STRANGE FAMILY REUNION... 4/9/15

There is no balcony. Pre war buildings didn't ordinarily have them... Might have been a terrace here and there to mark off a set-back, or something like that, but no balconies... not as a rule. though we do have a common area up on the roof... an observation deck, they called it. They had deb dances up there years ago. I can still hear the music... Lester Lanin, Peter Duchin and all that. Those days are gone. But they still keep the place up nice...flagstone paving... built in bars... a band platform. Residents go up on warm nights to gaze at the heavens. Mr. Levitt has a telescope. I looked it up on line (yes, I know how to do that)..... 'Fit for a university astronomy lab' it said. Cost him thirty two hundred and sixty five dollars.... a four foot long reflecting model, with the actual, small viewing tube along side. Frank Jessup played bar tender. He stocked it, so he ought to run it. The Perlmutters brought up all kinds of cheeses, smoked salmon and fancy little breads and crackers. What's his names nephew played Spanish guitar. I liked those nights.  We saw Jupiter's four Galilean moons and The Great Galaxy of Andromeda....

One night I saw Johnny Jump Up, Center City's resident ghoul. It was late and quite close to the Hunters' Moon. I went up with Miss Tanerjee, the Jessup's au pair  girl. Quite beautiful, from Kashmir, you know. Looked like Merle Oberon. I wonder how many lame brains remember her today? Young people know crap now. If they don't see it on Extra! or Access Hollywood it never happened. What common shit-heads. I never saw a more self-limiting generation. But I digress...

Johnny Jump Up was gnawing on a victim... mostly blood-slicked bones by that point. Female, from the look of her. Flesh all gone, save for gristle and greasy, little scraps. Face was intact, except for the nose. He was crunching on that. The au pair girl froze. I was afraid she was going to scream, but growing up in Northern India during the partition steeled her to such things. Not ghouls eating corpses, but blood, I mean.  And the moonlight softened the look of it all too. So we crouched there, maybe thirty five or forty feet from the carnage, watching the monster eat.... White, cadaverous face.. lank, greasy black hair... so skinny he was, perched over the remains on all fours.... tight, black, gabardine suit. Don't know where all the meat went, though. Had to be maybe eighty pounds of it. Belly stuck out a little bit, but not like what you'd think. And the ripping sound every time he tore off a jaw full. Licking the bones and all. Hypnotic... That's what it was... hypnotic. There's a lot of magic floating around this town, even me....

I had a 'visitation' the other night. Thought I was going to die... Couldn't breathe... Couldn't swallow... The strange thing is, it didn't bother me. It felt peaceful, like a big, cool, dark void. I could taste it. Hell, I was half in it.

Then she came... this woman and a little girl. They said something... Put something inside me. They saved me, if that's the right word.

And now I'm up here on the roof top in a cold, damp April night, looking out at the city and thinking. I know who that woman was. Hell, I still think of her as a girl.... That woman was my granddaughter.... That woman was Sarah. Did she think I would not know?

And I have to go find her.....

I have to make things right....

I have to find out what's going on...

Oh, God, I have a second chance...

<more next time>

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Billy Kravitz' vampire wonderland: These are the days of EL RANCHO TEXACO ..... What ...

Billy Kravitz' vampire wonderland: These are the days of EL RANCHO TEXACO ..... What ...: Sometime it get real quiet in there. Sky-ponies settle down durin' hot part a day. Got air-conditioning, but not much. Ponies be tetchy ...Murder on La POLVAROSA. One of the Texaco sons goes missing. Family gathers. But ranch hand, Whitey, got something. He found it ... a finger... a chewed off human finger... Mister Alec's finger... and he (Whitey) stick it in a real safe special place.



Then he ride the tank-bus into 'town.' Knows a guy who can do stuff. Gonna give him the finger. Not that way, but you know what I mean.



Barsoom (pronounced BAR-sum)is quite a place.... 'Red Rock's' best. Y'all gone have grand kids livin' there one day. Might as well go see. 



Jump in and scroll around... MARS is callin'...



< this EL RANCHO TEXACO story arc/film treatment is among our most popular>



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EL RANCHO TEXACO - MARS...the early days

Sun looks white from space. Not too much color. They say it is a yellow star, but I didn't see it.... just a throbbing, hot light. You can see a little bit of the corona, like a haze dancin' all around it. Folks was sayin' - Don't look! Turn your eyes away from that thing. Don't you know it's bad luck?..... I say - This here special glass (or whatever it is). You can look. .... But they don't look. Fella says - You judgin' God's handiwork. You laughin' at the heavens.... I say - No, I am not. I'm laughin' at you..... Fella's wife says - Why you God damned son of a bitch! You gone burn in hell..... I just shrug. Fella want a punch me, but security guard (they like space ship police) give him a look. Ain't no hittin' allowed on a space ship. Think it say so in the Bible.  Wife pulls him away. Says - Come on. They givin' out cheese and crackers. Don't you want none?..... Guess he really crave them cheese and crackers, 'cause don't fight her none. He just goes away. 

I like watchin' space. Used to have a little telescope. Not real little. It did have a tripod and all. Looked at God's heavens most every night.  Can see a lot from New Mexico. I tell folks I'm from Texas, 'cause for some reason, that place got a thing in people's heads. Maybe cause it once a whole country and got The Alamo and all? Davy Crockett got mos' all his head blown off by a Mexican mini-ball there. I seen the blood stains. Don't know if it his, but still a good story.

If I ain't said so yet, I am John... John Texaco. Folks call me 'Johnny.' That ain't so hard to remember. Who are you and why am I sayin' all this stuff in my head? But I feel like there's somebody out there (in there?). Some folks go 'space crazy' from conditions on board... the canned air and weird spinning gravity and all. Maybe I'm one a them?

We saw a body float by the other day... some guy in a full, pressurized suit. Crew said he was from the U.S.S. Pilgrim. Everybody knows about the Pilgrim. Picked up some microbe from God knows where. Some germs can withstand space. We know that now. At least for the last few years we have. Folks grabbed their devices and took pictures, videos. Posted 'em too. For a second or two he bounced right against the window... not hard... real soft. They said he got trapped in our wake. Even at one hundred and thirty five thousand miles per hour that can happen. I saw his face... all dried and screwed up like a terrified mummy... little bit a freeze-dried snot hangin' on his upper lip. Then he was gone, tumbling off into the void.

The crossing takes two weeks. Mars is close now, so we can do that. The 'short jump' they call it. But planets are islands that float around like them huge mats of seaweed out on the Sargasso Sea. We took The National Geographic when I was a kid. That's how I know. Sometimes when Mars is clear on the other side of the sun it takes much longer. But I don't know about that. This is my first time. The Moon hop to meet the ship was enough for me.

Lost In The Stars... I hear that song in my head. That's what I am... a little bit... for a while anyway. Got big dreams for that planet. Figure twenty eight's time enough. 

God I miss New Mexico...

<you just met Johnny Texaco, first in the family to reach Mars>

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Billy Kravitz' vampire wonderland: These are the days of EL RANCHO TEXACO ..... Barso...

Billy Kravitz' vampire wonderland: These are the days of EL RANCHO TEXACO ..... Barso...: Stinker Jones liked to walk. For a fat bastid, he didn't do too bad. Sure the 't.t.' was there. That means town tank, for you fo...

'Stinker' Jones is the big, political, boss man on Mars. Got a big spread out a town and a slick, sharp city place in Barsoom (pronounced BAR-sum) the capital. Pulls all the strings and pinches all the asses. Buries all the bodies too. Hell, he manufactures all the bodies. ... click onto the title up above and meet him. Read the whole episode. Slip into a booth at The King's Club (guess who owns it) order one a the best steaks this side a the asteroid belt. Commence to chawin' and learn things.



Y'all gotta fly out to Mars on one a them big Arch Angel class cruisers. Check into some swank B'town (Barsoom) hotel. Start throwin' money 'round and settle in..



Stinker got some kind a hinky-dink goin' wit' Bart Texaco and his clan. Bart wanna get his kid in The Stone House. Sonny-boy a senator now. But Martian President whole lot better than that...



Scroll around. Click NEWER POST or OLDER POST down at the bottom. Go ahead. It's worf it.



These are the days of EL RANCHO TEXACO. Join the Troopers (first families of Mars). Raise a little hell 'Red Rock' (nick name for Mars) style...



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VAMPIRES GOT MORTAL RELATIVES TOO, YOU KNOW... 4/5/15

They sat watching the television in the little library. Sarah liked the small, warm space and the deep, comfortable club chairs. Gunga Din was on, a swashbuckling tale about British, colonial forces in 1850's India. She loved the classics, especially the old black and white ones. 

Annie sat in another chair, sipping pineapple juice from one of those colorful, translucent, plastic glasses with the curly-twirly straws. They bought it on the way back from the old man's apartment last night at a twenty four hour CVS. She pretended to be interested in the movie, but she really studied Sarah. Lately she was curious about everything..... like would belly fat bounce if you made a ball of it, or what happened to that weird,Johnny-Jump-Up ghoul guy they used to have around here.

They have to measure her every day. Annie, I mean. They mark her height. She's desperate to grow. At first it looked like even though she wasn't strictly speaking 'vampire' anymore, she still wasn't growing. Everybody was worried. They know how much it means to her. She watches old Brady Bunches and says - Am I as tall as her?... and points toward the middle one.... Jonathon says - She's an actress. She's not as old as the character. Probably nineteen years old. They have to be taller to stand out under all the hot lights and everything.... Annie goes - Why? What do they do, melt?.... Edith wants to laugh, but Sarah shoots her a look.... The thing is, she's beginning to grow. Edith measures her with an old Sears retractable, metal, tape measure in the kitchen. Jonathon checks with one of the physician 'familiars' they have. He says she's alright, near average for a seven year old. Annie's about nine, but since she was 'vampire' for a couple years that's not bad. But she still has to pick about something. You know how kids get?..... She goes - Who was that old guy last night, the one in the apartment?...... Sarah says - Nobody. Why do you ask?...... Annie says - 'Cause he wasn't 'nobody.' I can tell. I got the 'hoo doo.' Edith says so and you know it...... Then she just looks.... Sarah says - He's just somebody I've known for a long time...... You mean like before you were a vampire?.... Sarah nods, pretending she's so interested in the Sepoy Revellion (Gunga Din, you know)..... Annie goes - Stop looking at that. They get all shot up. I know. I saw it before...... Sarah goes - When'd you see it before?...... Annie says - Cartoon version with Bugs Bunny. Same thing. Teacher said so. Who was he?..... Sarah looks at her. Annie stares back. Kids can be so focused when they want to be. She goes - Well? He looks like some communist from a movie I saw.... Boy, you sure see a lot of old movies - goes Sarah... Annie just shrugs. Then she looks down like she's hurt..... Sarah quietly says - He was my grandfather.... Annie goes - What to you mean? He ain't dead...... Sarah says - Drink your pineapple juice.....

Gunga Din bites it, marches off into eternity and the movie ends.  Annie switches to late night reruns of FUTURAMA. They sit there in the shadows, bathed in the light from the small flat screen. 

Sarah doesn't want to talk anymore and Annie knows not to push. So they sit there til just before dawn. Then they go to their rooms. 

Nighttime in the townhouse.....

Vampirinas have family issues too.....

The truth'll come out. It always does....

<more next time>

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WHETHER YOU CELEBRATE THE EXODUS OR THE RESURRECTION, HAVE A GOOD ONE.. 4/4/15

Couldn't 'channel' a blog post. Had to do my #ff stuff on Twitter and we have a big group that likes to take part. Plus, went to a Passover Seder dinner earlier (a redemptive service held in the home, built around a communal dinner). Like the spiritual part. Like the food too. Brought home a Tupperware container of sweet and sour meatballs. Been eating them like popcorn. Not with my fingers, though... with a fork. 

Then my on-line file of #PeopleWhoLikeToTakePartInFF got all screwed up and I couldn't remember everybody's Twitter handles on my own. That's why it pays to have relatively simple handle that's the same, or close to your actual name... You want people to remember it, don't you?

New, little, bundle of a great nephew (six months old) bounced around, smiling and gurgling all night from his bouncy-saucer toy with all the lights, music & toys hanging around it. Dance to the music! A sheer delight. 

Alpha dog (there are three) got tired of being chased away from baby's face and toys, then remembered she has her own nice toy basket filled with frequently laundered festive, stuffed, prey-substitutes in the inglenook and 'killed' a few deliriously grinning, cartoony squirrels and weird, clown hybrids. When he saw that, baby wanted HER toys... uh oh.

Everybody ate too much brisket and chicken breast thing.. No family fights ( a plus) and the macaroons ( a classic Passover dessert) were moist.

We left the door open and poured a cup of wine for the Prophet Elijah, believed to descend from Heaven to proclaim the advent of The Messianic Era on First Night. But we didn't see him, unless he was hiding in the garage. Somebody played with the hockey sticks, so who knows? (maybe he thought they were shepherd's crooks?)

Other stuff happened too, but I am SO tired. Divine Redemption does that, you know. 

Important thing is whether you and yours celebrate the EXODUS or the RESURRECTION all the best for a joyous and meaningful time.

< back to the night-folk next time>

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AN OLD MAN QUITE NEAR DEATH... 4/3/15

Sarah and Annie walked down the street. The city was quiet, all souls resting in advance of the coming Holy Days. Houses are cleaned. Kitchens are readied. God's coming to call and in all parts of the Jewish-Christian spectrum, The Message is basically the same. God says - Grab your things. I've come to take you home.

Now, Sarah doesn't break out in Ecclesiastical Measles, like her vampire partner, Jonathon, but she still believes. That's why she dressed Annie in a brand new, special outfit from Lord & Taylor... a crisp, pale, yellow dress, topped by a navy blue 'spring coat' and all the trimmings. Her clothes, though cut differently, echoed the same color scheme. Mother-daughter outfits, they used to call them.

Annie liked the sound of her new patent leather shoes against the sidewalk. After a bit, Sarah whispered - Quiet.... So, being somewhat magical in her own way, if no longer a vampire, she walked along silently. 

Occasionally they'd pass someone, or people would pass them.... maybe a taxi, or twenty-somethings leaving a bar ( religious observances mean little to them). And if the sight of a mother and daughter out and about, all alone, after midnight seemed strange, the mesmerizing gaze from Sarah's vampire eyes soon assured them all was well.

Are we there yet? - asked Annie... Soon - said Sarah. See that stately, old, apartment building across the street by the corner?... Annie said that she did.... Well -continued her 'mother,' - He's in there, four stories up. See where the light's on? In there. 

Gaining entrance was no problem at all.  They entered the small, vestibule and the doorman buzzed them in. Did he know them? Not at all, though, as you know, vampirinos and vampirinas have their ways. So they left the black and white, marble tiled space, passed through the small, commodious, thickly carpeted lobby and into an elevator....,. the mirrored kind with old, polished brass fittings and trim. Sarah pressed number four and they were off. Annie giggled. Sarah didn't, so she stopped. 

They proceeded down a hall carpeted to match the lobby. The walls were painted a rich, dignified cream, trimmed out with white base boards and crown moldings. Brass sconces with pleated, silk shades furnished just enough light for propriety's sake. And six paneled, glossy black doors with fittings to match the sconces, led to the flats. We provide such detail, for Annie remembered everything on her first 'official' healing. 

When they reached number 403, Sarah sublimated her hand through the door and fiddled with the lock. Twelve heartbeats later they went in.  There was a small foyer, more or less matching the vestibule downstairs. Beyond that, in the living room, an elderly man dozed, sheltered in the wings of a great, antique, needlepoint chair. There wasn't much light in the room, save what came from a small, gas powered fireplace, but they could see how sick he was. Maybe he realized they were standing there. Maybe he didn't. Annie thought she heard him whisper something, but she wasn't sure.  Sarah gave her the vial. She said - You do it.... Annie's hands shook. She was still fundamentally a child, after all. Then she carefully removed the stopper, approached the invalid and slowly poured three or four drops of the warm, ruby elixir onto his drooping lower lip. He sipped it in like soup. Sarah took the vial, put back the stopper and they left, clicking the lock back in place as they did.

Out on the street, Annie quietly asked - Is that it?.... Sarah said - Yes..... Annie said - How do you know he'll be alright?..... Sarah straightened Annie's coat collar and said that she just did.

On the way back home they stopped for pancakes. And Sarah told the little girl all about the man in 403....

<more next time>

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