Not The Chantays

Found this video while searching for something else on You-Tube.

That site is a time-sink; a black hole for computer time; a look-at-me-and-regret-it site.

Anyway, Dick Dale and Stevie Ray Vaughn really cook. Not sure what's up with Dick Dale's hair, but it was the '80s.

I grew up in suburban L.A. and Dick Dale was the surf music god. Never mind the Beach Boys, Chantays, Jan and Dean. I, personally, introduced my high school to "Miserlou." We had a jukebox in the cafeteria and first one in got first choice. Whenever I was first I played the flip-side of "Let's Go Trippin'": "Miserlou" I was always asked "what the hell is that, it's bitchin'." (Yeah, we talked like that in '63). I had a Dick Dale LP, also, but it got lost in one of our many moves.

My friends used to go to Harmony Park Ballroom to hear him and to dance. At that time I got my drivers' license and went to concerts with future Ms. BRB. We saw Ray Charles at the Shrine, and Peter, Paul and Mary at the Hollywood Bowl. I had many interests at the time, and not much money.

But Dick Dale still has my attention whenever he shows up.

BRB is Write(Surf's Up, Dudes!)

Anger Management...Or Who is that crazy person, and why is he yelling at strangers?

I went to the dump yesterday; not one of my favorite activities. I loaded up the old Corolla with six-seven bags of house-hold garbage and rubbish and had to pay 7 bucks for the privilege of dumping it in the land-fill. We don't have garbage pick-up out here in the rapidly developing sticks. Also I pay just as much as the guy next to me who has a cargo van that could carry my garbage and my car with ease.

Already in a good mood, I pulled into a convenience store/gas station to get a soda and parked next to two guys that have a newer Honda. (The parking is on the side of the building out of sight of the store entrance and windows and most of the pumps.) As soon as I got out of my car one of them starts a sob story about needing gas money to get to Gastonia. Why anyone would want to get to Gastonia is beyond me. I looked at him and saw a young guy fairly well- dressed in shirt, shorts, nice shoes, smoking and has a tattoo on his ankle.

Then I hear a voice that sounds like mine: "Look at you; you have a better car, better clothes, you're smoking and have a tattoo, and you want money from me. Fuck off."

And I went into the store. Bought a soda. Realized that I just told two younger, larger strangers to fuck off. The manager asked me if I was all right. I told him about the pan-handlers and he checked and told me they had left. Not one of my prouder moments, not wanting to go back to my car.

I read somewhere that as we age our frontal lobes begin to shrink and that the filter between brain and mouth doesn't always work. I can testify to that.

So on the way home, I think a lot about this and resolve to try to keep myself in check. I tend to honk at asshole drivers and do other foolish things from the sanctity of my car. Not good. I was hungry, and thought maybe low blood sugar had something to do with it.

I headed for a favorite diner and so took an off-ramp I seldom frequent. It used to be patrolled by a few homeless folk, but not so much in the summer. Damned if it wasn't full of professional beggars. (I've posted on this in the past) I hate these guys. But, as I rolled to a stop I said to myself, "Self, you will not yell at these folk. They are trying to help youth or their church or something."

And then someone is rolling down my window and a crazy voice is yelling "Stop begging. Run a car wash, have a bake sale; you're begging; I don't care what the cause is!" Thankfully the light changed to green and I didn't have to hear that crazy voice anymore.

I am sure I must be on you-tube somewhere under the category of crazy person goes off on convenience store clerks. When I was buying beer on a daily basis, QM stores needed my date of birth to record in the register. This is really stupid in my case; I stopped looking twenty forty years ago. I finally lost it one day and told the clerk to put in her birthday. That didn't work, and I left, but I didn't get personal or swear. Progress of a sort.

So these latest relapses have me worried. But not too much, 'cause I have these frontal lobes for an excuse.

BRB is Write(and may randomly go off on the innocent.)