me up and put me under heavy hypnotic sedation, and sometimes house me at his clinical facility.
“This veel cause great deeskomnfort und deesoreentation”—and the shock sober treatment was very uncomfortable and disorienting.
“Ze kraveeng for ze booze vill steadily deemineesh”—eventually it seemed to do so, but my brain-patterns still went to the drink out of habit.
I had to become “de-habitualized.”
And that’s where the journals came into the picture. They served as a method to keep track of my fragmented ongoing drunken stupor, as well the pill’s effects.
Though I never told her, Mona was a Godsend and the fact she had cared for and put up with my B.S. during the aftermath of self-induced blackouts spurned me on to try and be a “better man,” whatever that was.
My troubles tested and anguished her; the only conclusion to be drawn for the reason behind her patience and help could be boiled down to two words: true love.
LATELY I had been waking up earlier and earlier in the morning, so began a ritual of driving to a breakfast joint out in the inland desert of L.A, one I had frequented as a kid and teenager growing up in the suburbs called Chino Hills.
I had begun to look forward to that predawn drive. It seemed to help clear my head.
I climbed into the pickup and drove off. The clutch was beginning to show signs of slippage, and I reckoned I’d have to get it fixed in the near future.
Through the winding roads and intermittent neo-suburban desert sprawl, the truck rolled into the small, old-school breakfast joint called the “Freeborn Diner.” Their policy: feed the customer behemoth portions at an absurdly low cost.
How had it remained in business for over quarter a century? The place was always jam-packed, that’s how. The guy who owned it was a part Czechoslovakian part Cherokee chef who came across as cynical and cranky, but was in fact as gentle as a doe to those allowed into his tribe.
Aside from being a gourmet hash slinger, he had a gift of astute societal observation and was well versed in history, psychology, etiquette and cussing. The man’s humble, yet profound intellect resonated in ways beyond the operations of academia and media.
He was what they once referred to as a wise man .
And, as I said before: the man could cook —especially eggs Benedict.
“Chief, your stuff is gourmet cuisine. Still cheap as dirt,” I said the first time I had returned to his place in years, shoveling the ’68 Omelet into my mouth.
“Well thanks—thank you much. But you’re wrong. My stuff is not cheap like dirt. Look around, these days dirt ain’t cheap!”
His place, a service station, and a bar had once been the sole inhabitants for a mile either way off the once two-lane, half-paved road. Back then, people wouldn’t have taken money to own the deed of the shoddy land his little diner rested upon. I used to ride my BMX bike up and down that road to his diner without having to worry about traffic.
Today, his little restaurant resembled an archeological relic from a bygone era wedged within a mosaic of strip-malls, mega-shopping-complexes, gas station/junk food Meccas, cappuccino/latte/whatever-other-exotic-called-caffeine-fix joints, health spas, banks, movie complexes, sports bar-and-grills, theme-oriented restaurants, repetitive townhouse condos, and cheaply built houses, all adorning a six-lane road that had traffic aplenty.
“American Dreams: how can they all be the alike?” Those were the sort of pontifical questions the Chief posed to his clientele.
As an aside: Chief had acquired his English via a couple of foul-mouthed Italian immigrant mechanics, his own mother and father (both spoke very little English), and a George Carlin LP entitled Occupation Foole .
His mother was born a Lakota. She married a Czechoslovakian beer-brewer named Vaclav and the couple had baby Chief. In 1920, because of the asinine 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale of alcohol in the United
“This veel cause great deeskomnfort und deesoreentation”—and the shock sober treatment was very uncomfortable and disorienting.
“Ze kraveeng for ze booze vill steadily deemineesh”—eventually it seemed to do so, but my brain-patterns still went to the drink out of habit.
I had to become “de-habitualized.”
And that’s where the journals came into the picture. They served as a method to keep track of my fragmented ongoing drunken stupor, as well the pill’s effects.
Though I never told her, Mona was a Godsend and the fact she had cared for and put up with my B.S. during the aftermath of self-induced blackouts spurned me on to try and be a “better man,” whatever that was.
My troubles tested and anguished her; the only conclusion to be drawn for the reason behind her patience and help could be boiled down to two words: true love.
LATELY I had been waking up earlier and earlier in the morning, so began a ritual of driving to a breakfast joint out in the inland desert of L.A, one I had frequented as a kid and teenager growing up in the suburbs called Chino Hills.
I had begun to look forward to that predawn drive. It seemed to help clear my head.
I climbed into the pickup and drove off. The clutch was beginning to show signs of slippage, and I reckoned I’d have to get it fixed in the near future.
Through the winding roads and intermittent neo-suburban desert sprawl, the truck rolled into the small, old-school breakfast joint called the “Freeborn Diner.” Their policy: feed the customer behemoth portions at an absurdly low cost.
How had it remained in business for over quarter a century? The place was always jam-packed, that’s how. The guy who owned it was a part Czechoslovakian part Cherokee chef who came across as cynical and cranky, but was in fact as gentle as a doe to those allowed into his tribe.
Aside from being a gourmet hash slinger, he had a gift of astute societal observation and was well versed in history, psychology, etiquette and cussing. The man’s humble, yet profound intellect resonated in ways beyond the operations of academia and media.
He was what they once referred to as a wise man .
And, as I said before: the man could cook —especially eggs Benedict.
“Chief, your stuff is gourmet cuisine. Still cheap as dirt,” I said the first time I had returned to his place in years, shoveling the ’68 Omelet into my mouth.
“Well thanks—thank you much. But you’re wrong. My stuff is not cheap like dirt. Look around, these days dirt ain’t cheap!”
His place, a service station, and a bar had once been the sole inhabitants for a mile either way off the once two-lane, half-paved road. Back then, people wouldn’t have taken money to own the deed of the shoddy land his little diner rested upon. I used to ride my BMX bike up and down that road to his diner without having to worry about traffic.
Today, his little restaurant resembled an archeological relic from a bygone era wedged within a mosaic of strip-malls, mega-shopping-complexes, gas station/junk food Meccas, cappuccino/latte/whatever-other-exotic-called-caffeine-fix joints, health spas, banks, movie complexes, sports bar-and-grills, theme-oriented restaurants, repetitive townhouse condos, and cheaply built houses, all adorning a six-lane road that had traffic aplenty.
“American Dreams: how can they all be the alike?” Those were the sort of pontifical questions the Chief posed to his clientele.
As an aside: Chief had acquired his English via a couple of foul-mouthed Italian immigrant mechanics, his own mother and father (both spoke very little English), and a George Carlin LP entitled Occupation Foole .
His mother was born a Lakota. She married a Czechoslovakian beer-brewer named Vaclav and the couple had baby Chief. In 1920, because of the asinine 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale of alcohol in the United
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