Hey Didn't They Film Swingers Here? Part IX

Elaine prepared some Trader Joes frozen Gnocchi Alla Soretino for dinner. She would serve it with a prepacked salad, Marty loved the Spring Medley with those sugary pecans and raisins. Elaine marveled at how the gnocchi would cook in five minutes and came with the little pancakes of marinara that would turn into sauce like magic. Years before she would toil all afternoon to prepare their Sunday meal but she didn't have the will for that anymore.

Elaine came over and disturbed Marty's snoring with a kiss and a nudge. Marty slowly opened his eyes and then looked up to see his wife of twenty five years.

"C'mon dear, I've got dinner ready."

Elaine left the room and Marty was left to consider his dream. He had been sliding down a steep road on his stomach. Everyone marveled at how fast he was going. No one had ever slid down the hill as fast as he was. There was stalled traffic up ahead so he maneuvered off his belly and onto his feet. In a crouched position he used the friction caused by the soles of his shoes to quell his momentum.

When he had come to a rest he looked to his feet and found that the friction had caused one of his favorite shoes to burn, the sole now separated from the burnt leather upper. Marty tried to parse the profundity of this. 'Wasn't that the way its always goes for me. I fly down the hill and in the end I have feet of clay?'

The dinner, though modest, was good enough. Elaine enjoyed a glass of Yellow Tail Chiraz. Elaine always had a glass or two of wine with dinner. Didn't everyone? Marty still hungover from his dream was a bit distant but Elaine paid no notice.

"I got a call from the restaurant and we won't be working on Thursday."



Marty snapped out of his thoughts and dreams and finally was back at the dinner table with Elaine.

"Is that so? And why not?" Marty snipped. He never liked to have a night off. Was this the beginning of the big shove off?

"It seems that some Hollywood movie, a big budget one for what I can gather, has made a copy of the restaurant on a sound stage for one of their films and even had a couple of actors play our roles. Well they say it isn't us but how could it be anyone but us."

"They can't do that."

"Well you will have to handle that. All I know is that the movie people rented the whole place for the night to throw some big party and that the not Marty and Elaine are going to be performing. Sal said they were even going to bring in their own cocktail waitresses. I feel bad for Sheri and Melanie."

Marty was livid.

"They can't do that. To hell with Sheri and Melanie. What about us? That punk Sal always thinking he can push us around. First he takes away our Sunday nights and now he is complicit in this outrageous affair. That kid has had it out for us from the very start. We made that place. It was just an over priced depository for the grey haired set before we started there. After all this time he thinks he can just throw us out on the street. We'll see."

Elaine had heard all this before and she knew not to interject. She would let Marty's ire run it's course. She liked when Marty got upset at Sal, it took his attention off her.

"I'm going down there right after dinner and ask Sal about this."

"Honey, Sal isn't in on Sundays, you know that."

Marty had been off all day long. He knew it was Sunday but that didn't stop him from going to the barbershop and Pro Drum.

"Why don't you just talk to him tomorrow when we go in. It will give you time to settle down."



"Settle down. I'm not going to settle down, that little asshole."

Elaine knew Marty wouldn't notice in his anger so she got up and poured another Chiraz.

"That's what I'll do. I'll confront Sal tomorrow night."

Marty knew he wouldn't confront Sal. He never confronted Sal.

Elaine took at deep drink and felt the tingle in her toes.

Front Row Seat For The Rapture

The espresso maker spit and burbled. Steam jetted out and the kitchen was then filled with the aroma of a strong french roast. The stove was lit and he bent over it to light his first Lucky Strike of the day. Then the smell of burnt hair fought for dominance with the coffee. Who needs eyebrows anyways? David Bowie did just fine without them didn't he?

He made his way over to the computer and engaged the button that would turn it on. He went back into the kitchen and poured the coffee into a mug. Sitting before the computer he thought how futuristic he had become. He opened up the music program and immediately the Thirteenth Floor Elevators filled the room. How strange he thought. He had heard of the Elevators for years and again too of Roky Ericson but never had heard the music until he got a computer.



With the music now playing he accessed the internet and opened up the Los Angeles Times website. He knew there were other better choices to get the morning news but some old habits were harder to break then others. Geeeze he ruminated, it wasn't just a few short years ago that his morning routine, although very similar, was so vastly different.

In the past when he still could ride his Vespa, then a '76 P200, without a helmet. He would just about every morning hop on the scooter and head for the Farmer's Market. In those days you could still run Genesee through the backlot of CBS. The Farmer's Market was a quiet place. Arriving there he would stop at the newsstand next to the barber shop, by some cigarettes and the L.A. Times, stop by Bob's Doughnuts for a cinnamon roll then make his way through the maze of food stalls to the coffee kiosk now replaced by a Crepe's place.

The coffee kiosk was run by a lady named June and she was somewhat insane. Her hair bobby pinned and hair netted, her face overly painted into a grotesque mask, she would bark at him in a high voice. He would order a four cup carafe and then sit down at one of the round tables near the kiosk. The other tables were filled with writers employed and otherwise. He would soon be joined by the Franklin Bugler and Huck Fuck. Every day they would sit, drink coffee and do the crosswords puzzle.

Once a week there would be a gathering of old Hollywood directors at the other table and after a time all the locals came to know each other. The place was calm and peaceful. Tourists would stream by but to the locals it was if they were just part of the natural scenery.



"Imagine a coffee maker that will deliver a coffee shop quality coffee in under a minute. No messy grinds to deal with, the coffee comes in disposable pods. One button and you no longer have to go to all the trouble of going to the local coffee house and dealing with the lines and the wait. The Krups Home Cafe does all this for you."

He imagined a time when his morning ritual was different. He couldn't do the crosswords puzzle online. He couldn't crack wise with the Bugler and Huck at home. The Franklin Bugler was gone. He decided to put on a song that the Bugler loved. My how things had changed. He sipped his coffee and smoked and before him he saw that big sweet sweaty man and he was filled with love.

Can I Say It Doesn't Taste Good? Is That Okay?

It was another smoldering summer afternoon in the north San Fernando Valley. The trees in Randy's backyard were sick with fruit. Peaches and plums of many varieties. Randy loved the Satsuma plums but that didn't stop him from getting rug burn on his chin from the friction of the peach's fuzz.

The boys were pre-adolescent and had begun to tire of the usual fort making and hole digging of their youth. How many years can you dig for China before you realize you will never make it? The swimming pool with its twelve foot slide was a big distraction but the water didn't flow well anymore and it really hurt when they would slide down, the day too hot to keep the slide well lubed.

Randy's dog April, a meek black Labrador most times, would bark incessantly at any swimmer one time taking a nip out of Scotty Gold's ear. They had learned to swim in that pool when they were toddlers, their parents so afraid they might drown. Never swim alone, never swim after eating, they had tested and smashed these dictums and now where ready for bigger challenges. But what to do?

Years had gone by with very little to change the activities available to Randy and his friend. It would all change that evening. Randy's father, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Lab, came home with big news. He brought Randy and his friend into the T.V. room and connected a telephone line to it. After a few moments there were words on the T.V. Words as if coming from a typewriter. The boys were nonplussed and did not share Randy's father's sense of satisfaction and excitement. It was dinner time, although at Randy's house it was called supper, so Randy's friend went home.




After dinner that night, the sun still hanging on and the temperature still heavy with numbers Randy's father took Randy to the sporting goods store next to the Hughes supermarket at Devonshire and Balboa. It was here that Randy got gifted with what was to become the new love of his life; a pellet rifle.

Randy's friend came over the next day and watched as Randy leveled his new weapon and destroyed every manner of can and bottle. Randy's friend understood the shooting of cans but the bottles could be traded in at the store for a nickel and there was always the need for a nickel to buy a candy bar or popsicle.

Randy's friend had chance to explode a bottle and a can every now and then but Randy didn't like to share his new passion. Randy's friend's feelings were a bit hurt as a child's feelings are sometimes wont to be and so he made himself scarce for a week or so.

When Randy's friend returned he found that the bottles and other inanimate objects no longer held sway with Randy's growing hunger for destruction. Randy was glad to see his friend and excitedly showed him his new fascination. The two boys sat in the backyard and Randy made them sit quietly. A crow landed on the highest branch in the Peach tree and alit there. Randy lifted the pellet rifle and focused his aim high into the tree drawing the crow into his sight. Randy's friend became excited at what might transpire but strangely Randy calmed. Randy was still as could be and then there was a little pop as Randy pulled the trigger and the compressed gas propelled a pellet from the rifle. The crow flew from its perch but only a few feet.



It plummeted to the ground in a clump of black feathers. Now Randy was electric. He looked to his friend and beamed.

As they went over to survey the final resting place of the crow Randy's friend saw that the crow was not alone. There were other crows and sparrows too. He saw a mourning dove, a hole in his eye. Randy's friend wanted to kill a bird too but Randy only let him try once and he missed.

That summer Randy sat in his backyard and protected the fruit trees with great vigor. His friend stopped coming around.

It wasn't until a few years later when they started smoking pot together in that backyard that they really became friends again. Many years later Randy's friend would have dealings with a Raven and at that time he remembered those hot summer days of his youth and the mound of dead birds.

Cora Stop Your Damn Door Banging

The clothes piled high and filthy on the basement floor. The washing machine had been on the edge for almost a year and now it had fallen over into the abyss and would be lucky to make it as scrap metal. He had run out of chonies the week before and had been free balling ever since. A week in and even his jeans were ripe, they smelled of ass and worse. Something needed to be done and quick.

The laundry pile was an ungainly mess and it's contents ran the gamut from clothes, to towels and sheets and back again. As he surveyed the situation he felt a pang of fear in his stomach. It was just too much to handle. As he stood there dumbfounded, she walked in.

"Holy shit babe, what the eff is all this about?"

"Why do you say eff when I know you mean fuck?"

"Because the eff word is gross."

"I know but when you say effin this or eff that I hear in my head fuckin' this and fuck that."

"You shouldn't swear so much."

"But effin is just like swearing, you mean to say the same thing."

"But I don't that's the point."



He fell to his knees before the mountain of soiled fabrics.

He grabbed either side of his head and just sat there in a panic.

"Why are you freakin' so hard, they're just clothes?"

She didn't get it. She didn't see that the situation was way too much for him to handle. There were many situations he was suited for but this particular one wasn't on that list. He was overwhelmed.

"Gee babe it's not that big of a deal."

"What am I supposed to do?" he screamed...

"For starters why not just separate all this into little piles, one for your undies, one for towels, pants, shirts, no big deal."

"Then what am I supposed to do the fucking washing machine is fucking god dammit broken!" He was bugging so hard she half expected him to bust into tears.

"Whoa babe, mellow out. Just do that and then we'll figure out the rest."

With great reluctance he began to separate the clothes and put them into genre defined piles.

There was a predominance of wife beaters and crime fighters. He made a pile of ironic tee shirts and then one of Levi's jeans. All the towels and sheets made there own small mounds.

"Finished now what?" he said still holding on to his exasperation.

"What are the most important things you need to wash."

"Underwear, socks and jeans."

"Go get a Hefty bag and your laundry soap.

"Now put your undies socks and jeans in the bag and follow me."




Later that night after he had showered he put on some clean underwear, a clean tee shirt, and then some blue jeans. It felt good, he felt really clean. She came in the room and saw him. He looked at her and it all made sense. This was why the were good together.

She knew an apartment building to break into. She acted like she belonged there when they were interrupted by one of the tenants. She looked out for him.

"Oh thanks sweetheart. You are the best." he said with great sincerity.

She came over to him and sat in his lap.

"Rub my back babe, c'mon harder you know where...ugh...ah...oooooh."

He rubbed at her shoulder blade the same one he massaged every night. This was their trade off.

"Why is your back always sore?"

"It's that effin job babe...I swear really, fuck my boss."

The Straight Shooter Dogleg Left

Here's the poop.

Sufferwords lost a piece of electronics. A swell replacement piece of technology is being hurried via modern delivery methods as these sufferwords are committed to...well...not to paper but to this new fangled future machine you now are sitting before.

Sufferwords wants you to know that there is a segment of you that doesn't read but they do so enjoy the Sufferimages. For you readers of words be assured that there are indeed a flood of new sagas to be revealed. To you oglers of the Sufferimages rest easy the new piece of technology will restore all of Sufferwords powers and you too will have much to view. Hooray indeed.

As a gift for your patience I am offering a one time only look at Sufferwords. This look into the world of Sufferwords comes from the Hemmingway era and in of itself is an anomaly. If you think this will aid in your ability to track Sufferwords we are sorry for this look is now sadly outdated.






Sufferwords has a ton o'love today and he hopes you do as well. Madam Butterfly concurs.


.................................................................................................

Hey Didn't They Film Swingers Here? Part VIII

Marty walked in the front door and gave it a good slam as he came in. This was another one of his signifiers. He was home. He had entered the house and Elaine was now sure to be aware of the fact. Marty had always had this unknowable sense of doom. It wasn't as if there were any omens to give his precognitions verification but he knew that some un-nameable horror or horrors were just around the corner. He was always waiting for the next shoe to drop. It never had nor were there any real warnings but in his mind and in his soul the time would come he just wasn't sure when.



Elaine heard the door slam just as she had heard the car horn. She was glad Marty was home and she was also glad that he had given her his warnings. There had been times when she needed the extra few moments that these alarms offered her. Marty wasn't concerned with her drinking because Marty didn't know of it. It wasn't as if she were a real lush it was just that she felt she needed a little spiritual lubricant to deal with her days. She wouldn't get smashed she would just 'loosen her wiggle' as she liked to think of it.

Marty stood in the entryway and dropped his keys onto the antique oak foyer table. This was second nature, he was on autopilot. He moved to the kitchen and although he wasn't thirsty he made himself a glass of iced tea. Although he was unaware he was giving Elaine even more time. Did he really think that there was someone right now escaping out the back door? Was it that bass player? Didn't he trust Elaine? He had none of these thoughts but deep inside him they were alive and controlling his actions.

"Elaine, Elaine I'm home." Marty shouted with a casual force. Elaine was sure to hear him now.

There was no response so Marty made his way upstairs to the bedroom.



Elaine closed her eyes and quieted herself. She was well practiced in this act. Why if she was so pleased that Marty had returned did she go to such great lengths to feign sleep? She laid there waiting for she knew Marty would soon enter the room and come to her. He would see she was asleep as he had so many times before, a lifetimes worth, and careful not to disturb her rest he would pad over to her and place the lightest of kisses on her forehead. Elaine would pretend to stir slightly, purr, then return to her manufactured slumber.

Marty settled into his Barcalounger. A part of him was relieved to find Elaine asleep but a part of him wanted to speak to her. A part of him wanted to tell her how much she meant to him. How he couldn't live with out her. It was the same broken record that played over and over in his head.



There was a golf match on the television and Marty began to watch. He had tried golf and found very little success. Perhaps if he had mastered golf he would have made more of himself. Wasn't the golf course where all big business was done? Wasn't that why bankers, lawyers and doctors were all such avid golfers? Weren't those exclusive country clubs where all the successful people were members the height of respectable society? Couldn't he have done things differently? Perhaps...

It was almost dark out when Elaine finally lifted her head from the pillow. She had actually fallen asleep and now as she sat upright she wiped a hand across her brow and rubbed at her eyes. The grogginess was profound and she struggled to gain her feet.

As Elaine approached the den she heard Marty. Marty's snoring gave her comfort. The Barcalounger was tilted back and on the television the Sunday news. She came to Marty and returned his kiss. She had time for a trip to the garage.

'What on earth to do for dinner?'

The Morning Has Pancake Eyes

Four wheels and all of them touching the road at least for the time being. Two doors dented and swinging and smiles tearing from ear to ear.

The line at Washington Mutual was surprisingly short. This branch at the corner of Hollywood and Vermont was peopled with the denizens of the neighborhood mostly Armenians and hipsters. The Armenians he could handle.

The bank had been transformed recently and in the process the concept of the 'teller's window' had evaporated. Now the teller's stood out in the open at little islands. 'Whatever became of privacy?' she thought. True the way it used to be, what with the thick bullet proof glass and all, you would most often have to scream to be heard but at least there was the illusion of privacy.

They waited patiently but they were impatient. He was always impatient when it came to money and he was oft times impatient with the way she spent it. This time it was her check they were there to cash. As they stood in line he noticed the bank had set up a little play area for the toddlers. There was a miniature plastic jungle gym type of apparatus but it didn't seem to be working. Two little boys ran willy nilly pulling on the stantions that defined the queue, knocking them over, their mothers nonchalantly not paying them any mind.

He had suggested going to the check cashing place next to the Vista but she had opined that it would be a waste of money. This check was solid. It was drawn on a Washington Mutual account and she had I.D. why pay the 3% up the street. He thought it would be faster. She didn't say it but what she really feared was the check cashing joint calling her Mother to verify the check. There was something a little embarrassing when the check cashing place would make that call. It just seemed so desperate. Why the hurry? Why not just deposit the check?

There were only two ahead of them in line. Then there was one. He watched someone need assistance retrieving money from the automated cash dispenser and he thought...'I wonder if this re-design is to save the bank money because it is more ergonomic or is it because this design makes the bank much harder to knock over?'

A woman, Armenian, dressed in the dark blue of Washington Mutual motioned to them from across the room; it was their turn. They made their way through the middle of the islands choosing not to walk around the sides this struck him as an interesting invasion of privacy and he got off on it.

"What can I do for you?"

"Well" she said, "I'd like to cash this check."

She handed the teller the check. He stood and watched and smiled.

"Do you have an account with us?"

"Ummm, no I don't. Is that a problem?"

"May I see some I.D. please?

She pulled her driver's license from her back pocket and handed it to the teller.

"I see this license is expired do you have any thing else?"

"I'm afraid I don't."

"Could you wait here just a moment?"

The teller walked over to a desk across the room and handed the check and her I.D. to a person who was obviously a supervisor. They both looked at the check and then back at the couple.

He looked at her and thought he saw her heart break. He put his arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze.



The car took $35 dollars of super and they bought a carton of Kools and then were off.

Excuse The Interruption

Again they conspire.

Again they lay way waste to the best intentions.

Again they steal the thoughts.

Again they burn and leave only barren landscapes.

Again they wish you would go away.

Again they added high fructose corn syrup to the biscuits.

Again you needn't question them.

Again there is no parking on Tuesday mornings.

Again I can't get a word in edgeways.

Again you won't pick a restaurant to eat at.

It will all change tomorrow



..........................................................................................................................................

Sufferwords At Home With Smart Kevin

The ventilator wheezed.

"Doctor."

"Yes, Nurse."

"The patient doesn't seem to be responding to conventional treatment. I'm afraid we are looking at the trauma progressing beyond current protocols and if no remedy is found it is sure to become catastrophic."

"You think so do you?"

"Why yes I do. Is there any regimen that we may have overlooked that might give the patient a better chance at survival?"

The Doctor removed his white lab coat, hooked it onto the back of the closed door then took a seat in a chair at the Patient's bedside. He leaned over and pulled a small trashcan closer and then used it as a foot rest. His casual demeanor was in direct contrast to that of the serious and harried Nurse's.

"Let me think for a moment."

The Doctor picked up the Patient's hand and then tilted his head back. He closed his eyes. The Patient's hand was still and clammy. He massaged the hand and then quieted himself.

The Nurse was beside her self.

"Doctor!"

"Shhhhh...please."

The Doctor saw behind his closed eyes phantasmagoric colors spinning and flashing. He saw back through time and to an image of his mother, her mother and then further back. He saw open wheat covered fields and hills peppered with small fir trees. He saw the coastline and then the open ocean. Rolling undulating waves and sea swells.

And then it was dark. Blackness devoid of all interference. He floated there in this place in absolute quiet and stillness.

Then one by one stars began to sparkle. Faster and faster, more and more then, the whole of the darkness became electric. The stars made patterns and hinted at some sort of numerology. Questions and answers. Answers and questions.

There it was. A small piece of lead. A bullet lodged near the Patient's lung. He saw the bullet leave the Patient's body and enter the barrel of a gun. He saw the gun return to a coat. He saw the gun removed from the coat. He saw the bullet removed from the gun. The bullet returned to the box of shells it came from. Then the shells back to the store shelf. He saw the box of shells returned to the factory and into raw materials.

He needed to know his enemy if he were to fight it.

In his hand the Patient remained still. The Doctor opened his eyes.

"Nurse what do you think would happen if they were to just stop selling handguns for five years as an experiment?"

"Doctor, we are losing the patient."

"Nurse, do you think it would help at all. I just wish we could do that, just five years and then make a decision."

"Doctor that will never happen."

"No, you're probably right. But we can hope and pray can't we?"

"Doctor, prayers don't work."

"You think not?"



"I know prayers don't work."

"Well then Nurse this patient has no chance at survival."

The Nurse did not speak.

The Doctor did not speak.

The Patient did not speak.








sufferwords apologizes for leaving you this week
he is sure it hurt him more than you

Don't Just Sit There - Eat Something

He had never been to jail before.

He had been arrested and taken to a local precinct or three, if he had been conscious he would have a better recollection but he hadn't been and initially as far as he knew he had only been to the Van Nuys jail where he had woken up.

He had never been in deep just holding cells in local precincts. This time would be different.

Weeks after that original arrest he found that on the day he was picked up he had been taken first to Rampart Division, then to Northeast before landing in Van Nuys.











His only remembrance of that day was being woken up and being escorted from the jail. It was later made known that he was shipped about from jail to jail as the police tried to track down a technician to draw his blood.

How he ended up being arrested was a long and gruesome tale better suited for someone else's recovery memoirs. For him at this time that part was very unimportant. What was important was the miracle of the Snickers Bar.

She sat with rapt attention as he tried to weave a compelling tale of his weeks stay in Los Angeles County Jail. He regaled her of the intake process...

"So you're straddling this long wooden bench, actually it was less a bench than a slightly wider balance beam like the girl gymnasts use, and you're ass naked."

The visual played in her head and she couldn't help but laugh.

"It's true, bend over pull up your balls and cough. A whole room of guys, I guess they make you cough because if you had put something up your butt it might be forced out by a cough."

He went on and on and she listened asking a little question every once in a while more to egg him on then to show any real interest.

"This was the old County not the Twin Towers." He said with some sort of twisted pride.

At the end of the intake they took him to what was called the Penthouse. A large room, hundreds of metal bunk beds and every one full. There were no sheriffs in the room, no they watched from a small room at the far end. He didn't know it upon his rude entry but the dorm was broken up into three sections, Latino, Black and Wood. He found out he was a wood; peckerwood.



His first morning he awoke on the top of one of the bunks in the middle of the room. He had slept but just barely. It was hard to get comfortable with the metal bunk cutting through the thin rubber mat. As he looked up he saw a Latino guy staring at him.

"Hey man let me have your shoe laces."

His first thought was to jump from the top bunk, scissor the guys neck with his legs, take him down to the concrete floor and pummel him. He had heard that in jail you have to thrash with the first guy to step to you or else you get played for a bitch.

The thought quickly evaporated as he saw his bunk surrounded by a group of Latinos all looking at him and most likely the first guys back up.

"I suppose you need these shoelaces more than I do." As he unlaced his beaten up Nikes and handed the newish laces down.

"You're lucky I don't take your shoes."

Within a minute his shoelaces were being thoroughly washed in the sink.

"Alright, I get it. Jail was fucked but get to the point. You said this was a story about a magical Snickers Bar."

So he cut ahead to the end of his stay. He passed over the entire week and even how he found his way back to the Penthouse after a week in a much quieter module.

He had landed in the Penthouse at a decent hour this time and everyone was awake. He sought out the Woods and grabbed an upper.

"I hadn't eaten for a week basically and I was starving. I was talking with a guy and he was eating a black market Snickers and I would surreptitiously grab the crumbs off the floor it was that bad."

As he sat in his bunk the little Central American crack dealer to his right started up a conversation. He was reading a book on how to get ahead in business and said he had a real good plan how to sell stems with his crack when he got out. It sounded logical.

"I was kinda moaning I guess so he asked me what was wrong and I said I was starving. So this sweet guy said he would give me a dollar for a black market Snickers if I gave him my breakfast the next morning. No sweat I would gag on the food in there anyways."

So he headed over to the Latino gang section dollar bill in hand to buy the Snickers.

"Hey man I want Snickers." He said with as much feigned bravado as he could generate.

"Give me a dollar."

He handed over the dollar and the Latino gangster reached under his pillow and took out...CORN NUTS. He threw the Corn Nuts to him.

"No man, Snickers."

"I aint got Snickers."

"Snickers man."

"No Snickers." And with that the gangster began to get up.

"So I went back to the Woods and told them what had happened. The most inked up menacing Wood gangster of all, this guy from Long Beach, I think he was there for beating up his girlfriend and her father, stands up and takes the Corn Nuts from me. 'I'll take care of this shit', and he walks off."

She had heard his story's before and even though this tale was proving out to be good one she couldn't let on that she was really that interested.



"Yea, and so what the whole place broke into some sort of Jailhouse rock?"

"No. Actually the Long Beach dude went all the way back into the corner furthest from the sheriff nook into the Black guy section and dealt with them on my behalf. He was gone maybe five minutes but when he came back he had a Snickers Bar."

"Wow."

"Well yea wow. It was the best most magical Snickers Bar ever."

"I bet. What happened to the little crack dealer?"

"I don't know I got kicked out to work furlough the next morning before breakfast. You can find humanity in the strangest places."

"I guess you can. Hey can I have a snuggle?"

He blushed as he made his way over to her.

Hey Didn't They Film Swingers Here? Part VII

The phone was ringing and couldn't be ignored. Elaine broke her gaze off and moved from the window. 'Who could it be now?', she thought, 'Why can't they just all leave me alone?'.

The phone spit bile and rattled with disgust at Elaine as she unsteadily moved down the hall to pick it up. As she pulled the receiver to her ear a shift occurred. Her whole demeanor changed and as she went to speak she was all sunshine and flowers.

"Hello...good afternoon."











"Elaine, hi."

"Oh, hi Sal."

"Listen Elaine, how ya doin?"

Sal had been the manager at the restaurant going on fifteen years now. Marty still treated him like the new kid but Elaine knew better and watched herself around him.

"Oh I'm good Sal, I'm rrrealy good." Elaine heard herself slur that word and quickly tried to snap herself straight. She coughed a bit perhaps to give the impression that word she garbled was a result of it.

"Excuse me I was eating and a bite went down the wrong pipe."

"Sure Elaine, sure. No worries. Listen Elaine, I gotta give you guys the night off on Thursday. There's a movie company throwing a wrap party and they're bringing their own entertainment. It's kinda freaky. The movie built a copy of the restaurant on a sound stage and then had a couple 'a actors play you and Marty or what they say isn't you but it seems pretty obvious."

"Can they do that?"


"I suppose so, I mean that's something you and Marty should look into, but on next Thursday they are having this party and the movie Marty and Elaine are going to be performing. If you want you can come down and see them. I know they could never be as good as you and Marty but it might be worth it for the shits and giggles."

Elaine was a bit taken aback. 'There was no way Sal knew that she had been drinking was there?' She was upset at losing the night's work but she was afraid if she put up a stink that Sal would catch on.

"Well I'll see what Marty has to say."

"Like I said you could come down, they're buying the joint out for the night and I must say they are sparing no expense. They're even bringing in their own cocktail waitresses. I've heard rumors about these so called cocktail waitresses at these Hollywood parties, oh man..."

"Okay Sal. Well thanks for the heads up. Like I said I'll talk to Marty, see what Marty says. Let's let Marty deal with it..."

Elaine began to drift.

"Right Elaine, right. Are you okay?"

"Sure Sal. Thanks for the call maybe it will be fun. Maybe we'll come and see these so called Marty and Elaines."

"That's the spirit. Okay Elaine, I gotta jet. Say hey to Marty."

"Sure Sal.. sure."

The phone line clicked and Sal was gone. Elaine held the phone for a moment before setting it down and just was.

'Wait until Marty gets home, he'll know what to do'.

Elaine replaced the phone on the cradle and then moved down the hallway to her bedroom. As she lay atop the covers and stared at the ceiling she was overcome with a sense of dread. 'What if Marty wasn't coming home? What would she do then? How could she go on?'



Elaine closed her eyes and began to drift off. Just as she was about to go under she heard that familiar sound of the Allante coming up the drive. Marty always gave a short beep before he stepped from the Cadillac. He had always done that with every car he had owned.

Marty pulled up the drive and before he got out tapped the horn. He had always done that. It was if he had always expected to find something that he didn't want to see so as an early warning he would pop the horn. Just in case. On this day he felt the urge not just to tap but to lean on the horn.

Of Lycanthropes And Cheese Logs

Once again Jeannie found herself at Fatburger. It didn't happen all the time but every once in a while, usually coinciding with the full moon, she would end up at Fatburger. It was never her intention to go there. It wasn't as if there was anything wrong with Fatburger or the burger with egg and bacon, no pickles or relish please, that she would order. No it wasn't the food she rued but rather the circumstance that would have her eating alone at a fast food place.

Feeding herself had always been a bit of a problem. She wasn't one to really relish food. Sure she ate it as one had to but it wasn't her favorite thing as it was for so many others. So on that afternoon with her cycle so finely tuned to the full moon she set out to eat something healthy. She had called a few people but they were either busy or not around and so she found herself solo. It was always uncomfortable to go to a restaurant and eat alone. She was tired of the looks and the untoward advances..."Excuse me do you mind if I..." Well yes she did very much.

She thought about the cheap Japanese place on Vermont, the one whose name she never knew, it was clean, and yes cheap but she had been there earlier in the week and it might seem desperate if she went back so soon. All the other places in the neighborhood just seemed so unappealing. House of Pies, Palermos. Mustard Seed, and that ridiculous trendy Alcove across from it. Home, San Sui and Chi Dynasty. She didn't feel like going to Millies or Eat Well. The Bright Spot had become lame. She had eaten Casa Diaz the day before. Her head was spinning.



As the options played themselves out one after another she remembered how in earlier days in this very circumstance she would find herself at McDonalds. She would order two small hamburgers and a small fry and an hour later be sick to her stomach. Never again.

So here she was making the turn off Hollywood onto Vermont and into the Rite-Aid lot and Fatburger. As she opened the door she was happy to see that there was nobody on line and the few people there were already eating. She walked past the row of stools to the order counter. The new internet jukebox played Al Green at a healthy volume. As she looked to her left she could see the prep area and there was a young black girl busily making up a turkey burger. She slapped on the mayo then mustard right on the turkey patty a scoop of diced onion then added relish and pickles. With the top bun in hand she added more mustard a handful of shredded lettuce then a tomato slice then quickly folded it all up in fast food origami and bagged it.

Jeannie decided to eat her Fatburger at the Fatburger for once. She usually took it home but somehow now that she had resigned herself to eating at Fatburger she felt the desire to just be and take in the whole experience. The burger was good, the bacon and egg played harmoniously with the peppery beef. The lemonade was not too sweet and she was really happy when she ate a steak fry she had found among her skinny fries and it wasn't as good as her skinny fries.

She sat and looked out the window to the bus stop on Vermont and watched as the people came and went. For a moment she forgot that it was that time of the month, that the moon was full, and that she was eating alone.

"Excuse me do you mind if I..."

They Will Come Calling

It seems like ages since it's been here...doo doo doo dooooo...

Here comes the sun...



"You know if I had my druthers I would have been Noah and I'm not talking about that faux New York Jew from Noah's Bagels. I mean the real stud who piled all that shit onto his bad ass ocean goer and rode that shit out."

"Oh here we go again it rains a little and you start on one of your biblical tirades. Why don't you just stick to something you know like ex-girlfriend stalkers?'

"She wasn't my girl. I didn't even know her."

"Alright I suppose that was unfair but I don't know why you use biblical references when you know they will cause me an allergy attack."

"Allergy attack. Come on, ideas causing physical malady, since when are we so sensitive? And don't even talk about that other thing, I'm still a little shakey from it."

"It was a year plus ago, why be nervous?'

"I said drop it."

"Geeze touchy."

"Whatever, but can we just get off the topic? Please. Now?"

"Sure, no reason to trip."

"Thanks for reassuring me."

The sun peaked out from behind the clouds. It was almost evening but since daylight savings was back in effect there was still an hour or so of light and the rainy day didn't seem to be such a waste.

They got out of the little BMW 2002 and stood looking north west towards the Griffith Observatory. The Observatory stood white and exaggerated against a verdant hillside that had been darkened by the recent inclement weather.

"I think it is so great that they refurbished the Conservatory. Look the copper domes aren't green anymore they almost look copper."

"Yeah, it was a shame that they let that place slide for so long. I mean James Dean fought with the toughs there in 'Rebel Without A Cause'."

"When I was a little guy we would go to see Laserium there. You know laser beams projected on the planetarium with bad prog rock. We would smoke so much pot. I wonder if anyone paid attention to us. I mean little thirteen year-olds with crimson eyes and the giggles. At the time I thought everyone in the world was watching but now as I get older I never seem to see stoned teenagers. Is it that they don't exist, I'm not looking, or that they just don't operate in my world?"



They moved back down Hillhurst past the Goodluck and rounded the corner to the Vista Theater.

"I think stoned teenagers are like ex-girlfriend stalkers. You may not notice them but they are certainly there."

"Fuck you."

"Fuck me?"

"At least we agree on one thing."

I Am The Walls

Sorry, Sufferwords is on strike.

He asks that you be patient.

Tomorrow the world.




..................................................................................

A Little Money And A Lot Of Trust

He came home to an empty apartment. It wasn't empty of things, no there were more than enough things in that apartment. It was that it was empty of feeling. That apartment was a place. It wasn't his home it was merely a place he stayed.

The neighborhood was nice enough, shade lined streets, cul-de-sacs, nice homes along with a few apartment buildings like the one he was made to call his own. It wasn't so much the actual apartment that so un-nerved him, it was his neighbors. His apartment in another neighborhood might have been a great home but he would never know because it wasn't in another neighborhood it was right here in Cheviot Hills.

He had lived other places and oft times felt at ease and perhaps at home there but he was forced to move by events far from his control and now he found himself in Cheviot Hills. Everything seemed fine upon his arrival. He found a wonderful space at a fair market price. It was close to his work but from the beginning something just wasn't right.

At first he thought the tap water tasted odd so he went to drinking bottled water exclusively. But the feeling continued to grow. It was this strange foreboding which seemed to overtake him. Nothing definite. His showers felt off and so he bathed only at the YMCA. Could it be the water?





It wasn't the water.

Then it all became clear to him. It wasn't his imagination at all. There were big goings on happening and the proof was all around.

He noticed a preponderance of children in the neighborhood. But these were all white children. There was no other ethnicity represented just perfect little Caucasian children. This might not be so odd, this being an upper class neighborhood and all, but the truly mystifying and frightening thing was that they were all mothered of Hispanic women.

There must have been some space alien program or genetic engineering experiment gone awry for all the children in the neighborhood had women of Hispanic descent as mothers. Blond haired blue eyed babies with mothers dark and short.

There were no perfect Hispanic children. There were no perfect Black children. There no perfect Asian children. Just little white kids and their little Hispanic mothers.

He would see them promenading about. The little mothers pushing prams of little white babies. The mothers would congregate and speak Spanish while their children would play together speaking only English.



There definitely was some kind of Stepford thing going on and he wanted no part of it.


As he was packing the last of his things and loading them into his car a lady approached him. She was small and Hispanic and obviously very pregnant. She would be the new tenant.

Rain Delays And Prodigal Returns

"Do you believe that there ever could be a time machine? You know a machine that can manipulate time and space and perhaps transport people to and fro from the past to the future."

"That's a loaded question. Do you mean a physical machine, nuts and bolts, computers and whatever future technologies become available? Or do you mean in an organic notion?"

It was close to nine o'clock and the tiny internet cafe was past closing. A college age girl, cute but not pretty, made it abundantly clear that she was ready to leave so they took their conversation out onto the quiet main street of the off-season seaside town. There was a fog mist and everything was slippery

"Well I guess I mean a machine like in the movies. Maybe a Star Trek like thing that breaks down matter and then beams it somewhere to be reassembled. I mean if that could happen it would be in a sense a time machine because even if time shifted a billionth of a second either way while the matter was being transported than it would still be adjusting time just not in as an extreme way like in the movies."

"I guess that triple shot kicked in because you are speaking faster than is humanly possible."

"Sorry, I tend to talk fast when I'm extrapolating."

"Damn, extrapolating...someone grab me the Oxford's."

"Shut up."

"Okay I get what you are saying but lets look at this from an entirely different perspective. Now stay with me this might get a little fruity. You seem to relate time travel with preconceived notions you have retained after being exposed to it's, time travel that is, representation in popular culture."

"That could be."

"Well try and flip this. What is the most complex machine on the planet today."

"Trick question right? The brain."

"Spot on. So do you think that man can create a better brain then the one he has?"

"Bummer, I see where this is going. I try to get space age and you go spiritual. I suppose you are about to tell me that the mind can travel through time and space and that reality is created in the brain and that matter is merely a tether to the mundane and that you can time travel and astral project and that crystals can center the universal chakra and that carrot cake and earth shoes and maharishi mahesh yogi...and...and..."

"No I was just going to say that the future is in computers and Einstein made time travel mathematically possible and that you shouldn't drink so much gak this late at night."

Hey Didn't They Film Swingers Here? Part VI

It was a short walk and so Marty decided to just make it by hoof the small distance north on Vine to Cactus. He wasn't really that hungry yet. He had planned to spend time with Silvio at the barber shop and then again with the fellas at Pro Drum, so with those two events cancelled he was well ahead of schedule.



There were a few folks lingering about the window at Cactus. At times there could be long lines. Cactus was made up of a kitchen and some streetside picnic tables; there wasn't much to it. The service was good and fast and the food was cheap, bountiful and really tasty. The doctor had asked Marty to stay away from the refritos but Marty felt a little every now and then wouldn't do any harm.

Marty approached the window and looked into the cramped kitchen. It was a different world back there. Two guys surrounded by fresh vegetables, pots of beans, sizzling meats, tortillas, big vats of Jamiaca and Horchata. It seemed very simple to Marty and very appealing.

"Yes." Said the counterman in his thick Mexican accent.

"I'll have a carne asada burrtio con frijoles y queso y arroz y aquagate por favor." Marty loved to order in Spanish he felt it a sign of respect and he did respect these men. "And un carnitas taco y a large horchata."

"That will be six dollars twenty."

Marty unpeeled seven dollars from a wad of bills and gestured to the man to let the change ride.

Marty went to sit on the benches and wait. As he sat there a young kid in his early twenties came and sat across from him.
The kid was the norm for the day at least on the eastside. Curly hair, facial scruff, a new bohemian. Marty thought that the new generation must have no memory of the hippies from the past and now they were trying to be so different that they were morphing into the style of their parents youth. Marty saw a lot of these kids at the restaurant.

"Hey aren't you Marty of Marty and Elaine." The kid said with real glee.

"Sure that's me."

"Oh man that's awesome. I've seen you guys play at the restaurant and you are amazing. I play the drums too. I was just going to Pro Drum but they were closed. I usually have my roadie do it but I gave him the day off because his wife is having a baby so of course I missed the fact that they weren't open on Sunday's. It really doesn't matter I was just going to look at Pearl kits I get them for free, you know they sponsor me but I wanted to look at one for my little brother."

"CARNE ASADA BURRITO - CARNITAS TACO" Came the shout form the kitchen.



For a moment Marty thought to make his order to go but he didn't. He stopped by the salsa cart and filled two plastic cups with pico de gallo. He went back to the table and as soon as he began to eat the hipster started up again.

"You know I love to play music. I am so lucky. I've only been playing for two years and then the first band I join... we make it super fucking mega. If I'm smart I'll never have to work a regular job; crazy isn't it. You know you have it made too. I mean when I'm done rocking around the world and all that I could see myself with a set up just like yours. Get a sweet lady make a little combo and just gig for the fun of it."

What the hipster didn't know is that Marty needed his gig. He wasn't just cruising on royalty checks and endorsements. The kid was starting to twitch Marty under the fingernails.

"Hey kid, listen I'm glad you like the act, that's great but I'm just trying to have a peaceful little bite to eat." Said Marty hiding his growing disgust.

"Oh right, right, No problem man. I was just saying that I thought you were really dope and all, you know playing all that cool ancient music. It's great when you want do that nostalgia trip, dress all gangster, get drunk and pretend its the olden days. Hey didn't they film 'Swingers' at that place? Man that is such a trip. That was a cool movie even though I think those guys were pretty fucking gay."

Marty just dug deeper into his food. He wanted to tell the kid that it wasn't nostalgia that it was just good music but he knew he needn't bother. He knew it wouldn't do any good. For Christ's sake, he saw a room of these kids almost every night and they were the ones paying his bills. No, Marty just ate it.

"Hey man I gotta jet it was so awesome hanging with you. I can't wait to tell the guys that we had a bro down they're gonna bug."

The kid stood up and Marty took him all in. He wasn't a bad kid. Why should he hate this kid just because he had picked six out of six in the lottery. This kid wasn't to blame for Marty's world.



"Right, it was good meeting you too. Why don't you bring your band down some night, I'll buy you a round."

The kid broke into the million dollar smile.

"Righteous. Later."

The kid spun on his heels and disappeared.

Marty sucked down the last of his horchata. It was time to go home.

Back to Elaine.

Save The Candles For The Babies

It's better this way. Now that the novelty has warn off and no one is listening Sufferwords can talk some truth.

Forty-seven times circumnavigating Sol. A quadruple ram, does that mean that the laws as written don't apply to Sufferwords?

You know everything is okay with Sufferwords but don't tell anyone.

No need to celebrate but my gift to you will be brevity.

To any of you who care another look into Marty and Elaine tomorrow.

Goodnight Sufferwords. Sleep tight Sufferwords. May you make it one more year Sufferwords.













And here is a clue for you all; Sufferwords is a rock.

Flatulence Fat Chance

"Yea, I read the op-ed pages."

"So what do you think?"

"I think that there is no way that it matters what I think. I think there is no way to think my thinking is correct. You know the only thing I think I know is that nothing means nothing anymore."

"That's kind of bleak isn't it?"

"Again with the questions. You know I saw I guy wearing a T-shirt today. It had screened on it the slogan 'War Is Over If You Want It' and it pissed me off."

"Why did it piss you off? Aren't you against the war?"

"Geeeze, already with the questions, but if you must know that of course I'm against 'The War'. In fact I'm against the general principle of war but what got me was that slogan. So alright John Lennon arguably a pretty cool dude came up with it but look at what it says, or really what it doesn't say."

"Huh."

"Follow. War is over if you want it, if you want what? War? What is over? So if I want war it is over. I thought the whole idea was not to want war. I can guarantee you I don't know the first thing about grammar but isn't the only noun in that slogan the word 'war'. How can 'it' be over? What is 'it'? I want it. War is not it."



"And you thought all this while looking at this guys slogan t-shirt?"

"Urgh, enough with the third degree. I'm gone?"

"Geeze touchy aren't we?"

"AAAaaaayyyyyhhhhhh"

" ? "

A Strike Of Fire In A Parking Lot

Dr. Vine wasn't a medical doctor but that did not prevent him from making one of the greatest medical discoveries of the new millennium. In fact, he was merely a P.H.D. in his chosen field of Botanical Genetics.



His was an interesting arc. As a young man you would not have been able to separate Dr. Vine from the other stoner kids running wild in the well heeled streets of the Westlake Village area just due west of Los Angeles County. He did the normal things, listened to annoying music, surfed, hung out, but on the other hand he did surprisingly well in his school studies.

When it came time to pick a college he had very little trouble deciding; Hawaii. Waves all year round and the kind bud as well.
So one more stateside punk rock show and he was off.

He did swimmingly in the world of academia. He aced his classes and took jobs as a teacher's assistant. He surfed, had his own show on the college radio station and smoked copious amounts of herb.

As graduation neared he found no need to disturb his program so he just transitioned into graduate school. He loved botany, hoping one day to create the ultimate form of marijuana. He chose Botanical Genetics because he felt this the best path to his ultimate goal.

As he went on he took a job in a research lab run by one of his old professors. In this lab they were doing research into a vaccine for Malaria. They seemed to already have the vaccine but it was expensive to produce and they needed a cheap way to create the vast amounts needed to treat this disease in the Third World. He learned that the reason there was no vaccine already existing for Malaria was because there was not enough money to me made for the major pharmaceutical companies to warrant their interest. The poor got Malaria and they didn't have the money to pay for an expensive vaccine so a cheap one needed to be found using public research.



The lab did their research using the Tobacco plant. They were trying to clone a Tobacco plant to carry the gene that was needed to make the vaccine. Dr. Vine learned that they used the Tobacco plant because it was the most studied and thoroughly documented plant on earth. A perfect control subject. The lab made great strides and then got funding from the World Health Organization. Through it all Dr Vine surfed, smoked and listened to questionable music.

Years passed and the Masters ceremony came and went. He kept on going now towards a P.H.D.

In time the P.H.D. was achieved. A Doctoral thesis on some minutiae concerning spores and reactions or some such arcana.

The lab he was working in was shut down and he was left to fend for himself. In time he began to sell high power microscopes for money but he still surfed, listened and puffed. He found that he missed the lab and with a little begging and finagaling found himself in a new lab at the University.

A few years went by and in those years a new threat, perceived to be worse than malaria for it effected the rich and poor alike, befell the planet. The Avian flu struck slow but began to evolve and then became a new plague. Millions died and the world was at a loss as to what to do.

Dr. Vine put himself on the case and began to experiment. He took the elements of the most effective Avian Flu anti-virals, injected them into birds and then the birds that became resistant to the virus were culled. He removed the bird livers and extracted a gene from these birds he knew to be effective. He then cloned the anti-viral bird gene with his tobacco plant.

At the University of Hawaii there was no shortage of willing subjects. Dr.Vine tried making a tobacco serum but it was ineffective. He tried to isolate the effective elements but this too did not work. It was only when the tobacco itself was smoked that the real effects were transferred. The smoker became immunized but only for a short while. The subject needed to continue smoking the cloned tobacco for the immunization to remain effective.

A plan was hatched. At his direction and with the guidance of Phillip Morris there was an initiative set forth by Dr. Vine that would supply enough tobacco to for every man, woman and child in the effected countries. People of all ages would smoke these cigarettes and become immunized. As each outbreak would spring up the cigarettes would be introduced until the Avian Flu would be in a controlled state not unlike the Polio outbreak from the century before.



Cigarette smoking became culturally acceptable once again. Even young children were meant to smoke and did so.

As for Dr. Vine. His name was never heard by the public nor did he receive any of the recognition he so richly deserved. His vaccine was stolen by the mega pharmaceutical Phizer, who in turn with the tobacco industry, went on to extort an ever increasing ransom from the world's nations.

Breath Deep.

Breath Deep.

American Idol Found To Transmit Opium Through The Airwaves

"Dude, I just saw this documentary about 9/11. Ah shit dude it was a total set up. Nothing they have told us was true."

"You are tripping Charlie Sheen style for sure bro. Fucking Osama did that shit and Bush is even a bigger idiot for not nailing his ass."

The joint fell from Aaron's hand and made its way to the floorboard before Jason could grab it.

"That's what they want you to believe but check this shit, there have only been two instances of planes crashing and then leaving no wreckage. One was on 9/11 and the other was on, Duuuuuude...9/11."

"Whatever bro pass that shit."

"Also, the plane that nailed the Pentagon, fucking no way, no wreckage and they showed this mad computer mock up thing where the hole left in the Pentagon couldn't have come from a huge fucking jumbo jet."

"Yeah, and so."

"I'm telling you man they just kept rolling out trippy thing after trippy thing. All those 'let's roll' cell phone calls from the macho plane, shit you can't make a cell phone call from thirty thousand feet. Blow mind, right."



"Shit maybe you're right my cell phone doesn't even work in Palmdale."

"Oh man there is just so much fucked up shit I can't even remember it all but the best part is that they show the Twin Towers getting nailed over and over again. I know I'm not supposed to get off on watching that shit but really it is just so bad ass watching that shit fall. The movie says it was a controlled demolition and they show the charges blowing it up...dude it is so rad."

"Fuck I don't know about all that conspiracy shit but I agree it is rockin' to watch that shit come down. I could watch those planes crashing into those buildings on a loop. Dude, I so do want to check that shit."

Jason takes a match from a matchbook, pulls it apart at the end and fashions a crude roach clip.

"Dude how does it end, I mean who was behind that shit?"

"Well I can't say. I was watching it on Google movies it was called 'Loose Change' or something, anyways they were going on about how there was something like a hundred billion dollars in gold in the basement of the World Trade buildings, that it was missing and..."

"Then what fucker?"

"Well I put it on pause cause I had to pick up the girl at work and when I got home she bum rushed and put myspace on so I have to watch the whole thing over to see the end."

"Dude, let's go get a sack and watch it together."




"Sounds good. Fuck the government you know what I'm saying."

"Yea, bro for sure."

The Lodger

Blood in, blood out. Blood in, blood out.

"Why do you guys always have to talk about it? Can't you just leave it alone."

Lady was tired of the riffing between Rich and Double L.

Lady wasn't one of 'them'. To her it was just so much last years news. For Rich and Double L, it was as fresh, and alive, and bubbling just under the surface. Scary monsters and super creeps indeed.

"Before I knew it I was in full geeze mode. It was like I was an automaton. I had been busy doing the various things one does when smack, straight all hands on deck go time. And you were there with me."

Rich looked at Lady, Lady just looked bored and rolled her eyes.



"Shit Rich, I know that one. And then you are there going like, what the fuck happened, I mean how did I get from here to there. It's so fucking puzzling."

"Right, so then I load up some coke and you know it just magically is in the rig and in my head I'm thinking shit I'm sharing a needle with Double L, doesn't he have Hep C, oh well too late to worry about that. Coke, fuck I hate shooting coke."


"That's it, you guys are so fucking gross." Lady gets up and leaves the room.

"I'm not piling on here but I got loaded in my sleep last night too. Fucking way off how shit happens that way."

"If you say we were getting high together I'm going to have to roll up my sleeves and check."

"No bro."

"Well the last bit was I was out in the Valley with some girl and I go out front of her house, you know quiet street and all and who should show up but Sobes. It is tacitly understood that he is there to do my woman. He leaves a tripped out orange Plymouth Duster with roof mounted desert lights parked in the middle of the street."



"Hit me with the Freud stick."

"So I'm there in the street and I think well fuck, I shot dope, maybe shot coke, may as well have a cigarette too."

At that point Rich reaches in his pocket and takes out a box of Marlboro reds. Double L looks to him and back at his arm.

Rich roles up his sleeve.

The Sound Of Gunfire And Lawn Blowers

The Valet Parking Attendant had never driven a Porsche before. The truth was up until the day before he had only really driven his brother's broken down Fiat. He had never valet'd before.

Being that this was only his second day on the job he was still a little unnerved by the whole affair. There was always a small crowd watching as he backed the various autos in and out of the street drop-off area in front of the trendy Bistro.

The Porsche had a tight gear box and the Valet Parking Attendant held his breath as he fished around for first gear. He knew the slightest grind and a tip would be out of the question. He also knew that for some of these wealthy folk his existence was marginal at best and any effort on his part to enter their consciousness would be severely frowned upon.

He had no problem parking cars for a living. When he was a young man, before he immigrated to America, he had read a book where one of the protagonists had parked cars for a living.

It was during that heady time of the Velvet Revolution. The streets had come alive and everyone felt as one. After one peaceful but incredibly vocal street protest he went with his fellow students to a cafe where they often gathered.



As they sat and smoked, drinking strong black coffee and dreaming of the new Czechoslovakia, he become enamored of a beautiful young girl. Her hair was cropped close and jagged like a boys yet her small frame was unmistakably feminine. They talked and talked. She told him of her dreams and wishes and he did the same. They kissed. They planned to meet again and it was a long and exciting week until this happened.

Again they met at the cafe. The crowds were gone and it was just the two of them. She smiled at him.

"I brought you a gift."

"You are so sweet. I am so glad to finally be here with you."

She handed him a package the size of a book wrapped in plain brown paper. He began to open it.

"Please don't. Wait until we are apart and then you can open it."

They spent the afternoon together. They talked and laughed.

It was right. They hid from the rain and sat together in silence for hours.

Just as they were about to part she kissed him one last time.

"I'm leaving Czechoslovakia tonight. My father feels we have to go now. He's afraid that things might take a turn for the worse like they have in the past. He is so afraid of change. I tried to explain things to him but he's old and won't listen. I'll write you."

Then she was gone.

The revolution came and went and he lived on. There was something in him that she put there that he couldn't let go of. His course was set and she had given him the map.

When he finally made his way to the U.S.A. he never forgot her or the book she had given him. As soon as he could he made his way to Lowell, Massachusetts. He visited a grave and poured from his bottle of red wine. In all his years on the road he never found the America he had read about in that book.

The Range Rover still smelled of marijuana as he went to bring it curbside.

Hey Didn't They Film Swingers Here? Part V

Elaine walked downstairs into the kitchen. She moved over to the cabinets, opened one and retrieved a large colorful plastic tumbler. Elaine held the tumbler to the light and looked through it, turning it as if it were some sort of crude kaleidoscope.

In the garage she saw where dear Marty's car had been. She thought it sweet how Marty loved that '93 Cadillac Allante. There was a small bit of sand on the smooth grey concrete where the frontend would rest. Elaine thought of Marty and how loyal and dear to her he was and then she refocused on the business at hand.

Under the workbench there was an old crate filled with rags and Elaine began to dig through it. She straightened up and there was a bottle in her hand. It had a distinct red label and the liquid inside was as clear as water. Elaine poured an amount into the tumbler and took a nice long draught. Then she added a touch more.

Marty pulled the Allante on to Vine and headed south. The area was changing rapidly. At the corner of Sunset and Vine there was a big new mixed use development. Marty had heard that Magic Johnson the Laker owned it, perhaps if Marty had been smart and segued into real estate, perhaps then he wouldn't be in this fix.

It wouldn't be long until another of Marty's favorite places would disappear under the wrecking ball. The Juices Fountain on Vine, his favorite breakfast juice spot, was to be demolished for another of these 'new Hollywood' developments. The new place would probably have one of those antiseptic Jamba Juice abominations thought Marty. What ever happened to Wallach's Music City, The Brown Derby? Marty saw it all go away and he was afraid he was on his way out too.

As he rolled past the old Greyhound bus station and saw the couple of down and outs still hanging around as if the ghost of the place could still offer them escape, he forced himself to snap back into the present. To his left he saw Cactus his new taco place, true it wasn't as good as the Dos Burritos that used to sit in the parking lot of the Pantages Theater but it was surely close. Marty looked over at the line forming and thought to swing back around after he saw the guys at Pro Drum.

As Marty u-turned at the Hollygrove home, the orphanage forever trumpeting Norma Jean Baker nee Marilyn Monroe's stay there he excited at the abundance of parking in front of the drum shop. Marty sprung from the Allante. He loved to shoot the shit with the guys, they gave him respect, they appreciated the fact that he was, as they said, old school.

Marty bounded to the front door. It was Sunday. It was closed.

Elaine stood before the bathroom mirror and watched as she brushed her teeth. She brushed and brushed every part of her mouth and her tongue as well. She topped if off with a long gargle of mouthwash.

Elaine padded a little unsteadily down the hall stood and looked out the window. She lit a cigarette and waited for Marty.

No Funny Stuff Got It

It's me.

Yup, no hiding behind diffuse and subterfuge. Sufferwords in your earhole..ahem...eyehole.

Just a little recap for those of you just joining the broadcast. In Chapter One, Sufferwords was unsure and oft times misguided in his attack and reasoning. It was at times painful to watch but for those of you who stuck around we're sure the payoff has been well worth your patience.

Chapter Two found Sufferwords truly discovering what the hell this was all about and we think he did some of his most vibrant and original work. True at times the verbiage was a bit rough but the intent was pure and this might have been his creative peak, well so far anyway.

We know that some of you are partial to the later era works and we don't fault you in your assessment but to the real watchers, Chapter Two is the most exciting period to witness either in their original publication or through the marvelous Eblog archives.



As we consider Chapter Three we see great strides made in the visual realm. The words continue to suffer in great amounts
but the images begin to sing in a much purer tone. Some feel that Sufferwords became slightly lax in his storytelling relying instead on the pictorial to put his point across and there indeed may be some merit to that argument but let us reason thusly, with the photographic element in extreme assent, were the words in a less drastic descent, thereby making the overall quality level in truth higher than it was previously? Perhaps the visual was carrying more of the load but the load was still of a superior quality.



And now we come to Chapter Four. Is Sufferwords merely a parody of Sufferword? Has he fallen into convention and convenience? What does he really know and should we still care?

What we do know is that Sufferwords has grasped and donned the mantle and has committed himself to being Sufferwords when all other words refuse to suffer. He promises to continue to suffer and share this suffering on a daily basis for as long as the word suffer has any meaning to him. Phew...

Oh and don't miss the next installment in the 'Hey Didn't They Film Swingers Here?' serial, starring Marty and Elaine right
here... tomorrow.


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