Puppet Poetry Theatre #1

 

On Ditching Life To Go To Venice Beach For A Day And Witnessing An Epic Tiny Dog Fight While Writing A List Of Words That Rhyme With Poon

This is not the kind of thing that I would ever do.  Yet here I am drinking coffee in a shi shi alley writing the list beginning at afternoon and ending with quadroon, generally trying to disappear into the brick walls and here she comes.  Big Lady in an even bigger leopard print sun hat with the smallest barking hair-ball I’ve ever seen.  She gets a latte and joins me at the table.  The hair-ball (a chorkie I later learn) wears a tiny “Service Dog” harness and I wonder what service it could possible provide.  Perhaps she helps blind dwarves get around, or makes them feel more average heighted.  Definitely something dwarf related.

 

Big Lady seems pleasant enough; she’s from out of town and is visiting her son who is currently getting a full body massage.  The way she speaks of him, I assume he’s young, maybe in his early to mid-twenties and coddled, or perhaps less coddled and in his late teens.  She’s trying to set me up with him within minutes.

 

A few awkward coffee sips and questions later, and here comes The Son.  He is extremely gay and in his middle forties at least.  Big Lady introduces us and tells The Son that a casting agent on the boardwalk gave her a card because he’s desperate to have the chorkie in commercials.  The Son, apparently in “the Biz” himself is patiently encouraging.  In fact, he proves himself perhaps the world’s most patient man as Big Lady begins subtly trying to set us up.  “She lives in Pasadena and LOVES to cook,” she says.  In this way we pass several bemusing moments as The Son both politely placates Big Lady and beams looks of profound apology directly into my skull.  I beam back a look that says, “it’s O.K., everyones’ parents are crazy.  I’m actually enjoying this immensely.  I apologize for my schadenfreude.  This is harmless.  We’ll make beautiful grand-babies though.  O.K., sorry, totally kidding.”

 

The shop door across the alleyway opens imperceptibly and out rush two teacup-sized poodles, both smaller than my pet rat and barking bloody murder.  They lunge for the chorkie and it’s a scene from a Rob Zombie movie.  Growls, barks and clumps of fur fill the courtyard.  It’s like watching your stuffed animals rumble to the death.  A tiny Asian lady bursts from the store yelling whatever is Cantonese for “Bad dogs, stop it, shut up Motherf@*king assholes!”  Big Lady grabs her chorkie by the service harness and pulls her to safety, teacup poodles jumping fifteen times their height to nip off a final tuft of ear fluff.  Asian Lady grabs poodles (still growling) and whisks them back into her shop wordlessly. 

 

Big Lady and The Son stand up cordially saying what a pleasure it’s been to meet me and they’re gone.  I look to my notebook.  Platoon, Brigadoon, prune, swoon…

For Alison

Afternoon, attune, baboon, balloon, bassoon, boon, Brigadoon, buffoon, Cameroon, Cancun, cartoon, cocoon, commune, contrabassoon, coon, croon, doubloon, dragoon, dune, festoon, goon, granfalloon, harpoon, hewn, immune, impugn, inopportune, jejune, June, lagoon, lampoon, loon, maroon, monsoon, moon, Neptune, noon, opportune, oppugn, platoon, poltroon, pontoon, picayune, prune, quadroon, raccoon, Rangoon, roughhewn, rune, saloon, soon, spittoon, spoon, strewn, swoon, toon, tribune, tune, tycoon, typhoon, Walloon

Rules of the Road

 

 

1. Always talk to strangers
2. If a hippie tells you you must take a special trip out of your way to see something you’ve never heard of, take that trip.
3. Eat local no matter how sketchy it may look.
4. Take your time.
5. The best trips are the ones with the least advanced planning.
6. On road trips, final destinations should be very specific, yet very arbitrary.
7. Be generous and kind.
8. If people offer you free things, take ‘em.
9. Don’t fall into the “I’m making good time” trap. Stop frequently and poke around.
10. Share.
11. Always take snacks.
12. Always be willing to alter your plans/ change your mind.
13. Ask a local.
14. Painkillers are important.
15. Never expect non-stop fun. When viewed correctly, the lows are what make a vacation into an adventure.
16. Always be willing to break the rules.

New Mexico or Gusty Winds May Exist

The western stretch of the I-40 may be the ugliest, most utilitarian piece of road ever laid.  Driving from Los Angeles to Santa Fe it gets only marginally more scenic as you go.  Specifically there are some shrubs to look at surrounding Flagstaff and some exciting bits where steering is actually required intermittently throughout.  The most noticeable improvement is in the signage.  About fifty miles into New Mexico they begin.  The most existential cautionary signs ever posted.  “Gusty Winds May Exist.”  Not that they do exist, that they’re sporadic, that they might occasionally present a challenge to motorists, or that they might occasionally blow across the highway. No. These signs are here to prompt a philosophical debate as to whether the weather is a factual, observable phenomena or, instead an agreed upon hallucinatory break from reality during which all drivers swerve to one side of the road or other in a collective unconscious desire to have something, anything to make the drive seem less dauntingly unchanging.

            The signs are a first clue to the notion that “Land of Enchantment” may be more than a catchy slogan for the license plates.  The second is my apparently bizarre ability to navigate within the city of Santa Fe without a roadmap.  A city that wasn’t planned by people so much as burros.  You can look this up.  Apparently from a birds perspective Santa Fe looks like the result of giving Egon Schille more LSD than is strictly a good idea and asking him to draw wagon wheels or vaginas.  Driving in this city requires a shift in navigational philosophy.  In Santa Fe you don’t get in your car thinking outlandish thoughts like, I’ll head north on such and such until I find do-i-mo-bobber and turn right (east) and reach the museum of awesomeness.  Here, you get in your car and say to the streets; I want to go to the Museum of Awesomeness.  Start your engine, merge into traffic and make a series of arbitrary turns based on intuition and an unwavering faith in the Gods of Direction.  They may or may not take you to the Museum, but that you will end up where you were meant to be.

Arty-Party (Two)

Gus Had A Bad Day 

How To Do Just About Anything (2nd)

Escaping Unpleasant Chores

  

Scenario:  You find yourself having a perfectly lovely time, lying on the couch, maybe reading a book, maybe doodling, maybe napping. Generally at peace with the world.  Suddenly your parents, spouse, children, housemates, Cthulhu, whomever rush into the room looking frazzled and ask you to run errands. On any other day you are a helpful, generous team player, but today… Today you are beyond comfy; you have transcended mere slack to the level of the Ultimate Chillaxer (which is level 9).

What do you do?

Solution: Quite easy really, gaze into the eyes of the aforementioned whomever and say the magic sentence, “I’d really like to help baby, but you know, Zeno’s paradox and all.” 

 

Moral: It’s useful that public school doesn’t teach philosophy because most people cannot argue against Zeno’s paradox only because they have no idea what it is.  Or, 3 cheers for laziness!  

 

The Ongoing Saga Of Our Feckless Leader (pt.2)

Oh no no no no no, thinks our feckless leader gazing at the glitzy glittering metropolis below.

 

Who are these fearsome creatures clawing at my plinth?  How dare they deign desire my declarations?

 

“Dastardly demons I cast you out!” she cries, cringing. Crushing heads between fingers, fleeing in fright.

 

She escapes to the very peak of the Jagged-Glass Mountains and there erects a ziggurat to her own hard-fought solitude. 

 

There she stays for over one hundred days, casting gaze after gaze out through the obelisk maze. 

 

Ponderous perfidy pounds her daily.  “They have not come for me.  How can this be? It’s nothing less than treachery!”  

Hipster Hangouts (#1)

Yay Beverages!

 

Sometimes you just need to sit in a converted craftsman house, drinking herbal tea and contemplating the greater meaning of the universe.  And sometimes you need to tear the lid off of your scull, chain-smoke, get piss drunk and listen to punk rock. So this week I have two recommendations for you.

 

First, for my mellowed out friends I recommend Zephyr.  This Café is like walking into an artists’ concept drawing of an intellectual hangout.  Lots of cozy sofas, people in dark clothing reading quietly everywhere you look, and perhaps the best chai tea I’ve ever had. I’ve only been here a few times, but it is the perfect place for my inner bookworm to go when I get that, “I’m social, I leave my house, I swear!” feeling. 

 

Completing the perfection of the place are the locals that hang out at Zephyr. Despite the bookish vibe, the people are surprisingly outgoing.  The last time I went there a man approached me because he wanted to discuss Yeats, the time before that I feel in with a knitting circle. Honestly, this place may very well be nerd heaven.

        

For my friends who are looking for a louder outing, Old Town Pub is the place to be. Music oozes out of every orifice of this mega-alternative/ indie/ punk bar.  Featuring up-and-coming local acts of a varying degree of proficiency, a wonderful (if a bit small) array of beer-snob beers and the perfect, dingy atmosphere OTP is one of those rare bars where you immediately feel at home.      

 

 

Zephyr

 

2419 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena CA

Hours: M-Th 7:30am-10pm, Fri 7:30am-11pm, Sat 8am-11pm

http://zephyrcoffeeandart.com/

 

 

Old Town Pub*

 

66 N. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena CA

Hours: It’s a bar.

http://www.oldtownepub.com/

 

*OTP is located down an alley.  The easiest way to get to the alley is off of Holly between Fair Oaks & Raymond.  Find the alley & head south towards the music, or visit their website for a map.

Arty-Party (One)

I Admit This Is Old, But I Can Explain…  

 

I can’t find the link cable for my digital camera, so here’s a a music video I made with my cousin last year.  My apologies to those of you who’ve already seen it. You can count the number of times you can see our hands, feet or pieces of string. I promise I’ll have something new next week.  

   

 The song is Apple Wagon by The Boy Least Likely To.