Coral Calcium For The Mind

Obama: The Blazing Saddles Connection

2011-12-10T05:32:00.000-08:00

Dave Chappelle was right when he said on his short-lived TV show, "Never be the first black person to do anything." He was referring to how hard African-American pioneers have it when breaking new ground. Of course, he then went into a skit about the first black person to use a segregated white toilet, but the general point he made was that the first black anything-- whether it be athlete, performer, or politician --will face severe hardship and opposition. And this was before Barack Obama became President of the United States.

So now, here we are, almost four years after the historic inauguration of America's first non-white Commander-in-Chief (or at least half-white)... and it looks like Dave was right. Not only is Obama hated by his apparent political enemies, but even former supporters (you know, the ones who almost called me a racist because I supported Hillary Clinton early on in the 2008 primaries) are now calling for his resignation. And of course, NO ONE is doing it for racist reasons. No, they just hate his policies, or his lies, or his flip-flops. Just because he's black has NOTHING to do with it, right?

I'm not going to call anyone who opposes Obama a racist, even though everyone did that to me four years ago when I stated that Hillary was a better candidate. You see, I wasn't fooled by Obama's smooth rhetoric. Chris Rock once made a point about Colin Powell, how everyone liked him because "he speaks so well", like he's expected to shuck-and-jive and people are so shocked to see that he is educated. Same with Obama. I thought he was smooth, yes, but nothing he said was really substantial.

However, what DID impress me about Obama was how he stole that Democratic nomination away from her. He stole it not as a black man, but as a politician. Coupled with his Chicago political clout, he had the makings of a real winner. Fuck his eloquence, this man wielded true political capital. To be able to take out the Clintons in the primaries is no mean feat. So I voted for him... and I must admit, while he has been less than stellar, I also feel he has done a lot in a short time and that history will be kind to him. He is not perfect, and the outrage many people feel towards him is understandable, but it is perplexing to me how the people who voted for him are so upset. Don't they realize that they have no one but themselves to blame for electing a candidate with very little political experience to his credit simply because he was a black man with a spectacular speaking style?

They should've listened to Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock, two other black men with a flair for spoken word. But they weren't running for office in 2008.

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I have compared Obama's presidency with the movie Blazing Saddles ever since the debates with Sen. John McCain. If Obama was Sheriff Bart, then McCain was the first of many Hedley (not Heddy) Lamars that Obama has had to face. I always root for Obama because of this comparison in my mind, because I love that movie and I see it being played out in the political arena constantly.

I love that movie because it is truthful about America's attitude towards African-Americans: they only love them when they are doing something to save them from the mess they made. The minute a black man in power tries something new and risky, though, the American people get skittish, and latent racist tendencies emerge. And the irony is that they come out strongest among the liberals. Conservatives at least make no bones about their feelings for Obama, even if they do lie to themselves by saying they oppose his policies and not his race. But it is shocking to see liberals act as if the President robbed their house or dated their daughter. They may have legitimate gripes about some of his decisions in office, but it is couched in such condescending language that it makes me sick.

"He should know better."

"I am so disappointed."

"He is worse than any other President we've ever had."

Yeah, as if eight years of George W. Nixon never happened.

The attitude towards Obama as of late is akin to this: "We gave you a chance, Negro, but you're blowing it and now we'll never trust one of your kind to run things ever again." And those who speak with this tone in their voice will deny it to their dying breath. But if they only watched Mel Brooks' comedic Western farce, maybe they'd see how close of a resemblance they bear to the people of Rock Ridge, who only warm up to the Sheriff completely after he has defeated Hedley Lamar as well as saved them from Mongo, rebuilt the entire town of Rock Ridge as a decoy, and broke through the Fourth Wall by instigating a good old-fashioned pie fight on a Warner Brothers sound stage.

I mean, what's a brother gotta do around here to get some respect?

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I'm voting for him in 2012, and if anyone gives me any shit about it I'll whip out this handy link reminding people what Obama has done so far in his Administration.

Yes, I know about the Wikileaks memos, how his Administration is practically pardoning the Bush Crime Family for their torture tactics. Yes, I know. Yes, I've heard. Yes, yes, yes. You don't have to tell me. I may be Latino, but I do read the papers, and I keep up with current events, so you don't have to talk to me like I'm five years-old.

By the way: Did you know that more marijuana users were prosecuted under Bill Clinton's watch than under Nixon? Did you know Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which allowed broadcasting companies like Clear Channel to become monstrous monopolies and foment the toxic spew of conservative talk radio? These are some of the reasons why I voted for Ralph Nader in 1996. And I won't even get into the adultery because it makes no difference to me in terms of whether he was a good leader or not. But I will mention some of his barbs at Obama during those 2008 primaries, barbs that made me sigh and say, "Et tu, Bill?"

My point is, politicians lie and make false promises and disappoint and dash hopes and dreams and make cynics of us all. Obama is no different. But I ended up liking him, and I think I like him more now that everyone's true colors are emerging. Because let's face it: if you voted for him because you bought into the whole Hope angle, or because he "speaks so well", then you deserve to be pissed off and upset... at yourself, for being so stupid as to vote for someone for such shallow reasons.

But if you voted for him because you saw that he would make a better leader than John McCain, like I did, then you probably don't feel hornswoggled right now. Because like me, you knew he'd make mistakes and implement questionable decisions. But you also knew, like me, that he'd probably catch Osama bin Laden and push through the basic bones of health care reform, something Bill & Hillary weren't able to do when they were in charge.

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One final note: Toni Morrison once called Clinton the "first black President" because of the way he was treated by the press and by Congress. Now that we have a real black President who is facing re-election, I wonder how many more we'll have after this. Will it be like pro sports, where the allowance of one black athlete led to almost absolute dominance by black players? Or will it take a few more Clinton-style black Presidents before we can even think of going for the Real McCoy again? It bears noting that Obama is a mulatto, so he is not 100% black. Will we ever have a President that is as dark as Wesley Snipes? Or will they always have high-yellow complexions for the next 40 years?

All I know is (thanks to Obama) my wife, son and I had a fighting chance during this terrible recession. Stimulus money kept us afloat, credit card reform minimized our debt, healthcare reform ensured us a future for our child, and job creation has allowed me to contribute to our finances again after being unemployed for nearly two years. And for my money (and my vote) that is enough for me to invest my allegiance to another term for him.

Just call me The Waco Kid, I guess...

Trying To Get An Agent (part one)

2011-11-08T13:21:00.000-08:00

I started soliciting literary agents when I was back in Los Angeles in July. I used the e-mail at the bank where I was working to send them out when I had spare moments. Then in August I made the move to Indianapolis-- I was in the Midwest by the 16th, having traveled almost 3,000 miles by land in my pickup truck.

I was worried that the one agency that asked for a submission would not be able to get back to me due to my not being at the bank anymore (since I was using their e-mail it would no longer exist when I left the company) but I also did not want to spoil anything by asking about it before the allotted period of three months passed.

So I sent an e-mail in September updating my e-mail address and waited until October to officially inquire as to whether it was a 'pass' or a 'go'. When October came, I sent the inquiry follow-up and waited some more.

Meanwhile, the latest and so-far-the-best edit of my novel has been trapped on the hard drive to a dead laptop. I haven't had the time to retrieve the manuscript from the hard drive, but to be honest I wasn't too thrilled about the submission I'd been sending to agents: I kept rewriting it as I e-mailed them, and that's not a good sign.

Mind you, I've only solicited about 50 or so agents. The sole reply that asked for a submission is merely one agency. The rest either didn't get back to me or passed. But there's still hundreds and thousands of agents out there. I've barely begun the process. However, I am still not satisfied with what I have to offer.

I decided that, no matter what happened with this one agent, I will send a stronger chapter of my novel when the next round of solicitations begins. I imagine that I will have something ready to send by the end of the year, because the holidays are upon us and I don't know if any agents will be in their offices from now until the new year.

And just when I decided to take this tack, I received a pass letter from the agent in question... dated August 13, 2011! I guess they replied to me sooner but I was en route to Indiana when it was sent. The September e-mail update must have gotten buried in the mix, and my October follow-up was probably confusing to them until they realized that I'd never received the August reply.

So, in other words, I was passed on almost three months ago and I've been twiddling my thumbs doing nothing about it. But now at least I know what's up, and I can go forward with a better query and better material to back it up with if I get another request for a submission.

I do feel a little dumb, but then again my strong suit has never been the business side of things. I'm learning this as I go. It will probably be a long long time before I see anything worthwhile coming my way. I am not daunted, however-- this is only the beginning. I should've taken this seriously in the past but I was too busy writing and loving it.

But there's no rush, is there?

"The King Of Politics"

2011-11-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

Watching Martin Scorsese's The King Of Comedy on DVD reminds me of the time when I was working in the Network Operations Center of the corporate radio network owned by that behemoth of media conglomerates, Clear Channel.

In the movie, Robert De Niro plays aspiring comic Rupert Pupkin, who kidnaps a late-night talk show host (modeled on Johnny Carson but played by Jerry Lewis) in order to get his big break on the airwaves. The movie wasn't a big hit but in terms of foresight it is extremely prescient. Forget Andy Warhol's 15 minutes, this movie practically guarantees that the criminal class will inherit the media of the future.

It reminds me of my job in radio because there was one moment in time when I had the idea to switch the feed that sent Rush Limbaugh's show from West Palm Beach (where he broadcasts) via a satellite connection that ended up in Denver and scattered all over the network, which was nationwide at the time.

I wanted to switch the feed with a filthy comedy routine by the late Bill Hicks, wherein he wondered aloud if Rush Limbaugh and some of the Republican ex-presidents (with Barbara Bush in tow) engaged in kinky coprophilia. I had the CD in my travel bag, and my position was such that I could've done it easily, and by the time anyone was the wiser the bit would've ended... along with my career in radio.

I often wonder what would have happened had I done that. First of all, I would've been fired and probably fined for violating FCC standards and practices. But the prank would've made the news, and people who hate Rush Limbaugh would've picked up on it and had me on their shows and I might have become some sort of low-level celebrity in left-wing circles. Maybe I would've ended up working for Air America.

But I also would've incurred the wrath of neo-conservatives and right-wingers. Not that it bothers me, but then again they can be a hateful bunch, and the quiet solitude I enjoy now with my wife and son would not be possible due to never-ending torrents of hate mail and death threats. I mean, this would have happened in late 2000 had it actually been carried out, long before I ever entertained the thought of settling down. But I don't think I would've found the kind of peace I enjoy now. Some people have long memories, and the ones who I would've angered tend to carry guns and shoot abortion doctors, so someone like me would be fair game.

Still, I wonder what might have been, as we all do when we think about the paths we didn't take in life. And I don't regret not doing it, because ultimately such an event would only make Rush's supporters more defensive-- after all, they do refer to themselves as 'dittoheads' so there's really nothing a prank like that would've done to convince them otherwise. In fact, it may have only fanned the flames of their devotion to such an extent that maybe it would've made today's current political climate --replete as it is with Tea Baggers and Occupiers and the whole lot --much less tolerable.

Part of me does wish I could've socked it to the right-wingers in such a spectacular fashion, but I think someone like me does it every day here in Middle America, where sometimes my mere presence in a public market stands as an affront to any white upper middle-class American who thinks that minorities are inferior. I think the fact that I am here and raising a son and living the Dream with a capital D can sometimes be more of a 'fuck you' to the dittoheads than any rhetoric I can espouse.

I dunno, maybe I'm just rationalizing a missed opportunity. Or maybe I just have a hankering to do something along those lines again. I look at the papers and the blogs and the news websites and see so many people taking it to the streets, I wonder if I ever did enough. But there's no answer to that, because even if I had hijacked Rush's radio show for a minute in the post-election turn-of-the-millenium, there's no way I could ever top that. I'd have to live that down, or outdo it. And that's the consequence of such an action: once you pick a side of the fence to be on, you have to stay there.

Believe me, it's much more enjoyable being here, in the Heartland, the Crossroads of America, where no one knows my name and yet I can still sympathize with those who believe what I believe as I send my son to a decent preschool and my wife wins Halloween contests by dressing as the leg lamp from A Christmas Story. I don't think I'd want it any other way, the more I think about it.

Back to blogging.

2011-10-23T06:49:00.000-07:00

Last night as I watched my son, I went through my Facebook profile and did a little editing, mostly just un-friending people that I once thought were cool but suddenly realized I didn't actually have any connection with; it wasn't a prerequisite that I actually know them in real life, because a lot of my favorite people are online-only friends whom I have yet to encounter in the real world. Rather, I decided a little pruning was in order, simply because I am sick of going onto Facebook and seeing updates from pages I once deemed (for a few seconds at that) funny and clever. I am not alone in this, I am sure. I have noticed the times when I have been un-friended and thought to myself, "Maybe I post too many You Tube videos that are random and meaningless."

I put on Blue's Clues in the Netflix queue for J.R. and got around to reading a book about Charles Manson. The book is not a rehash of the Tate-LaBianca murders but dwells on what Manson is doing now. As you can guess, he isn't doing much save for rotting in jail and rambling nuttily at length about the most whacked-out shit ever conceived by a madman.

Then, my wife came home from a fashion show. It's Midwest Fashion Week, and she works in fashion, and we're in the Midwest, so it all makes sense. She had a ball, and she even got offers to model from other designers. I was happy for her, but that happiness was tempered by J.R.'s excitement at seeing her come home, even if it was almost midnight. (Yes, I know, he should've been asleep earlier, but I worked late and he wasn't tired in the least) Little Man went into hyperdrive as we labored to calm him down.

My, how things have changed since those heady days when I wrote in this blog several times a day, searching for a connection in the vast cyber-wasteland of the (ack) blog-o-sphere...

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I had a dream that my co-workers and I were giving a going-away party to our manager at the bookstore. It was one of my "big house" dreams: If I ever could claim that I had a recurring dream motif, it is the Big House. I often have dreams that take place in a huge mansion with multiple rooms. The house never belongs to anyone in particular, and the people living in the rooms are often just friends and acquaintances. Thus, the going-away party took place in a Big House. I invited everyone I ever knew -- or, more to the point, everyone I am friends with on Facebook, which goes back as far as my grade school days. I was so wrapped up in planning the party that when it actually started and people began to arrive I greeted them cursorily and went about my business of renting recording equipment for some big jam I had planned.

The dream then skipped to the next day, when most of the people had left and only a handful of us from the bookstore were busy cleaning up. And that's when Manson showed up. He was the one who rented us the recording gear, and didn't want us to record over some of his songs that were on the 2-inch tape. We listened to the jam and decided to forward the tape past Charlie's tunes so we could record another post-party jam, mostly because I had not been included on the first jam and I needed to be a participant. So I grabbed a microphone and sang, improvising words and the musicians played, and at the end (when the music suddenly turned violent and thrashy) I handed the mic to Manson and he finished it off.

As the dream neared its end, I was helping my co-workers get the gear loaded so we could return it to the rental place. One co-worker made a snide comment about Manson, and we were shocked to discover that Manson overheard it, as he was standing behind a hedge only three feet away from us, undetected. He was a little pissed, and the co-worker who'd made the comment instantly became frightened and walked back into the Big House. Manson assured me he wasn't going to seek retribution, but after giving me a bear hug he slinked away and headed towards the Big House. Concerned, I followed suit.

When I got to the Big House, it was completely empty. My co-worker had a sawed-off shotgun in his hands with the barrel in his mouth. His aim was to commit a murder-suicide, aiming the shotgun in a manner that would allow him to also kill Manson as he killed himself. But when Manson entered the room, my co-worker pulled the trigger and MISSED Manson (not surprising, seeing as he had to face the opposite direction in order to send any buckshot in Manson's path) and also failed to fully kill himself.

The big irony was that Manson was holding a pipe and a bag of weed. He had intended to offer a peace treaty to my co-worker instead of vicious revenge. But the look on Charlie's face made me wonder if he hadn't "mind-controlled" the kid into blowing his own face off.

And that's when I woke up, and I swore to never browse Facebook and read about Charles Manson in the same evening ever again.

He's Outta My Life

2009-06-25T18:05:00.000-07:00

Of course I made a joke when I heard the news about Michael. I sat there watching Fox News Channel at a friend's house, holding my little boy on my lap. I looked down at him and said, "It's okay, you're safe now." That one got a laugh. So did the next one: "I'm not sure if he's really dead... I mean, we are watching Fox News."

But after the jokes subsided, the reality set in. And no amount of conspiracy theorizing or joking or analyzing can take back the fact that Michael Jackson, the self-proclaimed King Of Pop and an extraordinary performer, is now dead.

I'm glad he's dead, because now he is at peace. Never had there been so restless a personality as his. I doubt he ever felt like what he'd accomplished was good enough. I'm not saying he was unhappy, although the amount of plastic surgery he foisted upon himself might point that way. I'm just saying that he wasn't at peace. Even as he died, he was on the verge of another comeback.

I mean, was Ed McMahon or Farrah Fawcett as deeply troubled and as endlessly fascinating as Michael? Believe it or not, there are people who do not know who those other two people are, or didn't know until earlier this week. But everyone knew Michael. Everyone.

And that's what I'm wrapping my head around right now. No other artist has permeated my life or the lives of so many people like he has. Even Prince, whom I prefer musically and whom I defended against Michael fans back in the '80s, does not inform my every memory as pervasively as Michael.

He was there when I was a little boy, as the Scarecrow in The Wiz. He was there when I was watching the breakdancers cop his moves in the early '80s, alongside Kurtis Blow and George Clinton. Eddie Murphy did a spot-on impersonation of him, both on SNL and in his own stand-up. He was an uncredited voice cameo on The Simpsons, and I didn't learn until decades later that he really did do the voice and it wasn't an impersonator. He gave Alfonso "Carlton on The Fresh Prince" Ribiero his big break in a Pepsi ad. His songs were the soundtrack of my childhood, and were parodied by cult heroes like "Weird" Al Yankovic. His sister was on two TV shows that I grew up on, and I had at least three vinyl copies of Thriller at one time in my life. I saw Captain EO at Disneyland in 3-D. I remember watching the full-length version of the "Thriller" video on Friday Night Videos (we didn't have MTV at my house yet). I've seen countless comics pull off his moves, from Eddie Griffin to Tommy Davidson. I remember my best friend doing Michael's dance routine at the after party of our prom night while my girlfriend and I watched and laughed. I also remember watching Michael do the Moonwalk for the first time on TV, for that Motown anniversary special. I remember in high school a guy on the bus singing "The Way You Make Me Feel" with his headphones on, singing very loud and snapping his fingers as if he was in the shower. Even as recent as Monday, I overheard someone describing the "Say Say Say" video with Paul McCartney to someone who had never seen it.

He was everywhere, and now thanks to the fact that he is dead, he will live forever in the public's mind.

My conspiracy theories are in full effect: He faked his death to get out of debt, for example. If there was ever an artist that could pull that one off, it was Michael. I mean, he's the one who started all the weird rumors about himself because he knew it would keep people talking about him for years; the oxygen chamber, the Elephant Man's bones, Bubbles the Chimp... he was the source! He was a master manipulator and probably wasn't half as weird as everyone thinks.

I also had a theory that the REAL Michael died in that aborted Pepsi commercial that burned him up, and that the Jackson family dug up and dusted off an extra Jackson brother that wasn't doing anything other than buggering little boys and living under the sink. They gave him plastic surgery and taught him how to sing and dance, but he couldn't break that one bad habit...

Sorry, I know it seems disrespectful... but Michael is now at a stature similar to Elvis, perhaps beyond. Nothing I can say or do would take away that stature. And to all the talk-show hosts and hack comics and snobby music critics, you won't have Michael Jackson to kick around anymore.

But that's the irony: He isn't going anywhere. Like I said, he's going to last forever. When I'm dead and buried, they will still be listening to him in Liberia.

As for me, I am listening to my all-time favorite MJ track, the last song off Thriller, and also the last time Michael made any sense to me. It's "The Lady In My Life" and I never EVER get tired of that song because it's one of the few Michael songs where he's begging to get some from a girl at the end. It was the finest song he ever did, if you ask me... and this is a guy who sang "I'll Be There" and "Never Can Say Goodbye"!

"And I Will Keep You Warm
Through The Shadows Of The Night
Let Me Touch You With My Love
I Can Make You Feel So Right
And Baby Through The Years
Even When We're Old And Gray
I Will Love You More Each Day
'Cause You Will Always Be
The Lady In My Life..."

That song reminds me of my wife. And as I look at my son, who is asleep, I realize that he is growing up in a world that is missing a few things, such as the World Trade Center, or cassettes and vinyl albums and VHS tapes... or like The King Of Pop.

baby

2008-07-11T17:07:00.000-07:00

So here we are in the middle of July or somewhere roundabout, and in two months I will have been married for an entire year, and I haven't blogged in five months (which is a world record for me) and life has continued in its own slow way...

...and my wife is pregnant, and I'm going to be a father.

And there is so much to say, so very much to say.

And blogs just don't cut it anymore when it comes to my feelings.

And yet, I feel that this is something worth blogging about.

And I'm going to try and document as much as I can before the inevitable crunch of hours and weeks and months and years spent raising a child descends like cloud seeds upon what is left of my free time.

And I think that one day I'll blog regularly again but with a different goal in mind, that goal being a true need for communication born out of genuine desire to be expressive and not just some hollow trumpeting used to back up my claims to literacy and all.

And when my child can read, they might see these pages, and laugh, and cry, and wonder why.

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My wife is entering into her second trimester. She is starting to show. Her womb is transforming and altering itself, tailoring itself to accommodate the impending arrival.

She has slight aches and minor pains. Her nausea is waning. She forgets things and her moods swing like a suspension bridge in a stormy wind.

I have never seen anything more beautiful than the sight of her sitting upright in bed, her mousy librarian's glasses perched upon her pointy dainty nose, her eyes aglass* with expectancy...

(*= A combination of "aglaze" and "glassy")

I rub her paunch every chance I get.

*/*

Now that my own father and I have buried the hatchet, I find that the wardrobe of fatherhood feels good and slinky when I slip its tender robes upon my rough, flabby skin.

We never argue anymore. I harbor no hatred towards him. We don't even get into religious debates the way we used to, and it is a pleasure to hear from him when he calls me up to talk.

I will never forget his sins, what he did. I cannot, I will not.

But I never thought I'd ever forgive him either, and yet that is exactly what I have done.

I can keep vigil, as a reminder to myself and to my child, a way of making sure that history does not repeat itself, that my child does not become first a victim and then the victimizer of a similar offense to what befell my father when he was only a young boy.

I can keep a diligent eye. In that respect, I won't forget.

But I forgave him finally, and that lifted the heaviest burden from my shoulders at a point when I could no longer carry it.

I don't care if you believe in God or not. The fact is, forgiveness is good for the soul.

Yes, it is.

Make sure you forgive someone before you have kids of your own.

take care

2008-01-22T17:21:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year. Happy 2008.

It's amazing how the urge-- no, the compulsion --to write has waned in me since I got married. It is as if I never possessed it in the first place, like I have always been indifferent to any literary aspirations.

I cannot blame it on being busy or preoccupied with other things, because in the past I always managed to make time even for the most trivial blog entries or notebook scribblings. There is so much to write about in this new life I am living: My wife is quite simply the most amazing person I have ever met, and every day she and I grow together as well as individually. One day I will find the motivation to translate our relationship to the written word, but for now I am basking in the glow of our love.

Sentimental words for the likes of me, yes? I don't deny this. I am not ashamed to be in love and committed to one person. I guess it's all I ever really wanted and needed. Not that everything else I used to fill my life with was unimportant or meaningless-- rather, I feel like it all led up to our meeting. All of it-- the joy, the pain, the laughter, the adventures, the sorrow, the outrage, the lessons to be learned either easily or the hard way --was a prelude to this moment that I exist in currently.

I think of times when I had Writer's Block or I didn't have the focus to sit down and write/type something out, and they were always desperate periods in my life. They were informed by depression or sadness or anger, even frustration. I sometimes forced myself to write, to purge it all like some kind of paragraph bulimic. I find that on those forced occasions a metaphor such as bulimia is apt: I thought it was doing some good, based upon distorted preconceptions that I had about myself. Like an 80-lb waif with an eating disorder, I never seemed satisfied with my current state of affairs, no matter how emaciated and undernourished I was in reality.

But in this case, my sickness was spiritual, not physical. I did not look in a mirror and project the image of fat onto a skeletal frame; instead I looked into my soul and found malaise while ignoring the beauty that was struggling to rise to the surface.

To bring the metaphor full circle, I guess you can say that I am eating right for once in my life. My appetites are healthy and my attitude towards myself is one of respect and acceptance.

I think about the times when I vented my fury in this blog. I chastised readers for not commenting; I changed the names of real people then proceeded to detail their lives in accusatory tones; I engaged in feuds with people I had never even met in real life. It all seems pathetic and sad in hindsight, but each blog that I composed-- for better or for worse --was necessary for my mental health. I bared my soul in these blog entries. Sometimes I held back, but more often than not I let loose in a way that I had rarely done in my private writings.

Overall, I am proud of this minor achievement. I am not done with writing, nor am I done with blogging... but if there's anyone out there that still stops by here to read what I have to say, let me just state for the record that for the time being I am taking the time I normally spent slaving away at a keyboard and putting it toward another use. It's not a better use of my time, and it's not a lesser exertion of energy either. It's just something different, a change of pace if you will.

I think that I have found something more important than a blog.

Writing is still important to me, and my new wife sees nothing wrong or inappropriate about the blog or my novel (which I am also lagging on, for the same reasons that I have neglected my blog). She would never stand in the way of my pursuit of enlightenment via the written word, whether it be in print or online. But she is not as consistent with her internet browsing, so in a way I find myself blogging less because the one person I would really like to read it doesn't devote as much time as I do cruising cyberspace. And that's okay with me, because she is really the one person in my life now whose opinion matters to me the most.

So I am not calling it quits or throwing in the towel. Instead I am taking a semi-break from this. I will try to do it once a month, so as not to get rusty or find myself without an occasional outlet. I cannot predict what kind of content I will focus on in the future, whether or not it will be personal or impersonal or a mixture of both, but I can say confidently that my life right now is functioning fine... and maybe it will take time for me to get back into the swing of things.

I have been convinced for most of my life that I could not write unless there was pain or trouble in my heart, so I will look upon this new path I am on as a challenge, to see if I can write in the absence of misery and turmoil. I think I can, but it will be like starting all over from scratch. Forgive me if I get sappy or maudlin or sentimental or even mushy. I will make an effort to not sound like a lovestruck freak gloating over how he won the romance lottery.

I will end this entry with this: When I was beginning my adolescence, I started to take writing seriously but I hadn't learned anything yet. My first forays into writing were plagiarizing and embellishing on my favorite song lyrics and passing them off as love poems. But after a while, I made a promise to take a different tack when composing odes to whoever was my beloved at the time. I told myself that if I ever wrote a love song, I would refrain from using the word 'love' so as not to fall prey to cliches and pat pronouncements. I did a pretty good job of it, but now is the time to explore the public domain of pop cultural consciousness.

In other words, I think it's alright if I use the word 'love' from now on. I give myself permission to do so, and I hope that I can find a way to do it without succumbing to cheese and schmaltz.

I hope that any readers I still have will enjoy this new year as it unfolds, and if they don't have any comments to leave then that's just nifty. I can finally leave well enough alone and not make unrealistic demands. I know you all have your lives to live... and I have mine.

Take care.

crash

2007-12-17T18:49:00.001-08:00

I got into a car accident this morning as I was coming home from work.

This is the biggest accident I've ever been a part of: I was at fault, being groggy from the graveyard shift; I failed to stop and rear-ended a man and his teenage duaghter in their Mazda in front of her school. The airbags deployed, and the damage was considerable (my front bumper is caved in and his back bumper and trunk are sizably dented) but no one was hurt and we were both insured.

It happens all the time in L.A., right? But you know me-- I feel stupid for losing control and not being on the ball.

It also made me think about how much I have to live for now, and although it wasn't a life-threatening situation the sheer violence of the impact adrenalized me and had me in fear. It was terrifying. The man's daughter was hysterical. Fortunately, he was good-natured about it and I went out of my way to get all the proper info and offer my apologies for my blunder. But I couldn't stop thinking about my wife. I wanted to be with her at that moment. I needed her to comfort me.

When I got home, she was there waiting for me and I told her about my ordeal. She held me and reassured me that it was going to be alright, and she was glad I wasn't hurt, and since we were insured it would turn out fine, even in light of the inconvenience that will definitely arise from the whole insurance process.

I needed to get it out of my system, so here I am-- blogging for the first time in over a month. I haven't been tending to it because I've been so busy, and to be honest I am too exhausted to really give it my all so I will keep it brief. But I needed to get it out of me, and writing has always proven to be therapeutic for me so there you have it.

Have a Happy Holiday. When you are with your respective families and friends, remember how precious this life is, how it can all go up in smoke in the blink of an eye. Give thanks that you have a warm place to go and people to see and a computer to read this on in the dead of winter.

See ya next year,

J Drawz

sweet jane

2007-10-28T05:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know...

No, I don't have Writer's Block in the classic sense-- I'm not frustrated as I sit at this desk, furrowing my brow trying to drum up some verbiage for what few readers I have left. But if you define Writer's Block as being any event or situation or activity that takes up the time you would normally spend on writing, then yes-- I'm blocked up in a mighty way.

I've been busy furnishing a nest for me and my wife. It's a temporary domicile, to be sure-- basically, she's moving in with me and my current place was never more than a rest stop until either I saved up enough cash or the prices on rentals dropped. But now that I am married, who knows-- maybe my wife and I can scoop up some poor bastard's foreclosure and get ourselves a real home, complete with a mortgage and neighbors and a front lawn and a garage and property tax and the whole nine.

All we'd have to do after that is have some kids, and then that's it: we officially become old.

Knowing this, she and I agree that we need to spend a lot of time being a couple before we decide to have kids. We should enjoy being married for a while, because once we have kids it's close to two decades (at the least!) before we get that much alone time ever again.

Besides, talking about kids is getting way ahead of ourselves. Shit, we still haven't finished making the announcement!

*/*

And speaking of making the announcement...

My wife has an older sister-- 14 years older, in fact. They had different fathers but share the same mother. Since I am a full ten years my wife's senior, it now makes sense to me how she shares so many of my interests such as music groups and movies: she followed in her big sister's footsteps, influenced by her tastes and shaped by her mentality. My wife is her own person nonetheless, but her sister (whom I will name "Jane" here in this blog) had an enormous impact on my wife, to say the least.

Jane and my wife had a typical sister relationship when they were growing up, filled with your average rivalries and various ups and downs. Jane was something of a wild child, and my wife followed in her wake. However, because of the age difference and the different father figures raising each girl, it's safe to say that there were marked contrasts in their respective upbringings.

Being the youngest, my wife was a tad more spoiled than Jane. Owing also to this was their mother's accumulated maternal experience: when Jane was born, their mother was learning the ropes; when my wife was born, their mother had some background on what to do and what not to do, tempered by the wisdom that such undertakings bequeaths upon a woman who desires to decently rear a child.

In short, Jane and my wife were treated differently, even though each was equally loved by their mother.

When Jane grew up and moved out and got married and settled down with kids, she underwent a transformation. In addition to giving up on her hard-living ways and partying ethic, she began to feel pangs of guilt about what kind of role model she was to her baby sister. This is a normal phenomenon for older siblings to undergo-- my older brother, for example, often felt that he had failed me as an example to follow; it wasn't until we talked one day that I informed him that he was, in reality, the best example I could have had, despite (or lieu of) his own adolescent indulgences.

My wife and her older sister hadn't spoken to each other much in recent years, so it was definitely an issue for her to consider when it came time to tell her family what we had gone and done in Las Vegas.

The last time my wife saw her sister was when she flew out to visit my wife only a year after she'd moved to Los Angeles. Jane got off the plane, drove over to my wife's apartment, and stayed for less than three hours before they had gotten into such a row that Jane packed her bags and got on the next plane back to Indianapolis, which is where she moved when she left her home in D.C.

*/*

My wife managed to talk Jane into flying out here again without letting the cat out of the bag. Out of a misplaced semi-maternal guilt, Jane agreed to come out and see if her little sis was doing OK or if the big bad world of L.A. was eating her up alive.

As older siblings are wont to do, Jane expected to see her sister living in abject poverty, in need of guidance and way in over her head.

Meanwhile, the plan was as follows: I was to pick Jane up from LAX and bring her back to the apartment so that I could get a chance to meet her. As far as Jane knew, I was just the boyfriend-- I was not to let on that we had gotten married at all. My wife reasoned that she wanted Jane to get to know me as a person first.

As fucked up as it sounds, I had to agree with my wife: just springing the news on your family can be a horrible mistake if there are hard feelings or past grievances still being harbored. In my case, my family handled the news just fine because they were convinced that I would never marry and yet they held out hope for some sort of "miracle" to occur; it goes without saying that their prayers were answered.

Anyway, after the visit was over, when Jane was safely back at home in Indiana, my wife was going to tell her the truth... this was the part of her plan that I was skeptical about, but I understood her logic. My wife, unlike me, is not one for confrontations. She hates them, and would feel safer if she could have as much distance as possible between Jane and her, so as not to get too upset when the inevitable blow-out happened.

I drove my wife's car and parked in a spot near Jane's arriving terminal. My wife called and described Jane to me. I figured she would look something like my wife, but to my surprise Jane looked nothing like her sister: dark brown hair instead of my wife's lighter shade (my wife dyes it red so I am referring to the root color), tall and leggy, attractive but in a totally separate category than my wife's attractiveness. It was clear that, in her prime, Jane was a heartbreaker.

I met her, helped her with her bags, and drove her out to meet up with her sister. I talked with Jane along the way and found her to be engaging, smart, and witty. When we spoke of her sister there was an apparent love and care, but also present in her tone was that annoying and patronizing manner in which most older siblings refer to their younger charges, as if they and only they knew what their younger brothers or sisters were truly like and that if only they would follow the advice of Big Bro or Big Sis (because they're older, and therefore they know better, right?) then their lives would be stable and fulfilling.

I could immediately see why my wife had to do it this way, and yet I could also see Jane's point of view. I'd only known my wife for less than six months by that time but already I surmised that she could be stubborn, spiteful, hypersensitive and judgmental (just like me-- no wonder we got married!) and that it didn't mesh well with Jane's in-your-face sensibilities.

Jane was only in town for four days, from Thursday to Sunday. By Saturday night, she would find out about us prematurely.

*/*

Jane didn't flip out at first. When my wife ended up spilling the beans during an excursion to the beach to bury my wife's roommate Mitch's belated chinchilla (aptly named Mr. Chin) it was because she knew she could no longer continue the ruse and felt that Jane should know the truth about us.

Without a doubt, Jane was surprised. Shocked? I don't know, I wasn't there. All I know is that while I was working on my web comic strip at home, I got a call from my wife. I picked it up, and my wife explained to me that she told Jane about us.

"You did? How'd she take it?"

"She wants to talk to you," she said, smiling as she talked.

Jane got on the line. The three of them had been drinking, and I could tell by Jane's delivery that she was (at the very least) somewhat tipsy.

"Hey, you. What's the big deal, marrying my baby sister without getting my permission first?"

I laughed nervously. "So she told you, eh?"

"Yeah. You lied to me. Both of you did."

"She asked me to, and I do whatever she asks me to do. I didn't agree with it, but I respected her reasoning, and she's my wife so..."

"I've got a mind to knock you flat on your ass, you know." I could tell that she was half-serious, half-joking, and 100% inebriated.

"And I wouldn't blame you. I will gladly accept whatever treatment you see fit." I meant what I'd said to her-- as much as I wanted Jane to give us her blessing, she had every right to be upset.

"I'm serious," she said. "I'm still in shock. This is no way to spring it on me."

"I know, Jane. But your sister felt that it would be worse if she told you first thing off the plane. That's why she sent me by myself to pick you up. She wanted you to get to know me as a person first." I didn't mention that my wife's original plan was to wait until Jane had made it back to Indiana.

"Look, it's not that I don't like you. I do, James. I think you're a nice guy. So far throughout this trip you've been nothing but great, both to me and my sister. But this has nothing to do with you. It's a family thing. I hope you know that."

"I do. I honestly do. I am not offended in the least."

"Good. But I'm still in shock. I don't know whether to be happy or pissed."

After a few more exchanges similar to those last lines, my wife got back on the phone and asked me to meet the three of them at Barney's Beanery later on in the evening for drinks and dinner. I agreed, and hung up the phone.

I finished my web comic work and jumped in the shower. After that, as I got dressed to meet them, I wondered what the night would evolve into, because I knew even though the cat was out of the bag there was still the rest of the evening to go.

Next Week: The Second Part

wheels go 'round and 'round

2007-10-09T06:35:00.000-07:00

Today is John Lennon's 67th birthday.

Yes, he's dead... but it's still his birthday.

Here's a You Tube clip of the song "Watching The Wheels", with home videos of the man with his wife Yoko spliced against what has to be one of the loveliest Lennon compositions he ever recorded.

You'll probably hear 5 million plays of "Imagine" today, so I figured I'd do one of the lesser requested ones. "Watching The Wheels" has its share of fans, to be sure, but when you think of how many solo hits Lennon had (plus all the stuff he did with that one group... you know, the one that starts with B) it all tends to get lost in the shuffle.

Personally, my all-time favorite from John's solo output is "#9 Dream" because it is so weird and mystical and surreal and happens to be one of the few pop songs with the word "dream" in the title that actually does sound like a dream. But "Wheels" has gotten me lately because... well, because I relate to the lyrics more now than I did when I was younger.

Settling down and getting married has done more than just mellow me out: it has practically caused me to change my outlook on life. There's a lot in my outlook that doesn't need changing, however, so I guess I am really just accepting the things I need to accept and discarding the things that I never needed.

I'm modifying my behavior rather than mellowing. I say that because I am still a crazy loon with the mind of a dirty old man and the heart of a reckless child. But I'm also more focused.

The blog has suffered, but my writing continues... this time in private, the way it used to be when I was a teenager scribbling into personal notebooks that no one ever read unless I allowed them the privilege. The novel is coming along slowly but surely. My patience for it is larger and wider, thanks to my wife's inspiration and input.

The music always bodes well. It has evened out for me-- staying with one (and only one) band makes it easier for me to do what needs to be done, and also makes it more enjoyable. I still collaborate here and there but not with the urgent desperation of other endeavors. And in a few weeks I might be ready to start setting up for my third solo acoustic set this year, which is exciting and fun for me.

My forays into graphic art are limited to the "Studio Reader Stan" web comic, but that's just fine. I am creating an animated version of the strip, so I cannot complain about anything.

Certainly, this has been a most productive and radically transitional season for me. It has also been a relatively sober period in my life, similar to my teen years when I was straight-edge and didn't need drugs to make me weird and creative. I won't lie, however: I do them when they're around... but the cool thing is that they really aren't around that much anymore. I can't remember the last time I smoked pot, and saving money to get a new place for me and the wife has all but eliminated cocaine from my everyday existence.

The Mrs. and I did take mushrooms a while back, when we went camping with my family up in Carpenteria. That was a fine weekend, because our trip was pleasant (big caps on the shrooms = less visuals, more of a body high) and we drank it in tea instead of eating the foul-tasting fungi.

I wouldn't count that as a drug experience, though. It was too nice and gentle to be considered a "trip". It was more like a vacation that turned inward for the both of us. We laughed our asses off and made love in our tent to the sounds of waves lapping against the shore.

I have many stories to tell, but for the time being they have to go into the novel. I will keep blogging but right now I need to get this book done, and I'm on a roll. I just wanted to check in and let you all know I haven't fallen off the face of the planet.

Or, to paraphrase the birthday boy, I wanted to let you all know that I'm doing fine watching shadows on the wall.

PEACE

husband and wife

2007-09-21T03:22:00.000-07:00

The last night of the month of August: a humid heat in the triple digits that trickled into the night and gave no quarter or shelter or relief. The night was supposed to be airy and cool but that was not the case as I played a show with my band and watched from the intensely-lit stage as my girl sat and sipped her drink and waited for me to be done.

She waited because she knew what was going to happen after the show. She knew the journey we were about to embark upon and she was as excited as I was, maybe even more so. But I was dealing with suppressed emotions that had no outlet.

The show went over well, and when it was done she and I made our escape amid suspicious eyes and furrowed brows. Some of them knew instinctively what we had planned to do, even if we had not been explicit about it.

It wasn't until she and I were at my place, almost ready to hit the desert road out to Las Vegas, that I finally broke down and cried as I held her, explaining that these were not doubts that I was feeling, but rather the overwhelming joy of finally having found the one person I seemed to have been waiting all of my life to meet, through the darkness and the pain and the elation and joy of my entire existence... it was impossible to believe that there standing before me was the woman I was going to spend the rest of my days loving, but I had no choice but to accept that fact, even as my wounded self-esteem resisted the happiness that caused tears to well up in my eyes and my voice to tremble under the weight of this decision.

She patted my hair and told me that if I didn't want to go through with it she would be OK, but I insisted that it wasn't a big deal-- it was just me resorting to an old coping mechanism, the involuntary impulse to hide my emotions until they cannot be held any longer and then deluge from me like a levee breaking open and flooding my heart.

By the time we were an hour outside of Los Angeles, my mood was considerably improved. I held her hand as we drove our machine over clean asphalt laser beams.

*/*

Before the sunrise, we entered the garish Nevada city of lights, the unofficial capital of casino towns. With no sun to greet us, we stopped to get a bite to eat at an IHOP (Denny's was open but they were re-stocking and told us it would take 20 minutes before we could order).

The waiter told us that the chapels didn't operate under 24 hour schedules anymore, mainly due to the Las Vegas courthouse's new hours. Since the courthouse now closed earlier, there was no need for the chapels to work around the clock. We would have to wait until 8am if we wanted to do anything, he told me.

So we hit the Strip and smoked our cigarettes with style and flung them out of the windows almost simultaneously... which attracted the attention of a state trooper car that I had not seen following me. He pulled us over and walked over to my side of the car.

"Good morning."

I tired to smile. "Good morning, officer."

"Driver's license?"

"Yes." I pulled my license out of my wallet and let the wallet fall down between the seat and the center console, fearing that he would somehow come across the small amount of cocaine I had stashed in between my ATM cards.

He looked at my license, then said, "I pulled you over for littering."

"Yes, I know."

His nostrils flared, having smelled something coming from the car.

"Where are you coming from?"

"Los Angeles."

"Have you had anything to drink while you've been driving?"

"No sir."

"Please step out of the car."

After some questions, it became clear that the two cops thought that I was drunk, because of the strong smell of an open container of rum that my girl was carrying. The first cop was talking to me, trying to determine if I was tipsy, while the second cop walked over to my girl and grilled her on her bottle.

"Ma'am, we smell alcohol coming from the vehicle. Has he been drinking?"

"No sir, I have." She smiled, her red heart-shaped Lolita sunglasses framing her girlish cheekbones.

"What are you guys doing up so early?"

"We drove from L.A. all night. We're getting married."

"Married, eh?" The second cop smiled. "Well, congratulations!"

"Thank you."

"So, is he the love of your life?"

"Yes he is, sir!"

"Nice."

Meanwhile, I was talking to the first cop about our business at such an ungodly hour of the day.

"We're here to get hitched, then turn right around and head home. We didn't even reserve a room."

"All the chapels are going the other way. Why were you driving north on the Strip?"

"The IHOP waiter said there might be another chapel in the north part of town, near Russell."

"I'm not sure if there is one... let me ask my partner."

Just at that moment, the second cop walked up to us.

"Man, how much did she have to drink?" He laughed.

"Yeah, she puts 'em away alright." Then I proceeded to lie for no reason. "It's her car, so she was driving up until we hit Prima Donna, then she had a drink and I decided to take over."

"And you had nothing at all?"

"Correct. I'm allergic to alcohol anyway."

"Well, I can tell you haven't been drinking. After I asked you to exit the vehicle I was sniffing around to see if it was on your breath, but you're checking out fine. Sorry to inconvenience you and your girl."

"No problem, officer. You're just doing your job."

"Hey, is there a chapel up near Russell?" The first cop asked his partner.

"I think there is... but it's the only one around those parts. The majority of them are near Old Town, Fremont Street."

"You think the one near Russell is open right now?" I asked.

"Maybe. They don't really do that 24 hour thing anymore, but you can try it out."

"Why not? We got a lot of time to kill," I said, smiling.

The cops didn't ticket us, and as we drove away the cruiser followed us up the Strip. At one point I became disoriented and ran a red arrow light (not a red stop light) and then I hit the brake while in the middle of the right turn intersection.

Assuming that they were going to give us more trouble, I winced visibly. My girl was laughing at the whole absurd incident as it played itself out in front of her.

We both heard the troopers over their loudspeaker: "Make a left!"

All the other cars in traffic, stopped at the lights in back of us, were befuddled and confused.

By the time the troopers passed us and I gathered my bearings again, she and I were laughing at our luck. We both spoke aloud about how this must be a sign that our marriage was meant to be.

*/*

As the time was nearing, she and I stopped at a chapel and asked a woman who was tending to the plants when they would be open for business. She asked us if we had gotten our marriage license yet. I pleaded ignorance, and she promptly gave us directions to where the courthouse was located. She also warned us to stay away from one particular chapel with a shady reputation.

We drove to the courthouse and waited outside along with at least five other couples who were in a rush to get their nuptials taken care of as early as possible. My girl and I smoked more cigarettes, and kissed and held hands and giggled with excitement.

The moment was almost upon us.

As we waited, a man handed out flyers advertising the notorious chapel that we had been warned about prior to our courthouse visit. Prices on their wedding ceremonies had been marked down drastically. I folded the flyer and slipped it into my back pocket.

Five minutes before 8, the African-American courthouse security guard came out front. He turned to all of us and made an announcement:

"Sorry folks, the courthouse ain't giving out licenses today. Building's closed for the Labor Day weekend."

Our collective jaws dropped as we heard the news. I was about to say something when the guard suddenly reversed himself.

"Psyche!" He began to laugh, as did everyone else, along with relieved sighs. The guard then proceeded to poke fun at the man standing nearest to him.

"Damn, man, you shoulda seen the look on your face..."

My girl, laughing riotously, commented that it was a good thing he was kidding, otherwise he'd have to run away or else face the wrath of half a dozen unhappy couples, to which he replied:

"Hey, I'm black. Ain't none of y'all catchin' a brother. In fact, I saw an episode of COPS the other night where this cat straight up eluded the police, the dogs, even the infra-red. No shit. That motherfucker was home so fast he was able to check his ass out on TV the same night! He was probably sitting there, eating dinner, sayin' 'Look, mama, that's me. And there I go...'"

Needless to say, the ice was broken, Within fifteen minutes of entering the courthouse, we had our marriage license in hand. Now all we needed was a chapel.

*/*

She and I starting walking down the street, unsure of which chapel to go to, when suddenly a limousine pulled up beside us and a Hispanic man stepped out from behind the driver's seat.

His name was Ernesto and he had a tattoo tear on his face. He asked us if we had just gotten our license. I tried to ignore him because I thought he was affiliated with the man who was handing out flyers for the shady chapel.

"Naw, man. This one's different. Here, check it out."

He opened up a brochure. The cheapest deal offered a drive-through ceremony, including pictures and free rides to and from the chapel, for an unbeatably low price.

"Sorry, man," I said, "but she don't want a drive-through wedding."

"Okay, I'll waive that. You'll get everything else though. The ride is free. I'll take you right now, and drop you right back here where I found you. And you don't gotta tip me or anyone except the pastor. For real."

"Whatta you say, babe?" I asked my soon-to-be wife.

"If you wanna do it, then let's do it."

"Okay, man, take us there."

The limo ride took only a few minutes. We arrived at the chapel and walked inside, where an elderly woman greeted us and began processing our nuptials, but not without first scolding Ernesto for poaching us from off the street.

"I thought you were just going to the store," she intoned. Ernesto said nothing as he walked into the back room.

She turned to us and introduced herself as Louise. She processed our fees and had us fill out forms and watched as we signed them, then she signed a few herself; she proceeded to inform us that the pastor and the photographer were running late, seeing as we were her first customers of the day.

My girl went into the restroom to prep herself for the final step we were about to take. I made small talk with Louise, regaling her with the story of our trip to Las Vegas and all the crazy happenings that went on since we blew into town. I also asked her about the shady chapel down the street, the one we'd been warned about; she made no bones about that chapel's bizarre operational policies and unkempt health conditions, adding that she knew the proprietor of that chapel and therefore knew the level of corruption and greed that was possible.

When my girl returned from the restroom, Louise asked us if we had any wedding bands.

"No, we didn't buy a ring yet," my girl replied.

"No rings? What about flowers?"

I turned to my girl and asked, "Do you want flowers, babe?"

"It's not necessary," she said.

Louise then picked out a white rose and gave it to my girl. "Here, it's on the house," she said.

Half an hour passed, and our pastor arrived. She was a good-looking young blonde with a spray-on tan and immaculate teeth, the kind of girl I might've leered at once upon a time. She escorted us into the large room and began to conduct the service from the altar.

She asked me and my girl to face each other as we repeated the vows. I was choked up with emotion once again, just like the night before in my room, only this time I was able to keep the tears from streaming down my face as I promised to honor, love, cherish and obey my girl until the day I die.

Never have there been words so potent and strong as those vows. As many times as I have heard them in my life, and as many times as I have ridiculed them or spoofed them or satirized them, I could not help but suddenly understand their power and impact as I stared into the ebony wonder of my girl's eyes and swore to her with all my heart that my aim was true and that she was mine forever and that I was hers forever... and I meant it.

I meant every word, and she did too.

We kissed, and then the photographer finally showed up and posed us this way and that, and a nervous energy flushed through my bloodstream as I realized what I had just done.

It was the one thing I had always sworn I would never do, and yet there I was, married on a bleary Vegas morning after a sleepless night spent driving through the desert.

*/*

I held her hand almost the entire way as we drove back to Los Angeles.

Towards the end of the trip she fell asleep, still wearing the white dress she donned for her special day.

I was still in shock, in utter disbelief. The entire drive was unreal. I was at peace, at one with my soul, with my heart, with my mind.

Nothing seemed impossible anymore. Everything in my line of vision appeared bright and new and shiny. There were no more questions, only answers to queries I had long pondered.

I wondered how much our lives were going to change after the honeymoon was over and reality set in... and then it dawned on me that this was reality, and that it wasn't going to set in because it was already settled. The moment we made up our minds to be husband and wife, it was settled. Like the dust on the interstate after our machine zoomed over the surface of hot Nevadan blacktop, it was settled. Like my stomach after an arrow of an evening spent careening toward Sin City and ending at a breakfast franchise over some eggs and coffee, it was settled.

There was nothing else to say.

She and I got married on September 1st, 2007 at approximately 9am.

That day was the beginning of the rest of our lives, and I will never ever forget it for as long as we both exist.

something to write about

2007-09-10T00:57:00.000-07:00

This past year has seen a significant drop-off in my blogging regularity. It was intentional, by all means, but also there was a personal dissatisfaction with the whole blogging process. Bloggers are mostly viewed in the court of public opinion as either savvy online go-getters or lifeless losers who pine to be published writers but lack the necessary skills to get their foot in the literary door.

While I probably would be viewed in the latter category rather than the former, I have never had a problem with being seen by the public at large as some sort of weird loner ranting against a seemingly unfair societal system. In fact, I tend to encourage that perspective because it's not that far off from the truth.

I think the main reason why I reduced the amount of time and energy spent blogging, however, is simply because I ran out of interesting things to say on a consistent basis. Whereas before I could blog endlessly and rapidly about any topic at length, I found myself at the beginning of last summer scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to finding things to write about, and it was showing: people who used to frequent my blog lost interest; I was repeating myself in numerous ways; and the tone of my writing became hard, sullen, angry without the benefit of any genuine humor to sweeten the bitterness.

In short, I was in a bad place during a bad time, and it was reflected in my blog.

Much has changed since last year, and even more has changed in the past two or three weeks since I last posted an entry here. I know I've spoken of serious life changes in this blog many times before, but this time I am pretty sure that what I've got to say to anyone reading this will qualify, without a doubt, as a truly major step in not only my writing but in my life in general.

I've been writing about My Girl for the past six or seven months, and it has been a pleasure to do so... but she is no longer My Girl.

No, instead she has become My Wife.

*/*

It began innocently enough with a comment I made to My Girl sometime after her bicycle accident.

"I'm just gonna start calling you my wife from now on," I said to her as I smoked a cigarette while lying on her bed. "I'll introduce you as my spouse to anyone and everyone."

I can't say for sure if I was serious or joking. All I know is that I meant it when I said it, even though it was delivered with my trademark flippancy. Whatever the case, I threw it out there for her to devour. She didn't seem to mind my resolution.

Two days passed. We saw each other during those days-- sometimes at the coffee shop where she works part-time, sometimes at her townhouse in Hollywood, sometimes at my place in Reseda. It's a given, because ever since the start of this summer she and I have been virtually inseparable, making sure to hang out for at least a few hours each day. Even when we were not dating and still platonic friends, we were spending the vast majority of our time together.

Then, two days after I announced that I was going to refer to her as my wife from now on, the subject came up again while we were bedded down in her room.

"You know, if you asked me to marry you, I'd probably say 'yes', and I would mean it," she said to me.

"Really?" I was a little taken aback, only because for the first time in my life I was not trembling with fear and dread at the prospects of marital bliss with a girl I was dating... and what's more, I felt excited and exhilarated by her bold admission.

"I've been thinking about it since you brought it up the other day," she said, "but I didn't want to say anything because I was afraid you would say that you were kidding. I've been wanting to tell you how I feel, and I guess now is the time to do it."

"You've been thinking about it for the last two days?"

"Yeah. Seriously."

Oh my God, I thought, she really wants to marry me!

"Well, I would marry you if you wanted to marry me. No bullshit."

I couldn't believe what I was saying to her, and yet I was not scared or pensive. I found that I was actually quite confident that what I was telling her was my true feeling on the matter.

"I want to marry you," she said, her doleful eyes fluttering softly behind her oh-so-cute nerd-glasses perched delicately above her nose. "I want to be the mother of your children. I want to take your last name."

Upon hearing this, I figured I may as well do it right.

"Okay then... Will you marry me?"

"Yes."

"When do you want to do it?"

"Right now!" Her face beamed with energy.

"That would be cool, but you know we can't... you've got work, I've got a million things to do... but I agree that eloping would be the best course of action."

"Yes, let's elope! In Las Vegas! Either this weekend or the next!"

"That's a deal."

She smiled, and we kissed, and then she looked at me with the utmost seriousness and said, "You're not gonna chicken out on this, are you?"

"No, I'm not. Are you?"

"No way."

"Alright. Then it's settled. We'll play it by ear, but by the end of August we will be husband and wife."

A chill ran down my spine. It was not the kind of chill that signals impending catastrophe. This particular chill was like a jolt of electricity coursing through my body and rejuvenating parts of me that I had dismissed as dead.

We kissed. We made love. We slept.

*/*

My Girl and I were married at a chapel in Las Vegas on Saturday, September 1st, 2007.

It was a tough ordeal resisting the urge to inform everyone within earshot of our plan to elope. Obviously I am someone whose life is an open book, and I am very good at broadcasting my intent no matter where I am or what I am doing.

I wasn't 100% successful at keeping it a secret, but I did manage to avoid telling my family and closest friends about it until after it was done. She laughed at me every time a not-so-intimate acquaintance of mine congratulated her on something she had not done yet. She understood that I was bursting at the seams, eager to proclaim to the whole world how much she means to me.

Reactions to the news have been positive. My family was unanimous in their support and were not offended that we eloped. My mother was especially happy, because she has always wished and prayed that I would find the right woman and settle down.

And she is the right woman, by all means. It may seem rushed, considering that we only met about half a year ago, but I have never been so sure of something as I am with my decision to make her My Wife.

Some of my closest friends-- the ones who know me pretty damn well, the ones who have seen me go up and down throughout all of my peculiar phases --wanted to make sure that this wasn't some misguided flight-of-fancy on my part. Once they heard the conviction in my voice or saw the stinging certainty in my eyes, they had nothing but loving sentiments to convey to the both of us.

So much to take in, so much to tell. There isn't enough space in this post to cover it all.

Only now have I felt stable and grounded enough to sit down and write it out for people to ingest. The whole affair has been simultaneously simple and complex, with an extreme array of emotions threatening to spin out of control at any moment. But through it all, I never lost faith in what we set out to do, and I know for a fact that her faith was just as devout (if not more).

In my next post I will tell the story of the actual wedding day, a surreal mini-adventure that (true to form) seems stranger than any fictitious scenario I could ever concoct. And after that, there's the emotionally-charged story of how My Wife's older sister (my new sister-in-law) reacted to the news of our marriage.

Those are just a smidgen-- a mere fraction --of the events and episodes that I have yet to commit to this blog. And let us not forget the stories that have yet to be told because they haven't happened yet-- there'll be plenty of those, for sure.

I guess I finally have something to write about again, something worthy of my time and effort. Not that the past year has been uneventful or bland. On the contrary, I purposely refrained from writing about a whole shitload of things that I went through. I left them out because they did not break any new ground and served no purpose other than to give me a vehicle for my self-pity.

But let me make one thing clear: I did not marry her because I needed material for my blog.

I married her for the only good reason there is: because we love each other.

Now I'd like to share it with all of you.

deep love

2007-08-22T01:18:00.000-07:00

My girl and I have a lot in common.

We both like the same musicians/bands: Beastie Boys, Dead Kennedys, Prince, Guns 'N' Roses, Cypress Hill, David Bowie, Pearl Jam, X, DEVO, Silversun Pickups, The Clash, etc... There are a few disagreements here and there (she loathes Phish, for example, while I find them to be splendid) but they are as I said: few, and far between as well.

We both share the same absurd outlook on life, only she tends to shy away from the label 'absurd'. We also have closet romantic tendencies lurking beneath our cool, steely exteriors. We both have demented senses of humor and enjoy nonsense for nonsense's sake.

We both think that life is beautiful despite the pain and tragedy that befalls everyone. We both see the value of all things great and small, choosing not to merely glance at The Big Picture but instead to stare wildly away at its expansive panoramic vastness.

We both believe in God, even if we aren't textbook Christians in any sense.

And lastly, we both have experienced deep love with someone from our past, and we are both striving to get out from under the shadows those loves cast.

*/*

One of our first nights together was in March of this year, when I invited her back to my apartment in Burbank to watch a movie and eat popcorn. I had no idea what to expect, because as much as I wanted to seduce her in my own idiosyncratic fashion, I also was aware that I was putting too much emphasis on having this evening actually go somewhere for a change.

What I mean is: Instead of just trying to get into her pants, I wanted to get to know her as a person. Too many times I switched gears from 0 to 60 in less than 2 seconds, and even if I got what I thought I wanted I still didn't realize, until much later on, that I had actually short-changed myself.

For you see, if a man is only intent on scoring some action, it doesn't matter if he gets it or not: he loses in the end, because life is full of variables that mix-and-match to complement the outcome of any given event. So, if a man tries to score and succeeds, he may end up never seeing her again after that, which could be a relief if she is horrid-- but then again, what good is scoring with a horrid girl anyway? If it is not a relief to see her fade away into the night, never to return, then he ends up feeling cheated, as if a taste of honey was worse than none at all (to quote from Smokey Robinson).

If he does see her again, is he any more relieved than if he had not seen her again? Hard to say, for maybe that man will end up somewhere down the line not wanting to see her again despite her insistence that they continue seeing each other. If it is not a relief to see her again, then the whole episode was merely an exercise is animal carnality.

In other words, if the man started off from the get-go trying to court the girl instead of fucking her brains out, then by the time the nookie enters the picture he ends up winning.

When March 2007 rolled around, I was tired of losing. So when she showed up at my door at 11 PM on a Friday night, I decided to take the long-term investment and court her instead.

*/*

It wasn't easy.

She told me she was going to change into her pajama bottoms as I placed the DVD into the tray and gently pushed it closed.

This aroused me to no end.

As she walked into the bathroom to slip into something a little more comfortable, I held an informal debate with my good and bad sides, muttering under my breath so as not to give off the impression that I was insane.

"That's the green light, buddy," my bad side said. "Do her! She's asking for it!"

"Now let's be reasonable," my good side said. "Perhaps she feels safe around you, and doesn't fear that you will make any advances upon her. If you cross the line, so to speak, the whole enterprise will be placed in peril."

"Dude, if she feels safe around you, that's bad! You'll end up in the Friend Zone... unless you do something real bad-ass to show her that you've still got a libido!"

"Yes, but you could also end up in the Creep Section, which is worse than the Friend Zone."

"Hey, Good Side... whose side are you on anyway? The boy wants to get laid, for Pete's sake!"

"Funny, I thought he was trying to do things differently. I guess all that talk about getting to know her and having something meaningful for a change was just a lot of game..."

I finally interrupted their exchange. "Wait a minute! Let me decide what to do, okay?"

They both nodded grudgingly.

When she walked out of the bathroom, she was wearing the same outfit except for now she had on candy-striped pajama bottoms. I handed her a bowl of freshly-cooked popcorn and sat down on the love seat.

"Come on over here," I said, motioning to her.

*/*

We talked through the entire movie (Waking Life, I believe it was) not because it was bad but because it sparked much philosophical discussion between us. These discussions lasted well past the ending of the movie, and by the time we we talking about dating life as opposed to waking life it was almost dawn and the DVD menu page was looping over and over due to my unwillingness to interrupt the conversation just to turn the damn DVD player off.

She told me about the love of her life, a boy who was seven years her senior. Back in D.C. he was a local legend: a sponsored skateboarder, an accomplished drummer in a punk rock band, a huge part animal who broke the rules and got away with murder, a military brat who traveled the world and lived in the Middle East for much of his upbringing...

"I will never have a love like that ever again," she said, as she dragged on her cigarette.

"How can you say that?" I asked.

"He was my true love."

Before I could say something cynical to kill the mood, she continued.

"But that doesn't mean I can't have another love that is deeper or greater than that with someone else. I just won't have what I had with him with anyone else, ever again."

This was interesting to me. "I know what you mean," I said. I then told her all about Eve: the two-year-long high school romance, the years spent apart, the reconciliation and troubles that finally broke us apart... I told her how Eve had cut me off and wouldn't take my calls, wouldn't write me back, wouldn't even acknowledge that I was alive...

"That's what I had to do in my case," she said to me. "I had to totally cut him off from my life. And it sucks. I know that. But not a day goes by when I don't think about him. I miss him so much, and I want to call him but I know it's never going to be right. It's just torture if I give in and call him. So even though I am miserable, I have to stand my ground and not fall back into it. The hardest thing in the world is to start again, and I know because I've been there."

"So what you're saying is that you cut him off because it was necessary?"

"Yes. And that's what your ex is doing to you. From what you just told me about her, she probably cares so much about you, and yet it hurts her to be with you. That's exactly what I am feeling in my own life right now. I bet you that she'd love to just take you back and pretend that nothing is wrong, but she probably feels like she has to move on and that there's no way that you two can be together right now. She's not doing it to hurt you-- she's doing it to save herself."

Suddenly, I understood everything that was happening between Eve and I, and I also became very ashamed of my behavior towards her. I was mean and cruel to Eve because I felt like she had hurt me. I called her names, insinuated horrible things about her character, and left her incessant messages demanding that she give me at least one chance to speak my mind.

"Wow, I never thought about it that way. I've been so selfish, not thinking about how much this whole thing has affected her. I'm a scumbag."

"Well, you probably have every right to be upset at her too. Don't forget to own your anger. It's okay to be mad at her for what you feel she did to you, but just remember that it might not be as easy for her as you think. I know my ex is mad as hell and obsessed with me-- hell, he moved from D.C. out here just to be near me, even after I told him it was over. I didn't ask him to do that. I don't blame him for wanting me back, but it just can't work. I can't put up with the drinking, the cheating, the jealousy... it wore me down. This is the way it has to be. And you know what? The last three relationships I had were ruined because I couldn't stop talking about him to my new boyfriends. They got sick of hearing me bring him up. That's how bad it is for me."

I thought of how Eve would tell me about Dick, her ex, and how he hated my guts-- not because of anything I did to him, but because she incessantly brought me up to him when they were together. I also thought of how Eve would bring him up to me, as if to test my patience concerning him.

I also thought of how I often did that to girlfriends, exhuming the ghosts of my romantic past and unwittingly driving them crazy.

And then I felt good. I was glad that she had told me about her true love, and I was glad that she helped me to understand my own situation with what could be considered my own true love.

"Thank you, " I said. "Your story has helped me to finally get it through my head."

I hugged her. She hugged me back.

Both my good and bad sides were equally perplexed.

*/*

Like I said, my girl and I have a lot in common.

Since we met on the last day of February 2007, she and I have taken a long, slow but steady journey into each other's lives, minds and hearts. The courtship ended up being worth every minute of my time, and now she and I have found a love that neither of us has ever experienced before with anyone else.

Just as I will never stop loving Eve, so will she never forget the impact her own version of Eve had on her.

But that does not mean that we are lost, or that we are ruined for others.

No, what it means is that now that we have undergone a deep love affair that failed with someone else, we both have the wisdom and the strength to try it again with someone new.

Not everyone gets that second chance, that rare opportunity to get it right, the way it should've been done the first time.

We've paid our dues. It's time for the both of us to collect on our investments.

love is pain

2007-08-14T02:50:00.000-07:00

"Have you ever wanted to join the circus? Now's your chance. The Midnight Ridazz Circus is back in town. Los Angeles' monthly traveling group of clowns will be taking over the streets and showing the city how to have some fun..."

Or so the website promised.

My girl works at a coffee shop in Hollywood where hipsters like Leonard Cohen have been known to stop and get a cup of joe, and among the various regulars that inhabit the shop are people who invite her to participate in activities such as the above-mentioned urban sojourn.

On paper or in theory, these events sound cool. Really cool. However, being the jaded Angeleno that I am, my feelings about such endeavors is as follows:

1) I very rarely get in on the ground floor of anything worth doing early on, and therefore by the time I've heard of things like the midnight bicycle rides they have already reached a critical mass or some sort of peak; in other words, I'm always a tourist or a Johnny-Come-Lately. It's the main reason why I never got around to going to Burning Man: it was just too late for me to get on board that bandwagon.

2) As the word gets around and the buzz grows, these types of events take on a weight of their own. I fear the collective unconscious of the mob in any incarnation, whether it be a rock concert or a Nuremberg rally or a midnight bike run totaling over 1,000 riders... especially in Los Angeles, the birthplace of Road Rage.

In short, I didn't think it was a good idea to ride bicycles at night while dressed up like clowns and pissing off motorists in a city where people live and die by their automobiles.

Don't get me wrong-- it sounded awesome. It probably was awesome the first few times it was accomplished. But it's not a well-kept secret anymore, and the anarchic novelty seemed to have worn off even before I became enamored of it.

But who am I to spoil her fun? She asked me to go, I declined (citing musical obligations and my lack of a working bicycle as reasons) and she went ahead anyway.

I wished her well, told her to drive safe (as I always say to anyone I see driving away from me) and instructed her to call me as soon as she was done or if she decided to change her mind.

*/*

I received a call on my cel phone around a quarter past midnight.

I was busy recording vocals with some friends, and so the phone was turned off. When the session was done, I turned on the phone and heard one of my girl's coffeehouse patrons leaving me a voice message:

"She's OK... she had a nasty fall... very aggressive vibe out here tonight, I think she bit off more than she could chew... we're at the hospital right now... I'll try calling you later and let you know what her status is..."

He didn't leave a callback number. I began to panic. I called around, looking for anyone who might have her friend's phone number. I called her cel phone a few times but no one picked up.

Finally, she answered the phone. She was indeed OK, but she was going to require a few stitches on her chin. When she fell off the bike, she landed face first on the pavement. Her chin was cut wide open, and she had to be forced by her friend to visit the ER at Cedar-Sinai for treatment.

I raced over to the hospital. I was so glad she was alright. But before I left, she said to me over the phone that she hoped this wouldn't ruin our plans for the next day.

It was Friday night, and sometime on Saturday we were supposed to attend my little sister's wedding in Santa Barbara. I was going to introduce my girl to my family for the first time.

*/*

I was late to the ceremony.

I arrived at Butterfly Beach in Montecito just as the vows were finished. I caught the wedding procession as they walked on the sand of the shore.

I saw my niece, the flower girl... she was crying. She is such an emotional little 8 year-old.

I mingled with the guests, most of them close friends and immediate family. I went over to my sister and hugged her and apologized for my lateness. She asked me where my girl was, and I told her (and everyone else repeatedly throughout the evening) the story of her bike accident.

My mother seemed disappointed that my girl was unable to make it. But her disappointment was nothing compared to the complex emotions I was feeling at that moment.

I was angry at my girl for going on the ride and effectively taking herself out of the wedding plans, denying me the chance to show her off to my family.

I was angry at her coffee shop friend for taking her along when she was clearly in over her head-- she didn't even own a bike! The vehicle she crashed on was a loaner, totally not suited to her petite frame.

I was angry at my sister for marrying a man who I disliked, even as I had to grudgingly respect his work ethic and good intentions.

I was just angry, but more than that-- I was confused. And maybe my lateness was an unconscious attempt on my part to somehow gain control over a situation-- no, situations --that went far beyond my grasp.

*/*

The night before I had a strange dream whose meaning was not lost on me.

I dreamed that I was in a church, walking my sister down the aisle... only it wasn't my sister-- it was my girl. And not only that, but I was giving her away, as the father of the bride does in traditional ceremonies.

Who was I giving her away to? Me, of course. I was the groom as well.

I don't think it takes a scholar to interpret the anxious meaning behind that particular dream.

*/*

By the end of the night, I was happy again.

My girl was OK, at home with pain meds in her system; My little sister, whom I helped raise as if she were my own daughter, was ecstatic as the two respective families became one; my mother was happy to see me in attendance, and I had forgotten about the intensity of my irrational emotions earlier in the day.

There are some things in this life that we cannot control, obviously. I have always had a problem relinquishing control of certain things, and this past weekend was the culmination of my deepest fears regarding the important women in my life.

I told my girl about my strange dream, and she found that it wasn't so strange at all.

"I'm your friend, so that's like your sister. And I'm your lover now. Sometimes I'm like your mother, but I'm like a daughter to you also. I can see why you had that dream. It must be hard for you to let go of so much in such a short time."

Here she was, telling me how hard it must be for me... as her wrist was wrapped in a sling and her delicate chin was bandaged and bruised and her body ached from the impact of her dismount.

I hugged her and kissed her head, and whispered, "I'm just glad you weren't seriously hurt. You don't know how badly I freaked out when I got that message. You could've been killed."

"Yeah, but I'm fine now."

"I know... I know..."

I did not let her go. I held her in my arms until we both fell asleep in her bed.

my girl

2007-07-31T19:08:00.000-07:00

Not to sound chauvinistic, but I was ready to go to San Francisco at 7pm on a Friday night while she was hardly packed. But it really wasn't her fault: she had an unexpected visit from a friend of hers.

A tall, skinny guy named Gibby showed up out of the blue, bemoaning his lot in life: the place he'd been staying had been raided, and although his father had recently passed away and left him a sizable inheritance, he had no means to cash his check. He was also trying to kick a bad glass-smoking addiction.

Gibby looked me over jealously. He didn't know she'd been seeing me. I, in turn, sized him up and down and got a decidedly bad vibe from him. There's an old saying: "You can't con a con man." However, I didn't say anything because I knew it would sound as if I were merely jealous instead of aware of this guy's bullshit.

We finally got on the road close to midnight. I had to call Rose, my friend up north, and tell her that we would probably make it into town by the morning. This gave us time to drive at a leisurely pace, stopping every now and then to eat, use the restroom, and gaze at the night stars as we made our journey to the Bay Area, a part of California that my girl had never been to before.

We arrived around El Cerrito by the sunrise. She and I were so excited to be out of Los Angeles that when Rose gave us a bed to rest, we only slept for two hours.

*/*

Over breakfast, she and I were loopy and delirious. Rose was as accommodating as she could be but I could tell she was sort of put-off by my girl's distracted manner of conversation.

As we waited for my girl to finish up in the restroom, Rose (whom I'd had a short-lived crush on when I first met her the previous August) said to me with a brave face, "She's... nice."

"I know she seems a bit odd," I said, "but I really dig her."

"Have you two... you know... have you--"

"No, not yet. And to be honest, I'm in no hurry."

"Wow, I guess you do dig her then!"

"Absolutely."

After breakfast, we all took the BART out to the city. We had lunch near the Embarcadero at a diner named Fog City. Then Rose took us to the COIT Tower by way of The Steps, a long and circuitous stairway with quite a scenic view of the Bay. We marveled at the mural painted along the inside of the tower, and it was while I was taking photographs for posterity that I noticed Rose and my girl were getting along, having a normal conversation based on art and beauty.

We made out way to City Lights, the famed Beat bookstore formerly owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I was astonished that, in all my past visits to SF, I had never paid a visit to this remarkable historical monument: after all, this was the location of the first public reading of Allen Ginsberg's legendary epic poem "Howl".

I looked all over for a book by Alfred Jarry-- not a play or a biography, but a work of fiction, something very rare by my normally obscure standards. Just when I had exhausted all hope of finding one, I spied a column of books in the "Surrealism" section that I had not perused. Sure enough, there within its volumes was a slender tome by Jarry entitled The Supermale, a richly comic science-fantasy concerning Perpetual Motion Food, bicycle racing and alcohol imbibing.

To celebrate, we stopped in at Spec's, a hip bar across the way from City Lights. The atmosphere was downright "writerly": An argument between the barkeep and a patron was the first thing I noticed when we walked in; a man looking like a cross between Guns 'N' Roses guitarist Slash and Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula (top hat and all) sat by himself in the far back, nursing an ungodly concoction; an old bluesman played for tips outside the front of the establishment, hitting every note and making his axe cry with ecstatic tremolo.

I bought the ladies a round and poked my nose into the Jarry book, as Rose and my girl giggled at my boyish enthusiasm for my rather extraordinary find.

Before we ventured back to Rose's place, we stopped off in Chinatown and ate a sumptuous meal. It was a bit on the expensive side, but we were all feeling very decadent and figured that life was too short to squabble over petty monetary restrictions.

*/*

The next morning, my girl and I joined Rose for one last breakfast before we made the trip back to Los Angeles. I dropped her off in time to get to work, then I went home and slept.

The following week was filled with passion and intimacy, fueled on by the success of our SF getaway. Before the end of the week, she and I consummated our love with an evening spent at my flat. We painted on a canvas and smoked and drank and I wrote some of my novel as she washed loads of her laundry for free in my washroom.

Then she spent the night with me, and it was everything I ever hoped and expected.

*/*

Gibby, meanwhile, was trying to weasel his way back into her graces. But she had already caught him in two lies: one, his father had not really passed away; two, his former home had not been raided. By the time she figured these out, however, he absconded off with her Mac laptop computer.

This would not stand, not with me nor her roommate Mitch nor Brotherman, who immediately accompanied Mitch and I as we made a trek to retrieve the laptop from the place he was staying at in the hills of Los Feliz.

We didn't get the laptop back that night, but we put such a scare into the owner of the place that he contacted Gibby and urged him to return the computer to its rightful owner.

Within 24 hours, the laptop was back in her possession.

My girl could not thank the three of us enough. She had learned a hard lesson, but it was something she had to find out for herself. It would have made no difference had Mitch and I voiced our opinions to her, because she would've merely dismissed them as overprotective ramblings from the two most important men in her life.

I have to always remember that she is ten years younger than me, and although she possess much wisdom she is also headstrong and fiercely independent. I have to learn to be patient, and to not judge her or make her feel badly when she uses bad judgment, such as in the case of Gibby.

*/*

Last night, as I held her in my arms and watched A Clockwork Orange on DVD with her in her bed, I told my girl that I loved her and she told me that she loved me too.

We marveled at the short time we've known each other.

It is marvelous because we feel like we have known each other all of our respective lives.

I feel like I have waited for this girl to arrive ever since I was a young boy.

She said to me that I make her feel like a young girl again.

Never in my life have I felt such passion, and yet I also know that she is my best friend, and my partner in crime, and my perfect mate.

She is my girl. I am her man.

We are going to be together for as long as it takes.

I have a feeling it will be something close to forever.

Or am I just being silly?

Whatever. All I know is how she makes me feel, and how I make her feel.

That is all I want to know.

partner in crime

2007-07-20T02:01:00.000-07:00

We're getting out of this city for the weekend.

I proposed San Francisco a few weeks back. She asked me why and I replied, "Just for the fuck of it."

Likewise, when I asked her earlier today if there was anything in particular she wanted to see or do in SF (a city to which she, a D.C. transplant, has never been) her reply was, "Yeah. Get the fuck out of L.A. for a few days."

I nodded in agreement.

*/*

You know that annoying little thing that couples always bring up about how they finish each other's sentences and think each other's thoughts at the same time?

Well, I'm afraid that she and I are a part of that annoying club. I noticed it from the first few multi-hour phone conversations we had after we first really met and chatted. I didn't want to say anything about it at the time, but she ended up bring that fact to the light after the first phone talk anyway.

Her comment on the phenomenon was one of surprise and astonishment. It wasn't a cheesy observation but rather a stark matter of fact. We both acknowledged the weirdness of it all, but we didn't let it dictate our budding friendship.

I love talking to her. One on one, our talks are easy and simple and yet disarmingly ornate. When the two of us start talking with others, though, we tend to get more intense: we laugh too much, or skip tangents too much, or rant too much. We end up scaring people. This makes us smile at each other because we both see it in the other and instead of letting it overwhelm us we decide that it would be better if it exhilarated us.

I can see how this would seem annoying to outsiders. But I don't care. Neither does she. And that settles it.

*/*

The truck I am driving belonged to my father before it ended up in my care. It's great, except the stereo needs to be swapped out. Right now only the radio tuner works. It used to have a working tape player but that is busted.

Music is a big factor for me as a driver. Hell, the only thing that kept me attached to my old car was that, despite its age and condition, the stereo kicked ass. Towards the end, though, the speakers blew and the CD player started to skip my albums more frequently. But it was loud, and I had a choice of what to listen to, so it made up for its drawbacks in spades.

As she and I planned our upcoming trip, she asked if we were taking the truck. When I confirmed it, she stared off into space for a second then said, "I'm bringing my boombox." I nodded in agreement, as I often do in her presence.

She looked at me again and said, "Sorry, I know you're a fabulous conversationalist, but after a while we're gonna need some fresh tunes. No offense."

I grinned. "None taken. It's an excellent idea. I would've done it had you not just pointed it out. You're on top of it, kid."

She smiled. She likes it when I think her ideas are sound. And I like her ideas because most of the time they are sane and sensible.

And the times when her ideas are totally insane and nonsensical? I like those too.

*/*

She was the one who coined the phrase "partner in crime".

Obviously, I don't mean that she was the first ever person in the history of persons to use that terminology. Rather, I mean that (in regards to what it is that we have) she was the first of us to say that designation out loud.

I thought about it often, but she gave voice to it first. And once again, I'm nodding that big ol' head of mine like a worn-out Bobble Head. But that analogy paints a despairing picture, when the reality is that I'm more than happy to go along with what she says. She doesn't boss me around or force it on me. I accept it all because (as she stated a while back) I am finally ready for all of it.

So that's what we are: partners in crime. And sometimes we kiss and snuggle, but mostly we just make each other laugh and seek out adventures.

That's cool with me.

I'm nodding in agreement as I type this.

And that settles it.

how we met (a blurry remembrance)

2007-07-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

The end of February. No leap year this time around-- the 28th would be the final act, not only for the second month but for the club that became a home away from home for me and my band.

Talk about a low point: Eve was gone and her memory lingered everywhere; my desperate attempts to replace her with other women sank like stones in a river; and now the establishment that let us play anytime we wanted was going the way of the do-do bird...

When remembering it, I told her that I was in a drunken haze, surveying the room, and my eyes stopped and focused on her as she sat next to me in a booth. The way she recalls it, the guitarist introduced me to her in a tone of voice that expressed a quiet urgency, as if it were vital that we meet. I don't remember the introduction, but it's just as well because we talked and we talked and we talked and we talked...

And by the time I was having to get up and drive to work, I resolved to obtain her phone number. As I asked her for the number, I told her how much I enjoyed the talk, and apologized if she was already taken by someone else but I just had to speak to her again...

Eve and the club are long gone, but the girl I met that night is still around, and I am still amazed that it happened the way it did. I will never stop marveling at it.

peacock gothic chic

2007-07-16T02:04:00.000-07:00

Grey overcast clouds
gather and form
a billowy sash pillowcase...

Shadows chase the light rays away...

A sleepy Monday buried deep
beneath the L.A. fog..

I'm trying to jog my memory
and recall if I ever felt
this way
about anyone else at all...

Too good to be true?

That's the only label
I can apply to you
since you defy all definitions
and fill me with strange premonitions
of what is meant to happen
and the reasons which madden and
sadden me...

Your style is peacock Gothic chic
chock full of locks with no keys
so low-key and with a
smoky antique vintage technique...

Where in your world is a place
for a poor boy who succumbs
to the whirlpool pearls of
every girl he surveys?

I'm tired of letting myself be
led on and tread upon
so from now on until
the dead of dawn
I won't dwell upon how long
the others have been gone
and I will get on with living
this ladyluck life of mine...

But still
I feel a chill
trilling its tendrils tenderly and
gently up and down my spine...

Is it a thrilling sign?
Or am I just killing time?

I'm diligently hoping
that it will all be fine...

--from April 2007

murphy lawless

2007-07-06T01:19:00.000-07:00

Talk to the majority of working (or practicing) musicians today and 9 times out of 10 you'll hear them voice their opinion on how terrible modern music is, and how "bubble-gum" the content of mainstream Top 40 pop charts can be, and how the LCD (Lowest Common Denominator) prevails over quality and craftmanship in today's music scene.

I sometimes agree with those musicians. But then there are times when I revel in the crass kitsch, the vapid garbage and pap of an LCD culture, where only the catchiest and stupidest hooks are remembered and honored. These songs happen to be my guilty pleasures: a tune like N'Sync's "It's Gonna Be Me" or S Club 7's "Never Had A Dream Come True" are embarrassing and potentially cred-wrecking, but I know and recognize a well-written pop confection when I hear it.

Maybe nowadays such songs are completely lacking in meaning and purpose, but the test of time is the ultimate arbiter of how long their impact will last... which is why I find myself reveling even more in the pop cultural trash of yesteryear.

Tommy James and the Shondells' "Monie Monie" was pop bubblegum crap. So was The Toys' "Lover's Concerto" and half of The Supremes' (and all of Phil Spector's) output. But in my opinion, the greatest of all of these teeny-bopper phenoms was from a band that didn't even exist when their first-- and best known --single was released.

The band was eventually called Steam, and they hit the top of the charts with a little ditty you might recognize as "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye".

*/*

Another thing that musicians will tell you is that the song the band hates the most or views as having the least potential is usually the one that will bring said band its greatest success and longest lasting rewards.

Every band I've been in had that one song that none of us could really stomach. Of course, because of my compassionate nature I often was the only person in a group who'd even give a certain tune a chance, to which the others responded by accusing me of having a crack habit or having no real mental capacity of my own.

The irony of this situation was that no one had a problem with the song when it was first composed and rehearsed. The resentment towards any given song was acquired through repeated performances.

We'd go out on stage and play, and various members of the crowd familiar with our music (calling them fans is grossly inaccurate) would request the very song or songs that we found to be laughable. And if we were in a good mood and feeling adventurous, we'd comply... and the crowd would go nuts every time.

Seriously. I ain't bullshittin'.

*/*

Anyway, back to a band called Steam for a minute:

There was once a group called The Chateaus who were signed for a hot minute to Warner Bros in the early '60s. Their album sunk like a stone and none of their singles made a dent in the Top 100, so they were unceremoniously dropped from the label.

Years passed, and one of the guys from The Chateaus, Paul Leka, made it semi-big while working as a producer for a subsidiary of Mercury Records. As a favor to his old friend Gary De Carlo, The Chateau's old singer, Leka landed DeCarlo a contract with Mercury and soon the two recruited a third holdover from the Chateau days, session musician Dale Frashuer, to work on some singles for DeCarlo, who changed his name to Garrett Scott.

(Personally, I think Gary DeCarlo is a better stage name than Garrett Scott, but then again what did these guys know in the first place? But before I get ahead of myself...)

To make a long story short, after the singles were cut the trio felt they needed some B-side material. They didn't want to create more songs of equal caliber to the A-sides; they didn't want the throwaways competing with the songs they worked hardest on, so they pulled an all-nighter, put some coffee on the burner, and dug up a song from their days as The Chateaus called "Kiss Him Goodbye".

The production was slapdash and lacking in any real artistic intention, the product of considerable neglect: the drum track was lifted from a completely different song on a separate master tape; no other musicians were brought in to freshen up the song other than Paul Leka and Dale Frashuer's musical contributions, Garrett Scott's vocals, and group handclaps/chanting; due to a paucity of lyrics, the now-legendary "na na na na, hey hey, good-bye" was tacked on as an afterthought because they needed the song to be longer; and basically the three men made every conscious effort to make it as "inferior" to the proposed A-side single as possible, going so far as to call themselves Steam in order to distance themselves from their Frankenstein monster/redheaded stepchild of a song... Funny, though, how their names were clearly listed on the songwriting credits-- they weren't that stupid...

The three ex-Chateaus truly felt that the four songs they crafted for Garrett Scott were far superior to "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye". Imagine their shock and chagrin when the A&R guys at Mercury chose it to be the lead single. And also imagine how crazy it must've seemed when the single went to Number One in December of 1969, at the height of the hippie Flower Power movement.

Eventually, Garrett Scott bailed on plans to create a real band named Steam that would tour the world in support of this fluke of a hit record; most likely he was disgusted at the fact that the other four tracks they'd concocted under his stage name didn't even chart. Still, those royalty payments must've made some difference, because he contributed to a full-length Steam album to capitalize on the success of "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye". It was the type of album where every other song has "na na na na hey hey" automatically written into its hook somewhere.

*/*

I read about this story online recently, and it made me laugh to no end. I love stories like this, which is why I was such a sucker for VH1's Behind The Music series. And as much as I am all for artistic integrity, at the same time you have to hand it to the business end of the music industry: while it is true that there is no real formula for repeated hit-making success, the moneymen usually have a great ear for what's going to sell and not necessarily what is great art.

We must learn to forgive the schlockmeisters when they have the gall and hubris to tell the Bob Dylans and Bruce Springsteens and Peter Gabriels of the world how to market and record their records-- these men (and many others like them) need no interference from A&R people to make both their fans happy and their money back at the same time. However, let's not forget that the schlockmeisters also manage to get at least one hit out of it all, and that's plenty enough for some people... especially if your old band failed and you received a second chance to find glory and riches like Paul Leka and company.

After all, as much as I enjoy quality music and artists with great talent and skill, I also enjoy mindless pop songs like "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" because they aren't pretentious in the slightest. When I'm at a sporting event or in a crowd of people, who wants to chant "Like A Rolling Stone"? Hell, how many people other than me even know all the words to that one?

I've got the Steam song on an endless loop on my computer as I write this. I will never tire of it. It's a classic tune, and those three guys from Bridgeport, Connecticut who pulled it out their asses one night in 1969 should be proud of themselves.

Indeed, if I ever got the chance to meet them, I'd love to shake their hands and buy them each a beer.

fondness

2007-07-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

Friday night: She accompanied me to my friend's home studio, where she was inspired by my slap-happy rapping over sinister-sounding hip-hop beats to write a rap of her own. It was a cute and sincere gesture. She ended up on the chorus of the song before the upstairs neighbor complained about the noise, promptly ending the session at 3 AM. She and I ended up at Sitton's in North Hollywood, talking over coffee and breakfast.

Saturday morning: We had plans to visit Griffith Observatory, leftover form the date date two weeks ago. I didn't sleep at all, catching a catnap here and there before making my way out her. We ate Fruity Pebbles cereal, watched Chappelle's Show on DVD, and caught the Metro Rail from Santa Monica & Vermont to Hollywood & Highland where the Observatory Shuttle Depot was located. Once we made the arduous, winding trek up the mountains to the top of the hill where the Observatory resided lazily like a bloated king teetering on his dilapidated throne, we bought tickets for the Planetarium show and smoked our cigarettes with style.

The docent narrating the Planetarium show was unintentionally funny, her radio-savvy voice lacing the properly enunciated program text with not-so-subtle passages of melodramatic overacting. This caused us to laugh mischievously, like disobedient children snickering in church.

But the show was marvelous. We left shortly afterward.

Saturday afternoon: We returned to her house. I napped some more as she draped fabrics over a mannequin. Then, she asked me if I wanted to go to Goodwill and shop for vintage/used clothing. I consented. It turned out that there was a three-day sale on all clothing items: $3 each, a price you couldn't beat even at Goodwill. Neither of us had known about the sale in advance, so it was a pleasant surprise. She chose jeans for me to try on, and I trusted her taste (being that she works in the fashion industry) and what's more: I did not resent her for it. Later on she told me that the reason why I listened to her was because I was finally ready for what she had to offer, which made me wonder how she knew that I was not ready in the past, well before I ever met her.

As the day began to fade, she took me to an Indian restaurant on Melrose. She had a coupon for a two-for-the-price-of-one dinner. Over the chicken and lamb entrees, I told her about my novel. She knows me primarily as a musician and an artist, but not really as a writer (raps notwithstanding). I discovered that she used to write when she was younger. From past experiences with other girls I could tell that she wanted to ask me if she could read my work but was too shy or afraid to ask. Instead, she approached it in her charming, direct-yet-indirect manner by demanding a chapter all about her... to which I replied, "I'll write an entire book about you..."

Smooth, eh? I suppose, but I meant it with every square inch of my soul and being.

Saturday evening: We drove out to see the Wolf Man, a fitting visit to make considering there was a full moon in the sky. The both of us were also aware that Mercury has been in retrograde for some time, but what was truly amazing was how perfect our Saturday was turning out for us. Everything we did worked out the way it was supposed to work out, and it was not lost on us.

Wolfie had some Salvia divinorum on him. I consented to give it a shot but warned him that a previous attempt on my part to try the legal hallucinogen was bunk. She and I both partook of it shortly after Wolf had showed us the method, and within seconds I felt slanted, angular, my imagination burning and my eyes pulsating with psychedelic purpose. The TV stand morphed with the coffee table, and she and Wolf seemed to morph into both the coffee table and my cigarette smoke.

Then, after five minutes, the trip wore off. For the rest of the night I felt brain-boggled. She told me that (in her trip) she forgot who we were, and only snapped out of it after she remembered that we'd done it also. Meanwhile, Wolf Man was baked, having done it every night after work for an entire week. To cool down, I produced a joint, and we all laughed and drank wine and talked into the late night, on to the early morning, her banshee laughter trickling up and down my spine, in behind my ears and echoing in my heart...

I dropped her off at home, and left only after kissing her and holding her in my arms for as long as I could muster. But I knew I had to go home-- I could not stay. I needed to sleep in my own bed. I needed to unwind on my own. She needed to get rested apart from me.

That way, when I saw her the next evening, the fondness we feel for each other would blossom in the wake of our respective absences...

Last Saturday was one of the best Saturdays I've ever spent in my life. I pray that it was not the peak, but merely the beginning of something I cannot predict nor imagine.

karma's a bitch

2007-06-28T01:00:00.001-07:00

On my way to my friend Xalox B's pad to make some music I had to stop and take a leak.

I saw a Carl's Jr. and I pulled in. I know that Carl's Jr. restaurants have open bathrooms where you don't have to pay to use them or buy something in order to be buzzed in... I'm sure that in the seedier parts of town where homeless people abound and use the men's room as their personal grooming spot there might be some protective measures, but this was the Valley and I'd used the john at this particular fast-food joint before.

I did my business and got inside my new truck. Technically, it's not new: my dad gave it to me as a gift when he bought himself a newer truck. But he kept it in great condition, and even though it's a '99 it runs fine. It sure beats the hell out of the junker I was driving a month ago!

I was about to start the engine and back out and resume my drive when I noticed an empty soda can in my cup holder. I wanted to get rid of it and put my brand new pre-paid cel phone in its place.

Normally, I would just open the door and let the can drop on the ground and drive away without a care in the world. Yes, I'm a litterbug. I know this about myself. As far as I'm concerned, any place where there's cement and pavement and concrete and blacktop is already ruined, so unless I'm in the woods close to nature and one with Mother Earth, I really don't care about throwing my trash anywehre I want.

Anyway, as I was about to sin against the environment I noticed a trash can only a few feet away. For some reason, I told myself that this time I should not be lazy and just get up, walk over to the trash and drop the soda can in like a good boy. I mean, it was only a few feet, right?

So I did the deed, but when I tried to get back into the truck I discovered I'd locked myself out, with my cel phone and wallet on the inside.

You see, I have this compulsion with locking the doors to any vehicle I drive. I am constantly reminding any passengers that accompany me to lock their doors. I guess in this day and age, where most cars have automatic door locks and such, most people have forgotten how to lock the door when they exit a vehicle. I say this because I have to remind nearly everyone who is with me to do this one simple task. It's not asking a lot, is it?

Unfortunately, my compulsion backfired on me. I found myself wondering how I was going to get into my truck in the parking lot. I asked some people if they had Slim Jims or change so I could use the phone and maybe call someone to pick me up and take me back to my place, where the spare key was buried beneath oodles of knick-knacks in my coffee table drawer. No one helped out, and I started to panic a little.

I decided to try and see if I could somehow force the lock on the cab's sliding glass rear window to open. I pushed on it with my right hand. I didn't want to break the glass-- I just wanted to put enough pressure to cause the plastic lock to burst open, therefore allowing me to enter the truck and open the door.

Instead, I hit it a tad too hard. The glass from one of the sliding panels broke, and before I knew it my right forearm was bleeding.

My first thought was, "Well, at least it's open!" I unlocked the passenger side door. Then I entered the cab and grabbed the keys. I took out some fast-food napkins I had stored in the glove compartment and applied them to my wound. It wasn't a big cut, but it went deeper than I desired. I could see the white meat underneath my skin as I tried to stop the bleeding.

I surveyed the mess inside the cab: Glass was on the dashboard, the seat, the floor... everywhere. I pulled the ugly seat cover that my dad had left (the one I'd been intending to remove for some time now) and pulled the part that covered the back over the seat. I had no time to clean up the mess, and besides I was going to take it to a car wash later this week. They can vacuum it up for me. I just needed to be able to drive without tiny shards of glass poking at my bottom.

The bleeding hadn't stopped, and I contemplated just going straight home to see if I could clean the mess up and bandage my wound. But I figured that once it was all over, I'd get depressed and angry and not want to do anything, and just stew in my idiocy and regret until it was time to go to work. So instead I drove over to Xalox B's place like I had planned, but not before stopping at a liquor store and buying some Band-Aids and a garbage bag for the gaping hole in my rear window.

The music-making did make me feel better, but I went outside every now and then to check up on the truck, to make sure it wasn't stolen. I'd taken all of the valuables inside it and jammed them into my briefcase, which I took with me. Still, I wanted to be certain that no one would get a bright idea and break into the ride for any reason.

So now I'm here at work, going outside every hour to see if the truck is still there. I have enough cash saved up to find a place in the morning that'll fix up the window for cheap, and then I'll get the car washed and have all the glass removed.

But I definitely feel like this is karma for my littering ways. The one time I decided to be a Good Samaritan turned into a total disaster. I joked to Xalox that I was never going to throw trash in the proper receptacles ever again, but really it seems to me that if I'd made it a habit of doing that in the first place this might've been prevented.

Or maybe it was inevitable. Since I started driving this truck, I've wondered what I would do if my keys got locked inside. I was too lazy to pull out the spare key and get one of those key magnets that you can attach to the underside of a car in case something like this occurs. Plus, I now know how easy it is to break into my truck-- maybe an alarm is in order, at least as a deterrent?

Either way, I still feel dumb about the whole thing. I can laugh about it later on, but for now I can't help but beat myself up over it. I guess that's how karma is, eh? Sometimes we need to learn things the hard way before it turns into a more expensive lesson further on down the road.

OK, so I'm done venting. I got work to do, and then when my shift is done I've got more work to do. I suppose it could've been worse, but then again an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, or so the saying goes.

The moral of the story: Don't litter.

date date

2007-06-18T00:05:00.000-07:00

The date date turned out to be less formal than I anticipated, which was good because that was the whole reason why I never asked her out on a date date to begin with-- I am the type of guy who starts off hanging out with a girl and by the end of the night it has become a date date. Likewise, I have gone out on what I thought were date dates only to discover (to my chagrin) that the girl brought a friend along, thus invalidating the whole notion of a romantic night out. (For those who think life is all about threesomes, please bear in mind that I never have and never will have a threesome of ANY kind with anyone)

I put my best foot forward: I made plans for us to go to the newly-refurbished Griffith Observatory, and then later on to dinner at a nice restaurant. By mid-week, however, she had amended the plans as follows: watching a movie at the Hollywood Cemetery, and then a quick trip downtown for a friend's birthday bash at the Blue Star Cafe, where various loud punk bands were slated to play.

I was cool with the last-minute changes. It meant less money for me to spend and a more casual atmosphere. But it would still be a date date.

*/*

She likes drugs just as much as I do.

I scored some Ecstasy from one of my connections-- two Blue Boys, laced with smack and mild when taken in single doses.

It's probably not wise to center a relationship around illicit drug use, but we understand each other: she is just as fucked in the head as I am. We make no excuses-- we both like being high on chemicals. We are not out of control with it, and we both have had past loves who made a huge issue out of our casual indifference to the side effects of such mind-altering benders.

Friday night, she was upset: an argument with her roommate over money. She called me up and asked me to whisk her away. I told her I was making hip-hop beats with my homeboys in the Valley. We gave her directions and she drove out from Hollywood to hang out with the posse.

The fellas took to her instantly. She fit right in with the boy's club element. She's a rap fan, and she was impressed by my rapping skills. She made fair critiques and encouraging comments. She even went with me on a drug run in the thick of the night.

She's my partner in crime... what can I say?

*/*

I was a little stressed out over making the movie on time. I'd tried twice in the past two years to attend a screening at the Hollywood Cemetery and both times I was shut down because we arrived too late or things got too complicated. I was hoping that the third time would be the charm.

She teased me about my impatience. "You were all worried," she said to me as I parked the truck a block away from the line that was forming quickly. "'It's ten past five!' We made it OK, didn't we?"

Norally, I would get upset at this. But she had a point. "Hey, if it weren't for me pushing things along, it might've taken longer."

"Well, I am known for being late a lot. Still, I knew we'd be OK."

"I know... Believe me, I showed a lot of restraint. I'm way more impatient than that!"

"You worry too much," she said as she smiled, waiting for my reply.

"Maybe it was a perfect mix of my timeliness and your relaxed nature... it balanced itself out."

"Maybe."

Like me, she had been trying to get out to Santa Monica and Bronson for many years, but when she first arrived in Los Angeles her job schedule had her working on Saturdays. This was the first time she was able to actually come out and see what the fuss was all about. We brought a blanket, a picnic basket filled with wine and cheese and biscuits and chocolates and other snacks... and the Blue Boys.

I was happy. She was happy. We were both happy.

*/*

We kept laughing throughout the entire screening. Rebel Without A Cause, James Dean and Natalie Wood. A classic. Hays Code hilarity ensued: Sal Mineo as Plato, all but prancing and screaming and proclaiming his gaiety; Wood's strange affection for her father (who calls her "glamour puss" at one point); Jim Backus as Mr. Stark, the father of troubled rebel Jim, wearing an apron and cowering before his ball-busting wife...

We cheered as the scene set at the Griffith Observatory appeared on the screen. Both of us knew we would be there together very soon, and the thought excited us beyond belief.

A couple sitting in front of us sat down as the movie started. The woman threw her fake fur coat on the ground, landing on one of my boots.

We looked at each other, wondering where this woman got the nerve to do such a thing. I began to mash my boots into her coat while paraphrasing (under my breath) a line from the infamous Rick James episode of Chappelle's Show.

"Fuck your coat, bitch! Fuck your coat!"

We were in hysterics. The woman did not notice my subterfuge... but she did notice the piece of moldy cheese that I threw onto her coat shortly after I muddied her fur with my boots.

Rebel Without A Cause indeed...

*/*

We threw the picnic basket in the bed of my truck and drove out to Downtown, where the Blue Star Cafe was located. The Blue Boys had us amped but not batty, and the drive was elegant and easy.

We arrived just in time to see a punk band called Soccer Mom take to the stage. They were the last band to play that night. We greeted Andy, the birthday boy and bash organizer, who'd turned 25 and felt old but not too old.

One of her former boyfriends was there. He is a great guy, and he did not trip out on me and her. He has respect for women and respect for their choices. I always thought he was a cool guy when he was a regular at the Lava Lounge, and he proved it again that evening.

The singer was out-of-control, downing brews and spitting out lyrics with mad-banshee intensity. Her band was tighter than an accountant on Tax Day. They covered a Prince song-- one of my all-time favorites --and I sang along. The singer handed me the mike on the chorus,and I did not disappoint.

The beers we drank had no real effect on us. After the show, we drove back to her place where she fell asleep on the couch and I draped her over my shoulder once again (this has become a ritual for us) and tucked her into bed. I joined in for a little spooning and fell asleep pretty fast.

*/*

The morning lights came, and Marvin the cat (my gift to her) was resting on my chest, purring ebulliently as I glanced over at the clock to see what time it was before rising and gathering my affects. It was now Father's Day, and I had to go make the rounds and pay my respects.

I kissed her before I left, and promised her I would stop by the coffeehouse before I went in to work later on. We both admitted that we had a wonderful time, and we are looking forward to Griffith Observatory at the end of the month.

I know this doesn't sound like the typical date that most people go on, but for people like us it was magical and romantic and joyous. It had all the intimacy and elements of a proper date, but skewed beyond recognition by our respective hang-ups and vices.

In short, it was perfect, and I'd do it all again if given the chance.

feline

2007-06-05T02:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes she looks like Louise Brooks. I think it is intentional on her part.

I am completely enamored by everything she has to offer, but one of the top things I find adorable is her sense of style. She transforms her wardrobe into a malleable canvas that expresses and articulates her feelings and emotions.

She is an artist when it comes to fashion.

Her taste is not to everyone's liking, but I find it impeccable and intelligent.

Her job has her springing about town, looking for vintage materials from which to fashion and forge new creations. In the course of her travels she will find something that she personally likes, and she will keep it for herself or give it to someone she thinks might be able to use it.

She found two shirts for me, both of them to be worn on stage when I play a show. I would have never picked these shirts out myself, because my fashion sense is muted and limited. I am comfortable with blacks and greys and blue-collar jackets and scruffy boots and baggy pants.

But she knows what looks good, and I absolutely love the shirts she found for me.

I think I like the fact that she was thinking of me more than the actual shirts, but truth be told: those shirts are mighty dandy.

*/*

The Wolf Man's 30th birthday was last week. Of course we were prepared to beak it up with some fine Bolivian marching powder, because that's what Wolfie likes to do above all.

I invited her along. She and I have been spending a lot of time together and I figured she would make great company for me, Wolf and Down Low.

She brought out a playful vibe in my two friends. If she had not tagged along, I would've undoubtedly spent most of the evening dealing with their respective pathological neuroses. Instead, we all had a blast as we drank heartily and sang karaoke at a bar & grill in Burbank.

Yes, we did karaoke. She loves it, even though her voice is abysmal. She knows how bad her singing voice is, but it doesn't stop her from trying.

And I love that about her.

When I finished my song ("Little Red Corvette" by Prince) she jumped up at me and wrapped her legs around me as I walked off the stage. She flattered me as she giggled, and the sight of her Cheshire Cat grin as she beamed at me intoxicated me with pure wonder and romantic awe.

When I told her that her karaoke song was great, she sneered and said, "You don't have to say that. I know I suck."

To which I replied, "I'm not talking about being in key. I'm talking about having guts. You go up there and you give it all you got. That's incredible."

She smiled and batted her eyelashes like Louise Brooks. Then she straightened her face and said, "I have terrible stage fright. That's why I go up and do karaoke."

I gave her a kiss on the mouth-- a gentle peck, no tongue or anything like that... not that I am averse to French kisses... it's just that the moment called for a subtle caress of her lips against mine, and that's what I delivered.

*/*

By the morning, I had already dropped her off at home and headed back to my empty apartment, where Wolfie was passed out on the last piece of furniture still inside my soon-to-be-vacated abode.

He had a great time the night before. He went on about her, how cool she was and how lucky I was to have her.

I silently recalled that Wolf had actually met her a year ago, when he was playing in the band with me. She approached him after a show and complimented him on his drumming. Then he came up to me and relayed the news to me.

I remember telling him to go find her and talk to her. He didn't.

Then a year later I bumped into her at the old hang-out, and we began to chat, and I threw all caution to the wind and asked for her number so I could continue talking to her.

As much as I am glad she and I are having fun together, I wonder what would have happened had Wolf Man listened to me when I advised him to talk to her. Part of me wishes he would've had the courage to follow through on his initial impulse.

But part of me is glad that I didn't hesitate when it was my turn to approach her. The night I talked to her for the first time I knew I had to do something or spend the rest of my night kicking myself for not taking any action.

Not a day goes by when I don't pat myself on the back for showing a little backbone.

I am still planning our date date. She is looking forward to it, and so am I. It will be a chance for me to show her more than ever how far I have fallen for her.

I gave her my cat Marvin when I moved out. Seems that he fell in love with her too! Marvin is a shy but loving cat, and when she first arrived at my house he was smitten by her. He meowed loudly and sniffed her hair and stared at her with his mandarin eyes, going so far as to sit on the top of the couch so that he could ogle her up close.

She in turn found Marvin to be irresistible. She asked me if she could have him and at first I refused, but after seeing Marvin's reaction to her I decided that it would be healthy for him to be with her. Yes, I would miss him, but I don't feel so bad knowing that he is being loved... and that he is loving his new home just as well.

It's the best thing for him, really.

three-day weekend

2007-05-30T02:23:00.000-07:00

May started off with an ultimatum that turned into a countdown, for my landlady'd had enough of me paying my rent either in installments or on the 15th instead of the 1st and decided that, although she would not evict me outright, she would not renew my lease for another year either.

This sent me scrambling for direction. Two weeks passed with lightning acuity and my despair began to assemble itself like a small but vicious army.

Then, shortly after my show in Arizona, I put out an ad online describing what I wanted in a room instead of answering ads for rooms described to me. I received only one response to my ad, and the same day I checked out the room and started moving into it. The room is separate from the main residence, which is good for me and my craving for privacy.

This was not done out of desperation. Rather, it was done knowing that this was the way it was meant to happen. All of my needs were met: in the ad I stipulated that I wanted a month-to-month lease in a place that allowed cats and tolerated my graveyard hours. I mentioned being a musician and a smoker as well.

The lady renting the room knows all of this and more, and yet didn't require a security deposit or a background/credit check on me.

The lady's house is in the center of the San Fernando Valley (right around Reseda) and situated on an entire acre of land. In her enormous backyard, she has a farm. Not much livestock: just some iguanas, turtles, bunny rabbits and two pot-bellied pigs in addition to ten cats, four dogs, three children and two boarders other than myself.

Looks like I'm headed for the country this summer...

*/*

While we were waiting in line at the Roxy to see a concert, the mystery girl I've been seeing told me she had a "date" coming up.

"A date date?"

"Yeah... it's weird," she said. "I never go out on date dates."

"Who are you going out on this date with?" I asked, my voice cracking a bit.

"A guy from the coffee shop. He's real nice."

"I see..."

"Yeah. We'll see how it goes."

This was Jealousy 101. She wanted to see me get mad, or sad, or envious.

And it was working.

I don't begrudge her the tactic. I have been playing hard-to-get, after all.

"I gotta admit," I said after a slight pause, "I don't go out on a lot of date dates myself. I never really make an effort. I just kind of end up going on dates with girls who like me through no fault of my own."

"I personally think," she replied, choosing her words carefully, "that if you did ask a girl out on a date date, she would probably find it endearing, and cute, and she would probably have a good time with you."

"You think so?"

"Yes." She smiled.

"If I asked you out on a date date, would you go out with me?"

The doorman asked us for our IDs.

Her answer was "Yes I would" but her face screamed out, "I thought you were never going to ask..."

The security guard patted me down as she pranced into the waiting hands of a man who inspected her purse for anything illegal.

*/*

My plans to join my family at Lake Mead were impacted by my moving schedule, so I opted to spend my holiday time with her instead. I practically lived there for the entire three-day weekend, retiring to her bedroom as out-of-town friends of her roommate stayed on couches and in sleeping bags.

On the first night she passed out on the couch while watching a DVD and I had to carry her upstairs over my shoulder. Somehow I mustered the strength: she was not heavy but I was drunk and probably shouldn't have even attempted to lift her... but I did, and I made it to the top where I gently slammed her onto her bed.

She mumbled something about taking a rest, and so I did.

I fell asleep with my arms around her, spooning as it were.

The next night I was the one to pass out first. She made her way into the bed an hour after I had shuffled off to Dreamland.

In the morning I was awakened by the sound of doves on her window sill cooing in such a manner as to suggest an old man having sex and wheezing his decrepit way to orgasm.

After the initial absurdity of the doves, she and I talked and laughed and rolled around like lazy savages searching to avoid the sun and its daylight.

Such is the way of the classic courtship. For a lack of better words, it is traditional and ritualistic.

*/*

I arrived with enough salmon to feed a moderately-sized Second World country. It came in various forms: sliced, smoked, skewered on kebabs, and even with Cajun seasoning.

I was cleaning out my fridge as part of the move, but it was also a token of my respect and affection. It wasn't just for her-- everyone who was there that weekend got a chance to partake in the eating of the salmon.

Dave, her Hindi friend from Modesto, joked that in his country a gift such as mine would qualify me to take two of his daughters into marriage.

I wore my Zankou Chicken T-shirt, and she revealed to me as I was preparing sauce for some pasta that she liked my shirt and wanted one for her own.

"I'll steal yours if I have to," she chuckled.

"You won't have to. I'll buy you one. They're cheap. I'll get you two, in fact. You ever eaten at Zankou?"

"No. What is it?"

"Middle Eastern rotisserie-style chicken. Comes with garlic paste and pita bread. Very delicious. An entire chicken meal costs less than ten dollars."

"Hmmmm... sounds good. Maybe we can go there on our date date."

I smiled. I may have even blushed in the presence of all the people who overheard our conversation, as we prepared the fish for dinner.

The revelers mostly imbibed cheap beer but she was slipping me sips of Bacardi every now and then. Sometimes she and I would separate from the crowd and huddle together in her room, being silly and laughing and making off-color jokes about horrible subjects too gruesome to reprint here.

By Monday end, she had forgotten about her other date date. She called him back to reschedule, an action that didn't seem to bother me at all in light of all the time I spent with her in the past 72 hours.

As for our very own date date, I have no idea right now where it will be or when but I do know that it will most likely bring us closer than ever.

I don't even know why we are still resisting each other at all by this point. Who are we trying to impress anyway?

arizona

2007-05-15T00:54:00.000-07:00

Maybe it was the desert heat, or the long overnight drive into town, or the giddy anticipation that had building up in me for weeks... or maybe it was just the alcohol I'd been drinking in quantities far beyond my own tolerance, or the intense energy emanating from the crowd of people that slowly but surely filled the venue...

Or maybe it was the fact we played an extra long set, stretching out to over an hour... or maybe it was just a good old-fashioned case of nerves... then again, maybe it was the accidental fall that almost knocked me out cold as I tripped over my guitar case and landed on my ass against the back wall of the stage, still playing my bass part on time and in key but deliriously drunk and hallucinating from the unexpected impact...

At any rate, I was overwhelmed on stage with the band last Saturday night, to the point where I left the stage immediately after what I thought was our last song of the evening. I ran out without saying a word, and made a beeline for the street before anyone could walk up to me and say, "Hey! You guys rocked!" or congratulate us for what had to have been the best show we ever played.

It wasn't Stage Fright. It was Off-Stage Fright.

It was knowing that once this moment was over and done with, the return to reality would be a hard one to negotiate. After the last song's final note sustained itself for as long as it could, there was the rest of the night and then the long drive home and then... back to a home that I don't really have, or back to the job which isn't really a job, or back to my life which hasn't felt like my own life for some time now.

How could I smile and accept praise from audience members or accept accolades for the show when I knew it was all going to dissipate and fade away? How could I stick around knowing that when the night was done and I was back at my hotel, I'd be basically getting ready to make the trip home again?

Even if I'd stayed up all night and had a blast and partied until I was blue in the face, I knew deep inside that it was only going to make me feel down when I stopped being a rock star and went back to being little ol' Me.

Something about my unrehearsed pratfall jarred the fear in me awake. I have stated before that I'm never nervous when I play with Ninefinger, and I was doing fine until I fell. It was shocking to me because normally I plan my falls and tumbles. I choreograph them so that there is no real danger to me unless I lose control or miscalculate my position.

Maybe there was some embarrassment involved. Even though I still played on, and even though the people in the audience couldn't tell that fall apart from the other antics that the band and I engaged in throughout our set, I felt slightly foolish. But more importantly, I felt afraid.

It was a good kind of fear. It was the kind that impels you to scale new heights and throw all caution to the wind. It was a desperate high, a soaring crest of a wave that we were all riding at that moment.

I had never felt that with this band until last Saturday night.

It scared me. I ran out of there so quickly after nearly demolishing my bass guitar in the wake of the drum solo. I lit up a cigarette and hid behind a bush, hoping that no one saw me escape. My own sense of self-loathing and anxiety did not wish to hear compliments or positive feedback. I just wanted to be by myself for five minutes.

And then, I heard the drums.

The band was playing another song... without me!

What the fuck, I thought. We got an encore? Holy shit-- Who's playing bass?

I ran back in a hurry, trying to hear which song of ours the band was playing. I could make out someone playing a droning D on my bass guitar. I entered the club and pushed through the crowd, and when I jumped on stage and grabbed my bass back the crowd cheered.

I finished the song with the rest of the guys, and afterwards I bought the fill-in bass player a beer. He was a friend of the singer, and I thanked him for stepping up to the plate.

Apparently, in the short time I was gone a search party had been dispatched by the band. The crowd at the club started chanting my name, as the band kept calling out to me in the hopes that I would heed the call and return to the stage for at least one more number.

It was quite simply the most intense live experience I have ever had. It was what I have been seeking for so long, and yet the minute I finally got what I wanted it almost enveloped and devoured me whole.

I don't know if I will ever have an experience like that again, but I'm glad that it happened, and I'm glad that I made it through, because I needed it.

I feel closer to the guys in the band, closer than I have ever felt with any other band. Saturday night in Scottsdale, Arizona opened my eyes to new and infinite possibilities far beyond what I could ever imagine.

I am still shaken from it. I don't know if I will ever get it out of my system. It changed me and touched me to the core. I felt like I'd been struck by lightning.

I played it off and lied to everyone and said I was vomiting when I left the stage. Somehow, that story seemed to be more plausible than what really happened. Everyone could accept that I might have been sick but I didn't think they would buy it if I'd told them that I was touched on the shoulder by the hand of God and it left me frenzied and emotional.

It was real. It was so real. It was the realest I'd ever felt in my entire life.

And that's what made it scary. All of it was really happening. The crowd, the reaction, our performance, the setting... all of it was undeniably concrete and tangible.

Now that I've had a taste of that, I wonder what future shows will have in store for us. Only time will tell.

Until then, I am still recuperating from it. It's like shell-shock. I'm not sure what else to do. Is it possible that I can truly die happy now? Or is this merely the first step in a whole new direction?

I can't wait to find out.

May is Sweeps Month so arm yourself with ammo

2007-05-07T01:36:00.000-07:00

When you've had all you can take from the sickening political media spin that overwhelms us day in and day out, click on this link and read something refreshing and (surprise!) factual for a change.

I went to high school with this guy, and although we never hung out together I've always respected his point-of-view. He is just as passionate now about politics as he was back then, if not more so.

Show some support and forward his columns to your friends and family... as well as the ignorant neocons you're bound to run into online or in the workplace.

show and tell

2007-05-03T00:49:00.000-07:00

My apologies to anyone who has tried to comment on my blog only to face the prospect of being moderated. I revamped a few links here and there recently, and I thought I had rendered my comments section open to all, as it had been in the very beginning... but instead I think I just made it worse. After a while I began to wonder if I was just being paranoid, but when I retooled my blog settings I figured out what I had done and rectified the situation.

I am hoping that this is the reason why I haven't received any comments lately. If it turns out that the real reason I haven't had any comments is because I suck, then that's just how it is I guess.

The comments section is wide open again. My stalkers have been away for quite a while, and I believe they have learned their lesson: Never mess with someone like me, who has too much time on their hands and a natural affinity for mischief and prank-pulling.

I never intend to take it that far-- it just happens. Somehow, the universe manages to hand me the keys to the ignition of Trouble, and I start the engine and rev it up and take it for a test spin... and before you know it I'm doing donuts on your front lawn.

Over the years, I've mellowed out a bit but not by much. I'm hoping that by the time I'm 40 I won't have the urge to be so gleefully anarchic and trickster-esque.

Then again, maybe I'm hoping for too much.

*/*

I have been forced by my landlady to move out by the end of the month. My lease was up and she elected to not renew it, mostly because I was late with paying my rent for the past three months. I could blame it on the paucity of work at my current job but even though entertainment jobs are inconsistent like that (jam-packed for three months and then three more months of nothing) I have to admit that, way in the back of my mind, I wanted to get out of this place and start anew. Otherwise I would've made more of an effort to reassure my landlady that I wanted to stay.

I then realized, after kindly discussing the terms of my departure with her, that my stubborn nature never allows me to give up unless it is absolutely necessary. Rather, I tend to stick it out until another party is forced to take action, which motivates me to get up off my ass and do what I should've done long ago.

In the past 365 days, I've lost a girlfriend, a well-paying job, and this apartment. In each case, I'd overstayed my welcome or ran the course as much as I could, and in each case I didn't have the good sense to know when enough was enough. Only when drastic measures were taken did I make any moves on my own.

Instead of breaking up with Eve, she had to be the one to call it quits. Instead of just quitting my job, I pushed it until they were left no choice but to lay me off. And now, with this apartment, I have done the same. I knew the rent increase in March and the neighbors vacating their homes was a foreshadowing of things to come, but I stuck around and tested the limits, as I always do.

Doing things that way seemingly absolves me of any guilt or regret. I can blame others for my misfortunes instead of taking any real responsibility. Then, when I "overcome" the odds in the end, I can point the finger and say, "Ha ha, you didn't beat me. I'm still standing!"

Such ego gratification...

I'm not worried about finding another place, though, because the slogans written underneath my blog title say it all about me these days: "Everything happens for a reason. There is no such thing as luck. Timing is everything."

I'm not just saying that to make myself feel better either. I firmly believe in those three sentences and what they constitute. I have always felt like that, but I never articulated it that way until I met someone a few months ago who put it into perspective for me.

You may know her as the mystery girl whom I have blogged about recently.

*/*

I don't want to divulge her identity in any way, nor will I supply her with a pseudonym for blogging purposes. To be honest, I didn't even want to blog about her at first, because it tends to wreak havoc on my interpersonal perceptions of the opposite sex. But I couldn't hold it back. I just had to testify about her.

However, I've set some rules up for me to abide by:

1) She will remain anonymous.

2) Although our status as friends or lovers is not nebulous or vague, I will not assign a label or category to her in these blog pages.

3) I will not go into explicit detail about anything we've done or plan to do.

4) I will leave out the events and occurrences that only serve to confuse me and addle my decision-making abilities. There has been plenty to write about concerning this girl, and I've selected only the things that matter the most to me to lay out for any readers I have left.

You all know that I am capable of baring my soul and showing off my vulnerability in my writing... thus, I feel like I have nothing more to prove in that regard. I would instead like to focus on the moments I share with her and how they make me feel, as opposed to ramifications and consequences and other various ponderings.

In short, if I write about her too much I fear I will jinx it, as I've done with others. Therefore, I'm keeping it on a comfortable level and I'm surprised at how cool I am with that notion.

It's not Show And Tell time anymore.

*/*

Well, what time is it then?

It's time to wax poetic. It's time to carry out imaginary agendas and formulate honorable schemes. It's time to take off the kid gloves and put on the Man Hands. It's time to piss caution into the wind while wearing nothing but a raincoat.

It's time to hesitate when a kiss is ready to plant itself on her lips, only to find itself nestled in the nape of her neck and burrowing deep into the well of her soul.

It's time to dig up all the buried hatchets and take them out to the shore and throw them wholesale into the briny sea, where they will rust and rot and disintegrate without a trace.

It's time to admit that I am scared and afraid, and that I love feeling that way because it reminds me of everything I have to lose vs. everything I have to gain.

It's time to fulfill prophecies and follow through on convictions and cast more predictions and topple all the follies and the sophistries concocted to swallow me up in their diversionary riptide.

It is time for all these things and more, and I have a feeling I'm going to be writing in this blog more often. I don't know if I'll ever match the pace of when I first started, but I'm not going to rule out that possibility either.

It's time to move, literally and figuratively.

Let's go.

in case there was any doubt still lingering...

2007-05-02T00:31:00.001-07:00

And now...

MATT AND KIM!!

the rat and the ox

2007-04-30T02:38:00.000-07:00

She's a Rat and I'm an Ox.

Let me tell you the story of the Rat and the Ox.

"According to legend, the Lord Buddha summoned all the animals to come to him before he departed from Earth. Only 12 animals came to bid him farewell. As a reward he named a year after each one in the order that they arrived. First came the Rat, then the Ox, the Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Boar. Thus we have twelve signs today."

-- excerpted from "Twilight Zone's Chinese Horoscope"

The Ox was leading the race across the river bank to reach the Lord Buddha's bed. Unbeknownst to him, the Rat was riding on his back. As the Ox neared the bank, the enterprising Rat jumped off the Ox's back and made it to the Buddha's bedside first.

Thus, the Rat became the first sign of the Chinese astrological table, with the Ox coming in second.

No mention is made of whether or not the Ox was upset about this. I'm sure, however, that if the Ox had gotten upset he would've squashed the Rat in an instant. This would have probably upset the dying Buddha and led to the immediate disqualification of both the Rat and the Ox from the Chinese horoscope.

I don't think the Ox minded at all. The Ox was used to being employed for hard work, carrying loads far heavier than the Rat on his strong back. He probably admired the Rat's ingenuity and craftiness, and maybe deep down inside he was content knowing that he did all the hard work while the Rat basked in the glory.

And if the Ox was in love with the Rat, then he wouldn't be mad in the slightest if the Rat found some sort of glory, even at the Ox's expense.

Rats are reviled and despised, even though they are highly intelligent creatures with exceptional survival instincts. Western civilization in particular has no love for the Rat, most likely due to the bubonic plague epidemic that wiped out a third of Europe's population in the Middle Ages.

But like pigeons in relation to doves, Rats are not too far removed from mice, their cuter and more cuddly cousins. The bias stems from misunderstanding the true natures of all creatures great and small.

I think the Rat knows deep down inside that she owes her cardinal place in the Chinese horoscope to the Ox. Whether or not she appreciates it or not is up to each individual to decide. And if someone is not fond of Rats, they will decide negatively.

*/*

We shared a cigarette and drank coffee and made up names for our own Chinese horoscope.

"How about the Year of the Platypus?" I asked.

"No, the Year of the Wombat," she giggled.

"Does the Wombat even exist?"

"I dunno... how about the Year of the Chinchilla?"

"I kind of like the Year of the Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker."

"They're endangered, you know..."

"Oh... well, then they definitely need to be included."

"What about the Year of the Mongoose?"

"I know, let's cross-breed the existing ones. You know, like the Horsepig, or the Ratdog, or the Oxrabbit..."

"I like that."

"You do?"

"Yes, I do."

We laughed. We smoked. She poured me another cup of coffee and didn't charge me. I left a tip anyway.

When it was time to count the money in the register, she thanked me for making an otherwise dead night somewhat tolerable. I thanked her for the free coffee and walked her to her car.

As I drove to work, I couldn't stop smiling.

I just hope she made it to the Buddha's bedside.

terrifying

2007-04-27T03:34:00.000-07:00

I played my solo acoustic set last Tuesday.

It was terrifying.

I was so nervous. I've never been that nervous.

Ever.

I think that's what's been missing from my life in recent years.

I play shows with bands, and I'm not scared. I think this is a good thing, but I am beginning to see that sometimes you need to be afraid-- it reminds you that you are still alive.

Being unafraid is brave and noble, especially if trying to help others feel relaxed and less edgy... but when I was up on that stage, all by myself, with no one to fall back on, there was an exhilaration running through me that I haven't felt in ages.

I want that edginess back in my life. I've become too complacent. Without risking it all, anything I do on stage is an empty and wasted gesture.

And it translates to other mediums as well: after my show on Tuesday, I went to work and finished off what was left of the first half of my novel. I was still running off of the momentum of that nervous energy, and it propelled me forward with unparalleled vigor.

And throughout all of this, I was dead sober.

I've been born again hard, and this time I'm going to make full use of this new found power. I'm going to get things done and take care of business.

And I owe it all to Fear.

smudged impressions of last friday

2007-04-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

After attending a gallery opening that left us befuddled and dinner in Chinatown with friends, she and I accompanied her roommate to a trendy Hollywood bar to play darts and get sauced.

In between horrific dart rounds, she and I would sneak out back to smoke cigarettes and talk.

I was getting progressively more drunk as she told me that she thought my karaoke last week was good, and that she knew she couldn't sing a lick but she liked doing it anyway, and that we must come back again and sing some more.

I told her that I knew she was singing from the heart, and that one of these days she and I would have to go on some road trip to get away from this big, bad city.

She told me about New York, and how her visit was not impeded by inclement weather and the shortness of her stay. She planned that we should both go out there soon. I agreed, telling her that I had planned to go last year but the plans fell through.

She asked me why. I started to explain but stopped, and said I would rather not talk about it. But she knew the reason why without my having to elaborate.

Eventually I was so plastered that when it was time to walk back to the car, I made the trip backwards while flinging a Chinese yo-yo I'd bought in Chinatown at passersby.

They drove me to my car at the Metro station, and then she drove my car to my apartment because I was too hammered to give it a go. Her roommate followed behind-- I'd promised him some weed back at my place.

Her roommate played with my cats as she dragged me to my bed and tried to tuck me in. I was almost gone but still alert enough to pull her down with me and wrap my arms around her.

She did not resist.

And the kisses were slow and sweet, and they were punctuated with small talk and wistful nothings, and she tasted wonderful and smelled like subtle perfume.

Sensing that her roommate was getting restless in the other room, she bid me farewell with three kisses on my face, as she tucked me in and made her way out my door.

I slept like a newborn baby, and when I woke up the next morning I could not help but smile.

I hadn't felt like that in a long time.

the song, the dance and the embrace

2007-04-17T01:24:00.000-07:00

Damn, the blog-o-sphere is a barren wasteland these days.

There was a time when I'd get pissed off at the lack of comments on my blog and go into a rant or tirade about how everyone sucks and this and that and fuck you and the whole nine yards... but over the years and in the short time that I've been blogging I have accepted the virtual cyber-silence for what it is.

However, I'm not quite sure what it is I am accepting. There's no label for it, and yet I now know that it's nothing personal.

Once upon a time, this blog had lots of readers and they all had something to say, but reality sets in and people tend to their lives and their online pursuits get narrower as things progress. Even I have lessened my blog output, if only to re-channel my boundless writing energy into finishing my damn novel.

And when I do get a chance to blog, I am allowed to be more cryptic. I don't have to explain everything or detail every facet of my life like I used to, and within that limited boundary there is a wide, expansive freedom.

I guess you can say I have grown. Matured, perhaps.

*/*

The place was a dive, a typical hole in the wall.

Not a lot of people were at the bar when we entered but by the time we left it was packed. This is nothing significant, seeing as the place was smaller than my apartment, or so it seemed.

Her roommate said she looked like a sunflower in her bright yellow sleeveless dress, billowing and pleated and pretty with Sunday written all over it. She thought he was kidding her, but I recognized the heartfelt (if slightly cracked) compliment.

A strange and drunk fellow greeted us with leers as we hunkered down onto our stools, his face grimacing with outrage and fear. She knew him, he knew her, they had a connection once but he fouled it up and now here she was with two tough-looking hombres and his mind began to spin so fast that it was as visible on his mug as his eyeglasses or his neatly-trimmed pencil mustache.

He exchanged words with her. All I could hear was the last part of their exchange:

"You think you're pretty clever, don't you?"

"Fuck you."

"Fuck who?"

I turned my head and said loudly, "You."

Her roommate glared in the fellow's direction, not needing to say a word. The fellow got the hint and left, leaving his companions at the bar to nurse their own wounds without the benefit of his charming company.

We ordered our drinks and decided to play darts.

*/*

She insisted that I sing karaoke with her, but I needed no prodding or cajoling.

She picked the song and I agreed. It was a song I knew by heart, save for one vague lyric that I always interpreted in some weird, absurd manner. Fortunately for us, every self-respecting karaoke hostess has the proper lyrics on a TV monitor above the bar so that the singers won't lose face.

Her voice was dreadful, toneless and flat. It didn't bother me at all-- in fact it made me like her even more. Of course I was on key, but you wouldn't be able to discern it by the way our voices entangled themselves through the poorly-equalized sound system and the low-rent microphones.

The line in question appeared above me and I smiled as I read it:

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue.

"Aha," I thought, "That's what it is... I always thought it was about green seagulls... Why have I never bothered to check online or inside the liner notes? Oh well..."

People clapped when we were done. I don't know if they were clapping out of respect or out of relief.

*/*

There were others there singing karaoke that night who made us seem like Sonny & Cher in comparison.

As one such performance went on, she asked me to dance with her.

"But I don't know how."

"Neither do I."

She grabbed my hands and I tried to lead as best as I could. It was a spastic imitation of swing dancing. She flailed and stepped on my boots and (at one point) hit her elbow on the wall next to us. Bystanders laughed and pointed at us, drinks in hand. Her roommate was somewhat embarrassed but also not in the least bit surprised. I spun her around and caught her hands awkwardly, trying not to fall to the ground due to my inebriated motor skills.

The only thing we did right was the dip. I anticipated it, she fell into it, and I did not let her fall.

Then we danced close and slow. It felt natural, fluid, uncontrived.

*/*

Three more drinks and another near-bar brawl later, her roommate decided to walk home and we drove to a liquor store to purchase cigarettes. Then we arrived back at their place, where they engaged in a petty fight over something inexplicable. She stormed off to her room and I followed suit, shrugging my shoulders at him and shaking my head.

She and I chatted at length about everything and nothing, as we are wont to do when we get together and talk. Then I realized the lateness of the hour and plus she was waking up early to catch a flight and I should've been at work hours ago, so I stood up to say farewell.

We embraced. I kept my arms around her and did not let go. She did not try to pry herself from me. We just kept looking at each other, making small talk and shooting curious glances into each other's bloodshot eyes. Every time the urge to plant a soft kiss on her lips swelled up in me, I deflected its power by burying my face into her shoulder and squeezing my arms tighter, and she would reciprocate in kind.

Not yet.

Not just yet.

Sometimes the moment needs to breathe. I act too swiftly, I often move in for the kill with no relenting. No, this was about as far as it could go at the moment, especially considering how foolish it would be for the both of us to shirk our respective responsibilities when we can wait until the next occasion, when there's more privacy, when there's more time, when there's less to risk.

We bandied compliments about and made funny faces. Then I created an out for the both of us by remembering the CD I promised to burn for her.

After I made copies for the both of them, I said my goodbyes and let myself out. I drove back into the suburbs with quick ease, because of the time of night and the absence of traffic.

*/*

I have been filling my time well, but every now and then I think about three things: the song, the dance and the embrace. I think about how they made me feel and what it all means and what there is to be done about it.

It reminds me of scenes from some short stories I wrote years ago, and I wonder if these were manifestations of my fiction or actual events that transpired. I realize, though, that it doesn't make any difference: We all remember things in different ways, from different perspectives and angles.

What is important is not the details, but what actually occurred. And that's why of all the things that happened that night, it is the song, the dance and the embrace that stand out for me.

and so on

2007-04-12T01:17:00.000-07:00

"When I think about my own death, I don't console myself with the idea that my descendants and my books and all that will live on. Anybody with any sense knows that the whole solar system will go up like a celluloid collar by-and-by. I honestly believe, though, that we are wrong to think that moments go away, never to be seen again. This moment and every moment lasts forever."

--from the book Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons, "Reflections On My Own Death", 1972

*/*

Listen:

Kurt Vonnegut is dead.

His book Breakfast Of Champions saved my life. I was ready to kill myself before I read it. I'd already tried once before to commit suicide, and I was set on doing it again when I read the book at age 16.

After reading it and laughing hysterically through tears, I made up my mind to never try and take my own life again.

Oddly enough, I feel no sorrow for his passing. He should have been dead a long time ago, when he was hunkered down in an underground bunker enduring the above-ground bombing of Dresden in 1945. Instead, he survived, and began writing, and became famous for his unique point-of-view, and his books and their collective messages somehow fell into my hands, and few things in my life changed me like his prose.

Of all the authors I ever read who inspired me, Vonnegut was the most invigorating. I learned to laugh in self-defense, and treat the negative on an equal measure with the positive. I haven't always been successful at it, but it's an ongoing process that will know no end until I am buried.

One day, maybe I'll get it right.

In the meantime, his passing is yet another sign that I am most likely reading too much into but nevertheless accepting for what it is: a signal for me to finish my own novel, ten years in the making and largely influenced by Vonnegut's style. In a way, he has always been my literary model: he didn't get famous until his later years, and by then he'd accumulated a definite outlook and voice that no one could ever duplicate, despite their best efforts.

Vonnegut made me slow down my pace. He made it okay for me to not be in a hurry to achieve fame and accolades for writing. His life was an example for me of how to let life wash over you as you take notes. Every time I ever got depressed and thought I'd never amount to anything except a frustrated writer living in abject poverty, I always thought of Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut's alter ego and favorite protagonist. Trout took his time and was deemed crazy by his peers, but he never stopped writing. He just kept on doing it, and it was Vonnegut's way of saying that a writer should not only love what he/she does, but that practice makes perfect, and being prolific is not the same as being rich and famous and well-known.

I learned that a writer should amass experiences worth writing about before even contemplating putting them down on paper. Vonnegut's traumatic life was the template for his entire public persona, even as he insisted that things like Dresden or his mother's suicide or the indignities of mankind had nothing to do with his writing.

As a tribute, this weekend I'm going to re-read one of his novels. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of Champions on me-- that one got stolen or lost somewhere down the road years ago, like most great works of art.

Maybe I'll rent Champions from the library, but I also have Slaughterhouse Five and several other volumes of his work in my possession. But even if I don't read any of his books again in the near future, it's alright because I feel like every day I am re-reading his works in some way, shape or form.

Vonnegut's fiction (and later non-fiction) gave birth to me. It made me. It created me. It shaped me. It possessed me. It runs in my veins as surely and steadily as blood.

I owe him big. And if I ever meet him in the afterlife or on the astral plane or wherever it is that our souls go when we eventually perish, I'll be sure to let him know what he meant to me.

But for now, I think the best way to do that is to just finish the novel. Even though he's not around to appreciate it, by finishing the book I will have given back to him what he gave to me so long ago.

And what did he give me? Just for the record, he gave me back to me. Though we never met, he told me that it was okay to be me, and to like writing, and to pursue it no matter what happens or comes my way.

It won't be necessary to dedicate my first novel to him, because every word that I write is an implicit dedication to him already.

God bless your soul, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And thanks again for the laughter, the tears, and the inspiration.

love is sexy

2007-04-07T09:05:00.000-07:00

It was a great disappointment considering all the hype that surrounded it.

First came the whispers: the next joint was going to be his return to grace, his unofficial comeback. No more Beatle-esque psychedelia or baroque orchestrations or French-infused jazz noodling, no more pat Top 40 pop designed to skyrocket to the top of the dance charts...

No, Prince's next album after Sign O' The Times was supposed to be the Death Blow to all the haters and naysayers out there who claimed he'd gone soft.

It was going to be released without a title or any cover or sleeve art. It was tentatively known as "The Black Album", perhaps a hyper-parody of the memorable gag from This Is Spinal Tap. Certainly, with all the interference Warner Bros. was creating in conjunction with his releases, Prince may have been making a sly joke, one that poked fun at the absurdity of the music industry in general.

Then, a few months before its slated release date, the word got out that Warner Bros. shelved the album and another one was slated to be put out in its stead. Fans were taken aback but not disdainful-- after all, this was Prince: a bona-fide musical genius with a proven track record for penning successful hits and selling millions of funky albums worldwide. They figured that if the album was getting 86'ed, there was probably a good reason.

We all awaited the coming of the next album. I was in the 8th grade and my parents were on the verge of splitting up. I needed this album.

A single dropped from out of the sky: "Alphabet St". Catchy, yes, and it went on to be a hit... but it seemed like a bad omen. Soon the fans were wondering if maybe shelving "The Black Album" was such a good idea.

I bought a copy of Lovesexy when it came out. I still own the vinyl, with its garish cover art portraying Prince in the airbrushed nude sitting on a flower, posing demurely. It was embarrassing to look at-- I would've felt more comfortable carrying home an S.O.D. album or a Skrewdriver cassette than Lovesexy.

I gave it a listen. It was good, but it wasn't "The Black Album"... it wasn't even Around The World In A Day.

It became my least favorite Prince album, and also the least listened-to album of his in my collection. With the sole exception of one song, "When 2 R In Love" (the lone holdover from the aborted "Black Album" sessions) there was very little for me to gush over, even as I went out and bought all the accompanying singles on 45 (I was hoping the B-sides would be better, and they were).

My verdict: Lovesexy was a dud. Oh well, maybe he'll come to his senses and release "The Black Album" after all. Perhaps the next album will be better.

I was 14 years old at the time.

*/*

I'm 33 now.

In the time between Lovesexy's release and today, much has happened to me, the rest of the world, and Prince in particular. Contract disputes, name changes, ups and downs, and even Super Bowl appearances have overshadowed the substance of his music. Still, the man has undergone a genuine revival, heralded as a pop icon, a living legend and an accomplished musician in his own right.

The Black Album eventually saw the light of day, if only to help Prince get out of his seven-album contract with Warner Bros., and even then it was released as a limited edition CD... not that any self-respecting fan didn't already own a bootleg copy of their own.

When I finally heard The Black Album (around the time that he was doing the soundtrack for the first Tim Burton-directed Batman movie) I thought it was spectacular. "How could he release Lovesexy in lieu of this?" I asked myself. Granted, The Black Album didn't quite live up to its storied hype itself, but it was definitely funkier and harder than Lovesexy.

And speaking of stories, there were several to speak of that haunted Prince's reputation: Warner Bros. thought The Black Album was too risque; Prince was the one who pulled The Black Album because he had a vision from God; Prince was hooked on drugs and Lovesexy was his rehab effort...

The only way I could ever really listen to Lovesexy was to dub it onto one side of a blank cassette with The Black Album on the other side; this way, it served as an exotic double-concept album.

As the years passed by, Metallica released their own Black Album, thereby imploding the Spinal Tap joke on itself. Life was now imitating art twice over, and by the time Jay-Z released his own Black Album I'd had enough of the whole notion.

Meanwhile, Prince was free from the WB and became a Jehovah's Witness, and began to retool his public persona. He went from appearing as an out-of-touch rich recluse to a pop visionary who had been so far ahead of his time that only now were people beginning to catch up.

His music got better. It sounded more soulful, more passionate. He seemed at peace with his dual nature, that impulse torn between God and Satan, a theme that has permeated nearly all of his work.

And with that, I began to look back on the classic albums and reevaluate them. Some of them needed no reappraisal (1999, Parade) and some of them were surprisingly revealing when I revisited them (Purple Rain, Dirty Mind, Controversy).

And in the latter category, Lovesexy stands alone.

*/*

Looking for cover tunes for my upcoming solo acoustic show, I thought about "When 2 R In Love" and sought it out. Unfortunately, my older brother has all of the Prince vinyl in his possession. Luckily, I still had that dubbed cassette of Lovesexy/The Black Album in my archives.

Since both albums contained the song in question, it didn't matter which one I'd put on first. However, the tape was wound somewhere in the middle. I put the Black Album side in first and found that it would take considerable winding before I could cue up the track; when I flipped the cassette onto the Lovesexy side, lo and behold "When 2 R In Love" was playing.

So I listened, and I learned the song, and a chill came over me, and I cried.

I'd forgotten how beautiful a love song it was, and I replayed it over and over until I got it down.

Then, I let the rest of the album play. Since it was technically Side Two of the album (the vinyl version anyway) I figured there would only be two more songs before it got to the end; then I could pop the cassette out and put on the other side.

By the end of Lovesexy, though, I realized that I hadn't heard this album in a long time. Moreover, I realized that I never really gave it a chance either.

Chalk it up to being (much) older and (not much) wiser, but I am listening to the album right now as I blog this, and let me tell you: Lovesexy is severely underrated. It's better than the majority of Prince's work after 1988. In fact, it may be the last great Prince album of his classic era (I always felt that Sign O' The Times was the end of that line, but I have since reassessed this opinion).

First of all, never has the God/Satan dichotomy been more transparent and obvious than with Lovesexy. Prince went so far as to divide his soul up into two different personas on this album: Camille (the feminine, positive side) and Spooky Electric (the masculine, negative side). With Gemini as his astrological Sun sign, Prince has always explored the duality of mankind (vice and virtue, good and evil, love and hate) but never in such a manner as in this collection of songs.

Then, there's the recent light shed upon the whole album release controversy, provided by longtime friend and collaborator Matt Fink, aka "Dr. Fink" (you know, the keyboard player who wore doctor's scrubs in the videos):

[I]n 2001, his long time keyboard player Dr. Fink told then-Internet radio host Ernest L Sewell IV of The Ernest Experience Radio Show that Prince said he saw the devil. He was paranoid due to drugs, and instead of the popular story of him seeing God, he in fact had thought he saw Satan. He told his bodyguard Gilbert Davison this, and Gilbert in turn related it to Fink and possibly other band members. It was this hallucination that had Prince running scared and decided to ditch releasing the album. He even asked for the cassettes of the album back from the band members that are routinely given to them to learn the songs by ear. Fink had later expressed discontent in that he wished he hadn't given it back, or at least made a copy of it for his own personal use.

Whether it's a true story or merely apocryphal, it fits in with the sincere nuttiness that hovers mysteriously around Prince, that of the sensitive artist who teeters on the brink of genius and madness. Others merely come off as completely wacko due to their peccadilloes, but Prince always manages to emerge unscathed mostly because he doesn't do anything to hide his eccentricity. If anything, he plays with it. Unlike R. Kelly or Michael Jackson, whose alleged perversions are held separate from their work, Prince's perversions and passions (which are tame in comparison to the likes of Kelly and Jacko) are intrinsically tied in with his lyrics and music.

I doubt R. Kelly would ever write a song about his scandal other than rebuking those who accused him, and likewise with MJ; Prince, however, aired his dirty laundry from the get-go, and just kept pushing the envelope as time elapsed. Every Prince album from Dirty Mind on contained at least one line or song that made me blush, causing me and my brother to adjust the volume so that my mother would not get angry. And yet, as embarrassing and inappropriate as those naughty sentiments were to me then, they are nothing if not honest, and the true fans always appreciated that... even if, like me, they sometimes didn't get it until much later on in life.

I think Lovesexy was the album where the once-adoring masses first started to resent Prince, and the backlash that nearly derailed his credibility in the music world began to rear its head. But I think now, almost two decades later, the album should be listened to again. You'd be surprised at how well it holds up. What sounded weird and unusual now sounds relevant and contemporary (all those strange electro-blips and synth-squiggles are commonplace in music today, especially in the work of Pharrell Williams and The Neptunes), and the lyrics are spiritual on an almost Gospel-like level.

And of course, there's "When 2 R In Love", an amazing ballad that captures the torrid passion of romance and the animalistic undercurrent of that very same eroticism, balancing both extremes precariously as a gorgeous backdrop of musical swells and crescendos undulates behind it. It gets my vote for the best love song of all time, because you can listen to it with a lover as well as fuck to it.

Maybe that's why it ended up on both Lovesexy and The Black Album. Maybe Prince recognized that he'd written the perfect slow jam, a Gemini of a track that could do double duty as both lascivious mood music and exhortation to true love.

As His Royal Badness sang in that very tune: Nothing's forbidden/ nothing's taboo...

I think that's the way it should be, don't you?

pop illumination

2007-03-29T06:29:00.001-07:00

I've blogged about this particular '80s pop tune before.

This time around, I have discovered something new, something exciting, something... enlightening.

I've loved this song and video since I was a little kid, but I never really "got" it when it came to the video concept. As seen below (courtesy of the almighty YouTube) the clip involves a rather cute Tracy Ullman, dressed in Diana Ross-like '60s garb, pining away for her boyfriend Paul, a cheesy-and-sleazy-looking kind of fellow who likes to bowl and wear gaudy clothes. Then the video fast-forwards to their present situation: Tracy is pregnant and pushing a shopping cart around at the supermarket where her boyfriend/current husband works, singing away wistfully even as she looks worse for the wear.

Suddenly, we see the '60s Tracy in a car with Sir Paul McCartney at the wheel. It's the same car we saw earlier in the video, but instead of Paul the boyfriend it's now Paul the ex-Beatle.

All these years I've wondered, what is the point of this? Wish fulfillment? Post-marital escape fantasy? A gratuitous star cameo?

I looked it up again, needing a tunatic fix after having gone quite some time without listening to the song or watching the video, and I came across this comment posted by someone known as "Ritzy Trailer":

'My take is that Guido in the gold lame shirt (that's pronounced La-MAY, by the way, kids) may be dorky but she loves him LIKE he's Paul McCartney.. What WE all see in the store - is what everyone else seems to see.. but no matter - she's in love with him anyway, he may as well BE PM to her.. bad hair, and all. And that's what real love SHOULD be about.'

And now, suddenly, after over two decades and a mysterious appreciation for this one-hit wonder, I finally get it.

Yes indeed, I do.

I went back and watched it again, and I have to agree-- that's what it's all about.

Geez. I can be so thick sometimes.

Thank you, Ritzy Trailer, for pointing out what's been right under my nose for all these years.

If ever there was a time to die happy, it's right now.

'tis fitting, no?

2007-03-28T04:29:00.000-07:00

Which fucked-up genius composer are you?

Captain Beefheart... you are one of the first modern fucked-up geniuses. When it comes to creating, you rank right up there with the likes of James Mangan, John Wilmot and Edvard Munch.
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I

2007-03-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

Remember how I posted a few weeks back about embracing luck?

Well, I take it all back. I've gone back to believing that: 1) everything happens for a reason, 2) there is no such thing as luck, and 3) timing is everything.

Someone summed it up to me in those exact words, and it awakened that dormant part of me that has always believed that but keep burying it anyway.

I have been re-directing all of my blogging energy into the novel. It is a slow process, one day at a time. But it's coming along.

I have things to say, I just don't want to say them right now. I want to wait and see what happens.

I have whittled my vices down to primarily cigarettes. I indulge occasionally in drugs but not at the level or pace I engaged in them in the past.

I I I I I... It's always about me, isn't it? It's always about what I want.

What about what other people want?

What about it?

I guess I'm learning that game. I'm curious to see what's next to learn, and it just gets more interesting by the day.

I think I'll pick up the guitar and play some Buddy Holly songs. His music seems to encapsulate the mood I'm in right now. Not "That'll Be The Day" or "Oh Boy!" but rather more contemplative songs like "Everyday" and "Words Of Love", and maybe even a moodier piece of rock like "Peggy Sue".

Speaking of which... man, that change from A to F on "Peggy Sue" gets me every time.

Peggy Sue, Peggy Sue
Pretty pretty pretty pretty Peggy Sue
Oh Peggy-- my Peggy Sue-ooh-ohh
Well I love you girl and I want you Peggy Sue

OK, gotta go. Smell ya later.

patience

2007-03-12T23:55:00.000-07:00

The last two weeks have been strange and surreal.

Last Saturday night my band played the show at The Whisky. It was a fine show, but weird things kept happening: people showed up late (some people just barely missed the show, others were more than 2 hours late!), the sound guy cut us off one song too soon, and my friend Ben inexplicably disappeared for 45 minutes.

It was a full moon weekend, and Mercury was still in retrograde.

I ended up at a house in Hollywood at 5am, fiending for a cigarette and striking out on my own to buy a pack, only to have my path blocked by barricades for the L.A. Marathon. Then, when I got to a gas station to purchase my wares, the car died for about 30 minutes.

A rescue team was dispatched, but they didn't see my car and passed me by. Finally, I got it all together and arrived back at the house, covered in grease, by 6am.

For the rest of the week I dealt with my car's stalling problem. But that's just what happened to me-- I can't even begin to tell you what happened to some of my friends.

*/*

My friend Ben suffered some sort of a shaking fit due to being underfed, dehydrated, and undergoing the DTs (he is a troubling alcoholic). The fit occurred as he was walking in Burbank in broad daylight. Luckily, he was right next to a hospital when it happened. He tried to call me but I had already left my apartment to meet him at his place, and I have no cel phone. He is OK now but he felt like he was going to die.

Buddha, the drummer in my band, encountered a road rage incident in Burbank last Tuesday. What started off as a simple case of being cut off in the right lane escalated into a John Woo-esque orgy of vehicular violence, climaxing with Buddha T-boning the car full of drunken Hispanics who were itching for a brawl. Buddha emerged without a scratch.

What's weird is that my buddies Wolf Man and Down Low witnessed a carload of Hispanic guys throwing beer bottles at pedestrians in Hollywood on the night of our Whisky show. This bears noting because the car was maroon-colored, the same as the car that attacked Buddha... and in both cases beer bottles were thrown freely.

Speaking of Down Low, his car was shot at the other night while leaving his apartment. Low was on his way over to me when suddenly he called and said he heard shots being fired. I didn't believe him at first, but when I saw the two bullet holes in his bumper (and the next morning found the shell casings in the street) I realized that he was not bullshitting me. We doubt it was anyone we knew-- most likely some impatient idiot with a gun and a lot of nerve. I deduced that the gunman merely wanted to put a scare into Low, who was blocking an intersection with his car when the event occurred. From the entry points of the bullets, it seems as if the gunman was aiming for the tires, not intending to kill or maim.

Like I said, the last two weeks were strange and surreal, almost as if they'd been dreamed or staged for a film. But it got even weirder.

*/*

Monique called me late last week, at an ungodly hour of the night. Since she is 3,000 miles away, it must have been even later for her.

She got pulled over while driving on her restricted license. She was 8 days away from taking care of her license dilemma when the trooper pulled her over. She got lucky and didn't receive a ticket for the reckless left-turn-at-a-stop-sign-without-a-signal that she made in front of the officer.

We talked for over four hours. Apparently, I had called her on Valentine's Day and caused a row with her boyfriend at the time. He didn't like the fact that she was getting a call from a guy on Valentine's Day, even though he was all the way on the other side of the country.

In a way I kind of caused her and that guy to have their last falling out, which made me smile. But without her here next to me it's all in vain, isn't it?

I told her about my drug binges. This eased the tension between us, because she has never been able to let go of her suspicion that I thought less of her for her 6 month crystal meth phase shortly before she went back home to Virginia. By telling her about my year-long foray into cocaine, she realized that I wasn't the judgmental sonofabitch that she thought I was-- in fact, she began to see that it was her own shame at what she did that prevented her from accepting my offers to help her and understand her. I never once looked down on her for her momentary weakness, because I can comprehend those weaknesses... However, it is one thing to claim I understand and another thing to actually have traveled that same path.

I realized during the phone call that with all the money I've spent on coke in the past year, I could've gone to visit her twice already. So I've made up my mind to scrimp and save, and I'll be flying out to see her by the summer. If she comes out here instead, then all that money will go towards showing her a good time.

It's nice to have a goal in mind.

*/*

Monique wasn't the only girl who called me up out of the blue. I've been getting lots of calls and visits from girls I had an interest in, but lately I haven't been able to give them the attention they deserve. Maybe it's because they all waited so long before getting back to me and now the initial thrill is gone.

I'm not writing them off. They are all beautiful and sensual girls. But they weren't there for me when I really needed them, so now that I have found my emotional center and equilibrium, they are just going to have to be patient.

After all, I have had to be patient. It's the most difficult lesson I've ever had to learn, but I think I am making progress. I still lose it when things go wrong (such as right now-- the Internet has not allowed me to post this exactly the way I wrote it at first) but it's kind of like my car this past week: Sometimes it stalls, and all I can do is wait half an hour to an hour before I can start the engine again. Then, when it starts up I get the most mileage out of it that I can.

Thus, my love life is akin to a used car.

That's how it was with Monique at first. We met, didn't date because she was taken, then she hit rock bottom and left for Virginia, and when she unexpectedly returned there was a lot of catching up to do. But it took over two years before it came to it.

Still, I have faith that one day I will get it right. This is only because I have been so close in the past, and also because new opportunities always arise in the wake of old ones.

We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

chameleon

2007-03-03T02:59:00.000-08:00

There is no particular theme for this blog entry that I'm writing right now, no unifying universal tangent that I'm trying to highlight, no serendipitous collision of ideas and motifs that I am attempting to explain.

I figure it's about time that I just approach this blog in the appropriate manner: as a journal, an occasional chronicle, or even a public diary. No need to wrest meaning from simple everyday events; no deliberate transfiguration of my life into epic adventures; no melodramatic fictionalization of dull reality and the mundane routines of existence.

Instead, I'll just give an update on the things that are swirling about in my consciousness as of late, and I'll try to keep it succinct and to-the-point.

*/*

I've got a show tonight with one of my bands at the famed Whisky a Go Go. This will be the second gig I've done with this band at The Whisky and my third gig at this particular venue in general. It's pay-to-play, which I normally detest, but it's not my play to call and besides-- it's fun.

Still, I am craving something that I can have full control over, so I went out and got myself a solo acoustic gig at a small space in the Valley next April. The place in question is a guitar shop by day and an art gallery by night, with a decent sound system and a big stage. It has a coffeehouse atmosphere but they don't serve coffee-- they do serve non-alcoholic beverages and snacks, and I suspect they are cool with BYOB. There's pillows on the floor propped up against the walls so that people can lie down comfortably while watching a show. I hope this arrangement doesn't invite my potential audience to fall asleep as I perform.

I'm going to play mostly original tunes with a few choice, esoteric covers. I have 45 minutes and the majority of my songs are short, so I will have a lot of time to express myself in an intimate setting, doing something that hits a little closer to home and originates from my heart in a more personal vein. I've wanted to do this for so long but never got around to it because I wasn't confident enough to put myself out there, but all the performing in various bands plus my private interest in songwriting has gotten me worked up to the point of wanting to make this work. I am primarily focused on testing the material to see what sinks and what floats. I have quite a catalog of songs that no one has ever heard, and the only way to find out if any of them are any good is to just play them in front of friends and total strangers. I don't expect to take the Canoga Park music scene by storm, but I am interested in seeing what my strengths and weaknesses are and improving upon them.

I am practicing playing the guitar every day for at least ten minutes. It is so different from playing the bass in that I actually have to concentrate on getting it all down pat, whereas with my bass-playing I can coast and ride on the coattails of the other band members. I'm going to be all alone up there, which isn't a scary prospect for me at all-- no, what worries me is the inevitable realization that not everything that I consider cool or noteworthy will be met with warmth and appreciation. My skin is thick, yes, but I am also a lot more sensitive than I let on. I am guessing that it will be an eye-opening experience, no doubt about it.

I think of this as a step in the right direction. I've backed up so many other musicians for such a long time that I feel like I have a rich, solid background to draw upon when the time is right and the opportunity is mine. Foremost above all, I want it to be fun, and I'm positive that it will be.

*/*

My drug use has leveled off, after a few binges here and some droughts there. I accept the fact that I have an addictive personality and that I will probably not stop doing drugs completely any time in the near future. I want to say it's just a phase, and I truly believe that's all it is... but it's a dangerous phase nonetheless, and things can go horribly wrong if I am not careful. I owe it not only to myself but my friends and family to not go overboard.

I consider myself one of the most responsible drug users out there because I never get so far gone that I cannot connect with reality and take care of the business of my life. Still, it wouldn't take a whole lot for me to spiral out of control and I know this all too well.

It is a concern of mine-- I don't want to come off as not being cautious or vigilant as I indulge in illicit pharmaceutical entertainment, so I won't make light of it or not take it seriously. However, my head is still screwed on as straight as it can be, and I don't have a death wish. I sincerely appreciate the comments, advice and kind words I have received from people whenever I have reached out or asked for help, and I won't take those heartfelt sentiments for granted.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: I know I'm fucked up and have some serious issues that shouldn't be treated with self-medication... but don't count me out just yet.

*/*

I shaved the beard and trimmed my hair, leaving the bangs and the locks on top long while maintaining a clean cut around the sides and nape. I've kept the sideburns and I'm also thinking about donning my nerdy, ugly, first-pair-I-ever-owned eyeglasses for certain events and engagements. Once again I am tinkering with my appearance, and I'm at a loss to explain exactly why I have been fascinated by the process of changing up my style as of late.

I don't think I am necessarily searching for a definitive image or identity. I think it has more to do with getting reactions from people and wanting them to notice me. It also works as a mode of invisibility and anonymity in that people I've just met never know what to expect and often cannot recognize me from my last incarnation. As much as I enjoy the spotlight and all the attendant attention I seek out, there is also the subversive delight in turning inside-out those very notions of self-perception vs. other's perceptions that I am investigating in my odd quest to render myself a bona fide chameleon.

Plus, as a writer I find that transforming my outer appearance allows me to experience my everyday existence in new and surprising ways. I feel like I am creating entirely new personas and characters as a direct result of my dabbling in fashionable possibilities. This makes me curious, and I want to explore it more as time goes on.

OK, so that's pretty much it for now. Have a nice weekend and stay out of trouble, people.

reinvention (dissonance)

2007-02-27T11:40:00.000-08:00

For an individual such as myself, the road to transformation is a long and tedious one. Although I adapt well to changes in my environment, it takes eons for me to make the personal, more intimate changes necessary for me to grow and thrive into perpetuity.

I can sum it up like this: If I woke up tomorrow and everything was inside-out-- my room, my neighborhood, the city, the state, the nation, the world --I could go on without batting an eye. But if I woke up one morning and discovered I was in fact a giant insect (like Kafka's protagonist in Metamorphosis) then I figure it would take me some time to get used to it.

Sometime last year, I woke up and found that I was not whom I thought I'd been for at least the past five years. I was someone else entirely. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror. Something had changed. I tried to chalk it up to the ravages of age, but after a while it became clear that this sudden shifting of shapes had nothing to do with outer appearances.

No, instead it was something inside of me that was either born or killed off.

I haven't the slightest clue as to what was the catalyst for such a startling revelation, but I can tell you this: all attempts to explain it here in this blog have been in vain. I've combed the sands of my mind and soul for the past year and cannot put my finger on the defining moment, the impetus for this sweeping renovation of my psyche. I thought I knew what it was, but I have been wrong.

So I tried to catch up to that feeling. I grew out my hair, let my beard thicken, lost some weight, changed a few habits, and conducted myself as if I were not the person whose blog you've been reading for who know how long.

It is comparable to a reptile shedding an old skin.

*/*

I have embraced luck, as I detailed in my last blog entry.

So far it seems to be working. I can't say that I've had incredible fortunes befalling me since I decided to endorse the random postulates of pure chance, but then again shouldn't we all be suspect of any windfalls or rewards that seemingly appear without any reason? It smacks of the devil's work, the instant gratification that comes with the deal; the minute you sell your soul you begin to reap the benefits of that deal.

Well, I didn't sell my soul, so I didn't expect to win the Lotto or pick up a supermodel in a singles bar overnight. But I'm beginning to see the length of this new path I am traveling as the fog clears and the horizon line becomes more visible.

Accompanying this fresh journey into uncharted realms comes an entirely new accessory: control. For the first time in a great while, I feel like I have control over my life and the things in it. Not that I haven't had any control over my life up until recently; rather, I'd been too willing to relinquish control. Nowadays I don't ever entertain the idea of giving up the reins, and ironically it is functioning far smoother than my past attempts to steer and commandeer all those things over which I really have no control: other people, certain circumstances, genetics, transparent pecking orders, injustices, societal ills...

It's as if I have gained more control by accepting the fact that luck plays a far bigger role in the way our lives unfurl than if I'd kept hammering away at my preconceived notions of what is and what should be. The problem with hammering away is that I was a hypocrite, all too willing to say 'fuck it' and not accept responsibility for my actions after whining and moaning about how I am so responsible.

I was trying to have and also eat the proverbial cake.

If I have any advice to give anyone in any part of the world, it's this: make sure you're not trying to have it both ways. That more than anything is most surely the cause of your present misery and unhappiness. If you are trying to fit the square peg into the round hole, or trying to force two objects of equal mass to occupy the same space, you'd better stop right now because it ain't gonna happen.

No way.

You have to make the parts fit. You can't just jam it together artlessly, with no sense of decorum or harmony.

Dissonance is OK if you're a musician and your name happens to be Captain Beefheart or Phillip Glass or Glenn Branca or John Cage or Ornette Coleman. These talents understand noise, and can reproduce that noise at will. It seems random on the surface-- perhaps even a tad unlistenable --but it is tightly constructed and crafted. And if someone hears it and thinks it's a bunch of cacophony, then they have executed their work all too well.

Dissonance, however, is not OK if you are just an ordinary person living an ordinary life. And although I am a musician, I am not always a musician. Sometimes I pay bills or buy groceries. Sometimes I lay in bed with my cats and train them not to gnaw at the speaker wires connected to my stereo. Sometimes I am the funny uncle who plays with his niece and nephew even though he is tired and wants to relax.

In those situations, as well as a million others that occur daily, dissonance is the last quality I want to be present. But you cannot dispel dissonance with an edict or a command. It will not obey your orders, it will not do as you say.

As any musician with perfect pitch can tell you, the only way to get rid of dissonance is to tune your instrument.

*/*

I've been out of tune, off-key, behind the beat and out of the pocket. There was static in the line and something wasn't grounded right. I kept picking up stray radio waves and transmissions.

So I replaced the old strings with new ones, and cleaned the dirt off the neck and the frets. I changed the cables and re-soldered the pickups. I tuned up but I had to let the strings stretch for a bit. After some time, when the strings were acclimated, I changed to an open D tuning and riffed for a while.

My friends bought me some new amplifiers. They sat down with me and showed me some of their songs. I showed them some of mine.

And now a year has passed and I'm finally ready to play out with a whole new repertoire under my arm.

I have been reinventing myself, and it took a lot of time that I didn't think I had the patience to mind. I am not done reinventing myself, of course, but that's OK because at least now I know what it is I'm supposed to be doing.

So, with all that out of the way, I only have one question on my mind now:

Any requests?

lucky

2007-02-23T07:56:00.000-08:00

This week I came to understand the nature of my life and its twists and turns.

I always figured that "lucky" people were the ones who always made money in Las Vegas, or ended up picking up the hot girls in bars, or ended up inheriting a tidy sum from a distant uncle.

What I've come to realize is that the things I listed above are forms of luck, manifestations (if you will) of different types of fortune.

But to be lucky in the true sense is to be thrown back and forth between the opposing poles of good and bad circumstance, eventually finding the even path and regaining one's balance.

In that regard, I am truly a lucky person. And my good luck is always offset by bad luck, because that's how my life is and always will be.

I am lucky because I have never been out of money, and even though I am not rich on the other hand I've never been destitute.

I am lucky because I have a roof overhead that's cheaper to rent than most and is located in a quiet neighborhood. For what I pay, I have more space than some of my friends who pay more for approximately the same square footage.

I am lucky because, even though I am not in love or involved with anyone right now, it is better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all. Plus, I know the next time I fall in love it will be meaningful and real, deep and intense. I know this because every time I have ever been in love, it has been all of those things and more.

I am lucky because I have a family that cares for me and would help me out if I were really in a jam. Their love is unconditional, but at the same time it helps that they have never had to shake their heads in disgust at my behavior. For all of my partying and excess and criminal posturing, I am relatively a saint in their eyes. I have never caused them grief or heartache, and they even worry about me because they feel that I am too sensitive and "soft" for this world. But they trust me, and when I am down they are there to help me stand up on my own two feet again.

I am lucky because I get to do what I want to do every day, for the most part. Someone might say, "Well, you can't afford to just buy a plane ticket and fly to Europe" but to that I reply "That's because maybe I really don't want to do it that badly." And that is the truth, because if I really did want to go to Europe, I'd make it happen somehow. If it was that important to me, I'd quit the job and scrounge up the money and just go without thinking of anything else.

I've done it in the past with other things, and I still possess that insane edge, that fearless ability to take the risk and gamble on myself because there is a goal in sight.

And sometimes the gamble doesn't pay off, but more often than not it does pay off.

And that's why I am lucky.

And that's why I am glad to be alive.

Have a great weekend, folks. Watch the Oscars, make love, do whatever it is you have to do. Live your life as if it were the greatest adventure ever experienced.

On that note, here's one of my favorite Dylan tunes, a song that captures the lucky feeling I get when I'm living my life and loving it.

prayer

2007-02-19T00:37:00.000-08:00

For the first time in my life, I am crying out for help.

The help I need is in the form of a prayer (or prayers).

I am asking everyone who reads this blog to say a prayer for me. I am hitting a new low in the trajectory of my life and I feel helpless and powerless, unable (or perhaps unwilling) to do anything about it.

Even if you are an atheist or doubt the existence of God or pray to some other deity or don't pray at all, please say one for me.

At this point, I'll take all the help I can get.

*/*

The cocaine problem never went away.

Instead, it took a hiatus. After the new year began I did go sober, and it lasted for quite a while. I went a whole month without buying anything. I was still using occasionally, especially when friends came over and wanted to get their fix of whatever in my apartment. But I was not spending money on it, and that was good.

I was done with the cocaine, and one of the things that kept me away was knowing that the stuff I'd been doing was total crap: cut beyond belief, to the extent that I could no longer bear the symptoms of the "comedown". My nose would burn as if on fire; my teeth and gums would ache and keep me awake when I was trying to sleep; my sinuses were blown out, and I kept blowing weird-looking pink mucus out of my nose for days after each coke binge.

Not wanting to feel so crappy made my decision much easier. I felt my sanity returning and my body was rejuvenating itself. I didn't need pot to fill the void, which was the one thing about sniffing coke that made me somewhat happy.

Then, I met Gerald.

*/*

That last sentence was a bit misleading.

I'd met Gerald years ago, when I was playing in Holly Golightly's band. Gerald was a friend of Ben, aka "Snake", the rhythm guitarist for the group.

Don't let the nickname "Snake" fool you-- Ben is a great guy and an honest man, and the "Snake" handle came about as a joke in a pool hall one night while hanging out with some friends. A stranger who wanted to shoot pool with Ben and his buddy asked if they were sharks, and Ben's friend made-up the name Snake for him, as if to imply that a guy named Snake should not be trusted when it came to playing billiards for money.

Anyway, Gerald came by Snake's house one day a few years ago. The band rehearsed at Snake's spacious mansion in the Santa Susana Pass slightly west of Topanga Canyon because no one ever complained about the noise and there was so much room for us to jam out and store our gear.

Gerald is in his mid-fifties, originally from Boston. He could be someone's dad or uncle if you didn't know him already. He likes to drink but on the surface you'd never know that not only does he like to get high but that he grows his own weed and sells it for relatively cheap.

The day he came over to watch us rehearse, Evan the drummer was late. There was always an excuse or crazy story with Evan, so we were not surprised at all by his tardiness. However, we were getting less and less tolerant of his flaky ways with each passing week.

Out of frustration and boredom, I announced that I would play on the drums until Evan showed up. I already knew my bass lines and didn't need to practice them right then and there. I'm not a very good drummer but I can keep time, and we'd already tried to practice without Evan but the lack of a backbeat made it difficult. Actually, to be honest, the members of the band just couldn't get into it without the drums providing the pulse.

So I sat down on the drum stool and ran through three songs to the best of my limited ability. It wasn't a great practice, but at least the others felt more comfortable with something as opposed to nothing. I was having fun trying to duplicate some of Evan's fills and drum parts, curious to see how long I could hold on before giving up out of exhaustion.

Afterwards, when Evan showed up and we ran through the entire set list, all of us went outside to relax and smoke and drink. Gerald came up to me, his breath reeking of beer, and patted me on the back, his salt-and-pepper mustache bouncing up and down as he complimented my drumming.

"You, kid..." he said, his Bostonian accent cutting sharp edges into his words, "You're a fuckin' genius! You drum better than the other guy! Seriously, no shit. I was totally floored by what you did in there. You just got up, grabbed the sticks, and bashed those fuckers in. You're the soul of this group, I'll tell ya!"

Of course, I was humble... at first. But the accolades kept coming, and I gradually let them sit with me inside my head.

"I try," I said after some time had passed and Gerald's praise had not relented in the slightest. "I'm not the best, but I'm not gonna let things like our drummer being late get in the way of..."

"Fuck that guy! You're the one who's going to go places! Everyone else in this group... they're good, don't get me wrong. But they don't got what you got-- even Ben, bless his soul. I bet you could outplay Ben on the axe any day."

"Well, I wouldn't say that..."

"I know you wouldn't. You're modest, that's why! You don't think you're the shit, but you are. You're the shit. Accept it already!"

Gerald pulled out a joint and gave it to me to light up. "I grew this myself, you know."

I took a pull off of it. "Damn," I coughed, "this is some good shit!"

"Hey, you deserve it, kid. You've got what it takes, I can feel it."

And that's how I met Gerald.

*/*

After that day I saw Gerald whenever he'd come to our shows. But that was near the end of our run as a band, and even though I kept in touch with everyone post-breakup I didn't see Gerald for years.

Then around the end of January I gave Snake a ride out to meet one of his friends in the West Valley. Snake was without a car and had to pay back some money he owed, and he asked me if I could help him.

I picked Snake up and asked if I could use his cel phone to call a friend who asked me to call him later in the evening. The friend told me that he had called the coke dealer we'd been scoring from but he wasn't going to be around until well after midnight. It was five after eight, and he wanted to know if I could go out and meet the guy where he was hanging out since I was already on the road.

"I don't know, man," I said over the phone. "I'm trying not to do it, and that's a long way to drive just for some yay." I used the slang abbreviation for llello, which is Spanish for cocaine.

Snake looked at me and motioned for me to hold the phone. "You're looking for some C?" Another slang term for the white stuff.

"I'm not-- this guy is," I said to Snake, pointing to the cel.

"Gerald's got some."

"Gerald? You mean East Coast Gerald?"

"Yeah. Let me call him. How much does he want?"

"Uh, I dunno... how much will Gerald sell?"

"$60 increments."

"Well, we already pay $40 for the other stuff, but that's because he won't do twenties anymore. How cut is Gerald's stuff?"

"Very pure. Not really cut. It's always the same, it never varies. Mild high, but it won't make you wanna rip your hair out."

I discussed the situation with my friend in the vaguest possible manner, and he agreed to give it a try. if it wasn't good stuff, he reasoned, then he could always call the other guy later on.

"OK, Snake," I said as I hung up the cel and gave it back to him. "Should we hit Gerald up before or after we make this errand?"

Snake laughed. "Actually, he's the one I'm going to see. You're taking me right to him."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Will he be cool with me asking?"

"Dude, he loves you. Remember?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Well, call him now and ask him if he can have it ready."

That night, I had a taste of Gerald's product, and it was amazing how different his stuff was compared to the other stuff: not hard on the nose, relatively pure, didn't smell like ether or gasoline, wasn't in rock form (it was granulated powder), and when it was all gone I was able to go to sleep!

And the next morning, it was as if I didn't do any at all. No aches and pains, no corroded pink earthworms lodged in my nose, and no burn.

I started buying it again, but from Gerald. I swore off the other shit, the cut shit. There were so many advantages to getting it from Gerald-- no more trips to the 'hood because Gerald lived in a nice suburban part of the Valley; no more long waits because Gerald was on time whenever I called him for an order; no more delays and being put off until the next day either.

I told myself I would only buy on the weekends, and I've pretty much kept up that end of my bargain with myself. But I also told myself that buying from Gerald would help me to wean off of the stuff. I reasoned that since it was the kind of high that I could walk away from and not think about until the weekend came, I could eventually learn to do without it at all.

On that point, I'm beginning to see that I was wrong.

*/*

The coke high, for me, is all about pure ego gratification.

Unlike other drugs, the pleasure comes not from reveling in the side effects. Rather, the pleasure comes from the sense of well-being that overcomes me when I do it. It's as if someone is patting me on the back and commending me for a job well done for a good half an hour. When the drug's effects start to wane, it's as simple as cutting up another line and inhaling it, and voila! I'm back to pretending that my ass is being kissed non-stop.

Other drugs seem to disable the ego, and therein lies their appeal. Marijuana causes euphoria and a sense of well-being, but not to the extent of cocaine. The pot high is more of an id gratification-- you do it because it feels good, not because you feel like you've accomplished anything. The ego is muted when I'm stoned, whereas the ego is overstimulated when I'm tweaking.

Acid, mushrooms, peyote-- those drugs are total ego destroyers. You have to let go of your self-esteem and all of its attachments in order to enjoy them. On the other hand, MDMA (Ecstasy) is like a mix of coke and pot in that it massages the ego but also causes you to surrender to your pleasure principle.

Adding to cocaine's insidious nature is the fact that (now that I am doing cleaner coke) I have more than doubled my intake. Although I can make it through the week and through a work shift without buying or doing any, I overcompensate on the weekends. Many friends and acquaintances have remarked on the amounts I snort when we are all together partying. These people have been doing it for much longer than me, and yet their eyes bulge out and their jaws drop when they see the gaggers I cut for them and myself. They take a look at the size of the lines I have prepared for them and insist on doing only half or a mere fraction. When they are done, I swoop down and finish off what they left on their plate, minutes after sniffing rails the size of my pinkie finger.

One night I did $100 worth straight to my head. By the end of my stash I could no longer get high-- if anything it was making me more tired instead of pepping me up. I told my guests that I was going to go to sleep and that they could stay for as long as they wanted just as long as they locked my door when they left.

I received a phone call less than an hour later from one of the guests, who left shortly after I retired for the night. He wanted to make sure that I was OK and that I hadn't died or gotten sick or choked on my own vomit or something horrible like that. I laughed and reassured them that I was fine, but when I hung up I took a look at myself in the mirror and saw that my face was fatigued and beaten. I looked old, weathered, like I'd aged ten years overnight.

On top of all of that, the shit's expensive. I am not in terrible financial trouble yet, but if I continue down this road I will be. Even at the height of my pot use I was not spending $100 in one sitting. And if I did ever spend $100 on weed, it lasted me for more than just a few hours-- $100 worth of grass could last me for a month if I was frugal with it.

Last week I was so happy because I'd been propositioned by a fellow cokehead and turned him down flat. He wanted to know if I wanted to split some with him and I refused, saying that if I was going to buy any it would be on the weekend. I felt good about not giving in, especially since Valentine's Day was coming and I was being inundated on all sides by love propaganda that usually makes me feel lonely and unwanted.

I held out until Saturday, and then I dropped close to $200 on the clean stuff. It was gone by Sunday morning, and I spent the rest of the day catching up on sleep and wondering how I could just waste my money like that when I have bills to pay, things to take care of and a life to live.

Even though it wasn't the cut stuff that had me using on a daily basis and even though I didn't have a hangover the next day, I still felt like utter shit.

*/*

And that's why I am pleading for your prayers, kind people.

I have not hit rock bottom yet, but I would like to spare myself the pain and embarrassment of losing everything I've worked so hard for over a drug habit.

I now fully understand the plight of every person I've ever met or known who found themselves in my shoes. I must admit, I could never comprehend why coke addicts couldn't exhibit any will power. And now, I cannot even understand my own lack of will power.

I am above this. I know better. I am not stupid. But yet I'm doing stupid things, and I cannot seem to make it stick whenever I tell myself to kick.

It's not over for me, so please keep me in your thoughts and root for me. I may not be able to hear your prayers, but they will reach me somehow.

I can't do it alone. I need to get away from the people who use it, from the people who sell it, from the people who are afraid to lecture me because they don't want to anger me.

I have to stop using it.

I have to.

what is love?

2007-02-14T02:52:00.000-08:00

So often in these blog pages I have questioned my own ability to love and be loved.

But I know now that I have the capacity for it.

I recently thought about the beginning of the spring of 2005, the night before Monique was supposed to fly home to Virginia. I was running late en route to the house where she was staying, and by the time I got to her front steps she was smoking a cigarette and waiting for me.

Monique said to me that she was tired, and that she just wanted to get to sleep so she could catch her plane in the morning, and that it was hard enough as it was leaving again without having to get all emotional over it. Then she looked at me and asked if I was upset.

My normal reaction on any ordinary day would've been to swallow, then restrain my hurt as I insist that it's no big deal and that it's OK. But that night, I had to admit that I was upset, because I didn't know if I would ever see her again after that.

But I didn't want to get angry either.

So I smiled, shook my head briefly, looked Monique in the eyes and said, "Yes, I am upset."

She smiled back. We embraced for a long time and shared one more kiss. I bid her adieu and drove home, slightly depressed but grateful for the two weeks we spent together.

The next day, she called me up in the early evening to tell me that she overslept and missed her flight. She re-booked it for a few days later.

We met each other later on and had us a proper going-away celebration that night. And after she finally did leave for real, I wondered if she really missed her flight or if she intentionally stayed behind in order to give me what she figured she might have owed me.

Ultimately, I decided that she didn't owe me anything, and chalked up her delayed departure to circumstance... but I always felt good about speaking my heart to her at that moment. Even if it wasn't the primary motivation behind her re-scheduled trip, I think it might have helped her to accept her situation with more grace at the very least.

It was one of the few times in my life when I did not let my defenses get the best of me. Yes, I was upset-- but the smile was to show her that it really was OK if she had to go and was too exhausted to be with me.

She expected me to pout and sulk. When I didn't, it reaffirmed something for her, and it surprised me that I didn't hesitate to bare my soul so frankly.

Thinking about that moment has made an otherwise lonely Valentine's Day week much more tolerable. I know I have it in me, if I'd only give myself the chance.

I'm calling her tomorrow morning, to let her know that I will be visiting her in a couple of months. I hope she will be glad to hear that.

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!

???

2007-02-12T00:43:00.000-08:00

I really don't know why, and I don't think trying to explain it would help... but I am happier right now than I have been in a long, long time.

Analyzing and trying to rationalize it only serve to de-mystify it. I have no answers, no solutions, no way of knowing how this happened or why.

All I know is, I'm sharing it with anyone out there who still bothers to read this.

Take care!

twilight

2007-02-06T01:22:00.000-08:00

For my birthday my mother bought me two books: Volumes One and Two of a short collection entitled Richard Matheson's The Twilight Zone Scripts. I felt it was probably the best gift I received for my birthday this year, which is saying a lot because overall this year's proceedings went well.

I always forget how much I love The Twilight Zone. I loved it as a kid and I still love it as an adult. It has a timeless quality, a classic tableau of iconography and imagery attached to its fame and legacy.

A little known fact: Rod Serling, as well as other TZ writers like Charles Beaumont and the aforementioned Matheson, was a huge inspiration on my writing. Rod Serling was an excellent wordsmith whose imagination was rivaled only by those he handpicked to write on his show, like Beaumont and Matheson. His public image (dapper attire, pinched voice, cigarette in hand) overshadows his talent as one of the few Golden Age of Television "teleplaywrights" that ever became prominent.

What is a "teleplaywright", you may be asking yourself? It is exactly what it sounds like: a playwright whose works were written specifically for television. The word "teleplay" is still in use, only nowadays the people who create these teleplays are merely referred to as writers. But in the '50s Rod Serling elevated the art of the teleplay to such a level that he could accurately be labeled a teleplaywright.

Times were much, much different back then: Television was a brand new frontier, and the potential for TV to offer audiences more than just mindless programming was still there. Can you believe during those years, when Serling was cutting his teeth on shows like CBS' Playhouse 90, that once upon a time plays of a theatrical caliber were being broadcast on live television?

How far we have fallen as a race of humans that we cannot conceive of anything like that happening today. Watching a play on TV? Sounds boring, especially to anyone under the age of 40. Plus, with all the fucking commercials blaring at us from our TiVo-powered HDTV sets, who could even enjoy a play being shown on the air anyway? A play is far too intimate for the narrow confines of today's prime-time TV mentality.

If Serling had a drawback, it was his tendency to polemicize. He could get too wordy with his dialogue, and had a tendency to hit people over the head with his messages, whether they were cultural, social or political. Indeed, even his best teleplays for TZ are hopelessly dated and peppered with references to McCarthyism and Castro... not that those points of reference mar the beauty of his words or the potency of his finest creation, a show that lasted for five seasons, won many awards, showcased dozens of talented actors and writers, and has endured throughout the ages thanks to its loyal fan base, of which I am a proud member.

*/*

We all have our favorites, don't we?

The episode that scared the living hell out of you as a youngster, the one that made you laugh, the one you didn't understand fully until you came of age, or the one that mesmerized you because of its surreal set design and lighting...

Yes, we all have our favorites.

Mine is "Eye Of The Beholder": "No change! No change at all!"

A show like TZ is so famous and recognizable that all I have to do is quote one line from the episode and you know which one I'm talking about.

How about "To Serve Man"? "It's a cookbook!"

And of course, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" starring pre-Star Trek William Shatner: "There's a man out there!"

Then there's the lesser known favorites of mine, the most outstanding in my mind being "The Obsolete Man", a terrific political fable that condemned totalitarianism and fascism with a moral authority that I wish to God still existed in this day and age, when we need it most.

To quote from Serling's introduction to that episode:

"This is not a new world-- it is simply an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advancements, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of freedom. But like every one of the superstates that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace."

Does that ring a bell? Almost sounds like he's talking about our current political climate, doesn't it?

The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess.

I loved "The Obsolete Man" when I first saw it because it was very Kafka-esque, evoking a claustrophobic vision of a future far more frightening than pig-nosed doctors or gremlins on the wing. Whenever I have the extreme pleasure of watching this episode again, I am moved not only by the gravity of the performances (Fritz Weaver as The Chancellor and Burgess Meredith, better known as the hapless bookworm from the classic TZ episode "Time Enough At Last", playing The Obsolete Man) but also the eloquence of the dialogue. It was written as a teleplay but could easily be performed by two actors on a bare stage anywhere in the free-thinking world.

Ultimately, this episode only revolves around the dynamic between Weaver's cruel autocrat and Meredith's humane librarian, and the episode's resolution remains a strong and searing rebuke of the nihilism that poisons the minds of so many people living in the world today. Unlike other episodes, where the O. Henry-style twist knocks everyone off their feet in the third act, the reversal of fortunes in "The Obsolete Man" hammer home one of the few political statements that Serling ever made that is more relevant today than it was when he first made them.

When The Chancellor realizes that he has been rendered "obsolete" by the very panel he was once a part of, his denials fall upon callous, indifferent ears. As he meets his fate, Serling steps in and delivers the final word:

"The late Chancellor was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so was the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man... that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under M for mankind in The Twilight Zone."

Where are people like Rod Serling now when we really, really need them?

*/*

I just found out today, while doing some pre-blog research, that Rod Serling suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for the rest of his life following his tour of duty in the military near the end of WWII.

In other words, Rod Serling lived in his own Twilight Zone.

So did Richard Matheson, for that matter. As evidenced by the two volumes my parents bought me for my birthday, Matheson (in his own words) was an imaginative weirdo, always looking for the strangest angle on everyday things we all take for granted. What would happen if you looked out the window of an airplane and saw a man on the wing? What if a WWI flying ace traveled through time and landed at a modern-day Air Force base? How would you feel if one day you were alone in your office at work and suddenly you heard a man yell out "Cut!" and you turned around and realized that you were right in the middle of a movie set?

Matheson was the creative genius of the three main writers. If Serling was the The Twilight Zone's superego and Charles Beaumont its tortured id, then Matheson was the confident ego, an extremely visceral storyteller with a gift for finding the most far-out concept and making it seem plausible.

And speaking of Beaumont, let's not forget about the dark star of this sci-fi fantasy triumvirate. Beaumont was easily the most fucked-up of the three main writers whose scripts provided the basic structure for the series. Raised by an abusive mother who punished him in bizarre ways such as killing his pets and forcing him to dress up like a girl, Beaumont was a twisted talent whose contributions to the show were populated by world-weary, desperate characters who had already gone to the brink and back, sometimes on some chimerical quest to try and make things right again.

More often than not, Beaumont's characters wanted to die, although sometimes (as in the case of Kevin McCarthy in "Long Live Walter Jameson") they wanted to cheat death as well. Either way, man's mortality was the main focus of Beaumont's best TZ teleplays.

Beaumont not only lived in The Twilight Zone with Serling and Matheson, but he wanted to escape, perhaps more than the others did. When he died in 1967 at the age of 38, due to complications brought on by either Alzheimer's Disease or a continuation of the meningitis he suffered as a young boy, perhaps he finally made that escape.

All this confirms for me that the maxim about writing what you know is not only true, but applies to even the unlikeliest authors in regards to their work. One might be tempted to ask how a science fiction or fantasy writer could possibly write about what he or she knows when what they are writing about is not even real sometimes, but it is plain to see that the personality of a writer automatically injects itself into his work whether he knows it or not. Therefore, even if a writer is inventing imaginary worlds or creating characters that could never exist realistically, it is still a part of them because it sprang from their minds and from their hearts.

Maybe that's why I like The Twilight Zone so much: because I live in The Twilight Zone as well, but only I live on a different block and my rent is much cheaper.

And now, as an added bonus: The final episode that ever aired during the original run of The Twilight Zone, which in actuality was a French short film adaptation of Ambrose Bierce's short story "An Occurrrence At Owl Creek Bridge"...

It's never too late to create

2007-01-31T12:23:00.000-08:00

I am re-printing an article that I read in the L.A. Times yesterday while eating breakfast. If you'd like to see the actual article, click on the title above and it will take you to the L.A. Times page... but seeing as I have reprinted it for you, that's hardly necessary.

Creativity is not the domain of youth; some innovators get there through trial and error.

By David W. Galenson and Joshua Kotin

January 30, 2007

At 76, Clint Eastwood is making the best films of his career. "Letters from Iwo Jima" has been nominated for four Academy Awards — including best picture and best director. ("Flags of Our Fathers," which Eastwood also directed last year, received two nominations.) New York Times' film critic A.O. Scott recently named him "the greatest living American filmmaker." Such accolades are the latest development in Eastwood's creative ascension. Two years ago, his "Million Dollar Baby" won best picture and best director, a repeat of his success with "Unforgiven" at age 62 — his first Oscar after making movies for more than 20 years.

Sculptor Louise Bourgeois is 95. Later this year, she will be honored with a retrospective at London's Tate Modern museum. Last November, her "Spider," a sculpture she made at the age of 87, sold at auction for more than $4 million, the highest price ever paid for her work and among the highest ever paid for the work of a living sculptor.

Is such creativity in old age rare? Eastwood and Bourgeois often are considered anomalies. Yet such career arcs — gradual improvements culminating in late achievements — account for many of the most important contributions to the arts. That our society does not generally recognize this fact suggests that we're missing a key concept about creativity.

We often presume creativity is the domain of youth, that great artists are young geniuses, brash and brilliant iconoclasts. Arthur Rimbaud, Pablo Picasso, T.S. Eliot, Orson Welles, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jasper Johns all revolutionized their artistic disciplines in their teens or 20s. (Picasso, for example, created the first cubist paintings at 25, and Welles made "Citizen Kane" at 25.) These artists made dramatic, inspired discoveries based on important new ideas, which they often encapsulated in individual masterpieces.

But there's another path to artistic success, one that doesn't rely on sudden flashes of insight but on the trial-and-error accumulation of knowledge that ultimately leads to novel manifestations of wisdom and judgment. This is Eastwood's and Bourgeois' path — and it was the path for a host of other artists: Titian and Rembrandt, Monet and Rodin, Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, Mark Twain and Henry James, Robert Frost and Elizabeth Bishop, to name a few. (Twain wrote "Tom Sawyer" at 41 and bettered it with "Huckleberry Finn" at 50; Wright completed Fallingwater at 72 and worked on the Guggenheim Museum until his death at 91.)

Paul Cézanne is the archetype of this kind of experimental innovator. After failing the entrance exam for the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, he left Paris frustrated by his inability to compete with the precocious young artists who congregated in the city's cafes. He formulated his artistic goal, of bringing solidity to Impressionism, only after the age of 30, then spent more than three decades in seclusion in his home in Aix, painstakingly developing his mature style trying to represent the beauty of his native Provence. Finally, in his 60s, he created the masterpieces that influenced every important artist of the next generation.

Frost also matured slowly. He dropped out of Dartmouth and then Harvard, and in his late 20s moved to a farm in rural New Hampshire. His poetic goal was to capture what he called the "sound of sense," the words and cadence of his neighbors' speech. He published his most famous poem, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," at 49.

At 63, Frost reflected that although young people have sudden flashes of insight, "it is later in the dark of life that you see forms, constellations. And it is the constellations that are philosophy."

These two creative life cycles stem from differences in both goals and methods. Conceptual innovators aim to express new ideas or particular emotions. Their confidence and certainty allow them to achieve this quickly, often by radically breaking rules of disciplines they have just entered. In contrast, experimental innovators try to describe what they see or hear. Their careers are quests for styles that capture the complexity and richness of the world they live in.

The cost of ignoring Cézanne's example is tremendous — and not only for the arts. Our society prefers the simplicity and clarity of conceptual innovation in scholarship and business as well. Yet the conceptual Bill Gateses of the business world do not make the experimental Warren Buffetts less important. Recognizing important experimental work can be difficult; these contributions don't always come all at once. Experimental innovators often begin inauspiciously, so it's also dangerously easy to parlay judgments about early work into assumptions about entire careers.

But perhaps the most important lesson is for experimental innovators themselves: Don't give up. There's time to do game-changing work after 30. Great innovators bloom in their 30s (Jackson Pollock), 40s (Virginia Woolf), 50s (Fyodor Dostoevsky), 60s (Cézanne), 70s (Eastwood) and 80s (Bourgeois).

Who knows how many potential Cézannes we are currently losing? What if Eastwood had stopped directing at 52, after the critical failure of "Firefox," his 1982 film about a U.S. fighter pilot who steals a Soviet aircraft equipped with thought-controlled weapons?

DAVID W. GALENSON is an economist at the University of Chicago. JOSHUA KOTIN, a doctoral student in English at the University of Chicago, is editor of the Chicago Review.

My Philosophy: Nine Rules To Live By

2007-01-30T06:21:00.000-08:00

1. Never do what is expected of you. God made the world chaotic as a test of your faith. You may as well go with the flow of nature, right? Be disruptive, so long as it is the last thing anyone expects you to do. Be courteous, so long as people expect you to be disruptive. And if your friends start to expect the unexpected from you, fear not: Probability is on your side. There are infinite ways to accommodate chaos but there is a limited number of ways to execute order.

A noteworthy corollary to this: Never expect anything from anybody. Expect the unexpected. If a beautiful woman invites you to her place for a candlelit dinner, the LAST thing you should expect is to get laid. The minute you go in there expecting something, Murphy's Law will take effect and render your entire evening fruitless. Better to accept the aforementioned dinner date fully expecting to play Boggle or some other mundane board game. That way, the sex will feel greater than it would've been had you known what to expect.

2. Always believe everything you hear. There is nothing wrong with investing your imagination into the realms of possibility. I don't feel stupid if someone takes me for a fool or misleads me just to show how 'gullible' I am. Why should I feel stupid about believing that anything is possible?

Besides, a person who pulls your leg to see if you are 'gullible' has actually given you the advantage, unbeknownst to them. For you see, there are two types of people in this world: Those who lie and end up being believed, and those who tell the truth and end up being disbelieved. I'd rather be in the latter camp, because eventually the truth will out. On the other hand, to be in the former camp means the novelty gets lost after two or three times; after a while, one realizes that all they've done is reveal themselves to be liars who cannot be believed. And the advantage to that is knowing they were a liar before they realized it themselves.

3. Amuse yourself endlessly at the expense of others. I am not saying you should be cruel to others. What I am saying is that you shouldn't lose your sense of humor, and as we all know the best kind of humor is at someone else's expense. Limit your number of pranks and leg-pulls to a minimum, lest you suffer the fate I described in the last paragraph. Instead, treat everything around you as if life has suddenly transformed into a scene from a comedic movie. Notice how I didn't say "TV sitcom"-- that's because it is really embarrassing to wait for imaginary laugh tracks around people who aren't in on the joke.

4. Exaggerate everything about yourself. Why exaggerate personal details? Because if you don't write the large legend, then someone else will... and they might choose selectively when it comes to what needs to be exaggerated. Better to be thought a braggadocious self-promoter than a victim of slanderous libel. Plus, it gives your critics something to obsess over: No one but your enemies have the time to sift through what is the fact and the fiction of your life!

5. Shun the spotlight. This may seem contradictory on my part, but when you really examine what I've done with my life you'll begin to see that I rarely ever crave to be the center of attention. That's because being a participant is all that matters, and since I try to get by doing as little as possible (or more than is expected, which goes back to Rule #1) then that means being the center of attention is out of the question. And anyhow, it is easier to pull off these rules (especially #6) if no one really knows who you are.

I make it a point to change my personal appearance up often enough to keep even my own family guessing as to what I look like. My recent beard experiments have proven to be phenomenally successful in this regard; I intend to shave my head and wear glasses sometime later this year.

6. Cultivate mystery. This is the most difficult rule on the list, partly due to the fact that Mystery is a mystery unto itself. How does one cultivate Mystery anyway? And what do I mean by 'cultivating' in the first place?

What I mean is, keep people on their toes: Don't explain everything you do, or better yet give daft explanations for everything; Make liberal use of irony and sarcasm at all opportunities, so that no one will know where your true allegiances lie; and above all, never give a straight answer. Why? Because your enemies will use any accurate information against you, and your friends will think you work for the CIA.

7. Disregard the opinions of others. It sounds harsh, but let's face it-- everybody other than you is wrong about everything regarding you. Now, that doesn't mean you should admit to not giving a rat's ass about what other people think. If you are really good at any of these rules, you can feel contempt for everyone around you without them even knowing. And chances are, you have no idea how little weight others give to your own opinions as well.

8. Laugh as a method of self-defense. This is the easiest rule on the list to live by, because it doesn't take much to laugh at anything. I recommend using it as a method of self-defense because there are so many terrible things in this world that could kill us if not for our ability to scoff in the face of death and tragedy.

9. Always give 'em enough rope. If you are as watchful and diligent as I am, then you already know that anyone who is conspiring against you will eventually ensnare themselves in the very webs they created to ensnare you.

And when I say that others are conspiring, I don't mean to be paranoid. I'm just saying that every day, whether on minuscule or magnificent scales, there are mini-plots being waged against you, sometimes innocently and sometimes with a sinister undercurrent. Maybe that guy across from your cubicle is trying to beat you out for a promotion. Maybe that woman down the hall in your apartment complex wants you to proposition her so that she can make her husband jealous. These are all human emotions and feelings, and most of us NEVER act on them.

But the ones who DO act upon those human animal impulses... Well, they've set themselves up for a big fall in an even bigger way, haven't they? And if you are a true disciple of my Nine Rules, then they won't stand a chance when the time comes to exact some payback. So let them wreak their havoc, for it is a short-lived run for them. And after they've spent their energy on tripping you up, all you need to do is give a little tug on the hanging rope. It will not require much on your part, for they will have already fitted the noose around their own neck.

unattainable

2007-01-24T00:12:00.000-08:00

My birthday weekend was fun-filled and eventful.

Friday night I attended Rose's farewell party. She has decided to make the move up north. Apparently, Los Angeles was killing her inside.

I can't tell you how many women I've met in the past five or six years who came to L.A., ran out of steam and high-tailed it back to where they came from, or perhaps another city.

Los Angeles is a tough nut to crack.

I met some of Rose's friends, some of them impossibly beautiful females with "Unattainable" stamped into their foreheads. And yet I think I did alright, now that I am sporting a beard. Something about the facial hair makes me appear to be my actual age, which leads me to believe that there is something about a man who looks younger than his years that women find somehow deceitful or wrong.

I shaved the beard shortly before Christmas, after a full month of letting it grow as thick as I could. I literally watched myself get younger in the mirror as I shaved off the beard section by section. After that, I decided to let it grow again, with minimal trims and grooming.

Surprisingly, people like the beard. True, they can't recognize me at first if they haven't seen me wearing it yet, but once they settle in they are pleased by it. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I am elated by it because I like to toy with my appearance, and a beard makes me feel as if I am in disguise or have somehow changed my physiognomy significantly.

I guess if I had a girlfriend right now, she might object... or she might like it. It appears that having a beard might lead to me having a girlfriend again.

*/*

I feel like I am finally ready to have a relationship with someone again.

Rose's departure was a bit sad for me, but I think I know now what she meant to me. I was never sure if I was just pining for companionship or if I was really head over heels for her. I feel now that I was just dipping my toes in the water and seeing if I was stable enough to pursue something with all of my heart.

With Rose, I was not 100% ready. But I also know that what I wanted from her was not based in physical attraction. Rather, Rose brought out my desire for romance again. Courtship. Holding hands. Looking into each other's eyes. Deep conversations. Baring souls and sighing.

I showed up late to the party at the Formosa Cafe. There were a lot of people already there. I mingled and hung out with JJ and Mack, the boys from my band. They were the ones who introduced me to Rose, and were also there to wish her a safe trip up north.

I saw her and she smiled and hugged me, wanting to take pictures. She was on her way to drunkenness. I gave her a gift, a kitschy handbag designed like a Chinese takeout box. Inside the box was a volume of modern poetry.

I hung out for a spell and met her friends, the unattainable ones. Foremost out of the lot emerged Jenny, a firebrand of a girl who stood 5'10", aged 24 years, and had done more in one lifetime than you could squeeze out of six others: a pilot, a singer, a dancer, a traveler, a model, an actress, an artist, a trophy girlfriend... she'd been there and done that and been that and done there fifty times over.

And she was talking to me.

I tell you, it's the beard.

However, I made the mistake of leaving the party to go with the Missing Digit boys over to Lava Lounge, where a friend of a friend's band was playing. I don't regret going, though-- as lackluster as the Lounge was compared to the Formosa (possibly informed by the sad revelation that Lava Lounge is closing its doors for good at the end of February) I needed to get out of there and breathe, lest I give in to rheumy emotion and confess to Rose that I thought I might be falling in love with her and that her leaving would render me vulnerable and sullen.

*/*

I ended up returning to Formosa just before 2am.

The population of the party had dwindled. Indeed, Firebrand Jenny had left long ago, and all that was left were a few stragglers.

Rose didn't see me as I walked in. I stood next to her for almost a full five minutes, watching her sway tipsily on her stool as friends hugged her and said goodbye.

Then, as if on cue (it always seems to me like it's on cue) she turned and focused her bleary eyes on me, and she smiled that grinny smile that habitually melted my icy heart.

"Jamessss," she slurred.

"Rose."

"Oh James," she said, as she hugged me long and hard. And when she pulled away, her hands were still on my face and my arms were around her waist. Her fingers massaged the fluffy wool of my jaw.

And we stood like that for a long time.

"I'm going to miss you," I said.

Rose stared at me as if she could kiss me on the lips. "I'm going to miss you too. But I'll see you in April."

"What, are you coming down to visit then?"

"No... JJ and Mack said you guys are going to play up north. Didn't they tell you?"

I paused. I thought about it. Then I replied, "No, they haven't."

"Really?"

"Hey, I'm just the bass player, what do I know?"

She laughed and kissed me on the cheek. And that was the last I saw of her before she left Los Angeles.

The next night, before we did our show at The Whiskey, I asked the boys about April. They laughed and said they had only suggested that they might go up north and play a show around springtime.

"Man, she musta been pretty wasted," Mack said.

I put on a fake smile and said, "Yeah, she really was..."

*/*

I felt lots of love from family and friends this past weekend, so I know that I am loved and that I have people to love in return. But I am craving romantic love now.

I want to come home and be with a girl and talk about our days and sit on the bed and laugh and joke and chat and maybe kiss and hold each other and caress and snuggle and not necessarily have sex but simply be, with each other, comfortable and carefree.

It's been a long time since I had something like that.

Even though it didn't pan out with Rose, I am glad that it brought me around to this fine point of knowing what it is that I want. I am not sure if I would've wanted anything intimate with Rose because it wasn't her looks that had me enthralled. Her smile was intoxicating, yes, but only because of what spawned the smile, not the smile itself.

Her smile stemmed from a positive belief in art and life.

She had me musing like I hadn't mused in who knows how long.

The last time I went through this was with Holly Golightly, shortly before she went back home to Florida. After Holly departed, I met up with Eve again and picked up where we left off, which was followed by an interim where we both dated other people. Then, Eve and I hooked up again and that lasted for a spell, but eventually it fell apart.

And now I'm on the verge of loving again, and this time I know what I want, and I think I know how to get it... but it's going to take patience, time, and a liberal dose of humor.

And as for Rose, I suspect (in hindsight, of course) that maybe she was just waiting for me to make some sort of declarative statement or bold move. It may not be as over as I think. I may still have a chance one day to discover what she has to offer, if I just take my time and not obsess over it.

In the meantime, I will reevaluate myself as I enter into what seems to be a whole new identity, thanks in large part to this growth of facial hair covering the lower part of my face.

Lately I've been getting strange girls to talk to me right out of the blue, without having to say or do anything. Ironically, my feeling has always been that a beard rendered me less desirable, but I guess I have been wrong all along.

I'm sure there's girls who dig the baby face, but maybe I should see where this goes and decide what to do as the tides of fate bat me to and fro.

It'd be nice to take that approach for a change.

Yes, I think I'm ready to have a worthwhile romance again. Everything around me is pointing to this as my next move. Now all I have to do is remember not to take things for granted or assume that it's easy. That's been my problem in the past: Getting too comfy, getting soft and lazy like the inside of an oyster.

Spring is nearing, and I want to be prepared.

motown

2007-01-18T02:21:00.000-08:00

Ask the average person to listen to a piece of music and pick out the individual parts. Chances are, they will not know the difference between a bass drum and a high-hat, nor will they know which part is the bass line and which part is the guitar (unless it's a guitar solo, to which they will proceed to play air guitar).

Until someone takes the time to point these things out to you, it's all mud, an amorphous mass of melody and harmony to the layman's ears until the smaller sections that comprise a song are dissected.

*/*

As a kid growing up, I loved the music that my parents played on their stereo. They played The Beatles and doo-wop oldies and a lot of Motown-- after all, this was the stuff they grew up on, so it meant more to them than it did to me.

The Motown selections were always upbeat, joyous and danceable. I never thought twice about the songs themselves. All I knew is that they were catchy and hummable, and I often found myself singing along without really knowing about the intricacies of the music.

As a full-grown man and a musician, I find myself time and again revisiting the Motown catalog and discovering a myriad of treasures. There was so much going on beneath the smooth, polished surface of those chestnuts from the Motor City.

*/*

Case in point: "Stop! In The Name Of Love" by The Supremes.

I'll admit right off the bat that The Supremes were not my cup of tea as a young boy. They were a girl group, for Pete's sake! I was more attuned to Smokey Robinson's balladeering romanticism and Marvin Gaye's simmering masculinity than to the uber-femme posturing of Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson.

Smokey and Marvin spoke directly to my developing male psyche, whereas The Supremes seemed silly, soft and inconsequential.

I liked "I Hear A Symphony" and "Someday We'll Be Together" from them, and that was about it. I paid none of the other tunes no mind: "Baby Love" was annoying; "Where Did Our Love Go?" barely held my attention; "You Can't Hurry Love" and "You Keep Me Hanging On" were covered by Phil Collins and Kim Wilde respectively, so my bias leaned to the more modern versions (I don't count Soft Cell's interpolation of "Where Did Our Love Go?" on the extended single of "Tainted Love" as a cover).

It was about three or four months ago when I realized the true brilliance of "Stop! In The Name Of Love" during an epiphany that drove me into the deepest depths of tunacy heretofore.

I was driving around town late night, feeling sorry for myself and bemoaning my lack of luck concerning the opposite sex. I had the radio tuned to KRTH 101, the classic L.A. oldies station that has been cranking out the hits for over 35 years.

"Stop!" came on, and rather than switch the station I let it play. Something about that ominous organ intro that rallies into action at the song's onset enervated me.

And then I heard the epiphany, the lilting refrain that mesmerized me like the siren song of Greek mythology.

In the background, as Diana Ross sings the line "I watch you walk down the street/ Knowing your other love you'll meet" the other two Supremes are singing "baby baby" and harmonizing like soulful angels watching over the love affair described in the lyrics, a mournful chorus rhapsodizing poetic in time to the music.

In all the years that I have heard this song played, whether on radio stations or in someone's home or on the jukebox of some dive bar, I have never picked up on that small part, which is almost buried in the mix. I've always noticed Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson's more obvious contributions to that song, but never the "baby baby" part.

Ever.

That is, until recently.

*/*

Since then, I have been obsessed with that song, in particular that ghostly backup part that barely existed for me for the past three decades. I can't get that haunting refrain out of my head for the life of me. It is driving me insane.

It is so beautiful and sad, the way their voices glide underneath Ross' lead vocal, lamenting the poor choices of a figurative cad who is about to go off and break the heart of a woman who loves him dearly.

It could be my story. It could be your story.

Shortly after that epiphany, I began to re-investigate the Motown phenomenon, and realized that the other Supremes' presence wasn't the only thing that was taken for granted by the masses.

*/*

When asked about my influences as a bassist, I always cite one man in particular. And every time I drop this man's name, the interrogator pauses and makes a face, trying to figure out if I am pulling their leg or if I am being intentionally obscure.

I reassure them that I am not joking: My favorite bass player of all time is James Jamerson, who played with the Motown house band on nearly every single Motown hit that was released in their heyday.

I first heard the name James Jamerson when I read an L.A. Times book review of Allan Slutksy's book Standing In The Shadows Of Motown in 1989. By that time I was already well-versed and steeped in Motown trivia, so Jamerson's name clicked in my head immediately. Now I knew the name of the guy who played the famous opening notes of The Temptations' "My Girl", as well as countless other hits.

When I started playing bass guitar, I started getting the question of who my influences were. I had to think about it-- Who were my influences anyway?

Sure, I could say what everyone else says and cite Flea from the Chili Peppers, or Les Claypool from Primus. Maybe I could get all jazzy and deep and drop Jaco Pastorius' name as well. But I knew in my heart that my playing was not in the same league as those guys, and if there was any one bass player that entered my mind when I played it would have to be Jamerson.

So I started answering that question with his name, and people screwed their faces at me in response.

*/*

I never read the book Standing In The Shadows Of Motown, but I rented the DVD last week and marveled at the genius and talent of the unsung heroes of Motown: The Funk Brothers, as they were known back in the days jamming out in Studio A, aka "The Snakepit".

Remember the amorphous mass of melody and harmony I mentioned at the beginning of this blog? Well, in the case of Hitsville USA, that mass had a bunch of different names and personalities. Each name and personality lived a life of its own, and some of them died without ever having the kind of fame and recognition reserved for superstars like Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye.

The late James Jamerson emerges from the documentary as a forceful and mercurial performer, a true genius who taught himself how to play and elevated the instrument to another level. He wrote the complicated and syncopated bass lines himself, then played them with one finger on a Fender Precision (more commonly known as the P-Bass) with impossibly high action and heavy gauge strings that he never changed (according to his son, James Jr., never changing the strings on the bass "kept the funk in 'em").

My kinship with Jamerson extends to more than just playing the same instrument: We have the same first name; our birthdays are a week apart, and we share the same Zodiac sun sign (Aquarius); I have a P-Bass similar in design to his; we were both auto didactic (self-taught) musicians...

...And, I assume, both of us were fanatically dedicated with finding the perfect notes, capturing the proper pitch and appropriate feel of any given song.

Just listen to what James is doing on "Stop! In The Name Of Love", for example. He's not playing it straight-- he's putting English on it, making it swing and tapping out percussive flourishes that sneak by your subconscious in the most subliminal ways imaginable.

His genius was that you never noticed it.

*/*

What I don't possess in skill or technique, I make up for by having a good ear and knowing what to play in relation to the rhythm and the melody.

I describe the instrumental sections of the modern pop music combo as follows:

The voice and melody can be represented by the head, where the mouth is located. It is synonymous with the face, which is the first thing most people identify with when they see a group or a solo performer. Looks play a huge part in how music is received.

The guitar and/or keyboard parts are represented by the torso, which is not only attached to the arms but also makes up the main body or frame of a song. This is the heart of a tune, synonymous with the chest.

The drums are the legs of a song, making it move and propel forward, upon which the melodies stand. The tempo is synonymous with the pace of the legs, whether they are walking or running.

And the bass? The bass is the ass. The booty. The lower region. The "bottom end", so to speak. A good bass line will make you shake your booty uncontrollably. The late James Brown knew it, and so does any bass player worth their salt.

Where does the funk from your body emanate? From your ass, of course. Where does the funk come from musically? From the bass, silly.

All of my bass lines come not only from my heart but out of my ass as well.

*/*

One last thing before I go.

I never set out to play the bass.

No one ever sets out to play the bass. In fact, I've only known two people in my entire life who wanted to play the bass: my good friend and former band mate Clay Sails, and a kid who lent me his bass guitar shortly after high school. In both cases, they literally traded the bass for bigger and better things.

I was playing in a band and we didn't have a bassist. Since the other guitarist in the group was far superior to me on the six-string, it was decided that I be the bass player. Fair enough, I supposed, but none of us owned a bass and I had no money to go out and buy one.

An underclassman from my high school volunteered to let me borrow his bass and amplifier (both manufactured by Peavey) until I got one of my own. He barely played it, and although he had aspirations to be a musician, his true passion was cinema.

I never gave the bass back to that kid. It's not like I stole it, though: He would call me from time to time and ask for it back, and I'd say, "Sure man, come down here and take it" because I had no car of my own. But he never got back to me or demanded it back with any hurry.

Finally, I sold the bass one day after having it for two years. The kid never asked me about it, even during the few times when I ran into him again at a concert or a party.

I ended up buying an imitation Rickenbacker from Clay Sails, who was focusing more on guitar and piano. I owned that fake Rick for almost a decade before it was stolen from a friend's home.

These days I play the P-Bass, which was loaned to me by another friend. The P-Bass was just sitting in his garage, and when the fake Rick got robbed he lent me the guitar with no problem. He has never asked me for any money in return.

As for the kid who got me on the track to playing bass all those years ago... He's a movie director now. His major motion picture debut, an animated feature, opened last summer to rave reviews and made lots of money. I intend to rent the DVD just so I can hear his voice on the Commentary.

I wonder if he would've gotten into music more had I given it back to him, or if the bass would've collected dust in his room. Would I even be playing the bass today if not for him loaning it to me? If I had given it back, would I have gone out and bought another one for myself? Would he have neglected his movie dreams and become a first-class bassist par excellence?

It's hard to say. All I know is, he's happy, and so am I. And if I ever run into him again, I'm going to thank him with all of my heart for inadvertently introducing me to something that saved my life... as well as apologize for never giving it back.

writing

2007-01-16T00:16:00.000-08:00

It is a dark time right now.

Our President wants to send more troops to Iraq, as if that would help. Our pop cultural heroes keep dying off, reminding us of our own mortality. The villains seem to win or get away unscathed, shuffling off from this mortal coil without having to answer for their crimes.

People are writing less, blogging less. Even myself. I took some time off from blogging last year because I thought I needed to, but I discovered I was wrong.

I like to write. I like to blog. I don't do it for money, or so that I can attract advertisers and generate whore-cash. I don't write to get published, and I don't write to convince the world of my point of view.

I write because it is in me. It has always been in me. And if it is in me, then it needs to come out and get into you.

I gave up on chastising the lazy bloggers and the fairweather writers a long time ago. I don't care anymore if I post rambling blog entries and get zero comments. I don't give a shit if you like what I have to say or not.

I'm going to keep writing, and I'm not going to give up.

*/*

Writing is the only thing at which I am good.

That is to say, writing is the only thing that makes me feel like a true Master.

There will always be more skilled bassists, or more talented artists, or people with funnier stories or far more advanced conversational techniques. There will always be men more handsome than me, or more rugged than me, or more sensitive than me. There will always be someone just a little bit better than me in general.

But when it comes to writing, no one is better than me. That is because no one can write like me, and my writing resembles nobody else's prose.

The great ones are only great because they are widely distributed and read. But I can write better than Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Bukowski.

Wanna know why? Wanna know what's behind my ballsy reasoning?

Because those guys are dead, and I'm still here.

Their words remain, and their words are inspirational and eternal and classic. Their words and their works are enduring pieces of art that stretch into infinity and elevate their ranking damn near sainthood.

But they're dead, and I'm still here. And as far as other living writers go, I'm better than the whole lot of 'em.

That is the attitude one must have when approaching the blank page or the typewriter or the computer keyboard. Otherwise, you shouldn't be writing at all.

*/*

Blood spills in a foreign land. Over here, on the homefront, people are acquiescing left and right, settling for less, throwing the fight, taking dives and accepting bribes.

I don't blame them. They have no choice. They have nothing to fight for, they have no dreams left. The world has plundered their souls and taken all it can take. They have nothing left to offer up in the way of sacrifice.

They live in the real world, where rents can't be be paid and jobs are lost. They live in the material world, where money and bullshit walk hand in hand like a lovestruck couple unaware of their apparent mental illnesses. They live in the physical world where ideas have no weight and currency and therefore serve no purpose...

...and yet they wonder why things are slowly turning insane around them.

I live inside my head. I like living there-- it is preferable to this ugly realm that everyone else seems bound to, this prison for the unimaginative and feeble.

Call me a dreamer. Go ahead. I don't care. We just celebrated the life and death of a dreamer yesterday, so I don't mind it at all. To be in the company of people like MLK or John Lennon is fine with me.

They're dead, but their words live on.

Tell me, people of Earth: When you die, are your words going to live on, or are you taking them with you into the grave?

I know where my words will be-- spinning into eternity!

*/*

I am no longer disappointed by everyone's refusal to realize their own true potentials.

The way I see it, their insistence on bowing down before their insatiable gods and demons is an advantage for me.

What they disinherit-- the kingdom of heaven, peace and prosperity --is all mine for the taking. I have no competition. No one is trying to beat me to it.

I can take my time, or I can rush headlong into the thick of it.

I have choices.

Tell me, people of Earth: What choice do you have when you've thrown in the towel and resigned yourself to defeat so early in the game?

Answer: None. You have no choices when you let the world win.

I'll tell you what: I may not be making any money off of this writing thing, but I feel like I am a wealthy man anyway.

*/*

One of these days I'll get it right. One of these days I'll string the right amount of letters together and form some magic sentence that will unlock the mysteries of the universe and bring happiness and joy to all who are literate and lucky enough to read it.

Until then, I'm going to keep on writing, and I'm not going to stop.

What are you going to do until then?

college

2007-01-12T04:37:00.000-08:00

From time to time, all of us have our doubts about the paths we chose to take in our lives.

It's normal to contemplate what could have been. Hell, I do it all the time. In fact, this past year has been one long revaluation of every decision I've made in the past 15 or 16 years!

But I always manage to bounce back and "stay the course", so to speak. My will to carry on refuses to allow those innermost fears and doubts gnaw at me for very long.

However, I've been thinking lately: What if I put my stubborn pride aside and truly reflect on my past as if every decision I've made has been totally wrong?

What would I conclude?

Hmmmm...

*/*

Let's start with my decision to not go to college.

This is is tricky, because I did try to go to a community college. But I only enrolled in two classes, Criminal Law and Broadcasting. I received an Incomplete in one and a Withdrawal in the other.

The reason I didn't continue, I tell myself, is because I wanted to be a working stiff and I'd had enough of book learning. I wanted to experience life and earn a paycheck and I couldn't wait to do four years of college.

But the fact is, I could've applied for scholarships... and I probably would've garnered a few based upon my ethnicity alone. But I tell myself that I didn't think it was fair that I had a shot at a university when so many non-minority students with the same GPA as me were denied.

I also like to tell myself that right now I'd be up to my scalp in debt, or that the minute I finished college I would've encountered the Quarterlife Crisis that I hear so much about.

And finally, I have always trotted out that old sawhorse about going back to college anytime I want but not right now because I'm doing so much and learning vital skills at my job.

There is some truth in all of these rationalizations, but I wonder if I could've lived the life I lived in my early twenties and still received a quality education.

You may be wondering why I didn't finish those two classes. It's simple, really: I was carpooling with my good friend Sharky, who is known for his tardiness in all aspects of life. I hesitate to blame him for my continual lateness during that semester, because it was my choice to go along with his idea of the both of us going to the same community college. I could've gone to the local college and taken a bus every day, but I let myself be persuaded to tag along with Sharky... who is still taking college courses to this day, I might add.

Ultimately, I just didn't want to go to college. I figured that I'd learn things in the workplace and get experience I couldn't gather from classes. In that respect, I was correct-- I don't think I'd be as seasoned as I am with audio editing, for example, if I'd completed that Broadcasting class.

But then again, if I'd gotten some type of degree, maybe I'd be making more money right now. And maybe I would've met more people that I most likely would not have met. I probably would've gotten laid a lot more too.

It's something to consider.

*/*

The left side of my brain reasons that I had just as many doubts about going to college as I had about not going. Truthfully, I probably had more fears and anxieties about going than not going, because there is a lot of pressure being put upon the average college student in their first year.

I had no pressure from my parents, that's for sure. If they were ever disappointed in my decision to not go, they never voiced it. Shit, they didn't even have money saved up for me in case I did want to go, so it's apparent that they trusted me to make that decision on my own. I don't think they ever expected me to go off to college, to be perfectly frank.

Would they have supported me if I had gone? Maybe. But at the time both sides of my immediate family (split by divorce, of course) were not in any real position to help me financially. They might have suggested I pay for it myself and live at home while attending, but I don't think they would have (or could have) gone beyond that.

They're all doing great now, so if I were eighteen years old again I think college would seem more attainable, more realistic.

But then there's that self-destructive, devil-may-care side of me that would've shirked my responsibilities and squandered my opportunities by not taking it seriously or changing majors mid-term or pursuing dead-end career paths simply because everyone else said it would be beneficial.

And let's not forget that I definitely would've used college as a method of making up for an adolescence that was only begininng to build up juvenile steam in my Senior year. I wanted to par-tay, and I'm certain that I would've neglected my studies in order to hit up the keggers and the social events.

I think I would've folded beneath the weight of exams, living as an adult for the first time, wanting to be creative, looking to have fun, and thinking about long-term goals vs. short-term gain... or at least that's what I tell myself.

*/*

Last but not least, there is the issue of whether college would've been unnecessary or redundant, given my enrollment in Magnet schools from the time I was in second grade until I graduated from high school.

Indeed, many of my peers who went on to colleges and universities would remark to me later on that the first two years of college were basically rehashes of what we learned in our Humanities CORE program. Our high school curriculum was definitely college prep material, and I can't help but wonder if it would've seemed all too easy if I'd gone on to college.

Maybe I would've gotten bored and dropped out anyway. Or maybe it would've challenged me in ways that I cannot imagine. Maybe I would've found a niche for myself that I hadn't counted on, or maybe I would've soldiered on with single-minded concentration by focusing on one supreme goal, whatever that might've been.

And that's the bottom line right there, when you think about it: "Whatever that might've been..." I could go on and on thinking about the infinite possibilities, but none of the tangents I could conjure would get me any closer to knowing if it was a mistake to not go to college.

I often state that, for me, college would've been a disaster, but I don't begrudge anyone for applying themselves to it. I think there is a hint of resentment and envy inherent in that train of thought. It's as if I wrote off something that could've improved me or altered me irrevocably, merely because I was afraid of what might happen if I finished college.

What was I afraid of happening? Perhaps I feared that college would be too hard, that I wasn't smart enough or disciplined enough to hack it. Then again, maybe I was terrified of the notion of watching life pass me by yet again as I buried my nose in books and delayed the gratification of adulthood for another four years.

My half-assed foray into attending classes served as an excuse to not bother trying. Two wasted courses were enough for me to claim that I'd given it a try and it didn't work out. I've been riding the momentum of that claim for the longest time.

And yet, after all these years I am still conflicted over it. I think it is due to not knowing if I really wanted to go to college or not. I sometimes feel like I just dismissed it as sour grapes, but then again I don't feel a burning desire to do all the necessary things it takes to enroll.

I suppose I did the right thing for me at the time. I don't regret not going, but let's say that I had gone: Would I have regretted going? You never really hear people say they regret going to college. They might say it was a waste of time at the very worst, or that their degree is useless... but you never hear people say they regretted it.

There's that Butthole Surfers song where a voice says, "It's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't done!" But that gets followed by the same man asking his son to scream "SATAN! SATAN! SATAN!" at his mother the next time he sees her, so that's not much help to me.

Still, I can't say I know for a fact that my life would be any different had I gone. At least now I can face up to the fears that motivated me to avoid it altogether. For whatever reasons I had for discouraging myself from higher learning, I am content knowing that the path I did take was exciting and challenging in its own way, and it has taken me this long to even entertain the notion that I made a bad move.

In the end, I'm here, I'm alive, I'm happy as I can be... Why ponder what may or may not have been my fate?

In my next post, I think I'll pontificate on my writing and the decisions I made regarding its place in my life.

mope

2007-01-09T05:42:00.000-08:00

The song: "Girlfriend In A Coma", written by Morrissey/Marr and performed by The Smiths.

The video: This was the first Smiths video that I ever saw on MTV. I never knew what Morrissey looked like, because I never owned any Smiths albums prior to seeing this. All of my school friends adored them but it took some time before I caught on, and then by the time I even knew what they looked like they had broken up and that was it.

It is probably my all-time favorite Smiths song, because it is both hilarious and sad... plus it is very short and catchy, the way all perfect pop songs should be.

I have no idea what movie is superimposed over Morrissey, but I'm sure a nice thorough Google search will reveal that for me.

Enjoy.

sick

2007-01-08T03:42:00.000-08:00

The song: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", written by the late George Harrison and originally recorded by The Beatles.

The event: The 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies.

The skinny motherfucker playing some mean-ass guitar: Prince, playing some of the best six-string slinging I've ever heard from him. I've been meaning to get a load of this when I first heard about his blistering solo during the traditional all-star git jam that happens at the end of the event, but I only got around to finding the clip on YouTube recently.

Enjoy.

believe

2007-01-05T00:26:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Good news: I am clean and sober for the first time in 15 years.

OK, so I smoked some pot on New Year's Eve and washed it back with a Newcastle. But it wasn't my pot-- I haven't bought any weed for my own consumption in over a month. And the Newcastle was a freebie from the bartender with whom I am friends... I tipped her, of course, but the beer itself cost me nothing.

I haven't had any cocaine since last Saturday, and my dealer announced that he is no longer selling small bags, which is good for me since that's all I seemed to purchase.

I still smoke cigarettes though. That one is going to be tough, because I am truly addicted to nicotine.

Still, it feels good to be drug-free. I am not expecting to go cold turkey, but I know that my partaking has gone down in general ever since I made an earnest effort to quit smoking pot, which has always been my greatest love.

Once I cut down on the herb, everything else seemed to fall into place. And if I smoke it every now and then, that's fine-- I was sick of doing it all day every day. Every once in a while is the way it should be.

By the way: I don't consider these to be resolutions. The late Charles Bukowski's headstone is engraved with the words "Don't Try", which means that there is only doing and not doing-- there is no such thing as "try".

New Year's resolutions are nothing but a bunch of tries. But what I've done with myself... that's a bunch of dos and don'ts.

*/*

I owe some of my new found sobriety to Rose, whom I mentioned in my recent Las Vegas mini-epic posts.

I've only known Rose for about five months, but in that short time she has been nothing but wonderful in helping me find my way during the second half of 2006, a period where I felt like I'd lost my direction and sense of self.

Rose and I are not a couple. Rather, she has been quite possibly the purest muse I've had in many a year. I won't lie, though: I did like her right off the bat, but after a while I found myself wondering what about her held my fascination so raptly.

I think the answer lies in my unwillingness to rebound in the wake of my break-up with Eve. It would've been easier to just throw myself into something else. And even if I'd felt that Rose felt the same way as me (which, to be honest, I am not sure nor do I care to find out) I think that finding an immediate substitute for Eve would've been disastrous, considering that I was still trying to find myself again.

Plus, Rose had a "boyfriend" who lived out of state, a situation I (correctly) predicted would lead to no avail for her.

Rose broke up with said boyfriend shortly after Halloween, when she sang the Columbia and Magenta parts during Missing Digits' live interpretation of "Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I didn't hear from her for a while after that, and she cut back on her My Space access during that time.

Then, she re-emerged and started contacting me again. We made plans to go see the Rene Magritte exhibit at LACMA in December.

We went and ate breakfast at Swinger's in Hollywood, where she regaled me with the news of her relationship's end. I should've been happy-- now I had my chance to win her heart and woo her off her feet, right?

However, I had already decided by that time that, whatever it was I saw in her, it had nothing to do with wanting to date again. No, it had more to do with hearing things from a fresh perspective, and Rose was up to that task.

So when she went on about her reasons for terminating her affair with her out-of-state man, I paid it mind merely on the surface. Deep down, I did not want to know, just as I was sure she did not need to know about my cocaine binges, my borderline bipolar episodes, and my past girlfriends.

I was just happy to be in the company of a smart, cute, sensible girl who (after two and a half months of asking her out and having her straddle the fence with me) finally sought me out for my companionship.

We had a lot of fun that day, and then she told me that she was leaving Los Angeles because she was not happy here and she felt she could pursue a more meaningful existence in the northern part of California.

I saw this coming a mile away, and encouraged her to follow her bliss. Rose is like many girls I've met in the past five or six years: dissatisfied with her position and her place (to quote the great Bob Dylan), and disturbed by L.A.'s tendency to eat sensitive people alive.

Normally, news like this would cause me to sulk and possibly attempt to persuade said girl to stay despite her obvious interest in relocating. But this time around, I did the opposite and cheered her for her initiative.

Rose smiled when I told her not to give up, and the reason she smiled is because I explained to her that, when I was feeling like I could not continue to play in Missing Digits or pursue my own dreams, she was the one who told me not to quit.

Genuine reciprocity can sometimes be more romantic and sweet than holding hands or exchanging goo-goo eyes... and let's face it-- I was not ready for anything more than what we were sharing that day.

Rose has taught me a lot of lessons without even trying. The recent one that I'm about to mention qualifies as one of the biggest lessons I've learned not only this year but in my entire life as well.

*/*

She called me up and asked me what I had planned for New Year's Eve. I told her I might go and hang out with Big JJ at the nightclub where he works the door. She then invited me to go to her friend's house for a small party, and then maybe afterwards we could go to the club and grab a few drinks before calling it a night.

I agreed to that plan. Then, before I was about to get off the phone, I casually mentioned that I'd seen Jackass Number Two on DVD earlier in the day.

Rose paused and said, "Why is everyone in my life telling me this information? It seems like anyone I talk to these days has seen this movie and feels the need to inform me of it."

I sensed irritation in her voice, but rather than drop the subject I instead tried to explain its appeal. "In every man, there's a 15 year-old boy trying to break out."

"Yeah, but that's why you play in a rock band," she said.

"I thought it was funny. You can tell the Jackass guys are getting more creative with their stunts and--"

>click<

The phone went dead. I didn't assume that she had hung up on me, but when I called her back not once or twice but three times and got no answer, I suddenly wondered if she'd been so offended by my exaltation of Johnny Knoxville and company that she cut me off mid-sentence.

I didn't think Rose would be the type to do that, but it made no sense for the phone line to just cut off like that... and calling her back three times to listen to the line ring endlessly only made me more anxious.

I could've tried her cel phone, but my phone line has been on Toll Restriction since I refused to pay the long distance portion of my bill (long story, don't ask) and so I knew I would not be able to call her on that line.

So I waited.

She didn't call me back.

I got worried. I started to think about all the girls who never gave me an explanation for their dismissal of me. I wondered if Rose was worth knowing if she was so quick to judge me like that.

I snorted a gram of cocaine to my head, which only increased my paranoia. I stayed up all night hoping to hear the phone ring.

Before I finally went to sleep, I fired off an apologetic e-mail, hoping that I could reach her that way. I wasn't mad at her at all. If anything, I felt like I'd opened my big mouth once again and ruined everything with my inability to shut the fuck up.

The next morning, I resolved to go out to the club by myself. I did not want to go to her friend's party if she was upset at me. The rejection felt all too real. This past year was rife with rejection, not just from the likes of Eve but other individuals as well. Most of them didn't even give me the benefit of an explanation-- they just turned on me and didn't look back.

So when the eve of the New Year was upon me, I was determined not to let it get me down. I was ready to go out and get drunk and forget that I was seemingly repulsive to every female on the face of the planet.

Right before I left the apartment, I received a phone call. It was from Rose. But I did not pick it up-- I let it ring as I headed out the door. I did not want to know what she had to say to me.

I wound up at the club and talked with Big JJ and saw an incredible all-Asian punk band. I received a beer from the bartender and smoked some weed in the parking lot with JJ's girlfriend Carrie. I even ran into some friends whom I had invited to the club, seeing as they had no plans of their own for the New Year.

Then, just as we were about to go get some food at IHOP, Rose and her friends showed up. I walked over to her, a little out of my gourd and weary for the wear.

"Hey!" she said, smiling. "I called you. What happened?"

"Hi... I didn't hear back from you."

"I know, my power went out in my apartment and I couldn't use the phone because it's a portable, and my cel wasn't charged up."

"Ohhhh..." It all started to make sense.

"Why didn't you come to the party? I gave you directions and everything."

"I... I... I didn't think you wanted me to come."

"What? Are you crazy? Of course I wanted you to come."

I started to feel really stupid for flaking on her, so I changed the subject. "How was the party?"

"It was OK-- it would've been better if you'd shown up. Here, I have something for you."

She pulled out of her petticoat a small rectangle wrapped in paper. It was a gift.

"I got you a little something for Christmas and I wanted to give it to you tonight."

I was speechless. Unable to think properly, I proceeded to open the gift.

Rose talked as I unwrapped it. "Remember at LACMA when you were sketching in your notepad and that woman came up to you and started talking to you about art? And remember how I sat down and talked with the both of you but she just wanted to talk to you instead? And remember how you were kind enough to include me in the conversation anyway, even though she had her eyes on you? Well, I was thinking about that when I found this gift in Venice, and I wrote a little quote in there that reminded me of you."

Her gift to me was a small, portable sketch book. On the first page, in clear red handwritten print, was the following quote:

"To believe is to be strong. Doubt cramps energy. Belief is power. Only so far as a man believes strongly, mightily, can he act cheerfully, or do any thing that is worth the doing." --Frederick W. Robertson

And I laughed to myself when I read the words "Doubt cramps energy" and I looked at her and said, "Thank you. I have a gift for you too, at home. I can go get it if you want."

Rose laughed. "I think you'd better not worry about that. You look trashed. Get some coffee in you, sweetie. Happy New Year."

We hugged for what seemed like an eternity. I promised her I'd be back after getting some joe in my gullet, but she didn't take my tipsy words seriously. By the time I'd returned to the club, she had gone home.

*/*

We sorted the whole mess out, and eventually I gave her my gift: a book of Picasso's sketches, with accompanying slides.

I am going to miss her when she is gone, but we still have some time left before she makes the move up north. For her birthday, she is having a party... and this time I will not give in to my silly fears and wild anxieties.

This time, I will take her advice and be strong by believing in something. She reminded me of that only a few hours after the start of 2007, and so it is only appropriate that I take her up on that.

2006 was a bad year for me, but if I had to single out one event as being good, it would have to be meeting Rose for the first time. She gave me confidence when I had none, and she and I have shared a lot of love and warmth and encouragement.

We have the power to believe, and that's enough to get by on, isn't it?

Happy New Year, everyone...

an absurd tone

2006-12-28T03:56:00.000-08:00

Looking back over the year's posts, I noticed that there was a definite change in my tone around the end of May and beginning of June.

It was around May 22, 2006 when I posted a blog about writing here less. It was a de facto farewell, or rather an announcement that I wasn't going to blog as frequently as in the past.

It also happened to be around the time that I quit the radio gig and started the higher-paying job at the prefab factory. I was anticipating that I wouldn't have any time to post at length, as is my wont.

Now that I've been gone from the prefab gig for almost three months, and now that the year is almost over, it feels appropriate to reflect upon what has come before.

New job and less time to blog notwithstanding, there was a definite change in my tone during the past summer.

And I remember what caused that change. I didn't write about it at the time because... well, I don't have any real reason or excuse as to why I didn't.

I guess now is as good a time as any to examine this.

*/*

In the middle of last Spring I saw an ad for a theatrical production of Ubu Roi, an obscure early-twentieth-century absurdist French play written by none other than Alfred Jarry, whom I have obsessed over for some time now.

Imagine my excitement: Jarry's work is strange and satirical, and reading the words on the printed page just doesn't do any justice to what he was trying to stage. Jarry is not the type of figure whose plays get staged regularly, and since I was working on a screenplay based on the eccentric 'pataphysicist's life, I thought it would be splendid to see a production (taking place in nearby Pasadena, no less) of perhaps his best-known work, Ubu Roi ("Ubu The King").

The main character, Pere Ubu, is an over-the-top antihero possessing every negative quality and trait available to the human condition: cowardice, greed, ignorance, sloth, boorishness, full of disgrace and wholly unsophisticated. This was Jarry's intention-- the character was based upon one of his science teachers during his insolent upbringing, a man that young Jarry and his classmates reveled in lampooning.

The best way to describe Ubu (to those who don't feel they can regard someone so repugnant and vile as even remotely comical) would be to compare him to Homer Simpson. If Homer Simpson was actually a real live person, 90% of the things that come out of his mouth (as well as 95% of his actions) would appall the average citizen. But we giggle at his antics because he is a cartoon character, a grotesque so broadly drawn that one must laugh in self-defense lest the gravity of his words and deeds remind us that reality is not that far removed from the caricature.

I knew of only one other person who would appreciate a theatrical staging of Ubu Roi, and that was my friend from high school, Laurie. When I forwarded a link of the ad, she replied that she would love to check it out. She would let both her husband Daniel and Eve know about it so that we could make a couple's night out of it.

It all sounded good to me. Personally, I would've gone by myself if no one had wanted to go.

In hindsight, maybe that would have been the better course to take.

*/*

As the date for the play neared, Eve and I were pretty much done romantically. She'd made it clear to me that she only wanted to be friends. I suspected that she was already seeing someone else, but I figured we could at least try to be friends. After all, I was friends with nearly all of my exes and it never posed any problems. Eve and I had matured enough over the years to be civil and respectful of each other in a post-break-up scenario, right?

Not quite.

I found that I didn't really like Eve as a person if we weren't in love. Absurd, yes, but you're dealing with a person who lives for the absurd.

Things that I could tolerate in her simply became intolerable without the net of an intimate relationship underneath us. Lacking a shared passion, I began to see how vastly different we are in general. Her idiosyncrasies started to grate on my nerves.

Look, I'm not the neatest, tidiest person in the world, but must she always keep her apartment in such disarray, with clothes strewn about and cigarette butts piling to Babelian proportions in her many ashtrays? To me, it was less about good housekeeping than a symptom of a deeper problem.

Still, it would not be such an issue if it weren't for her facile acknowledgement of this supreme messiness-- you couldn't walk into her place without hearing her apologize for the state it was in, even if you had no intention of mentioning it.

But to push matters into the realm of insufferability, she would refuse any offer to help her clean the mess. So here you have it: a girl with an unkempt apartment bitching about something she has absolutely no intention of doing anything about...

I could deal with it when we were lovers, but not when we became friends.

That was just one of the things that was growing on me, and it certainly wasn't the biggest thing either. But it would indeed prove to be the case later on.

*/*

When my friend Nina got wind of the Jarry production, she volunteered to buy tickets for the four of us plus two more for herself and her boyfriend, who later got me the short-lived job at the prefab factory.

She purchased tickets for the last day of the show. This made me even more excited, because I wanted to know what my friends thought of Jarry. I was already sold on the man and his writings, but to finally be able to talk at length with people I respected about something that I was so gaga over filled me with such an elation that I forgot about everything else, including my strained relationship with Eve.

Now that I replay the whole episode in my head, I realize that I should've done more to ensure that things would go off without a hitch. However, I was too happy about seeing a rarely-performed Jarry play in my own backyard to think of Murphy's Law, which is ironic seeing as Murphy's Law is the purest distillation of Jarry's pseudo-science of 'pataphysics that anyone could ever come across.

"If anything can happen, it will"... or so the maxim goes.

*/*

The day of the play, I started to get anxious.

The plan was for Laurie and Daniel to meet us at Eve's apartment, where we could travel together in one car.

Nina and her boyfriend were already on their way, and had called to let us know that they would leave the tickets at the box offfice window in case we were running late.

And running late we were. I was pacing around Eve's disheveled apartment, looking at my watch every two minutes. "Where are they?"

"They'll be here," Eve said, annoyed at my impatience.

"If Laurie and Daniel cause us to miss out on this for any reason..." I didn't finish my sentence. I had no threats to wield.

"Well, why don't we just go on ahead and meet them there?"

"Do you know where the playhouse is?"

"No. Do you?"

"No."

"Well, you should've thought of that beforehand."

That last comment from Eve ticked me off. Obviously I should've done more legwork in that regard... but considering her penchant for bitching and moaning about every litle thing, it was a pretty nervy thing for her to say to me, and at the worst possible time.

I glared at her for an instant and remembered that she and I no longer had any reasons to be phony around each other.

So I lit into her.

I chewed her out for being so petty, so dismissive of my anger, especially since every time she gets angry for the smallest reason I have to sit there and listen to her and take it and hear it again and again, and now that we weren't a couple I didn't have to put up with her sanctimonious bullshit, and why is it that I'm always the one who has to answer for everyone else's mistakes, why is it my fault when someone else is too fucking stupid or unaware to simply be on time for something as simple as a ride to the playhouse...

Eve didn't like that very much. But when I reminded her of the time, she got on the phone and called Laurie to inquire as to what was taking them so long.

"Hey Laurie, what's going on? We're waiting for you two... What was that? His what? He can't find what? Well, tell him he's going to have to can it, because we only have fifteen minutes to get there, and you guys haven't even left yet..."

Upon hearing that, I threw my hands up in the air. "Great... fucking great!"

I know I wasn't acting very mature about it, but at the time I couldn't believe it was happening. I simply could not believe that it was all going down the way it was going down.

Eve hung up the phone, a look of wariness on her face. "She said that Daniel's having some sort of a hissy fit... you know those Brits..."

I went outside to have a smoke. When my lighter wouldn't work properly, I lashed out and punched a tree with my fist.

Eve didn't like seeing this side of me, but when she tried to communicate that to me I retorted that she was going to have to get used to that side of me: Now that I had no reason to pretend I gave a damn about anything concerning her, she was going to see how I really am.

*/*

Fifteen minutes past the hour, Laurie and Daniel showed up. I don't know if their reaction to Eve telling them that they were wrong about the time the play started was genuine or feigned, but apparently they felt bad for being late and wanted to get there as soon as possible.

By that time, I'd stopped talking. I was filled with hatred and anger. Nothing I could say or do mattered. I was at their mercy from that point on.

There were the usual awkward gestures, mostly on the part of the women, to try and lighten the mood. But I had nothing to say, and Daniel, realizing that it would be very easy for me to jump all over him and blame him for our lateness as a group, kept quiet.

I finally said something when we arrived: "Let me out here, I'll check to see if it's too late to go inside while you guys find parking."

I approached the box office and talked to the woman behind the glass.

"A friend of mine left four tickets for the show. Has it started already?"

"Yes it has."

"How long ago?"

"Promptly at seven."

It was now 7:30 pm.

"How long is the show?"

"An hour and a half."

Not too shabby, I thought. An hour is better than nothing.

"I must warn you, sir," the box office woman said, "that the theater is probably full. We cannot guarantee that you will have a seat."

"Shit, I don't care if we have to sit on the floor. Do you have the tickets?"

She gave me the tickets just as the others walked up. I informed them of the situation and we all agreed that missing half an hour would not be a terrible thing.

The entire scenario was starting to brighten. We entered the theater and an usher greeted us.

"I'm going to have to check and see if there is anywhere we can seat you," she whispered.

We could hear the actors reciting their lines. There was strange Parisian music simmering in the background. The audience broke into laughter.

The usher came back to us and said, "I am so sorry, but there is nowhere that we can seat you that wouldn't violate the Fire Code."

My heart sank. All hope was dashed. Rather than try and see if I could sweet talk her into letting us stand somewhere, I mustered the fakest smile that I could and turned around.

"Let's go," I said to the others. I believe it was the last thing I said for the rest of the evening.

*/*

In the simplest of terms, I was greatly disappointed.

Regardless of blame or fault or circumstance, the fact remains that a part of me broke into pieces that night for some reason.

Why should something as trivial as missing a play hurt me so deeply?

Did it represent something in my mind? Did it symbolize the powerlessness and meaninglessness of existence in the face of our inevitable fates? Was this type of badly-planned, poorly-executed misadventure the reason why I embrace the absurd in the first place?

All verbiage aside, I was disappointed because I was really looking forward to it and it didn't happen.

No one is to blame for this. Actually, if anyone is to blame, it's me. If I really wanted to see it that badly, I would've just bought myself a ticket and gone by myelf, as I've done on countless occasions in the past. That way, the only unpleasantness I would have to endure would be the predictable chorus of people telling me that I should've called them because they would've gone if I'd asked them...

...and of course, the whole point of going by myself is so that I wouldn't have to ask anyone to do anything.

I don't know... It really crushed me, and I haven't even wanted to talk about it since because I know what an asshole I was during the whole thing. But at the same time I cannot find it in my heart to laugh it off just yet. It isn't funny to me-- it hasn't had time to gestate and transmutate into a hilarious but bittersweet anecdote.

There's more bitterness than sweeteness here.

When things like this happen, the first question I ask is, "Why me, Lord? Why do these things happen to me? Did you do this to fuck with my head? Or is this what I deserve, for being such a fuckhead all the time?"

Then I start thinking about the dumb looks on everyone's faces as they sheepishly attempt to change the subject; the flat jokes and fragile atmosphere that gets sucked out of the room like a vacuum due to my loud and blistering silence; the speechlessness and inability to articulate anything beyond a choke and a forced gulp in the back of my throat as I struggle to restrain myself from out-and-out strangling someone to death...

That event changed the tone of my blog, and after that I saw the comments dry up, and the posts became less humorous and more mean-spirited. Even if people couldn't put their fingers on it, something inside of me had turned for the worse. It was bleeding through my pores and into the keys of the keyboard, making its way into the computer and up on the monitor screen, imprinting itself on the font of this blog, embedding itself in the html code that makes up what you are looking at right now...

I can't say that I feel bad about my behavior, even as I know how unbecoming it was for me to pout and sulk as I did. But I won't apologize for it, because after all I am human, and we all make mistakes, and my mistake was raising my expectations above what constitutes reality these days.

That's the problem with dreamers like myself: When we hit the ground, we hit it hard.

*/*

As a footnote, Nina and her boyfriend said the play was excellent. They had no idea what to expect from it and came away very pleased, if a bit baffled at first. She told me all of this when I met with her to repay her the money she shelled out for the tickets we didn't get to use.

Daniel took issue with the playhouse overselling the show, and had a thorough chat with their ticket department. He was able to wrangle four free tickets for any play in the upcoming season. There probably won't be another staging of a Jarry play for some time, however-- maybe it will never happen again.

Then again, the play did very well both commercially and critically, and Jarry wrote at least three other Ubu plays... so who knows? Maybe one of these days I'll get to see one after all.

My friendship with Eve suffered greatly after the debacle. She stopped returning my phone calls and made no attempts to reciprocate any gestures on my part. I don't blame her-- when I told this story to a female friend recently, she looked at me and said, "Jesus, remind me never to get you mad!"

As for me, I gave up on completing the Jarry screenplay out of sheer disgust. I started the new job and instantly began to hate it. Then, I started using cocaine with an alarming frequency, even as I made peace with my father after 16 years of holding a grudge against him.

What sucks about me is that whenever I let go of one grudge, I take up another. I guess I am just one of those miserable persons who always needs to have a scapegoat to blame for all of his problems in life.

But this time, the person I am mad at is not my father or Eve or Laurie or Daniel or the playouse ushers or anyone else.

This time, I am mad at myself.

That's why I've spent the last half of 2006 punishing myself.

That's why the tone in my blog changed.

And that's why I'm glad this year is over.

I'm not going to say thing like, "2007 is going to be a great year!" No way, Jose-- that's what got me into this shit in the first place. Just take a look at my blogs from last year, and you'll see me gushing like a sexed-up schoolgirl about how 2006 was going to be great.

Instead, I'll try a little bit of reverse psychology: 2007 is going to suck big fat fucking elephant dicks.

Knowing my luck, Murphy's Law will kick in and 2007 really will suck elephant dicks.

But at this point, who cares? It's all absurd, right? It's all just one big joke being played on all of humanity, right?

Right.

HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE

the death of soul

2006-12-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

Eddie Murphy introduced me to James Brown.

Through his Saturday Night Live impersonations (Anyone remember "James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub Party"?) and his dead-on bit in the infamous HBO stand-up special Delirious, Eddie Murphy turned me on to the Godfather of Soul, if only as a punch line to a joke that I was too young to understand.

Then, as I always do, I traced the lineage backwards and decided to find out who James Brown actually was, rather than rely on Eddie Murphy's routines. I wanted to understand the joke, instead of pretending I knew what Murphy was jiving at.

By the time Rocky III came out, I thought I knew who James Brown was: he was the guy from The Blues Brothers, the guy from Dan Aykroyd's so-awful-it-was-good Doctor Detroit, as well as the guy singing "Living In America" wearing Old Glory on his tailored suit...

By the time rappers started sampling James Brown, I thought I knew who he was once again: The Godfather of Soul, Black Caesar, The World's Greatest Entertainer, Mr. Dynamite, The Amazing Mr. Please Please Himself, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, Soul Brother #1...

By the time I actually listened to a James Brown record all the way through, without resorting to a greatest hits compilation, I thought I finally knew who James Brown was: a fucking musical genius with more soul in his left nut than every rapper out there that I was trying to emulate.

But even then, I was not even close to scratching the surface.

The album in question was actually half of an album: Sides One and Two of Revolution Of The Mind, a double-live album that made a lasting imprint on my then-budding musical jones.

To paraphrase the great Flavor Flav, that album stomped a mudhole in my ass.

Yes, Mr. Brown was funky, but he also sang ballads like a man possessed. The version of "Bewildered" off that album is one of my all-time favorite live soul jams, right up there next to Marvin Gaye's legendary live rendition of "Distant Lover".

By the time I was knee deep in Parliament-Funkadelic, I already knew that Maceo, Fred Wesley, Catfish & Bootsy were graduates of James Brown's soul boot camp. George Clinton depth-charged the funk, but it was James Brown who strapped the funk to the body of the mainstream and held his thumb on the detonator.

As a bass player, I owe my love of the instrument to the man who made it cool to be "holding down the bottom end". In rock circles, the bass guitar is the equivalent of sitting "bitch" in a pick-up truck, right between the driver and the passenger; in the world of funk as dictated by James Brown, the bass was the main ingredient, the impetus upon which the beat could find its way back to The One and get everybody on the good foot again...

By the time people were screaming "Free James Brown", I already was wise to the fact that no jail could hold him, no law could tame him, and no mortal could comprehend his phenomenonal presence.

And even then, I was still miles off.

In 1968, James Brown stopped a riot in Boston (and possibly nationwide) when he televised one of his concerts in the wake of MLK's assassination, like Jesus commanding the stormy seas to stop.

The day I learned that bit of trivia, I finally stopped trying to figure out James Brown. The truth is, I will never know what made him tick, as if any of us ever could.

*/*

As with all of my eulogies of heroic icons, I am in tears as I type this.

It was bad enough losing Richard Pryor, because that felt like I'd lost my own sense of humor. But now that I've lost James Brown, I feel like I've lost my soul.

All of my heroes are dying.

If he meant this much to me, imagine how much he meant to African-Americans coming of age in the 1960s, when civil rights was brand new and yet the hoses were still being turned on and the dogs were still being unleashed on those brave enough to demand respect.

He gave them pride, self-esteem, power... but most of all, he gave them soul.

Today, the notion of soul is intrinsically linked with black Americans. White America wanted to take that soul away, by inventing words like 'nigger'...

James Brown gave black people (and the disenfranchised everywhere) their soul back.

And he smiled as he did it, and said, "Heh!" and did the splits and twirled and had Bobby Byrd put a cape on his back as he feigned exhaustion, only to come back (like Jesus, once again) and rock the mic like nobody else.

I love his music. I'm listening to it right now, in fact. "Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud!"

I think of that scene in The Commmitments, where the band's manager convinces his charges that, since the Irish are the blacks of England, they should adopt James Brown's musical slogan as their own.

*/*

I heard the news on Christmas morning. What a fucking holiday surprise, eh?

Then I rationalized it this way: God finally received a worthy gift on his son's birthday

He got James Brown for Christmas.

We were lucky enough to have him for over seven decades.

They used to call out to "Free James Brown", but I contend that now he is finally free, after all of these years.

Jump back, wanna kiss myself.

'Cause he was Super Bad.

What's in ever he played, it's got to be funky.

PEACE to you and yours, James Brown.

found

2006-12-20T01:22:00.000-08:00

I found her.

At long last, I found her.

On My Space.

Seriously.

I am waiting to hear back from her.

My fingers are crossed.

I know it is her. I am absolutely sure of it.

Married now. With two beautiful kids.

It doesn't look like she has logged on in some time, so I might not hear from her right off the bat.

I have no doubt in my mind that she will reply. It may take her a while to remember me, but she will.

This is all going into the novel.

It has to.

Why else would it happen this way if it wasn't meant to be written down and recorded for posterity?

Right?

Right.

Happy Holidays, people.

Fall (enmity aplenty)

2006-12-16T06:16:00.000-08:00

I've hit rock bottom in this treacherous Autumn

desperately staring this way and there

Out loud I shout that I don't care

Inside I slide along the side of despair

It's just not fair

how you left me last April

how you left me standing with my cards on the table

and my soul on the dotted line

Last year at this time you and I were fine

In line in synch in smoke and in drink

Our dazed eyes glazed over and hazed for days

And now...

...now you're making me pay...

What do you want me to say?

That I want you back this very day?

That I miss your kiss and wish you missed me back?

It's not as simple as that

It's not as simple as that

And yet there is no substitute

as I sit here destitute

wanting to get the best of you

but knowing you have the best of me

and you could have the rest of me

but you don't want it

and now I am haunted

by the words of a sonnet that a friend sent me

upon reading it I felt so cold and empty

enmity aplenty

The loss of you is the end of me

Decades of friendship bent and now we pretend to be

happy while apart

but we're not (at least in my heart

I am not)

You must want me to beg

Okay, then I'll beg

I'll beg

I'll plead and crawl

and then one day

maybe I won't miss you at all

No, maybe one day I won't miss you at all

But until then

I endure the Fall

--November 2006

the mantra

2006-12-15T02:51:00.000-08:00

At a recent show, someone asked me about Eve. They remarked that my so-called "best friend" hadn't been to any of my shows lately.

I was in a foul mood, due to exhaustion and over-partying, so my response was mean and embittered:

"Funny you should ask about her. After branding me a racist and a sexist, insinuating that I was trying to knock her up and all sorts of other delusional bullcrap, she decided that she needed to make up for her lost childhood-- you know, the one she spent getting high on speed with her boyfriend of nine years?"

The person walked away from me slowly, a worried look upon their face.

I'm not so mad about it now. Time has weathered the blows, the rejection, the humiliation (all for a second time, mind you-- this is not the first time Eve and I have traversed these paths) and all I can say is this:

It was nice while it lasted, and I got what I wanted.

*/*

It sounds like a case of sour grapes on my part, but please hear me out.

That philosophy arose from one of the last meaningful relationships I had, way back in 2000.

Jeanie was a girl with whom I met and had a summer fling. She was my next-door neighbor in the Sherman Oaks apartment complex where we both lived.

At the age of 28 (the same age as me at the time) Jeanie was serious about making a go of it, and I was (as usual) not interested in anything other than eating, drinking, fucking, and smoking.

When she caught on to the fact that I had no intention of marrying her, she left me. It was hard on the both of us, but eventually I found a mantra to help get me through the pain.

It was nice while it lasted, and I got what I wanted.

It sounds shallow, detached, perhaps even cynical. But I didn't choose to be put in this situation. For me, the mantra is more of a coping mechanism than anything else.

I could've gone on this way (with both Jeanie and Eve) for as long as possible; they were the ones who demanded definite answers and gave me ultimatums.

Then, when I was revealed to be the commitment-phobe that I am, they both made it seem like I was the one who wanted to settle down.

Whatever. The proof is in the pudding: Both of them went on to steady relationships with potential, while I still play the field.

It was nice while it lasted, and I'm still getting what I want.

*/*

But is this really what I want?

What is the alternative? And why was I getting so depressed over all the news earlier this year concerning my exes and their marriages and their newly-birthed children? Why was that stuff getting me down?

I didn't know the answer, but now I know: I was bummed because for the first time ever it occurred to me that maybe those girls had once thought of me as both marriage AND father material.

Granted, I knew these girls when we were all in our teens. Marriage and parenthood and settling down were faraway goals then, not to be reckoned with for some time. I doubt that they saw a future in me.

But then again, maybe they did.

As outlandish as it sounds, there's also some truth to the notion that women foster their dreams of getting hitched and starting up the homestead far earlier than men.

And I never wanted to believe that I could ever be considered that kind of candidate. It is far easier for me to think of myself as a cad, a scoundrel, a womanizer and a user of fair maidens.

To come to terms with the idea that I may have been wanted, at one time, by someone who saw potential in me, potential that I can never see in myself... it is frightening.

Hearing about all those girls and how they now have kids with good husbands... it made me insane, but not out of jealousy. It made me angry, because it seemed as if they were always certain about what they wanted out of life, and that the choices I've made have been wrong.

But I know, deep down inside, I know that the choices I've made in my life are the only choices I could ever make.

I know that I could never be a good father, or a good husband. I know this. I know these things to be true.

I just wish people would stop reminding me that I am useless in regards to domesticity. And hearing about an ex-girlfriend and her fertile offspring nails that point home with me.

I know myself enough to know that I would've regretted making such commitments. I would've longed to be set free, and I would've left the wife/mother of my children, just like so many wayward, absent fathers have done to their families.

So the answer to the question "Is bachelorhood really what I want" is a loud and resounding "YES".

If I answer any other way, it's because I am under the influence of something more persuasive than a drug.

I think you all know what I am referring to...

*/*

All I wanted from Eve was closure.

I got it.

Now I can see her on the street and not get upset about the whole Sharky episode. I got my apology from her, even if she didn't really mean it and I had to force her to give it to me.

During the last two years, I got some sex, some food, some gifts, some love and affection, kind words, and even a laugh or two.

That's all you can expect from this world. I know plenty of guys who haven't had anything resembling that in the past decade, so I guess I am fortunate.

It won't be the last time that a beautiful woman does that for me either. I am still young, I am still ready to take on the world.

I didn't get everything I wanted from her, but that's because if you give me an inch I'll go for the entire foot.

The mantra is true.

It was nice while it lasted, and I got what I wanted.

Now to move on to other things. There are more instances of closure that need to happen in my life regarding other women.

I think the cuts and bruises I incurred from this last go-round have healed.

Time to get back to work.

somewhere in the middle

2006-12-12T00:28:00.000-08:00

So what have I been up to lately?

Well, for starters I'm working at a movie post-production house, scanning film negatives into a computer so that digital airbrushers and retouchers ("dustbusters", as they are known in the industry) can adjust colors, remove motes of dirt, and add visual/lighting effects.

I work at night, which is how I like it. The job affords me enough free time to work on my novel, surf online, and read books.

You might be asking yourself right now, How the fuck does he get these jobs where he just sits around and does seemingly nothing for hours on end? In this case, Wolf Man hooked me up, but I think fate and serendipity have a lot to do with it as well.

It's not as financially fulfilling as the last gig, but it pays more than the radio gig I left to do the last gig... so I guess it's the porridge that's just right, not too hot, not too cold...

Moreover, I am learning about movies, which is cool because although I like cinema I've never really been a cinephile. All of my old group of friends were cinephiles, but they ended up accepting what life handed to them... and here I am, working a job they would've killed to have had they not forfeited their dreams for bland security and shiftless mediocrity.

Realizations like that are what keeps me believing that not only is there a God, but that he is just.

*/*

I stopped smoking pot for the most part.

However, I've been sniffing cocaine, as evidenced by my Las Vegas adventures.

Moving from one drug to another is always a lousy trade, especially if you go from a relatively benign recreational drug to a potentially lethal party drug.

But you have to understand something...

I was sick of being stoned 24/7. I think the cocaine use is a symptom of my refusal to be hazy and slow all the time. Cocaine is the total opposite of pot in terms of the high.

But I can only take the coke high for so long before I get sick of it. It's like being held by the throat by someone who is lifting you off the ground: you might get buzzed from the lack of air but eventually it's going to harm you.

Somewhere in the middle of coke and weed is where I want to be. That middle ground, in my opinion, is complete sobriety-- a state of mind I am in more often than not these days.

You see, coke is expensive. And I can't do it all the time the way I used to do with weed, so in the long run I am actually spending considerably less money on coke than I ever did on weed.

Plus, I've always been wired without needing coke. That's why I smoked pot, to calm me down and mellow me out. Coke only serves to remind me that I am already coked out naturally and biologically.

I confine my coke use to the weekends, because I found out that I cannot make it through a work shift on the stuff. I don't see how people can go to work and sniff coke, because you need it every half an hour and that only compounds the fact that you've got so much more time to go before you can go home and finish off the bag.

Bottom line: All drugs are losing bets. I make no excuses for my coke use. But I think that's a step up from making up tons of excuses for my pot smoking.

*/*

Call me a Scrooge, I don't care. I'm just sick of Christmas.

It's for kids. Therefore, I will only buy gifts for little ones this season.

I'm not buying full-grown adults any gifts. Even if they act like little children, they're not getting a fucking thing from me.

Likewise, I don't want any gifts from anyone. If someone gets me a gift, I will seriously look at them and say, "No, take it back. PLEASE." And if they think I'm being falsely modest, I will make sure to conveniently "forget" the gift before I leave their home.

And if they force me to take it, then I will "re-gift" it.

I don't want gifts because I never get what I want. I haven't received a really good Christmas gift since I was a kid. And the fact that (in recent years) no one has ever gotten me a Christmas gift that made my face light up is proof that I am better off not getting anything at all.

A better gift would be to spend time with me, talking to me, asking me about my hopes and dreams. That would cost nobody anything, and it would make me happier than a thousand gift cards and $20 certificates. It would fit more snugly than a million sweaters. It would taste better than any candy cane or chocolate stocking stuffer.

The thing of it is: A thoughtless gift is an alienating experience for me. It says to me loud and clear, "Hey! I don't know who you are, and have never tried to understand you, but I'd like to think that I know you, so here is my interpretation of what I think you like!"

It's always disappointing. No one ever nails it.

I'm a good gift-giver, for the most part. And until someone gets as good as me, I'm not getting anybody anything. If they want a gift from me, they'll have to get down on their knees and suck it out of me.

*/*

I need to finish the novel.

I am trapped in a parrallel universe that I created for my characters.

I am constantly reliving the events of the novel, which are based upon my own life.

And yet, as I edit and re-shape the text, I sense that I still have more to write.

I have more events to live that will eventually be written into the novel.

Weird.

It's as if I am willing my novel into existence by experiencing it.

Which comes first: the experience, or the articulation of that experience?

Laurie, who is helping me edit this damned thing that has taken a decade to grapple, is concerned that I am doing too much living and not enough working.

But for a writer, the life is the work. Therefore, the two are inseparable.

I do know that I have to finish it up, just so I can grow as a person and move on.

Thus, I know what I have to do, and I have already taken the necessary measures to kick start the last phase of my writing.

And it starts in San Diego, where a young woman lives with her husband and two kids, wondering where certain people she used to know went and if they think of her and whether or not she made the right choices or not...

And there I am, playing the metaphysical detective, taking all the clues of life's mysteries and jigsaw-puzzling them together into one glorious bastard tapestry.

If y'all don't hear from me before year's end, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

And if you are fiending for some of my writing (as if) then just look to a year ago in my Archives and look at what was on my mind. You'll be surprised.

AGAINST THE ODDS

2006-12-04T03:54:00.000-08:00

October 15, 2006, 9:55am: I'd said 'sayonara' to the Missing Digits crew and left the Jockey Club just around sunrise.

Later on in the week, long after I'd returned to L.A. and the Missing Digits had concluded their extended stay in Nevada, JJ called me and informed me that they got a flat tire on their trip home.

The curse was real.

When I got back to the Palace Station, the bachelor party boys were still asleep. After rousing them awake and reminding them of check-out time, I went down to the lobby, still frying off of E and waiting for the Wolf Man to meet me for a breakfast buffet.

I killed time by telephoning Rose, to let her know that I was not going to attend a proposed BBQ she and her "boyfriend" had planned for later on in the day. She didn't pick up; I left a VM.

Wolf Man and I decided to leave Las Vegas after the noontime rush. KD Long wasn't coming with us on the ride back, which was good for me and Wolf: KD talked way too much for his (or anyone's) own good.

*/*

October 15, 2006, 1:23pm: After agreeing to meet Down Low, his brother A-Team, BJ Fornicati and KD Long at the Golden Nugget for one last stab at gambling, Wolfie and I drove to get some gas for the rental.

We had KD Long's credit card, which was his way of reimbursing me for the gas we used on the way to Sin City. Wolf and I joked about spending it on bullshit and strippers, which made KD frown a bit.

As I loaded a bowl in my pipe, I saw a Mexican woman in a truck next to me. She was eyeing me, but not in a sexy way. I put the pipe in my lap and pretended that I didn't see her, but it was too late: her boyfriend, a tattooed gangbanging veterano, also saw me and started trying to signal us.

"Hey man!" He yelled out to me. "You got some herb?"

I nodded.

"How much you got? I'll buy some off you!"

I looked over at Wolf, who merely shrugged and said, "Hey, man... it's your weed."

I was almost tempted to do the transaction right there on the Vegas Strip, in traffic, in full broad daylight, because that would have perfectly capped off an outrageous weekend of brazen illegality such as this one. But I also remembered the curse looming over the proceedings, and decided that the deal must be done at the gas station.

Before I could say anything, the O.G. and his old lady in the pickup truck slowed down, pulled behind us, then switched lanes again to get on the passenger side.

"Tell 'em to follow us," I said to Wolf.

"Follow us!" Wolf repeated.

We got to the gas station and the deal was quick and easy: $10 worth from my stash, with plenty left over for me and Wolf to smoke on the ride home.

"I'm new here to LV," the vato said to me as he threw the money through the driver's window into the driver's seat. "I don't know no one out here."

"You're lucky you ran into us," I said, "but we're headed back to Los Angeles."

"I guess you're the only luck I've had so far," he laughed. "I lost $300 this morning on Blackjack."

"Play Craps, man," I recommended. "The odds are better."

"I gotcha, bro. Hey, thanks again. Nice to meet you."

We slapped five, and I had the weed in my palm. He grabbed it and smiled and hopped back into the truck. He and his woman were gone by the time Wolf came out from the pay station.

"How'd you know he wasn't a narc?" Wolf asked me.

"I just knew. Just like I knew we weren't going to get pulled over for the rental's tags while in Vegas, just like I knew we wouldn't get thrown out of the hotel, just like I knew Low wasn't going to want to go to a strip club, or any of it... Sometimes, you gotta have a little faith, even when the odds are against you and the going looks bleak."

"What do you think our ride home is going to be like?"

"There'll be something... there always is... but we'll make it home fine. It might take a while, but if we're smart, we can avoid any bullshit that comes our way."

"Dude, since you were up all night, and I at least got some sleep, I'll drive the whole way home," Wolf said. "Plus, you drove all the way here, so I owe it to you."

"Yeah, thanks. At least KD isn't coming with us."

"I know. Dude, I wanted to strangle him on the way over here..."

"Can you imagine his reaction if we'd hooked up that gangster dude while he was with us?"

Wolf and I laughed.

"He would've shit himself." Wolf was feeling better, a far cry from his near-panic attack during the hotel security guard snafu.

"It's all about keeping your cool when the shit gets gnarly," I said. "No matter what happens, you gotta keep your cool. Nothing can hurt you if you believe in yourself and your ability to persevere."

"Yeah, but you gotta be careful," Wolf cautioned. "Murphy's Law, you know."

"Well, thats' the thing, Wolfie. Everyone wants to play it loose and rough, but when the shit hits the fan no one can deal. Like the hotel thing: Guys like KD and BJ wanna act like they're big shots, but all it took was one old-ass security guard with no power to make them scared. If anyone had rights to be freaked, it was you and Low because you two were the ones who spoke with the guard. But you guys handled it as well as you could."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Everyone wants to live dangerously, but no one wants to pay the price when it's time, right?"

"Right."

We got back on the road and drove over to the Golden Nugget to give KD back his credit card and say 'adios' to the rest of the guys.

We didn't tell the rest of the guys about our impromptu drug deal. It really wasn't necessary.

*/*

October 15, 2006, 7:53pm: The dark clouds that we found ourselves immersed in were from a fire in the El Cajon pass (which we were slightly north of) and by shifting onto the 138 Hwy in time we managed to avoid the snarling traffic that would've delayed us by hours instead of half an hour.

After making the jump to the 138, Wolf and I decided to take a pit stop at a gas station right past the I-15/138 interchange.

The station was near-total chaos: Cars covered in soot, RVs mired in ash, huge lines for the restroom and the food counter, people milling about in nervous anticipation, trying to use their cel phones in vain...

Wolf and I looked at each other. I said, "Our best bet is to get back on the road and get into town before we stop again."

It took an hour before I could look up at the passing night sky and see stars. The smoke was so thick and black that for that duration of the trip we were covered in complete and utter darkness. Finally, some distant stars began to poke their way out, and that clued me in to our escape from the fire zone.

At one point we wondered why the highway hadn't been closed off; It wasn't until we got got back home and read the news that we figured it out geographically.

"Dude, we made such good time," Wolf said to me. "We'll be back at my place in Pasadena in less than an hour. Then you can get home from there. Feel free to take a nap until we get into the city."

"I think I will," I said.

I slept for the first time that entire weekend, and it felt so good.

END

SYMPATHY

2006-11-27T00:27:00.000-08:00

October 15, 2006, 7:42am: Back at the Jockey Club, where the Missing Digits crew were staying, Buddha and I were still awake and watching The Cable Guy on TV.

Roy was passed out in the room where Buddha had slept the night before. They'd made an arrangement to trade off every other night.

JJ and Carrie had the master bedroom to themselves.

Mack was passed out on the living room floor, mumbling to himself now and then. JJ would emerge from the bedroom every half an hour and ask us if Mack was OK. After getting humorous reassurances from us that Mack was in good hands, JJ would return to the room.

Buddha and I joked about laying cruel jokes on Mack, such a giving him a Hot Nickel (heating up a coin and placing it on the skin of the passed out person) or placing his hand in water to induce urination (something that would be a tad bizarre, given Mack's missing index finger and all) or possibly writing on his face with a Sharpie.

However, Buddha and I were not feeling that prankish. Even though we were both wide awake, we were also beaten from the night's activities. Buddha did not roll on E but he'd had a few drinks and went the distance with the rest of us.

We would both glance over at Mack whenever an audible groan arose, and we'd laugh. But it wasn't in us to escalate the madness any further. It had nothing to do with being nice guys or feeling bad for Mack: It was simply a matter of knowing that he would get us back for it one day, and then a full-on war would have to be waged, a never-ending battle of pranks that would only stop when both side messed each other up in a near-catastrophic manner.

You see, Mack and JJ liked playing jokes too. But having been a witness to Mack's dark side, having had only the slightest glimpse into his chaotic soul, I thought better of it. Not that I thought Mack would ever try to beat me up or retaliate in an unkind fashion-- it had more to do with knowing my own dark side, and also knowing that if someone pulled a prank on me while I was wasted and passed out, I would not react well due to my composure being stripped away. I would lose my cool and end up having to apologize to whoever wanted to have a little fun at my expense.

I've got a short fuse, what can I say?

*/*

October 15, 2006, 6:20am: Carrie and I returned from the rental car and found the boys exactly where we last left them: In the casino, standing around and talking to a guy that JJ knew from Los Angeles.

Buddha and JJ were chatting it up. As their conversation partner went on at length about his weekend, JJ saw Carrie and I. His face was lit up from the E. He looked like someone had taken the face of a newborn baby from a photograph and Photoshopped it onto the body of a pro wrestler.

"There you guys are," JJ exclaimed, his aura betraying no negativity. I sensed no jealousy or doubt, even though his girlfriend and I were gone for close to an hour. He was glad to see us.

"You take care of what you had to do?" JJ asked Carrie. She smiled and nodded her head. Then he walked away from the conversation (as Buddha was speaking to the other guy) and came up to me and said, "How you feelin'? That E kickin' your ass?"

I responded, "Yeah, but it's not pure E. It's cut. Still, I'm mad fucked up. I took two."

"Mack and I took five each!" JJ said, his crystal blue eyes dilated and pinging beyond belief.

"It's funny to see you guys in this state," I said. "I'm the one who is always torked on something, but I guess you guys like to indulge from time to time."

"Man, I used to be a big-time smoker and drinker. I couldn't take it after a while, especially the drinking. You're lucky you don't have that problem, Mr. Alcohol Allergy."

"Yeah, well, I have to be extra careful due to being allergic. Maybe I won't get addicted to it, but I could die from alcohol poisoning."

"That's true... but hey, anyway, it's great to be hanging with you and the guys in Vegas! You know, James, ever since you joined this band, I feel like it's just improved so much. You're a huge part of that. You brought in Wolf Man when we needed a drummer, and when he left you brought in Buddha, you know all the songs, you write songs as well, you play bass and help arrange the songs, you sing back-up, you bring people to the shows... What do you not do for us? I can't thank you enough, man."

I could blame JJ's effusiveness on the E, but he's expressed such sentiments to me when he was sober. The E merely allowed him to say it without the fear of me doubting him wafting into my consciousness.

"Hey man, thank you for giving me the opportunity to play with some great musicians who actually care about doing it right." I felt the love from all around.

JJ and Carrie went back over to the conversation. I turned around and saw Roy and Mack, sitting in front of some slot machines. Roy was staring at the machine in front of him, his eyes glazed over; Mack was dropping endless dollar bills into the one-armed bandit, alternating between pulling the lever and hitting the "SPIN" button.

I sat down next to them and before I could try my luck Mack handed me a dollar.

"Here, bro, play it. I think you're gonna win something."

I looked at the misshapen bill. "I don't think I can even get this one to slide in, Mack."

"Just try it," Mack barked. He was surly, wasted, completely out of his gourd.

I was so fucked up that I actually tried to force the dollar into the bill slot. The machine kept spitting it out. I tried three times before I handed it back to Mack.

Mack grabbed it back angrily, and mumbled something to himself that was inaudible, sounding like a third-rate Elvis impersonator.

My head was like a carousel by this time, awash in the dazzling lights and the gaudy ambiance of the casino. The non-stop drone of slot machines ringing and clanging meshed together seamlessly like some Bengali raga in an East Asian marketplace.

I looked at Mack, his face twisted from drink and chemicals, mechanically pulling the lever, absent-mindedly gambling and grunting. He was so happy at the Cooler Lounge when his mother showed up. Not even the tardiness of the preceding band nor the minor annoyances of the evening in general had made a dent in his careful facade but now here he was, misery and turmoil etched into his grinding jaw, with eyes that seemed vacant and faraway.

I was going to try and say something to him, but as if he could read my mind he turned to me and started speaking with a nervous stutter, struggling to find coherence with words that he could barely pronounce in the state he was in.

"James, man... I just wanna say, bro... you know, I think that you're... you know, you're a great musician, man... and... and... and you're always on point... you never even blink when the shit hits the fan... solid... you're solid, man... I respect you a lot... I really do... and... man, every time JJ and I have tried to get this group off the ground... you know... shit happens... we've never had a chance to grow with it 'cuz... people left the band... they had 'creative differences'... whatever that means..."

He turned his eyes back to the slot machine, and as he spoke it seemed like he was having a hard time speaking and gambling at the same time. If he pulled the lever or hit the button to add a credit, it rendered him unable to say what he wanted to say, causing him to wait for the machine to spin. Sometimes he would pause to see the results and react accordingly, all the while still trying to say what was on his frazzled, drug-laced mind.

"Anyway," he continued, "I really really hope... I hope... shit, I just won it all back! Anyway, like I was saying... we... that is, JJ and Buddha and me... we want you to stay in this band... I know you have other projects, other bands, a whole other life... but we need you here, man... it's where you belong... fuck, another one... I think I'm gonna cash out soon..."

"You're gonna crash out?" I asked, mishearing him.

"No, cash out," Mack said. Then he started to laugh with a low roar. "Crash out... That's funny. No, I'm not ready for that yet, but when I am... I'll be out like a light... anyway..."

"Mack", I said, not wishing him to speak any further out of fear he would have an aneurysm trying to articulate his feelings, "I'm not going anywhere. I've been in this band for over a year. Yeah, I do other projects, but that's because I need to constantly do something creative or else I'll go nuts. But believe me, Mack, I'm giving this all I've got every time I hook up with you guys, and if it weren't for the fact that I have other pursuits and hobbies I'd probably be bugging you guys to death. You wouldn't be able to get rid of me if that were the case. You'd be sick of me you guys would probably even say 'Damn, James is cool and all but he's getting on my nerves' and you'd be correct in that assessment."

Then, without any cause or reason, I started singing that Tom Petty song with the lyrics about getting to the point and rolling another joint. It popped into my head and the drugs impelled me to croon it aloud.

Mack smiled and sang along. He knew the song, since he was a big Tom Petty fan since he was a kid.

When we got to the part where Petty goes, "You don't know how it feels to be me," I understood why that song hit me so suddenly: Mack's vibe was one of frustration, stemming from his disfigurement. Most of the time, on the surface he seems happy-go-lucky and energetic, but there is that bitter realization that he's not getting that finger back no matter what becomes of him.

It's something we all take for granted. You don't miss it until it's gone, and a physical quirk such as Mack's instantly separates a person from the rest of the crowd, leaving him isolated and alone.

In short, no one knows how it feels to be him, just as no one knows how it feels to be me, or Tom Petty, or anyone else out there. We try our best, but we can only get so close before we realize we have to step back or else get swallowed up by someone else's excess baggage.

Unlike my talk with Carrie, I knew that Mack would not be opening up to me about anything of that nature for a long time. This was the closest he could get before retreating behind his mask. Of course, when the time comes I will be eager to listen to him and share my own demons with him, because I can do that-- but only if someone has been brave enough to share their demons with me openly.

"We have a lot in common," I said to Mack after our impromptu chorus ended. "More than you know, Mack."

"No, I know what you mean," he said. "I can see it in your eyes, man. I don't know what it is exactly, but I see it. I recognize it. Maybe one day we'll get a drink, shoot the shit, and nail it to the wall."

He was far more coherent than he was five minutes prior. I guessed that perhaps he had been in the throes of an Exstasy wave rushing through his bloodstream, and now the wave was ebbing away, poising itself to return shortly.

Roy was sitting next to Mack the whole time, listening but not commenting. Finally, he chimed in with, "Man, I'm hungry. No shit, I'm fuckin' hungry now!"

Mack, Roy's childhood friend and confidante, switched gears and humorously pretended to be irritated by his blanket statement. "Hungry? You gotta be kidding. How much E did I give you? There's no way you're hungry right now."

"I know, I agree," Roy said plainly, his Ray Liotta resemblance more startling than ever. "But my stomach doesn't lie. I need food, water, anything."

"There's still some food back at the Jockey Club," Mack said. "I think we're done here anyway. Just wait it out-- we'll go back to the room and you can pig out there. You're not hungry hungry, are you?"

"Naw, I'm not starving," Ray retorted. "I just need a little something in my gut. And I don't want to eat at a buffet, so I'll wait until we get back."

"That's the spirit," Mack said, all smiles now. The demon was gone for now. "Patience is a virtue." Then he turned to me and started doing his version of my Tony Montana impression. "Ay mang, choo not fokkin' hongree too, eh? 'Cuz if choo iz, choo ain't gettin' not-teen brum me, choo caca roach!"

I responded in kind. "Whaddon choo try steekin' choo head opp choo ass an' see eef eet feets, mang..."

Just then, JJ and the others approached us, after bidding his friend farewell.

"Y'all ready to split?" JJ asked, his unflinching blue eyes locked and loaded.

"Yeah, man, we're more than ready," Mack said. "Roy's hungry too. Anyone else?"

The rest of us shook our heads and declined any food requests.

"You OK to drive?" Mack said to me.

"Fuck yeah," I said defiantly. It was true: I was feeling better after the last E wave, and figured if we could make out the door quickly I could get to wherever I was going next without any trouble.

"You going back to your hotel?" JJ asked.

"Not right now. They're all asleep and I think I'd have to crash on the floor. I'll follow you guys and kick it until the sun comes up... if you guys don't mind."

"Listen to this guy," Mack said, incredulous. "If we don't mind? Dude, you were supposed to be in that room with us, remember? You're more than welcome-- there's plenty of space for all of us."

"OK, I'll follow you guys. I passed by it a few times before the show, so I know where it's at."

Buddha spoke up and said, "I know James is able to drive, but as for the rest of you I'm going to get behind the wheel. I'm pretty straight right now."

"Man," JJ said, "Where did we find this guy anyway? So fucking cool, so fucking mellow... Oh, that's right, James brought him in."

I smiled. It always feels good to be acknowledged for positive things.

As we all walked to the parking garage, JJ talked about a new arrangement for our version of The Rolling Stones' "Sympathy For The Devil".

"The way we do it is great, but I had an idea for the intro. When we get back to L.A. I'll elaborate a little more, but I think it will make the song even better than it already is. God, I'm so psyched about our band! We're finally gelling-- we're a team!"

For the first time since I started playing bass for Missing Digits, I didn't feel awkward hearing JJ gush enthusiastically about the band. I didn't cringe at the naked sentiment behind his words. I didn't feel like I was just sitting in with a band until the right opportunity came along.

I realized that the opportunity was right there in front of me, or under my nose, or however one wants to phrase it. I felt like I bonded with the band in a way that I never anticipated.

Or maybe it was just the E working its magic... I don't know.