April the 24th

Today as my friend Joe and I drove from the Hollywood Home Depot back to our little canyon, we saw swarms of cars bearing those flags along Sunset Blvd. At first I thought they might be celebrating our reader, Huckleberry's, birthday, but then I remembered I was in Little Armenia.

I reminded Joe of a rather hideously funny memory I had of the equal opportunity bigot, Jesus (the unmistakably gay Mexican friend, and when I say he's predjudiced, that includes his ilk), calling me on the same spring day, a couple years ago. Responding to the chafing tone in his voice, I asked him what the matter could be.

"Well, Blanche..."

I must interrupt the progress of this story to inform you that Jesus is primarily obsessed with five particular movies, all of which he likes to (mis)quote with an alarming frequency -

Vanilla Sky - "When you sleep with someone, your body makes a (promise), whether you do or not, David."
Mommie Dearest - "Christina! Bring me the axe!"
Fatal Attraction - "You won't answer my calls, you change your number. I mean, I'm not gonna be ignored, Dan!"
Reform School Girls - "Keep your fingers above the sheets girls, we only change the beds once a week!
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (with Joan Crawford and Bette Davis)

"Blanche: "You wouldn't be able to do these awful things to me if I wasn't in this chair."

Jane: "But ya-aahr Blanche, ya-aahr in that chair!"

Any noticeable recurrent themes you can discern therein, are quite recurrent with the lad, I assure you. Anyway, he calls me, among others, "Blanche." Or rather, "Blan-shh, " and as sibilantly as one can with that "ch." And, if something is making you unhappy, he will needle, "Why are you being so tragic, Blanche?" This is a good friend.

So, I asked him what the matter could be.

"Well, Blanche, it just took me an hour and a half to get across Hollywood back home. The traffic was crazy. All those Armenians and their so-called Genocide Parade."

I was confused, "Why 'so-called' ?"

"Well, they're still around, aren't they?"

Wow.

I just wanted you all to know that, as Joe put it, "Archie Bunker is alive and well," and he's even more vitriolic, probably because he's trapped inside a gay Mexican.

Anyway, as bitterly comedic as that was to me, it was as much the laughter of nervous fear as anything. I am always amazed at the way suffering people lash out against others bearing hurt. Maybe sympathy or even empathy, if you can bear it, comes only when you have cleaned out your own wounds.

I have to remember this too, when I'm angry at Jesus for his negativity.

Bless the Armenians. And may God bless you too, Jesus-Blanche.