Hot City Diary: Day of the Radio

It's the only thing that still works.  The 1985 radio is playing a tape right now.  One of my mixed tapes.


We're shut down in the desert.  The satellite dish melted or maybe not the dish but something important cooked and the TV is busted now.  I do still have all my Cosmos saved and Alaskan TV shows.  It's fucking THURSDAY!  I'm gonna get stoned and lose myself in Alaska.  Those guys and gals are super independent and great hunters.  I remind myself to go hunt down at Trader Joes later today.  I need to buy some food.


It's blistering out.  Horribly hot.  The kinda heat that  make's water taste like your Mom's cookies.  Water tastes soooooooo good on a hot day like today.  Throw some ice in that glass and POW!  Better than any cocktail.

One of the managers was saying the other day that there is a heat advisory in full effect for the next two months and that we need to drink water.

Water.

It's the only way to survive out here.  Hydration.  H2O.  Hydrogen and Oxygen.  Can't we double or triple up the hydrogen to my oxygen.  How about H6O.  How about that.  That's the only way to survive in the desert.

Suddenly the backyard patio comes apart into atoms, and dances a little to the radio and then put's itself back together again.  I can't be outside anymore.   I'll just have to smoke in the house from now on.  I've been in the sun too long and I'm starting to see things.  The world couldn't have possibly come apart into atoms and then danced and then rearranged themselves.  Next the dog might come apart, and we don't want that.


Stay hydrated is the only rule.  None of the other rules matter because you'll go mad.

The tape stops playing, it's melting a little and i rush to take it out of the tape deck.  I stick the radio in the cooler and let it sit for a while to cool down. Losing the radio would be another lost tie with the outside world.  My smart phone and tablet burnt out.  Internet is spotty at best.

I take the radio out of the cooler and tune the AM channels to see if I kind find anybody.   I find two channels.  The first channel is a woman who is looking for her cat.  She is also sending out good vibrations and has water for anyone that needs it.  She's located on Paradise Way.  The big house with the walls made of solar something.  The second channel is a man who needs help, he needs some water.  The woman on the first channel talks about him a bit, about how he doesn't know we're listening so he doesn't give us his address.  It's a tragedy playing out on the radio.  Then I realize that I don't have any stations on the AM dial.   I roll up and down the dial and nobody.  My Cat woman is gone and the dying man is gone, too.  I must have either lost them or who knows If I was listening to anything but the thoughts in my own head.  Am I going crazy? I should go get a drink of water.

I flip the radio to FM and tune in KMET.  Rock-n-Roll starts to play.

Hot City Diary: Day 142

I'm standing in the shallow end of the pool with my sombrero on and I'm trying to stay cool.  It's only 107 today and that's good stuff for July.  Usually it's up in the One Teens.  The pool water in the shallow end is about 94 degrees.  It's hot.  I swim into the deep end, where I soon find myself treading water.  It's not that difficult.  I keep my head above water and navigate the hoses from the BarracudaV2400 and the pool animals.  It's a tad windy, which makes it a little more bearable, but not really.  I realize my joint is out and paddle to the love seat by the jacuzzi waterfall and light it again.  I few moments go by and I realize I've lit my sombrero on fire and it's going like dry brush.  Holy shit.  I duck underwater but the chinstrap puts me in a choke hold and I end up dragging the hat down to the bottom of the pool with me.

It's nice down here at the bottom.  I hold my breath and now that I'm just floating there, the sombrero floats there, too just a few inches from the top of my head..  A quarter of its burnt.  I turn it so it faces the back and then come up for air.  The hat is soaked, so I lay it out on the cement to dry and it starts to do so immediately.

Such a good hat, it had come from Mexico in the 90's and had so many adventures.  There was even some kind of secret compartment in the hat, that was so secret that I forgot where it is.

The dog has been eating cockroach traps and getting high on the poison.  She's freaking out right now and running around what's left of the grass.  She get's so high she'll jump in the pool sometimes.  This time she just runs back into the house and slides along the tile floor.

I grab a beer from the cooler and make my way back out to the pool.  I grab the hat which is dry already and put the burnt part toward the back and walk into the pool.  It's nice.  It sparkles.  Instantly it cools the body down.  The head should be submerged as much as possible to keep the brain cool.  It's hard to keep it underwater, but I'll try to take a swim around the deep end every ten minutes, just to keep it cool.  I'll leave the hat floating at the surface and then try to come back up into it.  Keeping my sunglasses on.  It's quite a feat.

Viva La France

It's hot.  It's 108 out.

The pool sparkles or at least it does in my dreams.

The heat keeps it 90 degrees.

Hot City Diary: Day 91

Sticky loves the night life.

She loves to boogie on the dance floor, and then run back over behind Koffi and use all kinds of meth with Michael.  I clock in and make the mistake of walking through the bar and she is standing next to the door and spots me and gives me a great big hug.  Yuck.  She's already without her shoes.  Usually that doesn't happen until after midnight.

I've got work to do, so I run to the front desk.  Well, I don't run, but I kinda jog to get away from Sticky.  She smiles big and stays in the bar for the time being.

Nothing happening at the front desk except some people wanting to buy cigarettes.  They want to know whats the diff between Blue or Yellow?  "I don't know," I say, "They all give you cancer." They buy some Marlboro lights.

Then Sticky comes in.  She wants to know how much the hotel logo tote bags are?  I don't tell her just yet.  She starts to ramble on about how the garbage bags she has keeps falling apart.  Into the merchandise closet I go, and I find 2 different tote bags and bring them out on the display case and lay them out really nice.  I don't show Merchandise to anyone on my shift, I'm usually too busy running numbers and printing reports and working it out so I tell prospective customers to please either buy online or come back during the daytime.  I don't have time for this shit.  Do I have sandals in european size 40?  I don't fucking know.  But tonight, for Sticky who says she is going back to Santa Cruz tomorrow because she was just out in the desert to see the doctor and THIRTY FIVE DOLLARS?  EACH? I do.  Sticky goes on to tell me that she doesn't get her disability check until the first.  She get's paid twice a month on the first and on fifteenth and that's just too much money to spend.  I hand her a couple clear garbage bags and she thanks me and talks about great hospitality.

She's been pretending to eat and drink at the bar and she'll dance a little too, that's the crowd on a Wednesday, homeless meth freaks pretending to buy stuff.  She complained earlier to the hotel manager that security embarrassed her in the bar by saying out loud and really loud, by the way, where everyone could hear, that she was caught sleeping in the hotel restaurant the other day and is homeless and can't afford a drink or food and where is it by the way?  She thought that was embarrassing, but now she's back 2 hours later after the shift change and she's dancing.

The overnight security is a little more lenient.  He's not going to kick her out.  "She's not hurting anybody," security says, "and she's not jumping at people like Michael does, so just leave her be."  She get's to dance the night away, and run back and forth from the meth camp and sell sex for drugs.

I need a shower, or maybe I'll just jump in the pool when I get home.

Well, she's gathered her things into the garbage bags I've given her and puts them outside the lobby door, surrounding the ashtray.  It's like a huge pyramid of homeless belongings that now encompasses the ashtray. She comes back in and sits on the couch and pretends to be a hotel guest.

This is why I like Sticky.  This next part.  So, a very well mannered woman from Europe comes in and wants to know if I could find some birthday candles.  It's a special celebration and she would appreciate it.  I tell her I'll be right back and I head off to scour the hotel. During that time, Sticky realizes that she's in a 22 day old dress that is made for a 22 year old and her hair is crazy and she's not wearing shoes and there's nice clientele at this hotel and she leaves.  I don't have to tell her.  She get's it.  She doesn't even say goodbye, fucking Sticky.

Hot City Diary: Day 90

It's honestly too hot around here.  How can it be in the 100s already?

Work was mediocre, but the best part is dinner.  Here's a pic.

Hot City Diary: Day 84 & 1/2

Summer of 2014 - California Desert

I wake up from my daytime sleep and Washed Out plays on the computer radio.

It just finished raining and is still pretty muggy right now.  It never rains here.  Houses in the desert don't even have rain gutters.  I must be dreaming.  I wander around the house and try to dream up a great breakfast but nothing happens.  I try to use my mind to move objects.  Nothing happens.  So, I walk outside and see that the yard has been watered and the full effect of the rain on the desert.  The landscape looks satisfied for the first time since I've lived here.

Little fluffy clouds float thru the sky.

I float around in the pool on the turtle floatie.  Can you pass me another beer?  It's 90 out.  I never thought I'd say this, but 90 is perfect!

This certainly is strange weather.  Wouldn't that be great if climate change would bring a tropical climate to the desert?  That's probably not gonna happen for at least another million years.  Kind of a long time off.

I saw on house hunters international somebody buy an Italian apartment for $15K.   I miss Shelly.

Hot City Diary: Day 84

Oh gawd no.  It's 4:04 am.   Here she comes again.  She's all over this end of town this week.  She'll be gone next week, and we won't see her for maybe another month or so.  There's a system to this madness.  That's the sad thing, you'd think that if you're living the wild west dream then there should be no systems and you could just do whatever you want, but you can't.

My co-worker with all the curves is naming her Sticky.  She is unhealthy skinny and walks with a limp.  Sticky has to use the bathroom.  Can Sticky have a glass of water? Sticky wants to wander around in the bar for a little while, is that okay? No? Okay.

She doesn't have her shoes the next time she comes in.  Sticky wanders around the lobby for a little while and does her little tap dance and soft shoe routine until we look up and then she wants to know if we've got matches.  Does anyone have a lighter?

Sticky walks across the street and hangs out in the bus stop for a little while.  She also goes over to the coffee shop next door to see what the rest of this weeks meth campers are up to.  They've set up shop for the evening and most other evenings in the atrium that's hidden from the street by a small wall so the police have to make an effort and drive over and look, which they do and then it's time to move camp for all the happy campers.  But not yet this week.  Things are bustling at the camp.  Micah is there and he's brought the good stuff from downtown.  Sticky wants a couple more grams.  She's gonna pay for it half money half sex.  Which is just a little weird cuz Micah is in his 20s and Sticky is in her 50s but looks 70.  Whatever.

After all the hot meth sex, Sticky makes her way back to the hotel and asks for another glass of water.  Sticky wants to buy some cigarettes and the money looks gross.  Sure $14.50 please.  Hotel cigarettes are a killer.  Sticky needs a plastic bag if we have one, I rip her off a piece of housekeepings stash and she leaves, after checking out the magazines on the table.

The night is quiet at the hotel.  It's 91 degrees at 5am.

All the reports have been finished and security has come around to shoot the breeze.  We get to talking about the homeless and the drug fiends and how they say they want food but if you buy them food then they get all upset.

That's when Sticky comes in one last time and says she think she broke the clasp on her necklace and wonders if someone can put it back on around her neck.  My co-worker helps her out.   Sticky makes her way to the door and turns around and thanks everyone for the great hospitality and wants us to know that things are great and not to worry about her, but we were very nice.  We wave and say goodbye, my co-worker and I.  Security puts on a sour face.

Soon the sky starts to brighten and things are really looking great at the hotel.  The regular hotel guests start to move around the compound.  The sun has sent most of the night creatures, only the really dumb ones still wander the street with the hordes of joggers and bicyclists with righteous stares, staring them off into a shady motel.

Hot city diary: Day 145

Heat wave.  110+ all week.

It's hard to sleep.  It's Uncomfortably hot.

Hot City Diary: Day 131

It's the same thing everyday.

Here is a list from synonym.com

baking, baking hot
blistering, blistery
calefacient, warming
calefactory, calefactive
calorifacient
calorific
fervent, fervid
fiery, igneous
heatable
heated, heated up, het, het up
hottish
overheated
red-hot
scorching
sizzling
sultry, stifling, sulfurous, sulphurous
sweltering, sweltry
thermal
torrid
tropical, tropic
white, white-hot

Hot City Diary: Day 130

The house is an unsettling oven without any kind of air system.  It will cook us alive if we're not careful.  

All the shutters must be 100% closed.  I use duct tape to make sure that they stay closed.  The shade inside the house is important.  If the inside of the house doesn't know it's daytime out, then we're safe.

I know it sounds crazy, but it's true.

I've been buying fans from people on Craigslist and have quite a collection now.  The air is being circulated around the house at tremendous speeds if we click it to high, but most of the fans are turned on medium.  

So, nothing from Shelly and on that note, the girl I was fucking at work wanted to move in and I said "Yes" but she came over yesterday and saw the state of the house and asked if maybe I wanted to come and live with her.  I told her I couldn't abandon this ship just yet.

The pool is not looking good, either.