Phoenix A – Z: My Book of Memories

A digression from waxing poetic to nostalgic sealing wax

Ahwatukee (“America's Biggest Cul-de-Sac”)—where I looked, down from South Mountain, for the home of my landlord/mortgage broker/realtor, to see if I could hold him to that trip to the Grand Canyon he promised me

Alvarado—where I discovered the sidewalks were built by the WPA

Anthem—where a fat Chinese bastard named Q Lin asked me why I was hiding my light

Apache Junction—where my spirit guide told me "Apollo needs horses"

Arcadia—where I went ice skating in the middle of summer and "Thai spicy" in the middle of winter

Arizona City—where I carried 50 pounds of rocks through the desert in a bag

Buckeye—where the scarlet and gray sunsets always made me think of my father every time I drove through to LA

Cactus—where in summer the hot breeze through the wide-open car windows inspired poems every day

Camelback—where I realized in an AutoZone exactly what God could do

Carefree—where I found out that peacocks only pretend to play horseshoes, but that donkeys actually like country music

Casa Grande—where I ran at America's Stonehenge into America's leading Ethnogeologist, a binary twin from another life

Cave Creek—where I learned in a biker's diner by a bend in the road the secrets of Mexican folk art

Central—where for two months I walked two poodles twice a day through a Retro-Sixties state of mind

Chaparral—where I would visit periodically a 1953 Bentley on blocks

Coolidge—where I witnessed a parade on Calvin Coolidge's birthday

Coronado—where I went to a GBLT Alcoholics Anonymous meeting

DC Ranch—where in my first week in the valley I saw beautiful women dancing in their underwear on top of a bar

Deer Valley—where an electrician shouted to me at a red light about how the best way to party was with Eckhart Tolle

Downtown—where I saw about a million bats fly out from under a bridge at sunset

El Mirage—where I finally learned that shopping for old furniture in Phoenix was a fool's errand

Encanto—where I discerned, in a therapist's living room, that the universe was my own creation, for better or for worse

Entrada—where I could never, despite my best efforts, get lost

Escalante—where I saw someone offer to get naked at a book signing

Florence—where I discovered that cotton fields and confederate flags really do go together after all

Fountain Hills—where I concluded, while waiting in line in a Circle K behind a bunch of boat people, that the day's news headline, “Violence Shatters Mideast Peace,” could be run on any day.

Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard—where I put my cell phone in the hole of a giant sajuaro so my daughter could talk to it

Gilbert—where I got lost because of the directions of someone who lived there

Glendale—where I learned that drinking insane amounts of red wine was actually good for your health, and as a result did some things that I will have to take to my grave

Gold Canyon—where I noticed that the Renaissance Festival was lonelier than a Christian Science Reading Room

Goodyear—where I observed, in the shadows of an abandoned Greyhound track, my brother and sister-in-law threaten lawyers on each other outside their 15-foot camper home

Happy Valley—where I finally found a Romanian to cut my hair

Hayden Mountain View—where I saw while eating osso bucco a jazz singer from Nashville perform

Indian School—where I watched kids in uniforms play cricket at night long after the last coffee shop closed

Jade Park—where Jeff was studying to be a motorcycle mechanic when I gave him the phone number of Sarah, a virgin hottie who had killed a lot of people in Iraq

Kierland—where I met the nicest emissions inspectors in the world

Laveen—where I escaped to from the rez on my way to the Biodome

Litchfield—where I learned that a sports bar with six NFL games on at the same time is a not a place conducive to helping a couple resolve their marital difficulties

Luke AFB—where I met a lady mechanic who hadn't known what a wrench was six months earlier

Madison—where I was questioned by police about what an architect and I were doing at night in a home he designed but didn't own

Mesa—where I shopped for used books with a guy who gave me a dozen Sun Ra records

Moon Valley—where I discovered a machine that can cure any disease

New River—where I saw a giant owl come out of someone’s fireplace

Norterra—where I saw just how badly homes can be damaged in a foreclosure

Olive—where I ate the best sausage this side of Croatia

Osborn Village—where I wrote the introduction to a doctoral thesis on the use of living plants in home construction

Old Scottsdale—where I spent New Year’s Eve seriously contemplating changing my whole life situation with a London waif, a shaman with dreadlocks, and a psychic emu farmer from Brisbane

Paradise Valley—where at an open house I made a temporary extrajudicial land grab of a mansion and its roof in order to climb right up the mountain in back in 108 degree heat

Peoria—where my papers and books (and fingerprints) are in storage

Queen Creek—where it was always further away (according to everyone) than whatever Buttfuck Egypt place I was contemplating living in at the time

Roosevelt—where I walked 5 city blocks filled with that month's art then drummed in Melrose to belly dancers

Shadow Mountain—where I finally found a Laundromat not shut down by the IRS

Sunnyslope—where I lived for a year between the meth labs and Little Oaxaca

Sun City—where I ascertained that there were actually people living on canals like in Venice, and they drove golf carts instead of cars

Sun City West—where my cat and I watched baby quail grow up under an oleander tree, living on whatever scraps we didn't want to eat

Surprise—where I pet-sat 20 hairless cats in the home of a dead, would-be breeder

Tatum Ranch—where I met someone else who had been to Anguilla (unfortunately, he also thought that Iran was going to nuke us and wanted me to read his poems)

Tempe—where friends took me to watch them in dragon boat races, a dueling pianos bar, a metal sculpture workshop, and a materials sciences library

Thunderbird—where I saw 20 kids get meds from a psychiatrist in the space of a half-hour

Tolleson—where I rooted the Bears to defeat in the Super Bowl with two nurses from Southside Chicago

Troon North—where a corporate executive told me about the time a ski helicopter full of food and apertifs took him to some killer untracked powder in Utah

Union Hills—where I was accosted by the “inventor” of the dot love domain, which he claimed would have led to world peace if not for the Bulgarian mafia who controlled Google

Van Buren—where I discovered that the old hotels are far more beautiful than the young prostitutes

Vistancia—where I really believed the pizza was better than it was in Brooklyn

Wickenburg—where my sister Jane the saddlemaker found others of her kind

X—where I discovered the lost dutchman’s gold, and walked away because of the pain it had caused humanity

Yavapai—where my North Carolina license plate hangs proudly on the wall of the Lone Spur Restaurant

Zizi’s House—where I learned that even the most enlightened and health-conscious of men will buy clove cigarettes if there is a woman involved