Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Los Angeles. Show all posts

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Decade

Woke up. Got out of bed and hit the bathroom before assuming the position: In front of my computer atop Ikea desk in the living room.

Rolled a marijuana cigarette. Used a blend of Green Crack with a dash of Blue Dream. Checked email. Got conformation: I’d be listening to the new album by Very Big American Rock Band at 3pm.

Walked up Wilshire to the local Ralph’s grocery store. Purchased Gatorade, vanilla ice cream, sliced pineapple and a handful of Soy Joy bars. Took out $40 in cash.

On the walk back, I stopped at Roebek’s Juice. Ordered my usual (Venice Burner w/Immunibek). Shlepped everything back to the apartment.

Finished the joint from earlier. Ate a bowl of Multi-Grain Cheerios. Logged onto my computer. Spent an inordinate amount of time on Twitter, less so on Facebook.

Checked in with one Twitter girlfriend who’s been especially amorous. We exchanged dirty tweets until she wrote, “I think I just came.” At which point I jerked off, coming really hard in my Rolling Stones boxer shorts.

Contemplated buying cocaine, but decided against it. My will has been strong lately. Besides, with Coachella coming up, I’ll need that $$. I’d much rather put it towards getting at least a half-ounce of Green Crack to take with me to the desert. Not to mention the small fortune I’m sure to spend at the merch stand. No coke for me. My body is especially thankful.

Speaking of my body: For the first time in over a year, I’m seeing a significant change in it. I’ve lost a noticeable amount of weight over the past couple of years, but in odd fits and starts. Including a nice chunk of pounds over the last few weeks.

I haven’t been “fat” in years. But I’ve never been skinny. So when I look at the person in the mirror that’s bordering precariously on the verge of being, well, “ripped” for lack of a better word, it’s beyond surreal. It’s kind of scary. All I can think of is how different my life would have been if I’d even looked remotely like this 5/10/15 years ago. And then I think it’s just a delusion; I’m only seeing what I want to see. There’s no way that’s real.


After a good hour of that sort of dialogue running through my head as I stood in front of the mirror grooming myself (shaving my face/head can take a while), I got dressed.

I drove to Westwood. That’s where the Very Big American Rock Band’s management company is located. After parking in their structure, I took a few tokes on my one-hitter before going in.

The guy I met was cool. Young, Jewish—totally reminded me of that guy on TV show “Royal Pains.” He played me a bunch of new songs. They’re pretty nice. I seemed to like them more than the manager dude did.

On the way home, I listened to some Led Zeppelin. The album: “Physical Graffiti.” The song: “Ten Years Gone.” I couldn't help but marvel numbly at the opulence of Beverly Hills as I passed it by.

I have lived in Los Angeles for ten years now. I’ve never lived anyplace other than home for that long. For a majority of that time, I hated this place. But I finally surrendered to it, and now it’s all love.

Sure, I hate the drivers and the loneliness and the fact that this is the first place in the world I can’t even find myself a reliable fucking booty call, let alone a girlfriend. It’s warm, sunny and I have a sweet place for not a lot of money. I smoke amazing weed all day, every day. I do very interesting things for work. Yeah, I could use more money. Who couldn’t?

All I need is love. It’s the massive, gaping hole in my life. It has me doing all sorts of crazy things in pursuit of it. But without hope, I don’t know what I would do. Or specifically, I’m afraid of what I would do.

It doesn’t even have to be real. She can lie to me. I would pay for it, if I could afford it. The only women I can afford are not the kind that will deliver a genuine GFE, if you know what I mean.

I’ve been listening to Dr Laura a lot lately. I know—kill me now. The way she puts it, lonely people choose to be that way. Why do you volunteer to be lonely? That’s what she would say if I called her. And I don’t have an answer.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Isolation Army

I like to fool myself into believing there’s a nobility that comes from spending inordinate amounts of time alone. The human brain has this uncanny way of rationalizing just about anything.

As much as I hate to admit it, I do my best work alone. Always have. It all stems from this pretty crazy terror I had as a child of being abandoned. My big recurring dream as a kid featured my mother having to leave me behind forever on some mysterious trip. Oh man, I would just lose it after those nightmares.

When the nightmare finally came true, it snapped me out of a roughly two-year patch of a sort of forced isolation I’m sure I’ve alluded to here before. But it allowed me to hole up in my room and draw up a plan. A really good plan.

I still kind of marvel at that guy. I mean, what a fucking mess. And to actually put one foot in front of the other and march your sorry ass through the perilous journey that took you exactly where you wanted to be in the first place is an accomplishment that can never be underestimated.

Then there were the two years almost to the fucking day spent in (REDACTED). Yeah, the first year or so was the stuff of instantly legendary MTV reality shows no doubt.

But so much less attention is paid to that last eight months or so. Living in that studio apartment on the northernmost tip of town. Locked in a futile battle with a creeping army of cockroaches (those goddamned bugs let me tell you…), now that was doing a motherfucking bid right there for real doe. Niggas say what.

Everyday I would trudge to that soul-crushing ‘job.’ And I would set about doing the task appointed to me. Oh, and I ate. A lot. Combined with the non-stop sitting on my ass, let’s just say I wasn’t at my physical peak by any means.

I joke about it now, but I’ll always remember the day Mama Universe blasted me in the shoulder with a .22 and broke a couple of ribs with a lead pipe. Deep winter. AKA mid-January. I’d left work and was walking towards the train station. It was bitterly cold even for this notoriously frigid burg. I was wrapped head to toe in a good percentage of my wardrobe at the time in defense. I was sporting some fashionable wool overcoat. I turned onto (REDACTED) Avenue, and a blast of arctic wind (known by people of my father’s generation as “The Hawk”) stopped me in my tracks. Breathing ceased. Everything slowed down to a blurry not quite halt and tears pooled in my eyes. It was too cold for them to do anything more.

I somehow staggered into the nearest recognizable storefront: Urban Outfitters (oh, the humanity). I stumbled towards a large wall of coats. Pawing through the pile of Gore-Tex and nylon until I found it. The biggest, bulkiest snowboarding coat I could find. Fake fur-lined hood and everything. Made by a company called Drift (they appear to be no more. Huh). That orange-lined beast became my best friend. I threw the useless overcoat in the trash and never looked back.

At work, I posted a page from I’m pretty sure “Los Angeles” magazine. There was a photographer who took pictures of the Pacific coast horizon at different times of the day. He would use really long exposures and get these really rich, shimmering images. There were two such shots stacked on top of each other on the page I posted in my pathetic work cubicle. And I stared at that picture every day, all day. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t stop until I was looking at that very same scene in real life, and that place would be home.

Six months later, I was being put up in a posh Beverly Hills hotel at my new employers’ expense. It was April Fool’s Day. I’ll never forget it. Somewhere, there’s a folder with that crumpled magazine page still in it. Soon, I was standing on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, and that image was so fucking alive it brought more tears to my eyes. The good kind this time.

And it goes on. Once again, I find myself begrudgingly doing another stint of totally unexpected isolation (isn’t it always though?). As always, my mind is working overtime, all the time, furiously figuring out an escape plan. I though I had a clear lane, but that was just an illusion (AKA one night stand). There was a pretty sweet conjugal visit in there, too. But this is a real one. FML, as the kidz would say.

Which only means one thing. I gotta set the focus dial towards the desired destination, fuel up and lift off. The Mothership doesn’t run on just happy thoughts and fierce determination. What did they say in my brother’s day? 

Ah, yes:

“Gas, grass or ass. No one rides for free.”


Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Follow that back


I’m walking a lot now.

I was gonna buy a bike, but then realized I was just tempting death by tooling around L.A. on a bike. I’m scared enough when I’m protected from these asshole drivers when I’m behind the wheel of my military tank. There’s no way I’m risking life and limb on a damn bicycle. Plus I just don’t have the time to be driving somewhere just to ride one.

So I started taking these long walks from my house to…wherever.

This past weekend I was just getting started when I spied a cute little blonde up ahead. She looked like she’d just come from working out.

But despite her relatively diminutive size, honey was rocking the NICE big, bouncy butt.

I followed that ass for a good mile up the road. I was maybe a block behind her, so I don’t think she was ever any the wiser.

I finally thought to stop and snap a pic for posterity’s sake (ZING!).

Yet another perk of living in L.A.