#punker-notes

Entry 1 The back seat of the Cutlass is filled with a cache of shit. Clothes, canned food, bread, a blanket, a bag of dry pinto beans, a package of flour tortillas, a couple sketch pads, my acrylic paints.

Part One: Entry 26 “It’s all I ever listened to when I was a kid in Michigan,” I go on about Hank Williams Sr. coming from the Cutlass’ stereo. “I used ta call the radio station and ask ‘em to play Webb

Entry 25 I Pick Tracy Randall up in Garden Grove where she lives with her mother in a trashy single story apartment complex. “So where’s this place?” I ask. “It’s by Mike Ness’ place. It’s that British

Entry 23 Jenkins at the wheel of the Cutlass exits the 405 Freeway onto Culver Drive. He follows Frank’s directions to the middle of a bland residential area in Irvine and stops at one of many hideous

Part One: Entry 23 I sit in the living room of Tim van Lier’s tiny apartment in San Clemente where Frank is currently staying. I take an unopened bottle of Robitussin out of a plastic Thrifty Drug bag.

Part One: Entry 22 “Let’s get somethin’ ta eat before we start fryin’,” Jenkins suggests. We’ve just been to buy some acid from Jacques in L.A. He’d moved in with Ernie after kicking Frank and Jenkins

Part One: Entry 21 I pull up in front of the Cellini house, a big barn-shaped thing oddly placed at the back of a cul-de-sac in an otherwise typical Garden Grove neighborhood. “You guys got a football

Part One: Entry 20 “My dad’s off in the desert doin’ some biker campin’ shit with my cousin Ernie. We should make some noise at our place,” Jenkins suggests while going through some cassette tapes in the

Part One: Entry 19 I’m in the driver’s seat of the Cutlass. Robbie is in the passenger side and Ish is in the back. Rick Sweeney leans against the car talking with us. His father and mother pull up in

Part One: Entry 18 Robbie Blount, Mike Onack and Frank Arcenaux sit around a coffee table playing a game of quarters in a Buena Park apartment where Ryan Smith lives off and on with his mom. In a back

Part One: Entry 17 Joe whips a ’64 Rambler American in and out of lanes like a fucking maniac. I do my best to keep up as he races onwards. Sometimes he’s five or six car-lengths ahead. It’s almost like

Part One: Entry 16 I sit at the wheel of the Cutlass in twilight outside a stained off-white stucco apartment building. It’s just one of fifty or more low-rent apartment buildings that make up the Clinton

Part One: Entry 15 “Fuck dude,” Frank nods to a moderately attractive girl who walks away from him down the hallway of the house in San Clemente. “That chick just raped me in the bathroom.” He now points

Part One: Entry 14 “You take one of these sheets here,” A young Mexican guy, Jorge, tells me. He grabs a four-by-five foot section of sheet metal from a stack sitting on a wooden pallet. “Then put it in

Part One: Entry 13 “Make a straight!” Judy Cellini orders as I steer the Cutlass in the direction of an unknown party. An empty Olde English 800 bottle rolls around in a pool of beer on the front passenger

Part One: Entry 13 Ryan, Ish and me stop off in a cul-de-sac across Westminster Boulevard from Bolsa Grande High School. We pick up long haired glam-rocker Steve Reynolds, former bassist for Condemned.

Part One: Entry 12 I pick Frank up after his shift ends at 10:00 p.m. from Fran O’Brien’s Greek Cuisine. We’re somewhere in the middle of the Long Beach Harbor complex. “Where ya wanna go?” I ask. “Ah...,

Part One: Entry 11 We’re parked just a few cars back from a barricade on Bay Street that runs parallel to an inlet leading to the Long Beach Marina on a sunny southern California morning. Just in front

A Punker’s Notes Part One: Entry #10 “What is he on?” a yuppie-type woman in her mid-twenties asks her face screwed up as she takes in Jenkins. A fire blazes in a barbecue pit next to me. It’s Friday night

Part One: Entry #9 (Los Angeles/Orange County Circa 1980) I turn the Cutlass left off Knott onto Wardlow towards Long Beach. Ryan and Jenkins sit in the back taking deep hits off a makeshift bong. The