Re-Boot: “On The Street Where I Lived”

A House on Bruning Street Today

I love this post. Not because I wrote, but because it brought back good memories of a happier simpler time in America

‘Three-Nine-Six-One-Three Bruning Street Fremont California: 1966-1968.

 

Funny how I still remember the street address when I cannot remember my mother’s birthday, or what I had for Sunday Supper last week, or my second wife’s maiden name, or who won the World Series last year.

All the houses on Bruning Street were brand new. And they were all alike. But their alikeness did not dampen my spirits, especially since mom and I had left the moldy old garage apartment across town. I had finally escaped that place and the Ghost of that Murdered Turkey.

Seems the entire neighborhood moved in on the same summer weekend: Floodgates opened—lots of activity—trucks coming and going, grown-ups schlepping boxes, kids (potential buddies?) playing and yellin’ and runnin’ wild, dogs untethered, barking, yipping, yapping, chasing. Just general mayhem all around: very excited we all were to be living the American Dream. Norman Rockwell should have been there.

A House on Bruning Street Today

A House on Bruning Street

All the houses had small front yards, slightly larger back yards, but no fences. In fact not really proper yards yet. No lawns, just California clay, hard-packed and untenable.

This would soon be remedied. By today’s standards for suburbia the dwellings were quite modest. No McMansions these. Each house had three small bedrooms, one bathroom, smallish kitchen, tiny dining area, and small living room. That was it, but compared to our garage apartment, Mom and I had moved into the Taj Mahal. Everything smelled gloriously of fresh paint, fresh earth, and promise. I immediately picked a spot in the back yard for my garden. As a kid, I was never happier than when I was digging in the dirt, much to the chagrin of my much harried mother and my blatant hatred of regular bathing.

Mom and I settled in quickly. For a few days, I shyly & longingly watched some of the other kids playing around up the street. My shyness prevented me from going up and introducing myself, but I had a secret weapon: some small incendiary devices. Actually they were just marble-sized balls that when slammed into the pavement would explode like firecrackers. Cannot recall where I had procured them, but they suited my purpose rather elegantly. Nonchalantly I walked over to the sidewalk one day and commenced to fling them down, one at a time. The ensuing explosions captured the attention of the group of kids up the street and they all came stampeding over to investigate.

Attention Getter

Attention Getter

This was how I broke the ice and made my first friends on Bruning Street. Call it an old magician’s trick, if you will.

“Wow! Those are so neat! Where’d ya get ‘em?”

“Just got ‘em,” I said, ever so cool.

“Can I try one?”

“Well… Yeah, but be careful; they’re not for kids, ya know.”

“What’s your name?”

“Lance. What’s yours?”

Thus the beginning of some of my beautiful friendships.

As summer turned to fall and the lawns and juvenile trees and fences and dog shit sprouted up on Bruning Street, I had cemented many friendships. Most of the kids were very close to my age. We never extended our circle beyond the confines of our street. Later I would break that unwritten code by becoming best friends with the kid who lived in the house bordering mine in the back. His name was Ricky Martinez. His people came from Puerto Rico, but he didn’t speak Spanish. He was a few years older and a bit of a gangster and we hit it off from the start. Right then I began my propensity of always living double lives. When I really wanted mischief I sought Ricky. Other times when it was baseball or playing army or watching Saturday morning cartoons I was after, I kept to my Bruning Street buddies.

Once school started (fourth grade for me), I made even more friends who could never mix with my Bruning Street friends or my Gangster friend Ricky. So now I had three lives to juggle.

Of course we all had bicycles and would fearlessly ride them all over town: Sometimes to the public swimming pool about four miles away and sometimes to the mall and the movie theater also about four miles distant. No one worried after our safety because we were never in any danger. We also had skateboards as second ‘cars’ and Ricky convinced me to paint mine silver. His reasoning was that when we eventually were confronted with rival gangs (Ricky and I were the only ones in our ‘gang’, but we did attempt some recruiting) we could turn the silver side of the skateboard toward the rival gang and blind them into submission with the sunlight reflected off our boards. We never encountered any menacing ‘rival gangs’, but we were ever vigilant and ready for them, should they appear.

My ‘Bruning Street Gang’ was so very much like the kids from South Park that it amazes me when I watch that TV show today. We cussed blue streaks amongst ourselves and had very strong and learned opinions about everything going on in the world. There was Randy Francin and his little brother Paul who lived right across the street. There were the DuBords who lived down the block. Craig the elder, Tommy the young ‘un and their older sister Kim, who looked a lot like Julie Andrews.

There was ‘Steve-Our-Hero’, a lanky sixteen year old blond-haired kid who looked like someone right out of a surfer movie. He lived about four doors down from me and was worshipped by us all. He had a grown-up job delivering newspapers and it was high honor to be ordered by him to bike down to the Seven-Eleven and pick him up a sixteen-ounce Pepsi. (I kept the bottle caps from my missions as souvenirs, almost like saintly relics in fact, and I kept them displayed in my bedroom) Our undying ambition was to grow up to be Steve.

A few doors down in the opposite direction lived another sixteen year old: A GIRL. Her name was Linda. She was also blond and I was madly in love with her. She once showed me her Janis Joplin album cover: Cheap Thrills Big Brother and the Holding Company and she was the coolest girl I had ever known.

Cheap Thrills

My Baptism

(actually the only girl I had ever known) I wanted to marry her, but all I was allowed to do was worship, which I did shamelessly. One day, she actually let me listen to the album. We sat on her bed silent through the entire record. My life changed that day. It reads corny, but sometimes corny is the best read. She was my first unrequited love and my first elusive butterfly.

Why she and Steve never hooked up, I have no idea. They were our royalty and it just didn’t seem right to me that they were not a couple. If I could not have her, surely Steve could. The two coolest people I knew and they were each too busy for the other. I don’t think they even knew of each other. Shakespeare could not have written it better.

Linda had her nemesis who lived at the far end of the street. Her name escapes me, but she was the same age as Linda and a brunette. Linda confided in me one day that she had gone over to her house and caught her sitting on the toilet picking at her pussy hairs. Oh my god! I had never heard a woman say ‘pussy’ before. I was certain that she had never said that to anyone but me and I fell even more in love with her. It was my little secret: Linda had talked dirty to me.

OK. You had to know I just could not resist. For all you Musical Fans out there, my apologies to Rex Harrison, Audrey Hepburn, George Bernard Shaw, et al.

This one is for you Linda, wherever you are:

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0udu4KYv1zI

We had our pecking order. Hell, we even had our South Park ‘Kenny’, a young Hispanic kid who lived next door to me and always wanted to hang out with us ‘older kids.’ He never died, by the way, but we did torment him mercilessly, once almost conning him into drinking piss out of a Pepsi bottle. Would have worked too, if we had had the presence of mind to let it cool down before offering it to him. I cannot recall whose piss it was. Might have been a group effort.

Occasionally we would get into fights within our group, invariably causing us to split into two factions. Loyalties were often divided. These little insurrections could go on for weeks at a time, but eventually there would be a truce and a general détente. For fighting we had strict protocol. If one kid desired fisticuffs, he was required to proclaim in a loud and clear voice:

“I choose you out!”

The opponent had two choices: He could say, “I accept,” and get it on, or he could walk away, but no one ever walked away. The shame of not accepting such a challenge would have been career ending and would mean certain banishment forever.

The fights were furious but generally brief with not much harm done to anything but the pride of the loser. I won some of these encounters and I lost some. I guess on this front I was generally batting about five hundred.

One day I was forced too young into manhood. Ricky was a kleptomaniac. I knew he had this failing, but I kept overlooking it, denying it actually. He kept stealing stuff from me. Nothing important but it hurt me deep inside. We were best friends. One day he was ‘pumping me’ (which means I was riding on the back of his bicycle) over to his house. My bike had a flat.

Anyway, I was seated behind him and I saw a toy top of mine bulging out of his pocket. I could not feign denial any longer. When we got to his house, I mustered all the character I had and I broached this subject,

“Rick,” I said, “You know you are my best friend, right?”

“Yeah of course.”

“Well, it hurts me to tell you this, but I know you have been stealing stuff from my house.”

“Whaaat?! Bullshit!” he said.

“Ricky, I saw my top in your pocket on the way over here.”

Top of The Day

Top of The Day

“Oh… Yeah… Well here. Take it back,” he said, digging it out of his pocket.

“Ricky,” I said, “It ain’t about the top. It’s about friendship. And trust. I don’t care about the fuckin’ top. I care about our friendship.”

He gave me his best ‘I’m sorry look.’ And then I insisted he keep the top, but I think that was the beginning of the end of our friendship. That was up until then, the most painful conversation I had ever had to initiate in my young life, but it had to be; I just could not let him slide. Or me either. I would have hated him if I had not confronted him. The hate would have just festered and poisoned me. Somehow I instinctively knew this.

I loved all my friends good and bad and I was loyal to a fault.

These happy times rolled on along for a couple of years; then I was overtaken by events and my life would never be the same.

I had to go, you see, but I did miss the Saturday Cartoons.

To Be Continued. Here

Oh Why Not? Why Not Re-Cycle/Re-Post It?—“On The Street Where I Lived” My Baptism of Fire. “Supper-Time–And The Liver Is Greezy”–You’ll Have To Scroll Down…

My B’Lov’d Mother:

‘Three-Nine-Six-One-Three Bruning Street Fremont California: 1966-1968.

Funny how I still remember the street address when I cannot remember my mother’s birthday, or what I had for Sunday Supper last week, or my second wife’s maiden name, or who won the World Series last year.

All the houses on Bruning Street were brand new. And they were all alike. But their alikeness did not dampen my spirits, especially since mom and I had left the moldy old garage apartment across town. I had finally escaped that place and the Ghost of that Murdered Turkey.

Seems the entire neighborhood moved in on the same summer weekend: Floodgates opened—lots of activity—trucks coming and going, grown-ups schlepping boxes, kids (potential buddies?) playing and yellin’ and runnin’ wild, dogs untethered, barking, yipping, yapping, chasing.

Just general mayhem all around: very excited we all were to be living the American Dream. Norman Rockwell should have been there.

A House on Bruning Street Today

A House on Bruning Street

All the houses had small front yards, slightly larger back yards, but no fences. In fact not really proper yards yet. No lawns, just California clay, hard-packed and untenable.

This would soon be remedied. By today’s standards for suburbia the dwellings were quite modest. No McMansions these.

Each house had three small bedrooms, one bathroom, smallish kitchen, tiny dining area, and small living room.

That was it, but compared to our garage apartment, Mom and I had moved into the Taj Mahal. Everything smelled gloriously of fresh paint, fresh earth, and promise.

I immediately picked a spot in the back yard for my garden. As a kid, I was never happier than when I was digging in the dirt, much to the chagrin of my much harried mother and my blatant hatred of regular bathing.

Mom and I settled in quickly. For a few days, I shyly & longingly watched some of the other kids playing around up the street. My shyness prevented me from going up and introducing myself, but I had a secret weapon: some small incendiary devices.

Actually they were just marble-sized balls that when slammed into the pavement would explode like firecrackers. Cannot recall where I had procured them, but they suited my purpose rather elegantly.

Nonchalantly I walked over to the sidewalk one day and commenced to fling them down, one at a time. The ensuing explosions captured the attention of the group of kids up the street and they all came stampeding over to investigate.

Attention Getter

Attention Getter

This was how I broke the ice and made my first friends on Bruning Street. Call it an old magician’s trick, if you will.

“Wow! Those are so neat! Where’d ya get ‘em?”

“Just got ‘em,” I said, ever so cool.

“Can I try one?”

“Well… Yeah, but be careful; they’re not for kids, ya know.”

“What’s your name?”

“Lance. What’s yours?”

Thus the beginning of some of my beautiful friendships.

As summer turned to fall and the lawns and juvenile trees and fences and dog shit sprouted up on Bruning Street, I had cemented many friendships.

Most of the kids were very close to my age. We never extended our circle beyond the confines of our street.

Later I would break that unwritten code by becoming best friends with the kid who lived in the house bordering mine in the back. His name was Ricky Martinez. His people came from Puerto Rico, but he didn’t speak Spanish.

He was a few years older and a bit of a gangster and we hit it off from the start.

Right then I began my propensity of always living double lives. When I really wanted mischief I sought Ricky. Other times when it was baseball or playing army or watching Saturday morning cartoons I was after, I kept to my Bruning Street buddies.

Once school started (fourth grade for me), I made even more friends who could never mix with my Bruning Street friends or my Gangster friend Ricky. So now I had three lives to juggle.

Of course we all had bicycles and would fearlessly ride them all over town:

Sometimes to the public swimming pool about four miles away and sometimes to the mall and the movie theater also about four miles distant. No one worried after our safety because we were never in any danger.

We also had skateboards as second ‘cars’ and Ricky convinced me to paint mine silver. His reasoning was that when we eventually were confronted with rival gangs

(Ricky and I were the only ones in our ‘gang’, but we did attempt some recruiting) we could turn the silver side of the skateboard toward the rival gang and blind them into submission with the sunlight reflected off our boards.

We never encountered any menacing ‘rival gangs’, but we were ever vigilant and ready for them, should they appear.

My ‘Bruning Street Gang’ was so very much like the kids from South Park that it amazes me when I watch that TV show today. We cussed blue streaks amongst ourselves and had very strong and learned opinions about everything going on in the world.

There was Randy Francin and his little brother Paul who lived right across the street. There were the DuBords who lived down the block. Craig the elder, Tommy the young ‘un and their older sister Kim, who looked a lot like Julie Andrews.

There was ‘Steve-Our-Hero’, a lanky sixteen year old blond-haired kid who looked like someone right out of a surfer movie. He lived about four doors down from me and was worshipped by us all. He had a grown-up job delivering newspapers and it was high honor to be ordered by him to bike down to the Seven-Eleven and pick him up a sixteen-ounce Pepsi.

(I kept the bottle caps from my missions as souvenirs, almost like saintly relics in fact, and I kept them displayed in my bedroom) Our undying ambition was to grow up to be Steve.

A few doors down in the opposite direction lived another sixteen year old: A GIRL. Her name was Linda.

She was also blond and I was madly in love with her. She once showed me her Janis Joplin album cover: Cheap Thrills Big Brother and the Holding Company and she was the coolest girl I had ever known.

Cheap Thrills

My Baptism

(actually the only girl I had ever known) I wanted to marry her, but all I was allowed to do was worship, which I did shamelessly. One day, she actually let me listen to the album.

We sat on her bed silent through the entire record. My life changed that day. It reads corny, but sometimes corny is the best read. She was my first unrequited love and my first elusive butterfly.

Why she and Steve never hooked up, I have no idea. They were our royalty and it just didn’t seem right to me that they were not a couple.

If I could not have her, surely Steve could. The two coolest people I knew and they were each too busy for the other. I don’t think they even knew of each other. Shakespeare could not have written it better.

Linda had her nemesis who lived at the far end of the street. Her name escapes me, but she was the same age as Linda and a brunette. Linda confided in me one day that she had gone over to her house and caught her sitting on the toilet picking at her pussy hairs.

Oh my god! I had never heard a woman say ‘pussy’ before. I was certain that she had never said that to anyone but me and I fell even more in love with her. It was my little secret: Linda had talked dirty to me.

OK. You had to know I just could not resist. For all you Musical Fans out there, my apologies to Rex Harrison, Audrey Hepburn, George Bernard Shaw, et al.

This one is for you Linda, wherever you are:

We had our pecking order. Hell, we even had our South Park ‘Kenny’, a young Hispanic kid who lived next door to me and always wanted to hang out with us ‘older kids.’

He never died, by the way, but we did torment him mercilessly, once almost conning him into drinking piss out of a Pepsi bottle. Would have worked too, if we had had the presence of mind to let it cool down before offering it to him. I cannot recall whose piss it was. Might have been a group effort.

Occasionally we would get into fights within our group, invariably causing us to split into two factions.

Loyalties were often divided. These little insurrections could go on for weeks at a time, but eventually there would be a truce and a general détente. For fighting we had strict protocol. If one kid desired fisticuffs, he was required to proclaim in a loud and clear voice:

“I choose you out!”

The opponent had two choices: He could say, “I accept,” and get it on, or he could walk away, but no one ever walked away. The shame of not accepting such a challenge would have been career ending and would mean certain banishment forever.

The fights were furious but generally brief with not much harm done to anything but the pride of the loser. I won some of these encounters and I lost some. I guess on this front I was generally batting about five hundred.

One day I was forced too young into manhood. Ricky was a kleptomaniac. I knew he had this failing, but I kept overlooking it, denying it actually. He kept stealing stuff from me.

Nothing important but it hurt me deep inside. We were best friends. One day he was ‘pumping me’ (which means I was riding on the back of his bicycle) over to his house. My bike had a flat.

Anyway, I was seated behind him and I saw a toy top of mine bulging out of his pocket. I could not feign denial any longer. When we got to his house, I mustered all the character I had and I broached this subject,

“Rick,” I said, “You know you are my best friend, right?”

“Yeah of course.”

“Well, it hurts me to tell you this, but I know you have been stealing stuff from my house.”

“Whaaat?! Bullshit!” he said.

“Ricky, I saw my top in your pocket on the way over here.”

Top of The Day

Top of The Day

“Oh… Yeah… Well here. Take it back,” he said, digging it out of his pocket.

“Ricky,” I said, “It ain’t about the top. It’s about friendship. And trust. I don’t care about the fuckin’ top. I care about our friendship.”

He gave me his best ‘I’m sorry look.’ And then I insisted he keep the top, but I think that was the beginning of the end of our friendship. That was up until then, the most painful conversation I had ever had to initiate in my young life, but it had to be; I just could not let him slide. Or me either. I would have hated him if I had not confronted him.

The hate would have just festered and poisoned me. Somehow I instinctively knew this.

I loved all my friends good and bad and I was loyal to a fault.

These happy times rolled on along for a couple of years; then I was overtaken by events and my life would never be the same.

I had to go, you see, but I did miss the Saturday Cartoons.

To Be Continued. Here

I love Ever’Thang Whut Puks Its Own Self Out, Out Of MY Texas! I May Be Drunk. Sorry If This Post Is All Fukked Up. I Might Fix It Later, But Do Not Set Yer Watch…

Or Use Yer TI CalculatoR!

Kinda, Sorta, Maybe, Updated, Expanded, Or Not….More Janis! A’gain Mama!” (Apologies to Janis Joplin)

Sorry If This Post Is All Fukked Up. I Might Fix It Later, But Do Not Set Yer Watch… Or Use Yer TI CalculatoR! Kinda, Sorta, Maybe, Updated, Expanded, Or Not….More Janis! (Native Texan Gal!–Port Auther, Nother–Mother-Fucker) “I Got Dem Ol’ Time Turtle Blues Again Mama!” (Apologies to Janis Joplin)

Janis Joplin / Big Brother and the Holding Company –

Kozmic Blues

I Love Her!

“Combination of the Two”

I Love Her!

I Love Her!

“Freedom’s Just Another Word For Nothin’ Left To Lose—

I’d Trade All My Tomorrows For A Single Yesterday”

I neesds to sleep!

I need to find a Place to Sleep!

A Soft Place to Sleep

Lay My Mind

And

My body

Down

“Freedom’s Just Another word….

For Nothing Left To Lose”

I Love Her!

I Love HER!

I Fucking LOVE Her!

I Love Her!

I Lovve Ever’Thang’

‘Bout her!

*****

****************

Yet another bit gleaned from my longer post of 29 Jan 2014. 

“‘The Time Has Come,’ The Walrus Said, ‘To Talk of Many Things:

Of Murdered Birds, Of Turtles Green, and Hippies Sellin’ Rings.’”

My mother was probably

“The Original Hippy Chick.”

When Haight-Ashbury was in full bloom, she would not shut up about it until we ventured there.

(Just the two of us. By Ourselves. Mother and Child–You could do that in ’67–No Worries. Don’t try it today. Please Don’t try it today.)

I knew a little of the ‘Hippy Culture’ back then, yet had no desire to experience it ‘up close an’ personal.’

Mom did.

I MISS HER.
I Miss My Mother
I MISS HER FREE SPIRIT

So one bright sunny Saturday morning we packed up the Ol’ Rusty Rambler and headed off to ‘Frisco and Haight-Ashbury.

Okay. Not Really Our ACTUAL Car

But close. Damn close.

To say that trip opened my eyes would be an understatement bordering on felonious.  I was shocked, awed, amazed, bothered, bewildered, enlightened, enchanted, enthralled, and all at the same time.

The whole day was a ‘Whirling Dervish’ of attacks on my senses and emotions. I remember clearly all the people with their long hair, colorful clothing, love beads, head bands, peace signs, guitars, laughter, and smoke coming from everywhere and not smelling at all like the smoke from the cigarettes my mother used to light up.

But most of all, I remember

The Music 

Music was ubiquitous and oh how I did love the music.

We walked up and down those streets for hours and I do believe my mother stopped and purchased some trinket from every single hippy-trinket-seller she visited, which by my estimation, would have been all of two hundred of them.

Not really being a trinkets-man myself, I purchased a pair of small green turtles that I wanted to rescue from a hippy life I was certain they were not well suited for. 

I actually remember telling the turtles during the ride home not to worry; that they were safe now, and also apologizing to them if I had left any of their family members behind due to the fact that my meager allowance did not afford me the luxury of benevolence to purchase freedom for the whole lot of them–Even though I did beg mom for an advance to do just that.

The turtles ended up having a fine long Turtle – Life and were probably the only two green turtles to ever migrate from 

California

 

to

Texas

Texas suited them and me, better. Much better.

Author’s Note: I am a NATIVE Texan. Born in Ladonia, 1957

(Wasn’t MY fault I was forced to live in California for too many years.)

***

As Always, Thank you for visiting and reading. All comments are welcomed.

Wishing Happy Days Ahead to all My Friends.

***

Bonus Added

Added Bonus:

“But you know I’m very well protected –

I know this goddamn life too well.”

***

“Yeah, but I’m gonna take good care of

(Insert your name here)

Yeah,

Honey, ain’t no one gonna dog me down.

Alright, yeah.”

Goddamn!

How I Do Love Yu!

Janis Joplin!!

Allow Me to Count the Many Ways

Video Credit:

https://www.youtube.com/user/pridden76

*****

More Bonus

OnUs!

https://www.am-fm.online/janis-joplin-the-music-that-defined-a-century

SOUTHERN COMFORT(S) ME

I LOVE SOUTHERN!

Cliff Notes/Teaser Version:

Full Album.

Must Listen,

or if not,

Why Are You Even Here?!

Vid Cred for Share:WCW

***

Now some might say Brother Dave was a racist and they would probably be right, but I am posting these bits because I love the way he talks politics and specifically about “Daddy Bird.”

I really don’t think Bro Dave was racist in his heart. Most things he said were tongue-in-cheek, but that is just my opinion.

“See? I don’t drink alcohol, ’cause I don’t want no fat liver… but that ain’t no testimony. You may have your liver to do as you please.”

“But you talk so much politics!” I’m sick and tired of politics!”

Author’s Note: I love Brother Dave becuz he was always so up-beat—Never Down! Just a Happy Man (and a drug addict)–which killed him in the end, but we have his work to cherish and to hold. And to revisit again and again and again. Caint take that away from me!

***

Lyndon Johnson, Just Another Schmuck Lookin’ Out for His Nuts

 

What I’m re-reading right now:

Yes! I’ve Read Them All!

220px-Robert_caro_2012

***

Added Value:

PREACH IT STEVE!

My Brother!

In  Disarm & Harm Those 

MOTHER-FU*KERS! “

“i cAME hOME wITH A bRAND-nEW pLAN”

(yEAH! aLL  cAPs KEY IS sTILl wREwReCkR’D) noT To meNenTinTIOoN sPEeil chEk IS fUcKeD

White Trash?

C’est Moi!

I LOVE YOU BROTHER DAVE!

YOU ENRICHED MY LIFE!

YOU ROCK JERRY!

“Knock Him Out John!”

BAREFOOT JERRY & THE CDB!

ELVIN! (NOT ELVIS!)

MORE ‘ELVIS!’ HAHA!

***

My Sweet Lil Thang

“You Mess With Her, You See A Man Get Mean”

Stevie Ray

****

JANIS!

MY LOVE

BOBBIE G!

MAIN LOVE – OF – MY – LIFE!

This song Haunts My DREAMS AT Night

Because I am Suicidal!

BUGS!

SOUTHERN WOMEN!

Bugs, Don’t Fu*k Around With Them

(They Doan Play!)

THANK YOU Lynyrd!

***

JUST A LIL’ OL’ BAND FROM TEJAS!

MY MAN!

Marshall Tucker Band!

Don’t Get Much More ‘Southern’

(Or TEXAN-In-Spirit)

Than This!

***

Author’s NOTE:

I’ll Get Around to Crediting All The Vid Sharer’s

But NOT

Now!

I am too Drunk to BE BOTHERED!

RIGHT NOW!

AT THIS MOMENT!

***

My Darling!

My Texan!

My TEXAS DARLING!

Tanya!

You’re Such a Slut!

I LOVE You For That!

***

And of course: Jackie Venson

****

Yeah!

I’m Southern!

***

Related For Steve Earle!

Sellin’ Dope and Whiskey!

***

“So I Had One more For desessert”

Kris!

(Brownsville, Texas)

Poignant

Too Much So!

DaughterS

I need!

OnE!

One thAt willl Love Me!

N’ MaTTer Not

Vid Cred: Who Gives a Shit at This Point?

Obviously I don’t because I am breakin’ my Own Rules!

PLEASE NEVER FUCK WITH ME

I AM INSANE

I WILL KILL YOU!

THRICE!

THEN

I will stand over your dead self

And Laugh

***

FIVE o’cLOK

Now wHat?

“And The Wind…

Blows Me Like A Paper Cup…

Down The Highway…”

Cred: Bee Doubya!

“I got a long long ride”

Hazel Eyes

She’s Not too Pretty…

But a beautiful smile!

She just said…

Late Spring Cleanin’: Or, ‘Fishin’ by the creek’, Your Choice

I am cleaning out some old posts and kickin’ ’em to the curb

Please bare with me. (Bear? Is that a word? Or just an animal?)

Anyhow…

Read if you will. (And if not, well, thanks for the auto-likes)

Cheers!

***

‘Three-Nine-Six-One-Three Bruning Street Fremont California: 1964-1968’

Funny how I still remember the street address when I cannot remember my mother’s birthday, or what I had for Sunday Supper last week, or my second wife’s maiden name, or who won the World Series last year.

All the houses on Bruning Street were brand new. And they were all alike. But their alikeness did not dampen my spirits, especially since mom and I had left the moldy old garage apartment across town. I had finally escaped that place and the Ghost of that Murdered Turkey.

Seems the entire neighborhood moved in on the same summer weekend: Floodgates opened—lots of activity—trucks coming and going, grown-ups schlepping boxes, kids (potential buddies?) playing and yellin’ and runnin’ wild, dogs untethered, barking, yipping, yapping, chasing. Just general mayhem all around: very excited we all were to be living the American Dream. Norman Rockwell should have been there.

A House on Bruning Street Today

A House on Bruning Street

All the houses had small front yards, slightly larger back yards, but no fences. In fact not really proper yards yet. No lawns, just California clay, hard-packed and untenable.

This would soon be remedied. By today’s standards for suburbia the dwellings were quite modest.

No McMansions these. Each house had three small bedrooms, one bathroom, smallish kitchen, tiny dining area, and small living room.

That was it, but compared to our garage apartment,

Mom and I had moved into the Taj Mahal. Everything smelled gloriously of fresh paint, fresh earth, and promise. I immediately picked a spot in the back yard for my garden. As a kid, I was never happier than when I was digging in the dirt, much to the chagrin of my much harried mother and my blatant hatred of regular bathing.

Mom and I settled in quickly. For a few days, I shyly & longingly watched some of the other kids playing around up the street.

My shyness prevented me from going up and introducing myself, but I had a secret weapon: some small incendiary devices. Actually they were just marble-sized balls that when slammed into the pavement would explode like firecrackers. Cannot recall where I had procured them, but they suited my purpose rather elegantly.

Nonchalantly I walked over to the sidewalk one day and commenced to fling them down, one at a time. The ensuing explosions captured the attention of the group of kids up the street and they all came stampeding over to investigate.

Attention Getter

Attention Getter

This was how I broke the ice and made my first friends on Bruning Street. Call it an old magician’s trick, if you will.

“Wow! Those are so neat! Where’d ya get ‘em?”

“Just got ‘em,” I said, ever so cool.

“Can I try one?”

“Well… Yeah, but be careful; they’re not for kids, ya know.”

“What’s your name?”

“Lance. What’s yours?”

Thus the beginning of some of my beautiful friendships.

As summer turned to fall and the lawns and juvenile trees and fences and dog shit sprouted up on Bruning Street, I had cemented many friendships. Most of the kids were very close to my age. We never extended our circle beyond the confines of our street.

Later I would break that unwritten code by becoming best friends with the kid who lived in the house bordering mine in the back. His name was Ricky Martinez.

His people came from Puerto Rico, but he didn’t speak Spanish. He was a few years older and a bit of a gangster and we hit it off from the start. Right then I began my propensity of always living double lives. When I really wanted mischief I sought Ricky. Other times when it was baseball or playing army or watching Saturday morning cartoons I was after, I kept to my Bruning Street buddies.

Once school started (fourth grade for me), I made even more friends who could never mix with my Bruning Street friends or my Gangster friend Ricky. So now I had three lives to juggle.

Of course we all had bicycles and would fearlessly ride them all over town: Sometimes to the public swimming pool about four miles away and sometimes to the mall and the movie theater also about four miles distant.

No one worried after our safety because we were never in any danger. We also had skateboards as second ‘cars’ and Ricky convinced me to paint mine silver. His reasoning was that when we eventually were confronted with rival gangs (Ricky and I were the only ones in our ‘gang’, but we did attempt some recruiting) we could turn the silver side of the skateboard toward the rival gang and blind them into submission with the sunlight reflected off our boards. We never encountered any menacing ‘rival gangs’, but we were ever vigilant and ready for them, should they appear.

My ‘Bruning Street Gang’ was so very much like the kids from South Park that it amazes me when I watch that TV show today. W

e cussed blue streaks amongst ourselves and had very strong and learned opinions about everything going on in the world. There was Randy Francin and his little brother Paul who lived right across the street. There were the DuBords who lived down the block. Craig the elder, Tommy the young ‘un and their older sister Kim, who looked a lot like Julie Andrews.

There was ‘Steve-Our-Hero’, a lanky sixteen year old blond-haired kid who looked like someone right out of a surfer movie. He lived about four doors down from me and was worshipped by us all. He had a grown-up job delivering newspapers and it was high honor to be ordered by him to bike down to the Seven-Eleven and pick him up a sixteen-ounce Pepsi.

(I kept the bottle caps from my missions as souvenirs, almost like saintly relics in fact, and I kept them displayed in my bedroom) Our undying ambition was to grow up to be Steve.

A few doors down in the opposite direction lived another sixteen year old: A GIRL. Her name was Linda. She was also blond and I was madly in love with her. She once showed me her Janis Joplin album cover: Cheap Thrills Big Brother and the Holding Company and she was the coolest girl I had ever known.

Cheap Thrills

My Baptism

(actually the only girl I had ever known) I wanted to marry her, but all I was allowed to do was worship, which I did shamelessly.

One day, she actually let me listen to the album. We sat on her bed silent through the entire record. My life changed that day. It reads corny, but sometimes corny is the best read. She was my first unrequited love and my first elusive butterfly.

Why she and Steve never hooked up, I have no idea.

They were our royalty and it just didn’t seem right to me that they were not a couple. If I could not have her, surely Steve could. The two coolest people I knew and they were each too busy for the other. I don’t think they even knew of each other. Shakespeare could not have written it better.

Linda had her nemesis who lived at the far end of the street. Her name escapes me, but she was the same age as Linda and a brunette. Linda confided in me one day that she had gone over to her house and caught her sitting on the toilet picking at her pussy hairs. Oh my god! I had never heard a woman say ‘pussy’ before. I was certain that she had never said that to anyone but me and I fell even more in love with her. It was my little secret: Linda had talked dirty to me.

OK. You had to know I just could not resist. For all you Musical Fans out there, my apologies to Rex Harrison, Audrey Hepburn, George Bernard Shaw, et al.

This one is for you Linda, wherever you are:

We had our pecking order. Hell, we even had our South Park ‘Kenny’, a young Hispanic kid who lived next door to me and always wanted to hang out with us ‘older kids.’ He never died, by the way, but we did torment him mercilessly, once almost conning him into drinking piss out of a Pepsi bottle. Would have worked too, if we had had the presence of mind to let it cool down before offering it to him. I cannot recall whose piss it was. Might have been a group effort.

Occasionally we would get into fights within our group, invariably causing us to split into two factions. Loyalties were often divided. These little insurrections could go on for weeks at a time, but eventually there would be a truce and a general détente. For fighting we had strict protocol. If one kid desired fisticuffs, he was required to proclaim in a loud and clear voice:

“I choose you out!”

The opponent had two choices: He could say, “I accept,” and get it on, or he could walk away, but no one ever walked away. The shame of not accepting such a challenge would have been career ending and would mean certain banishment forever.

The fights were furious but generally brief with not much harm done to anything but the pride of the loser. I won some of these encounters and I lost some. I guess on this front I was generally batting about five hundred.

One day I was forced too young into manhood. Ricky was a kleptomaniac. I knew he had this failing, but I kept overlooking it, denying it actually. He kept stealing stuff from me. Nothing important but it hurt me deep inside. We were best friends. One day he was ‘pumping me’ (which means I was riding on the back of his bicycle) over to his house. My bike had a flat.

Anyway, I was seated behind him and I saw a toy top of mine bulging out of his pocket. I could not feign denial any longer. When we got to his house, I mustered all the character I had and I broached this subject,

“Rick,” I said, “You know you are my best friend, right?”

“Yeah of course.”

“Well, it hurts me to tell you this, but I know you have been stealing stuff from my house.”

“Whaaat?! Bullshit!” he said.

“Ricky, I saw my top in your pocket on the way over here.”

Top of The Day

Top of The Day

“Oh… Yeah… Well here. Take it back,” he said, digging it out of his pocket.

“Ricky,” I said, “It ain’t about the top. It’s about friendship. And trust. I don’t care about the fuckin’ top. I care about our friendship.”

He gave me his best ‘I’m sorry look.’ And then I insisted he keep the top, but I think that was the beginning of the end of our friendship.

That was up until then, the most painful conversation I had ever had to initiate in my young life, but it had to be; I just could not let him slide. Or me either. I would have hated him if I had not confronted him. The hate would have just festered and poisoned me. Somehow I instinctively knew this.

I loved all my friends good and bad and I was loyal to a fault.

These happy times rolled on along for a couple of years; then I was overtaken by events and my life would never be the same.

I had to go, you see, but I did miss the Saturday Cartoons.

To Be Continued. Here

Expanded And Up-Dated (Once Again) SOUTHERN COMFORT(S) ME

I LOVE SOUTHERN!

***

Frankly, Scarlett Don’t Give A Damn

Well, maybe she does, just a little

Cliff Notes/Teaser Version:

Full Album.

Must Listen,

or if not,

Why Are You Even Here?!

Vid Cred for Share:WCW

***

Now some might say Brother Dave was a racist and they would probably be right, but I am posting these bits because I love the way he talks politics and specifically about “Daddy Bird.”

I really don’t think Bro Dave was racist in his heart. Most things he said were tongue-in-cheek, but that is just my opinion.

“See? I don’t drink alcohol, ’cause I don’t want no fat liver… but that ain’t no testimony. You may have your liver to do as you please.”

“But you talk so much politics!” I’m sick and tired of politics!”

Author’s Note: I love Brother Dave becuz he was always so up-beat—Never Down! Just a Happy Man (and a drug addict)–which killed him in the end, but we have his work to cherish and to hold. And to revisit again and again and again. Caint take that away from me!

***

Lyndon Johnson, Just Another Schmuck Lookin’ Out for His Nuts

 

What I’m re-reading right now:

Yes! I’ve Read Them All!

220px-Robert_caro_2012

***

Added Value:

PREACH IT STEVE!

My Brother!

In  Disarm & Harm Those 

MOTHER-FU*KERS! “

“i cAME hOME wITH A bRAND-nEW pLAN”

(yEAH! aLL  cAPs KEY IS sTILl wREwReCkR’D) noT To meNenTinTIOoN sPEeil chEk IS fUcKeD

White Trash?

C’est Moi!

I LOVE YOU BROTHER DAVE!

YOU ENRICHED MY LIFE!

YOU ROCK JERRY!

“Knock Him Out John!”

BAREFOOT JERRY & THE CDB!

ELVIN! (NOT ELVIS!)

MORE ‘ELVIS!’ HAHA!

***

My Sweet Lil Thang

“You Mess With Her, You See A Man Get Mean”

Stevie Ray

****

JANIS!

MY LOVE

BOBBIE G!

MAIN LOVE – OF – MY – LIFE!

This song Haunts My DREAMS AT Night

Because I am Suicidal!

BUGS!

SOUTHERN WOMEN!

Bugs, Don’t Fu*k Around With Them

(They Doan Play!)

THANK YOU Lynyrd!

***

JUST A LIL’ OL’ BAND FROM TEJAS!

MY MAN!

Marshall Tucker Band!

Don’t Get Much More ‘Southern’

(Or TEXAN-In-Spirit)

Than This!

***

Author’s NOTE:

I’ll Get Around to Crediting All The Vid Sharer’s

But NOT

Now!

I am too Drunk to BE BOTHERED!

RIGHT NOW!

AT THIS MOMENT!

***

My Darling!

My Texan!

My TEXAS DARLING!

Tanya!

You’re Such a Slut!

I LOVE You For That!

***

And of course: Jackie Venson

****

Yeah!

I’m Southern!

***

Related For Steve Earle!

Sellin’ Dope and Whiskey!

***

“So I Had One more For desessert”

Kris!

(Brownsville, Texas)

Poignant

Too Much So!

DaughterS

I need!

OnE!

One thAt willl Love Me!

N’ MaTTer Not

Vid Cred: Who Gives a Shit at This Point?

Obviously I don’t because I am breakin’ my Own Rules!

PLEASE NEVER FUCK WITH ME

I AM INSANE

I WILL KILL YOU!

THRICE!

THEN

I will stand over your dead self

And Laugh

***

FIVE o’cLOK

Now wHat?

“And The Wind…

Blows Me Like A Paper Cup…

Down The Highway…”

Cred: Bee Doubya!

“I got a long long ride”

Hazel Eyes

She’s Not too Pretty…

But a beautiful smile!

She just said…