The Bar With No Name

There’s a new bar in the neighborhood and it’s so fresh that it doesn’t even have a name. On my credit card receipt it says Black Bird but after speaking with the bartender that name isn’t yet official. Another suggestion being tossed around is Midnight Special, so who knows what it’s going to end up being called, and that doesn’t matter, it’s the drinks, the atmosphere, and the jukebox that really define a watering hole.

When I first walked in here I mistook the sign on the jewelry store next to it for the name of the bar and called it Bling. I was really pleased to hear it isn’t the name of the bar for it would surely date itself in about, say, twenty minutes with a name like that. It’s located on the south side of Melrose next to Floyd’s Barbershop, in the space that used to be The Gig. The new owners added an outdoor smoking patio to the front of the venue and you can’t beat that. Another thing you can’t beat is the addition of a pool table in the back, the only one on Melrose Blvd. The vibe of the place is chill, a little rock and rollish, and spacious. There’s plenty of booths to lounge in and fall into arguments about whether Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, or The Reader should win Best Picture- -as my friends and I recently did. The other upside: cheap prices. Six dollar shots and Four dollar beers. And the jukebox? A good collection of classic rock and new stuff. When Where Is My Mind? by The Pixies came on I wanted to buy whoever made that selection a drink.

So check out Black Bird, Midnight Special, Bling or whatever you want to call it until they settle on a name. The bartenders are friendly, they play things The Rolling Stones Circus, or episodes of He Haw on the telly and it’s not yet flooded to the rafters. Speaking of the rafters, they have some really high ceilings with beautiful wooden beams that give the room a nice open feel. It’s definitely a pleasant new addition to the neighborhood; a worthy stop on any Melrose Bar Crawl.

Neko Case’s New Song…

If you don’t know Neko Case by now you really have been missing out. Instead of rubbing your face in it though, I’ll just let you catch up with her new song: People Got A Lotta Nerve.

People Got A Lotta Nerve – Neko Case

And in addition to sharing the blessing which is the cool, velvety voice of Miss Case, each blog posting of this song helps raise money for poor, disadvantaged puppies and kitties through the Best Friends Animals Society charity. So it’s a two-fer, you can’t go wrong here.

Hope you enjoy it, dear artofstarvers… get your listen on!

The Road Calls… Again

The open road calls. L.A is cold, gray, and wet so I’m feeling the overwhelming draw of discovering what might be around the next bend, what small town might grab my attention, what roadside diner might captivate me over a slice of lemon meringue. I’ve always loved the interstates, but even more the small highways that lead to mysterious towns with names you finger on maps. St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Yakima, Washington. Or Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico – a town named after a radio program.

With a good playlist on your Ipod and the landscape floating by at 60 mph the mind enters a trance-like, meditative arena where you can get your thoughts in proper order. You pass by truckers and feel a kinship with them, picture yourself, bearded and wearing red plaid, behind the big steering wheel on a wintry, starry night. You read the billboards and sense a prophetic nature in the words: Eat Well, Stop At Joe’s.

I don’t have a destination yet, and that is the exciting part. I’m keeping to the south to avoid cold and possible snow. I want to see cacti and barren mountains and stop in thrift stores to peruse cowboy shirts with shinny buttons. Maybe I’ll stop in Truth Or Consequences and ask what it’s like to live in a town named after a game show. Who knows where I’ll go or end up? All I know is the road waits, stretched out and filled with myriad possibilities.

Rumination, Meditation, and Inebriation

Looking out the window at the gathering clouds (literal – not metaphorical) I wonder what secrets this city of angels still has to reveal. For instance, where are the angels? And who gets to decide which one of us achieves success, finds love, gets fit? I don’t believe in God, I believe in a higher power: David Geffen, Steven Spielberg, Katzenberg, Moonves – those kind of guys.

Sometimes I feel like I’m barely alive until the weekend hits, and then I do everything in my power to try to forget that I’m alive. Find me at a bar with a tie on and a striped shirt, swirling on about Poe and Bukowski and little known writers that commit suicide before their words see print. Find me late night patting the grease down on a processed cheese pizza, pointing awkwardly at the sinking moon, pontificating about how pointillism ruined art – as if I had any idea what either of those things are.

I’m halfway through my life — maybe less, maybe more — and still I haven’t tasted a $100 dollar bottle of wine. I haven’t sung in key – ever. I haven’t finished Leaves Of Grass, Infinite Jest, or Don Quixote.

I meditate but can’t seem to clear my mind to make it work, or maybe it’s working and I just don’t like the results. Like seeing all the stupid mistakes I make throughout the day, and how I repeat them the next even though I know they’re destructive and pointless and just make the suffering intensify.

I’m like a wooden soldier, unable to put up much of a fight; like a moth frantically circling the lamplight.

It’s the middle of the week, so that means I’m at the peak of my death. I’m writing this from the satin confines of my plush coffin. My word count is at 300 but that doesn’t mean I’ve said anything. If you’re reading this I wish you’d leave me alone. Let me stay buried. All this dirt above me feels nice and warm. I can love you better from down here.

There’s a place on the moon where unread poems go to be disposed of. It’s marked by a flag with a pine cone on it. I hold the record for most amount of poems there. My heart is a pine cone.

Here’s another one:

Heading up the street with my headphones on,
in two worlds at once, walking in song
with the colorful characters shuffling along,
they are me and I am them,
the bright lights and modern city din
blinds me and overwhelms my equilibrium

I am here, for forever and an eon.
Till I disappear and become phosphorescent neon.

A storefront sign that says:
CLOSED.

Conversations

“So I was all. And she was all… and then, like, we both were all…”

“The perfect woman doesn’t exist. It’s like the 103rd element in the periodic table.”

“Why say you have time to kill? How about time to live it up?”

“Oh, man. I couldn’t believe that she was wearing that… it was so bleh!”

“Did you see Slumdog? It was all kinds of goodness.”

“If only I had a car I would be able to score some babes. Chicks just want to date dudes who have rides.”

“I hate riding in elevators with people who hum. They’re so creepy.”

“I’m going to save up my money and buy a condo on the 32nd floor and spit on all the people walking down below. That’ll be my revenge.”

“Every time I see a stray dog on the street I almost feel like crying, but a homeless person elicits nothing from me. Am I a monster?”

“Hey, Johnny, you’re an asshole of historic proportions. Seriously! But I want you anyway.”

“It’s not that I thought you were lying to me, it’s just that you were disguising the truth. A sort of quasi-lie if you will.”

“I’ve always wondered why they call it split pea soup. You never see a split pea in there. It’s more like pea soup puree in my book.”

“I’m not a dirty old man, I just say what’s on my mind. And it’s always dirty. But really, I wash up rather nicely.”

“I’m confused. I want you badly, but I hate you so much.”

“Men are afraid of a strong woman like me.”

“The English are like their muffins, so plain compared to us Yanks. The gregarious and ostentatious Chocolate Chip Fudge muffin is bordering unholiness.”

“There is a place I go in my head anytime you’re talking, and it’s got four walls, a window, a rug, and no you.”

“Anything good that happens to me I think was a mistake, when the bad stuff comes I can’t help but feel reassured that the universe really does hate me.”

“Sometimes you have to know when to let it go, other times you have to know when to fight like hell. Right now I just feel like having a ice cream cone.”

Trash And Buddha And Hand-held Misery And How They All Come Together In The Receptical Of My Heart

Trash blows around the parking lot below my window. Where does it all come from? There’s a cup from the taco shop three blocks away sitting by my front tire. There’s a squirrel running on a wire, delicately traversing from a tree to a rooftop. I can sit here for hours and watch nothing happen. Watch it all slowly with the eyes of an enlightened vagabond. The front page of last week’s newspaper has plastered itself against the garage door.

It’s Thursday. Another week almost gone without finding the words to insert in the parenthesis of my life. (   ?   )

Love. Money. Drugs. Clothes. Drink. Jokes. TV Sitcoms. Home Decor. Religion. Travel. Politics. CNN. Video Games….

It’s all finely designed distraction from your original mind. Peace… the only drug worth doing. The rest is just hand-held misery. Portable poisons, take with you where ever you go.

We seek constant entertainment.

I coil in fear from having nothing to do. I must keep doing something. Writing. Eating. Drinking. Reading… even meditating keeps me distracted from sitting in peace. Take a deep breath I tell myself. You feel that? That’s your life blowing in and out.

Buddha pushes a shopping cart and stops to look in a trashcan. His hand disappears and he shifts through it for empty cans, pulls one out.  I can see that someone had been drinking Modelo Especial and realize it is mine. When you shake it you can hear the lime wedge rattle like a castanet.

The economy is going to hell. I’m between jobs myself but I realize that hell is a place in your mind and not anywhere the economy can go, so I disagree with myself about the economy going to hell, it’s just bad right now, and then I realize that I do it all the time, disagree with myself — that is the only true hell. Discomforted Mind. Unsure Mind. Untamed Mind. It’s hard having a mind built on contradiction. I say I am an artist and belch and then down two shots of Makers Mark and order two more and tell the bartender I am a Buddhist too!

If I was either, I’d probably be more miserable. That’s the irony. A more tortured Artist. A more aware Buddhist. No. I’m probably better off just being plain-old me. A pretender of the Arts. A mocker of Buddhism. Another soul cast amid the splendid beauties of Mara: the pleasures that are really obstacles, the highs before the lows. Samsara is the routes I cling to to escape the suffering, the discomfort and all that, boredom, unease, insecurity. Feeling like every second you must be a movie star, or loved, or admired, but feeling like you’re never any of these things… that’s Samsara.

My heart feels like an empty vessel, a trashcan waiting for abuse, both the mean and pleasurable kind. Come throw your love, your criticism, your affection, your praise, your anger, into it. Come fill me up with the trash it craves. Craving the cringe. Yearning for the irk. That’s how this life gets you. There’s Samsara on every billboard in L.A. It’s what keeps the economy floating until it sinks like the piece of shit that it is.

Yeah, I’m not feeling very good right now and that’s alright! It’s  just how I feel and there’s no escaping it.  Not right now…

When I’m looking at the clouds I don’t see shapes. I see tiny molecules of water suspended in the sky.

I tell myself to smile… fake it… Buddha laughs at me every time I get like this.

“It’s okay,” he says, “You’re human.”

Broken Resolutions

“But I don’t want to fix things… I want them to be perfect as they are.”

“You said you’re miserable. That doesn’t sound perfect.”

He shook his head as if I didn’t understand a thing. Maybe I don’t.

“She has a way of making me feel so unspecial. It’s intoxicating.”

“Sounds like a real drag,” I told him. “Being in love.”

“Yeah, well, have you tried looking for enlightenment sitting on a mountain top? It’s much easier to just let the shit roll downhill!”

The conversation drifted around in swirls, going nowhere, and then ebbing back, just like this, for hours. I eventually grew tired of him and bid him adieu in some piss-poor, forced Frenchy accent and then got on my motorcycle and let it take me to the mountaintop. Angeles Crest Highway. The Highway of Death. Where dumped bodies turn up so regularly they don’t even bother to report it in the paper. I rode with the carcasses of bugs mottled on my helmet’s visor, leaning into the curves with the pluck and ambition of a young James Dean. It was a New Year and I had great things to accomplish, if only I could remember what they were. Suddenly a car appeared around the bend and I had to jerk the bike to save myself a headfirst crash. I went down in a bloody, skin-removing slide. My head bouncing around like a dribbling basketball.

The last thing he told me echoed faintly in my damaged coconut.

“We only get one chance at happiness, but unfortunately I was born me!”