Reader Blogs: I Live in Linda Vista

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I Live in Linda Vista

By Kevin Six | Posted December 30, 2010, 9:05 p.m.

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When I went into the Reader's website to blog about my neighborhood, I was marketed ingeniously by the computer. Once I typed in my neighborhood, Linda Vista, the Reader showed me an ad that asked me if I needed to get off drugs.
I get it! Linda Vista is not all that cool. When I first moved here from Clairemont (more on that later), I told my friends I lived in Kearney Mesa or near Mesa College. Linda is Spanish for pretty; vista is view and mesa is table. So I's rather live on the table than in pretty view.
Linda Vista has a view if you're in the right part of it. I'm in the Village Woods condo complex, otherwise known as Nazi Germany. Our association president, Adolph Hitler, has a lot of time on her hands and it tightly wound.
Last week there was a knock at the door. No one ever knocks on my door because all my friends think I live in the Spanish version of Pretty Table. Call your neighborhood Linda Mesa and everyone in San Diego will feign comprehension. This knock was definitely on my door and not the someone who wanted drugs from my neighbor next door (much more on that later).
It was the cable guy with an emergency order to fix the stolen cable coming from the electrical box to my condo through the sliding glass door. The cable guy was as incredulous as I was when I showed him the cable running from my TV and into the wall, where it was legally set up and costs me a monthly fortune to try to watch a hundred channels of crap (but more on that later).
So the cable guy makes his note and I get a little crazy on Hitler - er - the woman who runs the condo association. I did research on the internet. I actually found an article on the Reader's website about condo associations. The news was not good.
I decided to go crazy and take everyone on the condo association with me.
The Village Woods condos began life in the 1970s as a swinging singles apartment complex named, as far as I can gather, The Village Woods. There are no woods and there's not a village for that matter. There is a pond, a bit of a waterfall, a nice pool and a clubhouse. That no one gets to use.
Hitler is in charge of who comes and goes to the pool. The association board, which has more power over the Village of Woods than the Nazis ever had over Germany, the Fascist Italy and the Communists over China and Russia combined.
Suffice it to say that the Association got electronic access control over the pool about the time my dues were in arrears enough for the Third Reich - er- the Board to make a rule that you can't use the pool if your dues are passed sue.
Thank god my mother died or I's never have seen the pool or sat in the hot tub!
Then there's the matter of the clubhouse. Now, in the Swinging Seventies (and believe me because I lived through them, they were only trying to find the magic of the 60s and failing miserably), the clubhouse and pool were probably choc full of hipsters drinking Margaritas, skinny-dipping and smoking God-knows-what all day and all of the night.
But forty years on, those swingers have become the owners of the sourest pusses you can imagine. I wonder if the same crotchety old codgers and angry old ladies are the self-same people who partied the illage into the Village Woods complex back in the day. Suffice it to say they have a complex now and that's just about it.
One old guy threw his walking stick at me as I sat in the hot tub one day. Granted, the word from the Reichstag - er- the management company had come that I was not supposed to be in the hot tub but, brother please. Throw a stick at me? While I'm behind a metal fence? I saw him later in the week and, oddly, he didn't want to talk to me. He just pulled outta Dodge as fast as his little dog would go. I pity that dog P.I.T.Y. that old wiener dog who will outlive his master by a good ten years judging from the size of the veins on his neck and the redness on his face.
But I was talking about the clubhouse and not all the neighbors who have and will soon die (more on that later). It would be easier for a nice Jewish couple to get married at the Latter Day Saint's wedding-cake-of a temple than for me or anyone else to get permission to use the clubhouse. And the Politburo - er- the Association Board spent a lot of money on paint, furniture and a kitchen. A kitchen that no one uses!
It's enough to make you crazy. But, as I have said, I am going crazy and taking the whole Fascist, Nazi, Communist, Sour-Puss, Spinning-out-of-control-old-board-biddy bunch of them with me. I have created a new political party. Some thing that will cause them to stay up at night. Something that will cause each one of them to doubt his or her sanity. Something that will place a turd in their carefully concocted and oh-so-out-of-touch punch bowl. Something that will cause them to sell their condos and move to - where?
Nazi Germany!
The Village Woods Fun Party!
The party advocated use of the pool by all Association Members even if they haven's paid their association dues. I advocates for the door to be taken off of the clubhouse -- hell you need a key and an electric thing-a-ma-bob to get that far; do you really need to call and ask for permission and pay a deposit ti use a room that, though it has been redecorated, is set in the timeless Seventies? No!
And you don't need to pay for electricity either. The Village Woods Fun Party advocates for large solar cells on all the roofs, a gray water system to water the plants and what's left of the landscape (don't even get me started on that) and parties every night until eleven o'clock. The Village Woods Fun Party wants to put sliding glass doors on the apartments -- sorry -- condos that don't sound like FA18 taking off when you close them; and we want your privacy to be protected even unto placing recycled Levis jean material in the walls where the contractor should have put insulation. Oh, and we want to let people paint their doors what-ever-the-hells-color they want to paint them.
That ought to do it.

• More La Vista

All The Signs Are There

Here are a few signs found around Village woods and what I think of them:

 This sign should say "Welcome to Village Woods" but that is not the sentiment of the powers that be, as evidenced by the next sign you see as you enter the complex...

This sign could re-establish the Third Reich and get it to last for a thousand years.  Yes, by all means proceed directly to the resident's unit.  But what if you are a real estate agent and/or a potential buyer?  This isn't going to make you feel warm and fuzzy about Village Woods - and it's the second sign you see!  Not a good, property-value-increasing thing!

What if you want to take a walk around the complex? If you do you run the risk of arrest?  On my (illegal?) walk I met a number of nice people and a few cute, friendly dogs, a good, property-value-increasing thing.

Speaking of dogs, it seems that some people with access to desktop publishing, time on their hands and, sadly, not a full command of proper English, don't want dogs to poop on the property.  To these people, I say: "your" means belonging to you as it "signs like this show your ignorance".  The word you're looking for is the contraction of you + are. 

Thankfully, this sign is hidden in the west laundry room, where it showed signs of being taped somewhere before being taken to the bulletin board by a Good Samaritan grammarian.  One more thought: If you understand that dogs sometimes poop without their owners' knowledge and spend a minute picking it up, you will save the ten minutes it took to make the sign, post it and slaughter our language.  Thank you.

Speaking of English, this sign was not written in that tongue.  Had it been so, it would read, "No skateboards, roller skates or bikes may be ridden on site."  Proper English is the least of this sign's worries.

It's rude; it blocks a nice view of the pond that no one may look at because they should "proceed directly to resident's unit" (see the red sign, also not printed in English, above) and it's written IN ALL CAPS, which sounds like yelling.

Don't yell at me!  Write a nice sign that says "There's a great park about two blocks from here, where you can ride bikes, skateboards and roller skates. For safety's sake, please don't ride those things here.  Instead, why not look at the cool pond over this low-hanging sign."

This is my all-time favorite crazy sign.  First off, it's right on the clubhouse door, where you couldn't get in with  blowtorch and a search warrant; second, it's printed on official someone's yellow stationary; and third, it extols us to rat on our neighbors.

It almost sounds like the tactics used by the Nazis, Communists and Facisti to foment fear and distrust of your neighbors. You never knew if your neighbor was going to turn you in to the Nazis, Communists or the Facisti.  Thankfully history has taught all but this sign-maker that those tactics only serve to topple your regime.

Note to Association Facists: your neighbors are talking about you.  We will turn you in to the grammar police; suggest you get counseling; and re-write your signs.  Although, I wouldn't rewrite this one, I think people who owe money to the association should still be able to use the pool.

Now here is an obviously deranged person who wants something.  The problem is we don't know that it is.  Anyone who can decipher this sign, please comment!

DangerHouse Productions presents "Three Plays of Grand Guignol A Night of Love, Death and Disfigurement”

The Grand Guignol (pronounced gran geen yohl) was to 19th-Century theatre what Law and Order, CSI and Bones are to you.  In the 1800s theatre took the place of webisodes, TV, film and books as not everyone could read in those days.  Today, competing for your time and attention from all these 21st-Century entertainments, comes a renegade theatre company that thinks you’ll like Theatre of the Grand Guignol as much as your ancestors did. 

So, what is the Grand Guignol?  Anne Rice fans will remember the Vampire Lestat stumbling upon the Théâtre des Vampires and a gothic Antonio Banderas as the Guignol-esque troupe’s leader.  DangerHouse, like the French theatre that was popular from 1897-1962, will present an evening of three short plays, two scary and one sexy, October 22-November 7 at Queen Bee's in North Park.

DangerHouse Productions came onto the San Diego Theatre scene in 2007 with an evening of Grand Guignol plays, in association with Chronos theatre company, at the prestigious Neurosciences Institute.  That evening of blood, gore, cheating spouses and violent revenge was a first on that stage, which usually features lectures on brain chemistry and not actual brains.  But is it relevant?  

Miranda Halverson (aka Danger Daisy), who directs one of the three short plays, thinks so.  “When there is violence abroad affecting our population, the nation turns to more ordered, regulated violence closer to home – as an outlet, and maybe an analgesic. Horror will always be modern because what is more relevant than human suffering and the misery we can cause each other if we so choose?”

OK, relevant but will people like it?  Halverson thinks they will.  “My favorite part of the evening's experience is the contrast of the bloody dramas (Final Kiss and The Torture Garden) with the utterly ridiculous sex farce (Tics, or Doing the Deed) smack in the middle. Grand Guignol performances would heighten the feelings of dread by cleansing the palette between courses with a light, airy comedy…”  This is what the theatre’s management called the Hot and Cold Shower. 

The Grand Guignol defined the Theatre of Horror genre and was even involved in early silent horror films.  The theatre style borrowed from the late 19th- and early 20th-century realism and melodrama movements and took them one uncomfortable step further.  There was even an in-house physician to aid audience members who couldn’t take the scary and gory stuff.  Everything added to an uncomfortable feeling for theatergoers from the theatre’s location (in the Red Light District) to the theatre itself (a de-sanctified church), to the style of acting, the plays themselves and the artistry of the technicians.

It was a time before sound and color in horror films so we can’t be sure if people really fainted or took sick but it’s a pretty good guess that they had some willies scared out of themselves.  While earlier audiences may or may not have asked, “Is there a Doctor in the house?” San Diego audiences will have no such luck – no in-house doctor will attend the crowd at Queen Bee’s.

That’s not to say that there won’t be blood, gore, adult situations and stage combat.  In fact DangerHouse Productions suggests that mature teens and older come to the performances.  Says DangerHouse founder Marie Miller (aka Danger Domino): “There was a really fun question on the audition form: ‘Do you have any aversion to killing, maiming or dying on stage?’ I think that sets the tone from the beginning. But everyone who is in such a roles is actually pretty pumped about the horror they cause or receive.   I sure hope audiences are frightened, amused, then terrified.  In the past, we have given people nightmares, no one passed out in fright, but you never know.”

The plays (and their titles) are translations that can be found in Grand-Guignol The French Theatre of Horror by Richard J. Hand and Michael Wilson.  All are from the Grand Guignol’s heyday immediately preceding and following the First World War.  They are:

Final Kiss (1912)-A man, Henrí, whose fiancé has horribly disfigured him by throwing sulfuric acid on his face, decides to exact terrible revenge.  Directed by Danger Domino.

Tics, or Doing the Deed (1908)-A lusty romp where unabashed titillation meets uncontrollable urges.  Directed by Danger Daisy.

The Torture Garden (1922)- Helpless fascination with vicarious sadomasochistic bloodplay eventually becomes all too personal, bringing Clara's trip through China to a horrifying conclusion.  Directed by Danger Domino.

Starring
Damion Nowak, Justine Hince, Gregory Batty, Teale Bossen, Brian Burke, Javier Guerrero, Carla Navarro, Alfred Navato, Adam Freeman, Miranda Halverson, Mina Chuong, and Mary Cherwink. Fight Choreography by Rhys Greene.

Show times
Oct 22, 23, 28, 29 at 7:00 p.m., and Oct 30, 31, Nov 6, 7 at 2:00 p.m.  Doors open 30 minutes before show time. There will be live music after the first four performances, a special Halloween matinee and a Zombie Fashion Show.

Location
Queen Bee's, 3925 Ohio Street, 92104, in North Park

For more information or tickets
Website: http://www.dangerhouse13.com/
Email: Info@DangerHouse13.com
Call: 619-663-5652
Danger Monikers
DangerHouse is an actual dwelling in La Mesa, California occupied by artists, musicians, actors and containing rickety shelves in the bedroom closets, hence the name.  Miller, Halverson and a number of the DangerHouse inner circle have chosen (or been given) what they call “Danger Names.”  That is the word “Danger” followed by another D-word.  Miller is Danger Domino and Halvorson is Danger Daisy.  Is that a clever way to not take themselves too seriously or a way for otherwise respectable theatre professionals to remain anonymous?  Either way, Domino and Daisy have been duped into divulging their denominators and this writer lives in horror!  Those prop weapons look very realistic…
More history can be found at http://www.grandguignol.com/history.htm

This Romeo and Juliet

Working on a play is sometimes boring, sometimes exciting and other times evocative of every emotion you can conjure. And sometimes it's full of emotion you're having a difficult time conjuring. But whatever it is, theatre is a collection of people in the same boat.

We're all theatre geeks and proud of it. While other kids were playing we were in plays. We know more than is strictly necessary toknow about the history of theatre, contume repair, beats, timing and the status of the play moment to moment.

But, iff you're lucky, you land in the company of a show that has a magic blend. A show in which everyone gets along. A show that will change the lives of actors, designers and audience alike. One that it worth it.

Romeo and Juliet is such a play. Intrepid Shakespeare company came on the scene at the perfect time. The Universe opened up and allowed a group of theatre professionals to fill a void. The void? Try voids. Accessable Shakespeare; a resident company in Encinitas; the right people at the right time and I could go on. The result is that magic is being done and, for however long it lasts, you need to get on this ride.

We are doing arguably Shakespeare's most famous play. Have you seen it? If you're a fan of theatre it is your responsibility so see as many R&Js as you can. It is to the credit of directors (and Intrepid Founders) Christy Yael and Sean Cox that they knew this going in. We all know we're going to be judged - placed among the last, the best, the worst, the oddest and the coolest Romeo and Juliet people have ever seen.

We are lucky in our situation (if not that America is unlucky in this) that a number of the audience will be seeing R&J and the work of William Shakespeare for the first time. This is because of one of those great moments in theatre...

Sean and Christy were at a city council meeting, met the mayor and the mayor made the relationship with San Dieguito Highschool happen. If you haven't been to a highschool in a while you sholuld just see San Dieguito. There is always something going on there. The administration understands well their relationship with and responsibility to the community in which they stand.

There are all manner of adult classes, recreation activities, a dance and a debate competition -- and this was just last Friday. It goes on all the time. Truly refreshing. Just like Intrepid, its relationship with the school and this Romeo and Juliet.

Leticia Walker Reed Meets Julian Triton

9. An excerpt from the diary of Julian Triton

This day and age represents so many unique opportunities to create!  In my time there was music (if you were a member of the church), theatre (if you did passion or mystery plays), writing (if you were a priest), and art (if you wished to illuminate religious texts).  No wonder they called it the dark ages!

Now the whole world is made of light and not the kind of light one in my condition must shun.  The process of sitting in a darkened movie house for the first time was, to say the least, an immensely emotional experience – and I hate showing emotion; emotion makes one soft and the soft are subjugated.  So imagine my pleasure at seeing a sunrise for the first time in – I don’t even know how long.  How great is Mr. Edison and his machine for broadcasting light even as I sit her in darkness.

This book, this pen and this ink, ill gotten as I can make them, will be my confessional.  I will trust my agent to deposit it in the safest bank in the New World.  Trust!  Well, I trust as I will.  Do I not also have a key?

The confessional!  As in all literature, the antagonist seeks out his own demise, and what am I if not antagonistic?  He stupidly leaves clues for the powers of good.  The better the villain, the more worthy the hero must be.  Well.  I state here now – for whoever is able to find the source, defeat the security and crack the code – thank you for being a worthy adversary.  Now, please do your best to protect yourself because my secret cannot be told unless one of us is destroyed.

The last time I tried this everyone but me was destroyed.  That and a scriptorium and the town in which it was built.  Oh, the intricacies of building a library for the greater good!

But enough of this babble!  I ask you; do you have the courage?  Or will you become one of thousands and thousands of victims I’ve left in my wake throughout the centuries?

The coding was not a problem, really.  What kind of a linguist would I be if I hadn’t lived all these years?  Language is what defines all civilization and the language of any land is the language of the victors.  I speak dozens of languages and am partial to Greek, as you must know.  I can hardly remember my native tongue.  Only certain words float back to me – usually in nightmares.  Mine was a tough upbringing and the language was as tough as the land and the people who boasted that they’d never been conquered.  So the language was as rudimentary and crude as the landscape and its people.

Much later in my education was I to realize that in order to truly conquer you must not only impose your will on people – you must also have a culture to impose upon them.  So I studied the great civilizations of the great conquerors; the art, culture and language of war.  But that was to come later.

“And now do you understand the key to this code?”

And with a rush of air, that Leticia realized was her own breath, she was awake and panting as the library, the sun, the books and the dangerous, beautiful man faded into the distance.  All that was left was the smell of the book.  That smell and that diary she still couldn’t read, even though she was on page four.

“Wait.  How did I get on page four?”

“Are you all right Miss Reed?

And for the second time in as many minutes, Leticia Walker Reed started.  It was the librarian who’d shown her the books on Spanish and Caltilian dictionaries.

“I’m terribly sorry.  I must have dozed off.”

“I thought so too but you were turning pages…”

“While asleep?”

“I assumed you were squinting.  It happens a lot here.”

“I.. ah… thank you.”

Leticia was feeling so many emotions that she couldn’t get them straight and she knew only one person to talk to.  In a manner of speaking.  She exited the San Francisco Public library and crossed the street to her hotel.

She rushed past a display in the library’s atrium celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Pony Express.  Had the mail service been in existence that day, Leticia Walker Reed would own a per centage of its debt.

Darling Emily Chapter Eight

8. The Dream

Letty was in familiar rooms in the library at the University.  She was regarded as someone who appreciated books more than people and the library staff, cut from the same cloth, left her alone.  The smells were so potent.  The books dust and sunlight.  Perfect!  A beautiful, sunny early fall day spent indoors amid the rustle of old paper and the unmistakable rhythm of the man reciting poetry. 

This was how she knew she was dreaming.  No one ever spoke much above a whisper at the school library and no one ever recited poetry.  Especially her own!  This was a secret she’d not even told Emily.  A poem about poetry and dreams beginning.

“We never remember dreams beginning and
Forgetting them
They never end.”

“That’s –” she said and then they were dancing.  Like you can be in dreams.

With the sunlight streaming in through thick-glassed windows.  Now a waltz of some kind at just above a whisper and a man breathing in her ear.

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do.  All the words are yours and, because I have a library card, they are mine too.”

“You’re a – ”

“Thief.  Yes.”

“I meant to say you’re a borrower.”

“No.  I’m a thief.”

“Will you steal my heart?”

“Yes, Darling Letty.  That and more.”

“Will you steal me away?”

“I believe the verse is sung thusly:
‘Away he came
With book and chain
And evil grin
He came again – ’”

“’To steal my heart’,” continued Leticia Walker Reed.

“’Which was his art’,” added the handsome stranger.

“’He took it all
Left me in thrall…’”

“Oh, continue, Darling Leticia.  The song is in your voice.”

She continued.

“’I took it in
My only sin
To hope he’d see
My chastity’”

Then he sang the next verse of the tone poem she’s told no one about.

“‘And take it still
As was his will
Devouring me
Deliciously’”

And they both whispered, they were dancing in a library after all, the final lines:

“‘And totally
And totally’”

But before she could ask the handsome, dangerous man in indeterminate age, the diary was in her hands as it can be in dreams, and, as in dreams she could understand it.

“Read,” he said.

Darling Emily, Chapter Seven

7. The Book

It was old.  It looked old.  The binding had once been a custom leather job.  It looked like books she’d ordered from Europe, books she’d seen in libraries in large cities.  Like books that were published for wealthy, literate men of property and influence.  The book looked, smelled and sounded old and rich.  The smell was a sweet, tangy, mossy musk.  It smelled of leather to be sure but there was something else there, the smells combined to form a word on the edge of her consciousness, an ancient word.  Feardeath?

The book sounded like the breath of an old, infirm man who had once been a promising athlete but now had fallen on hard times. Flipping pages was like chasing an old man down an alley in a rich European neighborhood.  All of these effects combined to produce a feeling that was not entirely pleasant and he most bothersome feature, by far, was the handwriting. 

If the smell and sound of the book made a dark promise, the writing kept it.  The letters were written in a purplish ink with what could only have been a quill.  The ink and quill were undoubtedly expensive.  As was the paper, the leather and the binding.

Leticia could not make out many words.  She was familiar with Spanish and Latin but this seemed to combine both on occasion and, at other times, there was another language entirely.  And all of it in that bold, strong, almost egotistical handwriting.  Most of the language was probably an older Spanish dialect.  It was infinitely frustrating because she was sure she would have to write to her Latin professor at the University and then order several books and wait weeks for them to arrive before she could find out anything other than the obvious fact that she was holding a diary.

The diary belonged to a man with grace and style, a man who knew exactly what he wanted to say and who had much to say.  The book was the size of a traveling preacher’s bible, approximately six inches wide, nine tall and four thick.  It could fit in the pocket of a frock coat that a preacher would wear but Leticia didn’t know how she knew this: the book had never belonged to a man of God.

After hours spent trancelike, looking at, listening to and smelling the book – it smelled if not alive then very recently dead – she rushed to her secretaire, opened it, tore out a page of stationary and fired off a letter to Professor Greenlese.  After addressing the letter and turning a few more pages furtively, Letty realized that it was well after midnight and she was tired.  She wanted to tell Emily absolutely everything but it would have to wait until tomorrow.  And then she was asleep.