GARGOZO MANUSCRIPT

Another January and there I was,  once again queued up on the  sidewalk in front of  Aldama  Elementary, vying for a kindergarten spot for my grandson.  A year ago I arrived 19 hours prior to registration, this year it was 22 hours but I split the time with my son Michael.  As difficult as it may be to describe the set of circumstances that could bring anyone to do such a thing once, let alone twice, I’m going to take a crack at it nonetheless. Over several decades the combined efforts of the LAUSD and the UTLA have driven the parents of hundreds of thousands of kids to desperation.  Parents have turned their backs on a free but inferior public school in their own neighborhood to find an alternative that offers some hope for their children’s education.  The rush to secure a spot at a private, charter or out-of-area school, has parents participating in lotteries, camping out prior to registration, and if successful, possibly adding up to 10 ...

I drove around with my dad’s ashes under the front seat of my car for six months.   It  took me that long to drum up the courage to carry out his wish to have his ashes dumped in the  Pacific Ocean .   My parents regarded funerals as pagan rituals but at some point they evidently walked down to where Norwalk Avenue meets Eagle Rock Blvd and made arrangements for cremation.   A week or so after my dad passed away I was summoned by the mortuary to drop by and pick up his ashes.  When I walked through the front door I was engulfed by the morose and ominous environment typical of mortuaries.  All of the  windows had been rendered useless by impenetrable layers of drapery left over from  Gone With The Wind .       I presumed the somber, poorly-lit interior was intended to promote gloom and discourage conversation. Should anyone ever have the balls to actually speak, such as "I'm having a heart attack", you can be well...

At 8:14 p.m. on a rainy Thanksgiving eve in 1971, a passenger aboard a Boeing 727 flying from Seattle to Reno, parachuted from 10,000 feet into total blackness above a remote wilderness area, and disappeared.  The man the news later identified as D.B.Cooper had begun this adventure by using a fake bomb to empty the plane of passengers and one flight attendant at the Seattle airport.  He then demanded and received $200,000 and 4 parachutes, and instructed the flight crew and the remaining flight attendant to fly to Reno and refuel before proceeding to Mexico City. He wore a business suit, tie with a tie clip, dark Northwest Airlines flight #305 on Seattle tarmac awaiting money  and parachutes prior to taking off for Reno. glasses, and  was described by both flight attendants as a quiet, calm and polite gentleman in his mid-to-late forties.  While on the ground in a darkened cabin waiting to take off for Reno, he ordered a 2nd bourbon and...

photo frompinterest.com My dad took one look at the television and said, "Christ, she looks like a water buffalo."  My mother had insisted on watching the Grand Ole Opry and my dad was trying to make her regret it. The performers on the screen were a trio called the Browns comprised of  Bonnie, Maxine and Jim Ed Brown,  singing their number one single "The Three Bells " .  I had heard the song on the radio but never seen it performed in front of an audience.  I had always assumed the song was a parody of the shameless maudlin lyrics found in popular songs th at passed for music in the mid 1950s such as "The little White Cloud that Cried" by Johnny Ray and Gogi Grant's "Suddenly, There's a Valley".   It wasn't until the Browns were almost finished before I realized, "My God, they're serious." It definitely caused some confusion for me in the development of my understanding of humor.  I had begun to "get...

Main Street; Sardis, Mississippi - Photo from flickr.com My first visit to the Deep South was 120 years after the Civil War ended yet it was painfully obvious who had lost.  I left Memphis and drove south for a little over an hour on Interstate 55 to reach the town of Sardis , Mississippi which lies just north of the Little Tallahatchie River .  The town was first settled in 1844 and grew to become the county seat when the Panola County Courthouse was erected there in 1871.  The town's original name of "Danville" was judged to be too lengthy by U.S. Postal officials so the local folks switched to Sardis - one of the Seven Churches of the Apocalypse from the New Testament Book of Revelations.  Sardis' population peaked a hundred years later in 1970 at 2,300 but has declined 10% every decade since.   I-55 is Mississippi ’s main thoroughfare and a two-hour drive south will take you from Sardis to Jackson , the state capital.  Although...

Image from tera.enmasse.com A post-Victorian period drama that chronicles the lives of some snooty wimps who occupy the household of an  aristocratic xenophobic family – what’s not to like? I bailed on this show a few seasons back when I became unwilling to tolerate another scene where the only characters offered up were the soulless upper crust of British imperialists or a sprinkling of well-meaning imbeciles.     I’ve seen reviews that praise the show for its “satire”, which I guess leaves the door open for others to find elements of slapstick in D.W.Griffith's The Birth of a Nation .   The subtlety of the series’ supposed satire may have gone unnoticed by United States Congressman Aaron Schock who had his congressional offices done over as an homage to the lavish Downton Abbey interiors.   I am confident that ex-Congressman Schock will some day look back and appreciate the irony (a requirement of satire) in having been forced to resig...

A potentially significant scientific breakthrough took place less than three feet in front of me but I never realized it at the time.  I was sitting on the toilet watching a handful of ants travel back and forth via a ten-foot-long path that I’d seen them use often during the summer.  They entered the bathroom by way of a window, crossed over to the shower, proceeded down the side of the shower door and then traversed westward along the edge of the bathtub before disappearing into the faucet. Photo by Alex Wild I assumed at the time that the ants were out to retrieve water from the faucet.   I later learned a nts have a separate stomach which they can use to transport water back to their nest which accounted for the two-way traffic on the path.   As I watched the traffic, certain patterns of behavior became clear.  When an east-bound ant, heading back to the nest, encountered a west-bound ant, there were two things that took place more than 95% of the...