyone. When you camped out at a pal’s in his backyard, your dog did too. Ditto for them… As you proceed down into the black of the unknown, the square light aperture behind you grows smaller and smaller. As your reach your first bend, it’s suddenly stygean black. On come the henflashlights. NO CANDLES! Even a kid knew these tunnels had gas in them. Duh. No lighters or cherry bombs in the sewers. Usually the upper parts were fairly clear of obstacles. Some smaller rafts of sticks and gravel, an old boot, tree branchs. It wasn’t until you had gone farther down, then, into a tributary, that things got really interesting. My stories of the giant Alligators were always laughed at. Up in the blue of outside. Five miles into the getting smaller and smaller tunnel, with your footsteps echoing off the dank, gooey walls, made them seem possible. Just before you came to a tributary of the L.A. River, the big game appeared. Animals chased into the tunnels for safety by counterparts like us from their parts of town, playing in the vast cement drainage systems, would be caught between a rock and a hard place. As we got closer, we could see their silhouettes in the bright sun behind them. A deer with antlers was easy. Coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, tons of big Norwiegan wharf rats, opposums, fox, all of ’em at one time or another. We would hear the other kids shout as the animal broke for the outside. Once we came into the sun, your eyes had to adjust. Fights or trouble for being on other guys turf? Never once. Not even close. Sure, we would have ick fights. You pick up a handful of the green slime in the slower currents, then, nail the kid closest to you. Since you got nailed back, no one gave a crap. We would end up playing them football. Your team leader would pick a kid, any kid from all of us, then the other captain chose. No fights. It was all normal… When you hit your early teens, you moved to the big time. Sneaking into the L.A. Zoo through the backs of the animal exhibits, or, the Holy Grail of all scary places, the creek under the old Pasadena bridge, into the land of evil things where kids bikes had been found many a time, but no kids. And that was no bullshit…

Ghosts

Posted on February 9, 2012 by admin

This arm break of Leo has done some major altering to his conciousness. He’s never thought about repercussions since he’s been with us. He’s pushed all the horrors of his early years in the Siberian psycho wards as a child, then, he gets this major reality check. Last night while walking back from the barn on a kitten check, Leo asks me about what happens when you die. What? In the nine years we’ve had him, he has NEVER asked me about anything as deep as this. Pretty neat, yet, I’m not the best person to handle a response. But, I gave him my thoughts, while trying not to freak him out… My first encounter with a spirit was fairly mild. Another tech kept seeing a little man with a bowtie in a basement we were running phone lines through. I never saw it. Since he wouldn’t go back down to complete the cable punching, I kept my eyes peeled while I completed his part of the installation… I never saw anything. I finally just turned up my radio and dedicated cables. One odd thing I did witness at this house was actually funny. The home, converted into a real estate office, had been built in 1926. Really thick walls and that heavy tile roof popular in that era. As I went to mount a 10 button wall phone in the kitchen/new break room, I drill out some one inch holes in the wall to bring up a 50 pair cable, plus for the phone anchors. Before I can do anything, I’m dodging bees flying at me. The kitchen is suddenly live with them. Turned out, the wall was filled with a hundred year old bee hive. I taped the holes and went to the next room. Found out later they had to take the entire exterior wall off, then, removed hundreds of pounds of comb and honey… I’m in another basement in Beverly Hills off of Wilshire. It’s for a commercial building, so, it’s big. Really big. Corridors and causeways shooting off in every direction. There’s boxes and containers six foot high on each side of the cement passageways, full of records and files. I shinned my flashlight on some. Dated 1956. Sheesh. Feeling something weird, I shine my flashlight down a long, black walkway to my left and say, “Anybody down here?” A stack of files on the left of the walkway just falls over into the walkway. Then, opposite it, falls another. Hmm… Working for a Korean college off La Cienega, I end up in a maze of basements, interconnected with cement tunnels that run underneath La Cienega itself. Some had steel blast doors blocking them off since they had been built for bomb shelters during the cold war. Tons of old buildings throughout L.A. have them. Going down one dank, dark tunnel, I feel something. A presence. I keep following the cable above my head clamped to the ceiling, trying to be professional. I follow it to a steel ladder going up. I take the ladder, lift the steel cover plate. I’m behind the nine foot, ivy covered walls of the oldest cemetery in L.A. All around me are THOUSANDS of vaults and crypts. Into infinity they went… I’m in the Griffith house in Griffith Park. It’s sort of a park that the general public can’t access. It has a full time securtiy guard. The guard unlocks the front door then stands back. I say, “Aren’t you coming in?” He shook his head no, then said, “It’s full of ghosts pal. I’m never going inside!”… I’m talking to a forensic pathologist in the morgue at Cedars off Beverly. I asked him if he had ever seen or felt anything. He looked me right in the eye and said, “It’s why you have to be extremely proffesional in this line of work. You’re being watched all the time!” Hmm… A friend of mine in Riverside has a cabin up in the foothills. He wanted to enlarge his back walkway and repair a chimney so he had a crew break apart a large granite boulder to pull it off. In front of five people, the fractured rock exposes a 16″ long, solid pewter spoon. One edge of its handle had been repaired with a tiny weld. I’ve held that spoon and read the eye witness statements. I have the book, ‘Forbidden Archeology’, but, had never actually had it in my own hands… I end up telling Leo that he has to make up his own mind. It’s part of becoming a whole person. Seeing he was perplexed, I told him not to bet too upset about it. That he had a LONG time to go before he had to worry about death. Except for another shooting out of car windows again with his BB gun. In that case, he would die a lot sooner…

A Perfect Life… Almost…

Posted on February 7, 2012 by admin

His name was Gene Tunney. At one time the Heavyweight champ of the entire world. He wasn’t like John L. Sullivan, who would walk into a bar, take off his coat and proclaim, “I can lick any man in the house!” No, Tunney wanted to be known as the thinking man’s fighter. He always carried a book to read between training sessions. In the early 1920’s, he was chosen as the first, “Fighter of the Year,” by Ring magazine. He’s also in the World Boxing Hall of Fame, and the United States Marine Corps Hall of Fame. One of his fights is legendary because of the, ‘Long Count’. In this title fight, Jack Dempsey was trying to get his title back. Dempsey had lost a decision to Tunney and wasn’t too happy about it. Dempsey had been told of the new boxing rule on going to a neutral corner if your opponent is knocked down. Old Jack loved to stand over a fallen foe, then nail him as he got up. Couldn’t do that anymore… During the fight, Dempsey knocks Gene down. Gene went down pretty badly hurt. Dempsey wouldn’t go to a neutral corner. The referee yelled and shoved Dempsey, not starting the count to ten until Jack complied. This gave Gene the time to clear his head, thus saving him the title… I’m fifteen and in the big office of Gene Tunneys son, John V. Tunney. He was a Senator or something. I was with thirty other kids on a four week bus tour of the U.S. We had all won a seat on the bus for raising money for the Y.W.C.A.’s, but, thats another story. Anyhow, Mr. Tunney, being a Senator and all, was quite busy. He was gracious, but curt. He gave us the bums rush tour of his office, pointed out some photos of him with Presidents and famous people, then offered to sign some autographs and stand for a group picture. I could never show that photo without big money paid to me I look so pathetic in my red blazer. As he’s signing for the other kids, I see a framed photo of his dad in boxing trunks, holding a boxing pose. He notices me looking at it and says a smug, “That’s my father, Heavyweight Champ of the World. He retired undefeated, never beaten in the ring!” Now, I know zip about sports. Except boxing. My Uncles took me to many an arena and boxing venue as I grew up. Also, I knew Tunney was full of baloney. Sure, his pop was undefeated as the Marine Corps champ. Married into a wealthy socialite’s family and retired undefeated as Heavyweight Champ, spending the rest of his days popular and wealthy. He had the perfect life. Except for one thing. A guy named Harry Greb. Greb also happened to be my favorite fighter of all time, so, the Senator really ticked me off with his statement. Tunney the fighter, was suppossed to fight some other boxer, but it fell through. Since they had already sold out a bunch of tickets, they needed a quick replacement. This is where my guy, Greb comes into the story. Harry Greb was a Middleweight. He never weighed over 156 pounds. He also never trained. He stayed in shape by being a sparring partner. Meaning, he boxed other pros to get them in shape. He had one law he followed. Never fight for free. If you want a look at him, check out who won the title of “World’s Dirtiest Fighter” in a survey Ring magazine took, a few years ago. Short and stocky, with slicked back hair, Greb would fight anyone, anytime. Just put the dough on the table. Since Tunney was in a fix, his manager put out some frantic phone calls to keep the venue from going broke. One of Tunney’s trainers suggested Greb. Tunney scoffed the idea off. “He’s too small. I need someone with more stature!” This trainer had just watched Greb spar with Dempsey a few weeks prior. Greb had made a monkey out of Dempsey. Dempsey was so enraged, he demanded his trainer, Kearns, to put Greb in for just one more training round so he could knock his block off. Greb made him look even worse. Since no one else could be acquired in such short time, Greb it was. Tunney knew zip about Greb. Him being a Middleweight sort of made the fight a joke. Tunney figured he would take it easy on Greb to sell the mismatch, then take him out after the fans had their moneys worth… It’s fight night. Both men are in the center of the ring getting instructions. Tunney towers over Greb. As they touch gloves, Tunney screws the pooch. He does the one thing no one would ever do to Greb if they knew the guy. Never mess up his hair. Tunney reached over playfully and mussed Grebs hair up… “DING!” It’s the start of the first round. Tunney advances and a human windmill is in his face. In the first sixty seconds of the fight, Greb breaks Tunneys nose with ten shots to the face, backs Gene into the ropes, then laces his face in the clinch while stepping on his feet. As Gene tried to break free, Greb land a tremendous shot to Gene’s balls. As Greb explained to the reporters later, “Why not, they always give you a warning!” Spinning Tunney by his elbow, Greb then took him to fist city all over the ring. By the middle rounds, Tunney was a wreck. Eyes were closing and blood streaming from his mouth, ears and the cuts all over his face. Greb wasn’t called the “Human Windmill,” for nothing. At the end of the fight, Tunney went to the hospital, Greb took his wife out for dinner and dancing. He didn’t have a mark on him… Back to the Senator. I mention the name Harry Greb and the Senator gives the signal for us to be moved along…