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The Villa Elaine

Sometimes the outside appearance of a building gives no clue to what the inside looks like.  The Villa Elaine on Vine Street was not only an example of this but also a serious case of false advertising.  From the outside it looked (and still does look) like a sleazy set for some old film noir movie.  It stubbornly stood on Vine Street, right in between Fountain and La Mirada Avenues, an apartment building of dubious repute for many decades. I was nothing short of astounded when I’d heard it survived the Northridge quake back in ’94.

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A Day With Joe (Story For Sadie)

I saw that it was 4:55 am; I never let the alarm wake me up.  It’s not that I didn’t set it, I did; I just always seemed to wake myself up right before.  It’d been that way for years, and had become part of my morning ritual.  Like shaving in the shower, or downing a cup and half of coffee on my way out the door (even though I invariably brewed a whole pot).

It was still dark out, with a few glimmers of light, as I left my house at 5:45 am and clambered into my Ford Focus.  The days were quite long here this time of year, and I had plans for later, so that was good.  For the Yankees were in town, and there was a night game (which would be played mostly in daylight here in Seattle).

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Bitchin’ Summer

My REALLY bitchin’ summer, though I wouldn’t have known to call it that yet, was the summer of ’79.  That summer introduced me to the ease of a California lifestyle, tailored to the needs of an 11 year old. From the very beginning I played tourist, kicked back poolside and read some really insightful stuff; and was introduced to the wonderful world of professional sports.

Sports, news, insightful information was the fountain (from which I got to drink all this goodness) in the form of a magazine stand located at Cahuenga and Hollywood.  It ran along a wall on the outside of a building and had mags and newspapers from around the world.

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The Anchor Of Nostalgia

Marilyn Monroe died almost exactly five years before I was born (and exactly fifty years before this writing). Living as she did before my era, I, of course never met her, and in fact have only ever met one person who ever knew her.   But more importantly, for the purposes of this story, she died about 20 years before my nostalgia and longing for the past gained its own sentience.

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The Smart Money’s On The Favorite

Boxing used to be a lot more popular than it is now.  There seemed to be big fight going on all the time, especially in the Welterweight and Middleweight divisions, where there was always a scrum for the number one spot.  I never knew better boxing analysts than those 7th and 8th Graders back in 1980-1981 at LeConte Junior High.  They were old school, like little Bert Sugars (only substituting Dodgers caps and candy cigarettes for Bert’s fedoras and stogies), offering not only their insights, but also the prospect of a wager.

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Where The Hippies Can Be Hippies

Seattle’s a great place to go if you want to access your inner hippie.  If you think you know a lot of things but want to give it a test and need a proving ground, I recommend you try the fertile volcanic soil of the Great Northwest.  That’s what I did.   I’d worked at a little Natural Foods store in New York for four years and thought I was a hotshot, a real Granola.  But I got schooled in Seatown, that’s for sure.

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Dalia’s Gym

South Beach used to really suck.  Especially for a kid having to live there after several great years in Hollywood, CA.  And having to arrive there in the hot summer of 1982 just made it worse.

Tony revenging on Ocean Drive

1982.

We’re not talking modeling agencies and clubs and bars and celebrity sightings.  This was before all that.  Instead, picture Tony Montana getting chased out of a squalid apartment by a crazy guy with a chainsaw and onto a nearly deserted Ocean Drive. Read more

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June 20, 1987

Twenty-Five years ago today was a day I’d been looking forward to for a long time and was the most exciting day (even though I knew exactly what was going to happen) of my life.  It was the day I traded the sour, hot air and bug spray smell of my family’s south Miami Beach apartment for that of hot dust and hardwood floors; and freedom: in Brooklyn, New York.

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Passing Through

The mid 90’s found my friend James and I with very different living situations.  We’d both dropped out of college a few years earlier and took divergent paths that had finally led us again to the same place, the same situation.  He’d served a couple of hitches in the Marine Corps and ended up at a hostel on Miami Beach called The Tropics.  I was back in Miami too, drying out at my Mom’s place in a strangely resurgent South Beach.

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Starcrossed

My time in Hollywood wasn’t one Celebrity encounter after another.  Although I went to school then and later with a couple of people who turned out to be famous, my personal experiences were of a more “jejune” variety…  that is, except for getting to see a hirsute (hairsuit?) Ed Asner  anchor one end of a tug-of-war for ABC at “The Battle of the Network Stars;” IN PERSON!

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