Category: Live! From Paradise!

LB: Live! From Paradise #224 – “Here’s What’s Happening in the Nabe”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

Time now for an update on what’s happening in Paradise. I like to think of this kind of reportage as a kind of blind gossip column but without the blind “Guess who,” bit, because I’m so bad at coming up with clues.

Here’s the nitty gritty:

Walmart

The Good News: Long lines for the cashiers at the Paradise Walmart seem to be a thing of the past.

The Bad News: Business in Paradise is down, down, down. Trucks picking up and delivering at the goat milk company near the Town Square no longer inconvenience other traffic because there isn’t any other traffic.

The Latest Cloud Creek Ranch Groundskeeper

The Good News: Billy Morningstar has moved in with Buck the Ex Navy Seal and Delly the Interstate Trucker. That means he lives right next door to us—only a quarter of a mile away—and has been taking excellent care of the grass, flowers, and weeds that sort of look like grass and flowers here on The Mountain all summer.

The Bad News: Billy is Delly’s ex, which sets some folks to wonderin’. Gwen the Beautiful’s analysis boils down to “People are always saying, ‘Why can’t we just get along?” Billy and Buck and Delly prove that at least some people can.”

The Old Billionaire

The Good News: The O.B. is still very much alive and, for the most part, alert. He and his wife Nettie have settled back into the loving life they led for so many years.

The Bad News: The O.B. Himself acknowledges that it’s his meds that keep him from getting too angry for those who love him to bear…and his fridge and the sticky notes he’s put on it are what enable him to remember far too many things that used to come to mind automatically.

The @#%$ Chicken-Killing Weasels

The Good News: Decker the Giant Hearted is feeling proud as punch after killing two of the varmints who made the mistake of coming in through the dog yard fence onto his turf. “I’ve redeemed myself!” he barked joyfully after dropping the last weasel onto the porch.

The Bad News: Cloud Creek Ranch remains chickenless. Because Ole Larry B is too chicken to risk more heartbreak if the weasels who haven’t faced off with Decker return.

Burl Jr

The Good News: Burl Jr.’s father’s health has improved, and he’s able to do more work on the farm.

The Bad News: Burl Jr.’s recording studio in the Town Square was broken into and his recording equipment was taken although his recordings and demo tapes were left behind. “Burl Jr.’s analysis is “Paradise people don’t understand the finer things in life. Am I doomed to be yet another artist unappreciated by those closest to him?”

The badder news: “I think we should go back on the road, honey,” said his wife Tara, “so we can go to a more sensitive place where they’ll appreciate your work enough to steal you blind.” And, according to Burl, Jr., she means it.

Doug the Dog Breeder

The Good News: Doug the Dog Breeder and his wife, Anita, have a new trailer, a cozy place for humans in love to nest in and regain the vigor of youth.

The Bad News: For all practical purposes, Doug’s out of the dog breeding business because of the economy, although he’s still open to those who need a clean, healthy place to board their pets.

Larry B and Gwen the Beautiful

The Good News: We’re still here. Together. Enjoying life and feeling fulfilled by its mysteries. The specifics:

Gwen the Beautiful

Gwen has discovered the value of hope. The peace that can come from peering into the future and knowing that with a little tweak here and maybe a twist there she can make tomorrow shinier and warmer and more filled with satisfaction and love than yesterday.

Larry B

The Wind and I are into a heavy conversation about whether reality is real which is delightfully compounded by the fact that we can’t even agree on whether or not our conversation is.

Oops, here’s some Sudden News: Right here, right now, “at this very moment and I mean it,” Gwen wants us to go outside and fill the bird feeders. And even I can tell that she’s running out of patience.

In other words, looks like this update is just about done. And, frankly, as Elvis sang on his first LP, “That’s all right, Mama.” The truth is that here at the top of The Mountain Bad News always loses because like another song on that  album put it, “Any place is paradise when I’m with you.”

And I mean with all of you.

LB: Live! From Paradise #223 – “All Woods are Magic Woods”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

 

Before we came to Paradise, Gwen the Beautiful and I lived just outside L.A., in an area known as Malibu, Hidden Valley, Westlake Village, or Thousand Oaks, depending on who was doing the knowing. Mail addressed to any of those towns would arrive in our mailbox at the original Cloud Creek Ranch.

Yes, I said “original.” Before we came to our mountaintop in the Ozarks we lived on one in—well, in Malibu-Hidden Valley-Westlake Village-Thousand Oaks. The ranch spread out over acreage with craggy cliffs, level pasture, rolling hills, a seasonal stream with a funky land bridge, 40-foot cedars and live oaks.

At the time, the live oaks were the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. Green all year round. Trunks three feet around that called out to be leaned against because each tree could, and gladly would, hold you upright forever.

The woods that surrounded our compound were a year-round trove of beauty. I still remember the first time I walked through them, and how I called out to the Wind:

“I love this place! It’s perfect! I’ve got to live here…forever!”

And how, for the first time in my life, I heard the Wind call back to me:

“Forever? Absolutely. As long as you do your part.”

“What’s my part?”

“Take care of this land. Guard it. Keep it safe.”

“Guard it how? From what? I can’t stop fires. Or earthquakes.”

“Keep its spirit safe. Keep it pure. The land and the trees have a purpose. They love to be lived on…and in. To provide. Don’t do anything that would make them regret their love. Live well here, and you can live here forever.”

“I’m happy to make that deal,” I said, and I barely got the words out of my mouth before the Wind rustled through the oaks with a long, drawn-out, and oh-so-beautiful to me, “Done!”

The first Cloud Creek Ranch’s magic held true. It was a place where my highly allergic self never reacted badly to the touch of any plant. Where any sore on any horse—even cancer—healed. Where no matter where on the property you stood, you always were looking down at the rest of the land, including the place where you’d last stood and which at the time had seemed so much higher than where you were now.

The trees and I talked every day.

The stars and I talked every night.

Day or night, Gwen could sit in the living room, on the Saltillo tile floor, and talk to the spirit of a gnarled Old Cowboy who would appear in the periphery of her vision. Translucently beautiful in his well-worn buckskins, he would rock in our old rocking chair and smile, leaving only when she forgot herself and turned to make direct eye contact. (That’s when we learned such behavior is a no-no when dealing with ghosts.)

Oh, it was quite a place, that property deeded to my heart by the Wind.

There were problems, though. Aren’t there always problems? Everywhere?

The beauty of the woods made for a huge surcharge on our homeowners’ insurance, adding a sum greater than our entire monthly mortgage payment here in Paradise to our monthly budget…and our house payment itself was six times what we pay now.

California property taxes weren’t exactly nickels and dimes either, and the fact that our stream was seasonal combined with the complete lack of any underground water source to create a situation where we had to pay to have fresh water trucked in and stored in a tank so massive it could’ve said, “City of Malibu-Hidden Valley-Westlake Village-Thousand Oaks” on the side.

To say we were “house poor” would be understating the situation. We were “house destitute.” No matter how much I earned, it wasn’t enough to stay where we were.

We had no choice but to sell and move on to new magic.

The situation enraged me. I ranted. I raged.

“You lied to me!” I screamed out to the Wind. “We had a deal! I kept my part of the bargain, but you betrayed me!”

“Not so,” said the Wind, quiet as a breeze, the night before Gwen and I left for Paradise.. “I said you could live here forever, and I meant it. All woods are one wood. You’re just heading into a different neck of the woods now.

“You won’t be missing anything,” continued the Wind. “I promise. This place is magic, but so is where you’re going. All woods are magic. Every last one.”

And, as Gwen and I and everyone who visits this space knows, the Wind spoke true.

LB: Live! From Paradise #222 – “Connections”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

Several months ago in this space I came out of the closet of normality and ‘fessed up to having Asperger’s Syndrome, a mild form of autism. After which I braced myself and waited—

For a firestorm never happened.

No, “I always knew you were weird, Larry B.”

Or, “Yep, if ever there was a crackpot writer it’s you, dude.”

After a few weeks a response to my announcement finally came. In the form of an invitation to contribute to a book a friend was writing about his theory that autistic men and women have a greater than normal awareness of what is known by some as “the Great Unknown,” by others as “the Wind of Mystery,” and by still others as:

God.

Turned out he too is an Asperger’s kind of guy (my friend writing the book, not God), and to him it was no big deal. Certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

So why was I?

I’ve been letting that question percolate for awhile and finally have an answer. I think it’s because in the environment in which I grew up—family, school, neighborhood—I was made to feel guilty about who and what I was. I was regarded as “antisocial” and “introverted,” and being antisocial and introverted were considered bigger sins than gluttony, sloth, and just about anything else short of murder.

“Why don’t you want to talk to people?” my mother would ask when I was a little kid. “Why don’t you want to go outside and play with Melvin and

Bumpy when they call for you?”

And, when I was older:

“Aren’t you lonely staying in your room like this?” my father would say. And from more than one teacher: “Don’t you want to just go out and have the kind of fun most teenagers do?”

The replies to those questions were: “I don’t like talking to people. It hurts me too much.”

“Playing with Melvin and Bumpy is fun for Melvin and Bumpy, but not for me.”

“But I’m not alone. I’m with a terrific book.”

And, “The kind of fun most teenagers have isn’t fun for me.”

I didn’t utter any of those replies because the interaction itself would’ve been way too painful. I always felt on the defensive. Under attack.

Simply because I didn’t belong.

And not belonging, not feeling part of any group, is what Asperger’s is all about.

As an adult I’ve kept all this a secret so I wouldn’t have to re-fight my youthful battles. It’s only now that I’m more mature that I’m able to stand up for myself to the outside world the same way I always stood up for myself in my interior one.

I’m comfortable with the differences between the way I perceive and react to the universe and the way most other people do. As I see it, I’m not the one with the problem. Those who’ve spent so much energy unknowingly inflicting pain on me in order to make me more “social” have always been the ones with the problem.

My perception is that because of the way my brain works I’m able to focus on what’s important to me more than most human beings can. I can analyze myself and others and see our foibles from a perspective available only to a watcher who is distanced from his subject. Yet I can go so far inside myself that I connect with the Great Unknown, the Wind of Mystery, and, yes, even God much more intimately than I’m able to communicate with words.

And if in return I lack the wherewithal to make cold phone calls or connect with small talk at parties or feel the joy of leaping from my seat to cheer for my team in the Super Bowl, so be it. I understand that life is a trade-off.

Because I actively take part in that trade every minute of every day.

I understand that I’m luckier than other Asperger’s types. I can feel love for others and love in return. And I’ve learned how to communicate these facts with them using my body and my words and my soul.

I like these things about myself. They give me great joy.

And I appreciate, possibly also more than I can describe in words, what another friend said to me recently. “You’re the least obnoxious guy with Asperger’s I know.”

In fact, for one brief but shining moment I came this-close to feeling that he and I were connected.

LB: Live! From Paradise #221 – “Walmart Confidential”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

Walmart being the great social center that it is for those of us who live in Paradise, I’ve had more than one strange encounter while shopping there. The most recent occurred just a couple of days ago.

Gwen and I came in together and then went our separate ways. She zipped over to the organic fruits and vegetables, and I ambled to the snack tables where Doug the Dog Breeder so often holds court. We hadn’t talked for awhile, and I was eager to get up to speed on what was going on in his life.

My good friend was nowhere to be seen, though, so I got a cup of coffee and sat down by my lonesome for some people-watching.
At first I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Just:

A group of teenage girls posturing for a group of teenage boys.

A five-year-old girl whacking her little brother alongside the head when their mom turned her attention from them to a display of potted plants.

An elderly man riding his motorized cart like a bumper car and frowning disappointedly when everyone scooted out of the way.

I did my best not to grin so widely that the afternoon’s entertainment caught on to how very entertaining it was being. I’ve learned from sad experience that some folks don’t take all too kindly to that.

Then the strangeness arrived. In the form of a woman of about fifty, wearing a faded dress. She sat down across the table from me and leaned forward with a very serious look on her face.

“I’ve got a problem,” she said. “Don’t have a clue about what to do.”

“It’s my cousin’s son,” she went on. “He called me yesterday out of the blue to tell me his father just died and he’s glad. ‘My daddy was a terrible man,’ he told me. ‘He was tall and broad and taken by fits of temper that made everybody in the household fear for our lives.’

“I didn’t know what to say,” my Walmart Confidante continued. “I don’t know the boy and barely remembered his father. Probably only saw my cousin half a dozen times when we were kids and never after we grew up.

“The boy said he had to call other family members and hung up. And as soon as he did I recalled a few things about this ‘terrible man’. He was big even as a child, and gawky, and he tried very hard. But his mother, my aunt, never saw him as anything but a mess. She mocked him when she talked about him to my mother, and I saw her mock him to his face.

“She treated the boy like the family idiot, and he never knew how to respond. Because he was a kid, and what can a kid say about the cruelty of any adult, let alone a parent?”

The woman twisted in her chair, a look of pain taking over her face. “I have no idea how intelligent my cousin was, but I suspect that one of the reasons he grew into an abusive man was that he was so betrayed by the woman who was supposed to support and protect him.

“I feel like I should call his son back and tell him about this. Not to absolve my cousin. Not even to excuse him. But to explain just a little. So many of us grow up not understanding our parents as people, and it’s so easy to end up bitter or even twisted as a result.

“That’s it. I’m going to do it. I’m going to make that call. Thank you. Thank you so much!”

My Walmart Confidante reached out and hugged me. Then she pushed back her chair and strode away, passing Gwen, who was coming over with her cart.

“Friend of yours?” Gwen said.

I could only shrug. “A lady with a problem,” I said.

“Were you able to help her solve it?”

“Apparently.”

“Then why don’t you look as happy as you should?”

I realized I wasn’t smiling. And I also realized why. “Honey, this isn’t exactly my kind of thing. What would’ve happened if instead of me sitting here it’d been Doug?”

Now it was Gwen’s turn to hug me. “Exactly the same thing,” she said with a laugh. “All she needed was for somebody to listen.”

I always wondered why Doug spent so much time in this place. Now I know.

It’s more than just people-watching.

It’s for the hugs.