"Tucson Tales" Part 1.

Tucson Tales part 1


The idea behind my “Tucson Tales” series of blogs is essentially the follow up to my first book “Rabbit Every Tuesday”, which chronicled my last and rather tumultuous year in San Francisco. Originally I wanted to write another novel, tentatively titled “Dirty and Smelling Like Christmas” (ask me later about it...) but when so many other projects, such as my kids book series, and prospects, such as getting certified in culinary arts and opening up our own place, came up I figured blogging would be the best way to get the stories out to my friends and interested parties. Plus I miss the whole act of just “blogging”. The internet is so awesome. I just write lil' stories here and there, put them up on my site and, Bingo!, you can read all about it.

And what exactly will you be reading about? Okay...much like my adventures back in California, mainly San Francisco (my home for 12 years), Tucson has offered up much joy, sorrow, weirdness, fantastical, grimy, smelly, wonderful and all around “what the fxxk”'s that I just have to write it down and share with you good people. Tucson is the strangest place I have ever lived...and this is coming from a kid that grew up in LA and spent his formative years in the arty/gay mecca/hippie soaked city by the Bay. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about here.


It all started back in February of 2006. I woke up early, like 6am, got in the rental car I had packed up with all of my essentials (clothes, CDs, some movies, a bike, Castle Grayskull, fog machine, my coffee mug, computer and a book) and drove the 900 miles, which breaks up to about 14 hours, from San Francisco CA to Tucson AZ. Why?

Because I fell in love.

And this time was for real. After almost two decades of failed relationships, bad dates, on and off agains, miserable breakups and countless heartaches, I had found the girl that was finally meant for me.

My job at the time, outside of DJing at a popular bar and on KUSF along with writing for various music magazines, I was a bartender at a Fisherman's Wharf establishment called Jack's. Which was owned by a guy named Bill. Go figure. Anyway, my main occupation was to tend the outside bar, which was part of a courtyard and quite popular when the weather was good and music and events were taking place. This one night, in late 2005, was neither.



It was dark, the fog was rolling in and the tourists in their shorts and Teva sandals were shivering. The last thing they wanted to do was drink a cold beer at a stone bar among the chilly fog and cold ocean air. I don't blame them. Plus the music on the outdoor stage was some guy that wore bad sweater jackets and sounded like Neil Diamond. Don't get me wrong, I love the D man, but this cat was killing it, and not in a good way. So, to say the least, I was earning that paycheck, and not much else. Plus I was drinking beer with the night time cook and blowing rails of coke with the indoor bartender. Hey...I was a different beast back then.

At the time my bar had two guys, a regular who worked as a pastry chef in the fancy seafood restaurant on the other side of the courtyard and some guy who said he was a DEA agent. It was funny because the pastry chef asked the DEA guy (before he knew he was a DEA guy, which is how we got to know he was a DEA guy) if he wanted to get high. Everyone laughed it off and kept drinking. Including me.

From out of nowhere three cute girls arrive. You have to understand, all I had was my two dudes at the bar, tourists running from the cold and that Neil Diamond spud crooning his James Taylor knockoffs on the small stage. I really wanted more business, especially from three attractive ladies. So when they stopped to check out our menu, I perked up a bit.

But...they didn't stay. They looked at our menu, discussed, then proceeded to walk away. Oh man, I thought, so much for that. Then, a miraculous thing happened. Almost halfway across the courtyard, going back towards Columbus Ave., they stopped. One of the girls, who was wearing a sweater vest, looked as if she was trying to convince the other two, a redhead and a blonde, of something. They all seemed to come to an agreement and then walked back and sat at my bar.

I think “Yay” came to mind.

The girls ordered beers and some food (one of which was our grody shrimp cocktail, which they kept trying to hide but I kept moving back from behind the menus thinking they just forgot about it...turns out they didn't even want to look at the thing since it was so bad) and began chatting it up with not only the two dudes at my bar but me as well. Turns out the girl in the sweater vest and the blonde girl were in town for the red haired girl's bachelorette party. Sweater vest and blonde girl, both lived in Tucson Arizona. That was an ironic thing because the apartment I was subletting belong to an estranged girlfriend who just happened to be in Tucson taking care of her ailing father. I told them my story and sweater vest wrote down her name and where she worked, in case I happened to be in Tucson (which I was most definitely not planning on...at all). When I looked at her name, I freaked out.

It read: She-ra.

“She-Ra!” I cried. “You're name is She-Ra?”

“Well, it's Sherra,” she said. “I guess that first R is a little wonky. It's not supposed to be a dash.”

See, I have a long history with the whole 'Masters of the Universe' thing. I've loved it and them since I was a kid. In fact, when I DJ'd my metal nights at the famed 540 Club on Clement street, I always hid my fog machine behind my Castle Grayskull (which survived several moves, college and even a house fire...that thing is coming with me to the grave). So when I saw that the cute girl in the sweater vest was named after the Princess of Power (thanks to her older sister who made the suggestion to their parents) I began to get quite curious about her.

The night of them and the two guys sitting at my bar progressed into a drunken loud obnoxiousness-off. Sherra and the other two (blonde was named Alicia and the redhead who was getting married was Erin) were not only half in the bag, but heckling the Neil Diamond guy on the stage. When I suggested that they get up there and try and sing something, Sherra belted out “I can play a mean kazoo!”

Now here's where things start to get weird. In my big backpack, the one that I had stored in the prep area of the kitchen, had all kind of stupid crap in the side pockets. Playing cards, a yo-yo, a Mr. T voice toy, crayons, a Chewbacca PEZ dispenser and, yes, a kazoo. So when I returned from inside Jack's with a red and gold kazoo, the three girls' jaws dropped.

Especially Sherra's.

Before they left they invited us, myself and the two guys, out with them on their last night before going back home. So two nights later I met the girls at the famous Lefty O'Douls on Geary street and was quite shocked/disappointed that the other two guys were there as well.

Lefty O'Douls is an old timey buffet style restaurant with a piano bar and lots of old people. It's awesome. So I grabbed some food, some beer and sat down and tried to get to know Sherra more. I was immediately kind of falling for her. She was very cute, with big boobs and a big personality. Plus she was a huge 'Star Wars' nerd and that is always a sexy trait to have.

When we left Lefty O'Douls, the DEA took off and the five of us headed to my favorite bar, the Crowbar (r.i.p.) in my neighborhood of North Beach. It was this great punk rock and heavy metal bar that was essentially my second home due to the fact that I hated the apartment I was staying in. The jukebox was great, they poured mean shots and it was relatively unknown since it was smack dab in the center of all of the strip joints on Broadway and kind of dark. It was here that Sherra and I started to seriously flirt and getting to know one another.



When she went outside to grab a smoke (a habit she thankfully quit) I went out there and stole a kiss. It was weird, but it felt as if I had known her for years and that this was just a normal night out for us. Back in the Crowbar, we even joked about driving to Vegas and getting married.

We almost did it.

When it was time to go Alicia and Erin went back to their hotel. Without Sherra. She came back to the apartment with me and we ended up making out all night and watching “A Nightmare Before Christmas”. It was amazing.

My alarm went off at 10am because I had a day shift at the bar, so she walked down to Jack's with me, which was rather bittersweet. It was her last night in San Francisco and I had a feeling we would never see each other again.

After I put Sherra in a cab I went back to work and my co-workers could see that I was visibly upset. My manager even sent me home because I was so bummed out. Luckily Sherra called me later when she was driving back to Tucson from Phoenix, and had a blow out halfway there.

That first phone call would soon become a daily thing.

We talked everyday. And not just once. Sometimes two or three. She would listen to the live streams of the radio show I co-hosted, “Rampage Radio” on KUSF and I would dedicate certain songs to her such as “She is Beautiful” by Andrew WK or “Looks That Kill” by Motley Crue. Stuff like that. It was a long distance relationship that was getting extremely serious.

As a Christmas present from her family, they bought her plane tickets to San Francisco to stay with me for a week. When I picked her up at the Oakland airport, I was beyond nervous. But once I saw her and we hugged, that nervousness turned to joy and I knew that Sherra was the one for me.



It was a pretty amazing week that we had. I showed her all around San Francisco, visited some friends of her in the east bay and did all kinds of fun stuff. Including...”it”. Lots and lots of that. Unfortunately the week just sped by and on the last day, Sherra considered moving to San Francisco.

“No way,” I said. “I gotta get outta here. This apartment sucks, my job sucks and I'm done with it. Rent is unbelievable, I can't believe that I'm using a dangerous drug on a regular basis, not to mention that I've been here for twelve years and have nothing to show for it but failed relationships and a pile of parking tickets.”

“Well,” she started, “You could move to Tucson.”

“What's there to do in Tucson?”

Sherra thought about that one. “Not much,” she said.

“How much do you pay for rent?” I asked.

“$500 for a cozy garden townhouse.”

I was paying almost a grand for a rundown noisy craphole that wasn't even mine.

“I'm moving to Tucson,” I said.

So, it was settled. I quit my job, did one last club show, one last radio show and told my ex that I was moving out by the end of the month. This pissed her off to no degree but...whatever. She said she would be gone for a few months and it turned out to be a year. Sorry.

On a chilly February morning, after getting almost no sleep, with a rental car packed up with all of the stuff I mentioned earlier, I started the long drive to Tucson Arizona, a place I had driven through only twice and was shocked to find that it held a university and had an active art community. I thought it was dusty trails and tumbleweeds.



When I hit the I-5 I knew there was no going back. I was on my way to new adventures, a new city, a new life, one that was going to be with the woman that almost walked away, but didn't.

It was meant to be.

And sometime around 8pm, eyes red from exhaustion and brain reeling from white line fever, I saw the sign: “Welcome to Arizona”. That was it, I thought. Here I am. My god I was tired...



It was midnight when I entered Tucson, body weak from driving and trying to stay awake, and I immediately got lost. I followed Sherra's directions as best as I could. So when I turned up Grant street and found a McDonalds (the one she said would be there) I found a phone booth (that's right...I don't carry a cell phone, ask me about that too later) next to some Mexican restaurant that I thought was called 'Lobsters'.

“I'm lost!” I declared. “I see the McDonalds but I don't know where I am. I'm at some phone booth next to someplace called...Lobsters?”

“It's Losbetos,” she giggled. “Do you see a silver Impala?”

I looked around. There, parked on the street in front of me, was indeed a silver Impala.

“Yes,” I said. “I see it.”

“Hang up and walk over to it.”

I did as Sherra said. When I walked over to the Impala, the passenger window rolled down. Sherra was sitting in the driver's seat holding a cell phone.

“Oh thank jeebus,” I said. “But how...?”

“You're an idiot,” she said with a smile. “Follow me.”

I got back in the rental and followed her for about five blocks. We pulled into the courtyard of her townhouse and we got out of our cars.

“So...you made it,” she said.

“Yeah,” I exclaimed with a heavy sigh. “I made it.”


...to be continued.