L.A.
3-18-06 L.A.
I was born in a small town in Wisconsin. But I always wanted to live in L.A. ever since as a kid we watched The Rose Bowl every New Year's Day taking place in Pasadena, California. I always wanted UCLA to win even back then. And I was crazy about L.A. weather. It was usually around zero on New Year's Day in Wisconsin. Insanely cold. Unjustifiably cold. It was 75 or 80 in L.A. Why not be in L.A.? Well, of course when you are eight or ten years of age you don't have a whole lot of say in the matter. And I never had the real guts to run away from home say, at age 16. I didn't have the necessary independence at that age. I was not intellectually mature. I was late in the maturation department. So I didn't get to L.A. until after a pretty mediocre career in college. Essentially I slept through college. I went to class but I was never there. Do you dig? My mind was always in some other place. Under some lovely woman's dress most likely. Or just walking around escaping Reality in some extravagant manner. Why put up with this incessant worship of death? That seemed to be the only thing on people's always concealed minds. Everybody in town was on a death trip as far as I could see. And this was true at college also. The students and their habits of study and the whole grade epidemic. The whole lousy program was aimed at making death happy. I could see that. This was hell. Hell was owned and operated by Pluto. And Pluto was getting no static from the citizens in the town or in the college. They were just happy to kiss ass night and day.
So, like I say, I slept through college. I woke up only for moments. Never for breakfast. My landlady and her husband were from Lebanon. She would sometimes sneak me a big bacon & eggs breakfast up in my room. With great flat slices of pita bread. Orange juice and coffee. I would devour this food like a starving savage it was so good. Then I'd go back to sleep. Take a bath. Go to my first class that met at one p.m. I scheduled all my classes at one p.m. or after. So I could sleep till noon every day & make up for all the sleep I lost in high school. I liked to do my studying at night. Wrote all my term papers at the typewriter spontaneously. I moved to L.A. in 1962. And then I was home for the first time. My mother wept when I left for California. She cried as hard as I saw her cry the morning my brother Ruben went into the army and was headed for Korea. She cried that hard. God, that hurt my heart to see her crying. Made me feel like a heart-breaker. But I had to go to L.A. There were no two ways about it. I had to get out of those killer Wisconsin winters that never seemed to end. And away from The Christian Reformed Church. The most Fascist hateful & utterly repressive church in the history of Christendom. O, the things they have done in his name. None worse than drag me into the house of god to hear 2 sermons every sunday 52/ year after age 2. And in the Ray Greenfield family you did not skip church for anything less than major surgery. This was hell on earth. And to think Jesus himself couldn't stand Synagogue and listening to those damned priests pontificating on the law. Yeah, later those same priests tried to kill him for violating the Sabbath by healing the sick. Bum-mer. Healing the sick on the Lord's Day that is a real law-busting event in Galilee. Or Crawford, Texas. But me---I had to get to The City of Angels. I had business to comport with The Most Beautiful Woman In The World. I knew she lived close to the true blue Pacific. I knew that. So, here I am, L.A. I'm ready for your beautiful lady. Please don't hold me hostage with cruel distractions & spurious innuendoes. Just bring her to my front door.
RLG Copyright 2006
I was born in a small town in Wisconsin. But I always wanted to live in L.A. ever since as a kid we watched The Rose Bowl every New Year's Day taking place in Pasadena, California. I always wanted UCLA to win even back then. And I was crazy about L.A. weather. It was usually around zero on New Year's Day in Wisconsin. Insanely cold. Unjustifiably cold. It was 75 or 80 in L.A. Why not be in L.A.? Well, of course when you are eight or ten years of age you don't have a whole lot of say in the matter. And I never had the real guts to run away from home say, at age 16. I didn't have the necessary independence at that age. I was not intellectually mature. I was late in the maturation department. So I didn't get to L.A. until after a pretty mediocre career in college. Essentially I slept through college. I went to class but I was never there. Do you dig? My mind was always in some other place. Under some lovely woman's dress most likely. Or just walking around escaping Reality in some extravagant manner. Why put up with this incessant worship of death? That seemed to be the only thing on people's always concealed minds. Everybody in town was on a death trip as far as I could see. And this was true at college also. The students and their habits of study and the whole grade epidemic. The whole lousy program was aimed at making death happy. I could see that. This was hell. Hell was owned and operated by Pluto. And Pluto was getting no static from the citizens in the town or in the college. They were just happy to kiss ass night and day.
So, like I say, I slept through college. I woke up only for moments. Never for breakfast. My landlady and her husband were from Lebanon. She would sometimes sneak me a big bacon & eggs breakfast up in my room. With great flat slices of pita bread. Orange juice and coffee. I would devour this food like a starving savage it was so good. Then I'd go back to sleep. Take a bath. Go to my first class that met at one p.m. I scheduled all my classes at one p.m. or after. So I could sleep till noon every day & make up for all the sleep I lost in high school. I liked to do my studying at night. Wrote all my term papers at the typewriter spontaneously. I moved to L.A. in 1962. And then I was home for the first time. My mother wept when I left for California. She cried as hard as I saw her cry the morning my brother Ruben went into the army and was headed for Korea. She cried that hard. God, that hurt my heart to see her crying. Made me feel like a heart-breaker. But I had to go to L.A. There were no two ways about it. I had to get out of those killer Wisconsin winters that never seemed to end. And away from The Christian Reformed Church. The most Fascist hateful & utterly repressive church in the history of Christendom. O, the things they have done in his name. None worse than drag me into the house of god to hear 2 sermons every sunday 52/ year after age 2. And in the Ray Greenfield family you did not skip church for anything less than major surgery. This was hell on earth. And to think Jesus himself couldn't stand Synagogue and listening to those damned priests pontificating on the law. Yeah, later those same priests tried to kill him for violating the Sabbath by healing the sick. Bum-mer. Healing the sick on the Lord's Day that is a real law-busting event in Galilee. Or Crawford, Texas. But me---I had to get to The City of Angels. I had business to comport with The Most Beautiful Woman In The World. I knew she lived close to the true blue Pacific. I knew that. So, here I am, L.A. I'm ready for your beautiful lady. Please don't hold me hostage with cruel distractions & spurious innuendoes. Just bring her to my front door.
RLG Copyright 2006
posted by rlg at 8:26 PM
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