This is me driving into a car wash and beginning a ride with the windows up this time.

The radio was talking about film composer Elmer Bernstein, who created the themes for "The Magnificent Seven," "The Man With The Golden Arm" and "To Kill a Mockingbird," he died.

While he was known to be a supporter of liberal causes, Elmer Bernstein was Blacklisted in the Hollywood Red Hunt and was called before a congressional subcommittee to name names.

He refused.

Big studios wouldn't hire him, and he worked on the music for low-budget films like "Cat Women of the Moon," and "Robot Monster."

Elmer Bernstein.


I was thinking of him while I drove my car into a car wash. The radio static-ed-out and I popped in a tape I made of Alex North's original "2001: A Space Odyssey" soundtrack, but about three minutes in, The The came on. I guess someone recorded over this unlabeled tape.

This is in the car wash.



As multicolored soap splashed my windshield like a Grateful Dead lightshow, this played:

The The: Gravitate to Me

I've been watching you for ages
You're like a boat without a mast
Struggling with the tide of destiny
Between the future and the past

I am the lighthouse
I am the sea
I am the air that you breathe
Gravitate to me

Through the ether and the mists of the mind
You will come to me to lay by my side
To stroke my hair, to cuddle my flesh
And to quell the torrents in my subterranean depths
This world ain't strong enough to keep us from each other
For we are kindred spirits, born to become earthly lovers
And while my vanity struggles against my integrity
I find myself thinking, how deep runs my humanity?
When held up against eternity?

I am the lighthouse
I am the sea
I am your destiny
Gravitate to me

I know you
From a previous incarnation..

Thoughts of Elmer Bernstein faded as the brushes spun against my little Honda whipping it in some rhythmic mocking of sex magik and lust.

I thought of a Russian lady I've seen many times and spent some time talking with earlier today.

My friend Michael is attracted to her. But he has so many women interested in him, how can he have time for even one more.

This is him in my sunglasses.



I know what you are saying... Women want him?

Well, you don't know him. He has some amazing magnetic energy that cause females of all legal ages to approach him. It really is sickening to see.

Oh, the woman I was talking about?

Her name is "Merlin" but that can't be the correct spelling can it?

That's a dude's name. A sorcerer dude.

I've said this before to her friends... I think she may be one of the more beautiful women I've ever seen.

I even told her that very thing while she sat across from me drinking her coffee.

She gave the slightest of smiles. She has heard this way too many times.

But I said it to her again, because once you realize there is no parking space for your heart in her lot... It just becomes sincere without motive.

After my car dried and I pulled out onto Magnolia. I sat at a light waiting to cross Victory and I started humming some lyrics that I just made up and couldn't get out of my head during the instrumental parts of the music by The The.



Russian girls

in West Berlin

I'll see you there

will you let me in?

you're under my skin

everywhere

But do you care

That I'm here

and you're there?

I wanted to take her picture, but she got up from the table and ran away. Before this though, she took my number and told me she would come over to see me.

I'm not attracted to her in any sexual way, but there is something so fascinating about her. She appears to be very artistic, stylish and spiritual...

But it just might be what she wears as clothes and perfume.

I believe she's older than me, but I'm not sure. Maybe she's just an older soul.