Anne Bancroft

Anne Bancroft
Originally uploaded by catherine magma.

Last Day in Vegas chapter five

It was a green vinyl handbag with a long thin strap. He lifted it up and set it between his legs as he drove. He pulled out a leather wallet and opened it. Her California drivers license said her name was Eleanor Susan Capwell. 168 Morning Dew Lane, Capitola CA. Eyes green hair brown 5'9" 137 lbs. DOB 6/12/1965.
She had 43 dollars in her wallet and several credit cards. Inside the purse was also the nickel plated .38 as well as several lipstick cases, a compact, an hotel key for room 569 at the Belaggio, a pack of spearmint gum, a pack of unfiltered Camel cigarettes, a shiny lighter that looked expensive, and a tattered paperback copy of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
'Hmm' Johnnie thought to himself. ' A literary psycho'.
'Or a literary hit-woman. No, she was no hit-woman. That was obvious. She had said her gun was named revenge and she meant it. But what had he ever done to her? He didn't remember her but that didn't mean much. There were countless times Johnnie had been told of things that he had done that he had no recollection of the next day. Perhaps this was one of those cases. Had he slept with the woman and not called her the next day? He had known women who had freaked out about that but being killed for it seemed a bit excessive. No, it had to be something bigger than that. Money? Did he steal her money? Did he shame her in some unforgivable way. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.' He thought. 'Had he "scorned" her'?
He pulled one of the Camels from the pack and lighted it with the expensive looking lighter. He had cheated death once today, a few more cigarettes couldn't hurt.
What it was he had done to this woman to drive her crazy he would have to figure out because she probably wouldn't quit now.
He thought about going to the police but he knew they would be no help. After countless run-ins with the local police Johnnie had a bit of a reputation as a ne'er-do-well. They would be happy to see him gone. They might even consider helping her. No, he was going to have to deal with this crazy lady himself. Perhaps now that he knew who she was he could scare her off. Then he remembered the gleam in her eye as she had said 'Revenge' and he wasn't so sure.

Baseball in the Big House

Baseball in the Big House
Originally uploaded by catherine magma.

Today was the day. Off to prison. No, not like that, or for that, should i say. A guy that occasionally plays with my pickup hardball team hooked us up with a woman who organizes baseball teams to play against the San Quentin Giants. We sent them our driver's license #'s and Soc. Security #'s and passed the screening process and today at 8 am we showed up at San Quentin. On the drive over the prison jokes were never ending. After waiting around for awhile at the entrance we went through two checkpoints and then walked through the main courtyard, around a building, and POW we were in the yard. I think most of us had assumed that we would be separated from the general populace by some kind of barrier but no, we were right there walking through the inmates.
They have a field that the inmates built that covers about half of "the yard" and it's pretty nice although the infield has no grass. It was a beautiful day and there were lots of guys out in the yard. Most of them wearing their prison blues but a lot of them had their shirts off sporting a variety of tattoos. One that stood out was a guy who had Co Co County across his stomach(Contra Costa County). They didn't really look all that scary which might be misleading.
Charley Manson used to be at San Quentin and it was said that he used to run out onto the field while they were playing. I would have liked to have seen that.
In addition to the ball field there is a basketball court, horseshoes, and even a tennis court. There was a doubles match going on and one guy was wearing tennis whites. Probably a white collar criminal who somehow didn't make it into the country club correctional facility.
There was also a large bandstand with instruments already set up. The band hadn't started yet and the sound system was blasting the Allman Bros. song "In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed". I didn't ask how she died.
I think we were a little nervous.
We were only allowed to bring our baseball stuff, no cameras, phones, street clothes, etc. Cigarettes are okay but only for another three weeks and then they become "contraband".
We got our cleats on and took some infield. I immediately let a ball go through my legs and Aaron, who was trading off with me at shortstop said to be careful 'cause I was showing weakness.
I wasn't really that nervous...what was the worse that could happen? A shiv in the kidney? hmm.
The game started. Their pitcher was called Stretch for obvious reasons. He was about 6'6" and built like a rail. He had a pretty quick fastball and a hard late breaking curve.
First inning was scoreless 3 up 3 down on both sides.
Top of the second we got a bit of a rally going and scored 3 runs to take the lead on some hard won hits. We had eighteen guys (which was too many) and everybody was batting. I batted tenth and at my first at bat I sat on his curve and whacked one down the third base line. Unfortunately the third baseman made a fine play and I was thrown out. But I felt okay with that and at the bottom of the second went out to play shortstop.
Of course the first batter would hit to me. I fielded it cleanly and threw him out at first. Yes. My first put out in prison. Sweet.
The next guy up for them ropes one to right center that bounces over the barbwire topped chain link fence. Ground rule double. As he pulls up at second I say, Hey, nice hit. He doesn't even look at me.
Okey dokey.
After that was a bit of mayhem as they scored 6 runs and got our our pitcher fairly rattled. He isn't one of our regular guys and since he had organized the event he had started himself as pitcher. He definitely would not have been any of our guys first choice. After the inning ended he said he wanted to throw one more inning and was pretty much told to hand the ball over to someone else. It didn't really matter though, they ended up scoring eighteen runs total to our four. Aaron, the other shorstop, hit one over the right field fence for a home run which was our only other run in the game.
I got up again in the sixth and got a base hit over the shortstops head. We ended up only getting six hits and I think, the official tally on our errors was also six, but I think we definitely had more than that.
During the game some of the inmates came up and chatted with us though the fence near the dugout. They were good guys and were giving us shit. They particularly liked Brian and got on us when he was pitching and we made some errors. Of course Brian had dropped two easy fly balls when he was playing centerfield but they didn't mention that.
The inmates could walk all around the yard and even stand or sit at the edge of the outfield against the fence. There were a bunch of guys out there and the rule was it if it hit them it was a ground rule double. In about the eighth inning a guy was sitting out there and he had a giant silver belt buckle that was reflecting the sun right into the batters eyes. He was totally oblivious and the home plate umpire had to yell out to him to cover it up.
At a couple times during the game suddenly all the inmates would freeze and get down on one knee. It was kind of eery. When there is an emergency the guards ring a bell and all the inamtes have to get down and freeze so the guards can see what is happening. We were told to remain standing. Then they would sound the all clear and everything would go back to normal. It happened twice while we were there and no one on our team heard the warning bell. All of a sudden the players would get down and we would realize the bell must have gone off.
It was a good game, we had fun and afterwards we lined up to shake the opposing teams hands and they all seemed like nice guys who were appreciative of us for coming out to play them.
We have plans to go back and play them again. Hopefully with the jitters gone and a trimmed down team we can be a little more competitive. I'll definitely go back-I'm batting .500 in the Prison League.

Is he a client at Wamu?

No comment.

speechless? more like dumbfounded.

Presley's ex-wife PRISCILLA writes in new book ELVIS, BY THE PRESLEYS, "He had a million badges and a blue police light on his car.

"He liked nothing more than putting that light on his car and pulling people over. He'd walk up to the window, show off his official badge and say, 'Son, you were speeding. Just want to warn you to slow down.'

"The driver would see him and remain speechless. He liked seeing himself as a lawmaker and protector of the public. He carried guns, and if he happened to see, for instance, two men fighting at a gas station, he'd drive over and stop the fight. His very presence stopped things escalating."

more photos

Unfortunately the link button cannot be created in blogger using netscape on my mac but if you want to see more vegas photos type

http://community.webshots.com/user/douglasnorris/

into your browser...

which way to the valley of fire water?

Last Day In Vegas chapter four

Johnnie's parents had never bothered to get married. There had been some debate about which religious ceremony they were going to observe for the nuptials. Ephraim Pai had decided that an Animist wedding was the most spiritually binding, but unfortunately they could find no one in the greater Cleveland area to administer the rather obtuse rites. Su Han Yan Gow was a Buddhist or had been until she read Jean Paul Sartre's book Being and Nothingness and realized that Sartre was probably on drugs. Why this had effected her belief in the Buddha no one was quite sure. Her family thought it best not to probe too deeply and so the marriage had been postponed and further postponed and eventually forgotten.
Johnnie had changed his name at age eighteen to include his mothers name because he had become tired of the jokes about his last name.
"Hey Johnnie Apple Pie howsabout some whip cream?"
He also thought it was too much of a crazy coincidence that his parents names together would be the same as the famous poker game. This coincidence may have had some effect on Johnnies future profession.

Last Day In Vegas chapter Three

The shovel bit into hard earth like an old man with dentures trying to eat a Granny Smith apple. It didn't make matters any better that she was wearing three inch stiletto heels. After scraping off the top layer of sand she was basically digging into solid rock.
"FUCK!"
It didn't really matter though because the person she shot wasn't dead or even near dead. He was just in a lot of pain. In fact he was quite conscious and moaning.
"Why the fuck did you shoot me? I suppose you're going to kill me with that shovel and then bury me out here? Didn't you think to see if there were any bullets in the gun before before you decided to come and kill me. Goddamn, you are a stupid bitch."
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" She screamed and started to walk towards the car.
When she shot him in the parking lot she had been a bit nervous and although Johnnie Pai-Gow was a rather wide target she had, with the first shot, only managed to graze him. After that the gun just went click click click. There had been one bullet in the chamber but the clip was empty. Johnnie had a rather low tolerance for pain and had fainted after the first shot. She had pushed his unconscious body into the passenger seat and had jumped into the car and driven him to this remote spot where she figured she would bury him dead or alive.
Johnnie realized he was in no condition to deal with an insane woman carrying a shovel. Inexplicably she had left the keys in the ignition.
They both realized this at the same time.
Johnnie started the car and shoved it into gear as the woman started running towards him holding the shovel like a lacrosse stick.
He popped the clutch and sand and gravel shot towards her as he pulled away. She held the shovel up with one arm and launched it at him like a javelin. It careened off the top of his head as he pulled away.
"FUCK" he screamed as the pain shot through his brain. He pulled on to the asphalt and kept going. Blood was dripping down the side of his head but the adrenaline was keeping him conscious. He thought of going back to try and run her over but he figured she would have it tough getting back to town as they were probably forty or fifty miles from anything and night was coming on. Also he wanted to find out who she was and what he had done to make her want to kill him.
He opened the glove compartment and pulled out his flask and a bottle of aspirin. He sipped the whiskey as he drove into the setting sun. Then he noticed her purse laying on the floor by his feet.

Pensacola FL

canape of fog

Ah yes cool, wet, San Francisco. It must be getting close to summer because it's getting colder out. Sometimes I think I should move out of this city. It seems like it creates a fog of a different nature, one that works its way into your head, whispering, this is the only place to live, all those other places, while they may be good, aren't San Francisco and don't you always feel better when you get back?
And I have to agree.
But there are those times, in the summer, when the whole of California, nay, the whole country(with the exception of a few kindred ecosystems like monterey), is basking in warmth, barbecuing in tight little shorts, swimming in cool bodies of water, while we in SF are up to our tits in fog, freezing our asses off as the wind whips through the city, rattling windows and creating sweatshirt sales at Fishermans Wharf, that I have to ask myself, hmmm, is 11 am too early for a beer?

Last Day in Vegas chapter 2

Johnnie Pai-Gow had been a precocious youth albeit one with a lax sense of moral convictions. On the morning of the family move to Texas, Johnnie, at age nine, had traded a a non-functioning pellet rifle to a neighborhood boy for a valuable baseball card collection that the boy's father had willed to him after dying in the tragic Cleveland pickle factory fire of 1966.
Johnnie hid the collection from his parents, Ephraim Pai and Su Han Yan Gow.
In Austin he took the collection to a renowned sports memorabilia dealer who,although initially wary of purchasing such a valuable collection from a minor, bought(after Johnnie reduced his asking price by half) the collection for fourteen thousand dollars in cash.
Johnnie kept the money hidden from his parents, Ephraim Pai and Su Han Yan Gow.
Johnnie's father Ephraim Pai was a stern taskmaster and would brook no dissent. Luckily he was also frequently absent as most of his time was spent in illegal gambling haunts. Johnnie knew if his father got his hands on the money it would soon disappear.
Ephraim Pai was the illegitimate product of a Pentecostal missionary from Toledo, Ohio and a Cambodian field worker. Ephraim practiced a bastardized form of religion that included Jesus, the Virgin, and the Buddha all spiced liberally with a dose of animism. He believed spirits inhabited all things and had been removed from gambling establishments on numerous occassions after verbally berating the chair he had been sitting in while playing a particularly bad hand of poker.
Johnnie's mother Su Han Yan Gow had come from a well-to-do family in China and was said to have been related to the last emperor. The Family had fled China concealed on a container ship and several of them died of a mysterious illness which was thought to have been a curse put upon them by the wife of chairman Mao Tse-Tung. In actuality it was syphilis.

The Last Day In Vegas

It was hot and windy. The air smelled like a combination of gravel pit dust and urban sprawl construction site potpourri. He pulled his hat down hard on his head as the convertible Fiat Spyder with the bad muffler rumbled its way back into the city. He had seen Hoover Dam and he had emerged victorious except the gift shop was closed. He had not been pulled over in at least 24 hours. Things were looking up. The Fiesta Casino loomed in the distance. It looked ominously like any other part of the shopping mall except it was larger and it wasn't a Von's.
"Damn" He said to the biting wind. "If it was Von's at least I could get a rotisserie chicken."
Then he remembered they had Fatburger in the casino and he calmed down. A turkey cheeseburger with all the fixin's would have to suffice.
He pulled into the parking lot and settled the Fiat in between a Hummer and an El Dorado.
As he was getting out of car he noticed a dame making her toward him.
"Not bad" He thought." She's got legs that go all the way to her ass."
She approached him and stood standing right in front of him as he struggled to extricate himself from the sticky bucket seat. He decided just to sit back gracefully and see what this lady had to say for herself.
Her eyes were green and they had a mischevious twinkle.
"Are you Johnnie Pai-Gow?" She asked even though it was obvious she knew he was.
"Hmm, could be. Who wants to know."
"My litttle friend here." She said as she pulled out a nickel plated .38 automatic and pointed it at Johnnie Pai-Gow's rather expansive mid-section.
"Does your little friend have a name?" He asked in a mocking tone.
"Yes"
She paused and the dusty air was pregnant with tension as well as the smell from a nearby Arby's´®.
Her eyes flamed as her gold eyeshadow caught the brilliant Las Vegas sun.
"Revenge."
She pulled the trigger.

It's everything I thought it would be and less

Much less. Oooh Vegas, It's So exciting. Yeah, like a crack ho wearing Gucci.
I do like the terrain though, the mountains are beautiful and the weather is hot and dry. Went to the Valley of Fire and saw some cool petroglyphs and twisted rock formations. I've been riding around in an "81 fiat spider with the top down and now my face is four shades darker than the rest of me.
We got pulled over last night right off the strip. I don't think the cops like my friend Rene. This cop was a meathead with an attitude and he was obviously trying to get Rene to argue with him. I think he might have been on the "roids".
Rene asked me if I thought he looked like a drug dealer and I replied truthfully.
"Uh huh."

oh

oh, Patton

From Patton Oswalt's site http://www.pattonoswalt.com/

The next time one of these Jesus Nerds starts braying about "intelligent design" and that "evolution is just a theory", please direct them to the following website:

http://wilstar.com/theories.htm

It's a one-page, clearly written explanation of what "theory" means in scientific terms. It's okay to BELIEVE in creationism. It's the same way I BELIEVE that Paris Hilton is a twat-demon from the Burning Cuntlands of the Outer Darkness, sent to earth in human form to make people worship money and privilege. But, like creationism, I'll never be able to prove it scientifically.

Blessed art he that speaketh the truth...
PS. sorry I still havent figure out the link thing....

mother's day

Well the greeting card industry isn't going to get me with their manufactured "holiday". Mother? What did she ever do for me?
Actually I'm going to be a good son and take her out for brunch.

All my friends are transplants from the east coast so whenever there's a holiday they get to drink booze and get wasted and I have to go out to the country and eat roast leg of lamb with the family. Oh poor, poor me.

My other siblings are all mothers in their own right so I guess they get off the hook for this one... life is so unfair.

hey ho

hey ho
yes its friday
once again
hmm might need to get a drink tonight
la dee da

la dee da

that's obscene!

I read in the "paper" today that a middle school marching band in Benton Harbor, Michigan were banned from playing the song "Louie, Louie" because one parent called the superintendent and complained that the song was obscene. Holy bongwater, Batman...
The article went on to say that the FBI spent two years investigating the lyrics before declaring they not only were not obscene but also were "unintelligible at any speed."
Two years?
Iwould have liked to been on that detail.
"okay let's see how it sounds if we take acid and speed it way up."

Vegas?

Well, since I didn't get the job I was hoping for I've decided to go to Las Vegas instead. It seems like the natural choice. I can "bet the farm". Take my hard earned savings and etc...
Actually my friends who are living there for a couple of months told me to bring camping gear...Camping gear? Vegas? What is this? Some kind of cruel hoax? I guess there's a place called the Valley of Fire that has some "great" rock formations. Also I want to visit the neon sign graveyard...it does exist.
I do hope there's a full moon. No, really I do.