"A View From The Booth"


by Loxley Mendoza

I'm the nite time security guard here at toxic media. When im not making my rounds I spend most of my time in a little booth in the parking lot with a small t.v. and a tape player and some magazines and crossword puzzlesand stuff. It gets kind of boring because Not much happens here most of the time. One nite radcliffe comes up to the booth. He's here almost all the time. Sometimes I think he lives in the building he's here so much. Now and then he shows up about 4 or 5 in the morning to hang out with me and talk about shit. I think he gets lonely being alone so much. Delany is here a lot too and sometimes they show up together. Theyre pretty cool guys. So anyway one nite radcliffe comes up to the booth and he got a bottle of rum with him and some cactus cooler and he goes "Wow! Its cold tonite! Hows a drink sound?" and I goes "Fuck yeah! I'm freezin my nuts off out here! If you know what I mean!" So he makes a couple of them Hungry Brains drinks that everybody goes for around here and hands me one of them and I goes "How about some tunes, Jack?" and he goes "sounds good to me!" so I put som Blues Brothers on the box and we hang around and talk for awhile. And I goes "What the deal with all this writting stuff?" and he say "What about it?" so I goes "id kind of like to try that some times." And he goes "Go ahead. Just get a pencil or a pen or whatever you like to write with and write somestuf. Its good for you to do it." And I goes "if I do some will you read it and maybe show it to that delany guy if it doesn't suck to much?" And he goes "sure. I cant promise you anything but well see how it goes. Ok?" then we got drunk and told eachother dirty jokes an he sees my barbi twins calendar and we and talked about chicks and andy sedaris movies and stuff. so heres some things that I thought of and wrote down in the computer that's in the booth that there isnt anything else to do with:

I don't like sports to much. I used to like to watch wrestling alot but I found out it was fake and that really wrecked that for me. I mean if baseball and football was made up of teams that really came from the towns that the teams are in it would be cool. But teams are made from people from all over the world. They find some kicker from spain or a runner who lives in Detroit or something like that and give him a lot of money to play in they're town. I think if teams were drafted like jury duty and some plumber and a waitress and some teenaged girl who worked in a beauty parlor and an old guy whos retired and stuff had to play another team of regular people to defend the name of theyre home towns it would be a lot more fun to watch and youd want youre home town team to beat the other team real bad. Id watch that! Wouldn't you?
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I knew this guy and he worked at the cash register in a bookstore called the bodi tree here in L.A. that sells self help books and crystals and crap like that and this guy comes up to him and goes "How much is this book?" and he looks at the book and it called You Are Your First Name. So he looks at the guy and goes 'Well yeah! But what if your names Dick?" and the guy laughes alot but the boss fired the guy that I knew anyway. I bet his name was dick too.
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So the indians sold new York for 24 dollars and a lot of people are mad about that. But look that was a lot of money back then. Maybe a couple of hundred bucks,man! That isnt nothing to sneeze at, jack! I bet you could buy a lot of pelts with some dough like that and how much was beef jerky and shit like that back then anyway? You could live for years on a couple of hundred dollars. Think about it.
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Ive known some gay men in my life and some of them have been pretty cool guys. I have nothing against that lifestyle at all. It's not for me but this is America and you should be able to live any way you want to live. Love is such a rare thing I think youre lucky if you find anybody to share youre life with even if it is another guy. I mean Ive been married twice and both of those bitches fucked me over real good so maybe gay men know something I don't. who knows? The thought of sex with another guy makes me sick but so does squash so who am I to judge people? The thing that I don't understand is why they listen to some of the worst music in the world. I mean come on! Barbra strisand? Judy garland? My mom listens to that shit! How come you never hear a gay guy say "hey! The new Zappa records out and its fabulous!"? or "Have you heard Chinese eyes? Its one of pete townshends best solo records!"? I heard a rumor that Joe Jacksons gay. isnt he good enough for you people? Maybe he isnt gay. I don't know but at least he doesn't stink! And disco? Fucking disco? Don't get me started! Line dancing music isnt as bad as fucking disco music! Polka music isnt as bad as disco! Besides disco music died out a long time ago. Don't you guys get the news papers? Disco still sucks! Am I alone on this or what? I don't mean to be a prick or anything. Im just wondering.
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I got off work early one nite and went to the Jack in the box on wilshire in Santa Monica. as I drove out of the drive through I saw a big banner hanging over a building that said: INTERNATIONAL BREAST FEEDING MONTH. I swear! I couldn't believe it! What is international breast feeding month? What does it mean? How do people observe international breast feeding month? Is it for people who don't normaly breast feed? Like "oh wow! I almost forgot to breastfeed! Good thing its international breast feeding month!" or what? Whos the spoakperson for international breast feeding month? Can I get a T-shirt? It was like if I saw a sign that said: DON'T STAB YOURSELF IN THE FACE WITH A PHILLIPS HEAD SCREWDRIVER WEEK or OPEN A CAN OF SOUP BEFORE YOU EAT IT DAYS. Who was this sign for? Wouldn't someone who was able to breastfeed already know about breast feeding? If you have any questions about breast feeding give your mother a call. I'm sure shed love to hear from you. Shit! And people wonder why I drink!
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I was watching a Dean Martin movie one nite with a friend of mine and dean martin starts singing this song about the moon hitting you in the eye like a big pizza pie I goes "if the moon did hit your eye like a big pizza pie shouldn't you get a napkin or something?" and he says "I think by the time it hit your eye it would be too late to do much ofanything because it would crush youre head and youd die!" Boy! Did we laugh about that one! Ha ha ha!
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The end.