Lost Beneath the USA Los Angles Embassy's Twilight Zone

We had to go down to LA to get a paper Yaya needed from the Japanese Embassy. We are just across the line dividing South Cali from North Cali. Driving to San Francisco is a lot easier than going to LA and it is about the same drive time, but bureaucrats must make a living. It was an interesting trip. I only got lost a couple of times, but they were some doozies. We decided to get off the freeways and get our bearings. I stopped at a gas station and asked for the intersection we were looking for, I was given directions after I bought a Pepsi. She told us that I only had to drive north for about 10 blocks and I would be right there. I checked the map and saw that I was on the southern border of Watts and we had to drive through it. I decided to take my chances, bolstered up my courage and jumped back on the freeway. We eventually came out within sight of the Embassy. I drove up to the buildings and found a parking place in the basement of them. We left the kids (Frank and Loretta) in the car and we took an elevator up, jumped on an escalator and headed to the ground level.  We saw the goal and after getting as close as I could with Yaya, I aimed her at the right space and hurried back down to the car and the dogs.  Sort of.
   I got went to the level I last remembered next to a basement Starbucks. (They look just like the ground floor Starbucks, except they don't have any windows.) I took the escalator down, and headed to the nearest elevator. I looked for the  button with the C Level on it, but it wasn't there. I got off and looked for another elevator that did have C Level. I could not find it. I finally got into an elevator went down to B Level thinking I would just walk down to C Level and head for the entrance where we parked. I remember that it was bright an sunny and I was parked in a handicapped space right next to it. I jumped in, pushed the B Level button and got off in the Twilight Zone. 
     So I am on B Level and I have to get to C level. Easy Peasy.  I start going down the ramp towards C.  But I don't get to C, I get to D. Soooo, I go back up following D till it turns into C. It turns into A, but I don't see any exits. I think if a car can drive down here and get out of the place, then that is what I'll do. I start going up the down ramp that should soon lead me to street level, but I find myself back a the elevator again. I make my way back to the lobby, but isn't called a lobby, I find that I am on the concourse. Thing is, I am on the wrong concourse. I am supposed to come out at Bank of America, but it is across the street and I am standing next to something that should be a sculpture, but looks like a bunch of slag metal that could be something that was caught in a terrorist attack. It isn't smoking, so I turn my back on it and try to go down a level to get across to the Bank of America. I wind up in the tunnels again with no cars and all the levels except for C. Finally, I go down some stairs and I find myself outside on Hope Street. I remember that I saw Hope Street at some time and I go walking down the block looking for an entrance with my car and dogs. Nothing. Suddenly my phone rings. It is Yaya. She
is finished and wants me to come get her. I tell her that the place is really tricky and to stay put and I'll come get her. I go off down the tunnel again and turn up on the concourse with Bank of America. My phone rings and it is Yaya and she  is back at the car. She asks someone and finds that I need to get to Flower Street. I head back to the escalator and figure that I am back at the right spot. I am back at the tunnels. I go back around looking for the place I need to go and I meet a guard near the elevator. She gets out and I see a bathroom, which at this point I really need. She unlocks the door with her pass, (I didn't even know I needed a pass to get into the bathroom.) when I get out she tells me I have to go up the short escalator and down the long escalator. I try that and I wind up on Flower Street, but I have been there before. I call Yaya I tell her I am still lost and I am on Flower Street, but I can't find the car. She says, I am over here, I see you. I turn around and she is down about half a block right next to the entrance where the car is parked. 
    I tiredly walk over to her and get in the car. I tell her what happened, and she says she just walked straight back to the car. The rest of the day she keeps giving me directions and I finally ask her why she is doing that. She says that I have gone senile and I need help. 
     Eventually, we get back to town and Yaya decides that she it is too late to cook, so we wind up going to a Chinese restaurant and she keeps trying to wipe my mouth with her napkin.  I think I am moving across the border so that I can just go to San Francisco next time.  

Pinked in 1978

Punk'd in 1978

    It was probably July 1977 when I walked into the liquor store at about 7 am. I had cooked all night at a local 24 hour restaurant. I was tired and I needed a drink, so I had gone in to get a pint of whiskey and a tall 6 pack of Buds.

    I watched the magazine guy drop off bundles of new magazines. One of the first bundles that hit the ground from the truck looked up at me with the cover blazoned with "The First Time Ever! Scratch and Sniff Centerfold!"

    The idea was intriguing, a scratch and sniff center fold. I was the first to pull a magazine out and take it inside the store. I opened the magazine to the centerfold, but it was a double, no triple, no quadruple-fold. The page was huge. It unfolded to a full size model.  The scratch part was in the bottom right hand corner. The way it unfolded, I had to hold the top left of the magazine where the centerfold was attached, and stretch my left arm high, and I had to bend my face low as I scratched the .. uh .. snatch, and then hold the paper to my face to smell. It turned out to be a rather awkward position, and the smell was a disappointing sick rose scent.  

    It took me a minute to refold the magazine and finally put it on the magazine rack. The clerk, wondering what the hell I was up to, came from behind the counter. I showed him the magazine cover and soon, he was going thru the same contortions as I had been in. It was amusing to watch him go through the same dance I had just finished.

    That is when I suddenly realized the joke that Larry Flint had just pulled on me and soon to number, thousands of unwitting men around the country.

    The model had widely spread legs and the object of the sniff was smack in between them leaving the nude woman's body spread out above the sniffer. There in the middle of the liquor store was a man with his face buried in the middle of a poster of a woman's crotch.

    I bought my whiskey and beer and then sort of hung around to watch as others came in and fell for the cosmic joke that Larry Flint had just punk'd all of the drinking men in America.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. - Friedrich Nietzsche at BrainyQuote

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. - Friedrich Nietzsche at BrainyQuote

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only... - Friedrich Nietzsche at BrainyQuote

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only... - Friedrich Nietzsche at BrainyQuote

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given... - Friedrich Nietzsche at BrainyQuote

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given... - Friedrich Nietzsche at BrainyQuote

Super Bowl, in Retrospect

I worked for a family restaurant for a few months in about 1985 or so. I would occasionally get tips from the waitress or from a customer, I did fast good tasting and presentable food, I was proud of my work. I wound up getting paired up with this one guy that hussled tips from the waitress, his food didn't really meet my standards, but it was a busy place and I couldn't do it alone. He'd constantly pressure the waitresses to feed the "kitty" each time they picked up an order, even if he was working on another order, he had to hussle. At the end of the shift, he was counting up his booty and I asked, "How much did we get?"; his answer was, "There is no "Our" tips, I hustled them, they are mine. I didn't say anything about it, and I did have to work with him a couple more times and he pulled the same tactics., but we rarely got the same shift. A few weeks later, the schedule for Super Bowl week end came out. Funny, he was scheduled and I wasn't. I am not a big sports fan, and I rarely know who is playing, much less even where, so I didn't think any thing about it. Suddenly my co-worker was talking about the great Super Bowl party with a lot or his and some of my and even a few mutual friends. I really didn't care to go to a party where everyone went nuts for no apparent reason, cheering eating and drinking, standing in line for the toilet and making a big deal out of something that I would normally use for an excuse to drink, hell, waking up each day was good enough for me, I didn't need a party. 
Soon, the guy was fast talking other people to change shifts with him so he could make it to the party. When he got to me, he said, "Hey Tony! I'll give you $50 if you work for me Sunday. "Nope", I said. I don't want to work Sunday, too busy." He continued to beg people about that time, offering more and more money to take his shift. At the last possible minute on the night before the game he said "I'll give you $150 to work for me." "Naw, I'm good, I have other plans." I left that Saturday, and about the time half-time was starting up, my wife and I went down to the restaurant and ordered lunch, sitting at the counter where we could watch my co-worker really, really hussle! He was swamped, running his ass so fast that he didn't have time to beg for tips. I enjoyed it, he was working and I wasn't. I was eating lunch. I think I had a club sandwich, one of the most time consuming sandwiches on the menu. He didn't even know I had ordered it. He looked up and saw me eating it and started to turn red in the face. "YOU ordered that?" he said in an accusatory voice. "Why aren't you home watching the game?" I gave a big grin and I said, "What game? I hate football." I gave the waitress a big tip on the condition that that she did not share it with the cook. We finished up and went shopping. The stores were hardly at all crowded, we had a pleasant time and eventually went home and relaxed. You know, Karma can be a real bitch, ya know?

To-daze Wisdom

There is a good reason for stereotypes. People are so predictable and conform to peer groups so well that someone had to coin a word to explain the concept.

Obituaries
Every day, I read the obituaries in the newspaper first thing. If my name isn't there, I continue on to read my horror-scope

Life is like a bowl of cherries. No matter how good it looks, it's still full of pits.