The Periphery of Science

What if Hitler was just trying to be Charlie Chaplin with a thinner mustache? Or Charlie Chaplin snuck away to Europe and was actually Hitler?

The rain falls on the sidewalk and pools into little puddles of insects, cigarette butts, and hamburger wrappers — it makes me think the world might be washed away over night while I’m sleeping and dreaming of another life, one much softer and gentler. Have you seen the way light plays on Faberge eggs? The way the shell doesn’t reveal the insides, but you and I both know it’s only yolk there, makes me think that behind every Rembrandt is something a kindergartener painted.

I met a bathroom attendant tonight who knew the breed of the bird on my sweater. He was singing along to a Tina Turner song, one she sang while Ike was raising hell in the other room. I ate a mint and we talked about the music. He told me the bird was a thrush. His voice was soft like velvet.

Some words make me cringe…

We judge each other by our jobs, the clothes on our backs, the curl of our lips when we throw epithets at each other. Fuck you. Well, fuck you too! We hold hands and knives and bottles of booze. We hold each others hands like pinless grenades.

Is there an eternally cool side of the pillow? If you keep flipping it over forever, will you evade the heat permanently?

I love every one of my friends. I love you. I love the blond waitress at the local bar — although she never brings me the correct change. I love my enemies, especially because I don’t really have any… hate is not a word I deal with. It’s like receiving a 6 in blackjack: nothing good comes from it.

It’s 3:29 in the morning. Rain is plopping on the window pane. Like tiny, soft gunshots.  Do you like the taste of blood? How about green tea? Some people like the smell of gasoline, some people gag from it…

People say life is short, but it seems fucking long to me! However, 24 hours are not enough hours to the day. 10.5 gallons is not enough gas in my tank. Somebody threw a bottle at my windshield and cracked it the other day. Just my luck. My shitty Karma, I guess.

One life is not enough for all I want to do. Write 16 novels. Fall in love 32 times. Write 64 songs about how life is not long enough for all I want to do. I guess I have to live 8 lives to get all my living done.

I’d have to live on the periphery of science to fulfill my dream’s ambitions.

Love and music is nothing but mathematics.

Do you ever wonder what becomes of your fingernail shards once you clip them? How long until they disappear? I clipped mine and two shards landed three feet away, in almost the same location.

I wonder what the world record is for longest fingernail shard flight… there should be an international tournament to see which country’s citizens can clip their fingernails the furthest. I have a feeling India would win the gold. Fingernail cutting and spelling bees are their strengths.

Do you ever sit cross-legged so long that your legs fall asleep and you practically fall back down when you stand up? Or stand up too fast and get light-headed and almost pass out? It’s like meeting God and having nothing to say. I once fainted on a crowded train in Boston, came to with a crowd of strangers staring down at me. It was frightening and embarrassing but at least I got a seat after that.

I met a girl last night with lips like caviar. The band was playing loudly and passionately. We shouted into each others ears to be heard. I  got there early because I’m friends with the guitarist. The place was empty and I ate Fish N’ Chips. When I left it was so crowded I believe I consummated a few relationships on the way out.

“Love…” she told me with a shrug, “kinda makes me cringe.”
“I don’t know, I’m kinda craving the cringe,” I replied.

Is the moon your friend? Does it affect you at all?

Do you sing in the morning, my little thrush?

For a Rainy Day

Rain falls, cats and dogs, the gutter’s clogged, your mother calls.
She’s on the phone, but you’re all alone, listening to the dial tone.
You’re in a soft place, off in space, remembering her gorgeous face.
Minutes tick, the fuse is lit, burning down the wick, nothing sticks.

I’m sometimes torpid, sometimes vapid, my heart beats rapid
when you’re standing close, nibbling on my ear like a rabbit.

The water runs down the street, carrying with it oil and blood,
like our own little George Bush war, the curbs flushed with it!
I peer out the window, loving/despising everything I see.

Come with me, let’s take a trip through this town,
wear your oversized glasses, smile your lovely smile.
Everyone we meet thinks thoughts just like yours,
suffering exalted beauty, celebrating numinous horror.

I bleed sweat. Sweat blood.

Neil Gaiman gave a talk at UCLA. I didn’t attend.
Rhett Miller played at the troubadour. I didn’t go.

Call  me on my cell phone…
give me cancer.
Buy me a drink…
ruin my liver.
Love me…
cause me despair.
I want to be hostage
to your heart!

The rain continues to pour, I continue to gush like a flood.
This heart is itemized and you lost the receipt.
These are the best days of our lives and I want them to end.
They clamor at the castle wall, begging for a glimpse of your dress.
Lucky you!

I was born  frangible and fragile.
I was raised in a graveyard by wolves.
I was baptized in a jar of lemonade and lyrics.

Razorblades floating down the street now.
Homeless too.
The whole city is floating down the street.
Flushed out to sea.

Won’t you grab hold of me, and pull me down with you?
These sheets undulate with you and me underneath,
won’t you interlope in my world for a second, a minute,
a lifetime perhaps?

I promise to be good…

Blood on The Street

A homeless man was reading from a torn book, wedged between the bus stop and a brick building, he had a bushy white beard. I walked by and smiled and he smiled back, like we shared a secret.

I went to the bar last night and they let me stay till 3. The bouncer kicked out a guy who sported a Jewish afro, but I think that was incidental to the incident. The bartenders were beautiful and kind. I wanted to stay there forever, in the dimly lit room, nursing an Amstel Light.

Yes, I drink Amstel Light.

The moon is a heartless thing tonight, made of chalk and fantasy. I feel like dancing around a bonfire and freeing my inner pagan. I feel like shouting your name at the top of my lungs. I want to tear apart a steeple and turn the wood into a dance floor to boogie with the Lord.

There’s blood on the street.
There’s fire in the heat of the sun.
There’s a person I want you to meet,
he has a bushy white beard and calls you son.

When light won’t reach you, you have to learn to love the dark.
I drove on the grass and tried to put the pedal to the past.
When your home’s on fire, you have to jump in and swim with sharks.
I fled from the city and followed the heart of a girl so wise and pretty
she makes me look like something inhuman.

I’ve been thinking about Bob Marley today, for some reason, how he was a beautiful man but not really a good husband. He died indirectly from stubbed toe he suffered during a soccer game that turned into melanoma.  Such a simple end to such an elegant life. His last words to Ziggy were, “Money can’t buy life.” He was right.

His light was so bright it couldn’t last that long. He was 36. I’m almost 34. It makes me wonder what I’ve done with my life. Jesus was 33 when he died. Do I hold any light at all?

There’s fish in the pan and it’s hissing loudly. The Grammies are on in the other room and I can hear my neighbor watching them too. We live in little boxes and wave at each other from ten feet away. Sound travels through walls, melts into the atmosphere like a voice singing a lullaby to a sleeping child. Are we living in a dream?

Are we just tourists in our own world?

There’s blood on the street.
There’s fire in the heat of the sun.
There’s a person I want you to meet,
he has a bushy white beard and calls you son.

Laundry detergent mostly comes in concentrated form now. Soon there won’t be the former weaker traditional strength. Will the fine folks at Tide and Cheer still put 2x stronger on the bottle? Or will we just accept that laundry detergent is more powerful than it used to be and leave off the unnecessary qualifiers?

These are, sadly, things I think about.

I was watching a bunch of mindless television, trying to unwind before going back to work on Monday morning, watching Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab, and I noticed that they kept showing commercials for animal rescue, with shots of hurt and sad-looking animals and a sappy soundtrack that tugs at your heartstrings. Tragic canine countenances. Tenebrous feline faces. As if Celebrity Rehab isn’t depressing enough already.

If the world were a ball bearing it would be smoother than the smoothest man-made ball bearing. If a spoonful of the sun was brought to Earth it would scorch everything around it for one hundred square miles.

Here’s Bob…

Like a Caged Pet Without a Wheel To Run On

What is that I see?

A question at the start of my poetry,
a cold, dark and gloomy sea,
laid out flat and flawless in front of me
stretching to the end of my divinity.
I love this blue globe I roam
far from the beaches of my home
where I watched the waves spit and foam
listening to people bitch and moan.

Sweet Heart,
We can fall in love at a
Truck Stop.

Baby Doll,
We can break it off at the
Shopping Mall.

Sky dive, mountain climb. Set sail.
Let’s derail the train of thought you were caught
claim jumping the pot I came to watch
the hangman work.

Everybody is staying afterwards
for milk and cookies.
My best friends are ballers and bastards
and bookies.

My life is like a Spaghetti Western, but I can’t figure out
if I’m the lone sheriff or the scruffy-faced villain.
Or maybe I’m just the prostitute in some whiskey saloon.
A player piano wailing away ghost-like in the corner…

I can’t figure out if I’m a hipster, an intellectual, or a fool.
I have an ironic sense of irony and listen to thoughtful music.
My pop culture savvy is as sharp as they come. (Fist Pump!)
I’m a foodie. I blog. I play Frisbee on sunny days.

Have you ever laid awake,
feeling the thoughts in the back of your brain?
And keeping them there,
like a caged pet without a wheel to run on,
made you feel like God,
but it was only your own brain you were controlling?
Still, nobody can say you didn’t reach for Heaven!
This usually only happens the day after drinking,
in the throes of dehydrated torment,
my head throbbing like a rowboat in hell….
I bury my brain into the pillow and keep my thoughts
at the back of my skull, like a caged pet shitting in the sawdust.

She told me,
“You act about as natural as the color of mother’s hair.”
But I had never met her mother.
“If you’d only walked in my shoes,” I said,
not really knowing what it means.

You, baby. You, baby.
Choo. Choo.
You’re my greatest derailing.
You’re my greatest derailing.
Choo. Choo.

“Epic” Rains In L.A.

It’s been raining in Los Angeles for a couple of days and tonight it’s supposed to come down in “epic” and “biblical” and a few other “insert overblown adjective here” porportions…

You know what that means?

Fish are running the L.A. River!

Thanks to LAist for the picture, check out the story here.

Stay dry, Southern California.

RIP Jay Reatard: It Ain’t Gonna Save Me Either

RIP Jay Reatard…

]

New Blue Couch

We drink whiskey and cokes and dine at late night taco trucks. We laugh at descriptions of television shows and smoke filtered cigarettes. We are the young and the not-so-young, the beautiful and hideous, dancing to the same DJ. We are the weekend warriors, fighting a war with our work-week selves.

My new couch was delivered this morning and I immediately took a nap on it. It came with scotch guard for those inevitable spills. If only we came with scotch guard too. I paid an extra hundred dollars for buttons — that sounds like a lot but it comes out to only five dollars a button. Now I need to buy some pillows.  It’s the beginning a long relationship.

It’s Sunday and the sparrows are sleeping in. The churches are filled with women in bonnets and men in suits praying and singing. Blue Jam Cafe on Melrose is busy stacking pancakes and the winos are waking up to the a sun that is surgical in its execution.

George Zimmer from Men’s Wearhouse is a cool guy.

I like Sun Kill Moon’s version of Modest Mouse’s ‘Ocean Breaths Salty’ better than the original. I used to idolize Isaac Brock. But as we both got older we both realized he’s just another guy that read too much Bukowski. Now I get up early and worship the sun. Time blooms. It opens up and swallows us like a Venus Fly Trap. I’ve never lived in New York City. I’ve never been to Paris. I’ve never learned how to whistle with my hands.

It’s such a diamond of a day that I’m heading west to do some hiking and soaking up the sun. I’m fully rested from my nap and energized by a fresh, juicy orange. They say you can’t compare apples and oranges but you can a lot more than you can compare apples and Volkswagons.

Maybe when I get on the road I’ll keep driving. Who knows? Maybe I’ll drive right pass Malibu and keep going. There are mountain lions in Griffith Park. There are sharks in Silver Lake. There are bloodsuckers in the Fairfax District. But today all the animals of this city are beautiful, happy creatures. That’s the kind-of day it is.

Things to do before I die:

1. Make my things-to-do-before-I-die list.

So far 2010 has been a magical year. The weather in the Southland has been phenomenal. I have been in love with the city: the weathered old signs, the 1930’s buildings, the taco trucks, the fruit vendors, the motels in the ghetto with names like Shangri La or Paradise Inn, the lines at the yogurt shop, the gourmet burgers, the girls.

I’m not the only one. It’s seems like everybody has decided to be a little softer this year. Zen in 2010. Peaceful vibes dominate the scene. There’s a common hope that it’s going to be a better year.

I can get behind that.

When you think about it, life is a lot like a Junior High School dance. The first half is spent waiting around for something to happen. Then you start doing stupid shit with your friends. Messing around in the hallways. Sneaking cheap vodka in and pouring it into the juice. Near the end you get up the nerve to talk to a girl, ask her to dance and before you know it (usually a song or two, usually Sweet Child Of Mine by GNR) the lights go on and some person with temporary authority is yelling at you that that it’s time to go.

My soul is unbound and untethered. That’s why it blows around in the breeze.

There is nothing better in the world than a cold glass of water. Next time all the stress builds up and you want to scream, just sip some water and think about the mountain stream that it comes from and how the ocean and the clouds are just different forms of the same thing and so are your problems and their relief. If you just stop and breath, you might not suffocate under the pressure, you might float to the top. Look at me, I’m shirtless and spitless but am not afraid to  stand up, chest-out, proudly excavating the creatures that stir my restless heart. Because it’s better to speak it and say it than to swallow it. All my regrets are things I didn’t do, didn’t say…

When you give someone your heart. Make sure they know how to water it.

An Ode To A Friend

Oh, Joe, what a splendid trader you are…

A pot roast…
A half chicken…
Stuffed pork chops…
Cheap wine…

Long, circular lighting tubes overhead.
Workers with Hawaiian shirts and leis.
Cartoon drawings adorning the walls.

The crowd is mostly women, fresh from work,
talking on wireless phones. Blouses and baskets,
bags of brussel sprouts. All frozen over…

My basket is empty, I stare down into refrigerated cold.
The surfer dude w/nametag: Tex says the gnocchi is good.
A quasi-edgy/Muzak/indie tune plays…
something non-offensive, mediocre — yet ‘cool’.

There are orchids by the door. Chocolate by the register.

Oh, Joe, what a splendid trader you are…
Get in my car and go, go, go.
Oh, Joe, what a splendid trader you are…

I buy the candy with the jelly inside.
I eat enchiladas with cheese inside.
I drink the wine with the mysteries
unfurled inside. It’s cold out tonight,
I’m at your door, will you please
let me inside?  (warm up by your firelight)

I load up on pasta, soups for a dollar.
A man passes out bite-sized scoops of mango.
I think it was mango. It could have been mango.
The aisles are nice and wide,
with tile made for tap dancing.

It’s a shame
I don’t have
my tap shoes
on.

Okay, now I recognize the tune.
It’s the Shins.
(That’s weird)

Dry Cereal…
Organic Yogurt…
Shredded Cheese…

Oh, Joe, what a splendid trader you are…
Get in my car and go, go, go.
Oh, Joe, what a splendid trader you are…

You’ll always be my Queen of Groceries.
I may stray for a day, but always return to she.
I remember one time I bought your juice.
It didn’t taste right and you replaced it quickly.
You earned my loyalty, through thick and thin.
I bought reusable bags, because I’m a good citizen.
I love to eat healthy food, here, take my money,
you’re my number one boo. Trader Joe’s, I love you.

Your parking lots are motherfuckers though!

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m not sure what the heck this is but it is. Accept it for what it is in all its glorious full-frontal triviality, it’s astronomical nonsensical namboobism. I have.

Los Angeles, Don’t Shoot Your Gun In The Air

New Years is here…

Before the champagne is poured it’s customary to look back on a burnt-out year and wonder how much fire it had, or if it were a dud — like some disappointing firecracker whose wick only fizzled out anti-climatically instead of sparking an explosion. New Years and Birthdays we do this. Take stock of what 365 days have brought us. It’s in our blood, this annual reflection. I try to be forward thinking and different, but who am I to go against human nature?

This year, like every year that preceded it, went by too fast and featured too many things left undone. That short film I started in January, down at the streetlamps in front of LACMA: still incomplete. My partially collected collection of short stories titled Craving The Cringe: rotting away in a folder on my desktop. Those rings I wanted to make with famous people’s faces in a little glass jewel: haven’t even bought the rings, much less the glass jewels.

Oh, and I’ve yet to meet and woo Zooey Deschanel.

I’m in a plane flying home for New Years. Taking stock. The Earth below is flat and white. Ohio seemingly divided into hundreds of square boxes. Rivers snaking through in serpentine wiggles. Towns oozing light.  It’s not that I think 2009 was necessarily a bad year; it was just filled with more work than fun, more apathy than passion. 2009 was more heartburn than heartfelt.

That’s not how I roll.

I’ve been called a walking St. Elmo’s fire due to the lightning bolts emanating outward from my grinding cranium — a metaphor, mind you.  I walk around town with my head-down, deep in thought, snapping my fingers and throwing my hands up (great Scott!) when ideas strike.  If you’re picturing Doc Brown from Back To The Future, you’re on the right track, although without the white hair and Delorean.

There have been love affairs, great and small, all-consuming and figments of my imagination, and the requisite goodbyes that trail them like a caboose on a train. There have been inspired speeches shouted over the din of a crowded bar, and quiet moments of reflection in a dark car atop Mulholland Dr.  I’ve been too tired to bother to even wake up, and too excited to ever go to sleep. I moved apartments.  I changed jobs.  I grew a beard. I started wearing ties.  I took up Portuguese. I quit Portuguese.  I tried to practice loving kindness everyday, but more often (probably) than not I resorted to being a selfish, petty, insecure human.

We’ve been chasing the sun west as it slowly descended below our wings, so there’s been an orange/pink glowing cigarette tip in the sky for the last two hours, a permanent sunset, but now it’s finally stabbed out into the Earth below like a Benson and Hedges in the snow. The night caught up. Tiny lights below blooming across the land look like electric fungus as we fly over Illinois. The lights represent thousands of homes and thousands of people inside them waiting for a pot of tea to boil, a television show to come on, a lover to come home. None of these towns are Chicago, however, they’re just someplace else, some place you’ve never heard of, full of kids who are dying to grow up and get out. I’ve yet to go to Chicago. It’s on my list.

Places like Knee Split, Indiana. Box Cot, Illinois. Free Bird, Ohio.

I made them all up.

When I was young I would watch a plane fly over my house and picture the passengers in their seats and wonder where they were headed. For some reason I always concluded it was Hawaii. I used to picture someone looking out the window, down at me, wondering whom I was.  Did I ever picture them sitting with a laptop writing about it? No, because laptops didn’t exist yet. They were still word processors, and they were unwieldy and clunky.

Have you ever wondered how many loves you missed out on? The heart being a fickle, complicated organ. Do you ever feel like we’re ships passing in the night without spotting each other, much less tying anchors together? This year I’ve been a ship at sea, in the dark, rudderlessly adrift, saillessly lost, hopelessly searching for my port.

She’s out there…

In the words of the late, great Elliot Smith, “I’m never gonna know you now, but I’m going to love you anyhow.”

As we celebrate the coming of another year the authorities are reminding the citizens of this great city to please refrain from shooting their pistols into the air. It’s a reasonable request, and I humbly second it.

So if you invited this guy to your party, make sure he knows the rules before midnight strikes.

One year we lit fireworks off of our porch and the neighbor two doors down came out and screamed at us and called us assholes. We hollered back, ‘happy new year’ and went inside.

This year I will probably mark the occasion with a hearty whoop and tonnage of hugs. Perhaps a toast where I state something profound, like, “We’re all just fleas stuck in the goat’s fur so lets ride the beast into 2010 like champions. Zooey Deschanel I luuuuuv yoooooou…. (belch/stumble/fall/get up/act like nothing happened) …go Lakers!”

Nah.
Well.
Maybe.

Ryan Seacrest will be in Times Square, but more accurately, on the Television, in a cashmere scarf dishing out typical fair about how cold it is while interviewing plastic celebrities who profess to be, “feeling the excitement in the air.” Half-talented, mega-produced bands will be hammering through their non-offensive music-by-numbers as millions in the crowd wave their hands stupidly and blow $2 dollar plastic horns made in China at the hovering jib as it floats over the massive thrust of humanity like a roving eyeball. The ball will drop and all the cameras will zero in on couples kissing while confetti fills the screen.

I’m making Terriyaki chicken wings for the party. Breaking out the croc pot. Letting them slow cook for six hours. I’ve been told they’re ’sick’ (sic).

And the years go on and on…

Ride the beast like a champion.

Maine

I’m in Maine for the next couple of days, flew in on Christmas on a little commuter plane that bounced around over the bumpy skies of New England. It’s Sunday and there is rain falling on a layer of snow and the wind blowing gusts of rain/snow across the road. I’m driving a rented Hyundai Sonata and listening to Neko Case singing about rain in California. The irony (if it’s really irony) is not lost on me.

Tomorrow I have to help my brother sprinkle calcium on the ice in his driveway. It creates little air pockets and breaks up the ice, then we have to take shovels and hack the ice to bits to fully remove it.  Ah, Maine, what a weird and wacky winter wonderland you are.

People who complain about not having snow in L.A should take note.

We’re headed over to Bangor in the morning (pronounced locally, “Bang-Er”, make up your own joke for this one). I’m going to stop by Steven King’s house and ask him to share his literary secrets with me, how can one man be so prolific? And is it because of some sort of black magic, and if so, can I borrow a bottle? I’m guessing he’ll stick the dogs on me instead.

New Year’s is coming and I’ll be back in L.A. for the celebrations: the countdown, champagne popping, noise-makers, Auld Lang Syne! The twentydime is upon us and I know, I just feel it in my optimist bones, that this is the year I make it to South East Asia, have a piece published, and finally finish Infinite Jest (to be honest, I’ll be pleased if just one of those goals is accomplished).

People have rated the 2000’s as the worst decade of the last century. I have to disagree. 2000 saw the rise of DIY ethos (but more importantly, capabilities) and new technologies that allow some commoner like me to put my thoughts out there for the world to decide whether they’re noble, creepy, or pointless. (I’m usually shooting for all three at once) We can choose what we want to watch — when we want to watch it. We can call Brazil without costing an arm and a leg. We can answer our own trivia questions by looking them up on the Internet, without needing 30 pounds of encyclopedias flanking an entire wall in your den.

Yes, War, the Economy, Environmental Degradation are all terribly depressing facets of the 00’s, but every decade saw it’s share of bullshit, it just used to be easier to escape the bad news — now you’re inundated with images and opinions 24/7 wherever you roam. Fox News is on in the Jiffy Lube waiting room, you go to your email and before it is a news blurb about an iceberg in Antarctica the size of Delaware that had broken off and is floating towards Australia. You stumble into a bar bathroom and over the urinal is an advertisement for Liquid soap for men that promises “magnetic feremones” are injected into the lather. (I know that doesn’t have anything to do with the Economy, Environmental Degradation, or War, I just find that kind of cheesy, pathetic advertising aimed at horny young men to be awfully sad and crass, whoever would buy that must be pathetically gullible — and it doesn’t work either, I’ve come to find, $5 down the drain. Literally. Ha!)

I have three more days of this decade to make something good come out of it. Yes, Bangor may not be Thailand or Cambodia, but it’ll have to do for now. Mr. King, please warm up some coffee, I’m on my way.