"The fly in the ointment"

meaning "a small but irritating flaw that spoils the whole". I'm overall really happy in my new place of work, it is just that some aspects of its antiquated, rinky-dink manner of functioning irk me no end, but I should look at the bottom line: I make more money here. I am somewhat antiquated myself, but CorCab should really get with the technology of digital dispatch, because putting calls out over the radio creates a lot of friction, especially because their radio traffic is more anarchic than at any of the previous cab companies I have worked for. Radio should be controlled by the dispatcher and the drivers should stick to accepting calls, or asking relevant questions about their calls. There's this particular dispatcher, an elderly lady who has a very short fuse, and who has the busiest shift because she's pals with the owner; she gets stressed out when it's very busy, and there are continuous yelling matches between her and some of the more argumentative drivers, those who are easily outraged by her faults and shortcomings. Also some drivers are in love with the sound of their own voice and are forever expounding their opinions over the radio, regardless of how germane they might be. Everybody knows everybody else's business, because we have to announce that we have picked up the passenger that was given us by dispatch, and to say where we are taking them. It sours your mood if you have been getting a string of short fares and another driver seems to be getting all the long trips. So drivers are envious of each other, and we don't take into account the times when our own fool selves have had a run of good luck. Like desperate Las Vegas gamblers we want to get lucky ALL the time. Yet at the end of the week, we all have generally done pretty well, so all the bickering and aggravation on the c.b. radio has been for naught.

The owner of CorCab has a very civilized, polite manner about her, in a Lutheran sort of way, but she surely must be aware that she has two Cerberuses working in the office; the accountant and the head dispatcher.  The former ( I forget her name... Doris? Doreena? ) hounds you to hell if you are but a minute late in paying your lease. The latter, a certain Ronnie, is a pathological accuser. Blame, blame, blame. Blame you for this, blame you for that, blame you for something you never even heard about. Because he is in charge of the maintenance of the vehicles, and the company does not have their own mechanic, his job is to relegate on the poor driver the responsibility of the vehicle's upkeep... thirty-three years driving a cab this month, and I have never had to deal with the yearly taxicab inspections conducted by the municipal taxicab authority. This has always been the responsibility of the taxicab company. The ten-year old jalopies with a quarter million miles on the clock that we drive are bound to be breaking down often. Now, I am mechanically challenged. Checking the tires and the fluids is the limit of my ability. I cannot be blamed for a malfunctioning heater core. But he blamed me for the very thing the other day. Drivers I have spoken with share the same complaint, This Ronnie guy is insidiously relentless with his blaming, like a sword hanging over your head. Alternator conks out, and why did YOU let it happen? This qualifies as downright psychological abuse, Qué no?

I've met some of the drivers. We congregate at the taxi stand across the street from Hotel del Colorado. This is a smoke-free town but some of us surreptitiously indulge. I roll my own tobacco, so if cops should stop by I can easily dispose of the evidence. The drivers I best get along with are Danny, a 30-something year old Puerto Rican ( he looks like some cheeky monkey always bouncing around ) who is married to a girl from Tijuana. They have two daughters. The other is a Polish guy about my age or a little older ( looks like some skinny bird, a stork maybe )  called Alexy, who is not very forthcoming with his biography, but who I gather is retired from a previous job and is augmenting his income and keeping busy driving a taxicab. Then there is Biff.

Biff used to be a tuna-boat captain until the fishing company went bust. He's been driving a cab for five years. A tireless worker, he must be one of the top earners. His wife, who waits tables at Jerry's Café, kicked him out of the house so she can conduct love affairs with the cooks and the bus boys from the restaurant. She kept their teenage sons. Biff is a houseguest at his brother's, but his brother's wife doesn't like him and he has long since worn out his welcome, but can't afford his own place because he's still making payments on the house he used to share with his wife. Or because of bad money management, debts, I don't know.

Biff is big and burly, dresses always in black shorts and black t-shirt and sports an impressive biblical beard of prophet proportions. A Captain Ahab type who probably hums sea shanties in his dreamtime. He drinks a lot, for somebody with diabetes. He told me he drank seventeen Stella Artois the other Sunday. Biff cut his foot on a sharp stone and it's been weeks and the wound has not healed yet. He was very helpful to me when I first started, offering advice and directions. Biff is fun to talk to, but all the same he's a competitive and somewhat dishonest fellow driver, always taking any slight edge, any slight advantage that he can, sometimes stepping on the toes of other drivers. In fact most of the drivers are greedy, selfish little pigs. The only gentlemen that I can see in the bunch are Danny from Puerto Rico, and Alexy from Poland. They'll say, "after you, sir". Well, they'll say that to ME, because they can sense that I'm somehow disconnected from the prevalent dog-eat-dog competition.

But let me tell you about this Miami-Cuban woman in my cab! she ignored both her companion, a burly white guy from Colorado; I'd say in his mid-forties, and my humble self, because she was on the phone with a friend the whole time, and usually people on the phone irritate me, but her conversation although not meant for us, was riveting: she was describing a get-together at the Hotel del Colorado, with the families of both the future  groom, and the bride-to-be, of a wedding fast approaching. This woman was to me some sort of star. Not so much what she was saying, but how she said it. She would speak fluent English interspersed with Cuban-Spanish asides which my ears found captivating and exotic, and I wanted to listen to her talk on the phone all night. But alas, we soon arrived at the U.S. Grant Hotel and I dropped them off. As her slim figure all in black scurried inside still on the phone, the guy said to me, as he paid me: " Yep. Cubans. Cubans and weddings".

The guy I share the cab with, he works the day shift, keeps putting these tin cans of cherry-scented car deodorant under the driver's seat, and their cloying perfume gets in my sinuses and makes me cough. I told him before, I said, I had to throw your cherry perfume out because it was bothering me. Well, he put in another one and hid it good but I still found it. I told the boss lady I cannot abide by this fellow any longer but she said we all have to get along as a team. I said I am more a lone wolf than a team player. Had a cab all to myself 18 years and it's impossible for me to put up with other people's idiosyncrasies. I don't want the guy to change his ways, I just want him gone. Put him in another cab where he can indulge his cherry scent fixation to his heart's content.

Steely Dan II

I dropped some kid off at The Belgian Lion, 30th and El Cajon. It has been a very poor week and finally we get some business. Driving down 30th Street listening to Steely Dan looking to get back on the freeway, North Park seems inviting.Young people crowding the sidewalks and bursting out the bars and restaurants and coffee places and old-style barbershops. I spy a row of arts and crafts stalls and decide to park and walk around a little. It's a beautiful Saturday evening not even seven o'clock and dark already. Warmer than it's been. The neon lights, the commercial buildings from mid-twentieth century, a quarter moon peeking from behind a cloud and everything else like that. Them girls all look pretty, not an ugly one in the bunch. What used to be a Salvation Army thrift store, one where I used to shop twenty years ago, is now a carpets outlet. The old North Park Theatre is now ... what. Is that a bar? looks like it. I need to urinate, so I boldly walk into a trattoria that looks like an old converted fabrics store, still with the concrete floor and bare walls. They didn't waste any money decorating, ha ha. Maybe that's the style nowadays. Walking out of the trattoria, I turn the corner and come upon a kitschy, over-the-top taco shop called "Lucha Libre". It's got a Mexican wrestler's mask painted on the window, behind which there is a gold lamé upholstered booth that makes me laugh. Much too much. It faces the window, and the patrons sitting on it seem on display. Still the kids are everywhere, the world belongs to the young, and do they realise how lucky they are no-one's shooting at them or trying to blow them up?



They call Alabama the Crimson Tide

Call me Deacon Blues



Just what is Donald Fagen singing about? Why am I even listening to Steely Dan? I never said I liked them. Well I do like them, a little bit. I think what it is, they remind me of happy times long-ago. Because they used to be all over the radio. They used to play in Bob's Big Boy Restaurant rest-rooms. Steely Dan II is a metallic dildo in William Burroughs' The Naked Lunch, any major dude will tell you. Back in North Park, I hurry through the narrative and the crowded streets, back to my cab I left parked on North Park Way, behind the CVS, and glide down the southbound 805 to Chula Vista, some girl singers singing about fettuccini on my stereo, behind Donald Fagen.

The VFW club in National City has closed down. The nationwide directors of all the VFW's came to town and closed it the fuck down. I wasn't surprised. They shouldn't have called it the VFW, but the WTF? Normally, a VFW is members-only drinking club for retired military. Veterans of Foreign Wars. They pay their yearly fees and they go in there and drink and party and dance and drink some more and eat hot-dogs and potato salad, all at a discount. The National City VFW though, looked more like a Rosarita Beach whorehouse than anything else. They'd be blasting narco-corridos on the jukebox and nobody spoke english. Maybe there'd be ONE veteran of a foreign war in there. A transvestite from Tijuana was seen doing the Can-Can atop the bar by this reporter. A member? I don't think so. So word must've got back to VFW headquarters and like I say, the head honchos came with fixed bayonets and ándale'd everybody out the door.

Which brings us to the sad and continuing saga of the not-quite-romance of  Elvira and Ponytail Dave. Dave lives in the house where he grew up that his parents left him in the old part of ChulaVista. He was born around the corner in the old Chula Vista Community Hospital, now a rest home for disabled / handicapped paupers. God grant me my death before I end up there. Now, Elvira is not ugly, has tits out to here and a slim waist. She is pals with the erstwhile manager of the NC VFW, an alcoholic old harridan I don't want to think about, and so Elvira used to hang there. Elvira has the reputation of befriending the richest guy in a room and making him buy her pickup trucks and other trinkets in return for I-don't-know-what. Maybe just her charming conversation and the occasional dance. Ponytail Dave is madly in love with her, bought her a second-hand Mercedes when she crashed the truck that the other guy had got her.

A few years have passed since these likely tales were put down. Ponytail Dave died  mmmm… March of '17, and at the last minute he married Elvira the Vampyre and she, by all accounts, or by the only account I got first-hand, got Dave's house and ancillary and sundry properties, some bungalows for rent out back giving to the other street. Curiously enough, Dave phoned me from the Hospice a few days before he passed, to thank me for my services throughout the years, and to say goodbye. The unexpected call stunned me to near silence and I was unable to articulate the thought that I would never forget him. Instead, inanely, I said "thanks for calling, Dave".

Incidentally, it was Ponytail Dave told me all Steely Dan fans are assholes. Toward the end of his life Dave wanted to re-live the good times he had going to concerts in his youth, and so he went to see Hall and Oats, ZZ Top, The J. Geils Band; em, fuckin Rush or somebugger of that ilk, and quite a few others, Steely Dan among them. Apparently some of the audience in the front rows started some sort of back and forth discussion with Donald Fagen. I dunno, maybe he wasn't playing the songs they wanted. Then Dave nearly came to blows in the restroom, over I forget what, with somebody. So he told me they were ALL assholes. I had occasion to concur when I tried to join a Steely Dan appreciation group, in order to do which I first had to answer some questions. I was asked to choose my favorite between two S.D. albums. I must have given the wrong answer, because I never heard from them again.

With the weed scientist

My old friend Tibbo, we go back 45 years, has been visiting Tijuana regularly because he has a contract with the local professional soccer team to oversee the maintenance of their playing fields, him being and agricultural engineer. Always very good to see him, always good for a laugh and a drink or two hundred. This time I agreed to take a Saturday off work in order to meet up with him. I am loath to take Saturdays off, because it's the one day of the week I can be sure will be profitable.

But OK, Saturday I took the bus into town and walked to the Hotel Nelson, were we have met before; at the outdoor café on the sidewalk just under the silver arch that is 50 meters high and resembles a miniature of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis Missouri. The corner where this venerable old hotel stands is always very busy at the weekend. Musicians, prostitutes, pickpockets, police, taxi drivers, shoeblacks, fake-silver jewelry vendors and assorted beggars and drug-addicts all roam and congregate, vying for a share of the gringo tourist largesse.

So we sit there like fucking tourists, being importuned every few minutes by different specimens of the types described above. At first it's just me and him, but other friends soon arrive, the first of which was Turi, who was actually my brother's friend back in the day, same age group, but now we both belong to the old farts age group and he's good company.Very simpatico.

We sit and drink and presently there arrives a friend of Tibbo's I was introduced to I forget his name, but I'll call him the weed scientist. He's an engineer of some description, somehow into forensics, who regaled us with tall tales of having stayed at the U.S. embassy in Kazakhstan hired by the government to set up a forensic computer program to help identify massacre victims. Or something.

As he monopolized the conversation it transpired he makes his living curing terminal cancer patients with different varieties of cannabis extract. But as he got deeper into technical detail he lost me and I became impatient for the conversation to take a different turn. I actually wanted to talk about pop music, silly me. And both you and I know that I am a depressive. Because I used to fall on my forehead a lot when I was very small, and as the weed scientist expounded on his very dark vision of a world controlled by big pharma and big bad government, I began to get the dismal feeling I have been living my life all wrong, putting my health in the hands of quack doctors who are instruments of big pharma.

But I have faith in my doctor and I do not believe he is some kind of big pharma robot. The weed scientist could have shaken the very ground underneath me to the point I would have thrown myself at his feet begging him to take over the direction of my health if I had continued to sit there, but I said 'excuse me a moment' and took my leave. By then other friends had arrived and I would like to think my departure remained unnoticed for at least a few minutes.

I wanted to think about something else, like maybe a plate of chicken chop suey.

TAXI !!

It was midnight. Mazcorro Cab pulled up next to me in the empty parking lot of the I.G.A. market and asked how I was doing.

"It's dead", I said.

"Yeah. Ever since Über came along -- ((( riiiing! ))) -- Got a call. Got to go. Luck"

And there went Mazcorro Cab. Good guy, Mazcorro. I've known him for about fifteen years. We used to be neighbors in the Colonia Postal neighborhood. A cold chill went down my back at the thought of being left without income because of bloody Über. But it's the way of the world, aint it. Things come and things go.

In the meantime we struggle on in diminished circumstances. I got a call at Plaza Burrito going to Taco Towers and it's a young woman named Catherine. She tries to open the front passenger door, but I keep it locked. Don't want nobugger sitting next to me unless absolutely necessary. I tell her to sit in the back. I got all my stuff spread across the front seat. Thought she'd get the visual message. Apparently not.

"Are you the same guy?" -- she asks -- "you must be, cos you're not letting me sit up front. You must be mad at me"

"What same guy. I just got here"

"I'm so sorry I made you wait. I was paying my bill at the Red Robin. I'm sorry"

"Sweetheart, I just got here"

"Are you sure?"

"As sure as eggs is eggs. I'm no little boy -- mommy, I don't know, I' not sure -- I'M SIXTY YEARS OLD, OF COURSE  I'M SURE"  ( young people have the annoying habit of asking 'are you sure?' without thinking. Kind of a reflex question. Or they'll say, 'are you serious?', which makes me want to strangle them )

"You're angry now..."

"I'M NOT F .. I'm not angry"

"Why are you shouting. I said I was sorry"

It went on and on like that. She wouldn't let it go, she wouldn't shut up. Meanwhile I'm trying to get on the rush-hour freeway... I'm one o' dem as can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Can only concentrate on one thing. This girl looked allright. Decent clothes. Not ugly. But she had terrrrible body odor, as if from a thousand unwashed armpits, which I've come to learn is a sign of mental illness. I beg your pardon; of "behavioral issues". She was fuckin nuts and she was driving ME nuts too, in other words.

She never did believe I was not that other driver she had made to wait, but she DID pay her fare, bottom line. Tipped me three bucks and all.

A fellow driver has died. José was his name. He was about seventy years old. Friday he went home saying he didn't feel well. Sunday morning he was dead. I spoke to him maybe a month ago, when I gave him a ride from the Red Cab office to the Iris Trolley station. I asked him about his Social Security, and he said he couldn't afford to retire because he hadn't accumulated enough points. I seem to recall we talked about God a little bit. Twenty years ago he used to work the gasoline pumps at the Yellow Cab garage downtown. Later he came to drive for Red Cab.When we had radio dispatching we could hear him, always giving the dispatcher some kind of comedic aggravation. I mean to say; we couldn't actually hear him, but we could infer what was going on from the dispatcher's reaction to whatever José was saying. Cranky old guy, but fun to listen to. Or to not listen to. Rest in peace, don José.

Talking about old guys, lately there's been an old beat-up stretch limo parked in the parking lot where I make my office. Says "VIP Limos Inc" on the back widow. The driver looks to be about eighty years old, and is always nattily attired in a dark suit, shirt and tie, and two-tone shoes. Has to use one of those aluminum walkers to get around.  Goes in the I.G.A. a lot. Or he'll sit at the counter in Denny's and watch people as they come in. I go in there often, for coffee or iced tea, and to use the rest-room. I have never actually seen him pick up, or have passengers on board. I am somewhat intrigued. He came out of nowhere, and now he's here. A mystery.

"Taxi!"

"What"

"Can you help me out with some spare change?"

"No"

( a little while later ... )

"Hey taxi!"

"Yes"

"Drive us to the 24th Street trolley?"

"Sure. Hop in"

I'm getting off the freeway at 24th Street when the guy says

"No, no. Get off"

"I AM getting off"

"No, I mean, go left"

"What?"

"Go left, go left, get off. Stay on the freeway!"

I'm all discombobulated. What's this guy want me to do? Reason I'd rather just deal with people I know and trust. Too many crazies out there. I mean, Ponytail Dave, he drinks. Can get ornery at times. But he pays cash on the barrel-head every time, tips handsomely, and no questions asked. As it turned out the guy going to 24th Street did pay. He just had a little trouble deciding he wanted to go to the Euclid Trolley station instead.

Ajos y cebollas, rayos y centellas

Estoy leyendo una colección de las columnas que Arturo Pérez-Reverte escribió en plan desmadre para El Semanal de Madrid entre 2001 y 2005. "No Me Cogeréis Vivo", se llama. Usa mucho caló gachupín que batallo para descifrar. Ya vi que "tomar por saco" significa más o menos "irse a la chingada". Que "lo que se tercie" quiere decir "lo que se dé". Varias otras frases y palabras ya voy entendiendo. Usa mucho el calificativo "cutre" , que puede significar vulgar, tacaño, de mala calidad, descuidado. O como decimos aqui, "chafa" ( lo cual es un pochismo, porque se deriva del inglés "chaff " = "desperdicio". Mas adelantito me voy a contradecir BIEN gacho...) O un"cantamañanas"; es alguien que se compromete a hacer cosas que es incapaz de realizar, por ejemplo el político de tu predilección. O "que te rulas" = que te ruedas de la risa. O "cenutrio" = pendejo. Hay otra, el verbo "endiñar", pero suena muy feo y no la voy a investigar.

El señor Reverte escribe con frecuencia sobre cosas que detesta de este nuestro mundo de hoy. La falta de educación, la descortesía, y así. Gente con el gorro puesto sentada en un restaurante. Automovilistas con las bocinas del estéreo bramando hasta ensordecer. Le repatea ver a hombres vistiendo "shorts" en cualquier lugar que no sea la playa o la alberca. Dice que vió a un tipo caminando por la Gran Vía de Madrid en chanclas, traje de baño y nadamás, rascándose las pelotas. Le dieron ganas de romperle la cara. Yo uso pantalón corto todo el verano, pero es la usanza aqui en Kalifas.

Otra de las mismas: está Reverte esperando subirse a un avión cuando mira otro palurdo con sus patas peludas a la intemperie. Hijodeputa - se dice - con mi suerte ese cretino me toca de junto. Dicho y hecho.  De puro coraje le hinca el codo en el costado las veces que puede; perdón, perdón, es que están muy estrechos los asientos, y le derrama su botellita de agua accidentalmente en la horcajadura. Preocupándose por que si se cae el avión lo último que verá serán unas patas peludas.

Le vengo dando vueltas al libro este. Especialmente porque tengo sentimientos afines con los del el autor en lo que respecta a la política. Insatisfecho con la izquierda y con la derecha ambas. Aborrezco lo socialmente correcto y el hipócrita "buen rollito", como llama él a...ja ja ja, no sé exactamente pero me imagino: las empresas que se anuncian como "verdes", preocupadas por el bienestar de la humanidad y del planeta, por ejemplo. El buen rollito, la mala leche, tus muertos más frescos y hay que joderse. Ah! y para qué te digo que sí, si no.O para qué te digo que no, si sí. Esta última suena muy mexicana. Seguro la recogió cuando anduvo investigando La Reina del Sur por acá.

Detestamos también a los que viven y lucran del no llamar a las cosas por su nombre. Me están cambiando el léxico, los hijos de su rechingada madre... "Fuerzas de Paz" en substitución de "Fuerzas Armadas", por ejemplo. O las feministas imponiendo su término "violencia de género" en lugar de "violencia doméstica". Nos explica Reverte que sus compas los don Ramones de la Real Academia Española están escandalizados por lo de "género". Que es un "gÜirismo". Del "gÜiri", que es el idioma inglés. Como cuando llega aqui un pendejo de San Diego State University y se pone a preguntar si "estamos en la misma página". YA sabes qué puedes hacer con tu pinchi página, tarado.

Quizás estos sentimientos sean endémicos entre los sesentones como yo comprendo, auque no dejen de ser subjetivos. Me imagino a un viejito en 1915 echando ajos y cebollas porque ya pocos hablaban como se usaba en 1860. Que pensaría este viejito del lenguaje de hoy?

Ya había leído este libro hará cosa de cinco años, cuando me entró la fiebre por Pérez-Reverte y saqué todos los libros que la biblioteca de Chula Vista le tenía. Los del Capitán Alatriste, Cabo Trafalgar, La Carta Esférica, El Maestro de Esgrima, La Reina del Sur, y otros. Noto que ahi siguen teniendo los mismos libros y nadamás. Luego fui a Sevilla y me hice de su entonces nuevo El Asedio, que trata sobre el sitio que en 1809  pusieron los franceses al puerto de Cádiz, que también visité. Por ahi anduvimos camine y camine mi hija y yo. Leyendo a Pérez-Reverte fue que me entusiasmé por ir a España.

En otra columna lamenta que a los sevillanos no les ha interesado hacer de Sevilla una capital europea de la cultura, habiendo tanto con qué. Que más se preocupan por la procesión de la Macarena, los muy provincianos.

Luego habla de estar atrapado haciendo fila en el aeropuerto de Málaga, con un bebito en los brazos de una doña atrás de él, y la espalda desnuda de una gorda enfrente, que trae un chichero puesto nadamás. El bebito empuña una dona de chocolate. La gorda ostenta el tatuaje de un cristo en el omóplato izquierdo. La cola estira y afloja, y Reverte tiene miedo de que en un empujón el bebé le vaya a restregar chocolate en el cuello de la camisa, o que vaya a dar de cara con la espalda de la gorda. El tatuaje del cristo parece mirarlo, ceñudo, cada vez que se le acerca sin querer. Claro que ambas cosas suceden, faltaba más. La cola lo empuja justo cuando la gorda se agacha; él  la tumba y cae encima de ella. El cristo lo mira colérico. Y el niño le embarra el cuello con la dona.

Tiene Perez-Reverte otras dos colecciones como esta. Me gustaría leer de cuando se ganaba el pan como corresponsal de guerra. Aqui hace alusión someramente a cuando estuvo en Yugoslavia en 1990. Después de eso se ha dedicado de lleno a la novela. Que ya lleva varias nuevas que le desconozco. Habría que darme otra vueltecita por las Españas...

Found this book,

by a guy used to write for The New Yorker about bums and assorted oddities in the Bowery NYC circa 1938-1950. I am always reading about bums as if they were something to admire. I earn very little but my job allows me all the time in the world to read. Always have been an avid reader. Once, when I was ten my dad caught me reading by the light of the moon. Smacked me upside the head, and told me I was ruining my eyesight.

Up In The Old Hotel is a collection of articles. Each one a separate story focusing on a specific character. Like the Jewish lady who converted to catholicism and used to own along with her sisters a run-down movie theatre where poor people went to have a warm snooze. Some of them actually watched what was playing on the screen. She used to work the ticket booth when bored. About forty, she smoked three and-a-half packs of Luckies a day and consequently had a voice like a foghorn. SHUT THE FUCK UP! she'd holler, if the ticket line got unruly .

Miss Shapiro was her name. She wore bright red lipstick and chipped red nail varnish. She had a heart of gold, and after the theatre closed for the night she would go handing out nickels and dimes to people sleeping in doorways and under bridges. Every Sunday she would attend mass at a little church in Chinatown. The monsignor would sometimes stop by her ticket booth for a chat.

There is a tale here about a bearded lady. Another about a child prodigy. Then there is the saga of Captain Charlie's Museum for Intelligent People ( if my brother Kilo would charge 25 cents admission to his pack-rat apartment, he could be another Captain Charlie ) but the centerpiece of all these stories is the one about McSorley's Old Alehouse, a wondrous old saloon which motto was "Good Ale, Raw Onions and No Ladies". Old McSorley believed a man could not enjoy a quiet glass of beer if women were present. Makes sense. Most bar-room fights originate over some woman. Beware the damsel in distress. McSorley's continues to do business to this day, although they had to start serving the fairer sex because of a city ordinance in 1970.

.
McSorley liked to keep the lights dimmed to further relax the atmosphere, and in the icy cold of a November evening old geezers would warm their pewter tankards atop the wood stove. There was a free lunch of bread, cheese, and raw onions. Sometimes street urchins would sneak in and make off with a handful of bread and cheese, while Old McSorley looked on benignly. You could also order a burger from the cook. It only cost a dime in 1939.

If I could turn back the clock I would go there. This world is increasingly impossible for me. There's nothing here that I like. Young people irritate me particularly. They are all zombies of the hand-held device and I feel to be a figment of their imagination sometimes. Anyway I don't want them in my proximity. Not unless they're family or friends.

Which reminds me of another story in the book, one about a wonderful wino named, I forget the name. Let's call him Fledge. Fledge came from moneyed people in Boston, had a normal childhood and everything else. Went to Harvard and graduated Magna Cum Difficultum, in his own words. After graduation he spent the next fifteen years or so lolling about the house until his mother asked him what, if anything, was he planning on doing with the rest of his life?

He said mom, I plan to wander and ponder. Upon which his sainted mother told him to go wander and ponder some place else, as she was sick of seeing his face. So he went up to his uncle's farm in Canada where he proceeded to do just what he'd threatened. Until his uncle kicked him out also.

Fledge then gravitated to New York City where he found a job as assistant editor of the crime section of the NY Post but he only lasted a week, and then he wrote reviews freelance for the entertainment section, but he quit even that to devote himself wholly to writing his magnum opus, "Fledge's Oral History Of The World", based on his interviews with derelicts, petty thieves, old men feeding pigeons in the park and such. Fledge was getting a bit long in the tooth by then.

His money ran out, so he started sleeping where he could; railway stations, park benches. But he kept writing. Throughout forty years he accumulated 250  notebooks with his scribblings of "The Oral History", No publisher could decipher the manuscript, let alone publish it. Here and there noted literati praised Fledge in print, notably e.e. cummins, and the other guy, the Hemingway specialist....can't remember his name. I used to own a book of his about  the golden age of, of, the golden age of th' other writer fella drank himself to death. Had a wife named Zelda.

You know, just by turning 60 I've become a veritable authority on many subjects. I have forgotten more than I'll ever know. But Fledge, Fledge became a fixture around Greenwich Village; he'd get himself invited to bohemian parties where he would embarass himself by proposing to women half his age while imitating a seagull. And him a balding old scarecrow with protruding eyes, a shabby suit of clothes, and holes in the soles of his shoes. Those Greenwich Village bohos must have thought of him as their pet buffoon..

Then as now, it was modern times. Every store filled with the latest inventions, gimcracks and consumer products. Fledge despised anything new. The newest thing at the time was the radio, and of course he loathed the idiot babble that radio produced. The world used to be a quiet, tranquil place before radio came along. I shudder to think what he would have made of today's nasty, noisy planet earth and its rude inhabitants. Unless you find yourself by a remote lake in deepest Alaska. Or somewhere like that.

One day his mommy died and he inherited $1000. Didn't last him but a month. Every day he would go to McSorley's and buy beers all around. He'd give rolls of bills to bums in the street. Lastly he bought a brand-new $50 radio, walked out the store with it, jumped up and SMASH!-ed  it on the sidewalk splinters and fragments flying. That was the 1000 bucks gone.

There's a whole chapter in the book about the fish market, and about clam boat captains in particular. Tales from the bottom of the harbor. The author became an expert on all varieties of clams and expounds on their nutritional properties at length.

There's much, much more to Up In The Old Hotel.  I barely touch on a portion of it  I have enjoyed it so much I haven't finished reading it. Saving it for later. It is a long and satisfying 715 pages.

As a sad corollary, Joseph Mitchell developed writer's block and did not publish anything the last three decades of his life, although he continued to show up at The New Yorker every day. He would lock himself in his office for eight hours and nobody would hear the typewriter a-clack-clack-clacking. He'd just sit there, staring at the corner of the ceiling where a little spider lived.

Mi última novia

NO me vuelvo a enamorar totalmente. Para qué? estar enamorado es casi puro sufrir...los momentos de placer se pagan al contado con intereses exorbitantes. Tuve una noviecita. Lulu Larrú, se hacía llamar. Su nombre verdadero era Maria Luisa González Ochoa. Ella vivía en otra ciudad. Las más de las veces que nos vimos ella vino a mi ciudad. Yo fui a la suya en un par de ocasiones . Ella había vivido aqui algún tiempo y le gustaba, especialmente porque el clima es mas llevadero y porque se dan muchos mas eventos culturales que allá en su pueblo. Hasta eso que ella siempre buscaba ampliar sus horizontes culturales.

Cierta vez fuimos a la Casa de La Cultura a ver lo que fuera; que resultó ser una maestra pianista emérita de la Universidad de Xalapa. Llegamos temprano, a tiempo para ver a la profa entrar al escenario vestida de calle para probar el piano y  practicar un poco. Soltarse los dedos. Tocó divinamente durante diez minutos pedacitos de Chopin y de Rachmaninoff, creo. Luego se ausentó un rato, y a las tantas comenzó la noche formalmente:

Se corrió el telón y regresó la pianista vestida de noche. Se arropó con la noche de pi a pa, papá. Tacón alto de charol negro, destellos dorados y toda la cosa. Después de los aplausos de bienvenida, no tocaría ni diez minutos. Empezó a fallar, se le atoraban los deditos. Recomenzaba. Nosotros con la boca abierta. Con un último y rotundo discorde, fastidiada, la maestra se levantó y abandonó el escenario.Ya no regresaría. A lo mejor fue por el gÜiri-gÜiri del público y los teléfonos que sonaban. Bueno.Vamos a cenar, no?

Lulu Larrú me llevó a una cenaduría por la Avenida Mutualismo donde, dijo, conocía a la dueña. Efectivamente la dueña, una rubia jamona, presidía desde la caja a la entrada del restorán. No le hizo mucha fiesta a la Lulu cuando entramos. Se besaron el cachete y punto. Una mesera nos siguió atendiendo.Yo pues cortés y equidistante con la dueña. No me gusta comer de gratis ni con descuento.

Recuerdo la primera vez que fui a recoger a Lulu al aeropuerto. Estaba sentada en la sala de desembarco vestida de morado. No se parecía mucho a sus fotos. Así son los encuentros arreglados a distancia. Fuimos a cenar a un restaurant chino. Luego a dejar su maleta a mi casa, y luego a Café Rock, a ver algunos grupos musicales. Terminamos la velada en un Sanborns escuchando a un mono y su teclado de complacencias. José José y Juan Gabriel. Armando Manzanero.

Simpatiquísima era Lulu Larrú. El alma de cualquier reunión. Protagonista y Primera Actriz de cualquier tertulia. Como había pertenecido muchos años a la Iglesia Adventista se sabía muchos pasajes de la Biblia al dedillo, aunque cuando la conocí frecuentaba la Iglesia Católica. Luego supe que la habían expulsado los Adventistas.

La verdad es que la quise no poco y aún la extraño. Dentro de lo tórrido de nuestro romance, casualmente Freddy el herrero vecino siempre ponía una estación de radio donde tocaban "El Amor Se Acaba" interpretada por José José, con letra sublime de Manuel Alejandro, que hasta acá se oía y bien clarito. Y yo le decía a Lulu, ya ves? el amor se acaba porque llega a ser rutina la caricia mas divina y hasta la belleza enfada. Nos va a llevar la nave del olvido. A veces la extraño pero a estas alturas de mis sesenta años no estoy seguro siquiera de seguir deseando aquel obscuro objeto del deseo, Perseo. O Fernando Rey, el gÜey que está en la foto de arriba.

Una noche estaba yo acostado en su cama y ella estaba abajo en la sala viendo un capítulo de "Cuéntame Cómo Pasó", cuando en la oscuridad tropical de grillos y chicharras sentí un bicho prendido de mi pié, y bajé las escaleras dando alaridos aterrorizado. Cuando llegué a la sala, Lulu con los ojos bien grandotes me miró estupefacta - qué te pasa?! -  hasta que vimos que no traía ningún bicho; era un curita de tela adhesiva que me había puesto y que se me despegaba. JAJAJAJAJAJ! ambos nos carcajeamos. Tiempo después recordarímos jocosamente el suceso en varias ocasiones JAJAJAJAJAJ - AJ!. Lástima que todo lo que compartimos no pudo haber durado más, como dijera Bob Dylan en su canción You're a Big Girl Now.

La vida tiene sus hilaridades, no? permítaseme desviarme tantito para recordar aquella vez que mi segunda esposa y yo fuimos a San Francisco. Habíamos rentado un carrito compacto en el aeropuerto. Ella y su prima enfrente, y yo iba echado en el asiento de atrás, cuando al doblar una esquina aluciné desde esa perspectiva que un poste de la luz se nos venía encima..YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRGGGGGH! me tapé la cara con los brazos esperando el golpazo. Mi esposa se orilló y paró el auto, y ella y su prima me voltearon a ver asustadas QUE?! Ya les dije.

Pero Lulu.... la cosa con ella era que la imagen que presentaba nada tenía que ver con lo que en realidad era. Puros frentes y fachadas. La mentira hecha mujer. Ostentaba un postgrado dudoso en Sicología por la Universidad de Cuernavaca, pero cuando yo le hablaba de Cuernavaca, donde mi abuela vivió las últimas décadas de su vida Lulu no hacía ningún comentario, aunque sobre otras ciudades que en realidad conocía sí comentaba. Muchas veces lo importante no es lo se dice, si no lo que NO se dice.

En misa todos los Domingos, en primera fila o trepada junto al altar como parte del coro, con sus espectacular escote por delante. Yo, claro, en las raras ocasiones en las que voy a misa, me siento en la última hilera. Me gusta pasar desapercibido, aunque luego me molesto cuando se me ignora.

En misa todos los Domingos, pero mezquina de espíritu, deshonesta, y poco caritativa. Como no le tocó la escuelita de monjas, no conoció lo del exámen de conciencia; el viaje de la culpa. Tampoco sus padres se lo inculcaron, evidentemente. Pero su piel morena me provocaba paroxismos. A veces no me aguantaba las ganas de morderle el brazo estuvieramos donde fuera, en el carro, en un restaurant, o caminando por el centro. A-a-a-y! oye!!, y me daba un manazo.

Una vez nos metimos al mar y luego el aceite de coco con el cual la había enbadurnado hizo que le quedara la piel mas renegrida y yo, ay amá. Pasé muchas horas en su compañía encantado de la vida. Solo que luego salía con sus celos malsanos y lo arruinaba todo.

Como cuando le dije que tenía dos amigas de internet del otro lado del mundo. Hizo un berrinche cuando contacté a una de ellas en su presencia. Mas bien mi amiga me saludó en la red. Lulu salió dando un portazo y se perdió por las cuadras cerca de mi casa. Salí a buscarla y batallé para hacerla regresar. No descansó hasta que hizo que ambas amigas me cortaran, acosándolas cibernéticamente.

Lulu carecía de escrúpulos. También creó e instaló un perfil falso de mi hija en conocida red social para estar espiando y haciendo el mal. Por ahi hizo pública una carta de mi primera esposa, tratando de perjudicar su trámite de emigración, pero esa maldad fue en vano, porque mi ex-esposa ya está donde quería estar. Tenía su lado Medusa, Lulu...

Cuando publiqué aqui un blog (" Anoche, a las tres y media..." ) sobre el aventón que le di en motocicleta a una ebria jovencita cierta madrugada invernal, a las horas recibí un correo amenazador, supuestamente del novio de la joven. Qué casualidad. Era Lulu.

Pero también tenía sus cualidades, ella. Era limpísima. Usaba tanto cloro que yo a veces le decía doña Clorilde. Galones y galones de cloro que me hacía trerle. Su cocina siempre estaba albeante de blanca. Excelente cocinera, hablando de cocina. Amaba a los gatos. Punto a su favor. Estoy seguro que tenía varios puntos más que se me olvidan.

Lulu se ganaba la vida dando clases de Archi-análisis; las "enseñanzas" de Leopoldo September, cuya propuesta básica, me dijo Lulu, era recordar diariamente durante cinco minutos algún suceso grato de la niñez. Que con eso, en nueve meses uno estaría libre de traumas. Así de fácil.

Había un célebre dicharacho atribuído al gurú Leopoldo: "No lo uses para estar mal", que Lulu repetía como mantra. En cierta ocasión, ya hacia el final de nuestra relación, caminábamos por el parquecito del Claustro de Sor Juana. Yo había estado metiéndole cizaña, chínguele y chingue durante varias cuadras, desde el Mercado de San Juan, mofándome de sus charlatanerías. No soy monedita de oro tampoco. Ella se lanzó enojada al contra-ataque, que fue cuando le devolví su querida frase "No me uses para estar mal" . Ella reviró con un sonoro CHINGA TU MADRE MIGUEL!!! Hasta unos polis que platicaban media cuadra mas allá voltearon. Otra pareja peleándose. Mientras no se líen a golpes.

Lulu: con todo, si quieres volvemos a echarnos otro round. Pero no. El amor se acaba.