Catherine McNeil, Christmas and the Dip at Beverly and Crescent Heights...

Today I tore a spread out of Vogue, immediately struck…this photo, the love child of two of the great crushes of my life. I’ve had…four actual ones. Something in the expression, I tell you. Half…okay, yes, Natalie Portman again, though she’s not actual. The other half is someone from side actual, someone who gave me her lips once and never again, someone I never quite figured out…



It’s Christmas Eve and I’m spending it in Los Angeles. Last year, on the beaches of Camps Bay, way down in the SA (sorry, writing a musical), all I could think of was getting back to the cold and snow and country of states united. This year, all I can think of is Christmas Story marathon, alone with nostalgic glory in my apartment on Kings Road. Things change. Themes remain the same.

Because I’m so predictable, I can tell you something. Christmas night, finding myself suddenly over a mid-day drunk, I’ll stand on my back balcony, look to the sky, wait for an impossible snowfall to come, hope for visible breath, a chill before losing balance of mind…which will drive me to head out, likely first to Mulholland then later the dip. The dip happens not far from where I live, just as you pass the light on the north side of the intersection. There’s a big yellow sign just off to the side, “DIP.” Though, I doubt with sincerity this offers relief to any drivers green to the intersection of Beverly and Crescent Heights.

Most of the time, late at night, I begin my northern creep between Beverly and 3rd street, waiting for the light to change from red to green. Sometimes, when traffic allows, I’ll sit idle in the middle of the street, waiting. I wonder what the locals think of me. I wonder if I’m lore…sometimes think about how much I yearn to be.

When the light does finally change, I go. The first time I hit the dip, accidentally going 20-25, I shot into the air, remember thinking something to myself, something along the lines of “Fucking LA.” Then later, “Fucking awesome LA.”

Over time, I worked my way into the 30’s…later to the 40’s…last week flirting into the 50’s. And yeah, life permitting, I think I enjoy it...among other things.

…

"I’m finished."

Mostly Juno...

So I get home from Juno and go to the I-Tunes store, immediately pick up Mott The Hoople’s “All The Young Dudes,” so I can set it on repeat to try and replicate the feelings I constantly fear losing, to recall my initial intentions of landing on this island that’s actually nothing like an island and makes me wonder from time to time what the fuck I’m going on and on and on about…

Oh, Juno. Brilliant. It will be for some time to come…hopefully forever.

Because above other things, this movie has a scene, a moment where I forgot where I was, and this flooding dodged its way through my ribs and into my stomach. Like juices of euphoria…like I had just fallen in love, a love I would never again fall from and all I could do was smile, let ‘em fall. I want to see it again, again and again, already so deeply missing that feeling.

…

After the show, I met my friend Allison, who was in the movie. She was fantastic, always fantastic. When Jason Bateman and Diablo Cody (diablocody.blogspot.com) and Jason Reitman came by, I did this priceless thing I often do that’s part genius but honestly, mostly awkward, where I want to meet them and tell them that in that moment I want to be them but actually look for something like a flat screen TV and basketball game to distract me so that I don’t have to deal with the reality of being smaller than anyone, ever, in this life. Sad, isn’t it?

And drinking a round around a dark table of a dark bar somewhere on Pico, all I could think to myself, over and over…when will I make my Juno?

…

Today, I got notes back on a project from a man whose work in this town I seriously respect and possibly revere. The project is a feature I kicked out in an inspired 7 weeks. A couple months ago, when I was winning agency looks with a TV hook, I also managed to impress this aforementioned auteur with my keyboard moves. Things were happening. Things were moving. Then, the strike hit. I lost support from one agent who left the agencies behind, didn’t yet have a pilot ready to win another agent who dug my shit…still don’t. I think he’s waiting? I felt naked…still do. The town felt dead…still does. Fucking strike, man.

So I wrote this new spec. It’s ambitious. Ambitious…that’s a funny word. It’s a word often pinned on my face, somewhat unfortunately I think. But ambitious…it’s like commending a heroin addict for using home made needles, right? When I’ve failed, without exception, it’s because I’ve gone big…and call me blue or green or whatever, but I find comfort by seeing little shame in that.

…

I was recently out to Mozza for dinner, with a friend, and remember telling him of the man reading my script. My friend, a high ladder Hollywood vet, was seriously impressed. Though I remember being fairly deep into some fine Italian red, I remember saying something like…

“You know what I want…you know what I really want. I want him to read it and toss it back in my face. I want him to look at me and ask if I know who the fuck he is and who the fuck I thought I was giving this to him…an early draft of a new piece. I want him to rip it to pieces.”

What did he actually say? Well, let me preface that by something else, what he said to me in an e-mail dated October 1, 2007 about another piece, Billy Bambino:

“You’re a very talented writer – already. Very touching, funny, surprising. Good scene structure, great dialogue, well-drawn characters, even the minor ones. No doubt in my mind you’ll be making a living in this field before much time has passed.”

At our following meeting, he echoed the same sentiments. Note: I often precede severe blows by padding them in pillows of praise…self preservation at its finest.

So when he read the new piece…

“I loved the first number…from then on, I have lots of notes to give you. I think it’s really ambitious.” Then he told me kindly, well, basically what I asked for, drunk, perched atop the bar stool at Mozza.

…

So I went into Juno needing something…a cinematic hug out and so much more. And you know what, I got it. And I could have thanked those responsible outside the theater, but I didn’t, because of my personal style or behavioral retardation or something like it.

It’s after one on a Wednesday night, and still, after getting drilled today (not really, but it feels like it) I’m good. I’ll be good. On Monday, when we meet, I battle for my wild and brilliant and bashed piece of work to a brilliant and successful man...with open ears, start another roll from there.

I don't expect it to be my Juno. I’m not there yet. But when I have my Juno, I’ll know who to thank…and by then I just may.

Natalie Portman...

Right now, I find myself wishing there were an opposite equivalent for the term gentleman suitor. I’ve been trying to think of it, something capable of holding the clout I need for a title to this post, something I could follow with a simple colon and roll right in, a memo of sorts…because its construction is beautiful. My discovery: there isn’t one or I am a failing wordsmith. Either way, I am fortune’s fool, have no choice but to press on, adjust on the fly.

…

The other night I had a dream. She was packing, on her way to some far away locale when we met up. She was going on about her latest role as Anne Boleyn and the magnificence of Dover Castle in England…something about it she so revered. I wasn’t completely aware I knew either existed for sure until I awoke and recalled how, in my dreams, I also recalled the ability to speak foreign foreign languages in perfect tongue and began wondering if the two phenomena were connected in some way.

…

It all started in my childhood best man, Patrick Rice’s basement. He lived right next to a Woolworth, which was both run by our town’s elderly mafia and had seriously intense candy aisles...right next to the exit. I remember this because for a brief stint (as most kids go through, right?) we stole a lot of shit…but that all ended when a green member of our crew got pinched. I wish I could remember who it was so I could out him…

We would bring our hauls back to the basement and either play video games or watch movies until coma hit. When I think of how my screen crush on Ms. Portman started, all I can think of was that basement and the crane shot to finish one of the true screen gems for all time, The Professional, and her whispering assurance to the plant she named Leon as she buried it into the resurrecting ground, away from the city, safe, so that its roots could grow.

Soon after or quite possibly in that moment, my childhood ended.

…

In the dream, we walked through Central Park, alone, down what felt like Poet’s Walk. I was carrying her small suitcase, content to listen. The colors of the ground and sky were a magnificent New York Autumn. The fallen leaves dusting our steps were replaced in their former trees by bright, animated greens and yellows and blues as if someone had painted in the voids left by seasonal change. I don’t remember the conversation we were having, just her smile and my knowing that at the end of our walk, she was leaving. I turned to her and said something mundane. We stopped, she turned to me with a smile that warmed me through and said, “I know. You already told me, a long time ago.” She leaned forward; I leaned down and gave her my cheek to kiss. She walked off and disappeared into the brilliant foliage.

…

I woke and took the opposite approach, laughed straight through the crushing sensation…unable to recall her ever making a cameo in my sleep.

I’m not a fool who only falls in his dreams…not the slightest. But it certainly lends worry, being this capable. And so, the memo…

And so, and so on.

Arctic Monkeys

Radiohead and My Black Gelson's Grocery Bag...

I can’t stop listening to the first 42 seconds of the In Rainbows “Nude.” It reminds me of waking up without alarm or neighbor’s ringing keys or blowers or vacuums or anything. It reminds me of walking out my front door, naked, to find nothing left…anywhere.

I don’t remember where I saw this vision, just that I did. Just erased, all life and any evidential trace of it. And it was beautiful for reasons I’m certain I’d have to explain…and because of this, my choice is to refrain. But I will tell you; it wasn’t just in a dream.

16 seconds in, the moment I keep re-visiting because I’ve never heard joy or sadness come out like this. And I don’t know which it is and it makes me want to give in and give up. And the more I think of it, the more it breaks me in half, the more I realize this is my intention. I only know that I want to feel it and hold it and own it…acquire this emotion. In my mind, I try to break it into edible pieces, send it to the kitchens in my soul or heart or gut so that it may be prepared and tasted raw, seasoned, powdered, charred, in soups, as a terrine, caramelized, emulsified and everything else so as to leave nothing gray…so that it can become mine until it is.

…

Today, I was hopping down the street with my "from the neighborhood, re-usable" black grocery bag in hand. The sun was shining through trees above my beautifully shaded Kings Road. There were children ahead following the lead of their mothers or nannies. When they reached the entrance of the Kings Road Park, they cried out, one after the other in perfect enthusiastic unison. “Yeah, the park!” And for a split second, I wished they would turn around and invite me…

But they didn’t.

I walked into the grocery store with my grocery store bag as I do 5 or so times a week. I picked up some milk, paper towels, light bulbs and a sandwich. I spoke with several employees, most of whom I know on a first name basis. I often catch wordless nods from the manager as I pass. Sometimes, he gives me free condoms and ice cream.

Okay, that's not entirely true. Anyway...

Whenever I reach the counter, there is no exchange of mundane conversation. Unless there’s a rookie bagger, the words paper or plastic aren’t spoken at all. Instead, I curl my bottom lip over the top, squint my eyes and pass with a satisfaction…I’m one of your people.

Someone once said it’s the little things that make all the difference. I’m not sure I know what that means…

But I always skip home.

This Is An Adventure...

Nostalgia...

I think it happened somewhere between cutting into my fine Gelson's filet and watching an ex thing of mine on the Entourage season finale (98%), topless, blowing coke off the t's of a non ex thing of mine. I found self wondering what the hell I was doing this time last year...

That and oh my, aside from an episode on the Roosevelt kitchen floor…how sweet she used to appear.

...

This last week fucked my head. I turned 26. It was the first week in waiting for response to my television foray (usually 10-14 days). I couldn't do anything. I tried to pull together my book, tried to dive into a script, find a backup TV show...all left me limp. I picked semi-inadvertent fights with friends. I was dead, dried up, burnt out and swimming through the murk of a late summer in Los Angeles.

I decided that if I didn’t do something, there would only be bigger, deeper trouble for all parties involved in my life (just me).

The title of this post and a flooding of my heart led me somewhere semi-fresh. It's a place where only a douche would nitpick the offbeats. Honestly, don’t be a douche. I know, okay. How much time do you expect me to burn correcting? Another glorious week begins and these hands gotta be clean, this head gotta rest.

Why don't you let me handle the tone? ------------------->>>
Top right link...use headphones.

The Float...

Something stagnant but I don’t and always know exactly what it is. It’s been hot lately, and gritty heat making appearance for the first time in late August seems strange to me. LA is funny.

I was somewhere between Brussels, Barcelona and Dublin last year when it came out. Beck released this new CD, “Information.” I remember going to a record store in Cape Town, on the waterfront last November and asking one attendant, another, another if they had it…then anything by Beck, then if they had ever heard of him and finally if something was getting lost in the translation of our same language. I gave up, then forgot.

So I guess it’s only fitting that as a deadness settles in over the city of Los Angeles for the next 2 weeks, I finally get around to picking it up because of the new and free standing and initially infectious turned festeringly good single “Timebomb.” And goodness, I needed it…a fresh soundtrack to sponsor this drift.

…

So this week we’re going to play a game. This is usually the season love (or the illusion of) dies…late August, and since my lately romances have been anything but inspiring, we have to seek dialogue elsewhere.

Momentarily, I thought of telling you about the elderly community that lives on my Kings Road but closer to Melrose and how sometimes, they band together, stand in the street and direct…okay, scream at traffic in mysterious tongue. Sometimes, they form a crazed fleet and launch offensives against passing cars. But I changed mind. Not only should the mental image suffice, but honestly, my quota for penning the crazed has been more than fulfilled.

So…let’s stick to business. If you read, you know I’m making a hard push into changing forms of paid work. Obviously, I’ve been trying to get paid through writing since I first set foot in this town, mostly to no avail. Though, in my own defense, I wasn’t giving myself a massively fair chance in trying to pump out passion projects to major studios as a 23-24 year old. So, instead of focusing on something commercially viable that I could write well, I dove deeper in the wrong direction, writing two new, separate scripts that nearly killed me. They were big and beautiful and bold…just covered in vomit I wasn’t at the time capable of wiping clean.

As I earlier mentioned, I was writing a spec episode of Rescue Me. I figured that if I played by someone else’s rules…colored mostly in the lines, I would be giving myself a fair chance to get out of the business of selling 15 dollar martinis to the patrons of Beverly Hills. So I did. It’s out, I nailed it, let’s play…

Timeline:

Background – The Ref is brilliant. Denis Leary doesn’t get to fuck Rene Russo on the stairs in Thomas Crown Affair. I like Denis Leary, I feel for Denis Leary. Rescue Me is a great show. Because of Lost and Denny Duquette, I want my own.

April – I get DVR.

Early July – I watch the previous 56 episodes of Rescue Me.

7/22 – I begin my episode, fictionally slotted mid next season, “Sabotage.”

8/3 – Solid draft done.

8/4 – 8/8 – Sun. Sex. Spin. Sleep. Ciroc. Trois Pistoles. Yoga. MacCallan 18. Harry Potter.

8/13 – Revisions done.

8/17 – “Sabotage” out to ICM.

8/18 – 8/21 – Script received. In read queue at ICM. Writer freaks out, thinks he wrote a gem and that all eggs being in a single basket isn’t in his best interest.

8/22 – Writer calls in favors. “Sabotage” goes out to William Morris and UTA.

8/23 – 8/30 – Repeat “8/4 – 8/8,” only with a new book and this new, excellent album on repeat. Try to enjoy riding a rein-less animal. Mull over the next project, confide in self that no matter the outcome, in one form or another, this is life and a sweet one at that. Remind self that it’s to always, always be played like buying shoes for a child with Osgood Schlatter’s…

Room to grow.

Sello Tape

All Roads Lead To Mullholland...

Sometimes I struggle, staying on track, remaining objective in the day-to-day activities that make up this life. My life. Sometimes, I worry. Often I worry…sometimes about myself, sometimes about the people around myself. It’s the kind of thing that can spin a person into circles until they yearn for a clear vantage point…one of those views that people talk about, high above, from the outside looking in, beside oneself or something like it.

…

I was at the La Brea & Santa Monica Target on a Saturday, hung-over…probably still drunk or fucked from the night that had just passed, wandering. I was there for something, something that I needed in my life…something about my life but I couldn’t remember. I started to sweat, overcome by the masses swirling around me in their Satanic red carts, their lust for econ shopping, their disgusting excitement. For a moment, I thought of standing in the middle of the pretty white aisles of this great American wasteland, pulling trigger and emptying my remnants onto the slick and surely recently buffed tile.

But I didn’t, maybe because I’m gutless but most likely because what pillar member of world society pulls a stunt like that? Not this one. I focused, decided to forget about the overwhelming responsibilities that had earlier inspired my visit. Suddenly, all that was overcoming was overcome. I picked up 11 DVD’s, two sets of bamboo party lights and left with the same sense of false accomplishment that leads me through every task of every minute of every day of this tip of my sweet fucking tongue life…so familiar by now, I get off on it. And maybe that’s my curse, knowing my great flaw…that nothing will ever be enough.

On the way out, I stepped into the elevator, was followed by one couple, another. The doors were closing when a family of happy Mexican-ish descendants crammed inside…obviously at the end of a Target bender and excited to return to their lands in the Eastern kingdom to bask in the glory of a fresh haul. As the doors closed, the alarm sounded. The elevator wasn’t moving an inch…and the doors weren’t opening. We all paused before the first words came from the lady of the first couple, pointed at the family. “You should have bought some food. We’re gonna starve in here.” Everyone laughed until I obviously misjudged the situation…

“We could always eat the children.”

…

Something’s going down in my life…something surrounding, strangling the parts of me that get off on EA and insisting to myself over and over it was a she who insisted, again and again. Harder, harder. Fuck…

I can feel something boiling through. And this incessant tapping in my feet, fingers, face…between my ears. It’s making it difficult to sit still. I have to leave…to wind through the only wind worth mentioning in this town…Mulholland. Because every time I go I feel a step closer to pinning this shit down.

…

I hope the fog is out tonight. I hope it’s seeping through the canyons, cooling the air. I hope it invades through my window, introduces me to the faces of the bits of soul that escape my breath with every exhale. Maybe tonight, they’ll look me in the eyes when they speak…

Maybe they’ll tell me why they’re leaving, or better yet…what’s moving in.

Return to Form?

I’ve been stewing...don’t know what it is. And get me not wrong, this isn’t a complaint. This, is enjoyment…but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to at least try and put a finger on it. Sometimes, for moments at a time, I worry of the death of my heart…a combination of lacking inspiration and the continual thought and reminder of the hollowing affects of fucking loveless. I’m confused…or about to explode…or both. And the times in my life where I worried that feeling was gone, I recall a need to weep. So to it now, I can only bid warm welcome.

Welcome, welcome.

And yes, F Y fucking I, I have a heart…the sort that makes me either want to snap necks or kiss them so sweet I’d teach the world they’ve been missing much, much of their lives. This heart…it’s a piece of machinery quite emotionally advanced, actually. Not necessarily hearts in general, not that I’ve encountered, just mine.

…

I feel I’ve reached a working crossroads, and I’m alright with that. Basically, because sometimes, I think I have distaste for this new job I took…distaste because hate is such a strong word. And by crossroads, I mean after the summer, I think I need to find a good way to cut my salary in half and do the right thing.

I very recently made a pass at writing a television series based on the first restaurant I worked. It’s not on TV because it’s nothing more than my little secret. Right now, although I haven’t exactly found out yet, I believe I’ll find there’s not a whole lot I can do with it…again, key on yet. So instead, my eyes and ears have recently turned to something that is on TV, a little show called Rescue Me with the genius savage, Denis Leary. The idea is to pick a show whose voice you can emulate and elevate (my words), write an episode and then find out what the fuck what. I thought it was in my ballpark until I saw the 4th episode of season 3…right up until Leary’s character’s rape of his ex-wife turns into the best TV sex I’ve ever seen (because she’s into it, not because I’m openly into rape). Anyway, after I saw it, I knew that even though it took a while to open myself up to TV, if I was ever going to write a TV spec while on hiatus from stabbing at features, this would be the show to eat my time.

…

Do you ever see or read about something and just want to talk about it? Okay, obviously. There’s a reason I’m not in Washington. Most of the time, politics fail to move. I’m not in parts of New York because I don’t “get” business…in cases applicable. And I sure as shit ain’t preaching hypocrisy in the form of Jesus or Muhammad…

I’ve talked about Danny Boyle in the past…even on here after seeing Millions, and I find myself wanting to talk about him again. He’s absolutely on my must list (and not solely due to beautiful Muse overuse) and apparently looking to climb his way to the top of it. But anyway, I’ve been following this thing for a while now, Sunshine. Now I can’t let it go. I can’t help but smell incredible…a scent in the movies I rarely pick up on, especially early, but as a close today, I want to lead any eager eyes to their own close…

Because I’m stewing, like I said…and am going to save emotional resonance for another day. B-Day USA is here and will be covered in stops ranging from Pasadena to Malibu to Santa Monica. Shut eye tonight…not optional.

…

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/sunshine/extendedtrailer/

Why do I so yearn to be epic?

Borrow Me A Match...

It’s probably comparable to the way a bulimic feels after choking down a bag of Oreos, sobbing, wishing they could stop…determined to finish what they had begun, knowing what will soon follow.

Honestly…take up jogging. What’s a hard body with an eroded smile?

…

I want to watch a movie, an old affirming myclassic like Eternal Sunshine or Vanilla Sky or Magnolia. Something heavy that finds its way to sink back in, to unwind the damage Netflix has done, catching up on the piles of shit I avoided in the first place. Or maybe cheat, just a fast-forward to the last 5 or so minutes of Tenenbaums…or to drift off to the ice dance in Ed Scissorhands or anything animated Brad Bird…

But I don’t…and am not…or can’t. Not tonight, clearly again and late on a late Sunday night, I find myself searching. Instead of movies, I let beats fuck my skull until something comes. What’s playing now? Spitting Venom, a song that almost earlier received it’s own post. Something along the lines of driving the 101 at 80 mph at 2:02 am, nearly getting run off the road by Hollywood’s finest drunk and drugged, on my way home to bed, to see someone…or the idea of it and marking in my mind the rare occurrence of a song I will from that moment remember hearing for the first time for the rest of my life and being one swallow from disappearing tears into the black leather of my steering wheel…

Because it’s a beautiful song…among other things. And baby, that’s a rare thing.

…

I’ve been working a lot lately, splitting time between two jobs that share a similar theme. One is downtown called Blue Velvet. The other is in Beverly Hills, Blue on Blue. And no, I’m not dipshit enough to make that intentional. I work six shifts a week (with room for aggressive post midnight drunks…though not as often as should be required) and make fists of money because I fucking hustle and have implanted into my head that this is the best thing to support the choices I have made in my life…

Past choices like jetting around the world for four months, future choices like jumping a weekend plane to Tokyo or Rio or current choices like spending 500 to fill a living room wine cooler instead of paying down said past debt.

…

Sometimes, I lay on my carpet with my back to the floor, dig my fingers into the soft and look up. When it’s not enough, I move to the porch, light a fire and steal glances at the sky. When that’s not enough, I’ll take the elevator to the roof, find a seat, cross fingers for a clear view of infinity and contemplate the meaning of growing up.

Sometimes, often…every time, I wait for the sort of company that only appears in my sleeps. She’s disheveled, cruel, filthy, unforgiving, brilliant and unintentionally romantic - - post the superficialities that got her into the party, of course. During cycles of my life, I convince myself she doesn’t exist…find out she does…am reminded the definition of cyclical…and laugh to myself…

Then I turn, find some guy in matching grey sweats setting up a boombox on the roof furniture…not far from where I’m sitting. As he begins to ferociously lap the pool, I pick up on his inspiration…”passionate” Evangelical gospel. As he passes me, I flinch, not whole-heartedly excited about the prospect of a “child of God” driving a semi to quite seriously sharp and tetanus laced object into my delicate sternum.

Willoughby & Sweetzer

I don’t remember the feeling exactly, or at least I couldn’t remember the feeling until I felt it again. Being a kid…seeing another kid cry, whether it was eating too much Play Doh or compound fracturing an ankle from excessive and careless Pogoballing. One child cries, they all cry. It’s a strange practice seeing as it’s only in rare cases that one can find pleasure in the pain that precedes a sobbing face. Then again, I suppose it’s about the release.

…

There’s a fruit man that sets up shop one block South and one block East of my Kings Road stomps. I often drive past his bags of Bing cherries, wondering both about his asking price and why I don’t stop on my way to work to pick one up. There are few greater pleasures in this world than spitting pits of Bing across Olympic for my usual 30 minute downtown joyride. Of course, these are the things of my useless daydreams. I often find him nestled between protruding roots of a tree that shades his grass top merchandise mart, asleep, maybe drunk. Quite recently though, as I floated past, it wasn’t Dr. Cherries that caught my attention…

On the opposite side of the street, there was something else. Entirely. Flowers, candles, grief. Two girls sat on the curb; carefree like the gum assuming anyone ever gave or gives a floating fuck about the 4 calories that come in each stick. These two girls…it was as if they were floating…or hopelessly trying to float away. Both their heads hung, one shielded by the wide brim of a Yankees hat. It took a moment, but when the moment came, I felt it for miles…days. They were in pain. Seeing these other kids, something twisted in my guts and nearly ripped me in. They looked up as I slowly passed through the stop sign. My mouth moved uncontrollably, formed the only word I could have imagined forming, “sorry.” Their heads fell as I passed through and all that came to mind…

Whoever this was was loved and now they’re dead and even though we both agree that at times you lack desire to know many or anyone on the face of this world for reasons that don’t trace back to an abused childhood or a struggling adolescence, you never knew them and now you never will and this is an undeniably nasty bite and why?

…

The next day, I took the same route, curious. There was a new pair, this time a He and She. They were strangers...I could tell. He rested a hand on her shoulder as She cried. As I floated through the stop sign, I heard her speak, “His smile just lit up the room.” I cringed, found myself wishing she had instead taken the road less trite…something like “He just wore the best shoes you ever saw, didn’t he?”

But in reality, I knew. Trite is life. What she said made it real. What else do you remember about people when they die early? It's the smile. Always the smile.

…

Tonight, I drove by the scene again, three days after I had first passed. Candles were still burning. I had hoped someone would be there, sitting on the curb, floating. Because for me, it’s the kind of thing I’d do on a Sunday…get out, ask. No one was. Someone had been recently. Recently, I don’t think they’ve stopped coming…and I don’t know what to think about that. My personal revelations are rare but then again, hardly.

…

Life is a view looking down from the top of a very, very tall building. It’s a building I selectively climb and selectively toe my feet to the leap. Since this process can be accomplished upon personal election, I hitch when trying to understand why such a thing would be refused. Often, it is...just never by me...

When the thin wind swirls my face and introduces me to pause, I ask myself how I got there but never why. Then, looking to my left, right, I see thousands...millions of faces until they blind and cease my worries and I remember the lovely view, looking out...even if all around, all the time, people are falling.

Polaroid...

I woke this morning with a tumor in the side of my head. It was a pinching feeling, and built. Enough so that as I pushed my pointer and middle fingers into its mass, it would shift and evade my pressure in a coordinated and collected movement. I had just changed my number to a 323 after two years and began to get this worried feeling about no one knowing my new number and that life had been good.

And then it subsided.

…

I’m living in a new apartment on Kings Road in West Hollywood. It’s a long one bedroom, like a giant shoebox. I’ve got a pool on the roof with a sauna, UG parking and a deck that’ll house a fire pit once I stop dropping 800’s to fix my car. I turned the living room into a theater with a grotesque & beautiful 100-inch screen. I have a bedroom with a desk where productions such as this occur. It’s nice. Maybe a bar eventually, another couch, an Audi, who knows. Everything is working to fall itself into place.

Then there’s this picture. I don’t know what to do with it. I carried a Polaroid that pranced with me as I pranced through the kingdoms of Europe…living proof of a fool mad with love. The fool was me. The polaroid was of a lady and I, wrapped up as I distanced and snapped camera with long arms and stretching fingers. I used it to mark the books I read and as a savior in moments of terrible loneliness, as a reminder of the possibilities that lie on far ends of a perilous journey. In every one of the countries and cities I traveled, to me that picture leapt.

So then…



I was walking La Rambla in Barcelona when I met Masa. I don’t know if it was a first or last name and it hardly mattered. For 80 Euros and over a span of three hours, he sketched the Polaroid onto a canvas. Once finished, he handed it off and stuttered a valve in my heart. With gold teeth leading his smile, he looked to me with an earnest grace and said softly, as if it were a secret, “She’s so beautiful, it drew itself.”

…

Sadly though not as tragically as these things can go, the lady, my Navigator and I have since turned to separate journeys. Still, the picture leans against the wall next to my front door. If I weren’t a culprit, if it were an arbitrary work of art, I’d hang it high and proclaim to guests, “True love, found not sought and frozen in time…but lost.”

I’d offer them a drink and pour myself a triple, then slip off to the bedroom. I’d phone the co-star and we’d have a laugh about our last days and my sneaking the picture out of her apartment as she slept. We’d laugh heavy about now, how I had to have it and know why but don’t, its destiny…to always leap, tucked from sight.

Daddy's Been Playing...

Click to the right..."why don't you let me handle the tone."

It'll freshen soon.

"Homeless & Seizures"

It was ingenious and then some. I mean, to find a concept left in this world that glimmers with a crisp vigor. It found me as I was on my way to Grand Lux for the customary Southwestern Salad…resurrection.

She…it was sitting on the corner of Beverly and La Cienega, hunched either against a no parking sign or the wall of a bus stop…so remarkable, details of all this have gone clouded.

We’ll call her Jane. The city of Los Angeles has a fine community of the less fortunate. And Jane’s sign…if you’ll allow me to personify cardboard, brilliance boasted beautifully ragged and spazmatic black lettering, if that’s even personification.

Homeless has been done and done again. Believe me, I’ve seen all the angles. There’s Guy Who Walks Along the Sunset Strip With a Dog That Carries His “Spare Anything” Jar (probably pulls 75k a year). We’ve got Gasoline Eyed Guy Who Dances At the Top of La Cienega With a Sign, “Dance 4 Beer.” We’ve even got Unabomber Who Struts Santa Monica Screaming At Cars and Conspirators (all). Why do I keep writing about the homeless of Los Angeles? I don’t know. They’re there…and the West Hollywood lot deserves distinction from the lot of Hollywood and Highland.

But Jane...

Not only is she homeless, she has seizures. Like getting stupefied but left standing after Tyson’s left hook long enough to eat an overhand right. My, how undelicious does that sound? Not delicious. Not delicious at all.

And it all got me thinking…aside from the already incessant and stalking dialogue…what would my sign be if I had a sign on a corner of this lovely haunted universe?

"Blow me for Pez?"

…

Either and any way, Jane had inspired me. I reached into my pocket but she was sitting, sulking maybe even. Her sign notified me only of a lacking home and an unstable medical condition. She had legs, I saw…(talk about exhausted angles BTW). But inspired or not, what was I supposed to do, frisbee quarters at her forehead? I thought about pulling over…

The light changed. I turned into the Beverly Center and ran into Grand Lux. Thank goodness I had arrived when I did. The dressing was already tossed into the salad and any dilly-dally could have led to a significant loss of crispness in the mixed greens and reds and tortilla strips.

deslin...

It was the creaking drift that stirred him awake. Something heavy in the air…as if it didn’t circulate around his body but rather through his stomach and guts and thought. His eyes opened into seams as he stared off into a blackness lit only by the stars he was passing. Since long ago, the only sensation Deslin knew was that of the drift. It was the plunge, release, pull, release…a dance through the stagnant space that had become as ingrained as breathing.

Someone had long ago set him off in the direction of a faraway place. At least so far as he could remember, that was all that he could remember. Something, something, someone. The flashing images of his memory flickered for moments that lasted long enough to tempt curiosity before another rising force would bury them as they kicked for life.

Space is dark. For those that don’t know, its black is a haven…one made up of the failed sadness and misery of distant worlds and systems. Tip an ear to the black you’ll get a sense of what it means to be alone, out there, in the middle of nothing. Or, you could have asked Deslin. He knew it all too well, too quickly.

…

In space, hours bleed into days bleed into weeks bleed into months. The first twenty hours were the hardest. He sat in the darkness without a single living thought or memory. It was as if everything had been washed clean, as if he had been born into a new world with nothing to lay perception upon. All there was, his only company, a beep from the control room. Though he had long lost any sense of time, Deslin knew quickly the span of its intervals. Beep. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Beep. Lost in that cadence, he would stare into the infinity of starfields until coming full circle…until he was again, peacefully lost.

…

Deslin woke abruptly from numbness. He had stopped counting the breaths for some time, but was stirred again by the drift moving through his body. Immediately again, thoughts shot through his capacity. They raced, insatiable for anything to place a firm hold upon. Again, they failed. There was nothing.

Beep…

And with it, a memory. Two breaths in, two breaths out.

Beep…

Deslin took a breath, began to breathe out when it sounded again. He took another breath, began to breathe out when the sound cut him off. The intervals were quickly decreasing. An overcoming power surged through his body, something to latch onto…purpose.

…

In what could have been a blink or eternity, Deslin could no longer tell where one beep ended and another began. Then, altogether, they stopped. Light crept in, bathed the cabin of the vessel. The distant, surrounding stars disappeared. All there was, light…so initially blinding and painful, it numbed his sight into an instant state of comfort. Deslin reached for his stomach. His guts weren’t pulling. The vessel had stopped. The beep had ceased. Inside, pearls of sweat began to form on his body. The light encompassed him, trapped him, entranced him. Outside the ship, as the light folded itself around the vessel, pieces of steel began to peel off and melt away. Soon, there was nothing left. Deslin looked around, more than surprised to find he was being held, somehow nurtured by the burning light, alone in the middle of a universe.

It wasn’t a thought, but instinct that made him trust the starlight. He was certain that whatever source he was about to encounter knew nothing of deceit or false guidance. Its light showered him in waves, ripples. He saw a life, his life. Young, smiling. Whatever fear he knew buried itself beneath the surface, tucked from sight. In front of him, through the tunnel of light he saw his life played out, projected. Everything he knew, or dreamed, or loved, wrapped into an instant without pause. He remembered. A choice was made. He left. Something, someone, something.

As the images faded, so too, did the light. Its power converged into a single beam on his right forearm, the residence of his only identification, a black tattoo of his name, deslin. At least, he was always somewhat certain what it meant…a name. In that moment, he was no longer sure. After all, the letters were hardly precise. They ran from his wrist to elbow, jagged, sloppy. He began to wonder if he was responsible for their appearance. He opened his hand…

X…

There was an X in his hand. A marking? It didn’t make sense. He looked closely, distrusting of the identity of the letter. He began to feel a burn from the light. It scorched his skin, burned off excess. He was wrong. The letter wasn’t an X. Devlin saw the y and understood. It wasn’t his name. It was someone else’s.

The star began to slowly let go. The light dusted his clothes, began to take his body when he smiled. His eyes lit.

How sad…he thought before vanishing.

Friends of Hollywood...

It’s like a regular Honeycomb Hideout in the back alleys leading to my apartment’s parking lot. I don’t remember many surefire exacts from my childhood, but one thing I’m certain is that cereal box mythology was deeply branded in my head and heart.

Only the coolest of kids even sniffed admittance. And if you happened to be one of the lucky few, admittance consisted of all the acid infused Honeycomb you could eat and likely molestation charges against the giant and happy Honeycomb mascot which in this case, an animated bee…

That’s not fair. Speculation was mostly all that fueled the acid rumors. But that bee, he was a nasty freak…undoubtedly.

…

I want to tell you about the crew of all stars that live behind my current apartment behind Hollywood and Highland…

Charlize is great. With a style all her own, she’ll often stop and stand in the middle of the alley while I try to pass, extend double barrel mid fingers and mumble obscenities until her inspiration expires. Thankfully, it’s often brief. Only sanity knows of patience. But again, she’s great. With her short riddled hair and crazy eyes, she’s an homage to Ms. Theron’s Oscar winning turn in a little film called Monster…and how fitting. She also enjoys taking shits behind the dumpster.

Wheels is awesome. I had this great empathy for him, and for the longest time. He has these honest, kind eyes. The sort of stranger you pass on the street who will shake your hand if only for the satisfaction…at least, it's what I imagine of his life pre the accident that made him quite immobile and put him in a wheelchair. In the past, I would find him outside the Chevron and place a couple bucks in his hand, trying so hard to make sure he didn’t drop the gift cigarettes he was also so desperately clinging…and yet, he always did. Always does. Sometimes, he slips into my parking lot to freebase a crack type substance and fall asleep with his head resting on the mini Cooper in spot #3.

Dogman is Wheels’ drug enabler. Other than that, there’s nothing much about him that excites me…except for the fact that he has, well, two excellent dogs. I would surely kidnap and rescue them from a life of poverty if the affect weren't so penalizing. I’d have to change his name to Once Dogman, which would sink the one word name motif and tempt me to re-name Charlize to I Wonder How Many People She Has Actually Killed?

Sometimes, the guy who dresses like Spider Man staggers through the alley after a busy day outside Graumann’s Chinese Theater. I imagine the work to be hard...standing on garbage cans and slinging make believe webs. Or maybe the difficult part is squeezing into Spidey suit size: Can't Let Go/Very Dangerous.

I wonder if there’s a loose understanding, that he has a monopoly on being Spider Man. I wonder what would happen if, say, another Spider Man showed up, posted up for the thousands of tourists that come to see the movie Mecca…

I wonder if I own the inspiration.

Butterscotch Aeroplanes, Rainbows...

I had initial trouble coping, coming back to the States.

Because it shudders me to think…the world I knew before I left and the world I know now. Like I was alone, lost in the middle of a lightless forest…convinced a ghost or angry variety gypsy monster was treading my steps. Like I could feel it gaining, 10 steps back…soon 8 to 6 to 4. I’d turn to face it, scream off the fear and yet nothing gave chase. I was alone and would be frozen forever, unable to move…so afraid to continue and face the possibility that it would return.

I would die uniquely, standing, unmoving…either tragically brilliant or brilliantly tragic. These things, as you might imagine…so difficult to discern.

…

I used to wake in the middle of the night in Camps Bay. There was a mirror at the head of the bed I slept. And half asleep, I would turn over and look into the mirror, see my reflection and run from it, screaming, awoken by a doubled heartbeat. It happened seven or eight times before I learned to sleep with a poster of dolphins over my head.

I never punched the mirror and looking back, what a waste of a richly oozing…and pricey…and bloody metaphor.

Though, I don’t think all of the parties sleeping in that bed would have found equal appreciation.

…

It’s not easy. The first night I’ve had with an open mind since returning, the only thought in my head is running the Houghton Steps until my legs shake. I think of easing into the arctic South African Atlantic, letting it seep inside until I’m comfortably erased...

And so I am.