MY NEPHEW AUSTIN TAVOLARA

Austin Tavolara 1986-2015

My nephew Austin was a best friend. He died at 28-years-old and I'll always remember sitting with him on that last late afternoon that rolled into early evening as the movie, just another movie, played out on the big screen... Then dinner, a drive home, and in six hours he would be gone... So that night will be remembered forever, and yet, all those times we hung out, especially when he was from ages 7 to 14, make it hard to recall just one in particular... So many movies and TV shows, and time spent together driving without a purpose... I was his uncle, his only uncle so, during those years I was there to protect him, my only nephew at that time, Austin Tavolara... And the last night we hung out... the last night of his life... he was only with me early on and later he was on his own... I just wish he were still around... More than that, even, I wish it could be the early/mid 1990's again... Youth is free and I was just past being officially young but still young enough to have freedom, but still I felt very caged... And yet, with my little nephew there by my side, I had purpose, and we both had all the time in the world, so, what else is there to say but I miss you buddy... Endlessly... 

OK DUMPSTER

I'm full of trash, and that's OK!

DECADES LISTS

GREATEST STUFF FROM EVERY DECADE

Here are some quick lists, not in any particular order of importance, of memorable and great stuff from every decade. These lists will have to do with the stuff that was important according to my age. In other words, PINK FLOYD, LED ZEPPELIN and TAXI DRIVER won't be in my 70's list, as I was too young to dig that stuff. These lists will grow in time... A work in progress...

1970'S

MR. ROGERS
ROMPER ROOM
STAR WARS
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
SUPERMAN
THE WHITE SHADOW
THE BRADY BUNCH
GREASE
HAPPY DAYS
LAND OF THE LOST
LENNY & SQUIGGY
PLANET OF THE APES
THE MUPPET MOVIE

1980'S

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

VAN HALEN (DAVID LEE ROTH)

RISKY BUSINESS

EDDIE MURPHY

OZZY OZBOURNE

RONALD REAGAN

SEAN PENN

TIME BANDITS

JOHN BELUSHI

DAN AYKROYD

JOHN LANDIS

SLY STALLONE

IRON MAIDEN

WALLY GEORGE

1990'S

NIRVANA

QUENTIN TARANTINO

AMERICA ONLINE

HOWARD STERN

FOO FIGHTERS

SMASHING PUMPKINS

TROLL 2

GOODFELLAS

TO THE POINT

I've come to

The point of my life

Where I'm rereading

The books I've read

Re-watching the movies

I've already seen

Rethinking thoughts

Out of reach

While dreaming the same

Old dreams

Whether I'm awake

Or asleep

REB BROWN BAD DREAM

Last night I had what I call a F***ed Dream, when everything goes wrong and everyone's against me. Took place on a street where there were a few small houses on an avenue, and everyone was partying. I was the most uptight person and all these people hated me. Reb Brown, a cult actor that I interviewed in real life, also hated me (and he's the coolest, nicest guy in real life but can play tough guys on screen). That hatred I took the most personally and everyone else hated me not only because of Reb but I just didn't fit in. It was an entire suburban block (yet rural) filled with the kind of older guys, teenagers, that grew up in the 70s realizing I wasn't cool like them, and putting me through hellish mental torture and misadventure and with Reb Brown, hating my guts, right along with them.

A DREAM AT A COLLEGE

Dream that my entire family hated me. I did something having to get my niece mad at me and she was crying on my voice mail. I was at a college and wanted to take classes, but since my family hated me I was wandering the campus trying to connect with someone, anyone, on my cell phone, carrying my backpack and an extra bag (like a carry-on) and went into the parking lot to find my car. Forgetting where I parked, I went into this little building in the middle of the lot where there are benches set up. Kind of like a bus station. As I entered... actually, as I re-entered after having been in there a little while to put my bags there... A couple thug students began to attack me. It was scary. Towards the end of the dream the tables turned and I got just desserts, but felt more nervous getting back at these guys for some reason. Meanwhile I was still hated by my family, none of whom I was able to connect with, stuck at this college, sort of a purgatory.

WHITE BALL IN TALL TREE

I'm reminded of perfect isolation each time I walk my dog out onto the park near my house and see, up in a tall, almost leafless tree, a white ball stuck for what seems like eternity...

READING ON THE FORK LIFT

My cousin was a hip guy, older than me and a child of the sixties and seventies, a fact he'd often rub in.

"I saw THE DOORS when I was 13," he'd always say, "and didn't even pay attention."

I was an 80's kid and was never sure if my cousin thought I was cool, but he saw me at work once, sitting on a fork lift reading this book by Hunter S. Thompson that, because of the politics and my current opinions therein, I probably couldn't finish today but back then, with a voracious appetite for counter-culture literature, I ate it up like a piranha does to rambling river cattle.  

And best yet, I was cool. At least while I was reading. 

WHERE I HID MY DRAGONS

Back in the day I dropped acid. Personally referred to as "Lenny on the Sidewalk with Dragons," I was fearless with the drug.

Only once did I have a "bad trip" when, while listening to THE DOORS ALIVE SHE CRIED on my record player, Ray Manzerek's pulsating Hammond organ on LIGHT MY FIRE went a little too fast for my brain to fathom.

I walked downstairs, force fed myself, returned to my bedroom and, lying on my bed I listened to an Eddie Murphy concert tape on my Walk Man to "come down" a bit. (Later I went downstairs and watched an Eddie Murphy film... possibly BEVERLY HILLS COP as he was my hero at that time.)

Anyhow, here's the album that, although it's the worst Ozzy Osbourne era Black Sabbath album, TECHNICAL ECSTASY is where I used to keep my tabs of Sidewalk Dragons in.

In which LP did you keep yours? 

NEW YORK EARTHQUAKE DREAM

A dream that I was in New York, in a high rise and me and some friends... not friends in real life but in the dream only... were about to have a party. My dog, who died a few years back, Chuy, was there and I was worried about her. I left her in the room and went downstairs to a big plush party, and as I went outside to use my cell phone, a giant earthquack erupted. I didn't feel the initial jolt. A pretty girl told me it was happening and then we walked down the city street and I was protecting her, making sure we weren't underneath anything. On all sides of us, parts of bridges were falling and people, unseen, were dying. Then I worried about Chuy, my dog. This is a strange aspect because Chuy died two years ago and when she was alive I used to have reoccuring dreams about her disapearing, usually towards the end of the dream which would cause stress for me to wake up. I didn't wake up. Instead I went upstairs. Jane Fonda was in my hotel room with some guy, a convict of some sort, really scary type, gruff and honest. He was threatning to ruin the bar that had china plates and expensive glasses. I told the guy, "Don't ruin my stuff. Ask Jane about things that cost a lot of money." I was referring to her wealth; the wealth she had even before she earned her own money (from her dad Henry). Jane came in from the kitchen and joined in on breaking my dishes. I took out my cell phone, went downstairs and then outside, and tried calling the police. I told them that Jane Fonda, the actress, was ruining my plates, and even told them "This may sound completely ridiculous, but..." Oh and somewhere in the middle of the dream there was a questionaire-poll thing I was supposed to fill out in order to win money, with actors names and it was really hard writing and completing these forms... kind of like when your feet won't move when trying to run away.

THE JERKS 91

THE JERKS 91

Etched in stone, THE JERKS 91...

This is outside the Cypress (California) Municipal Center... The sidewalk in-between the baseball field and the street...

THE JERKS, whoever they are, or were, made their mark in 1991... and forever...

All hail THE JERKS!

GETTING OLDER

Getting old is something
That you get used to

I don't even feel these
Reading glasses on as I

Write this and think that
I may be able to handle

This aging thing better
Than expected when

I first started to realize
My sight was going

I thought my eyes
Were blurry from

Allergies and yet
Maybe it's true;

Maybe I'm allergic
to youth

DULL DREAMS

I had a dream last night that, now that I'm past it and it's nighttime I probably won't remember, but I didn't like the dream, it had my parents in it and my father was very negative and my mother was backing him up... That's supposed to happen but not against me... I had said something that I thought was deep and he mentioned to her that it wasn't deep at all... A father can do that, pull you right out of depth and let you know it's nothing but shallow contemplation, and yet contemplating is, in itself, depth but damn I wish I could remember the dream... It was very negative and that's been happening a lot lately... Bad dull dreams are worse, sometimes, than nightmares...

This was a double-feature dream and the next one had to do with my friend who is, or was, an actress back in the day and she was showing me around somewhere, like some kind of pond and it was the end of the world, or past the end, sort of a diminished beginning and she knew the ins-and-outs of this pond and that's all I remember, I should have written it down earlier... That'll teach me...

TRY

TRY

RAIN IS COMING

There are times
When I'm so low
I realize exactly

How my life is going
How it's been and what's
Coming

Usually when it rains
I hide and realize
I never took sunshine
Very seriously

I need to make a
Fresh start but
I haven't even
Started 

THE OTHER

Funny thing how
When I feel great in
The morning I

Usually do too
In the afternoon

But then in the evening
I'm down, irritable, and blue

And the opposite occurs
If I feel lousy in the
Morning and
Worse in the Afternoon

Then by night I'm fine,
Shining like the sun that
Hides so

I basically live in
A constant state of fear that

I'm gonna feel one way or
The other, other than how

I'm feeling

WAY DEEP DOWN

Way deep down
I'm a neat nick
And a clean freak

But I hate to
Shower and
My house is
A mess

Piles of stuff
Everywhere there

Just isn't any time
To put it anywhere

Nor's there a place
To put it so I'm

A failed
Neat nick and

A filthy
Clean Freak

DAD AND JOHN LITHGOW

Funny when dreams take family members and put them into the life they have nothing to do with and what the dreamer is all about. I love movies and interview actors and actresses and write reviews and my father likes movies okay but is, or was, in the golf industry. So in this dream my mom has the television on and it's my dad in a movie with John Lithgow. They're both in a car and my dad is passenger. They're partners, somehow, maybe salesman, mobsters, or both. Lithgow is doing a lot of the dialog but my father has a line or two and delivers them nicely. He's young and handsome, and seems right for the big (or in this case, small) screen. And of course I'm shocked by all this. My mom quips, "He hates this one," meaning the movie. My dad's there, embarrassed and not commenting. I ask how on Earth this happened, but get no answer. And the dream ends as I'm trying to record the dream to share to my "friends" on Facebook, but something's going wrong... It won't record... Then I go back, rewinding the tape to find dad's part, and can't find the scene...

IMPENDING JAIL DREAM

God awful dream last night. I was waiting to go to jail. An impending five month sentence to be ruled the next morning. I'm stressing about it, complaining to my parents, trying to find a way out. Suddenly it's nighttime and I realize I can't call my lawyer. Maybe, I thought, he could try some sort of last minute plea. I'm really scared during this dream. In real life I'm claustrophobic so I can't, within the dream, imagine how I'll survive a five month sentence. I'm not afraid of those cliche things like getting raped or beat up or any of that jazz. Just the fact of being locked up for five months is what's killing me. And all the things I'm used to, my routine... going to the bathroom, putting on my clothes, watching TV, walking my dog... will be gone. So I'm really stressed and complaining and my mom, at one point, says, "Just serve your sentence and stop complaining." The bitch. And my father is laughing out loud, because he'd told me I should have paid for a better lawyer, which he'd supposedly suggested. And by the end of the dream, it's morning... I'm about to find out my sentence (I have a ray of hope that the judge will let me off, although the information within the dream is that we'd made this deal long before)... And then the "show" ends. That's right, it was all part of some sort of TV show and the ambiguous ending was a realization that I probably went to jail. But I'm awake now and feeling under the weather but at least I'm free. Although when you're sick in this kind of hot weather, it feels like a prison sentence. Perhaps that explains the dream or the reason for its impetus. 

MIME

The less I speak
The better I am
In social situations
Or around beautiful
Women so
Perhaps I should
Become a Mime
Full time