So Frank's friend Don as everybody knows by now used to make up stories about the monkeys on the candy bar wrappers when he was a kid and eventually make up songs and sing about them, and then he'd make albums but the candybar company wouldn't let him use the advertising checkerboards from the original candybar. So what do you expect?

I completely understand I think just as you do because I used to make up small stories to amuse my friends, too, like everybody does.

I'd tell them this story that you've already heard from me now:

"And another reason I left Hell-A for the mountains ... I'd be standing at a bus bench on Wilshire waiting for a bus, and guys in cars would assume I was a prostitute and pull to the curb and proposition me. Which made me mad.

And then sometimes I'd be standing at a bus bench on Wilshire waiting for a bus, and guys in cars would assume I was a prostitute and slow down to take a better look and then they'd speed off. ... "

(But at the end of the story,

I'd follow the "Z" with my finger
and make a noise zz-zzzz-zzz (through my teeth)
all done in time with the three swoops of the letter "Z"
and then swoop up my finger and underline "uckys" as I said "Uckys!")

(I'd have to time it carefully to sit next to someone and work it carefully into the conversation. This kind of planning and timing and artfulness sometimes take awhile to bring into being, well, things don't just happen overnight, you know, so only a few people in the Venice environs heard that joke.)  ¶ 1/10/2011 11:18:00 AM