Miller Time

UNITED STATES—The cafe next to the laundromat celebrated the first year of new ownership last month on Fountain Avenue, triggering a festival of remembrance. I heartily took part, since I am reputed to be a person who goes back to the beginning, before the beginning. I have been there for a lot of it. Often when asked for my business...

UNITED STATES—In the weeks after the play’s successful run (one satisfying performance celebrated to the hilt), I showed rooms out and distributed three-day notices. “The agony,” I noted in my journal. The ecstasy was handing old good tenants, like Pedro and Tava at Estrella Avenue who were moving on and out and hopefully up, their deposit refund check. The weeks...

UNITED STATES—It amazes me how much time’s vortex can pack into a single afternoon. At that first meeting of the Spanish cultural club, where we brought our songs, poems, paintings and stories, I found the job I’d been groping for for months, as I scraped by on free room and no board. At the very end a black-haired woman, dressed...

UNITED STATES—Sergeant Carmichael was badass. Before I went into Runyon Canyon undercover, she sent me to the Yale School of Yogic Arts in Van Nuys to bone up on kundalini.  At least I could bluff my way through a yoga class: “Close your eyes and just say om.” That’s how I met Fay Greener, alias Sri Faye. The winsome 19-year-old greeted...

UNITED STATES—There was always a second banana at the drug store—the relief pharmacist. Johnson Drug wasn’t a one man show. The first relief pharmacist was Chet Turney, a thin wise man, who always carried a thousand dollars in his wallet and was a ham radio operator. He exposed all of us to the word, “Andale” (Hurry up in Spanish). Then...

UNITED STATES—Since writing my own diet book, chronicling my hilarious fat-to-fit journey and culling my diet secrets, to join the towering heap of diets all vying for your undivided, I realize there’s a million diets out there. All YOU have to do it pick out two or three of the million to integrate a plan that works for you....

UNITED STATES—“Eee ha!” shouted Gloria as Rusty’s red pickup sped over stretches of what had once been Route 66. “We’re bringing relief and salvation to the prisoners aboard the Southwest Chief. Vegetables and fresh smokes.” Rusty added, “I’ve got a flame thrower to install torch-down roofing. If we encounter resistance aboard the train, it’ll come in handy.” So it was, beefy...

UNITED STATES—Anybody who can take a cross-country trip with a dog and write a book has my respects. Mine is barely learning to let me read in peace. I have new respect for John Steinbeck. After a trip up north, I stopped in downtown Salinas to pay my respects and read part of a Swedish mystery which was just...

UNITED STATES—The filmmaker Everett Lewis with whom I was collaborating on “The Strawberry Butterfly” used to peer down and say “yep yep yep” when a scene in the screenplay clicked. The pages mounted, almost effortlessly; the Brother Word processor kept humming. Finally, come December, Everett took one last look at the batch of pages, now over 105, and said...

UNITED STATES—The baristas gave their all and infused the place with their own personalities, actresses, dancers, mystics, animal trainers and even a 15-year-old from the hood, who later came back after college for another stint. Yevgen was the first manager, 18 years old, and future trader in classic sports cars. One of the baristas, Amy, besides being a dancer...