Hollyweird (Bev's Purse) 1983 A 1984 Journal Bev's Purse, sad to say, was splashed in Subic Bay.
Couldn't take the chance of it being used as evidence against us. Sad at the time. In 2015 it makes me smile to know... that once beautifully polished aluminum plate is still on the bottom. Fabric long gone, it's wrapped in leather with handle hoops sticking up out of black jungle mud. A wonderful memorial to BB.
Click the link, I DARES YA! Hollywood is a gas. It's been a year and girls, you bugged me enough already. I give. I'll write the first half of Bev's purse, but I'm only writing the big events.
For a couple hours we walked and we sat and we watched the freak show all along Hollywood Boulevard. Must be over a mile of constant action. Best of all is the old fags with hope of picking up a Twinkie. Next up... religious creeps with signs. "GOD HATES FAGOTS!" They're not the good part, it's the groups of fags arguing with the groups of Christian creeps. Screaming and yelling... endlessly! Incoherently!
BB together was too much for one of the creeps. A serious freak himself, he made Twiggy join Weight Watchers. Over six feet and under 130 lbs. Eyes bugged out of his face and constantly twitching, we had to get away from his Christian hate... loudly yelled at us.
Walking the boulevard, a long time passed and we were tired of Bugeye. He was following and yelling about the ways his imaginary friends hated us and all the things they were going to do to us. The insanity brainwashed into the child was in soul control of the adult. You can tell when rage builds to a point of violence. Their voices change. They become, if possible, even less rational with less comprehensible sentences.
Several times Bugeye closed in from behind to within a few feet, and made threats to kill us. His great misteak came when he put his arms over opposite shoulders of BB and squeezed boobs. Bren dropped him to the sidewalk with a kick in the balls. We went from audience to center stage in the freak show. Twenty or more freaks in the area were watching Bugeye's act. They yelled encouragement as BB pummeled him, drilled him into the concrete. With Bugeye down for good the crowd scattered as a cop car pulled up. We were blocks away a moment later.
It's fun finding old memories online. The attack of Bugeye happened in front of this store. He was left, curled up in a fetal position, wedged in the entryway of this shop. Click the pick to see for yourself, not that anyone would want to other than me.
THIS was the instant of conception for Bev's Purse. It was one time too many. The purse was done and a month or two passed. BB took turns carrying the heavy monster. It looked like a scale model of a suitcase with flat sides and a wide belt connecting them. A 12 pound aluminum plate perfectly filled the interior with heavy leather hoops for a handle.
The Long Beach Mall is a busy place even on weekdays, but this was Saturday afternoon. We'd done the library all morning and were looking to blow a couple hours before clubbing that night. Window shopping the mall is fun and the food court is cheap.
Three men, turns out brothers, were annoying everyone in the mall. In the hundreds, their yellow Jesus pamphlets littered every horizontal surface. We refused the garbage they were pushing so they began yelling bible crap at us. We got far away. An hour later we'd been hit with their insanity several times.
Bad as it was, it got much worse the instant they guessed BB love each other. They went from Christian insanity to Christian hate faster than a Prairie slider goes through your digestive system.
Two hours of... following, yelling, threatening to kill us in the parking garage... etc. etc. etc... "GOD HATES FAGOTS!" It's a contagion. How many millions of these mentally ill Christian nut cases are there in this country?
They attacked from behind, always from behind, and we defended ourselves. Exactly as conceived, exactly as designed, exactly as practiced, Bev's purse dropped the one attacking her. A single swing of it landed a blow to his head and he hit the floor like dropping a wet dish towel. The other two were dropped by a baseball bat from a display in front of the sporting goods store. They picked a very bad place to attack. Bad, at least for them.
A whole lotta people stood around a long time to give police statements in our defense. Some witnessed the attack, most witnessed verbal threats. We got lucky. It's the common thing for LB police to do, but the head cop listened and agreed not to send the report to base Shore Patrol. That investigation would have been the end for us. It clearly constituted a "Homosexual Incident." At the very least we would have been separated by transfers to far parts of the country.
Such is the story of Bev's Purse, leading up to it's second use with Jimmy Durante a few months later.
That's all you asked for, but I'm in a giving mood tonight and full of mid-rats. Chicken left over from dinner. Hours in the steamer, the first time I've ever had Navy chicken fully cooked. There was too much of it, so no limit and plenty of white meat. You went to your bunks hungry. You gotta learn to do with less sleep.
Ooops, distracted... Pride Riot
Bonus memory...
Weeks getting ready. Pride the event. A plan without consequence. Camera crews. Face on news. One frame of footage. Dishonorable discharge. Make it safe. March in drag. Thrift stores Saturday. Costumes we have. Bizarre enough. Choke horse with makeup. No way to be seen. Last place last minute groups. Last place a hundred looking for fun.
Who is crazier? Marchers or onlookers? First block half full. Second block packed. Third block hate jerks. By car and by plane. They came from Compton. They came from Main. Organized groups. Sponsored by church. Far out numbered. Farther out smarted. Don't spit on faggotts you fool... Bren flew through the air twenty feet or more... impacting his chest he went down on his back. Kicking and stomping his eyes went black. Fags on sidewalk, fags in street, creeps they out numbered twenty to one. Cannot be stopped once begun. Too long they continued. Too far they pushed. Hate and spit. Twenty to one. No two possibilities. Only one. Fleet of ambulance. Creeps they did take. For mending of bones. In the wake.
Blood in the street... by car and by plane... home they went... no lesson learned.
(2000 NOTE: Learned from news reports after the event... Two years in a row the haters at LA Pride were organized church groups. A church in Compton was center of organization for a large group of LA area hate churches. They sent hate delegations from about twenty churches. There were at least several groups from far away churches, one from Main. The scum from Main was interviewed in the Hospital still spewing filthy Christian hate... no lesson learned, indeed.
