People Talking Loudly On Phones

Tuesday night I got stomach poisoning. I woke up in the middle night feeling sick. The sheets were shockingly cold and I was violently shivering, my bones knocking together doing a viral jitterbug. I thought my jaw was going to fall out of my mouth. It was awful, frightening.

The next night at bowling league I was in a zone. All my rolls were hitting the sweet spot of the pocket, crushing the pins perfectly every time. I bowled a 197. My best game ever.

We still lost the match.

Saturday night. People are up and walking around the apartment  building. I hear doors opening and closing and people talking loudly on phones. We work all week in eager anticipation for two days where we can forget it all. Suffer it all for a brief respite where we can laugh and dance and not be “responsible”.

I cooked salmon for dinner and ruined some spaghetti squash. I’m staying in and looking forward to reading my book. I’m being “responsible” tonight.

My life is not exciting.

I’m okay with that.

I’m giving away a bunch of clothes to the homeless this weekend. I’m getting my Thanksgiving do-goodery done early. It’s a good opportunity to make room in the closet and slim my wardrobe down,  making it leaner, more organized. I found some things that I haven’t worn in three years, yet I hesitated whether I should keep them or not.

Screw it. I’m getting rid of most of it. It feels good. Better on some homeless dude’s back than the bottom of my closet.

It’s amazing that my conscious can be cleared just by throwing away some clothes. Who gets the better end of this deal? The homeless? Or my ego?

I wish I knew how to make my own potpourri from the trees and bushes growing in my neighborhood. I’d start with fresh lemon peel, then add something cinnamony.

Speaking of smells, I love the smell of Hawaiian leis. It’s hard to be in a grouchy mood with one of those things dangling around your neck.

This world would be so much sweeter if everyone planted some pleasing aromatic plants in their yard.

Besides the obvious suspects, my least favorite smell is burnt popcorn.

We go all the way around the globe to find pleasing smells, spices, foods. We’re animals that feed on pleasure. They say money doesn’t buy happiness but if we didn’t try Civilization would fall apart. Certainly the Forum shops at Caesar’s Palace.

Can you think of the perfect sound? A campfire crackling? A wave breaking on a desolate beach? Your child calling out Mommy, Daddy? Have you ever cried at a concert because the music was so moving?

We swim on the water and surf on the sea.
If I told you you could have it all would you at all believe me?

Meteors

Life is a slow ride, we hold on in whichever fashion best suits us.

1:57am: Santa Monica Mountains. We spotted three bicyclists making their way down the road. We were on the ridge looking down on them. Their lights shone coming down the hill, snaking over the Sepulveda Pass, their glow an eerie illusion. What were they doing out at this witching hour? We promptly declared them as crazy as us and went back to watching the heavens and telling jokes.

We’re were up there to watch the meteor shower, higher than the Getty Center. L.A. spread out to our right, the Valley to our left.

2:12 am: I kept missing the meteors because I was in a trance, dumbstruck, by the millions of lights washing across the basin of L.A like an electric sea. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the spectacular sight. The other guys kept exclaiming when a streak flashed through the sky and I’d jerk my head upwards but always too late.

The city was my show. I wondered if there were more lights or people out there, and what everyone was doing in the dark.

We are all connected by rococo radio waves and leering ballerinas.

2:24am: My friend Felix heard something rustling in the bushes and began chucking stones into the thicket, trying to scare whatever animal disturbed the leaves. I vocally expressed that I wished the creature would pop out and maul him, and even though that would mean I would have to leap into the scrap to help him, this feeling was sincere.

I mean, I hoped he’d survive and all…

Does that make me a bad guy?

I mean, I also hope for great things to happen to my friend, too, and everyone I love. I hope for peace and happiness and riches and love for all, but sometimes I’m a little selfish, and right then I was hoping for a cougar attack, or maybe just a crazy-bold chipmunk to jump on his face.

2:52am: Conversation and chit chat flowed freely. We imagined what the Chumash did in these hills. Did they have prized hunting trails through here? Did they tell stories of how the Spotted Woodpecker survived the flood by nourishing on the acorns the Sun God tossed him? Could they imagine what this land would look like three hundred years later?

We also rapped about the L.A. river and how nobody in this city thinks it’s a natural body of water. Only Tinseltown can take a real river and have everyone believing it’s fake.

We talked to kill the silence. It’s what humans do.

3:13am: We were up there for two hours and had seen a half dozen shooting stars. The ocean layer was starting to blur out the horizons. The lights of the city were bright as ever. After awhile we became bored with the stars and pondered what we were doing up on the mountain. We downed the last of our Pabst without fanfare, efficiently.

We poured the backwash out on the ground and crushed the cans, depositing them in a backpack to bring back with us. We may be half-crazy, bohemian trespassers but we’re not litterbugs.

3:22am: The air was cold. The wind chilled our bones. We traveled the dirt road back to my car and then quickly cruised down the steep hill, reminiscing on a mutual friend who used to drive up and down this hill for fun, his own private roller coaster.

So many friends come and go we struggle to remember their names. Was it Jason? Brad? Bruce?

3:33am: We reached the bottom and waited for what we thought at first was a motorcycle, having only one, lonesome headlight; but as it slowly approached we decided it must be a scooter for the speed it was crawling;  eventually the light turned into a figure and we realized it was the first bicyclist trudging uphill, his buddies not more than fifty yards behind him.

All three had big, gleaming smiles on their faces like what they were doing was fun. I let them pass, respecting their quixotic mission.

We are all alone on our bicycles, mine’s just flashier than yours.

Homecoming

Fairfax is having their homecoming tonight. The fireworks sent the neighborhood dogs into a tizzy. I love that word: tizzy. I attended their rival, Hamilton High. They beat us every time. We had a killer music program but an inept Athletic department that was only good for helping other teams in the city improve their record. From my kitchen I can hear the crowd cheering. They sound young, optimistic, and void of problems. That’s probably how I sounded when I was 17.

I’m almost twice that age now. Old enough to be their father. It’s a scary thought. Me being a father.

I bought lamb for the first time and have no idea how to season it. I stare at my spices and try to think of the flavors I’ve experienced when eating lamb. I’m out of my league here.  At the same time I’m waiting for my laundry to finish washing so I could switch it to the dryer, pondering when my Fridays lost their teeth. Finally a half hour has passed and I venture across the street to my friend’s building where I do my clandestine washing like some kind of laundry Anne Frank, sneaking around so the tenants of his building don’t catch me.

It’s strangely blustery. The wind is whipping. Water is flowing down the side of the road into the gutter. Its pastoral melody is strange to hear with the blare of the loudspeaker at the football game in the background and wail of fire engine sirens in the distant. But it’s the closest sound we have to a bubbling creek in this urban landscape. With the  strong wind it’s quite intoxicating for a romantic like me, although I wonder if somewhere a water mane broke. They’ve been snapping all across the city, but especially around here. Something down deep in the Earth is moving.

When I lived in Boston I got a big laugh out of pretending to not know what a riverbank looked like. I do that a lot. Pretend to be stupid.

What are your favorite topics of conversation? Is there anything that really causes you excitement? Passion? We all have something.

I’m still trying to figure out what mine is. Although I know I really like to talk about myself.

I’m drinking locally cultivated Pinot Noir and feeling quite pleased with myself. My wine rack is full for the first time in… ever, I think. That’s what happens when you work down the street from your favorite wine store.

It’s time to cook the lamb. I hope I do that poor animal justice.

They caught John Scott. Who is John Scott? It was on the every newscast. They had a field day with it. He was a 74 year-old “tagger” the police caught and joyfully assigned the label the oldest tagger ever caught. He would leave stickers around town that said “Who Is John Scott?” and if you google that his website pops up where he says who he is. Not much of a mystery.

The lamb didn’t turn out half bad, in case you’re wondering.

Last year for Thanksgiving I took part in Gobble Gobble Give and it was the most rewarding event of my year. I wish I could take part this year but Joshua Tree calls… If anyone in the L.A. area is looking to do some volunteering this year, I highly recommend checking this out.

I sometimes feel my phone is vibrating and dig into my pocket to retrieve it only to discover that I don’t even have my phone on me. Phantom Cell Phone Disorder I’m calling it. Remember when 143 meant I Love You?

Now it’s all about 142. I Love Me. Like the new cell phone ads for YOU. And YOU were Time Person of the Year. It’s all bollocks. They separate us in order to make us vulnerable, have you believing you’re special, unique and can only express this by owning various products that define who YOU are. Guess what? Fuck You. And fuck Me. We’re all in this together and we’re so much more alike than the few sore spots that advertisers strike in order to hawk their goods. No matter what Pepsi tried they couldn’t sell us Crystal Pepsi.

That makes me proud.

We live in an absurd collage.  I’m the man in the diving bell and astronaut suit. Right below the fuming volcano and Lou Reed. If God did create us because he was bored than we have something in common. If the Inuit have 57 words for snow, I have 58 for God. In the middle of the collage is a giant, smoking factory.  You enter in one door and emerge through the other side as meat.We’re nothing but macramed .

The game must be over because the night is silent except for Friday night revelers jubilantly discussing life and its myriad magical possibilities. Actually, I have no idea what they’re discussing because all you hear is chatter and laughter and your mind colors in the blanks.

When I was young I always had trouble drawing inside the lines.

Now I don’t care. I throw my paint around everywhere.

Jimmy Is Driving His Truck On Mulholland Again

The only thing keeping us from transforming is fear.

The only wind on our backs is a midnight zephyr, pushing us west, into the Pacific Ocean.

The church bells are ringing but I’m sleeping in. Tomorrow is Monday, the day all our dreams are destroyed. I’m marked by a striped shirt and a tie. Today we can pretend that our jobs don’t exist and everything is fine as long as we stay buried in these blankets.

The flowers by the bed were picked by me on my way home from the bar, my 2am rambling leaving behind decapitated flower stems. I sang your name when I rang your bell. You weren’t amused but you let me in anyway.

Have you ever reached towards someone only to realize they weren’t there?

I’m frying chicken and listening to pop songs on my computer. Someone is knocking on my neighbor’s door. When you stop and contemplate your movements — washing your hands in the sink, picking up the phone, frying a piece of chicken — you wonder how being human could be anything special at all. But it’s in this act of remembering the moment, of being one with whatever it is you’re doing, the simpler the better, that you can realize your humanity.

I’m frying chicken.
You’re on the floor doing Pilates.
Jimmy is driving his truck on Mulholland again.
Sarah has her paints in her lap and the door wide open.

The only thing keeping us from laughing is our crying…

The only escalator to heaven is broken. Has been since Galileo.

People are moving around the neighborhood, trading apartments. These buildings don’t change, just their occupants. I am the Emperor of this Ant Empire. Tonight I strolled down Fairfax and observed the comings and goings of my subjects, minding my own business, a stranger to even myself. Everybody is busily headed everywhere… I’m content to stand in my kitchen and cook chicken, music keeping me company.

A song I recognize from a past life churns up in the shuffle lottery. I listen to it while plating my chicken and scooping my rice. It reminds me of a time before I got old. I consider singing along but remember that these walls tell lies and instead pour a glass of Australian Syrah, reflecting on the grape’s journey from the vine to my glass with a freakish zeal.

Do you ever take the long way? Have you ever lost yourself in the act of going that you forgot where it was you were going?

Power lines connect us all…

I sit down to eat. A ghetto bird flies by, its spotlight floating back and forth over the Spanish tile roofs of the ‘hood. My phone buzzes, oscillates across the table and then drops to the floor. Right now everything couldn’t feel more right.

I turn on the TV, avoiding the news. I don’t care anymore. I’m not afraid to admit it. I look for something mindless and find it within seconds. On MTV they’re showing some poor schlub sitting around his girlfriend’s living room with her parents, watching his girlfriend out on a date with some popped-collar dude with a spray-on tan. I miss the music. I turn to an expose on the founding fathers, asking the question, ‘were working for the Freemasons?’… on the History Chanel. On Animal Planet, they’re exploring the dietary habits of Sasquatch, and after the commercial break they’re going to discuss the Abominable Snowman’s. Is anything real anymore?

The only thing keeping us from setting our souls free is the inability to locate them in the first place.