Monday, February 9, 2026

Pastel #1

My friend Kordt used to work at a restaurant on Rodeo Drive called "Pastel." The manager was a guy named Fabrice - ebullient guy with a thick French accent. One of the servers there was a woman named Telsie, petite, beautiful, self-assured.
Once, as Fabrice was ushering a couple into Telsie's section, she said, "Oh, no. No, no. Fabrice, I told you I would never wait on them again." Fabrice's response: "Oh, I'm so, so sorry, Telsie," and to the couple, "I'm sorry, you will have to follow me." The woman protested, "What?" and Fabrice, shugged, put his hands up, "It's impossible! Follow me."
Telsie worked two jobs, Pastel during the day and the Playboy Club at night. We went to visit her - I think she had to get us in. We were impressed by her nighttime look, "Oh, my God, Telsie, you've got boobs!" She said, "Oh, yeah, you basically just drag every single bit of your body up into this iron cage and set all of that on a shelf of padding. All of this," (she poked the bottom of her boob) "is just stuffing. Half of this," (poking the top of her boob) came from my thigh." Then she said, "Oh. I have to go deal with those dickheads," and she walked off smiling from ear to ear at a tableful of business men who looked very much like dickheads.
Telsie had bought two houses by the time I left LA.

Monday, January 19, 2026

what i dreamed and wrote down

we became

and then we were

we made more

and learned to stay

we made sounds

and we threw colors

we moved things

and gave them names

and through it all

with every dawn

we reached out 

'til we were gone

Thursday, January 8, 2026

It'll Get Better

From January 8, 2014: I was sitting in my car after parking at Kaiser, crying my eyes out from pain and nausea before going in to get an x-ray.

A nice gentleman saw me, motioned for me to roll down my window and said, "It'll get better. It doesn't seem like it, but it will."

I said, "I know! I have a kidney stone!"

The gentle smile fell from his face and he said, "Oh SHIT! That's what I've got! THIS is what I have to look forward to?" and we both laughed our heads off.