Personal Ad Tease #7: Viz

(What's a Personal Ad Tease? Click here!)

The day I met Viz had been a strange one. Earlier in the afternoon, I had parked my car in Hillcrest on a side street (because goodness knows I NEVER pay for parking in Hillcrest). I opened my door a few inches and SMASH! Some guy rammed into my door and was thrown from his bicycle. He was able to get up and walk, but he had broken some skin on his back. (I should point out that he was not wearing a helmet. However, he did not hit his head.)

The guy was upset about what happened, but he didn't exactly try to blame me (but he did hint that I needed to look before opening my car door). He asked if I had a towel or something. I actually did have one in the hatchback. He wiped himself with it. His bicycle didn't seem to be damaged, so he went on his way.

After he left, I tried to close the door on my car. He had struck it with such force that it actually bent the front edge of the door into the side fender. No matter how hard I pushed and pulled, I couldn't get it to latch. I took it to my usual mechanic, but he said I needed to take it to a body shop. It was late in the afternoon on a Saturday and I knew I wouldn't be able to find anyone to work on it before Monday.

I had to figure out a way to keep the door closed. I had a long piece of thin rope. I was able to string the rope through the handle and the door latch to keep it closed. However, it wasn't secure. Someone could easily cut the rope and open the car door. I was going to be a nervous wreck before Monday rolled around.

Later that evening, I got a phone call. It was from a woman named Viz, who had placed a personal ad in the Reader that I had responded to. After we talked for a few minutes, she decided she wanted to meet me. She didn't live very far away, so she thought we could get together in about an hour at the Denny's nearby. I was thrilled about this. Normally, I have to have a few phone conversations before I get to meet the woman.

She told me she would be wearing a white shirt and a lime-green skirt. I went over to Denny's. She was already there. The moment I saw her, I thought she was the most attractive woman I had ever met through the personal ads. But I doubt she felt that way about me.

We went inside Denny's and ordered water. I asked her if she wanted something to eat. She really didn't. She wanted to go to this place called Zanzibar in Pacific Beach and check it out. I went to the pay phone, looked it up in the phone book and got the address. Then we had to get in my car. I had to get in through the passenger side first, getting myself over the stick shift. I told her about what had happened earlier in the day, but I could tell she was NOT impressed by my mode of transportation.

I tried what I could to make her laugh, but she almost seemed like she had no sense of humor. We found a parking space. She got out and then I had to climb out of the car. We went into Zanzibar, which was a coffee house. We ordered something to drink and sat down. There was a live band playing. It was an acoustic group consisting of three people in their 40s. They were playing original material, which I always appreciated. However, no one was really paying attention to them.

The one thing I know we discussed was how she had gotten into trouble as a juvenile. She had run off with her boyfriend and they were eventually found by the cops. I chimed in that people say nothing can happen to you if you break the law and you're under 18, but there was really a lot that could be legally done. She said, "Yeah, I know about that."

At one point, Viz said she was going to step outside to have a cigarette. "Can I come with you?" "No, you just stay here with the table." I didn't trust this scenario. After a few minutes, I got up and poked my head outside. She was there, smoking by herself. But she saw me spying on her. She didn't say anything after she got back, but we really didn't talk much. We watched the acoustic trio playing and decided to go home.

I dropped her off at Denny's. She said she would call me. I didn't know whether or not to believe her. As it turned out, she never did call even though I really hoped she would.

However, I ran into her about a month later. I was in line at Baltimore Bagels in Hillcrest and she was working behind the counter. She didn't see me. But the next time I went in, she did wait on me. She smiled when she saw me. I didn't ask her a lot of questions outside of "How are you doing?" She took and filled my order and that was it. I never saw her again. I should have told her I got my car fixed.

Yes, I had repair work done. The Monday after the date, I went to a body shop. I told them that all they needed to do was get the door to close all the way. I did not need to ever open it again (because I was certain I could not afford to have it completely fixed). I just planned to get in and out of the passenger side for as long as I drove the car. It turned out they were able to fix it so I could open and close the door. And it only cost $50. That was a real bargain. I have to admit that it didn't look that nice, because they basically pounded it back into shape without doing a complete finish, but I was happy to have it functioning again.

That car would not be able to stand in my way of getting a girlfriend again.

Little Sister #2: Zid

At the time I had come up with the "Little Sister" designation, I thought it only applied to one person. However, when I look back on Zid, I can say that there was a second person I sort of treated like a little sister. I never tried to date her in a romantic fashion and she likely didn't have any feelings for me outside of friendship.

I met Zid when I was recording material for my CD release. I had a song that I needed a female vocalist for. I had put an ad in The Reader in their music section and stated that I would pay $50. The first time I did it, it was almost like a personal ad, but I was actually getting a lot of responses. I tried to meet with everyone. I had asked them to just give me a cassette of them singing so they wouldn't have to sing in front of me. Most of them I was able to meet in Balboa Park with my portable cassette player. Some were good, some weren't that good.

The one I selected lived in Encinitas with her mother. I had to mail her the material so she could practice. But when I tried to call her, the phone had been disconnected. I drove up to her house. She was still there, but didn't know her phone had been shut off and didn't know why. The first thing she tried to do was call her mom at work.

I told her we could try to set up some rehearsal time in the near future and she could call me when she got her phone back. The next thing I knew, I never heard from her again and I did not want to have to drive up to Encinitas. All of the runners up decided they didn't want to do the song.

I ran another ad. This time, I was more selective. I only called and arranged meetings with just a few of them. Zid was among them. She lived in Spring Valley, was 23 and had a lot of experience performing. She had been cast in leading roles in local musicals and says she was close to signing a record deal. However, that all came to an end when she had a horse-riding accident. She started having seizures after that and wasn't able to be on her own any more.

She wasn't my first choice. But my first choice flaked on me and other runners up also changed their minds. I knew Zid would go ahead and do it. She and her parents agreed and I gave her the material to practice. We set a date for her to come to the studio I used and we recorded it. She sang great and the song sounded amazing. It was one of the major highlights on the CD. It made me wish I had paid her to sing all the songs. My CD would have come out a lot better if I'd done that.

When I was asked by a local band to open up for them at a coffee house in North Park, I asked Zid to come perform the song with me. She agreed and we rehearsed the song. She and her parents showed up for the performance. It went over very well. But she had to leave after our set because the group I opened for warned that their presentation may cause people to have seizures.

Because of some upheaval in my life (which will be the topic of many posts ahead), I went about a year without seeing Zid after that, but dud talk to her from time to time. During this period, she had lost a lot of weight. She was a little on the chubby side when we performed together. While she had warned me, nothing prepared me for what she looked like when I actually saw her. I wouldn't have recognized her if I ran into her somewhere in town.

At this point, I got to hear what she went through when she had seizures. Usually, it would happen when we were on the phone. She would start by saying, "Okay!" And then she'd keep repeating, "Okay! Okay! Okay!" The first time this happened, I didn't know what was going on, but she was saying it like she was mad at me. After a little bit, her mother got on the phone and told me she had a seizure. That happened a few more times on the phone. When it did happen, I had to wait for someone to pick up and let me know she was going to be alright.

She told me that the worst part about the accident was that a lot of people whom she thought were good friends abandoned her after that. She still had some friends that she would see from time to time, but felt really sad because it meant that the ones who left weren't really her friends. Something strange about all this was that she somehow got it in her head that I was one of her friends before the accident and I had just recently come back into her life. I had to correct her and let her know that I hadn't met her until just recently and it took awhile for her to accept this. But I always wondered that if she thought I was in her life before, what memories she possibly possessed of me before the accident.

I would hang out with her at her house sometimes. Once, I was there and the film version of "Bye Bye Birdie" was on TV. I told her I played Conrad Birdie in high school. She told me she was in two productions of the musical. She played Maria in one and Kim in the other. She had videotapes of the performances. We watched highlights. One of them had Hugo throw the punch at Conrad in slow motion. I told her about the conspiracy in which our Hugo actually planned to punch me for real. She thought that was terrible. I was also surpised with how they staged "The Telephone Hour." Years later, Dad and I were talking about the production when I went to school. I commented that he had put a lot of work into that one set piece that was only used for five minutes. He replied that the show absolutely had to have that set piece for the number. (It resembled the Broadway version.) I said no, I saw two other school productions that staged the song without the set piece. He didn't say anything in response.

I had gone out and done some other things with Zid, like go see live music, but her father usually came along. My friend Fraz was having a barbecue at her home and I invited Zid to go with me. Her parents let her go with me by herself. Before we left, they told me what I needed to do in the event she had a seizure. Nothing happened during the barbecue. We returned to Spring Valley and parked outside her parents' house. I played her a tape of music I had recorded for my next release, which she was going to do the vocals for. While we were talking, she went silent and her eyes were wide open, staring through me. I realized she was experiencing a seizure.

I went over to the passenger side of the car and guided her out. She was able to walk, but I helped her by putting my arm around her and held her hand. While we were walking to the front door, she lifted up my hand and kissed the back. I don't think she was totally aware of what was going on. We got to the front door and rang the doorbell. Her father answered and he could see what was going on. He took it from there. I explained it just happened in the car.

I didn't see too much of Zid after that. I did continue to talk to her on the phone until 2003, when I moved from San Diego to San Jose. I know I told her I was moving and didn't know if I was going to keep in touch. As it turned out, I didn't.

So, searching for her on the Internet, she doesn't have any social media accounts. There's no Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or anything. And it also looks like none of the other members of her family (sisters, parents) logged on, either. According to Intellius, she's married, but her last name hasn't changed, so I don't think that happened.

I do feel terrible that I didn't stay in touch with her. I still have contact with my other "little sister." But if Zid doesn't do anything to create a presence on the Internet, I may never find out how she's been doing.

That makes me feel even more terrible.

An unexpected crash

In the summer of 1995, I took another trip to New Mexico. I don't recall the exact reason for the trip and everything just seems to run together at this point. I only know for certain one thing I did and that's the main topic of this post.

This may have been the time that I stopped to see Kird in Las Cruces. He was working on a Master's Degree at New Mexico State University. He was planning to become a social worker. (He would eventually become an attorney.) He was doing some teaching as part of his degree plan. Even though he knew I was coming, he said he had some evaluations of students' homework that he had to complete on his computer. We would have to wait awhile.

I noticed that he was very slow at typing and I got really frustrated. "Kird! You're hunting and pecking! That's going to take forever! I can type faster than that! Why don't you just let me type while you dictate?" He agreed to this. I was amazed to find that he was very concise in what he wanted to express in the evaluations. I was able to keep up and he was probably surprised at how quickly it all went. Now, we could properly run around town.

After that, nothing special happened until I was ready to go to Clovis to see Chez and Joad. At some point prior, I had called Chez' father. He told me she was working at a video store in Clovis. It was part of one of those "Welfare to Work" programs. She was still living with Jyd and Kyd. When I arrived in Clovis, their house was the first place I went.

This would be my first time meeting Kyd. He was a tall, Hispanic man and worked as a mechanic. Jyd told me Chez was at work and gave me the address. I went over there. I saw Chez going back and forth through the store. It took about 10 minutes before she finally saw me. After the shocked expression went away, she smiled at me. She was actually happy to see me. She was about to get off work in a few minutes and she asked me to drive her home. I agreed. On the way, I asked her if I could crash at their house that night.

After we got back to the house, she asked Jyd if she and I could run around for a little bit that evening. She practically had to beg her to watch Joad while we were out after asking if I could sleep on the couch. Jyd agreed, but didn't look too happy about it.

Chez and I went to a bar. I think it was called "The Castle." Chez said it was the closest thing to a gay bar in Clovis. She ordered some alcohol. I ordered a soda. We sat down and talked awhile. It was actually rather pleasant. I think she appreciated getting a bit of a break from her regular life.

While we were out, I played a recording of a song I had written about her that was going to be on my upcoming CD release. She wasn't too impressed by it. It wasn't her kind of music.

We went back to her house and I hung out with her, Jyd and Kyd. They said they were going to bed and I could sleep on the couch. I said I would probably leave early in the morning. Chez said they were all going to be sleeping in and I didn't need to let them know when I was leaving, so we just said our goodbyes then. She actually allowed me to hug her and give her a quick peck on the cheek.

While I laid on the couch, trying to fall asleep, I could hear the three of them talking in the bedroom. At first, it sounded like regular conversation, but I couldn't tell what they were discussing. After awhile, it was apparent that something sexual was going on in there, but I had no interest in checking it out. (And I'm pretty certain they were all concerned that I was going to get a little nosy.)

Chez and I continued to touch base over the next few months. After I had completed my CD release and sent it to her, I would ask her if she listened to it. She always used the excuse, "I haven't had time to listen to it yet." About the third time she did this I said, "I know where you can find the time! Just say, 'Hey, you guys! Let's not have sex tonight! Let's listen to Fayd's CD instead!'" She responded, "That's not funny."

Sometime later, she told me that Jyd had decided to move to Virginia with her daughter and leave Chez and Kyd behind. Chez was so upset because she felt like Jyd wanted it to be just her and her. She went into detail about what they did in the bedroom. (I'm not going to repeat that here.) Every night, Jyd would hold Chez and cry. So, Jyd going off on her own was a complete surprise to her. She also told me about how Jyd would always go out on her Wednesday nights, but never once invited her to go along. (I was even surprised by this. I assumed she always went with her.)

As it turned out, Chez and Joad went out to Virginia. This happened a couple of months after Jyd and her daughter left. After that, I didn't hear from Chez for awhile. At least, not until she needed something.

But that will be the topic of a future post.

Apink All Year Long

In the time that I had taken my break from the blog, I posted a few new videos on YouTube. Two of them have become my most-viewed videos. They both cover the same subject: Apink calendars.

I had an Apink wall calendar for 2016 for my office and I wanted one for 2017 as well. However, all I could find were desktop calendars. I was finally able to locate one for the wall, but I had to wait a couple of months after I had pre-ordered it from Japan. When it arrived the day after Thanksgiving, I made a video to reveal it. It was a great calendar, but it wasn't what I was expecting:



Because I wanted to be able to see all of Apink together all year long, I decided to go ahead and order one of the desktop calendars. It arrived about a week later, and I was able to open the package for the YouTube video:



I was surprised that the video review of the desktop calendar has gotten more views than the wall calendar. However, one person commented that he was contemplating buying the wall calendar and had hoped that someone had posted a video of it. I'm glad that I was able to meet someone's need.

We'll see if I get to post a new review for a 2018 calendar later this year.

Friend Zone #10: Thoz, Part 2

A few days after meeting Thoz, I called her up. She sounded excited to hear from me. She invited me to come with her to the Del Mar Fair that Saturday. She had an extra ticket. The plan was that I would meet her at her house and we would drive up together. But that didn't exactly happen. When I got there, there was a guy. His name was Dard and he was a friend of hers from high school. (They both attended the High School of Performing and Creative Arts.) She assured me that he was just a friend. I couldn't get mad because she had already set up the expectation that she and I would be friends. However, she told me that he was getting the extra ticket and I would have to pay my way in. There wasn't anything I could do about that, either.

Dard was a musician and was in a band. They had self-produced a CD release. I got jealous about that because I'd only been able to do a cassette release of my music. Even though their cover art was literally generic, it still put mine to shame. Dard was also rather muscular and very good looking. (If you've ever seen that Bod commercial with the rock band that played without their shirts on, that's pretty much what Dard's band was like. And I can't find it on YouTube!)

The two of them drove to the fair in her convertible. I followed in my car (which meant that I would also have to pay for parking). We took a "shortcut," which required us to drive over a series of speed bumps. We finally got to Del Mar and parked our cars. We went to the main gate. This was when I got to meet Thoz' father. He had his girlfriend with him. He seemed pleased to meet me.

I bought a ticket and hung out with Thoz and Dard. We went on several rides together. We all got on this one ride that slung everyone to the left side with intense centrifugal force. In hindsight, they shouldn't have let three adults get in one car together. This is what happened: Thoz was on the right side, I was on the left side and Dard was in the middle. This means that their entire weight was being forced against my body. At one point in the ride, I felt something snap in my ribcage. I wasn't in completely unbearable pain, but I was extremely uncomfortable. It was bad enough that I considered getting the operator to stop the ride, but I let it finish. Afterward, I told Thoz and Dard that I thought I broke a rib and I would have to call it a day. They were concerned, but there wasn't anything they could do.

I could feel the pain for the next three weeks. I couldn't sleep on my side, and if I accidentally rolled over in the middle of the night, I would immediately wake up. I didn't have health insurance at the time, so there really wasn't anything I could do but wait for it to feel better. A doctor told me that would have been the advisable thing to do if I had sought medical attention. Years later, I would get an x-ray that indicated that my rib was never broken. It was likely shifted out of place.

Thoz and I continued to date every once in awhile. We would go out and do different things, like bowling, pool, checking out live music and seeing movies. I didn't try to make any moves. She told me that one of the other guys she was dating tried to kiss her and she didn't appreciate it because she wasn't attracted to him that way. I sort of took this as a hint that I'd better not try anything like that. However, there was one time that I dropped her off at her house. I started walking back to my car. I turned around to see her staring at me with this strange look on her face, like she was saying, "Is that it?" I never found out what was going through her mind.

She eventually got involved in serious relationships, but I continued to be her friend. She even started something with Dard. I had driven her to the club where his band was playing. I had to get up early in the morning, so the plan all along was that I would drive her to the club and he would drive her home, but that ended up being the night they got together.

We remained friends. I helped her move a few times. In 1998, when Abed had moved to Los Angeles, she was my best friend, even though she had actual boyfriends during this period. Later that year, she told me that she had likely met the guy she was going to marry. It was the first time she'd met someone that she felt like she could give up smoking marijuana for. This pained me a little, because she never saw me as the type of person that she would do that for.

I stopped talking to her after that, but it was actually because of several other factors. The first was that I didn't have a working car. I couldn't drive anywhere on a whim. If we hung out, she was going to have to come see me, and I knew that wouldn't sit well with her boyfriend. In addition, Abed had moved back to San Diego, so I didn't need her to fill that best friend void anymore.

A few months later in 1999, I bought a new car and called her so I could show it to her. She invited me to come see her. I also had to show her that I had cut my hair short, so she was very shocked to see me that time. She was still with the same guy, so that ended up being the last time I would see her.

She did marry that guy and had two children with him. When I first got on Facebook in 2010, she was one of the first people I sent a friend invitation to. She almost didn't recognize me because I didn't use my real name, but when she saw that one of my "likes" was a singer-songwriter we frequently went to see, she knew right away who it was and accepted.

She told me that her husband is a big "Star Wars" fan. I wonder if she ever told him that there was some other guy out there she had seen the original trilogy with before he came along, including seeing "Return of the Jedi" for the first time. And I also wonder how he feels about that. But he's gotten me beat with the prequel and sequel trilogies!

Also, I'm Facebook friends with Dard. I sent an invitation to him because my friends list was lopsided with female friends and I didn't want Ms. Ogolon to get mad about that. He has children. He still looks great. In fact, he won a bodybuilding contest for vegetarians some time ago.

Thoz will be making frequent appearances in the blog within the next few months. She's not going anywhere.

Friend Zone #10: Thoz, Part 1

As I've mentioned before, I enjoyed trying to meet women through the personal ads in the San Diego Reader alternative weekly. Honestly, I never got a girlfriend through it. Thoz was no different in this regard, but she wound up being one of my best friends in San Diego.

Around June of 1995, I saw an ad with the headline, "Loves to Cook." I can't say that was the part that appealed to me, but I remember it. I do recall that she stated she was 23 years old and was looking to meet someone 22 - 29. I was 30 at the time and figured it wasn't too far out of her range. I left a message on her voice mail. I was surprised when she called me back because I did tell her how old I was.

One of the first questions she asked me was which state was I born in. I told her "New Mexico." She continued to talk to me. I don't recall much about the conversation, but we decided to meet that Saturday at the Family Fun Center in Kearny Mesa. She said I would find her in the parking lot with a white convertible. I was just one year into the aftermath of my bankruptcy and was barely living paycheck to paycheck. I'd hoped that we weren't going to have to pay money to do something like play miniature golf or go on rides, because that just wasn't in my budget. I was at a point in which I didn't mind spending money on food, but entertainment just seemed like a waste.

I found her right away. She had described herself pretty well. She had long, medium dark hair in a ponytail. Even though she was wearing sunglasses, I could tell immediately that she was out of my league. However, she did have a big smile when she saw me. We talked for a little bit. She asked me if I wanted to go into the Fun Center or go get something to eat. I opted for the food. She asked me to get in her car and we would drive someplace.

After we were a couple of blocks away from the Center, she said, "So, what are we going to eat? Spaghetti, you think?" "Yeah, probably." "Well, I've got spaghetti I made at home that we can have. Let's just go to my house and eat there so we won't have to waste money." I was really starting to like her.

We got to her house in La Jolla. It was rather large. Her father was an accountant and was fairly well-off. She had a dog there named P-nut. It was a schnauzer mix. We started talking and I found out a lot about her.

For starters, she had recently come close to getting married. She didn't give me details about what happened, but she looked back and realized that she'd only ever been in committed relationships throughout high school and college, one guy at a time. She wanted to see what it was like to date a whole bunch of guys all at once, so she submitted the personal ad. She wasn't looking to hook up or anything. She just wanted to have a good time without having to worry about getting attached to someone.

My first thought was that this meant that my chances of having her as a girlfriend were zero. However, I liked her and I liked the idea of hanging out with her and being seen with her from time to time. I didn't have a problem with being put in the friend zone this time because she was so upfront about it.

She also told me she had been adopted. She was in the process of finding her birth mother. One thing she knew was that she had a brother by the same mother and this brother was born in California. She said because of this, she wouldn't date any guy who was born in California. This was why she asked which state I was born in during our first conversation.

She drove me back to the Fun Center, so I could get my car and go home. She told me she wanted me to call her again and we'd go do something. I actually had something to look forward to.

And the story continues tomorrow.

A road trip that nearly killed me!

Part of my Thanksgiving vacation involved going up to Santa Fe to pay another visit to Cid and Ochd. I let her know when I was coming up and what time I expected to be there.

I had send Cid copies of my cassette release. She said she was impressed and that she knew someone who wanted to use some of the music in a movie. "Are you serious?" I asked. "Yes, Fayd, I am completely serious." Things were looking up for my music.

On my way to Artesia, I stopped in Las Cruces and saw my friend Kird. Kird remembered Cid from college. I told her about all the stuff she had accomplished in Mexico, including releasing a CD with Sony Records there. I played some of her music for him, but he wasn't impressed and mocked the material. Then he suspected that they were running some kind of scam operation. I asked, "Well, who would they be scamming? They haven't asked me for money and I doubt they'd want to have anything to do with me and Abed if they were." I mentioned the newspaper clippings and videos that she showed us the last time. He said they probably made all that stuff up.

On the way to Santa Fe, I was driving my new car, a 1977 Toyota Celica. It was the first car I owned with a working cassette player in it. But there was a problem: I had only one cassette to play and it was my own cassette release. New Mexico is scattered with "no radio" zones that last hours, especially during the daytime, so I had to play my own material for entertainment. I never made that mistake again.

In Santa Fe, I arrived at the house, but there was no one home. There wasn't even a note on the door. I walked around the house, seeing if any doors were open. The guest house was locked. However, the poolhouse was open, and it was warm inside. I wrote a note and left it on the front door telling Cid that I was at the pool. I tried to take a nap.

I was awakened by the sound of someone outside. Cid came into the poolhouse. She told me I did a good job of finding somewhere warm to stay. It turned out they had gone to a screening of a music documentary about gypsies. (It turned out to be "Lachto Drom," a film I would see a few months later in San Diego.) It looked like they were about to have another impromptu party.

I came in and said hi to Ochd. He appeared REALLY happy to see me. I was surprised, because I thought he couldn't stand me and Abed. But I later figured out what had been going on. Cid had been helping her friends from ENMU accomplish their dreams using the money she and Ochd were supposedly making from their music. Ochd was probably getting ticked off at Cid for spending their money for those pet projects and thought Abed and I were another couple of leeches who were likely never going to go away. He was trying to help his friends, but her wants always trumped his. I guess when I self-produced my own cassette release, he knew I wasn't there to waste their money and he could treat me with more civility.

The impromptu party started with a few of us sitting at the table in the kitchen. There was a man just a few years older than me, and an older couple. Ochd brought up an acoustic guitar and showed it to the older man. He strummed it a little, then handed it to the younger man. I asked the younger man if he played. He said, "A little bit." And then he improvised like a pro FOR THE NEXT 90 MINUTES!

About this time, other people started coming in. One of them was a former student at ENMU I had never met, but Cid had mentioned him numerous times during the previous visit. He started there after I had graduated. Cid told me he was a playwright and he was writing a piece they were going to produce in Santa Fe. The play was about vampires. Looking around the house, I saw a copy of a published book with his name on it. It was a collection of poems in Spanish. I started to get jealous. This guy was probably five years out of college and was living his dreams. Dreams that I had before. Dreams that I hadn't accomplished (except for the cassette release, but that would have counted more if someone besides me PAID FOR IT!) I felt like it was unfair.

But it felt even more unfair that he monopolized Cid's time all night. He kept reciting lines from the play like they were the greatest things anybody had ever written. He was just like the guy with the guitar and kept talking straight for what seemed like forever! I'm thinking, "Dude, it's a play about vampires! It's not the next Hamlet!" It really ticked me off because he practically lived there and had all the time in the world on any other day to tell Cid about his work on the project. I had to drive back the next day. And I could see that Cid wanted to pull herself away, but he wouldn't stop talking long enough for her to say, "Excuse me, I have to do something else."

I decided later that the only reason he was doing that was because he sensed that I might be the "new flavor" and kept Cid from spending time with me on purpose. He likely knew about the cassette and that Cid mentioned she was impressed that I had financed it on my own.

(I should also mention that I found it odd that the play appeared to have not been written yet. I mean, maybe it was and he was just talking about punching up the lines, but if they were going to try to get more people from outside on board with this production, they're all going to want to see the script. If there isn't one ready, no one's going to invest. If the dialogue needs work, people still aren't going to invest until they like the improvements.)

Sensing that I wasn't going to get to spend any time catching up with Cid, I went to bed. I got up the next day. Some people from the party had spent the night. I was lucky I didn't wake up to find that I had been sharing my bed with some guy I didn't know. I did see Cid and Ochd before I left the house. One of her friends (whom I had met a few months earlier) invited me and some others to go with her to a bagel shop to have breakfast. She was rather attractive, so I agreed (but knew I wasn't going to get anywhere because I was about to hit the road).

I left about 12pm. I planned to drive straight to Las Vegas and spend the night there. I knew I could get there in about 12 hours. About an hour outside of Santa Fe, it started to snow lightly. I thought, "This is nice. I haven't seen snow in a couple of years." As I continued into Arizona, the snowfall got heavier and heavier. It got harder and harder to see outside. All of a sudden, I saw emergency lights ahead and slammed on the brakes! The car started skidding, got turned around and I was sliding backwards! I could see vehicles pulled off to the side because there was an accident there and I thought for sure I was going to hit them and DIE! I had the sense of mind during the skid to shift the car into neutral and it eventually came to a stop without me hitting anything, going into the median ditch or flipping over. WHEW!

However, my worries weren't over. I didn't have liability insurance for the car. A highway patrol officer approached me. I was still shaking. He asked if I was okay. I said I was. I thought he was going to ask for my registration and insurance and that I was about to get a ticket. However, he told that the roads were very icy and I would need to drive about 30 miles an hour down the highway. He told me to drive safe and have a good night. My heart was still pounding.

While I was driving 30 mph, the snow kept getting worse. I figured I couldn't risk my life to get to Las Vegas that night and decided to stop and get a motel in Williams, AZ. This was the same town where I stayed with Bez and her family when it was snowing heavily on our way back from Los Angeles.

I had a hard time sleeping because all I could think about was getting to Las Vegas and gambling. I worried that I wouldn't be able to start the car and drive. I woke up about 4am, went out and started warming up the car. By this time, it had stopped snowing. I left and continued driving to Las Vegas. When I got there, I had to tell my boss I was going to be getting back a lot later than I expected because of the snow storm.

I didn't do a lot in Vegas, and I still had to work the next day, so it was kind of a wasted trip out of my way. I should have just driven straight to San Diego instead of stopping, but I had a one-track mind. And it was that track that nearly took my life.

I kept in touch with Cid for a few months after that. Nothing ever came of that movie that wanted to use my music, and I don't think the vampire play ever got produced. Sometime later, I tried to call them, but was directed to another phone number in Cincinnati. That phone number belonged to Dawz. She told me that Cid and Ochd had suddenly left Santa Fe. Her phone number was listed because the woman who used to teach dancing at ENMU (and had been hired to do choreography for Cid's shows) was still receiving calls at that number and had the phone company provide the forwarding information. Basically, Dawz was having to deal with a lot of calls from bill collectors. Maybe they were running a scam, but one in which they couldn't score a lot of cash.

I did get to see Cid and Ochd a couple of times after they had moved to Hollywood for a brief period. I never asked about what happened in Santa Fe, but it was nice to be around them without all the leeches. Again, they sort of vanished from this residence without a trace.

Was it all a scam? No, there's more than enough evidence on the Internet that Cid was a minor entertainment force in Mexico for a brief period of time in the early 1990s. However, it has been suggested that they were involved in certain illegal activities. I have to admit that was a possibility. The last couple of times I saw them, at least one of them seemed to be on the phone all the time speaking Spanish. I couldn't tell what was being discussed, but the tone was not "friendly" nor veered into the category of music.

I last talked to Cid about seven years ago. She was living in Mexico at the time, but I don't think she was active artistically. And everything I'm able to find on Google is about seven years old. However, Ochd is still performing music. And for some reason, he wears an eye patch. His Facebook page only features one photo of Cid, and it's the cover off of one of the singles they produced for Sony.

But I would like to hear from her again.

An unexpected move

After spending the days surrounding Thanksgiving with my parents, I drove up to Clovis to see Chez and Joad. This time, I made sure that they were going to be there.

I had been in contact with her the previous four months. She told me about her attempts to start a sexual relationship with the woman she had told me about, but it never went anywhere. Then she told me how, one night, she was hanging out with some guy and another woman. I guess he was trying to ride the tricycle and told them he wanted both of them. She said that she and the other woman just started giggling, flirting and touching each other. The guy figured out he wasn't going to be able to mount the seat and left. Chez told her, "You know, you really are beautiful." and they started kissing. Chez commented, "...and it was the BEST KISS I EVER HAD!"

This made my heart drop. I asked, "What about all those times I kissed you? Don't those count?" She never answered the question, she just went on like I hadn't even asked it.

A couple of months later, I talked to her. She told me about this new woman she met. Her name was Jyd. Chez was at some gathering. Jyd's husband Kyd approached her and told her that his wife was fascinated with her. She went over and talked to her and they somehow started a relationship.

So, the day I came up to Clovis was the day Chez and Joad were moving out of the crackhouse and into Jyd and Kyd's house. I arrived while they were loading stuff into the car. Jyd was obviously a very butch lesbian. She even talked like a guy. She had one child, a 10-year-old girl.

I helped load stuff in the car. I even loaded some stuff in my car and drove over to the house and helped carry it all in. While I was there, I took a few pictures of everyone. However, I didn't get to meet Kyd. He was at work.

One thing Jyd talked about was her Wednesday nights. That was her night to go out and do her thing, which likely involved getting drunk and going home with whatever woman she happened to find who was drunker than her. I guess Kyd didn't have a problem with this, but I didn't really ask for any details.

I brought my camera and took a few pictures. I guess I had put it down to go to the bathroom. Apparently, the girl picked it up and took this photo of me:

And it looks like I took a photo of their dog in the back yard:

The time came for me to go. I asked Chez for a hug. She reluctantly obliged, but when I tried to kiss her on the cheek, she angrily pushed me away. I left in a huff.

But that would still not be the last time I would see Chez or make that move on her. You're going to have to wait a while longer for that.

10 Bands I've Seen

There was recently a trend on Facebook in which a lot of people would list ten (or more) bands and try to get their friends to figure out which one they hadn't seen. This lasted all of five minutes on the Internet.

I got caught up and took part in this silliness as well. I thought I'd share some details about my experiences at these shows. I should point out that there was no rule saying I had to sit through the entire concert. Half of these I got to see when I was taking my break when I worked at Fiddler's Green Amphitheatre while I lived in Denver. It doesn't matter, I still got to see them live.

1. Elton John

I had been a big fan of Elton John when I was growing up in the 1970s. However, I lived in a small town hours away from any venue that would have hosted him. I was thrilled when I started working for Fiddler's Green in 1988 and saw that he was going to be the last concert of the season. I was managing a concession kiosk outside the back wall and was able to hear most of the performance. After I had closed my stand, I got to watch the last 20 minutes of the show. I also snuck my camera in and took some pictures, but they did not come out very well.

2. Rod Stewart

I saw Rod Stewart during my first night at Fiddler's. This was my initial taste of living in a large metropolitan area where things like this happen on a regular basis. I remember thinking how if I was still in Clovis, I wouldn't be experiencing that. It really changed my perspective on knowing what kind of place I wanted to live. I never wanted to go back to small town life.

3. The Monkees

The Monkees played Fidder's in 1989, but Michael Nesmith was not with them at the time. It was just Mickey Dolenz, Peter Tork and Davy Jones. I got to take my break right when the show began. As they came on stage, a calliope version of "The Monkees Theme" played. The three of them continued walking across and then completely off the stage. They came back on and started playing one of their newer selections. Since I was indoors, I didn't get to hear the rest of the set.

4. Jimmy Buffett

Jimmy Buffett played the second night I worked at Fiddler's. He also played the next afternoon. He had two sold-out concerts. The biggest issue was selling beer. The Arapahoe County Sheriff's Department had a rule that stated that as soon at the headlining act started playing, we had to stop selling alcohol. This led to near riot conditions during the shows. At the second show, I told a customer that we had told Jimmy not to start playing until everyone in the crowd had purchased a beer, but that didn't help. He came back to Fiddler's for two more sold out shows in 1989.

5. The Who

I became a fan of the Who in 1979, a year after Keith Moon had died. That means that for me, the Who consisted of Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle. I had a chance to see them play in 1989 when they came to Boulder, CO. But I had heard that Townshend wasn't giving his all during the tour, so I decided not to go. When they came to the San Diego Sports Arena in 1999, I figured this would be the last opportunity to see them. I went in expecting that they were old, were only going to play for about 90 minutes and that I wouldn't be that thrilled about it. I WAS WRONG! They played for 2 1/2 hours and I was so energized after the show that I couldn't get any sleep before I had to go to my 3:30am shift the next morning.

6. Crosby, Stills and Nash

Another group from the 1988 Fidder's Season. Supposedly, when they were doing their soundcheck on stage, David Crosby said, "Where the hell are the rocks?" That was a reference to Red Rocks Amphitheatre, where I guess they thought they were playing.

7. Tin Hat Trio

Everybody's list appeared to need at least one obscure group. The trio played at a small non-profit venue in Phoenix in 2000. I came wearing my Melt-Banana T-shirt, which I got after seeing them at the Casbah in San Diego. This one guy came up to me and asked if I saw them open for Mr. Bungle. I replied, no, they were headlining. We talked a little bit more about them. It turned out that guy was Mark Orton, the trio's guitarist. After the show, I bought CDs from the other two members, Carla Kihlstedt and Rob Burger. This was the only group on this list that I had any interaction with.

8. Paul Simon

I thought I was going to get to interact with Paul Simon at Coors Amphitheatre in Chula Vista, CA in 2001. A friend and I had gotten to go backstage for his opening act. We had been told that the backstage passes would also be good for seeing Paul Simon. But when we went to the backstage door, they turned us away.

9. U2

U2 was the group I hadn't seen before, but that's all changed now. I got to see them this week on Wednesday, 05/19/17 at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, CA. They are the same age that The Who were when I saw them, so I had high expectations for this show. They started at 9pm with some of their 80's classics before performing "The Joshua Tree" album. They finished the last track at 10:20pm, took a bow, waved and left the stage. I thought, "WHAT? That's it? They'd better not just do a couple of songs for an encore!" Fortunately, they did a 40 minute encore.

It was an inspiring and moving concert. However, I didn't feel as energized as I'd hoped. But that probably had more to do with the fact I had been working all day. Even The Who would have had their work cut out for them.

(A side note: A friend of mine who will be making future appearances in this blog as "Mid" was at the concert. But we didn't see each other. He was on the ground gloor, so that means he's somewhere in the photos.)

10. Sinead O'Connor

When I originally posted this list, I hadn't planned on coming up for a blog post to go into detail about these artists. However, I saw a chance to get something off my chest about my experience during her 1990 tour and I haven't found anything about this on the Internet. Simply put, it was the worst concert by a major artist I've ever attended.

To start, she had booked a show at a 1,000 seat venue in Downtown Denver. I managed to get a seat in the 8th row. I was stoked. Later, the summer concerts for Fiddler's and Red Rocks were announced. She was going to play at Red Rocks, but they hadn't provided a set date for her to appear. They only confirmed that she would be doing a show at Red Rocks some time during the summer. The day of of the show, I went Downtown to the theatre during the day to check out where I could go while waiting for them to let people in. There was a sign on the door that said that the concert had been delayed a couple of weeks. Later, they announced that she wasn't going to play at that theatre, she was going to do the promised show at Red Rocks instead. People who had tickets for the original show would be permitted to sit in the front third of the venue.

I arrived and I somewhat expected that they would have some sort of seating system set up for us. They didn't have one and there was nothing to stop anybody else with new tickets from sitting in that section. I was nowhere near as close to the stage as I would have been at the theatre. I already felt let down.

Everybody was very excited about the concert. Loud cheers erupted when she came out on stage. She played a few songs, mostly material from her new album. About an hour after the show started, she said good night and left the stage. I thought this was odd. She had two albums' worth of material. She could have easily played for 90 minutes, and at this point, she hadn't done "Troy" or "Mandinka," two of my favorite songs from "The Lion and the Cobra." (I wasn't the only one who felt this way. A guy standing next to me kept shouting, "TROY! TROY!") I hoped that she would do them for the encore. She came back out on stage and performed an Irish folk song acapella. When she finished, she ran back off the stage and the audience lights came up.

I had never heard an audience boo so much before (or after). Everyone was furious! We felt gypped. The guy who was yelling earlier started screaming, "TROY, YOU B****!" Everybody grumbled as we walked out to our cars. But I probably wouldn't have minded the short set missing my favorite songs if I'd gotten to see her at the original venue.

What made it worse was finding out that she did perform "Mandinka" and "Troy" at other concert dates. I don't know if she was feeling under the weather that night, but if she had explained that, we probably would have had a little pity for her.

So, that's 10 artists I've seen. I know what you're thinking: "Why didn't you list Apink?" Because EVERYBODY knows I've seen Apink. I wanted this to be a challenge. It took about four people guessing before someone got it right.

After I did this, I realized that this was just a fraction of all the concerts I've been to. I've seen a lot of great acts, big and small, throughout my life.

Free music!

Typically, my visits to Artesia from San Diego were separated by at least six months. But I decided to go home for Thanksgiving in 1994 because my 1975 Chevy Nova was about to give out. Mom and Dad had pitched in to get me a newer used vehicle and I was going to do down and pick it up. It had only been four months since my last visit, when Mom and Dend got married.

One of the things that had happened prior to my trip was that I had completed my first official cassette release. I had to jump through a few hoops to make it happen, the first being getting enough money to finance it. I was a few hundred dollars short and decided to try my hand at gambling to make up for the difference. I took Abed with me to Barona Casino. The plan was for me to bet $50 a hand at the Blackjack tables and hopefully get a few winning hands in a very quick fashion. THIS ACTUALLY WORKED!

I turned $100 into $350, which was more than what I needed. The only bad thing was that I thought I was winning from one of the corporations who bank the card tables. However, I was getting all my money from an individual player who thought he had a sure thing going by providing the bank himself. He probably thought he was going to win a whole lot of money the second he saw me put down $50 in chips while everyone else was betting $5 or $10. After I won three hands, he had to keep pulling cash out of his wallet. He laughed a little every time, but I could tell he didn't like how his "sure thing" soured so quickly. I did feel bad because my winnings were coming from him, but I had a goal to accomplish. Abed sat at the bar and drank non-alcoholic beer (which he said he actually enjoyed the taste) while I was winning. I was glad he was with me, in case that guy decided to follow me out to the parking lot.

Abed was very surprised by my success. He said, "That's going to make a great story someday, about how you financed your first release with gambling." He was right.

The next step was to find a graphic designer to help with the cassette artwork. When I looked in the Yellow Pages, there were several designers listed, but only one had a print ad. I thought this was odd, because if I was a graphic designer, I would want potential customers to see what I was capable of. As a result, that was the one that got my business.

They provided the design to my specifications and even came up with the printing plate for the graphics on the cassette itself. It was a very reasonable price, I thought, and hired them to do the work. It came out exactly how I wanted.

I then had to find a printer for the cassette artwork. I went to Minuteman Press (an odd name, because it was owned by a couple of lesbians) in Hillcrest. We frequently used them for our flyers when I worked at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas. I gave them the artwork and they were able to produce the inserts exactly the way I wanted them. When I first saw them, I thought they looked like the inserts in major record label releases. They were THAT good.

Then I had to take all of this to the place that would make the cassettes, put the packages together and shrink-wrap them. However, the day I was about to do this, something interesting happened at work. This was the day the IRS came in and forced all of us employees to leave the premises immediately. This was during a period of time in which I was afraid to drive to work because the cops were keeping an eye out for my car (because I hadn't registered it). I took the bus home, not knowing if I still had a job. I had a decision to make. Do I go ahead with the cassette release, or do I just hold onto the money just in case I have to be unemployed for a period of time? I recalled that all the great music stories have to do with making that choice that changes your life forever, and I decided to go forward with the release and took all the material to the recording supply company to produce the cassettes.

I did hedge a little. I had planned to order 200 cassettes all at once, but decided to just get 100 so I could have some money to tide me over. It turned out afterward that it kind of didn't matter. Mr. N had managed to get his attorney on the phone and started bankruptcy proceedings for the company, so the IRS wasn't able to touch anything. I was able to return to work the next day. (Too bad. I was hoping I was living dangerously.) I went back to the recording company to order the other 100 cassettes.

I gave the cassette release to all my friends. I also sent copies to radio stations and local music publications. I also went around to all the local record stores and tried to sell the cassette on consignment. One place actually went ahead and paid me cash for the cassettes, which surprised me. (But I was able to use that cash to go see a movie that night!) This was thrilling! (But I did buy them back after they didn't sell.)

I was going to wait to give copies to my family until I saw them at Thanksgiving. I wanted to do that in person, especially since these would count as Christmas presents and I wouldn't have to get them anything else.

I came to Artesia. On the way between Cloudcroft and Artesia, a crow struck my front grill. When I pulled off to the side of the road, I could see water squirting in a small stream from the radiator. Yes, this car had had it. I hoped that the water would last one more hour before I got home. Luckily, it did.

Dad showed me the car they had gotten me. It was a 1977 Toyota Celica. It was yellow and had a five-speed manual transmission. I was used to driving a three-speed. What the heck was I going to do with two extra speeds? But it was a good car and I liked it. That was all that mattered.

I planned to spend Thanksgiving Day with Dad and Gred. I was to spend a couple of nights with him and a couple of nights with Mom. One of the days I was with Dad, Mom came by the house. This was a bit of a shock to me, since this was the first I'd seen them together in a couple of years and it was the first time I'd seen her come to the house. She stopped by to ask if I wanted to go to Fort Sumner on Wednesday to have dinner with Grandma Bend, Uncle Ord and Aunt Cind. She also wanted to make sure Dad was okay with that. Sure, I wanted to see everyone.

At the dinner in Fort Sumner, I gave everyone their cassette copies, which all came from the second batch. They tried opening them, but couldn't get the shrink-wrap off without tearing up the case. When I examined them, it looked like the shrink-wrap completely melted into the packages. This wasn't good.

When I got back home, it turned out the entire second batch was wrecked like that. I was able to go back to the recording company and have them redo the cases and shrink-wrap at no extra charge.

As for Thanksgiving, I don't remember anything really worth writing about. Dad and Gred had a lot of people over. Some I knew, some I didn't, but we had a good time.

But there were things that happened after Thanksgiving. I'll go into detail about that Monday.

Friend Zone #9: Brez

I first met Brez when I started working at News Monitoring Services in 1993. She was the editor. She would take the orders for video clips of news stories and edit them together. She had been working there at least a year before I started.

She was definitely in my league. She was smart quirky cute and I got along with her. Looking back, I'm pretty certain she had Asperger Syndrome. I never realized until now that we probably had that much in common. (But as you'll see, it wasn't really going to do that much good.)

A couple of months after I had been hired, she quit to go to work in the UCSD video department. About seven months later, I was at the 1994 Comic-Con in San Diego during the big Saturday night party under the sails. I had been playing Blackjack with the limited number of chips we were each given. When I ran out of "cash," I started walking around. I ran into Brez. She didn't recognize me at first. We talked and compared notes on working for Mr. N. She decided to leave and I walked her out to her car. I got her phone number. I was excited. I picked up someone at the Comic-Con!

I called her a few days later and asked her if she was interested in hearing some of my music on cassette. We arranged to meet at Java Joe's in Ocean Beach one day. This would be the first time I would go to the location that used to be a church. We talked for a little bit. I gave her the tapes, but I never found out what she thought of the music.

I would call her from time to time. I got her to agree to go out to see a movie with me. Somehow, I guess it started with us talking about the film "Natural Born Killers," and we decided to go. (I guess I was still unclear on the concept of a good "first date" movie.) We arranged to meet at the movie theatre. She didn't care much for it, but did like Robert Downey, Jr. She drove me back to my car in the parking garage. Before I left, I asked her for a hug and she obliged. (While I thought she enjoyed that as much as I did, I guess, in retrospect, she actually did it grudgingly.)

Within the next week, I had moved into my new apartment. I called her up to see if she wanted to get something to eat. She hesitated. I asked her if she wanted pizza. She groaned, like I had discovered her weakness. She still turned me down, but said we'd try to get together again sometime in the future.

A few days later, I tried to call, but the number was disconnected. WHAT? I tried calling directory assistance to see if she had a new number, but they would only give me the number I already had. I had no other way of getting hold of her. I didn't know where she lived. I knew where she worked, but I wasn't THAT desperate.

This was the second time in two years that I had someone ghost on me. And it was irritating both times because I thought we were off to a good start. And this time, she went so far as to cut off her primary means of communication. Was I really that undesirable that someone would go to these lengths to avoid me?

So, you're probably asking how Brez is a Friend Zone. Over the course of the next few years, I would keep running into her at Comic-Con. We'd usually talk for a little bit, but I never asked her about her disappearing act. I just figured she wasn't that interested in me and let it go. One time, Chud went with me to the Con on a Saturday and we ran into her. The three of us hung out for the rest of the day and attended the Masquerade together. Somehow, I think she forgot that we had dated.

She still lives in San Diego. She appears to work as a free-lance in TV production. She's into steampunk. One thing I found out is that she's Facebook friends with Mr. N. WHAT? Why would she do that? I found one photo of her online that appears to be from 2005. She looks the same as when I last saw her, but that photo was from 12 years ago (and she doesn't post photos of herself on her Facebook account). I also found that we have a Facebook friend in common. It's no one I'm that close to, but I did find a student film on YouTube that they had worked on together from 2011.

I guess it's a good thing that most friend zones come to an end sooner rather than later.

Apartment #8: 4351 Hamilton St. #11, San Diego, CA 1994 - 1995

Late July of 1994, my roommate Hudd decided he was going to move back to Los Angeles with his parents. He thought that was going to be the best course of action so he could get his life on track. I figured that I was in a good enough place to get my own apartment. I knew I would have to settle for a studio because I wasn't financially sound enough for something larger. I did go look at a few different apartments. I remember there was this one that had external stairs leading up to it, but I could detect this very strong urine odor. I may have been desperate to live in a cheap apartment, but not that desperate.

I did find one studio in a decent location on Hamilton Avenue in my price range for $385 a month. (But this was $15 a month less than the one bedroom apartment I used to live in. After two years, rentals were already starting to hike.) I called up the property management company to come see the place. I arrived on time, but no one showed up. The window was open, so I could see into the apartment and view the living room and kitchen. I couldn't see the bathroom. I didn't want to waste the opportunity, so I called the company and started the process to become a tenant.

The building had 12 units in it. There were one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments and two studios. The studio had enough room to put my bed, comfy chair, table and dresser. I didn't expect to need more space that that. It was certainly larger than my old studio on Texas St., but I still had a bathroom where if I sat down on the toilet, my head was in the sink. And it just had a shower, no bathtub.

It was close to the intersection of El Cajon Blvd. On the corner, there was a Taco Bell. I can't say that I ate there very often, but I do know that if I wanted something to eat when only the drive-thru was open, I would have to get in my car and drive down the half-block to order something. Since I had just declared bankruptcy, I couldn't eat out very often.

One really good thing about the apartment is that I never had to turn on the heat. Because there were apartments on both sides and underneath, mine was able to absorb the heat from those units. It was nice not to have my gas bills go up during the winter.

One thing I definitely didn't like about the apartment was the parking. There were six spaces in the front and six spaces in the rear. It was enough for one car per apartment. However, you could tell from the old paint that they originally only had ten spot and repainted it when they had all twelve tenants who needed spaces. I was assigned a specific spot, and it was a good spot because it was on the end. However, there was always someone parked in my spot. And there was no way to park in the other spots without hitting your car door against another car when you got out or in. Since I was already used to parking in the street from my previous apartment, I decided that the space wasn't worth fighting for and that I would park on the street for the entire time that I lived there. (Looking at the pictures on Google Street View, they still have 12 parking spaces.) I do remember when this one new tenant moved in, he started yelling at another tenant for parking in his assigned space. I couldn't bring myself to do that.

Because I had a lot of large items, I rented a U-Haul truck so I wouldn't have to make so many trips back and forth between my old apartment and this one. I went to the same U-Haul location where I had rented a car-top carrier. I went in a week ahead of time, requested and reserved their smallest vehicle available, which was about the size of a Toyota pickup. I didn't need more space that that for my large stuff. The day I went to pick up the truck, the one I had requested was there. Waiting in line, the man in front of me was setting up a rental. He told the attendant that he wanted to rent that small truck. He was told it was reserved. When it was my turn, the attendant handed me the key and walked with me outside. He pointed to one of the larger trucks and said that one was mine. I told him I had reserved the smaller truck. He said someone else had reserved it, but the one I was getting was the same price. I told him I didn't feel comfortable driving the larger truck, but he wouldn't budge.

The attendant told me that if I returned the truck after 6pm, I needed to park it on the side street, drop the key in their mail slot and they would retrieve it in the morning. The directions for the truck explained that I needed to provide my own lock for the truck, so I went and bought one. I returned the truck after 6pm. I figured that if I didn't leave the lock on the truck, there might be a problem with homeless people going and sleeping inside the back if it wasn't locked up, so I locked the rear door, put the key with the truck key and dropped them off.

I returned the next morning to collect the remainder of my deposit. They gave it to me. I asked for the lock I put on the truck. The attendant said they had to use a bolt-cutter to remove the lock. I told him that the key was on the key ring with the truck key. He shrugged his shoulders. I asked him if he could reimburse me for the cost of the lock. "We didn't tell you to put that lock there." I couldn't argue about that, but if they were too stupid to figure out that the extra key would fit in the lock, they were too stupid for me to do business with again. I guess they love destroying property AND chasing homeless people out of their trucks. The next time I needed a U-Haul, I went to their closest competitor.

(While writing this, I got the idea that I could go onto Yelp! and write a bad review detailing this information, even though it's more than 20 years old. However, the operation moved to a gas station across the street, so it probably isn't even run by the same people anymore. It wouldn't be right for me to post a bad review on them now, but you have no idea how badly I wanted to do that!)

The day I moved in happened to be my 30th birthday. Because of this, I didn't have time to reflect on this particular milestone. It was just another day of me moving into an apartment. Abed helped me out that day. It was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that I wasn't able to park the U-Haul at the building and we had to walk back and forth down the block to move all my stuff in. As usual, we did have pizza afterwards. I ordered a slice of cheese and he got a slice of garlic pizza, but we had a hard time telling which was which because the garlic wasn't obvious until we smelled the slices.

The time I spent in this apartment (16 months) would be the longest I stayed in one place in San Diego until I moved to my next address. While I was there, it went through two changes of ownership. I was fortunate in that neither one tried to raise my rent. However, the second owners had planned an increase until they found out by me that my apartment was a studio. They then thought the price was fair. (It was still too high!)

I got lucky when I needed to move out. We were already 10 days into December when I put in my one month notice. But because a boy who lived at St. Vincent de Paul was about to turn 18, he needed to move into an apartment at the beginning of the year. I just had to make sure I had it completely clean and I wound up getting my entire deposit back. It felt good to know that I was helping someone get a good start in life.

It was a good place for getting back on your feet.

Road Trip to Vegas!

Abed and I started our drive back to San Diego after our adventure in Santa Fe. We'd been on the I-40 a few hours, and were halfway through Arizona. It was then we decided to go to Vegas since it was "slightly" out of the way. I knew we could get there by midnight. I bought a couple of bottles of Mountain Dew and I was good to go. This would be Abed's first time going to Vegas.

The first thing we did when we got there was drive up and down the strip. This was late on a weeknight, so it wasn't too busy, traffic-wise. We also drove through Downtown Las Vegas. I asked Abed what he thought. He said, "It's all really disturbing." We had to go find a hotel. We drove to the Motel 6 on Tropicana Blvd. I thought there wouldn't be very many people that late at night, but I was wrong. There were probably about 30 people in line. I was worried that we wouldn't be able to get a room. After about 30 minutes, I finally got to the front of the line. Yes, they still had plenty of rooms. I came back out, drove to our room and we crashed.

We woke up the next morning. This was the first time I'd been to Vegas since they'd opened the Luxor and I wanted to see the inside. I figured we'd eat at the breakfast buffet there. We parked the car in the rear parking lot and walked inside. I was pretty impressed by the design and decor. We went to their buffet, which was set up like a miniature version of New York City. Then I went out to the floor to play some Blackjack. But the minimum bet was $5. I only played a few hands before I realized I wasn't going to win big there. On our way out to the car, someone had left a brand new t-shirt in a crevice in the wall between the casino and the parking lot. It was for an Easter Seals 5K run. It happened to be my size. I told Abed: "This will impress the ladies. It makes me look like I'm an athlete AND I'm charitable!" I wore that shirt for ten years, but never picked up any women while wearing it.

We then drove to Caesar's Palace. I was losing there, too. We decided to drive back to San Diego. However, I wanted to stop and do a little more gambling at Whiskey Pete's in Primm, right before the California border. I played Blackjack while Abed sat at an empty table. I heard the pit boss asking my dealer who the guy was over there. "I don't know. Maybe he's applying for a job." I let them know he was my friend and he was just waiting for me to play a few hands. I actually came out about $30 ahead and left.

It was about noon and I had completely forgotten about the warnings from Knod's uncle about driving in the middle of the day. About an hour later, it got EXTREMELY HOT! My car had no air conditioning. If I stuck my arm out the window for too long, I would have gotten windburn. On top of this, all the drinking water had heated up, too. If we got thirsty, we had no choice, we had to drink the water. I had to quickly take a gulp and immediately grimace my face to get that hot stuff down.

One of the good things about not having air conditioning is that we didn't suffer the fate of other drivers on the road. Along the shoulder, there were scattered cars parked off to the side because their engines had overheated from using air conditioning. We just kept on driving. We drove past the giant thermometer in Baker and it was it was 115 degrees. And, in order to keep my arms from getting sunburned, I was wearing my jacket, so I was REALLY hot.

We stopped in Barstow to get some gas. I was going to fill up, but I noticed how high the price was after I started putting gas in the tank: $2.75 a gallon! That was ridiculous. I stopped filling up after I reached $5. I figured that would be enough to get us to a location with cheaper gas. But we did get some cold water while we were there.

We finally got into higher altitudes and cooler wind temperatures. It was a relief and the rest of the drive to San Diego was literally a breeze.

Along the way, we were listening to the radio. We heard what we assumed to be some woman singing Vietnamese folk music. Abed commented, "If I had lots of money, I could find out who's singing that and have her brought over here so I could date her!"

I'd gone through so much on this trip: Seeing Mom get married, missing Chez and getting angry, incurring the wrath of a Mexican music producer and blowing my dough in Vegas. It was an excursion for the history books.

And I had to go back to work the very next day. Nothing worth writing about there.

The Right President at the Wrong Time

I feel like all the problems we're experiencing in Washington, DC right now could have been avoided if certain actions had been taken by our previous President almost nine years ago. The following is a video I posted on the eve of the inauguration:



But what we have now is still history being made. And it never ends.

Road Trip to Santa Fe!

Abed and I had managed to get everything in gear to get from Tularosa to Santa Fe. Cid, my friend from college, given pretty detailed instructions on how to get to their house. When we arrived, she came out and greeted us. I hadn't seen her since 1988 at ENMU. She had shaved her head completely bald in the manner of Sinead O'Connor. It surprisingly looked good on her. We also met her significant other, Ochd. He was in his 40s, wore glasses and had long hair. She took us on a tour of the house where they lived, which included a separate guest house with two bedrooms (where we would stay) and an indoor swimming pool.

We all had lunch. Cid had some leftover pasta with shrimp that she served. During the first part of our visit, we discussed Luis Donaldo Colosio. He was supposed to be the next Presidente of Mexico, but was assassinated a few months prior in Tijuana, so I knew all about it. Cid said they actually knew him and they were shocked at what happened. She said that everyone was looking forward to the changes to the government he was expected to make in order for Mexico to become a better place to live and work. She didn't trust his replacement for the election, Ernesto Zedillo. She said that man scared her.

After we finished eating, Ochd showed us the recording studio they had built in the garage, while Cid attended to some business. The studio was very impressive as it had both analog and digital technology. We sat down for a little bit and discussed what we planned to do with the song. Abed and I more or less had the production planned out. Before we started recording, Abed played some of his material (not the song we were planning to record) on his guitar. Ochd picked up his guitar and mimicked what Abed was playing, practically note for note. I was astonished. Ochd was a lot more gifted musically than I realized.

The first part was going to be Abed singing the acapella intro, followed by us singing with the sequencer track. We didn't think it was going to take very long. In our minds, we were producing it and Ochd was just going to be the engineer.

But that didn't exactly happen. Abed started singing and Ochd would keep making him redo the intro, telling him how he needed to sing it. And then we never got to the point where we recorded the sequencer track. Ochd had some other stuff to do. He had friends who were going to stay there and they were supposed to do some recording. (I guess Cid didn't know ahead of time about them when she invited us.) When Abed and I discussed the experience later, we got the idea that Ochd was under the impression that he was producing the song and this was why he was giving direction on how Abed could sing the song better. I guess he figured that if his name was going on this, he didn't want it to sound like it was below his high standards. But we didn't ask him to produce it. We just needed him to set up the mic, check the levels and hit the record button.

Ochd's friends arrived at the house. We all went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant. We met some of Cid's and Ochd's other friends there. We sat at a large table. And the restaurant was on the upper middle class end of the price scale. I found a burrito I was able to afford. Abed had the tortilla soup, which was the least expensive thing on the menu. At the end of the meal, we started to pay, but Cid said they were taking care of it. Both Abed and I wished we had known that ahead of time. We would have ordered something more expensive.

Abed and I thought we would get to do some recording after we returned from dinner. However, everyone at the restaurant was coming over to the house for an impromptu party. Outside the restaurant, Cid ran into this woman with long dark hair she knew. She invited her to come to the house.

We all arrived and most of us went to the swimming pool. Some people started smoking marijuana. Abed came in later wearing only his boxers and jumped into the pool. He swam for a bit. Then, he got out and went into the hot tub. A few minutes later, the woman with the long dark hair walked into the pool house, AND SHE WAS NAKED! (And no, I don't have photographs!) My first thought was, "Okay, if this is one of these parties where everyone starts taking their clothes off, I'm going to the bedroom and I'm not coming out!" She got into the hot tub with Abed and talked to him for a bit. He was just as stunned as I was, but went with the flow. Apparently, she just went around and had casual conversations with everyone at the party. One of Ochd's friends kept averting his eyes while he was talking to her.

As it turned out, she was the only naked person running round. I was relieved at that, but everyone was still smoking pot. I went into the studio. Cid and Ochd were in there talking to people. I remember one young woman talking to Cid very excitedly about wanting to record. Cid acted like she was going to try to accommodate at some point in the future. If you ever wondered what it was like in Brian Wilson's house during the "Smile" era, this probably came close, with everyone trying to get Cid and Ochd to help them achieve their dreams at someone else's expense. This all went on until 3am. Both Abed and I conked out before then. We had to sleep in the same bed because Ochd's friend were in the other bedroom in the guest house.

The next day, we found out that Ochd had planned to do recording with his friends and wouldn't have time for us. We decided to drive to Albuquerque to see a mutual friend of ours named Howd who used to live in San Diego. We hung out most of the day. While we were at his apartment, I had tried to get some sleep because I was still worn out from the night before.

Both Abed and Howd are big Frank Zappa fans. Howd started talking about an upcoming posthumous release. "You know, we're supposed to get 'Civilization' next month!" In my fatigued stupor, I commented, "That's great. We've needed civilization for a long time."

Since Howd was also a performer, we invited him to go with us to meet Cid and Ochd. When we arrivied, we found that Ochd and his friends were still recording. Howd did get to meet Cid, and performed a couple of his songs for her. Then, we had to drive him back home. After we returned, I realized I had spent four hours driving that day.

The next morning, we were able to get some time in the studio. Since we only had a couple of hours before we needed to leave, I recorded one of my songs. I had previously produced the track with vocals at a studio in San Diego, but hadn't saved it on a digital source, which was needed for an official cassette release of my material. I quickly recorded the vocal in a couple of takes over the pre-recorded track. Ochd did not attempt to "produce." He just did what he was supposed to: Set the mic, check the levels and hit the record button.

Abed and I left, not knowing what to make of the experience. It was exciting, but we didn't accomplish all that we had set out to do or what we were promised. We both got the idea that Ochd didn't like us, but we didn't know why. But I did somewhat figure it out when I went back about four months later.

As usual, that will be the topic of an upcoming post. In the mean time, our road trip continued. More on Monday.

Road trip to Alamogordo!

Today, I get to start the details behind the road trip Abed and I took in the summer of 1994. I alluded to this in my last two posts.

I had recently gotten in contact with a friend of mine from college who had been making headway as an entertainer in Mexico. Her name was Cid and she'd actually recorded and released a CD with a major record label there. She and her significant other/collaborator were living in Santa Fe at the time. I had sent her cassettes featuring music by Abed and me. She said she liked the material very much and wanted to meet Abed. They also had a recording studio set up in their garage and invited us to record a song there. We had a piece we had been working on together called "Welcome to Paradise." The only problem was that I couldn't put the track in my sequencer because it was already full with the music for my Mom's wedding, so I would have to wait until afterward to get the track ready but before we got to Santa Fe.

The plan for the road trip was that we would drive to Alamogordo and I would drop him off at his sister's house. He would stay with his mother in Tularosa. I would come pick him up and we would go to Santa Fe.

We left on Wednesday the 20th. We were supposed to leave San Diego at 2pm. I don't remember what transpired. I think that Abed had a bunch of loose ends that he needed to tie up before leaving and we didn't hit the road until 8pm! I needed to be in Artesia by 6pm the next night so that I could attend the rehearsal for my Mom's wedding and I had hoped that I would get there a few hours early so that I could hang out. In order for that to happen now, I was going to have to stay awake and drive all night long.

I thought I could manage it, but along the way, we came to an accident scene. I was a little slow to respond to what was in the road ahead of me, so I had to slam on the brakes to keep from causing another accident. Soon after I came to a stop, a highway patrol officer came up to my window and gave me a lecture about slowing down when there's an accident up ahead. I have a feeling he thought we were smoking pot and got upset that he couldn't smell anything when he approached us, so he just wanted to get his rocks off by yelling at us. He did not give me a ticket.

We had to wait two hours for the accident to clear and for us to be on our way. At that point, I knew I could not continue driving all night. We stopped in Gila Bend and got a room at the Super 8 Motel. It was 2am when we got there. In order for us to get to Artesia on time, we were going to have to leave at 6am. That means we had to pay $50 to spend 4 hours in the room. That was a lot of money back then. It's still a lot of money for sleeping safely for $12.50 an hour. Those two beds made more an hour than I did at the time.

We got up when we needed to and got back on the road. We stopped briefly in Las Cruces and saw Kird and his wife at his parents' house. We visited for maybe an hour before driving to Alamogordo. I dropped off Abed at his sister's house, which she shared with some roommates. Abed and I brought some of her stuff from the car inside. I told the roommates it was nice meeting them, but I would never see them again for the rest of their lives. You know what? I was right (so far).

As I mentioned before, I got to my Mom's house just minutes before the rehearsal was to start. If we had left when I wanted to, we would have been able to drive all the way to Lordsburg, NM by 11pm. (I did this almost every time I drove to Artesia from San Diego.) We would have spent the night there and had plenty of time for me to get to Artesia.

After the wedding and my adventure trying to track down Chez, I drove to Tularosa and caught up with Abed there. I spent the night on the floor in his mom's house, but only managed to get a few hours' sleep. I had brought my keyboard inside. Since we needed to have the music ready, I wiped out the music from the wedding and started fresh with the new track. I basically slapped it together in about two hours. At the time, I thought it sounded good. So did Abed, who heard it after he woke up.

We packed our stuff and headed out. I'll have the next phase of our journey tomorrow.

Unexpectedly stood up

One of the things I knew I was going to do after my Mom's wedding was go see Chez and Joad. I hadn't seen them in more than a year. At this time, they had their own place in Clovis. In the weeks and days before I came down, I had contacted Chez and told her that I was coming to Clovis on Saturday, July 23rd. I had planned to spend the afternoon with them before driving over to Tularosa to meet up with Abed. We planned for me to come to her mother's house to pick them up. She assured me that she would be there.

On the way up, I stopped at her father's house in Roswell. He told me she was looking forward to seeing me and he gave me a five dollar bill to give to her.

I got to her mother's house around 12pm, the time that I expected to be there. Her mother's boyfriend opened the door and let me in. Her mother was on the phone. I looked around, but I didn't see Chez or Joad. Her mother got off the phone. I asked where they were. "Oh, Chez told me to tell you she's sorry, but her friends came by her house this morning and took them on a road trip today."

I know I suddenly got very angry and punched my fist at a wall that wasn't there. Of course, this was in the time before cell phones, so there was no way I could have found out beforehand, but it still hurt because it meant that I didn't really mean that much to her anymore.

I said goodbye to her mother and boyfriend and went out to my car. I pounded my fists on the steering wheel. I suddenly remembered the five dollar bill. I decided that I was going to keep that. She owed me that much. But then I saw her mother and boyfriend coming out of the house and I knew it wasn't right for me to keep her money. I gave it to her to give to Chez. I didn't realize this at the time, but this would be the last time I would see her mother.

I drove off, found a pay phone and called her father. He was just as mad as I was. He gave me her phone number and told me how to get to her house, but he told me not to tell her how I found out. I called, but there was no answer. I drove over to the location he described, but all I saw was this small structure that looked like it would become a crackhouse at any minute. Considering that she was still on welfare, I figured it was where she lived, but there was no one there. I drove around Clovis for about an hour and stopped by her house a couple more times, but never found her.

I drove to Tularosa, met up with Abed and we went on our road trip the next day. (I'll go into more of our adventures in tomorrow's post.)

About a week later, I called Chez. She sounded surprised to hear from me and grilled me on how I got her number. I said I got it from directory assistance. She asked what it was listed under. I made a wild guess and said it was her last name and first two initials. I guessed right.

She said she was sorry she wasn't there, but her friends had planned that surprise road trip and they had gone to Lubbock. (I never would have even tried to go over there to find her, even if I knew she was there.) One of those friends was Saz. She said that Saz remembered me when I came up as a topic in conversation.

She told me, "I have something to tell you. I'm kind of involved with two people. One's a guy and the other is a girl." I replied, "Okay." She said, "DID YOU JUST HEAR WHAT I TOLD YOU?" "Yeah, I know about that. I knew when we lived together." "No, you didn't know that!" "Oh yes, I did. Why do you think I drove you by the lesbian bar and went by the movie theatre anytime they were showing a lesbian film? And besides, there was that thing between you and Kijd." "HOW DID YOU KNOW ABOUT KIJD?" "Well, I don't know that anything happened between you, but it was very obvious you had feelings for her. I even flat out asked you if you were in love with her and you told me no!" "Well, I really did love Kijd, but we never got together. How did you know this about me when I didn't even know myself?" "I know you so well because I love you." She didn't really have a response to that.

She told me that the guy she was seeing was a "friends with benefits" situation (although that was not the terminology she used). He was married and in the Air Force. He and his wife had agreed to an open relationship, but she was the one who initiated it. As for the girl (who was not the wife), Chez said they had taken a liking to each other, but hadn't gotten physical yet.

Chez and I would continue to talk to each other over the course of the next few months. A lot happened in her sexual awakening in that time. I'll get to that later.