Chad Frk...

This is what happened last time this happened, the last time I trekked through the frozen city and saw everyone, lifted from a September 6th, 2006 post, titled "Chicago and Crew good Times"...

My high school and college baseball coaches used to say that nothing good happens past midnight. And I get it, okay. I always did, it’s just that...let’s compromise and settle on 2, just as the lights at the first bar come up. I should have listened, but then again...

I wouldn’t have hopped to another bar that night, one that stayed open until 4.
-
I wouldn’t have had my face smashed into the sidewalk by a member of our country’s elite armed forces.
-
I wouldn’t have bled all over Chad’s white? shirt.
-
I wouldn’t have spent a half hour combing the city with the rapid response South Side brawlers Flynn called in.

Things have changed. A few months ago, I got a call from this guy named Chad Frk. He's this guy from Ohio who doesn't have a vowel in his last name. Fucking weird. He's also a guy that was part of my recruiting class at Illinois. We lived in the same dorm building freshman year, then broke ground on the infamous 908. S. Lincoln House in Urbana for the next 3 years. We lived together on the third floor, shared walls...among other things. Countless other things...

Anyway, a few months ago, I get this phone call. It's Chad, my Midwest right hand. He tells me he's got cancer. I remember being in some serious shit before I got the phone call, remember being in something much worse after.

So I'm going to skim here because my emotional state/how I deal with friends/how I deal with death can be described in any number of ways ranging from childish to detached to abandoning. The short story is that he caught it early, had surgery, did chemo and his girlfriend decided to throw him a surprise party at this place called Duffy's in Chicago on Friday. The long story I can't even get into because I wasn't there, I didn't live it. And the thing about Chad is that he'll ALWAYS give the long story. Get him on the phone and that's what you'll get. About his spirits and his fight and how he's always ahead of the game and is doing better than anyone in the history of man in his fight with this global killer. I got a lot of that over the past few months. But it wasn't the LONG story. I didn't hear a lick of the million and one things I would have been CONSTANTLY thinking as they were removing parts of my body and I was hoping, hoping that it hadn't spread, hoping that cancer wasn't going to be the thing that ended me. Never got that. And believe me, I tried, in case that's where he wanted to go with it -- either because I'm a good friend or a sick fucker...one or the other.

So I fly in for the weekend, so that I could make an appearance, because to me, this was as big of a deal as big deal gets. In Chicago, drinking is a sport. I walked in and the guy at the door was literally selling off 8 different wristbands - each serving as a key to unlock some form of blackout. I bought one for 30$, some of the money they said was going to be heading off to fund cancer research. I laughed, moved inside, proceeded to see what was in the ballpark of a combined 100 apart years, my best friends from a different life, standing at the bottom of a ramp. Remarkable.

I grabbed a bottle of beer and floated, and tried to take it all in. Marriages, break-ups, jobs, city, suburbs, old times, lots of old times. It was so much, nearly too much to handle and the night hadn't even begun...

I saw Chad when he walked in. He said he saw me first, shit his pants that I flew in from LA. It was the least I could do. Aside from the encyclopedia of tales I could tell of Chad Frk, and he could tell and encyclopedia of me...going back to that above "elite armed forces ref," Chad is the reason I still have a working face, literally.

When I finally got to him, he said his legs were shaking. By the next morning, when I talked to him on the phone, he would tell me it was probably the best night of his life...

Fucking cherry.

I floated for the rest of the night...as the place got so packed I couldn't move...as Chicago kids started to pick Chicago fights... as the Chicago joint started to smell like Chicago vomit. I maybe had two beers and began to think the obvious...so much has changed, nothing has changed. I began looking for an exit, for a side door slip out because saying proper goodbye has never really been my style. But I needed something, a sign before I could...

I saw Chad across the room, leaning on the bar, waiting to order a drink. He had a double Jack Coke in one hand, a scotch rocks in the other...and he was talking to the bartender. Seriously, only Frk. And to you, that might sound anything but comforting. To me, it was something else. To me, it felt like everything was right in the world. This image, my friend...he was gonna survive.

...

I was on Sheridan road, getting close to home around 2 in the AM. Snow had begun falling at the beginning of the night and it still accompanied me on my drive. The streets were empty, deserted. The world here, was asleep. And there's a feeling behind it or a series of I hadn't felt in a long time - a feeling I can hardly explain. Winter. Cold. Empty. Lonely. Beauty. This road, this image made me. For 3-5 months every year for the first 22 years of my life, this image was carved inside of me.

I can't put into words the gravity of what I'm saying, nor will I even try. I'm not a fan of failure. All I can do is show you, hope that you look closely before moving on with your life...

One Of Those Days...

An e-mail I wrote to my boss at at Equinox, titled "some stories just need to be told"...

Let me preface by saying THIS IS NOT GRIPING. I teach spin for one of my paychecks, I'm not capable of griping. Nor do I much believe in it. Life is what it is. That being said...

So I was working all day today, got your message when I got off at 5. Crapped out sound system, no sweat. I was on my way home and was going to burn a quick CD.

So I get home and my computer isn't "generating enough laser energy to properly burn." WTF, right? So I'm kinda screwed so I start digging into the back of my trunk, find 6 old, scratched and ancient mix CD's, start to sift through them, actually come up with a do-able playlist of pre I-Pod era songs...like Wheatus' Teenage Dirtbag -- priceless! No real choreography, I was just going to cowboy it. So I get to the boombox and test the first CD. It starts skipping. I'm fucked.

I have 11 minutes till class, realize I have an adapter at home to hook my I-Pod to the boombox. Traffic is bad, I'm an animal...I decide to run, literally run, by foot to Kings and Willoughby. So I do. I get home at 7:09, grab the connector, turn around, run back, remember quickly that the run back...unlike the run to, is completely uphill. I get to the 7-11, sprinting...again, because I'm an animal, when my left calf goes out. Really. Shot of cramps something awful and now I'm pulling out this spastic skip/hobble up Holloway, grunting like some wild animal, on the clock, battling to Alta Loma, where the hill REALLY starts. A doorman in front of the Sunset Marquis tells me something like, "don't give up buddy" and I make the turn into the parking lot, trek up the escalator, run into class at 7:16 and the fucking adaptor doesn't even fit.

Out of the 6 CD's I brought, only one of them, the first one I tested, is a skipper. I ditched it and pulled out a cowboy'd class, as expected...because if I haven't mentioned it before, let me do so now...I'm an animal - all about the adventure.

Dr. The Reilly Smith

...

I haven't been sleeping because I've been writing day and night and my eyes are blood shot always and people think there's something wrong with me often. I'm exausted, and now I can't walk on my left calf, but after everything, I get home and this is on Fuse, and it saves me, because I'm easy like that...

Watchmen...

Pretty big stuff. And listen...catch that?

The Edge...

I made personal plans to attend a hip hop dance class after work tonight. It was at this place called The Edge in the middle of Hollywood - in this behemouth building known as the "Television Center" on Cole. I was there because this dame I know from Equinox has been trying to drag me into classes for a good few weeks now - at Equinox. That and because on Tuesday night, after I taught spin, I stopped to watch the class -- this class that was so hot I felt it in my bones. It was poetry. Hell, Paula Abdul was in there. And before the medication and her on-air oversharing, I'm pretty sure she used to shake it with the best in the world. All I knew...I wanted to move like that.

So the baiting dame keeps telling me I'll be fine, I'll be fine, and though I want to believe her, I decide, maybe for the first time in my life, to be practical...

That's why I was wandering through cavernous halls of an office building/broadcast center/dance studio on a Thursday night. It was something like 5:28 and class was supposed to start in two minutes and I was lost, so fucking lost. And not just that, but I was scared. And not just that, but I was wondering what the fuck I was doing lost in a building on Cole when I could have been getting my crazy out in Yoga where I can walk on my fucking hands and tie knots in my body...strong and comfortable and sensational. And then I remembered -- that's exactly what I was doing on Cole. Starting with humility, working up from there.

But I gave up, and was walking out because I couldn't find the place, on my way to the street when I came across this beautiful, beautiful young blonde walking into the elevator. Instead of leaving, I turned, stopped the door from closing and made her show me the way. She did kindly, spoke with this accent I couldn't pin. It wasn't frail, more reserved - like she was far from home, here to chase a dream and this was her education, every corner of it. Fascinating. And she was sweet, took care of me until the elevator door opened. I spilled out, daunting what was coming and she moved down the hall, likely to some private studio where some master instructor would prod her every move. I wondered if I'd see her again.

The energy of this place was out of control. Some of the kids were...well, kids. Teens. I imagined them living in the ceilings, squatting, orphans. I imagined the rest screaming at their parents, bags packed, at the door, "I just want to dance," before running away from home.

I paid for three classes up front and found my way to studio E. And I don't remember much about the class other than trying to keep up, and moving, and letting go, and trying to shed the pride that's been so deeply caked upon me. And it went. And it was sloppy and awkward in parts...likely every part, but so fucking what.

When I left, I packed everything away -- a capsule in my mind. Tonight, I'll sleep on it. Tomorrow, it'll hatch into something new. The day after...something new. And eventually it'll come.

Because that's how we work.

T.A.T.U.

Tonight, I found myself stumbling, fumbling through old tunes looking for a find. Teaching 5 spin classes a week, it's tough to stay fresh. Tonight, I grabbed a semi-forgotten gem. T.A.T.U. - "All The Things She Said." You know, those two girls who may or may not have pretended to be lesbians (doubt it, who kisses like what's coming below?) to give their record worldwide wings. You know, where one of them was sensationally hot and the other one was, well...keeping up her part of the lesbian bargain -- pretty, sure...but not as pretty as the pretty one.

I'll never, ever forget the first time I heard it. I landed in Florence and had taken a cab across town to this house where my at the time girl was living. It was sometime in 2002 - no, right around Thanksgiving. I know because I spent Thanksgiving that year in London, in some underground restaurant with plaid carpets and wood pillars and faux lanterns and it was 5 courses and it was amazing.

Anyway, I was waiting for my girl, messing with the 3 channel TV when I stopped on MTV Europe or something like it. The video was just starting. And I think it was in Russian - because they are - and I remember being overcome, instantly feeling like there was this whole other world of amazing music out there that was untapped, untouched...

Not so much. I later found out they were already budding across the globe...or that they would be soon. And thinking back now, they're probably the ONLY thing that has ever made it so far out of that damn frozen country. All it took was a gimmick.

Anyway, I'm starting class with it tomorrow, because it kicks, and because it's memories and because honestly, how fucking sensationally absurd was this video, the exact form I saw that day in Florence...

Because Here, We Always Support Genius...

The Incomparable and Selectively Infamous Ash Clark...

The other day, I made a drive out to Palm Desert to see an old friend, an old flame. In Western parts of this Western World, gas has dipped to under 2 dollars a gallon. I still can't get over it, am still trying to figure out what to do with all this free time - this freedom to get in the car and go, just to drive 50 miles, 100 miles, 500 miles and find a beach or a person or whatever and wait for the stars or sun or...

Anyway, me and Ash Clark go way back. Back to Lake Forest, back to Durham, Champaign, San Jose, New York, Los Angeles...London, Florence. Now I guess Palm Desert, for dinner...fighting the rain. It took me 5 hours to get there and so few people in my world would have been worth it. She is. For stretches of this life, she's been everything to me...incomparable to infamous. Thousand tears and a thousand smiles. Hence, the title. And the back half isn't a knock. Actually, far from it. I find the keepers to be capable of both good and evil...and evil is usually born from goodness gone awry, usually...so in her case, both halves serve as a compliment, no matter which way you cut it...

I'm sorry I'm so difficult.

Now, sitting on my computer, removed, she's solid - like this rock in my mind - and always will be. That's a big word to me, solid. I don't know many people who could fill it.

We talked about the cuts and crushes and chases and everything and anything that you could wrap into an evening in a early to bed southwestern town. And forgiveness...lots of forgiveness. She had a hand in shaping some of the best parts of me...and other parts...and it's amazing to be able to sit in front of something like that...

The things that marvel me in this world.

...

I got back on the highway sometime after midnight. And it was still raining, and black, and late. And all I could feel was my drift, this lately inescapable drift pulling me back. Home. And I can't shake this feeling, would be fucking nuts to want to, of a world lining right, for now, for me...moving and turning. And the footing beneath my feet has finally thawed, and I'm taking my stake and driving it in.

Everything I got.

The Grove and Else That Comes...

Twilight was the 830 show I caught tonight. It opened this weekend to 70 million and is an undeniably ridiculous movie. For the first time I can ever remember, I was going into a movie rooting for it to fail because of overhype and because of a poor relayed impression of Robert Pattinson from interactions at parties and in watching interviews -- this guy is a piece of work. And I'm going to say it again...this is a ridiculous movie, but it was fine. It was fine.

We all manage to pull this trick from time to time where we find a way to appropriate a conversation back to ourselves, because naturally, we're all selfish. What separates me is that I throw flags -- like here, because this is coming back to me. I have to admit something that's more than a hunch...now that it soared -- financially - Twilight is going to be directly tied to my approaching fate - no doubt about it. And in case you missed my thesis, let me return...in preparation for my coming battles. 70 million.

...



I stepped outside afterwards, still marveling over The "Baseball" scene and pulled my phone, set The Killers' "Neon Tiger" on repeat and started walking laps around the Grove walkway. They lit the lights yesterday and something about such a seemingly artificial place warms me incredibly during the holidays. Twice a night, they blow fake snow off the roofs into the main square and I don't know where I think I am when it happens, but every time, it makes me want to find a curb and just hang...though I never do.

Sometimes I walk all night...just wander or wonder or something of a combination of the two before ending up. Always ending up.

Ricky Gervais...

I Didn't Ask For This Orgy...

Love Sundays, really do. Even though since the beginning of my time, they've owned me, taken me apart. Something about the mail shutting down or the world slowing or the "calm" or "day of rest" that I can't handle, that I've never been able to put a finger on.

All week, I've been feeling pains in my neck, in front of my ears, on the sides of my head - swollen and battling glands, everywhere, leading me to believe I'm entering initial stages of a bout with a head tumor/brain cancer/a finally fatal ego. All week, I've been imagining my ultimate diagnosis - 3 years to live...that all of my ailments will be internal, no pain...that there's nothing to be done but live it out. They'll name the disease after me and I'll go out a legend. Fucking legend. I'm no hypochondriac, but internet research is fucking scary. Fucking scary.

Sundays...

Because I teach pedaling on a stationary bike in a dark room on Monday morning and Tuesday night...and also this week Thursday and Sunday, I have to put together playlists. Sometimes it takes a half hour, sometimes a couple hours -- all depending on how fresh I need to make it. This week needs to be fresh, so it's taking a while. And while it was taking a while, these guys arrived, one after the other...



Because for some odd reason, everyone is releasing on Monday November 24th. And by Monday, I mean Sunday at 10pm, and I'm minding my own shit when I-Tunes tells me I'm downloading something like 40 items (yes, pre-ordered from I-Tunes -- broke but proud). And it's too much to deal with on a Sunday. Too, too much -- or so was my first thought.

And even though Coldplay does some silly shit like throw Jay-Z a verse on Lost, in what is essentially a remix (like Killers' Sawdust) - first impression says it still kinda works -- the half-album, not necessarily the song. And even though The Killers/Mr. Flowers are again jumping into a new direction or stratosphere, I'm game to follow. And Kanye's too smart to unravel. It's a lot, but together, and combined with the lot that's already kicking around on this Sunday...

Seriously, I'm so far gone, everything's grand.

Brandon Flowers...

"I really care what people think but people don’t seem to understand ‘Human.’ They think it’s nonsense. But I was aching over those lyrics for a very long time to get them right. It’s taken from a quote by Hunter S. Thompson. 'We’re raising a generation of dancers,’ and I took it and ran. I guess it bothers people that it’s not grammatically correct, but I think I’m allowed to do whatever I want."

My fucking hero.

Heartbreak...

So, I've come to have something of a great respect for Justin Timberlake - and most of it can be attributed to his stints on SNL. So anyway, he came on the show last Saturday to let people know that he was pulling out of hosting (this week's show) and decided to do this as a consolation...

And there I was again, totally impressed until the bomb dropped...that Jimmy Fallon was going to be coming back. Jimmy Fallon, Maybe my #1 player of all time, was coming back to reprise Barry Gibb. And now he was no longer going to be able to do so. Literally, my heart fell to the floor. I would have been peeling back the days all week in anticipation of. Now, again, all I have left is nostalgia...which I suppose still works.

Hollywood...

You know that scene from Caddyshack where they're in Chevy Chase's place and he's pouring Perrier back into the bottle and pretending like he's opening a fresh one for the lady he's with and she says something like you have an uncashed check here for fifty thousand dollars and he says keep it...

Well I was at my dear friend's house tonight having a cup of tea because I'm getting fucking sick from breathing burned homes and was spending some QT before going to another friend's birthday dinner when I saw on the counter a residual check for 23 thousand dollars. I said something like seriously and he told me to look underneath. There was another one for 131. And I wanted to tell him he's like Ty Webb and that the connection is perfect and timely and smart and funny...but I feared he didn't know Caddyshack, and that I would have been wasting my breath.

Shame.

Genius...

Sushi and Breakups and Ex-Girlfriends and Their Katana Swords and Desire to Hunt Down and End the Lives of Ex-Boyfriends...

Last night, I was out grabbing sushi and tall Asahis with a brilliant Los Angeles friend of mine. He's one of the world's one of a kinds and every time we get together, I'm better because of it.

So we sit down and he's heavy and hurting, and I find out he just issued a breakup. It's November and getting cold and I feel like these things are happening everywhere. That or just random bouts of sting - I've been seeing it a lot.

We talk, just trying to move through his stuff, trying to push it around to a place where it's not weighing, maybe for a night, this Monday night. And I tell him that I feel for him, and he knows I was in it not too long ago with my last girl - knowing my distance and perspective. And he knows that I know how raw it can get when I'm telling him things he already knows, that it was the right decision, that the badness isn't going to go away. It's going to take it's time and stick around until it decides not to, which could be a distant and unwelcome commitment. And as I'm saying all this, I had no idea...chemicals were aligning in my mind, setting up my coming night...

I was watching a clip from Danny Boyle's The Beach on HBO before I left to go out, so that's what the setting of my dream became. I was on this beach with friends, and it was beautiful and peaceful and we were spending the day hanging out, laying out in the sun and swimming and all of a sudden, some guy comes running up to me, out of breath, face flushed, scared. It was one of my best friends from high school and still. We called him "Scare." He told me she was coming. I said who. He said a name which I can not repeat, but it was my ex-girlfriend...my ex-girlfriend who I adored and still have nothing but love for but for whatever reasons, we are no longer speaking and I think she hates (prob not, but allow it here for operational purposes) me. Word on the island was that she was hunting me, that people had seen her carrying a Katana sword - that she was planning on dispatching me with it. Of course I looked to Scare, scared out of my mind because I knew how proficient she would be with said sword and said something like, well fuck Scare, get me a Katana sword.

I spent the next couple days watching over my back, feeling like I was on the run, feeling like I was being hunted. Somewhere in the stretch of days, I wandered onto this blindingly white sand beach and knew I had walked right into the setup of my mind's dramatic conclusion. Dream like mine for 27 years and you learn to pick out the tags. She appeared like a mist on the far side of the beach and began her supernatural approach. There was a Katana sword on her belt and I realized I was fucked...

That's when Scare came charging from the jungle with object in hand. When he got closer, I could see the glimmering steel in his hand. He had actually fetched me a Katana sword. I remember exactly grabbing hold of his head and kissing his cheek before proclaiming, "My squire!" Then he ran off and left me to die.

She was standing before me when she pulled her sword. And I looked at her, this girl I haven't seen in real life since late August. I remember thinking are we really going to do this...all I wanted to do was take her in, just to see her, just to say hello. Her eyes were so cold, just anger and I remember trying to smile to soften her, to get her to cave and tell me that everything, all of this had been a terrible misunderstanding, in life and in dreams. But she offered nothing. Quickly, I realized that I had no skill with a sword, so I decided to fake it by dishing a display of attempted wizardry. You know, where you just kind of thrash and twirl the thing around in the air and around your body with speed and grace but actual seizure. I thought at least it might lighten the mood.

Instead, she pulled her sword and came at me. I defended with speed and ignorance, I thought, but something immediately occurred. I was good, actually, instantly good. And then I realized that I wasn't just going to be able to defend myself, but that I was either going to kill or be killed.

Then I drew first blood, stabbing her in the shoulder...

The shit thing about dreams is that they're not real. There's nothing concrete by which we can grab hold, nothing to take with us back to the real world. But the feelings that happen, they stay. They remain so when we wake, we wake with everything that came in the night. Today, I woke with acid, fucking acid and so here I am...

I stabbed her again, somewhere close to her heart and by then, she was bleeding out onto the sand and I was crying because all I wanted was peace. I wanted to sit on the beach and watch the sun and have words and laugh about this Katana duel, but that was a dream within a dream. I felt like I was rotting inside when she smiled, revealed her toying with me - just giving me hope of survival, maybe...or a gift of satisfaction, allowing my hurting her, knowing it would in turn, turn me inside out.

That's when she took me apart. She got through my defenses, stabbed me through my shoulder, my shoulder, my leg, hip, stomach, arm. She sliced my cheek, my hands, my forearms. I was finished, fell to my knees and she stood there, over me, having conquered me.

We looked to each other and I wanted to speak but couldn't. In the next blinding stroke of her sword, she twirled the blade in her hand and in the same instant, instead of finishing me off, she both cut off her own head and turned into a small wooden doll.

The tide crept up and tried to sweep what was left of her out to sea. I grabbed her head and body. Scare came running again from the woods, looked at me...carved and bloody. I looked to him and handed him the wooden doll and said something like I probably shouldn't keep this and then ran into the ocean. And I felt the salt water rushing in and through me, and under the water I opened my eyes and watched as my wounds closed and healed.

When I came up for air, I couldn't help but admire the landscape, the world painted before me and the thought of it without people who at certain times in our world mean the world to us. I turned over onto my back and closed my eyes and floated, let the tide carry me away.

Dodgeball!

I have to believe things like this can only exist in Los Angeles.

So I was about to say it was a lazy Sunday, because the term is familiar and relatable, but it wasn't. There's just no room for anything like that in my universe - lazy. I woke up this morning around 8 without much of a hangover - mostly because I've disallowed myself to believe in such things - even though I certainly chased a combined bottle of red and rose with neat Jacks and Chimay Reds and rocky Goose into decent frames of the night.

I also don't much believe in drinking anymore, but when I do, well...

So I got up after a night of drunk sleeping, which is never really that good, and I wrote some lines...the most precious of the day being, "You're unbreakable. Bullets, blades, none stand a chance. My Superman. We're gonna make it because that's what you do. You don't know how to fail. (beat) But we need one more. It's gonna have to be your greatest yet."

Don't worry about context. It's perfect. After penning for a couple hours, I ran to my church so I could run 5 miles to sweat poison out before taking a yoga class that was literally so tough, it cooked my bones. Beautiful.

I ate lunch, threw on some bike shorts, some green striped tube socks and a Hawaiian T-shirt that I tragically pre-owned and headed across town to apartment Nelms Brothers. From there, we walked to this abandoned theater close to Hollywood and Vine. I was told there would be dodgeball.

At the door, reps from Nike (?) were there to collect waivers and give welcome. There was no fee. And there was this kid who looked like he was 17 and was asking for ID's. He was there to give out "drinking" wristbands, but when I told him I didn't bring ID, he said, "Oh well. Well, I guess you look like you're older than 21. Whatever."

We walked inside and I lost speech. Honestly, this place was Thunderdome meets Running Man meets Lord Of The Flies. And there were kegs of beer in back, and stacks of pizza, and blasting music and technological wizardry and the scrappiest bunch of LA scrappers you could imagine. This place was beyond imagination. Every inch of my body stood frozen in awe. Only this town. Only LA.

We made our way through the crowd and quickly found our team - The Magnums...as in Magnum P.I., as in Tom Selleck the womanizing, no nonsense 1980's Hawaiian crime stopper. Maybe for the first time in my life, I wished I had chest hair.

The organizers grouped 6 teams of 20 and set us off in a no holds barred, double elimination tourney...

Now, I have issues that I've potentially left unshared. Competition. Love it. I become insanity, twitchy, eyes and mind like razors. These dodgeballs are soft-esque. They're made to be safe, but the second I picked one up and felt it in my fingers, I instantly became aware of a fundamental truth that went back to my days of slinging baseballs - I was going to be quite capable of throwing them hard...like, dangerously hard. Like, hard to see hard. And I knew that if someone upset me in the least, OR at least through a theory of inevitability, the balls I was going to be throwing were going to be finding faces.

But that's dodgeball. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a fucking war out there.

As we were walking up a dark set of stairs to enter the arena, I started to slip into this zone, Tina Turner, voice suddenly pitching high..."Two men enter. One Man leaves. Welcome to Thunderdome." And then I just kept repeating "Thunderdome" until this guy on the other team looked back and gave me this gift with his eyes -- I think he sincerely thought there was something wrong with me.

In the end, we got crushed, swept right out of the tourney. I took a couple of hard evasive falls - walked away with bruises to tend and pride to repair, but it was my first time out since grade school. It was to be expected. Our group of rag-taggers just didn't have the experience or leadership as some of the stronger teams. But we'll get better. I've now made a seasonal commitment to play at rotating venues around the greater Hollywood area.

But I did walk away with at least one gem. The last game we were playing, right before we got bumped...

We were down, it was something like 2 on 9 and we were fighting to stay alive. They were holding balls and zoning on me because the other last Magnum standing didn't have star-kissed genetics like your author. I was doing a decent job staying alive, blocking, moving. And every now and again, after their balls were thrown, I would get a chance to toss one. When this happens, the other team is helpless, really. I know I can lay it on thick sometimes, but we're talking clubbing babe seals.

So I pick their "guy" out of the batch and I make my approach and fling this thing, fucking fling it. And I think he saw it maybe for a split second and thought maybe it was heading for his gut when it just took off and then yep...this thing just blasted him in the face. Blasted. Him. In. The. Face.

Face shots aren't worth anything and I was soon knocked out by a Blitzkrieg of tosses, and we lost...but looking back, being able to tuck something like that in my back pocket on this Sunday in November...

There is no greater reward.

Danny Boyle...

I caught an early screening of this tonight...

Danny Boyle's latest, Slumdog Millionaire. There are a few directors in this town that I can point to and say, yeah like that. Mr. Boyle is certainly one of them, though he doesn't exactly work in this town. And it's safe to say that he's an artistic hero of mine. Most of the stuff he does speaks to me, absolutely. And he puts it on the table, no doubt, every time. I can't think of a greater compliment to give, in this business or any other.


And I was in the theater listening to his brilliant and spastic rants about India and shooting and cameras and anecdotes and then watched his blaze of a film. And standing on the street next to him, like I said, a hero of mine...maybe it reminded me of something. I don't know...maybe inspiration and why we do the things we do -- why I'm doing the things I'm doing. It was just a random Friday night, no expectations on Sunset in the heart of Hollywood...and I felt like a little kid, in this town, in my world. And it's a good feeling.

Now We're Startin' To Move...

Thursday...

I've been pissing away weight lately. Yeah, literally. Literally, in the morning I wake up startled by color and it reminds me of time I spent in Paris or Cinque Terre, not really eating or not eating as much as I should have been between the running and hiking and lugging and map reading. My visuals are poor taste, I know, but necessary. It reminds me of the marathons I ran in LA and Athens when the same thing happened...something along the lines of a sign, hint or notification - "you're right on track, buddy! Keep it up."

Every day, this something grows more bastardly to satisfy. Yesterday, I slipped to 198 and had no idea until the numbers flashed. And that's the source of my marveling, not seeing it coming until it hit, getting lost and caught in the push. And my skin is growing tight and my mind taut and lean. Every day, I pick fights, fucking fight and power through - with my work, heart. And though I am most certainly vain at times, this has nothing to do with vanity and everything to do with something else from which I long ago lost control. Every vein, every muscle, the million beads of sweat I evict, I'm not trying to do anything, this just is. Over the years as we learn to grow and live with ourselves, we learn of what we are...then learn to deal with what we are.

All I want to be is unstoppable. And I need that to be the notion from which I'm made and un-made.

Cat Power...

You ever get that...it's been raining, and the gutters are clogged and it's dark and the air is thick and the sky just hangs -- thunder so loud you think the world is dying, handfuls of the minutes make turns fucking trying -- somewhere in the 11's and my eyes are heavy, and I'm pushing and my arms are cold and I'm daunted and moved and endless -- can't put a feeling into words and then someone else does, and reminds you how it can be done...

Like that, somewhere in the 11's tonight.