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Chapter 8

1988

    Footloose and Fancy Free
    I participated in several footraces ranging from 1 mile to about 6 miles despite the
fact that I was overweight. Most runners whom I've seen are very thin; some look
emaciated; a few look like Karen Carpenter. Sometimes I practiced running at 4:30 in the
morning before going to work that started at 7:30 a.m. I was really not used to being up
that early unless I stayed up all night. Once I sat shivering on a bus bench at 6 in the
morning to get to a race. I did not want to worry about wearing a jacket and then leaving
it behind during the race.
    Once I practiced while I was maybe a little bit manicky. I parked near the Point
Loma post office and put the car stereo on very loud so I could hear it a block away. I
then jogged up and down the block. I then drove 5 miles to Mission Beach. I parked near
a crowded restaurant and put a Michael Jackson tape on the car stereo very loud. I then
imagined Michael performing a live concert and world-wide TV show literally on the
entire West Coast, from Anchorage, Alaska to Santiago, Chile. He was skimming the
coast on a barge or a boat. The audience-- I calculated how many hundreds of thousands
that would be--sat and watched and cheered. I imagined Michael holding the microphone
in his accustomed way and performing to these hundreds of thousands of people. I
imagined that I was the technical director and I held a microphone while I talked to the
moon where our TV show was being bounced off. "Ready on the moon? Ready,
Michael?..." My tape player had autoreverse and I bounced around, almost as if I were
Michael--I couldn't go all the way--every time a favorite song, "Man in the Mirror" came
on.
--quote song--
I was doing fine until someone broke my bubble by saying that those were apartments
over there and the law was that there could be no loud music within 100 feet of them.

H2O G8 88
    I prided myself in being out of the hospital for 2 1/2 years. This was a record for
me since I started to be hospitalized in late 1982.
    I was washing my Porsche 924 with the sunroof removed while it was parked on
my street, Grand Ave., a busy street in Pacific Beach. I was using a 5-output turret
sprinkler on a hose. The setting that I chose for the turret produced a long line of water,
30-feet long. The water went high in the air but only hit the car when I wanted it to do
so--being in the 99th percentile in math, I know how to calculate. At one point the misty
water was making a bridge-like shape out into the street. I thought of this as a "water
gate". This made me think of the "Pentagon Caper" scandal of the defense-contracting
industry, or as I call it, "Watergate '88". I used to work for San Diego's most sought-after
company in the scandal, Cubic Corp. (see "Jobs" chapter). As I saw the cars going down
Grand Ave. looking like they were going under my watery bridge, I thought that there
should be a sign, "Watergate Lies Ahead". This was the perfect pun for a headline about
the scandal, "New Watergate Lies Ahead". A 7-digit personalized license plate came to
mind to represent all of this: "H2O G8 88". "H2O" means water. "G8" pronounced
together is gate. "88" was the year and July 30 was the day.
    The cops did not like the way that I was washing my car. They came and took me
away for an overnight visit to County Mental Health (CMH). The neighbors apparently
were worried that I would ruin my car and had called the cops so as to save it. A
colleague later referred to this as "washing my car funny".
    The fact that I was taken to CMH, even for just one night, ruined my 2 1/2 year
record. A nurse gave me a shot from underneath as I was dangling over her and another
nurse. I fell asleep and was left to sleep hanging over the gurney.

One Night I Went to the ATM Machine
    One day after it was dark and there were fewer people around, I went to the
automated teller machine (ATM) at my bank, Union Bank. I was about to start my
transaction when I saw a large, 2-inch long cockroach on the ground. I do not know
karate, but I brought up one leg, aimed my toes at the cockroach and brought down my
leg very hard. I then instinctively reversed the toes and brought down my leg again. I
surveyed the damage. The top and bottom of the roach were separated by one hit. The
bottom was divided in 2 by the other hit. I had cut it into 4 pieces. I was feeling good
about the feat of my feet. However, I looked more closely and saw that the bottom of the
roach was divided into 3 legs and 5 legs. If I had been more precise, each division would
have had 4 legs.
    I picked up the 4 pieces of cockroach and put 1 at each corner of the monitor
screen of the ATM. I processed my transaction and decided to put copies of the pink
copy of my Chuck's Newsletter test page that I had with me into the ATM deposit slot,
addressed to people whom I knew at the bank.

There's a Mack Truck Coming at Me and
All I Have is This Dumb Shopping Cart
    I started off the day feeling good and I felt high the whole day. I started by doing
my running at 5:30 a.m. Running at dawn is not something that I usually do. It was still a
little dark because the sun was just coming up. I was about to be running straight East
into the sunrise when I saw 2 small hills near the intersection next to the baseball diamond
at Felspar and Gresham. I tried to jump the hills as I ran but I failed, fell down and got
bruised for my efforts. I got up, brushed off the dirt and then ran East on Felspar, into the
sun and towards Safeway and Von's Pacific Plaza.
    I bought a few things at Safeway and then went to Von's. They had a sale on 2
matching Coleman cooler ice chests. I put them in my cart. A few minutes later at 7 a.m.
I bought ice cream. I never bought ice cream at 7 a.m. before. Then I came upon the
highlight of my morning. They had rock Cornish game hens on sale for 25 cents off each.
I know that a lot of people do not like the hens, but in some circles they are considered a
delicacy. I agree with the latter. I hardly ever buy them but now I was going to buy 4.
That seemed like a lot. I instantly changed my mind and decided to take 12 because 12
times 25 cents would be a $3 saving. I walked away from Von's with a full cart of goodies
for a picnic. It was 7 a.m. and I must have pushed that cart the next 6 hours without ever
getting it home.
    As I started to walk through the Plaza, I saw the very-thin Black man who bicycles
by. He was sitting on his bicycle and playing his harmonica. We talked about harmonica
lessons for me and he said that we could work something out. I asked for a business card,
not expecting one, and he said that we would just see each other around the Plaza.
    I went on my rounds at the various shops in the Plaza until about 11 a.m. It was
very hot and I wanted to get away from everybody. I took the cart behind the buildings
where I had never been before. I put mud all over myself like natives did to cool off. If
anybody asked, though, I would say that I just came from the General Dynamics war
games in Ocean Beach. I just made that up; there was not any such thing as far as I knew.
    I walked behind Farr's Stationer's that printed my newsletter and I saw that their
back door was open a crack. I could hear some familiar voices of their young female staff
but I could just barely see faces. I walked up to the doorway and put my mud-encrusted
face in as close as I could get. One of them, Jane, screamed and then said, "I couldn't see
his face, it was all covered, but I think he had a gun. No, I couldn't tell, but I think he
did." I did not mean to scare her to death but it was funny.
    I checked the contents of my cart. No surprise, the ice cream had melted and the
rock Cornish game hens were defrosted. I put the ice cream in the smaller ice chest and
started to put the hens in the larger one. They would not all fit so I ate as much ice cream
as I could and threw out the rest, watching the liquid ice cream drain into the dumpster. I
have never thrown out ice cream before or since. I then put the hens into both ice chests
but there were two or three that would not fit.
    While I was doing this there was suddenly the loud sound of an engine. I turned
around and saw a large truck coming at me swiftly. On the front of it, it said, "Mack". I
said to myself, "Oh, my God. There's a Mack truck coming at me and all I have is this
dumb shopping cart." I quickly manipulated the cart and myself out of his way and off to
the side. It was tight. Here I had been thinking that I have this alleyway all to myself and
then I was wedged over by a Mack truck. He stopped and parked. I looked up to see the
driver. He was Black and had gone to sleep. The tags and markings on his truck said
Nevada. I figured that he had come from Reno or Las Vegas at 75 MPH and he cut a few
minutes off his time. Now he was napping to make up the difference.
    I went back to dealing with the hens and the ice chests. Two or three did not fit
and it was hot out. A lot of flies were flying close by. As a test, I put one hen into the
trash can, expecting a lot of flies. There were flies nearby but none went to the hen. I was
surprised at first but I soon realized that flies go for the smelly blood. There was not any
blood so there were not any flies. The hens were Kosher which involves removing the
blood. I tried to fish the hen out from the dumpster by using a coat hanger but it did not
work.
    With the caked mud still on my face, I went to my answering service to pick up my
mail and to do some Xeroxing. My eleventh issue of my newsletter was about to come
out. It promoted the San Diego Bob Dylan concert. I perfected a technique of making
special graphics by using Xerox reductions, rotating a certain amount between each shot.
It took me about 100 shots to achieve the effect I wanted. As I did this, I kept looking
out the window to be sure that my cart and belongings were still there. When I was
finished, I then added a box of 100 sheets of graphic shots to my ice chests and game hens
in the cart. I later put the cart in a secret place to pick up the items later but I never got
them home.

My Gold-Leaf Shirt
    I designed and had a custom-made T-shirt made of my Chuck's Newsletter logo, a
maple leaf, along with wording. The shirt was beautiful. The fabric was black with a silky
look and feel. The maple leaf was made out of gold leaf. The leaf was as big as it could
possibly be, about 18 inches high and 12 inches wide. The lettering was in 3 colors of
embroidery. It cost me $18 and felt well-worth it.
    I was wearing the T-shirt when I wound up in CMH. Staff warned me to give it
up for safekeeping. They said it would be stolen if I did not have it locked up. I did not
do it. It was stolen. Staff made a big effort to find it. They did find it. It was stolen
again. This time it could not be found.

Tie-Dye Madness
    On August 6, 1988, a week after my one-night stay in CMH for "washing my car
funny", I was in a 24-hour Laundromat after midnight. I was practicing tie-dye using
obsolete free newspapers and magazines. Tie-dye is a process of binding fabric for
producing different patterns. I was obsessed by the cover girl on Learning Annex
magazine. The cover was designed so that no matter what angle the viewer looked from,
she seemed to follow you and stared at you. The Laundromat was next door to where I
saw about 10 obsolete copies of this magazine. I got the idea of taking the magazines into
the laundry and soaking the leftover magazines as an experiment. Instead of dye, I was
using bleach.
    I know that newspaper companies put their old papers in water for recycling to
make pulp. However, in San Diego it is apparently on the list of the most insane things
that you can do. I was picked up by the cops. They left 1 of my 3 boxes of current papers
behind at the Texaco station where they picked me up. I spent 2 1/2 months in County
Mental Health, was placed on a State Conservatorship of the Person in which I lost my
rights for 1 year, and was placed in a Board & Care home for the time of the
conservatorship but stayed another year voluntarily.
    Why are you laughing? Some people have explained it to me, "Well, you were
laundering newspaper. Is that right?"

Kirsten the Tease
    It was the summer of 1988 at CMH. There were a number of adolescent and
young adult patients. There was one girl named Kirsten. She was really pretty. The
ugliest of the guys, a muscleman named Dave, would "strut his stuff" and parade around
the arcade with her on his arm. I did not like that especially. At one point she came up to
me because she knew that I was figuring out ways to get out of CMH and I told her that I
would help her.
    She was a tease. One day I was standing at the nurse's station. It was directly
opposite the women's shower. She got in the shower and she pushed back the curtain and
there she was. Nude. Just the water and her. That was cute. The fat, old male nurse was
standing there watching also. I did not even know that he was there. He did not move
and did not say a word until it was over. He got upset at her and made a remark against
her for her show but I thought that it was nice. It is not every day that you get to see a
woman whom you are not married to or living with in the shower.
    So the next time I saw Kirsten, I gave her hint number one on how to get out of
here: "What's your psychiatrist's name?" She said, "I don't know." I said, "Well, you
better find out because the person who has life and death control over you is your
psychiatrist." The next time I saw her I said, "The second question to know is, 'What
meds are you on?'" She said, "I don't know." I said, "Well, find out from your
psychiatrist from question number one."
    One day, I don't know how it happened, I was talking with her and I took her arm
and we "strutted our stuff", we paraded around the grounds at CMH that day and it was a
real good feeling, walking around with the prettiest girl there, even if she was a little bit
crazy. She got out before I did, by the way. She was just on a temporary hold for
teenagers and young adults with psychiatric problems.

CMH--The Doctors
    My doctor at CMH was a kind and knowledgeable man, he liked me and I was an
excellent patient. So I asked him at various points why I had been there as long as I had
been up to then--2 weeks, 4 weeks...2 1/2 months. He said that I was "a slow absorber",
meaning that my body did not take in the medicines as fast as he would like to see them
absorbed.
    My other doctor gave the impression of a cross between a busybody and Nurse
Ratched in "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest". I was right on that when I saw the report
that she put together on me to use at my conservatorship hearing. In her successful
attempt to show that I could not take care of myself, she included the fact that I was once
observed to take an hour to eat a peach.
"Do I dare to eat a peach?"
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"--T.S. Eliot
I agree that I took that long to eat the peach. My point is, "So what!" I took 2 hours to
eat a bucket of bouillabaisse in 1976, my second trip to San Diego. It took them 12 years
to catch me on that one and put me on a conservatorship. Actually, I never told them
about that one.

Court=The Judge
    It is September 20, 1988, the day of my conservatorship hearing. The Judge looks
like he is 90-years old. His hair is solid white and there are 2 additional magnifying lenses
attached to the right piece of glass in his glasses. One of these 2 attached pieces protrudes
from a piece of metal. He looks like he has 6 eyes and is comical to look at although his
mission seems diabolical to me.
    During the few minutes allotted to my case, one of my attorney's points was that I
am smart. When it was time for the judge's decision, he cackled and started out saying,
"He's smart. But he's disabled." He then explained matter-of-factly that he was putting
me on the conservatorship.
    Later when I explained all this to people, people often said that I should write a
book. It finally hit me, "It's a fix." The judge knew that if someone like me (there's no
one like me) were in a situation like this, a book would result. Six months later after I had
finished my 14th newsletter (the 4th while in the conservator system), articles from which
would be used in the book, an outline of the book and a rough draft of this chapter, I came
to the point of writing:
    "I am taking heed of the suggestion, 'You should write a book' and it has become 'I
    should write a book' and then 'I am writing a book!'"
    More details about this court session are scheduled for the "Conservatorship"
chapter.

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