dogmagnet's Blog

 

1I have lived in a trailer park for over fifteen years next to a crazy old man. When I first moved here the man kept to himself and wouldn’t say anything then as the years went by he began to mumble things to me. A few times while I was in my backyard he yelled at me that I was a bitch and I should stop messing with his stuff. I have never touched his stuff whatever his stuff is. Last night while I was throwing a desk out my front door to be picked up by the trash collectors there was a group of kids playing. The old man was coming out of his house and when he reached his driveway he picked up a newspaper and threw it into my bushes. I picked it up and threw it on his driveway. The kids all watched this happen. He yelled at me that he doesn’t take the paper and I told him that there was a trash can in his driveway that he should just throw it away. He went back into his house and started swearing. The kids were all laughing and telling me how they thought he had bodies buried in his backyard. That he was always yelling at them. Tonight the kids were out again they even knocked on my door a few times but I didn’t answer it. It was about a half hour later that I hear the old man yelling at the kids. Then I hear an adult yelling back at him. I go out to see what’s going on and the security guard is trying to talk to the old man. When the old man sees me he calls me a BLEEP bitch and says something about newspapers. He is swearing in front of these kids and saying how he is sick of being harassed. He tells the security guard that the kids threw a bunch of newspapers on his porch because I told them about the newspaper yesterday. I pointed my finger at him and said the kids saw the whole thing that happened yesterday. He kept saying I was a BLEEP bitch and the security guard told him to stop swearing at the kids. Then the stupid white trash fat ass grandmother of the kids comes and gets the kids. She apologizes to the old man and I try to explain that its not just all the kids fault. But she tells me how she works with old people. She wasn’t even listening to me. Then I come in and I call the park manager who says that the kids shouldn’t even be out after dark. I am trying to explain about how crazy the old man has gotten and how I can’t even go into my backyard without him calling me a bitch. But all she could say was that she knew he was getting worse but she was more concerned with the kids being out. It was only around 7pm and the kids were just playing a few houses down from their own houses. Granted the kids shouldn’t threw all the newspapers on the old BLEEPs porch but he has been yelling at these poor trailer trash kids for years. Yes these kids are annoying at times but they are kids and if it was up to them they most likely wouldn’t be living in a trailer park. The park manager was in a hurry to hang up and said she had to call security to get his side of the story. There must be something in the air because now the Korean family on the corner is yelling and screaming at each other. Perhaps the Santa Anna’s are on their way in. People get a little crazy during that dry still air before the angry winds come. I just hope the miserable old man doesn’t kill me as I sleep.

 

1Since I have been unemployed and hanging out at home I have been talking to some of my neighbors. I met a 300 pound woman who has a crazy teenage daughter who already has two kids who have autism. The woman must be on SSI since she cares for her ill mother. See I live in what they call a mobile home park but its really a trailer park with some fancy newer mansion like mobile homes. Back to the woman. Yesterday I ran into her at the local Target. I was walking in and I hear "Hey Neighbor". She said it twice. Then we stood there as she talked about all the creepy low lives that live in the park,Mary a drunk who has a brain tumor who lost her son twenty years ago in a fire and she was burnt over 30 percent of her body. Mary once invited me into her mobile to show me all these things she makes from dead flowers and when she showed me a photo of her dead son she started crying. Then she told me how she wanted to poison her husband. One time she tripped over a speed bump in front of my trailer and busted her head open when she was drunk. I didn't even hear it until I heard sirens and saw the fire dept out front. This woman was telling me about all the guys in the park that Mary BLEEP. Then she moved onto this guy who she says is a meth freak who rides his bike everywhere. I see him all over Chatsworth pedaling his bike. His bike was stolen the other day so now he walks everywhere. Then there is Cami who also has a kid with Autism. A single mom on methadon with scoliosis who is in contsent pain and who I have watched getting more of a hunchback as time goes on. She is an attractive woman and because she didn’t get the surgery she needed its too late now because it has progressed so fast. There is this trailer of low lives where this woman they call grandma who is a drunk takes care of her sons kids who is in prison. It’s a little girl and there was a little boy but he seems to have disappeared. A couple of times I saw this creepy man with the little girl on his lap in one of those old scary house vans,driving up and down the street. He was letting her drive but she was on his lap which creeped me out. Child services had made many visits to that house but they don’t do anything.

We are still at Target and she is still talking. She tells me about this woman who was fresh out of prison who I saw around here for a while with her son. She was staying at the house of Grandma for a while. Her little son must have been around ten. He loved motorcycles and would tell me how his dad wants to buy one of my bikes. The kid would always wave at me as I passed and many times I saw him walking the street looking very mad and talking to himself. This kids mom had this young mexican lesbian who was in love with her. I saw her once riding a BMX bike while I was getting my mail. She was drunk and stopped to ask me what was up. I just looked up at her and said nothing. She mumbled something and rode off. She broke the other womans arm once in a drunken rage. The woman with the kid died a few months ago due to a bleeding ulcer due to drinking too much. She was in her late 30's. The Target woman proceeded to tell me how the boy was placed with a lesbian couple. I told this woman I was gay because I didn’t want her to start bashing gay people. Then she started telling me how she has nothing against gays. And started rattling off all these gay people she knew and kept saying how she knew I was gay. I was getting uncomfortable and said I didn’t have anything against straight people. She didn’t get it. I wanted to get away from her but I was frozen there in Target. I hate Target. The one in the valley anyway. After standing there talking for a half hour her daughter came over and said “are you still talking?” The woman told me I should stop by anytime then we parted ways. I left the store right after that and made my way to the 99 cent store next-door. As I was shopping I saw myself in the mirror and just could have lied down and died. I looked fat,dumpy and my hair was all straight,parted in the middle and flat. I was wearing baggy jeans,a chain wallet and a t-shirt with a skull on it. I smelt bad too because I had slept a sweaty sleep and had the t-shirt I slept in on. There I was in the 99 cent store buying cleaning products. When I pulled into my driveway and saw my busted out windows covered with plywood,a pirate shower curtain and some thin hard plastic I thought I have to get the hell out of here. I wondered how I let myself go and how I ended up a fat lazy piece of trailer trash. Since I have been unemployed I have lived on cheap cookies,popcorn,chips and noodles. Perhaps its because I am 47 and have given up. The only family I have are siblings who I hardly hear from. I was very close to my parents. My sibs weren’t as close to them. I was the baby and spoiled. My sibs are always saying what a awful childhood they had yet I thought mine was pretty cool. My dad taught me how to ride motorcycles,we would go camping and even travel back east a few times. We even went to the 1964 Worlds Fair in New York. My teenage years weren’t so great and that’s when most of my loneliness started as well as me realizing that I was different then most people who lived in the awful right wing city of Simi Valley but that is another story. I use to think white trash was interesting and funny but now that I have made it to the bottom of the landfill its not funny and its down right sad. I hate it and I need to dig myself out because the trash truck doesn’t pick up large items.

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If I hadn't bought my two-day pass I would have ended up staying home in my air-conditioned house. I am a wimp in the heat and the weather promised to be in the late 90's and 100's. I had to go. I go every year and dress up in my special cowboy old west attire. This time I was thinking that maybe it was too hot for such clothing and I would wear a t-shirt and shorts. When Saturday morning rolled around I decided to sport my old west attire. I arrived at Melody Ranch just as the festival was opening. My first stop was a vendor by the name of Buckaroo Bobbins. I climbed up the wooden stairs to the covered wagon mercantile where they had all kinds of old west patterns, clothes, hats, pocket watches and scarves. The owners were very friendly and I bought a vest there. The woman at the counter was selling raffle tickets to raise money for a woman in Texas who was in a car accident. Her dog was with her and both were thrown from the car. The dog took off to find help since the woman was badly hurt. The dog went to a near by home and the homeowner called the cell number on the dog collar. The woman had to crawl to her cell phone. She was able to give the caller her location. The paramedics soon arrived and she was taken to the hospital. The woman has no health insurance and now faces medical expenses. So how could I not buy a ticket for five bucks? She even showed me a photo of the woman and her dog. The day just got better as I found myself walking down the main street of Deadwood. The show Deadwood was the last thing that was filmed there. The sound of gun shots being replaced by cell phones ringing. I found a wooden gun at a tent selling all kinds of soaps and hand made toys. I was going to put the gun in my belt and pretend it was real but I came across Harry Carey Jr signing autographs and had him sign it. He was really sweet and loved the toy gun. I put my gun in my bag like it was made of gold and walked over to the chuck wagon. There were cowboys cooking up biscuits, beans, cowboy coffee and peach cobbler. A breeze blew through the chuck wagon camp sending dust into the beans that the cowboy spooned onto my plate. A little hot dust in my beans made them even more authentic and the biscuit fresh out of the Dutch oven planted in the coal-covered ground made my mouth water. I took a seat on a hay bail outside a tent where Don Edwards sang cowboy songs. After my meal I bought a cold beer at the beer stand. I spent the day walking from vendor to vendor and taking in a few shows. I really enjoyed the band Cowbop because it had that old western swing sound. The day seemed to fly past me like some short old west dream. When I arrived home I felt like I had been out on the trail all day and looked forward to doing it all again the next. A friend of mine joined me Sunday and I wore a different outfit. It was hotter then the day before. The minute we arrived we headed straight for the free water. The sun beat down on us like flames trying to burn us alive but we kept on moving. We walked to where all the food vendors were and we bought empanadas. We found a shady tree and sat under it eating our meal. After we finished our meal it was on to the Chuck Wagon for peach cobbler and cowboy coffee. I poured some whiskey into my coffee to spice it up a bit. We left the food and went searching for music. On the way we found some old buildings and took photos of each other. The lead singer from Cowbop passed us and when I told her I loved her band she just looked at us like we were aliens. Then when I told her I liked her skirt she just smiled and walked away. I felt a chill in the air. My friend was laughing because she felt the chill of an ice queen as well. I thought maybe it was the heat that made her so icy. Like dry ice perhaps. A few minutes later we found ourselves listening to a group of brothers playing cowboy songs. We met a man named Rudy who had lived in Santa Clarita his whole life, over 70 years. He came to the festival every year. The heat started getting to me and I had to find shade under a tree. If it were not for my wide brim cowboy hat with its Montana peak I would have been as red as a lobster. Once again time flew and it was time to leave the dusty town and head home. At home I could smell the sweat and dust in my clothes. I wished I had a cold river to dip in but took to the shower. As the evening worn on and my swollen feet rested, I felt sad that the festival was over. Once again I was able to go back in time with the dust and simple grub. A place that felt like home.