See, I was listing to the radio in the car the other day and the very reasonable fellows (John and Ken) who have the PM drive time radio show were explaining that Arizona’s new law isn’t new at all. Nothing new, it just simply gives law enforcement in the Grand Canyon State the power to enforce the existing laws. They very reasonably pointed out that laws have no meaning if they can not be enforced. Such a good point I thought. Then I got to wondering about the age of consent in Arizona. Turns out it’s eighteen. It means that no one under voting age can give consent. No consent, no sex, they should all be virgins. Minors having sex in Arizona is illegal.

So that’s the law and by extrapolation they should also have the right to check compliance in order to enforce the law… So, when does the Arizona virginity verification program begin?

Also how will it be done? Perhaps they should seek help from an outside agency with proven expertise in this sort of matter. I am thinking the Taliban.

A video to commerate the raiding of the US Treasury

String theory part 2

part 1

It’s past noon when he gets there and the thermometer on the zipper of his backpack had reached 105° an hour before. He has finished half his water. He’s afraid of dehydration.
The Coronet sits where they left it six months ago. It looks in bad shape and has for some time but it is worse for having sat alone all winter. The green paint is faded and peeling; the rear left tire is flat, the others low; the windshield cracked like a slowly metastasizing web.

He sets his pack down on the hood of the car and walks the last twenty-five feet to the edge of the canyon and looks down six hundred and fifty feet into the earth. It makes his balls want to crawl up into his belly, it always has. Johnny never liked heights, now he hates them. It has been six months.

***
Johnny, Otis, and Zeke had been cruising in The Coronet. The Coronet had a 454 under the hood, twin carburetors, two chrome rims, four tweeters, three twelve-inch woofers, an extra amp, one truck tire, shifted three on the tree and sat six comfortably. Otis had purchased it from old Miss Sanchez for a comfortable 900 dollars. They had been up and down the main strip a few times, hit half the back roads in the county and were just getting started on their second case of Milwaukee’s Best. They agreed that it was time to go to Lone Juniper and make a fire.

They were in their traditional spots. Zeke sat on a lump of granite, Johnny on the same large log that had always been there. Otis stood with his back to the canyon, arms crossed, legs spread wide. The Coronet was parked under the juniper tree. Burning Spear’s, Wa Da Da, played on the stereo.

They built a good blaze and all stared into the fire as they spoke. Most of the night they talked about girls and cars and the nature of feelings. Johnny and Otis had a lengthy debate over whether a thought and a feeling were actually the same thing.
In the end they settled to disagree. Zeke had kind of a bad feeling. He didn’t say anything about it. He didn’t like the new tension that had risen between his two friends; he could see they were trying to keep a tenuous bond from breaking, no matter how much they pretended they were not. Zeke could see it plain and unhidden.

Zeke had been trying to remember something, struggling to focus his mind because he was sure the answers could come to him anywhere at anytime. He had spent most of the last five years trying to remember. The Valedictorian of Globe High School, Class of 1991, but by the time he was to give his speech something had already changed in him. The speech was an unintelligible poem that equated the lives of the graduates to concentric circles drawn in the sand. His teachers were disappointed.

In trying to remember, he taught himself to look beyond words and beyond intentions. They swore, all three of them, a long time ago, that no woman would get between their friendship and now Johnny and Otis were doing their best to keep that promise.

wa da da whoh oh wa da da

She loved them both and had said so. But she was Otis’s girlfriend and he had asked her to marry him. She said no, that she loved Otis but that it was complicated and in voicing what they all knew she had implicated Johnny in a crime. They talked around her, yet she was all they really talked about. They were negotiating. Zeke listened to them and as always, looked for clues. The music coming from the car stereo ran out and they all stared into the fire and there was too much quiet. Even between friends the quiet can be damning. Johnny went to the car to change the tape. Zeke closed his eyes and listened to his own heartbeat, another thing he had taught himself to do. Bob Marley’s, Uprising, came on next. Johnny returned to the fire, Zeke sat, legs crossed, eyes closed.

Where’s Otis?
Pissing, I assume.

They waited. After a time, Johnny called his name. And again, a second time with an edge of worry. He yelled and waited a third time.

Rasta man vibrations yeah, positive vibrations yeah

Johnny turned off the stereo. There was the sound of the fire and a light wind blowing through the canyon. They looked over the edge; there was only darkness and the river, six hundred and fifty feet below.

By and by, from out of the darkness came singing they could barely hear.

Johnny fought down panic and Zeke’s head started to fill with thoughts that he could not stop from coming; coded thoughts he didn’t understand, as if they were not his own.
I’m going to town to get help, just stay here okay?
Okay.

Johnny left in Otis’s car and Zeke paced by the fire; he watched the taillights disappear. The noise in his head became very loud. Zeke could not wait for Johnny to return and so he began to climb down into the dark. He could hear Otis singing, faint and constant. He climbed and muttered; his mind raced, his eyes strained to see the holes and cracks and edges in the rock where he might put his hands and his feet.

I will recompense thee according to thy ways; the total momentum of a system does not change unless acted upon by an outside force; momentum = mass X velocity; they shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them, and shame shall be upon all their faces, and baldness upon all their heads. Their silver and gold will not deliver them in the day of the wrath of the lord; the mass of any object increases relative to it’s own accelerating velocity

Zeke’s foothold gave way and sent loose scree bouncing off the canyon wall. The collisions were amplified and echoed through the corridor.

en nay ichee chi oh, en nay ichee chi oh

He kept down-climbing until he had come to an overhang he couldn’t see past. Both hands had rock to hold and one foot was jammed into a crack. He stayed for a time, minutes, maybe hours. His leg was shaking. When he felt he had no choice, he pulled himself up, and freed his cramped leg. He lowered himself down with his arms until they were straight and he hung with nothing but air below him.

The gravitational force between two objects is inversely proportional to the square distance between them.

He let go with both hands; his body scraped painfully against the rock as he dropped four feet to land standing on a large shelf. He looked up the cliff-face. He was about a quarter of the way to the river.

string theory part 1

Johnny wakes up plagued by the same dream. The trailer is already in full sun and he feels like he is being cooked from the inside. He makes coffee and opens the door but it seems that more heat comes in than goes out. He steps out over piles of books, clothes, empties and old magazines, through the door and into the clean expanse of the Sonoran Desert. He sits on the metal retractable step. The coffee and the orange juice work on his headache. His gaze rests on the mountains, a little snow is left on the north-facing slopes, it makes him feel cooler and somehow better.

He could go on living in his haze forever. It has already been six months and he has become comfortable in the loss. Has it really been six months? He counts backwards, again, and it has. If he does not make a change soon he will not be able to, he knows this. Globe Arizona is a copper town and the men that live there live in the ground. Once they accept it they are powerless to change it. Johnny has seen it a thousand times over.

He walks the quarter-mile to the blacktop road. He stands on the cattle-guard that spans the irrigation ditch. The water has risen since the day before and it’s just under the rails. It rushes through the ditch toward Pinto Creek. It will converge with the Salt River and from there, it will pass though a series of manmade lakes and then it will be portioned out and fought over and bought and sold and claimed and reclaimed and yet, it will not be kept, it cannot be. Even the bond of snow could only trap it for a time and again it’s free to race and merge and constantly reform itself according to it’s own will and nature.

He crosses the guard and walks west on the blacktop road. Ralf Pacheco pulls over in his mint-condition, 1956 International pickup and waits as Johnny jogs to catch up. The truck is mint, not because Ralf is a classic truck buff, nor is he an auto-restorationist, he just takes good care of his things.

Que Paso?
Thanks Ralf.
You going to work?
No, it’s my day off.
So who’s going to cook the pizza?
Someone else, or no one, but not me.
So where are you going?
Out to Lone Juniper.
Oh yeah? I’m going to Peg’s but I can give you a ride to the dirt road.
Great.
You want a doughnut? They’re from yesterday but–
Sure, thanks.

Johnny opens the box: curlers, long johns, sugars, and crumbs. He takes a longjohn, Ralf has a curler.

I’m not supposed to eat these, Ralf says.
No?
No, you get to be my age and they don’t want you to do nothing except sit there and watch game shows. It’s just a doughnut that’s what I figure. See I have too much sugar, 300 maybe 350 and so I got to shoot insulin.
You’re diabetic?
I guess so, yeah, I got to shoot ten cc’s in the morning and twenty cc’s at night but I figure if I’m gonna have to do that, then I might as well be allowed to have a doughnut once and again, no? It’s about living. About life. I know too many guys who are retired like me and they got too much dust in their lungs and their hearts don’t work and they can’t see no more or whatever. They’re still walking around but they’re not really living. They just do whatever the hell Doctor Anderson tells them and they wait to die officially. Then they’re going to heaven to live with God. That’s what they think. God is going to give them their reward. Reward for what? For digging a big hole here and making a big pile there? For going to church every Sunday and the bar every Friday? For what?

Ralf is silent. He mulls it over.

I think we’re just gonna lay there in the ground, he says, as if it had come to him for the first time.

They drive past the tailings pile on the edge of town. A mountain of raped earth, nothing left but the dregs, a gray lifeless pile of ash and slag. It hasn’t always been there but it’s been there longer than Johnny. When Ralf was a boy it wasn’t there. Ralf helped build it. A lasting monument to man’s ability to take what he needs and leave the rest. The bulldozers are near the top of the pile, four hundred feet above, making terraces. They constantly work to shape their mound of filth. They are always spraying it with water to try and keep it from blowing away.

Ralf drives through town, past the Safeway and the Conoco, McDonalds, The Feed Bin, Peg’s Diner, the 7/11, Under the Palms Bar, the Drift-Inn, Chalos Mexican Eatery, the Bank of America, and the High School. He drops Johnny off two miles outside of town at the head of the dirt road that leads to the desert and the Salt River Canyon.

Thanks man.
You got some water? It’s gonna be a hot one.
Yeah, in my backpack.

Ralf nods his head. When he is gone, Johnny rolls a cigarette and starts walking west down the dirt road.

jury (fin)

parts 1 through 3

The judge then gave us our instructions. We were to go into the room next door and there we would help one another parse fact from fiction. We would weigh weak testimony against strong. We would ignore our own likes and dislikes, we would recognize our prejudices but we would not let them inform us. We would listen to one another, but also hold firm to what we believed was true. We were to maintain secrecy, employ honesty, and look to our best selves. We were asked to take time out of our own lives to decide for strangers what the strange indeed could not sort out for themselves.

In the room it was fairly easy going, we read most of the documents again and we talked about the “evidence” presented in the case. Almost all of our decisions were unanimous, and although it is my belief that we could have walked out of that room within ten minutes of walking in, we deliberated the case for six hours. Mostly what we talked about was how out of control the lives that were presented to us were and how we were all glad that so far we had managed to avoid the participants of this battle for our sympathies in real life.

We found in favor of the Bottle Blonde Property Pimp, but instead of the $180,000 she was seeking we gave her $36,600. We did not find that she committed a forgery, although it was agreed among us that she was incompetent. However, it was not within our power to penalize her for incompetence. The two had both signed a contract and the Ukrainian Madwoman was in breech of it. We gave the BBPP as little as we could according to that contract.

As for the Ukrainian Madwoman artist/rare coin dealer we gave her nothing. As my fellow juror said:

What does she think, we’re stupid?

We delivered our verdict just before lunch.

And with that were thanked for our service to the state of California and excused.

In a cruel twist of fate I had to return to the court an hour later, this time as a defendant awaiting arraignment. I had crossed the law while making a left turn from Lincoln on to Pearl back in June. The officer who ticketed me seemed to feel that I made the left against the light, however I am sure that I was committed to the intersection while the light was green. Instead of paying the fine I opted for trial, was given a date (a full six months after the event occurred). I was arraigned, posted bail (the entire ticket amount) and was set free on my own recognizance. Halleluiah.

Jury (part 3)

part 1 and 2

Now, the BBPP swore up and down that she did not know about the deal with the former owner of the house. Even though she had represented him, both when he purchased the house and when he sold it five years later. She did not dispute the fact that they had been “social” for many years and she was, at the time of the altercation between the new owner(UMW) and the old owner, dating the old owner’s attorney, Steve. However, she insisted that according to the terms and provisions of the contract, which was a copy of an undated fax for which no original could be found, she was owed commission on the deal and was suing for that commission something to the tune of $180,000.

The BBPP testified for a full day. Under the feather weight of her lawyers question she painted a picture of herself as an honest white working woman, who was duped by a wily and scheming foreigner . When queried by opposing counsel she seemed to lose her memory, and was easily confused by dates and also, importantly, did not seem to know or understand the standards and practices used by licensed real estate brokers in the state of California.

The Former owner of the Malibu estate was brought in and testified as to the low moral character of the new owner (UMW) and also to a great sorrow with in him stemming from the deal between himself and the UMW having gone sour. That if she had only been cooperative, and did not fuss so much, if only she had created a “good vibe” they might have made $60,000 a month together. They, the rich and strange, could have been even richer and stranger, while the unhealthy but wealthy could lose weight from their bottoms while strengthening their inner cores.

On the other hand the Moe Green look alike spoke highly of the matchmaker/land madam and insisted that although they were friendly they were not friends and the fact that she was dating his lawyer, Steve, should have no bearing on the case at hand. While he did not know that she did not know about the defunct deal, he did not know that she knew about it either. Really.

The new owner (UMW) looked to her Russian “accountant” for help. His gold jewelry, steely look and Armani suit put the room right at ease instantly. He took the stand to say that the former owner (Moe Green light) made unreasonable demands of his friend(UMW). He speculated that the former owner must have come from a “greedy culture”. And although he was not allowed to explain further and the annoyed judge had the comment stricken from the record it was not simply snatched from our minds. At least not mine as I assumed that he came from the same greedy culture from which I myself hail.

He testified in a way that was so off hand, so casual, that one wondered if perhaps he thought he were somewhere else, like perhaps he had granted an interview to Extra and was playing it cool for the folks at home.

When questioned by the other side, (counsel for the BBPP) he was forced to admit that, not one week earlier he had called the very lawyer that was now cross examining him and offered to testify against his “friend” because, as it turns out, his friend owed him fifty thousand dollars (seemingly an unrelated matter) and so he was more than willing to set the record straight. Gratis!

However, he never returned his subpoena form. He could not be reached on the phone, and when the trial started on Monday he was not on the witness list. However he did appear, late in the trial, but in defense not in opposition to the UMW.

When asked why he never returned the form to testify against his “friend and client” as he promised he would. He replied honestly in a thick Russian accent in a way that suggested that blackmail was not only normal but morally tenable.

She’s making payments now.

Finally, a professional witness, a real estate expert came in to tell us about the strict moral and ethical guidelines all property pimps must follow in order to be recognized officially by the sate and federal government in the noble profession of selling property that does not belong to them in the first place.

Finally, the lawyers made their impassioned cases directly to the jury. They spoke about the evidence we saw, about fairness being the bedrock of our society, one quoted Shakespeare while the other admitted that he had no flair for drama but that the facts stood on their own and that his only job was to make sure that we knew them.

a view from the jury box ( part 2)

part 1

While on the stand the UMW (Ukrainian Madwoman) told of a conspiracy against her so vast and so deep that I (juror #4) was not sure at all that I myself was not implicated. When questioned by opposing counsel the UMW barely spoke English, she did not understand most questions, and often made lengthy speeches having nothing to do with the questions asked, often peppered in Russian and salted in victimhood. When questioned by her own lawyer, not only did she speak perfect English, but she appeared to have a keen grasp on the minutia of California Law governing contracts. She could pick apart the provisions of the document (or forgery) in question and point to places where the reality on the ground had not lived up to the promises made in the realty office.

It turns out the UMW was also suing. She was suing because her signature had been forged, and a coalition of evil minded Americans, naturally including some Jews had set out to destroy her. She was also seeking damages for mental/emotional stress, which of course led to a miscarriage. Mental/emotional stress, which to this day (three years later) she has not been able to shake and thus has not been able to pursue her budding art career, robbing not only her but the world at large of a great painter. Not only was her artistic life affected but also her fiscal well being, as which she was no longer able to sell rare coins and antiquities with her strangely absent husband.

See, it turns out that the deal with the former owner of the house (think Moe Green) went wrong, they could not agree, not on anything, not on a chef , not on the color of the rooms, nor the brand of the new furniture, or even a name for the company. Would the masseuse be giving full body massages or just neck and shoulders? As, after all, she needed to know what kind of house she would be running. The issues piled up, and finally she simply had the locks changed, and the former owner found himself and his consignment of the overpaid and under exercised stuck for a place to unwind while working on their inner strength. And so the UMW found herself in court.

However, that was last year, that was a different case, a prior case, and not the case before us. (although it was presented seemingly in its entirety). No, in this case she was being sued by her former Property Pimp for commission owed, as apparently she went behind The Bottle Blonde’s back to make this deal. The deal that fell through, but because she signed the lease, according to the BBPP, the UMW owed the commission, regardless of the fact that she never collected the rent.

a view from the jury box (part 1)

It was a long week in which it was hard to say if I was actually living a cliché or if I was just an innocent observer in the land of clichés. The week was spent in Santa Monica Superior court hearing the relative merits of a case involving a real estate broker and a Ukrainian woman who bought a Malibu mansion for a scant couple of million dollars who then turned around and leased it to a business man, who also happened to be the prior owner of the house.

While the man’s main business was night clubs, he did own the exclusive west coast rights to a weight loss and core strengthening program called the _____ System. The idea was that they would use the Malibu home as “A _____ System Retreat” where the rich and overweight would come spend weeks at a time exercising, being massaged and hand fed meals cooked by one of the world’s leading macro-biotic chefs.

However, the new owner of the Malibu estate had signed an exclusive lease listing agreement with the Bottle Blonde Property Pimp. The ELLA (Exclusive Lease Listing Agreement) entitled our BBPP to a whopping 10% of the eleven grand a month that the new owner was going to get paid by the former owner. Although the BBPP did not procure the ten year lease, it was signed and no commission was paid so the flaxen headed broker of unique luxury homes was forced in to a Santa Monica Court room, at no small expense to herself, or the Santa Monica tax payer, to get her due.

Unless of course the ELLA that was produced in court was a forgery as was alleged by the Ukrainian Madwoman.

Georgia (The true story)

part 1
part 2
part 3
part 3.5
part 4
part 5

He said to me – Be very careful my friend, this is the only life you will get. Do not be lied to. They told us for more than fifty years that the accumulation of money was evil and that the essence of beauty lie in the concept of universal equality. It sounded good, it was nice to say, and yet the beauty slowly drained from our lives. Money is not evil. To a real man, money is everything.

I walked into the heat of the day. As I walked I thought that if beauty had ever really gone from this old city, it had easily returned. Then I chided myself for thinking like a tourist, walked a few more steps and accepted that I was a tourist, despite having flown, for once, in business class.

How strange and lucky you might think. The first person Eliam met in Georgia, spoke better English than he does, and was a petty philosopher on top of it.

I assure you it is not strange at all.

Of course, none of it ever happened. I never went to Tbilisi. The movie deal fell through. The heiress (sure thing!) investor got cold feet. Her lawyers convinced her that to spend money on movies about the struggles of far-flung places was to simply throw money away. If she had her heart set on film there were more sensible opportunities out there. It took them three weeks to succeed in convincing her of this. They may not have been right but they were probably correct. Three lawyers, three weeks, I wonder how much it cost her to come to this realization.

Georgia ( part 5)

part 1
part 2
part 3
part 3.5
part 4
After a moment he rose from the table and made another call, he spoke in low tones in a language that is beyond foreign to me. Not one word of what he spoke was accessible.
He then came back to the table and cleared my mostly full cup and my plate of crumbs. He went behind the counter where he busied himself with the maintenance of the espresso machine.

After a minute I asked if his daughter was still coming.

He said – No.

I waited for further explanation but none was forthcoming. We were both saddened and relieved.

I stood up and took a wad of bills from my pocket, I asked how much, and he told me, and I paid. I did not know if I paid for a single cup of coffee, or ten, or fifty, as I would have no idea what the going price of a cup of coffee might be or for that matter what the bills were worth.

As I opened the glass door he called to me by my nationality.

American? – He said.

Yes. – I said.

Why did you lie?

About what?

You said that you were a businessman.

Oh, well, what I said was that I was here on business.

His expression conveyed that if there was a difference he did not see it.

I tried again.

Writing is my business.

He shook his head.

No friend, writing is to make from words, sentences and from sentences paragraphs, and even from paragraphs stories. Business is to make money.

Yeah – I said – you’re right, it’s not much of a business. I guess money isn’t that important to me.

At this he flipped up the counter, crossed the threshold between us and came all the way to the doorway in which I stood.