Hike and Brew

A couple years ago I went on a hike with Sergio. The time was Saturday morning and the place was Mt. Baden Powell. Sergio advised that we pack 30lb backpacks full of a bunch of just-in-case shit. It was a survivalist pack, and due to all the traffic on that trail, it made no sense at all. Well, to the logical person it made no sense, but to Sergio, it made all the sense in the world.

Because of that damn backpack and my general out-of-shapeness, I pretty much inched my way up that trail. It was painful for me. With every step, I wanted to just say fuck it and turn around, but Sergio wouldn’t let me. He kept on pushing me. He kept letting me know that I would regret it if I did. I also knew that he wouldn’t let me forget it if I did. I wasn’t going to let Sergio have that over me, nor was he.

It was brutal, but I finally made it to the mountaintop, but I could not have done it without Sergio. It was yet another time he had my back. We chilled out for about a half hour up there. It was beautiful.

Sergio led the way back down, and we obviously did that a lot faster. Along the way down he was about 10 yards ahead of me when a young woman with headphones jogged passed me. When she got to Sergio she couldn’t quite get around him because he wasn’t getting out of the way. I guessed that he didn’t realize that she was right behind him, but I decided not to call out to him to move over.

After about a minute or two he finally looked over his shoulder and looked a bit startled. He promptly moved out of the way, and then looked at me and said, “I thought that was you behind me. Why didn’t you say anything?” Then he glanced back the other way towards the jogging woman fading into the distance. He turned back towards me, smiled and said “Ah, I know why. I would’ve done the same thing.” I smiled back and we both started busting up at our perverted selves.

One of my fondest memories of Sergio was when we were brewing beer in his garage at his Chino Hills condo. All the garages in that complex faced each other and we had the garage door open to keep the air circulating and the place cool. Well, at one point a car pulled into a garage across the way and out came a mom, her two children (boy and girl) and what looked to be a grandma. As they exited the car and garage the little boy stood fixated on Sergio and me. We just stirred the batch and smiled. Then the grandma came up behind the boy, hurried him along and scowled at us as if we were manufacturing meth. We just scowled back at her.

When they were gone, Sergio and I just started laughing, all the while listening to his beloved Sublime. We listened so much Sublime that day that I finally had to put a stop to it. I asked him if I could just put on the radio and he let me, so I started thumbing through the channels and found a mariachi station and left it there. I felt that the music had the perfect beat for stirring the brew.

After about a half hour of mariachi, Sergio had enough. He protested against the music the only way Sergio knew how. He went off on me. He said, “Enough of this shit! People are walking by the garage, hearing the music and looking in here. Do you know what they are thinking?” Before I could answer his question he blurted, “They’re thinking ‘that poor white guy. That Mexican is making him listen to that mariachi music.’ But no! It’s the other way around! That damn white guy is making the Mexican listen to the mariachi music!”

“Did you want to put up a sign explaining that?” I asked.

“Shut the fuck up!” he responded and promptly put Sublime back on. We then started busting up again.

I’m still having trouble making sense of Sergio not being here. He was too young and we had more adventures to go on. Part of me is pissed off at him for that. Why did he have to be so damn selfish? The other part of me his happy that he is out of any of that pain that was torturing him so much. Maybe I am the one who is being selfish by wanting him to endure that pain just to appease me. Either way, I will totally miss him.

Confusion and Avoidance in Palm Springs.

Fear and Loathing in Palm Springs? Not really. It was more Confusion and Avoidance. An overly aggressive inebriated woman attacked my Japanese com-padre at some chic establishment christened Lulu. The cunning Japanese black belt was no match for her large slobbering lips and strong arms. I felt sorry for the poor fellow. With that sight of him struggling in the corner of my eye, all I could do was look the other way and hope that the problem would go away.

It didn't. In fact, the problem plopped herself right in between me and the black belt and asked me how her breast felt up against the back of my arm. To which I responded, “fine?” “Fine” was the magic word that unlocked this sultry oversexed hunk of burning love to launch her huge flapping lips into my face. I was trapped between her and an invisible barrier of scorn from my fellow patrons. My Taoist instinct of ignoring the problem and hoping it would go away was not working. How did I get to this moment?

We should have bought those women some drinks at the other bar. If we did, the possibility of being attacked by that debaucherous wreck would have been lower. I guess our sun-drenched brains weren't thinking too clearly now that they've been dehydrated with the nectar of the monks.

We spent most of that day at the Chuckwalla Valley Raceway watching a marathon of dressed up decadent cars parading around the track like a bunch of made up old whores begging for attention. It was quite a hodgepodge of lemons from all walks of life and corners of the western world paying homage to an assortment of products and lifestyles.

The scent of gas and tires was in the air. With a rebel flag waving behind us, we sat in the stands and watched these cars fight for space. As we sat in the bright desert sun, the black belt and I drank beer from a miniature keg, which was immersed within a rolling cooler. It was a beautiful day for racing.

In the distance, we would see indications of cars having trouble staying on the track. These little lateral plumes of dirt would move about like burrowing gofers making their way across the horizon. A little flag of yellow would then come out and wave until the dust settled and the car was back on the track or until the lifeguard was able to rescue it from out of the chaos. After spending hours observing this race against time, the sun was nearing its descent and we decided to head back to the hotel in Palm Springs.

The gentleman behind the counter of the hotel must have thought of us as a cute couple wanting to experience the not so straight aspect of Palm Springs, because he flirted to the point of cutting our hotel rate in half. I didn't think being friendly to the guy would put us in any danger either considering the safety lock on the hotel door generally serves as a good deterrent from any unwanted thrill seekers. He did seem a little disappointed when I answered “two,” after he asked if we wanted one or two beds.

The suite was bigger than my one bedroom apartment, and it had a bath and shower. The shower was the only one that got used though. We both got cleaned up and went out for something to fill our empty stomachs.

Sushi and Sake were on the menu at a little place that smelled of old carpet. The dark green ambiance felt like it hadn't been renovated in years, but I wasn't going to say that to the old man with a knife behind the bar. A couple of warmed bottles and a few plates later, the black belt and I were sufficiently satisfied. Off we went to our second stop.

At the second establishment the black belt and I sat at the bar in this exterior seating area that resembled a street in a small Spanish town. The walls were towering. The bartender was juggling bottles and pouring mixed concoctions like a circus acrobat. He could star in a halftime show of a local community college basketball game if he had the craving to do so. We desired beer and he brought some to us.

After a couple of beers, I needed to break the seal. Doing so I discovered the urinals at this fine establishment where filled with ice cubes and melting the ice cubes became a worthy challenge. The restroom was a bit cramped and had barely enough space for the attendant servicing the room. Why was he even there? Quite frankly in the overall scheme of things I have to question the point of having a restroom attendant. Why would anyone want to be one and why would anyone want them in the restroom when they’re going about their business? I am quite confident the words “I am glad there is a restroom attendant” have never been spoken without a hint of sarcasm.

A while after making ourselves comfortable on the stools a couple of young dark-haired women sat catty-corner from us. The one furthest from us had short hair and looked as if she may have gotten herself into trouble times before and the one closet had longer hair and looked like she was the protector. The longer haired one looked a bit seasoned to her friend’s troubles. She’s been in the troublesome situations before and wasn't in the mood for any more nights of drama. However, if the approach was correct, she’d be willing to compromise her hardened stance.

We never approached. We cowered like little boys at a junior high dance. All it would have taken was a purchase of a drink and we would have known each other’s intentions. But alas, they left us there at the bar. Were they tired of waiting for us? We will never know. Learn and move on, and move on is what we did.

Onto the strip, we walked in hopes of seeing that dark-haired duo. We passed by a bar where a screeching rendition of Guns and Roses “Sweet Child O’Mine” was being performed by a drunken blonde. There were no dark-haired duos in that bar either. Like most missed opportunities, it was destined to not be revisited.

We came across a brightly lit blinding white blank canvas of a restaurant. The outer wall was open to taking in the night air. There were two seats available at the island bar in the middle of the room and we took them. Sitting next to us was a man and a woman. The woman, Rebecca, claimed the man to be her brother and that they were celebrating his birthday. The black belt and I ordered a couple of beers and made friendly conversation with the two.

Only a few seconds into the conversation and Rebecca revealed herself to be a drunken sex-crazed maniac. Her initial attack on the black belt didn't seem to faze her brother because I could hear him continue to talk while I was looking the other way in order to give the black belt and her some privacy.

The brother continued to make conversation while she tried to plop her big lips on me. She would go back and forth between the black belt and me as if we were two cones of ice cream. It wasn't until her phone began to buzz that she decided she had enough ice cream. She reluctantly answered the call from who she mentioned being her boyfriend. I almost yelled out, “She’s ready for you!” in hopes that he would hear it on the other side of the line. I declined to do so out of fear his presence might escalate the mayhem.

She slammed the phone down and announced her hatred for her boyfriend and that she had to part ways. Of course, this would not happen without some more goodbye kisses. While she kissed her goodbye to the black belt I tried to start a conversation with two female members of AARP, but they wanted nothing to do with me and my seedy lifestyle and took on my strategy of looking the other way.

While getting ready to leave Rebecca turned her attention to her brother by grabbing his arm and trying to gently pull it out of his socket. It wasn't until that moment that the bartender decided looking the other way was a poor strategy and eighty-sixed Rebecca from Lulu, but Rebecca wasn't gonna go without a fight.

I took the situation as an opportunity to avoid the possible danger of being victimized by collateral damage and excused myself to go to the restroom. The black belt followed suit. I think it was the first time in our lives that we both went willingly to the restroom with another man. But there was no restroom to be found in the direction we went. The waitress pointed us to where it was. For a brief moment we feared the path led past Rebecca, but to our relief, the kind waitress showed us a slight detour to our destination.

We made it there without any problems and waited inside till we felt the coast was clear. The black belt and I emerged from the restroom and went back to the bar next to her brother. The manager came out and apologized for the fracas with a $25 voucher for both of us to share and “to be used on another day.” We accepted his offering of peace, and ordered a couple of more drinks.

There were no plans of coming back in the near future, so the black belt and I promptly gave the voucher to her brother and said happy birthday. After receiving our gift of mercy her bother then informed us that he wasn't her brother and Rebecca scared off the people who occupied the seats before we did. Of all the words that came out of his mouth while the black belt and I were being assaulted, not one of them was “run!” He did tell us he was gay and kept reminding us that it was his birthday in hopes that we would go back to his place to celebrate. We already gave him a gift, so we finished our drinks and left for our suite. The day was over.

Carlos and The Turf Supper Club

My heterosexual life partner Glen took me to the Turf Supper Club to grab some drinks and possibly some food. When we got there, the place was not too full, but there was a wait and open bar. So we took the bar. After sitting at the bar for about 10 minutes having a round beer, the hostess came to us and told us our table was ready. I didn’t remember asking for a table, but I thought maybe Glen did without me noticing. So I just followed and went to the table.

The waitress was very friendly and took our orders within a very reasonable amount of time, and our raw steaks came our table pretty quickly too. Each steak came with a large piece of buttered bread. With our steaks in our hands, we then made our way the grill.

There was really no order to the whole grill. It was pretty much like looking for a parking space in a busy parking lot. Find an open space and take before some one else sees it. We each found our own openings and plopped our steaks on them.

Glen told me that this is how steak houses used to be. I’m not buying it. I’m not buying it. I think it’s just a clever gimmick to save on payroll, and most of the scenesters there are just about pretentious and dumb enough to buy it too. Even if it is true about the whole grilling your own steak being the original way, there is a reason most steak houses do not incorporate this method anymore. Most people do a terrible job.

I honestly am not a good griller or cook and would rather leave that to the professionals. That’s generally why I go to a restaurant. So somebody with a little more expertise can prepare my food. That being said, it was fun and my steak surprisingly turned out a nice medium rare. I just watch what everybody else was doing and followed suit. I saw some people toasting their buttered bread too. So I did the same. It turned out pretty good.

I found most of the patrons around the grill were pretty nice and engaging. A few of us talked about Foreigner and Journey and how they both have new singers now. One woman mentioned how she was totally in love with the original singer of Foreigner. She then sadly informed me that he now sported a beer belly and could hardly get through a song, which was why they got a new singer. It was an enlightening experience.

After eating our steaks, the hostess came over to our table and said to us, “You’re lucky.”

To which Glen and I replied back with a “why.” According to her, we stole somebody named Carlos’ table. Apparently, she told Carlos and his friend that we stole the table from them too, which explained the young Latino gentleman lurking near our table with a sour look on his face.

I told Carlos, who was standing next to our table, that we were sorry. However, that didn’t satisfy him. He pretty much brushed me off with a kind of “yeah, whatever” gesture with his hands.

She said when she notified us that our table was ready she started out by asking us if any of us was a Carlos. I do not remember this at all. I really don’t appreciate a hostess making a mistake and then pinning it on us. The fact was both of us never heard her ask any of us if we were Carlos, because she did not do that. That was total BS. We took the rap for her mistake. Neither Glen nor I even look like a Carlos.

Should we have questioned her when she initially showed us to our seats? Probably, but after having a few drinks at home and a drink at the bar, we really weren’t in the questioning mode. We were in the go with the flow mode.

Overall, the experience was fun. The steaks were really yummy and the atmosphere was nice. Grilling your own steak at a steakhouse is something everyone should try at least once. As for Carlos, well we just laughed off the whole Carlos incident, because it made the night more interesting. Without Carlos, the night would not have been as fun. Although, I don’t think Carlos would agree.

The Toilet Papering and French Leather Incident

I was talking with a friend of mine about a week ago and the subject of my dad’s frugality came up. It came in the form of a toilet papering of my house back when I was about 17. The toilet papering turned into a bit of a tricky situation. Especially the fact that during that time in my youth, when discussing the toilet papering incident with my high school friends, I had to leave out a minor detail, out of fear that my friends would keep doing it.

It was a Saturday or Sunday morning, and I woke up to my dad saying in his Dutch accent “Erik! You need to get up and clean the front yard and your car. They’re covered it in Toilet Paper and French Leathers.” French what? I knew what toilet paper was, but what the hell was a “French Leather”?

The sound of my dad’s voice also woke up my older brother Tony. So he came along out to the front yard to see what all the commotion was about. Sure enough, the house, yard and my car were covered in toilet paper, but where in the hell were the “French Leathers?” When I got to my car to inspect more closely, I saw that it was also decorated with condoms. At that point, I knew what a “French Leather” was. I think the perpetrator must have wasted a whole jumbo fun pack on my car and the house.

While looking at the mess, our neighbor Jim from across the street walked over to give us a report of what happened. Jim was a former Green Beret or Commando or some type of Special Forces. He was always up late at night screwing around with something. Having Jim around was kind of like having your very own neighborhood security guard who knew how to kill people. What he had in killer instinct, he lacked in common sense, because sometimes he worked on his car around midnight. However, he was approachable and if you asked him to put off working on his car until the next day, he would easily oblige.

Apparently while doing something late at night he noticed what was going on around our house. So he apprehended the perpetrators about when they finished soiling our house and my car with toilet paper and “French Leathers.” “I took care of them” he said “It was a blond guy and his girlfriend. They drove a Mercury Tracer, and I put the scare of meetin Jesus in them. Don’t think they’ll be coming back any time soon.” I knew a blond guy who drove a Mercury Tracer. It was Bruce Barker and his girlfriend Shauna (RIP). Those two were like two peas in a pod. Damn Them!

After Jim left, Tony and I got straight to cleaning up the place. We cleaned it up fairly quickly and made a large mound of toilet paper on the front lawn. When my dad came outside to see our progress, he saw Tony and me about to get started on placing the toilet paper into the trash can. He put an immediate stop to it sayin, “Godverdomme! What are you doing?”

“We’re throwing the toilet paper away” Tony responded.

“No! It’s still good” my dad replied.

Wait a minute. What? What did he just say? Utter disbelief came over Tony and me. What the hell was my dad thinking? We’re not wiping our asses with that paper! No! No! No! This can’t be happening! We knew our dad was frugal, but this was downright ridiculous. Damn you Bruce and Shauna and damn my dad’s prison camp instincts! How are we going to get out of this situation?

A funny aspect about my dad was that a lot of the time, if it really wasn’t a big deal and it was out of his sight, he would forget about it. My mom would often throw old shirts of his away without his knowledge. If he knew about, he would protest, and if he didn’t, he was none the wiser.

So Tony and I took on this strategy. First, we obeyed our father, who now according to the Catholics, art in heaven. Then we waited a couple of weeks and put it in the trash, right under the kitchen waste, the evening before the trash pickup. It needed to be under the kitchen waste, just as a precaution. Because knowing our luck, my dad would decide to throw some last minute stuff away right before the trash got picked up. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Double thankfully he didn’t make us save those “French Leathers.”

We never did hear about it again, which was a good thing. Yes, my dad was frugal, but really only for himself. I said it before and I’ll say it again. He wouldn’t give you the shirt off of his back because it was too worn down. He’d buy you a new one. He would spend a load of money on a stranger, but nothing on himself. That being said, I still wasn’t going to wipe my butt with that paper, and I wasn’t going to tell my friends what my dad did. If they knew what he did, they would have risked getting killed by Jim to decorate our house with toilet paper and “French Leathers” on a nightly basis.

My Dad's First Headstone.

It was a Saturday morning about 10 years ago. I arrived at my parent’s house. My mom was home, but my dad was out. She was in the kitchen making some croquettes (a delicious Dutch treat). I walked into the kitchen, greeted her and asked her where dad was. She smiled and said, “Picking up his headstone.”

The confused look on my face prompted her to explain, which she reluctantly did. She told me that one of her co-worker’s daughters had died and they didn’t have enough money to take care of all of the expenses. So being that my mom and dad had a couple of plots at Oakdale Memorial in Glendora, my parents thought it would be a good idea to donate one of them to her co-worker.

Apparently at Oakdale Memorial (I don’t know if all graveyards do this), they store the prepurchased headstones on the prepurchased plots, so my parents' headstones were already there, with their dates of birth etched into them. Since my dad’s headstone had a type-o (Or is it an etch-o?), they decided to remove his headstone and use his plot. It was a very nice gesture by my parents, and my mom’s humility made her rather uncomfortable talking about it. But it still didn’t quite explain why he was picking up his headstone.

So she explained further that the error on my dad’s headstone was fixed, but since they could no longer store it on the original plot, they had no place to put it. You would think they would have had some sort of storage area for them, but apparently, they didn’t. That or my dad was too frugal to pay for storage, so they called my dad and asked him to pick it up. After my mom explained all of that, an evil thought popped into my head. What if my dad got into a car accident and died? Talk about being prepared. I mentioned it to my mom, and our sick minds started laughing. It was horrible, yet funny at the same time.

When my dad arrived home, he saw that my car was there and recruited me to help him move his headstone into the garage. We went to the back of his Explorer and opened up the back lift gate. There, lying on the carpet was the newly edited headstone that read “Anthony M. Jansen, April 6, 1936 to ___________.” It was a rather haunting site.

“Can you get the dolly?” my dad asked. I did just that and when I got back to the Explorer, we lifted the heavy headstone onto the dolly. We then proceeded to roll the dolly, with headstone in tack, to the back entrance of the garage.

While rolling the dolly, I mentioned to my dad, “This has got to be one of the most morbid things I have ever done in my life.”

Annoyed my dad replied “Your mom and her fucking ideas!” This reply said it all. He loved my mom, but sometimes her ideas would put him in odd situations, and this one topped them all. When we got into the garage, my dad pulled out a piece of cardboard. We place the headstone on the cardboard, and wrapped it up. We then placed it under his work bench for safe keeping. I felt it needed a little more before we placed it in its final resting spot, like a benediction and a sprinkling of holy water. Maybe even a serenading with a Gregorian Chant during this whole process would have been appropriate, but much to my dismay, none of these things happened.

Over the years I and my brothers would mess with my dad about the headstone, but he didn’t really care that his mortality was in the garage. It didn’t seem to faze him. Sadly, when my father actually did pass, we were not able to use this headstone. My parents purchased two more plots at Forest Lawn, and Forest Lawn requires a special type of stone for their markers. Apparently their soil can only use a certain type. I have my own opinions about that, but I’ll leave that be, because quite frankly, aside from that, Forest Lawn was and is spectacular. They are a class act.

The end result is we still have a headstone with my father’s name and birth date on it in the garage at my parent’s house. Does anybody need a headstone?

Moccasin Joe - Revised 05.08.2019

The year was 2003. The time was approximately 2 am. Later that day I would attend KROQ’s Inland Invasion, a concert featuring The Cure and Duran Duran. I hadn’t been to such an event in a while and thus was excited about going to this concert later that day.

It was my second year and second job out of college. I was working at an accounting firm in Hollywood. The firm dealt mostly with high-end celebrity clientele, so it was very common for me to interact regularly with famous actors, writers, producers, and musicians. Occasionally I found myself in very unique situations. Such as the time I had to drop off a large sum of cash to a high profile actor waiting for me at the beach, or when a retired agent opened the door to her home while wearing nothing but a diaper and a T-shirt. While this type of job might sound exciting, often it wasn’t. Most of my memory of that time is comprised of dealing with people on the backend of their fame. Therefore, interacting with fading stars didn’t exactly create a happy work environment.

At the time I was living in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. Every morning I would have to drive to Sunset and Doheny in Hollywood. It was a seven-mile commute that took about an hour; normal for LA traffic. To escape my non-rewarding Hollywood job, occasionally on Friday nights I would make an even longer trek back to my old neighborhood in Covina, a suburb located in the eastern outskirts of Los Angeles.

In Covina, my old friends and I were frequent patrons of Elvies, a little dive bar that made killer drinks for cheap. That Friday evening before the Inland Invasion happened to be one of those nights spent throwing back drinks at Elvies. We hung out and drank until about 1 in the morning. We all then said our goodbyes before we would regroup later for the concert.

I was on the 10 Fwy driving back home to Los Feliz from Covina, when all of a sudden I heard a flip, flip, flip, …coming from my driver’s side rear tire. I knew I had to pull over and deal with this tire issue. However, I did not want to stop on the side of the 10 freeway. Therefore, I exited somewhere in Alhambra and turned onto the nearest side street in order to assess my damaged tire. The street I pulled onto was dark and in an area of Alhambra that I was not familiar with. I knew there were, and probably still are, some not so friendly areas in Alhambra. Because my surroundings were dark, unfamiliar, and located near the freeway, my guard was up.

Despite my uneasiness, I got out of my car to assess the situation. I went over to the rear driver's side and discovered a key sticking out of the tire. The handle of the key was bent over and was probably making the “flip flip” sound. While getting the little jack and donut-sized spare tire out of my trunk, I heard a voice come out of the sky. “Hey man, do you need a jack?” I looked up and all around as if I heard God’s voice speaking to me. Where was this voice coming from? Then it spoke again, “Up here bro!” My eyes followed a stairway up to the duplex in front of me and I saw a long-haired figure. “Do you need a jack?” he repeated.

“Yeah, sure. That would be great.” I responded. The long-haired dude sauntered on down the stairs of the duplex. It was so dark that it was hard to make out what he looked like besides his long hair.

After he descended all the way down the stairs, he went into the alley behind the duplex. I then heard a garage door open. He reemerged, rolling over an impressive professional sized floor jack. He placed it under my car. With two pumps on the jack, the car was high enough to take the tire off. I switched out the tires, and then he put the car back down. That was the quickest change of a flat that I had ever participated in.

After a tire changed that briefly got me to consider trying out for a NASCAR pit crew, I asked if I could use his sink to wash my hands. He said, “Go for it bro!”, so off I went. I was expecting his duplex to smell of bong water and stale dust. But as I entered his apartment, I noticed all sorts of well cared for pristine musical instruments; mostly conga drums. I headed towards his kitchen, which was around the corner from his living room. While I washed my hands I made a comment about all of the instruments and how beautiful they were. When I finished, I walked around to the living room to thank him. Due to the light, I now noticed this guy was a bit older than I originally thought. His hair was still long and dark, but I could see some mileage in what I assume were his Native American eyes.

I mentioned that I was a bit of an audiophile and that I used to work at a jazz club when I was in college. I added that in the mid-90s, I would frequent a lot of local music shows and had a particular fondness for the Surf Rock of that era. I think I also must have mentioned that I was currently going through a bit of a Bossa Nova phase. We talked at length about the local music scene and different styles of jazz.

He then started to play a lot of his own recordings for me. To my surprise, it was damn good. His music was very much influenced by his Native American culture, but it didn’t sound all that tribal, as one might assume. He mixed the progession so well with the incoming melodies. It had this flowing rhythm. One song, in particular, was about a journey to the afterlife, in which the spirit takes a canoe from this world to the next. Even though I initially pictured Little Hyuwatha from the old Warner Bros cartoons in that canoe, Hyuwatha soon faded away into someone a lot more proud, yet a bit weathered, much like my gracious host. That song was amazing. I think I could have listened to it for hours.

Apparently, this guy used to play as a hired musician with an old Native American 60’s/70’s band called Redbone. Their big hit was “Come and Get Your Love.” He was very proud of that. If you’ve ever heard their music, you’d understand his pride. It’s really that good! We ended up hanging out talking about music until 6 in the morning!

Since I was driving on a donut, and smartphones did not exist, he gave me directions on how to get back to Los Feliz via the streets. His directions were spot on. Before I left, he gave me his card, but I must have lost it at the Inland Invasion. He also gave me a CD of The Rick Lawndale Band, which was some local Surf Rock. To this day, I still have that CD. Aside from the Rick Lawndale album, the only thing else I had of him was what he referred to himself as; Moccasin Joe. Sadly, I never kept in touch with Moccasin Joe.

When I look back at that morning, I think how lucky I was to have had such an experience. The older I have gotten, the more I have come to appreciate these serendipitous situations in my life. Way back when, I tried Googling him. But using Moccasin Joe as a search term is like hunting for a needle in a haystack. There seems to be quite a few Moccasin Joes out there, but none of them fit the profile of the guy I met during the wee morning hours in Alhambra.

Over the years I have occasionally continued my search for Moccasin Joe. Although I must confess, I have not been too diligent. I tend to be the type of person who likes to leave memories where they are, in the past.

However, I recently wanted to connect with this memory again. Maybe it’s my age. Therefore, I tried Googling Moccasin Joe again. This time, my search included the name of his band, “Redbone.” What do you know? Something promising came up on Youtube and Facebook. I have messaged him, but have yet to get a response back.

You never know when events like this are going to happen. So do your best to identify and enjoy them when they do occur.