GARGOZO MANUSCRIPT

I can recall three experiences where for a brief moment I was perfectly aligned with the forces of nature.  I came to understand at an early age that some events that are considered to be supernatural are in fact natural.  It's only due to the rarity of these events that they appear to be beyond the normal world.  When I was a little kid living with my parents there were a lot of books in our house.  My mother started out as a librarian and later managed retail book sales for Nash's department store in Pasadena.  She was always bringing home books for a "quick look see" but few were ever returned.  My mother favored no particular genre and our collection spanned the full range of the Dewey Decimal System.     I was partial to some of the books that fell into the Dewey 200 classification that covers philosophy and religion.  I wasn't able to read yet but I discovered a few books with lots of pictures that I found tota...

Having just finished five years of fine arts college courses, there I was, just like Elliot Gould in Little Murders , taking photographs of shit.  I can't recall how Mr. Rosen got my phone number but he called, explained the work he wanted done, and we agreed on a price.  Once I shared with Hartwig the details of the phone conversation he insisted on coming with me.  A few days later Hartwig and I drove out to a residential neighborhood in Pacoima to meet the man who had hired me and take the photographs he wanted.  Mr. Rosen lived with his family in a three-bedroom house located at the northeastern end of the San Fernando Valley.  When Hartwig and I arrived and got out of the car we were met by the foul stench that plagued the residents of Pacoima during the 1960s.  The ongoing problems with noxious odors had been attributed to various sources including pesticides stored in warehouses, decomposing corpses at the Pacoima Mausoleum, seve...

Scientology’s flagship church is still located on Sunset Blvd one-half block west of Vermont .  The “Scientology Cross” is displayed on the curb-side marquee and their building’s façade.  In the 1970s I worked directly across the street in the Blue Cross building before they moved the company to a classier neighborhood.  The Blue Cross building featured a cross facing Sunset that was twenty feet tall and painted onto the exterior of the 5 th floor of the building. Blue Cross of Southern California started in 1937 and adopted the same symbol still used today by Blue Cross and Blue Shield partners throughout the USA .  The cross is a blatant attempt to subliminally influence the California Franchise Tax Board and the public at large.  Until 1996, despite being neither a charity nor a religion, Blue Cross of Southern California was classified as a non-profit entity for tax purposes.  This decision was based on section 501(c),(4) of the IRS requi...

If you were to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, would it be from the west side facing the ocean, or from the east side facing the city and the bay?  Compared with the decision to end your life it may seem trivial but it's a choice that you'd have to make before you could jump.  In fact, over the years some individuals had been observed spending over an hour walking along both sides of the bridge before they finally dove off.  Others have carefully crossed the bridge's five traffic lanes to avoid being killed by a car and reach the side from which they've chosen to jump.  After all, it's the very last decision you're ever going to make and it deserves some consideration.  "Which side of the bridge?" was typical of the topics I debated with other consultants while we sat around waiting for projects.  In the 1970s, I worked for a consulting firm in Culver City and when we were between assignments we were said to be "on the bea...

The drive to LAX to catch a flight to Munson's would give me just enough time to play the daily double at Hollywood Park.  In the 1960s the best route from my place on Mt. Washington to the "track of lakes and flowers" was to drive west on the Santa Monica Freeway and then south on La Brea.  Decades later a better option was created when they opened the 105 or Century Freeway.  At least it was better until 2013 when they did away with Hollywood Park.  The "daily double" used to be a wager that applied strictly to the first two races on the card.  You had to place your wager prior to the start of the first race and your single ticket had to include the winners of both races to collect.  Picking lots of horses in both races obviously increased the chances that you'd win but doing so could make the ticket cost more than the payoff.  Although you were less apt to win, the best return came from picking only one horse in each race....

TROUT HAVEN GAZETTE   Fish Feeds Multitude by Teresa Owen-Cooper & Marcus Montoya Redding, California July 25, 2009 – Local church elders held interviews long into the night to verify reports that Elizabeth Herndon, a resident of Los Angeles, had managed to feed hundreds of anglers with Jason Hadley's prize winning catch at the annual Trout Haven Nude Fishing Tournament. When contacted by phone Elizabeth explained, "I started making lunch for me and Jason and I could tell there would be a little extra.  After I invited some of the other contestants to join us I could see a line starting to form, so I resorted to a few special techniques using a roux, some stuffing and other gimmicks. " Originally from Northern California, Elizabeth went on to state that learning how to stretch a meal did not come to her through traditional means.  "It was the years I spent working as Helen Keller's personal chef that really made it possible,...

"Fiction is dead, reality has strangled invention." Red Smith, New York Herald Tribune (October 4, 1951), written the day the New York Giants' Bobby Thompson hit a walk-off homer to take the National League Championship away from the Brooklyn Dodgers.   The 1960s and early 1970s saw a seemingly endless string of mind-boggling events take place.  All of which were made even more incomprehensible as they came on the heels of the repressed and sterilized 1950s.  If a novel had presented the same series of situations as its plot line it would be considered too farfetched to deserve any reader's attention.    Thirteen years of madness began with JFK's January 1961 inauguration speech when he asked the country to help him "fight war itself" and then promptly increased the American Military "advisors" in Vietnam from a few hundred to 16,000.    Then in November of 1963 when JFK was killed no one thought anything ...

My invite from Dr. Palmer came via U.S. Mail: The 1979 North Las Vegas Biennial Enduro Friday evening March 22 ·          Opening Ceremony Saturday March 23 Tennis – cutthroat format, best of 3 sets Pissing for distance Ambidextrous bowling – 1 st ball  left-handed, 2 nd ball right-handed Craps – Union Plaza Casino, $25 buy-in, last man standing  Sunday March 24 Batting cage – switch hitting, 10 pitches per side One-eyed miniature Golf Blind-folded pinball Two-deck pinochle Competitors: Dr. Palmer, Deming, NM Munson, Alhambra, CA Gardiol, Eagle Rock, CA The invite was no stranger than the circumstances that had led up to it.  Dr. Palmer and Munson had both relocated to North Las Vegas and were living next door to each other.  Surprisingly no effort was made by the authorities to prevent this from taking ...

Munson's cookie jar rescue from the race track and the shit shower at the Frisco zoo were two hippo-based items posted earlier.  The only rational thing left to do now is include the Bubbles story and wrap up the hippo trifecta.  Lion Country Safari was a drive-through animal preserve located in Orange County in the 1970s.  The 100-acre site was eventually replaced by the Los Olivos Village containing 1,750 apartments and completed in 2014.  Lion Country Safari closed in 1982 never having attracted a sufficient number of visitors to make a go of it.  Several incidents that generated bad press helped bring it down. In addition to bad press insurance claims and premiums shot up when the monkeys started ripping off rubber trim from vehicles.  A few of the lions began dining on some of the other four-footed residents and had to be quarantined.  An Indian elephant named Misty seriously injured one of its handlers two weeks before...

When I walked into Carey's apartment I could see the phone cord disappearing into the stack of sofa cushions.  The previous day we had buried his telephone in the middle of six cushions and then topped it off with a dining room chair to help stabilize things.  The mound was the result of an experiment to see if we could deaden the sound of his phone which had been ringing almost non-stop for several days.  Carey had tried to break things off with some girl after a brief fling but she was determined to get in the last word.  She had Carey's phone number but thankfully did not know where he lived.  Carey could have simply disconnected the phone but that wouldn't have been as interesting.  The phone had continued to ring while we were constructing our cone of silence and I had asked Carey if I could give it a try.  Carey said, "It's pointless.  This girl can't take a hint.  But sure, go ahead.  Knock yourself out." I picked up the phon...