Hot City Diary: More Dope

The Restaurant manager walks into the lobby and places three baggies on the front desk.  They sit on top of all my paperwork.

There's about an eighth of mushrooms in one bag.  An eight ball (which is just stupid drug talk for an eighth) of white stuff.  It could be heroin or cocaine.  Nobody knows and Sammy and I aren't just going to try it.  Kyle walks in.  He tests a bit.  It's cocaine.  Really, really good cocaine.  The third bag is full of dirt, Two wristbands, a hotel business card and a sandal strap.

I laugh.

The restaurant manager is on his way home and off to a vacation in Miami when he stops by the front desk.

"I don't want to deal with this."  Sammy says

"You should take some with you to Miami."  Kyle trys to put the cocaine in Sammys' bag and we all laugh and laugh and laugh.

A guest walks into the lobby and while everyone freezes, I nonchalantly throw some paperwork over the drugs and Sammy puts the cocaine in his bag.  He asks about food and I tell him the only thing open is Taco Heaven and Double Burger, but nobody delivers after midnight in Palm Springs.  Maybe 1 am on Weekends.  We all look at our respective watches, phones, whatever, it's 2 am.  He reaches for his car keys and falls to the ground.  We help him up and call him a cab and push him inside and tell the driver to drive him thru the Double Burger drive thru and then bring him back.  He mentions to Sammy a few times that he could use a pick-me-up while waiting.  Sammy apologizes for the coffee machine being put away.

Once the guest is gone Sammy takes the cocaine out of his bag and puts it back on the desk.

Kyle wants just a couple caps of the mushrooms and Sammy laughs and says it's all too late, because it's all on camera and security better just log it and destroy it.  Sorry Kyle.  Sammy has me radio security and our new gung-ho recruit takes it all away to the security office to log and destroy, or does he?  Kyle doesn't think he's going to do it, and follows close there after.

I get back to my paperwork.

Hot City Diary: Day of the Rig

The late shift.  It's one of the slower days so as soon as the person I relieve takes off, I walk over to the engineer shed to say hello to Kyle and make some coffee.  Engineers now have Folgers on repeat in the engineer office.  I make some coffee with Kyle.  I've got to stay awake and I'm not going to use the stuff that the new security guard is using.  I haven't used that stuff since the 90s.  The engineering shed buzzes and hums with electrical equipment.  There are a couple different rooms, all kinds of strange and funny looking tools and graffiti from what looks like every engineer that ever worked here.

The shed is uncomfortably hot.

It's still hot as all fuck outside.  How can it be 100 at midnight?

I make my coffee and thank Kyle and head back to the front desk.  I pass the pool.  People are swimming and dying on the pool deck.  The chicks like to wear wife beaters with no bras.  It's driving the young men wild.  They horseplay in the jacuzzi and it spills over into the pool.

This week we have a group of designers staying at the hotel.  They happen to be all women.  They're a group of successful, stylish, good looking chicks with money.  They're as gentle as a pack of Koalas.  You can see they have the claws, but they don't use em.  They wander the lobby and hotel bar and make polite conversation.  I start my paperwork and take a sip of my coffee.

The security guard tears through the front office.  He's mumbling a mile a minute and says "HELLO." somewhere in the middle, and stops right in front of me and then starts talking about what a nice piece of knotted wood we have at the front desk.  He wonders what kind of wood it is.  So do I.  He then asks for a vacant room list, so I print one out and hand it to him and he studies it closely, turning it over in his sweaty hands and grimacing about the amount of work, then heads off to make sure the vacant rooms are vacant.  It's something we do every night to make sure the vagrants aren't sneaking into the rooms or the patios.

Kyle comes into the front desk to hang out.

Before the new security guard get's outside the lobby, he get's a phone call.  I'm busy shuffling through the paperwork and talking with the hotel restaurant servers about their shift, but when everything calms down and the lobby is empty with just me and Kyle in it, He asks me if I heard the telephone call the security guard just got.

He swears it was his dealer.  He was saying things like: "Yea, where you at?  I could meet you over there on my bike later.  Yea!  Do you have enough?  No, I can't right now, I'm at work." and things like that.  Kyle explains that we get a lot of bad elements through security.  Most of them have criminal backgrounds.  Then he throws a bunch of  packaged needles on the front desk.  He found them out front of the South building.  They could be for someone with diabetes or they could be rigs for our security guard.  He says the desert is a haven for meth users.  It's even worse up in Joshua Tree.  It's so bad there is an emergency phone number given to residents to call regarding meth activity.  He asks where the security guard lives and I tell him White Water.  Kyle nods his head.  It's a huge meth neighborhood.

What can you do?  People need to fill their time up with something.

Wow.  Only serious users shoot that shit.  I thought that maybe he was just a weekend warrior with a little bump to help him through the night.

Nothing works like coffee.

Kyle and I agree that he'll fuck it up all on his own, no reason to report it.  No reason for me to report this, yet.  Maybe I should report it.

He's running through the lobby at one point.  Then comes back inside and tells me he's tired.  His cheekbones are starting to become more pronounced.  He's sweating.  He asks for my full name.

He leaves.

Then comes back full of energy.  He's got to pull the bikes up and for the next hour I see him ripping around the property delivering the bikes to the hotel guest bike rack.  We stash them at night so no one steals them.

My relief comes in on time and I take off.

Hot City Diary: Day 133

The papers arrive in the mail today.  Apparently the state of California wants couples to wait 6 months to finalize any divorce proceedings.  So we will wait 6 months and when she see's that my girlfriend is 7 months pregnant, then Shelly is never going to talk to me again.

It's humid.  Around 96 degrees.  It certainly doesn't feel like the furnace is turned on high today.  I think I've just been sitting here too long; BECAUSE 96 IS HOT!  But it doesn't feel like it.  The humidity makes everything sticky.

Damn.

Hot City Diary: Day 140

It's triple 1's today.  It's triple crazy.  Who can live in 111 degree heat?

I've been taking the car out to pick up groceries and such in the evening when it cools down and to run some errands but the other day when I went out to get groceries I found myself blacked out in the desert off of Dinah Shore Drive last night and when I start the car again it was a real chore to get it back on the road and back home.  The car engine knocks and rattles when I drive over 50 mph, now.

I don't need any car Trouble.

I take it into a car repair shop today with some good reviews and they make it worse.  The engine mounts have become loose and are hitting the engine.  The mechanics say there is nothing they can do.  They actually say it in a really menacing way and there are three of them and it's weird so I just leave.

Dang it.

I barely make it home.  The car rattles like I'm being shot at.  It does better at high speeds but maybe that's just wishful thinking.  I keep it slow most of the way home with people running this way and that when I stop at the intersections.  It rattles off like an AK-47 and people duck and sprint when I make a right hand turn.   I keep the windows rolled down and wave people past as I try to stay in the golf cart lane.  The sun cooks me and my wounded car as we limp back to the house in the cove.  The neighbors come outside to see what's happening when I pull into the driveway.

They snicker and congregate in the middle of the street and I apologize and hastily make my retreat back into the walled compound and across the blistering cement front patio and into the house.

The door is open.  The dog is laying in front of some fans on the cool tile floor.

I join her and lay down in defeat.

No more wheels.

Hot City Diaries: Day 123

It's another Scorcher.

Losing my mind.

Up in here.  Up in here.

Music does help, though.  So I have the computer streaming all day.  I can switch over to the mobile when the black outs hit.  Gotta stay in the shadows.  Stay cool.  Stay hydrated.  Wait out this heat like a lizard under the rocks.

The lizards are all over the back yard.

Not as dangerous as their intelligent counterparts up there on Io.  The ones in my back yard are missing a couple hundred million years of evolution.  By the time they evolve to something formidable, the sun will have enveloped the planet.  Those fucking lizards better get it together.  Suddenly a large shadow passes by the window.  I sit up from the couch where I've been kinda napping/sweating. What was that?  The dog is barking like crazy.  There is a loud smash in the back yard and I'm up with my crocs on and running around the house to see what it is.

I run inside my gated side yard.  It's blistering hot out.  Then the door closes behind me.  I turn to see a lizard tail pushing it closed.  She's standing in the shadows.  She tells me that there is a plan for us.  She doesn't want to be dangerous and we can all live in harmony she tells me.  If I can just get the dog to play along.  Don't be a fool like the people up in Joshua Tree.

An intelligent life form from Io has come to visit.

She crashed her Ionian ship down the street and needs some water and chlorine and acid to get the ship going again.  It's kind of like a tourist bus.  She brings wealthy Ionians to Earth and shows them the sites.  They were on their way to Tijuana when the ship crashed in the hills behind Cat City.  Needless to say, everyone is pissed.  She needs to get the stuff and kinda get going.  They're behind schedule and all that.

She mentions that the pool waters' PH balance is all off.  Too much alkaline, but it will have to do.

I tell her to take as much water as she needs.  She says she's gonna need some muriatic acid.  I ask her how much she needs.  She says all of it.  I fetch it from the garage and when I come back the pool is empty.  All 18,000 gallons.  She's holding it in a small bag.  It's easy to move around when you shrink the molecules, she tells me.

Whatever.  I tell her it's gonna cost her something.  She fiddles with her ear and hands me an earring and tells me to wear it if I ever want to talk to her.

That'll work.  I ask if I can see the craft and she tells me that the Ionian tourists might like a close up chat with an inhabitant, which usually doesn't happen until the tour hit's Phoenix, but sure why not.  She does remind me that they are in a hurry, though.

She reduces the size of the chlorine and acid and strides out the back gate and I struggle to keep up with her.  I don't have time to close the gate, so the dog runs out and follows us as well.

"You go back home!"  I yell at my dog, but she doesn't listen.

We all run/jog down the wash to the ship.  The Ionian tour bus leader tells me we only have a moment and brings me onto this silver cigar looking ship.  It shines in the sun.  She parades me up and down an aisle and all the lizard people gasp and gawk and talk amongst themselves.  I get to wander the aisle for a minute.  They sit in fancy seats and drink fancy drinks and slap their legs in disbelief.  I do a little tap dance routine and they love it.  Then the tour bus leader shoo's me off.  It's time to go, they are running late.

I thank the Ionian for her time and then she makes sure I'm outside and seals the door and it just lifts off.  Very quietly.  Very slowly.  Like somebody turned off gravity, but only for the ship.  It floats up past my head and then after getting 30 feet up, it zooms out of the picture.

I wander back to my barking dog and we head back to the house.  I'll have to refill the pool.

Spanish Sex Bomb

Buenos Dias Palmas de Mallorca

Hot City Diary: Day 86

Kyle is the night engineer.  He's dating the chick that hires all the shows at the hotel.  She use to run Beauty Bar, LA.  She books the DJs', he sets up the mixer and breaks down the speakers.  It's an awesome combo.  So, Kyle is usually here until the wee hours and tonight he's talking about all the weird stuff that he thinks is going on.

He lives in Joshua Tree so for the most part, it's right on track.

There are six different types of aliens.  The one's we're most likely to see are the Tall Whites and I could actually get killed for telling you this.  I hope you appreciate it.  Anyhow, the tall whites like to do fun things like hang out and drink and go to Las Vegas and gamble and things like this.  They kinda look like albinos and you've probably danced with one at a Hollywood night club.

They live underground in these giant cities that the government has built.

There are over 500 underground cities in the United States, one of the largest is just outside of 29 Palms and the Marine Base over there confirms it.  They're obviously guarding something.

One of the entrances is off the Malibu coast.  If you ask anyone that's lived in Malibu for a very long time, they will say that they have seen ships go in and out of the water.  One thing they've forgotten to factor is the amount of drug use in Malibu and out of control partying.  I'm sure people have seen all sorts of things in Malibu.  Whatever.  I start to grow skeptical after the Malibu stuff, but I roll with it.

Maybe we are alone in this Universe, I joke with Kyle.  There might not be other intelligent life in the Universe.  Maybe no-one made it past the nuclear phase of their development?  A theory is that as civilizations grow over the years and they enter into new forms of living, Hunter & Gatherers to Stone Age to Bronze age to Iron Age to Industrial Age to Nuclear Age that nobody really get's out of the nuclear age.  Civilizations always end up bombing the fuck out of each other and ruining the planets or moons they live on.  So far, Earth has dodged the 1960s, but what is gonna happen when everyone has nuclear bombs?  Somebody is gonna use one.  That's the scary theory.  Let's hope it doesn't happen.  We've kept this civilization thing going 8K years this time around, let's hope we can graduate from the nuclear phase with no issues.  Kyle dismisses it with the amount of stars, one has to have intelligent life.  I kinda agree with him.

I ask Kyle why don't the Aliens intervene, and he says they are, JFK was an Alien.  He was the last good alien.  Now only the really bad ones intervene and it's ruining everything.  If I ever see a 3 eyed man, I should kill him, he tells me.

Okay.  I promise to kill all the three eyed men that I encounter.

Then Kyle shows me some You-tube videos.  Lot's of talk.  Somebodies kid was killed for knowing too much about the cities, but this one guy Charles Hall has a day pass.  He can talk about all kinds of stuff, but nothing happens to him.  Kyle explains this as some people are so highly regarded by the aliens, there is a list, a very short list, and Charles Hall is on it.  He can do whatever he wants and nobody can kill him.  No red list, blue list, CIA stuff for him.  He get's the day pass, everyday.

Then he tells me there's no way to measure time.  I ask him about the speed of light and he says it isn't a constant.  I tell him the universe is 4 billion years old and he laughs and says we can't even be sure what's in our solar system.  There could be another couple earths on parallel tracks in bubble universes that have bizarre different outcomes.  He tells me about how maybe the Universe is just a big animal, looking for another universe to fuck to have a universe baby.

I have to check someone in.

Kyle lingers and looks up more videos as he waits to indoctrinate me more.

I check Ms. Fancybottom in and head outside for a cigarette.  Kyle borrows a smoke from me and tells me that the majority of the Aliens are only using the Earth for a way point on their travels thru space.  The Earth is a roadside diner for aliens.

The lizards are the worst.  IF I ever see a Lizard man or woman or child, I should kill it.  Then go on the run because Cheney is the chief Lizard and he hunts down all lizard killers personally.  He shoots you in the face and eats your heart.

"So, good luck with the info, It's 2:30am I've got to leave." Kyle says.

"Thanks Kyle, I'll remember to kill 3 eyed  people and lizard people and stay off the red list."  I say

Kyle get's in his subcompact and drives the 45 minutes back up to Joshua Tree.  It's probably more like an hour because he lives off Old Woman Springs Road.

I wave and then get to the paperwork.

Play

buttonbass.com

Hot City Diary: Day 154

Hotness.

Madness.

I'm the dragonfly.

I'm the palm tree.  I stand so tall and straight.  My skin can handle this sunlight all day long.

Someone turns on the oven and we start to bake in the house around 6 am.  The coils are heating; they just look like cement.  The street out front is sucking in the heat and can exceed 150 degrees at some points.  Too hot, hot, hot.  There is cement all around the house. around the pool.  It's everywhere.

The pool water sits in a cement basin and it cooks. The water has been over 100 degrees for several days now.

I can't reach the sink so I crawl out front to the hose and cut it off the at the spout and turn it on.  It's hot and only get's lukewarm after a while, but I don't care.  I lay under the spout and wash myself with the water until I have a sane thought.

I'm not a palm tree.

I'm not the dragonfly.

I'm some idiot stuck in the desert without air conditioning.  I should go hang out in one of those senior cool down centers.  They keep the air at 72 degrees.  All day.  All night.  I might go if I could find the car keys.  Stupid car keys.  Maybe I'd keep on driving and make my way up to Big Bear or maybe keep on driving up to Alaska.  Go stay in that camp in Kavik with Sue and the Foxes.  A lot of maybes.

Dear Writing

I hate you.