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One Perfect Saturday

Outside Air Temp: 82 Degrees, Zero Wind, Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited. The Sierras, MT Lassen and Coastal range clearly visible after 4 days of cleansing rain at the end of the burn season.

Community Center

Simultaneous Football, Soccer and Softball games in progress leave the parking lot full of SUV’s and Minivans. Kids, Uniforms, Parents, loudspeakers and game announcers for half a dozen different games all merge together in a soft buzz, hot dog odors, spilled Gatorade and game players of every type and their attendant parents walk through the park. To the rock wall, where after 6 months of trying, the little one finally makes it to the top. I catch up on my reading in between stolen moments of admiration as I watch the love of my life climb a three-story wall with no help from the staff. A wall made of only of fake rock, but a place where real courage and pride is discovered for a kid of just seven.

Target.

My Suzuki 650SV, our two Helmets hang on the side, My Daughters and mine. Inside my helmet is tucked a copy of James Ellroys “ The Big Nowhere”. I pick up a copy of Time Bandits and Garfield for her and for me, Dark Blue and Cowboy Bebop.

A quick interlude at the snack bar for a well deserved Icee and a Diet Coke. I get the latest breakdown on why the Icee flavors at Target are better than 7/11. I disagree, but I’m not really an expert. Icee flavors may change by location, but Diet Coke is the same the world around.

Home

Back to the house, where the little one finds her friends across the street have come home, inviting her over for the remaining afternoon. Which leaves me to watch a Tivo’ed version of “Major Dundee” to once again try to find where Sam Peckinpah went so wrong with such a great premise and excellent cast.

Posted @ October 30, 2004 06:01 PM | Current Events

Comments

Is James Ellroy worth reading? Never tried him.

Posted by: PDS at October 30, 2004 09:38 PM

As a second generation angelino, I find him a blast to read. If you know anything at all about the world of post-war Los Angeles and politics therein, his books are terrific little time travel trips into a world that no longer exists, the world of Bunker Hill, Boyle Heights,Chavez ravine,sleepy lagoon,Watts,Freeway culture,war surplus, RKO Radio,'mad man' Muntz and a million soldiers and sailors and airmen who got off the boat in 1945 who never went home and went on to work at companies like Lockheed, TRW, Hughes and Raytheon. They stayed, raised familes and had kids who grew up to be Jan and Dean and the Beach Boys. That's the world that Ellroy writes about.

Its a world I inhabited at the edge of his experience, he was leaving as I was entering, He in LA proper, me in Compton and Lakewood, but the culture and times he talks about were passed down to me from my father and grandfather when the LA area was a much smaller place and the police force was much more corrupt.

His writing style is fun to read. I really like his pacing and his characters are almost all flawed jerks who in the process of trying to redeem their coal black souls end up making the world a little more screwed up than they entered it which is never their intent but always their result.

Theres four books in his "LA Quartet" - The Black Dalia, Hollywood Noctures, LA Confidential, The Big Nowhere. The Black Dalia is great(Soon to be a motion picture!), I'm now reading "The Big Nowhere" ,which if youve seen LA Confidential, you know about half the characters in this book, such as Captain Dudley Smith ,who figures prominently in LA Confidential.



Posted by: Frank Martin at October 30, 2004 11:13 PM

Sold. I could use a diversion over the next couple of days.

Posted by: PDS at October 31, 2004 05:57 PM

The difference between Target and 7/11 frosty drinks - 7/11 has Slurpee, the distant and sad cousin of the Icee. Their flavoring and carbonation ratio is off.

My absolute favorite Icee is wild cherry or lemonade.

Glad you had such a beautiful day!

Posted by: Da Goddess at October 31, 2004 06:23 PM