When I Think About This, It's Quite Beautiful...

That there was a point in my life, not so long ago, absolutely and not for dramatic purposes, where I became convinced I was going to die before today, my 30th. The thought made me into everything I was, occupying obsession. Then it became something else, something literary, which will become something else, something literary, which will become something else, something literary. Right now I'm trying to think of a brilliant way to lead myself into saying something trite yet poignant like, "This is my life," but there I just said it, and exactly as I had hoped.

Soon, I'll meet the next one. Another thought, that is. I may have already.

Fuck Week...

NPR is streaming Okkervil River's new album. This is the second time I've made it through today. Love them, not yet sure if it's better than really good. There's all this shit on my desktop, motorcycle insurance and appointments and academic articles I write because I'm a false fucking whore. Tomorrow morning, I have to go into the DMV, then I have to run, have to sit in the sun, have to let my skin strengthen and burn and grow confident under this suddenly scorching California. I got a call today from someone trying to make my man-u into a movie, who told me about some big swinger in some faraway city who is afraid of my truth, afraid to take my hand, afraid I will break her bones. No, she won't even look into my eyes and it's making me fire, and it's making something recently dormant inside of me agitate. The seams aren't splitting like they used to, instead resilient, expanding and stretching as I breathe weighted, obscene, absurd breath. Everything about this feels so fucking absurd. Everything about me, this week. Hopefully not next. Thursday, I'm driving to Utah. Saturday, I'm running the Ironman and I feel flat, controlled. I feel strong, like I can see him, the Devil, looking at me, hands already tight in white tape. His clout is fading. I'm going to take him by the throat and pin him against the ground, drool and spit rage all over his face. I'll tell him these things, speak my peace then let him up, before I ask him to take my hand and show me what's next and where to wander and where to not fear the fall. He is my friend, sometimes my mentor, often misunderstood as vile. Only when he returns do I realize how much I've missed, the depth of my responsibility. Someone's hand is on my face, holding it, a girl. I'm not dismantling her for trying. There is no desire. There's a ring on my finger that won't come off. It means more to me than anything. It has to always. The streets are too many, my remaining steps too few.

At Least My Apartment Is Clean...

There's an SNL marathon and that feels right. Anne Hathaway is on tonight. Saw her last night in Love And Other Drugs. Her body is very good naked and moaning. Good actress. Big eyes. I'm a mess because it's cold and raining and the world is hanging and the race I'm leaving for on Tuesday is a far, far distance away. I won't be better, not really until after it's over and I'm back here, another night thinking about how comforting Saturday Night Live is - how often I write about it, where exactly that all came from and why. Last night I went out thinking someone was going to find their way to my bed, and so I cleaned this place. I thought I was going to find someone to move gently through or not, to exact my poetry upon...or realize my mistake before falling far, far short. The lines in the cleaned carpet have dispersed, but I know they were there, and not too long ago, and for what reason. At some point, I was drifting through a bar, not because I'm telling myself okay time to drift, but because it's all I know how to do, because I'm never a calculated lost, only lost. At some point I was talking to a guy, a good friend actually, who spent the majority of the conversation telling me how terrible it was that people his whole life were trying to dictate his sexuality - before he tried to tell me I could never know mine unless I left myself open - to things - to him - to the possibility of him, essentially - before he became static, despised blind deaf selfish and incredible - before the depressing downgrade began to kick in and I was drifting again, constantly drifting. At some point I was talking to a girl about music, a pretty girl and finely equipped and lovable who was asking me if she could come back to my bed and see my clean carpets and dishes and bathroom, asking me if I would want to have my way with her before I was acting thick, like it went over my head or that I didn't hear it quite right before minutes later she offered herself again, along with her pretty friend, as a pair, seriously, as if to up the ante, before I talked about a friend I had to catch up with across the room before leaving, and that I would be back, always back. Steps away I could feel their rejection, their soon to begin accusations of my homosexuality, as often happens because I don't put my dick in things for the sake of, to battle themselves down, their confusion and potential hurt because I ridiculously give everyone credit of the sensitivity I suffer while dealing with the weight of my lately hopeless pursuits, the potential that they may for a long time be hopeless pursuits, which at this point isn't as heavy as it is expected.

What Do We Call These Again?

Listening to The Night Last Night over and over. Rolling. Told someone today I was starting to feel crazy again - not for sake of credit or to give explanation but to mark myself, for myself, a little for them. I'll call it a seed. Separate - I was out to lunch with one of my down home girls this afternoon. She's going through some shit so I'm going through some shit because she's my down home girl. I'm telling myself I'm helping her, always telling myself I'm helping even though I believe myself to be the disconnect, that people listen to me and humor me and my thoughts on their lives and their troubles and either walk away from the conversation saying something like, fuck well at least I'm not that OR well at least he thinks he's helping. At some point, her shit actually did become my shit because the world is fucking small and because my long ago but wrecking-ball-ex happens to be inescapable, not that I'm trying to...escape...anything...anymore. 10 minutes after mentioning her name, far onto something else, I felt wrong, or off, brought it back, deemed it her, thought of certain people holding certain powers over me because of their movements across the world and my hard cock. I decide I have a problem letting go of people that I loved - decided a long, long time ago. Crossing over means I can never cross back. Or retract. No matter how vile or regrettable things get. I decide the only way to not feel thrown when speaking her name is to fuck her again, just once and well. I debate on how to make this happen while thinking back, sitting in front of down home, also a former lover, to a day I told her I loved her then left her, flew to New York, fucked another former like the one now who haunts me to protect myself from down home before she became down home from hurting me like New York had once done but over and over and over. Right now, I'm thinking about how either of them forgave me for that. Did they? Did I just push? I'm thinking of New York. Stuck with that all these years like I was with her? No. Not like me. She'll make excuses. For me, holding me up, better than me. I'll never forget those words from Munich -- I could hear you, on the phone when you went into the other fucking room, talking to her...I shipped your things away because I couldn't have them near me or in my apartment anymore. I feel sick. Sick. -- My absolution came with a hard price. Fucking vicious. I was a monster. That wasn't so long ago. What am I now? Sitting here writing about this girl I have to fuck for peace, thinking about whether or not she reads here anymore, how blown my cover would be if she did, and if she didn't, how destructive it would be after the fact, how plotted, how monstrous still.

Fran Sancisco...

The moment I stepped into my hotel room on Van Ness, I judged its merit by asking myself a simple question...does this seem like the sort of room where someone committed a violent crime circa 1930? I thought yes, yes someone did. It's not a lousy place. At all...it's just got that kind of feel. Free Internet though.

I've been on a pancake diet since this morning. Okay, I had pancakes this morning. During the afternoon, I went down to the harbor so that someone could write 283 on my hand and shoulder and tell me how to run the Escape From Alcatraz Triathalon in the early Sunday AM. Boats and bikes and shoes and rules. I hate rules. Even guidelines. Anyway...

I wanted a plate of pasta because it's what I always eat at 6 PM the night before a race, and there were two options - a posh joint adjacent to Union Square and a place called Little Henry's Italian Food that popped up from Google and was within walking distance. I read about a line of the review that said something like, "no, really, the entire joint is run by Vietnamese but pretty good." I went to Henry's, and sure enough, Henry was back behind the grill, Vietnamese Henry and his Vietnamese staff. The place was pretty crowded with regulars - everyone hanging out and watching World's Deadliest Police Chases as I ate my pasta with salad and bread for 7.25. I think I left about a 75 percent tip for the privilege to dine with talkative meth-heads who were trying and trying and trying to strike up conversations with me. I didn't have the energy, not tonight, and finally answered back in something that "sounded" French and that was that. That was that.

Quake!

I have these mirrors in my bedroom that stretch from the floor to the ceiling, are quite unstable and also reveal self interested women. They woke me up around 4 today, along with a slam to my dainty roof, and the world shook a little bit - and there's always this moment during an earthquake, no matter how small, where I sit still and tell myself to get ready, that I am about to have to fight for my life. This one was small, and it hasn't happened yet, but what a way to start the morning.

I love LA.

Thank You Mr. Z...

Who has been catching a lot of flak for coming out and saying that the new "We Are The World" song and video should never have happened. A very smart man, he likened the original song to an "untouchable" piece of work, comparing it to Michael Jackson's Thriller. Mr. Carter is a very smart man - smart enough to hide his disdain in the form of a tribute to the late, great Michael Jackson. Very smart man. Also a man who came out and wrote a brilliant and original song of his own with Bono and Rihanna the minute after the Haiti earthquake. So in my book, this guy earned the right to say exactly what he wants. I'm writing him into this intro because I feel like if we sat down and chatted through our feelings on the subject, his would mirror at least a shade of a dimension of mine.

I texted a 10 dollar donation in through my phone. Because of that small decision, I feel I have the right to feel what I feel. Naturally, I'm going to say what I want regardless. I was picking up food from Kings Road cafe on Saturday and saw the We Are The World video playing on the TV. It was fucking grotesque. Fucking grotesque. I have no other words to explain my reaction. I was out with a many times mentioned star on this blog, Miss Lindsey, and I confessed my feelings and told her I felt like I had lost my appetite and that I understood what an awful person that makes me, to see poison in something that's supposed to be so gifting as this. But that's my truth. That's my guts. Evil or not, I have come to accept everything they make me.

So what's the problem? It's insincere. It's fucking gross. It's every publicist in town making a mad dash to get their clients in this berserk assembly of note competing, hand waving, fighting for camera time madness. It's madness, fucking madness. Watch this thing, really watch it. All I know is that if I were an artist in the position to do something like this, and I heard about what it was going to be, I wouldn't even hesitate to pass. I'd write a check and walk it down to the closest red cross (which I know, many of them have) or whatever and then I'd sit at home and try my hardest, my fucking hardest to grasp what catastrophic destruction would feel like if it happened in my own backyard. That's what I did. That's what honoring their world meant to me. To each their own, I know...and I respect that, more than anyone, believe me. But still. Still.

If someone came up to me and told me I was an awful person, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves, maybe fight them, spit in their faces, tell them they know nothing about me. Not a fucking thing. This is all right. Correct. Founded.

Best Of 2009 Part 3...

September 04, 2009
Chan Marshall...

I am in love with. Been in love ever since I first heard her song. I was trying to explain this to the girl who was taking me to The Greek to see her tonight. Hadn't been to the Greek all summer - best venue I've ever known, just exquisite. Anyway, when she first waltzed out onto that stage and started that raspy soul sucking shit, I felt like I was falling into the floor. I wanted to meet her, tell her she wooed me, that she should be honored and that so few actually do. I felt like I was saying all of this out loud to my company - possibly foreshadowing lightly of what was to come between the two of us in real life. See, I had been seeing this girl long enough - or better...had enough of a connection and enough respect for her to know we had to talk. We were moving in separate directions and I could feel it. She was absolutely moving into the direction she should have been moving - towards me - and I was...well, standing still. I just wrote an e-mail saying something like, I've only gone on 4+ dates with 2 girls in the 5 years I've been in Los Angeles and loved both of them...before deleting it, as if it was supposed to be some form of consolation for my ending the night with words that led her into slamming my door and starting intentions of not behaving normally around me for the next 3 weeks. I was lucky to be with her. Absolutely and still...this is just how I behave.

September 18, 2009
Adventureland...

Great movie. And it's not because I spent the summer after my freshman year of college working at a Six Flags in Jackson, New Jersey. I lived in a company house with 8 other baseball players from all over the country. We'd have bonfires of garbage because nobody ever came to pick it up and rave dance parties with the European kids who came over to work for the summer. To get let in, I'd ask them to bring their free park passes, given to any employee after they accumulated a certain number of hours on the job. We'd get blacked out and fuck this house like you wouldn't believe. There was a Czech girl Ieva, beautiful blonde, who was always begging me to have sex with her...to save her from the arranged marriage that was waiting for her back home. I never did...told over over and over that I was in love with some faraway girl named Clark. One morning after a banner party, I stood outside the McDonalds by the park entrance, right off the highway and made 600 dollars selling the Euro kids' passes to suspicious Garden State natives.

October 29, 2009
Muse - Berlin O2 Arena - 10/29/09...

I ordered house made penne with prawns in a lobster cream sauce and a small margherita pizza and a Warsteiner. Half-way through the beer I started to feel my guts, shooting - like all that I was going to be was coming to life. It would have happened without the drugs, sure...I just don't know to what extent, and I don't know how exhaustion would have played its hand. The night was too big to leave things up to chance so I didn't. By the time the food came, I was rolling and starving and all I wanted to do was devour it so I did. Incredible. One of the better meals I have ever had - absolute comfort. I was reading the map and memorizing the subways and squares and parks like a machine and the waitresses were softening to me because I am who I am. I started to ask them how to say things in German, maybe telling them I loved them for teaching me, for bringing me along, for giving me such incredible hospitality while all the while thinking I'm on drugs I'm on drugs I'm on drugs. They sat down at my table and we talked because it was slow and because I am who I am and I promised them I would return. Of course I would return. Of course I would never forget them. Of course. The more oncoming of the two told me I could walk to the O2 and that made me very excited, crossing town in 20 minutes while relying entirely on myself and my feet and my toes, knees, heart, eyes...my brewing fucking insanity.

October 29, 2009
Sometime After 5 AM...

After going to bed at 1 and feeling like I had slept perfectly for days, I got up and went for a run. Today, I went west and went for 6 songs and then turned back, all Killers, set on shuffle. I shot steam with every exhale and in spite of things I've been through over the past few days, my legs felt strong, voracious. My breath was easy. I felt unstoppable and this is how it has to happen for the rest of my life. The TV doesn't work so I read books. I have no friends so I talk and wander and explore. I have no fear so I am fearless. There's an energy charging through me now, in this new city...in every new city from now until I no longer have the urge to do this. I am growing, exponentially when I chase these things and knew this when I booked the ticket a month ago, knew of its coming necessity - of all the reminder a trip like this provides. I need adventure to survive. I need growth to survive. It's easy to forget, to get comfortable and stable in the lives we live. To tuck away and be safe and just fucking hang on. There's a bloody red tattoo inked onto this right wrist of mine - reminding me to suffer, suffer in my pursuits - reminding me I don't need to be understood by anyone but myself.

October 30, 2009
John Durban Arrives...

Today he sent me a text and I told him not to because it's expensive when bouncing from the states and through whatever provider is swiping me out here. I told him to write me in an e-mail, not thinking about who I was dealing with...

H / i / B / u / r / n (slashes denote separate texts)
Are you serious? Stop
Yeah, okay / I didn't make it / are you there? / please don't ignore me / I'm fragile
Motherfucker!
I read / It looked good / Those boys can play / Sorry / Again
Alright cocksucker text me. Drinks on you.
Drinks always on me
You're coming?
don't know
Alright dude...
tone! that's a tone. why do you have a tone?
You should come.
You should talk
Halloween. I met a girl on the flight from NYC.
what's she do?
Fashion, runway.
Yeah?
Has 6 friends, same bill, edge beauty the cast type.
My type
They want to get righteous for Halloween.
Coincidence! so the fuck do I!!
You coming?
I always was. For you not them. Though I look a little false now.
Your MO. When?
7, already in the cab.
Alright.
Do you really think we need another chapter?
Yes. Maybe 2. One more push and they'll publish.
Let's make her famous / the city / maybe a pair of dames, too...

November 01, 2009
Amsterdam...

It's almost midnight. I have five hours to kill. At least. At least. Smoking doesn't work on me - even in Amsterdam. I'm not going to buy mushrooms and get on a 14 hour plane ride - probably wouldn't do it anyway. I'm not going to pick up some girl so I can share her bed for a few hours - it's not really my style. Sex echoes too much in me. There are candles in front of me - candles everywhere in this part of the world. I'm still trying to reel in everything that has happened over the last few days, can't believe it's a Sunday and I'm sitting with 3 drunks in a bar in Amsterdam, on my computer, about to be told to move along.

November 20, 2009

To place true value upon anything but that which is internal is at best a fickle fight, and at worst absolute self-destruction. I refuse to participate. Something will be done...

November 20, 2009
Ah, Berlin Through The Eyes of My JFK to Tegel Journeybeauty...

A couple weeks back, I think when I was flying home and then maybe even in recent stretches, this girl got me thinking about the psychology of attraction and why we work or why we don't...why we're inspired or why we're not. We sat next to each other on an airplane from New York to the much aforementioned German city and things happened. Most were real, some were probably invented, but things happened. We traded info and were going to paint town at some point and then it never really happened. I think she sent me an e-mail about Halloween and I sent one back and then didn't hear anything. I was out to dinner one night before I went out and I sent her a text to come meet me and didn't hear anything and something appeared in me. I say this without hubris and in full truth - I don't often get rejected. Usually it's me and apologies and some beautiful thing disclosing herself on the corner of a busy street and my uttering incapabilities and apologies over and over and over. Some of them shed a tear there or when they leave, or slam doors, or tell me to grow up and fuck myself in no particular order. I'm not making fun of any of this - I know how dire the straights of love are to navigate, and I think it's why I so, so rarely even think of fucking with that kind of force. But this girl was different - or maybe what was different about her was that it and she would have been my ideal in that moment - a foreign city and beautiful girl for 4 days and then lots of these: ???????? Maybe that's not universally appealing, and that's something I'm learning too - that everything universally appealing to me isn't necessarily universally appealing. Anyway, the point - it's obvious I'm still learning to move through it with grace...life and rejection. Looking back, I'm not sure where the attraction fell, in the girl or in her refusal of my advance. In her case, it felt like an 80/20 - because she was as curious in the first 6-8 hours as any girl I've met.

December 09, 2009
Time To Put This Down...

I posted a picture on November 20th with a title that said something exactly like Trouble Coming. There was a picture of a boat in blue water. I had Google searched something like Thailand Beaches and it seemed like the best one to fit what was in my head. I used it as a flag, something of a nod to myself to mark the moment I decided that this coming April, when my lease in LA expires, I'm buying a one way ticket to live in Thailand for a bit of time. It's not an I've had enough or an expat thing, quite the contrary. In my mind, the one life I want to live sounds exactly like this: see the world, place your voice in that world, give it life. I've always had this notion of selling a script or getting an advance on a book and using it to wipe away the 10,000 I owe in debt and then escape to the world and live somewhere where I don't have to worry about that shit and just create. Bleeding artist, I know, but if you know any truth to me, you know that's my heart. That's what I've got to stay true to. Something happened to me recently, some sort of epiphany I always knew was there. I'm a slave. The job I work runs me in circles just to support me and allow me time to write and create from Los Angeles. I love Los Angeles - there's nowhere like it...and I live a good life, I do. My complaints are so petty but still, this notion that's echoing, and it is, is saying something like what the fuck are you waiting for what the fuck are you waiting for what the fuck are you waiting for? Maybe I would feel more chained if I didn't have an escape, but the truth and my great fortune is that I have a golden ticket - a piece of paper that could remove my debt and get me where I want to go - a land where I can rent a shanty on a cliff on a beach for 5 dollars a day, where I can eat all I need for 2, where I could stretch one thousand dollars forever if I needed to. What the fuck am I waiting for? I'm not anymore. I'm gone.

This Monday, I met with a book manager that Team Burn set me up with. We had drinks in Culver City and he said something like I read everything...fucking everything from unpublished authors and this is the best thing I've read in a long time. Then he said these two magic words that went exactly like this, maybe ever. Then he told me we were going to sell it in the new year, to be ready to storm New York in February. Two days prior, the Bestselling NY Times Titan I got the book to sent me an e-mail apologizing for the wait, but that he was nearly done and that it was exactly, really...really good...very impressive. Then he told me to check back in two weeks. I didn't tell him I close strong, that if I had him early, I'll most certainly have him late. In both cases, I don't know what I felt. I've always had belief. Maybe at some point, I thought some form of validation would come but now I don't think it ever will. None of this matters. It can't matter so I'm glad it doesn't. Whether I sell this thing or whether it gets published matters but can't. If my work never sniffs a screen or a hardcover matters but can't. I was in a pure place on November 20th, alone, me and my pen and what we came up with, me and my pen, was something exactly like, we know exactly what this next book is going to be about...we know what we want to say...write it...do it...make it happen. It's in Thailand, life and my story after the work that remains in-between. I find myself often taking breaths and thinking about that and it fixes anything in the world that could possibly ail me. What else could be the path if there is one...

Best Of 2009 Part 2...

May 10, 2009
Girl, Girl, Girl...

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about what it was that I was looking for -- about what in a girl and chase appealed to me right now. I told him I was after someone above me, someone with only a touch of time for me, someone who adored and respected me and at the same time, may or may not be off fucking someone else's prince in a faraway country. He said I was out of my mind and I told him I'd long ago given up on trying to abide by the ever changing definitions of world sanity. I told him that my desire for her potential indiscretions weren't due to a lack of self-respect. Actually, quite the contrary - I have a great deal of respect for myself. Maybe, instead, it has something to do with self-preservation...that's what I said. But I think in the end, all I'm interested in right now is honesty. That was me being honest, I said. I don't know if he believed me...or if anyone ever believes me anymore and I don't know exactly when that happened.

May 24, 2009
26.2 Coming...

I've been burning on nerves all weekend. Saturday, I was driving down Olympic, on my way to pick up bib "#706 - Burn" for the Los Angeles marathon and I could feel a turning in my stomach. Over my head, somewhere East of Vermont, a banner was tied on two ends and blowing in the wind. It read, "Mile 23." On my I-Pod, The Killers' "Dustland Fairytale" was just getting going and Brandon Flowers was saying something exactly like, "I saw the devil wrappin' up his hands, he's getting' ready for the showdown," and I thought that to be about right...my chase of 26.2 miles under 3:11:00.

May 26, 2009
So I'm Not Okay With This...

I'm sitting here now and I can feel this tightening in my body...this tightening in my mind, this need to find and lock onto the weaknesses in my life so that I can destroy them. Maybe this is obsession, maybe not. I'm proud of the time I ran yesterday, sure, and the fight I put in...because I fucking bled myself out on that course, I did...but not enough. Something's missing. I can tell you what I am proud of...this reaction, what's happening to me right now, the parts of me that are holding onto the disappointment of 14 minutes. I can't handle that. Because this isn't just about running. Truth, it probably has nothing to do with running. It's about settling for 3:25 or saying fuck that...I'm better than that...and I'm not going to celebrate a fucking drop until I get exactly what I want. And maybe I'll never get that. Maybe 3:11 makes way for 3:05 makes way for 2:55 makes way for me grinding myself into the ground. Maybe...but I'm ready for that. I'm prepared for that.

June 01, 2009
The Day I Finished...

My horoscope in the Chicago Tribune said exactly...

"If you're going to write a story about your adventures, give it a good ending. Have the hero emerge enormously successful."

July 12, 2009
Let Me Tell You Why I'm Single...

I was leaving a party tonight, on a Sunday with this girl who I had earlier traded numbers with. She liked me, maybe quite a bit, and went out of her way to make that known before things came to an end at the end of the night. I'm superficial. I liked her too. Remember Diddy's white party - she was there, hired to hang out. We said goodbye and went our separate ways and I told her I would call her or that we would hang out but I hadn't yet decided if it was truth, not whether I wanted to...only if it was truth. I remember thinking as I was walking away something like dear oh dear...my dear you have no idea. And I think all people who think they're difficult and complex like to say things like that in their mind. I certainly do. I was getting into my car when she drove by and asked me if I wanted to hear her favorite song. I smiled and got inside and we didn't listen long before she put her seat down and back and things began to happen. Not much, but things. She spoke some words between action and I smiled and laughed and thought it to be a perfect cap to the evening, listening to Radiohead and then some in some pretty girl's car. She was playing games I thought, very sweet but semi rehearsed and maybe calculated but I was okay with that because I was just there. There were moments between where we'd have short conversations and I don't remember what she was saying, only that I was thinking we were crossing the point I'd crossed with past girls and told them how messy and awful I am, warning them of how messy and awful I might turn out to be, immediately and always laying down jagged and holed roads. But I didn't, and felt like I was over that sort of behavior...actually felt growth in the moment of my realization. Instead, I just smiled...or laughed, and all I was thinking of was how maniacal I felt, knowing she must have been thinking of how sweet and cute I seemed to be. I wasn't interested in telling her I didn't much live for a tomorrow girl or any girl unless she spits acid and scares the shit from me - thus insinuating she did neither. But still...something had pulled me into that car. At some point, when the crossroads came, I gave her a shot at the crown, because Kings Road wasn't far and because for whatever reason, I felt so rarely inclined. I knew what was coming. She balked, as if the invitation were laced with such scandal. Then she surrounded the word tomorrow with a series of other unimportant words. I think I'm supposed to call her.

July 27, 2009
Madison Reese...

Every now and again, I get reader e-mail. This one turned my head for a handful of reasons, and since I'm a glutton for fodder, perhaps it's best we discuss it here...because I'm a firm believer that with smoke comes fire...because fires need to either be fed or extinguished. I'm not sure which I'm doing here. The only thing I'm taking out will be potentially identifiable characteristics. I haven't a clue who this...but someone might. So...

...

Your Blog...

So here is the thing….I have debated for months on whether to write you or not….you came into my world in the fall of 2008----I took you spinning class at equinox---no I wasn’t one of the ******* ** ***** * *** * ***** ** **** ******* *** ******* huffing and puffing and trying not to get ass sweat (sexy I know). I thought you were gay….dont be offended being a ******* girl I think most men in LA are gay…unless they tell me otherwise. You never noticed me. You never looked in my direction…but I took your class a couple more times listened to you guide us with your cosmic energy watched as you pushed the girls (and lets be honest most of the guys) with your charm and your playlist….heavy on Kings of Leon and Radiohead….I could tell you were a lover, a manipulator, and man with a story. It wasn’t until 5 months ago when I began reading your blog that I began to put your life together…extremely confident, somewhat talented, and the most passionate person I have ever known (seen/read/been aware of). I guess to say I know you would be wrong. I know the point of your blog is to put your thoughts out there I don’t know if its for peace of mind or the hopes that your true love will read it or someone in the industry namely Danny McBride (I asked BJ-his asst---he hasn’t heard anything about it) would stumble upon your yearning to write for EAD. You make me happy and angry all at once. You are so confident, almost cocky, we have mutual friends, I respect you for some, I question you for others. I admire your commitment to health (this shouldn’t mean much I mainly eat my feelings---mostly mcdonalds---and rarely exercising---it’s a form of self loathing). I think you are a great hustler in a town of hustlers---you have waited on me before----I was with * *********---a ****** *****----you barely looked at me---instead you told a story of baseball and Illinois---and made quips---you thought were charming----I thought were annoying. You have magnetism---and you know it. You are very self aware---and to be honest you are a great writer---I wonder if you have a small dick---I get that you have huge balls---but where are the faults??? You say all these women hit on you---I do not doubt it----but no self deprecating humor---no questioning---every time I read your blog I buy into the bullshit---ive read it in its entirety---I have a lot of a sleepless nights---im **********---ok to be honest ive never really been ********---living off of * ***** and hating every minute---we are beyond different---our problems are never the same---so I guess the reason I am writing is to find out----is it real??? Are you this person or are you projecting?? Have you had the successes with your specs and scripts or are you moonlighting as someone on the verge of success??? Do you believe in happily ever after??? I don’t know what answers I am looking for I don’t even know why I am writing ----just give me something---another letter will come again---when my thoughts are more clear----until then…..

Ps I used no punctuation and bad grammar to piss you off??? Did it work?? Do you get mad about stuff like that???

My name isnt madison reese----it isnt even close----im too much of a coward to reveal my identity---too scared you wont respond

pps this is by far the creepiest thing i have EVER done

Madison

...

I wrote back saying this is the kind of thing I would do, writing someone like this. I'm the kind of guy who has dozens of unsent e-mails sitting in his outbox, addressed to guess who(s), never having any intention of sending them. So I get it, and the whole art of expression through words. I don't know why exactly, but I felt like this one needs to be taken on here. This is not creepy. Or, if it is...then I'm creepy too and fuck the world. I'm right, they're wrong.

I got this e-mail as I was leaving to drive to San Francisco on friday and it moved me through some self-reflection, which is essentially what this entire blog is. It's selfish and self stroking and now this letter is a part of that, because to be honest, it got me off...and I don't think that was the intention. Sure, there are some digs and it might make you wonder if, say, my confidence is compensation for having a small dick, but in full disclosure, it's an ego feeder. So thank you, sweet Madison. Now, this may be a one time thing and I'll be over it tomorrow, but if you write a blog in this world and people get invested...so much that they come at you...I think you owe them something. So, let's begin...

- Not Gay.
- Somewhat talented? Please.
- Peace of mind.
- My true love (word choice) will never have to read my blog.
- No agency is going to give a spec episode of EBD to Danny McBride, too much hustle too little money.
- Hustler? I could have fucked my way out of the service industry a long time ago. I work.
- I make quips behind the bars I work. I am charming. You probably weren't THAT annoyed. I know what I'm doing.
- I am very self aware, hyper sensitive. Sometimes, I have a hard time dealing because of it.
- No.
- My blog, so far, is essentially about my failure to be the two things in this world I desire to be - a lover and a writer. I've never put a term on that before, because that's not the kind of thing I do, but if I had to pick a term, what would it be more than self-deprecation?
- I've had "success" as a writer. You're writing me, aren't you? Truth, no...not really. After all, I still work in a restaurant and have made that pretty clear. People like me don't choose to work in a restaurant. In terms of EBD...all that stuff is either true or a large handful of industry people are conspiring to fuck with me. It's 30 pages, it's a great script. I can write. I played baseball. As you know, I have something of an ego. I know recreational drug abuse. Clearly, you know the show. Do the math.
- Did my last spec get love then get blasted in studio coverage? Yes. Did it get me signed? Yes. Am I on the verge of success? By world definition...I believe so. Could I be wrong? No.
- Happily ever after? I think you're asking about two lovers and I don't know that. If I died tomorrow and someone were writing my story, they could say I lived happily ever after. And I'm alone. Right now, I've everything I need. So yes.
- Bad grammar pisses me off. Spelling is worse.

Is this me? Am I this?

Yes.

July 31, 2009
My Mother...

I've always had the sort of parents that have been game for anything. When I showed up with my first tattoo as a 12 year old, they said okay. The first time I was arrested, they said okay (not so much on the subsequent and escalating ones). When I wanted to play baseball for a living, they said okay. When I wanted to move to Hollywood and try to write movies and later books and television shows for a living, they said okay. When I packed my bags and left to blindly tour the world, they said okay. We've always had something of an understanding that life was mine and that I could do with it what I wanted. Amazing concept - I don't think everyone grows up with. Anyway, I talk a lot of shit on here and in life about my personal pursuits and recently, my old man (who is actually closer to 22) asked if I'd send him a copy of the Eastbound and Down I wrote. I sent it about a week ago and knew he printed it up and that it was sitting somewhere in my Lake Forest home when I got this text from my mother today, quoting...

"Only pussies, assholes and/or fags off themselves with pills."

How lucky can one guy be? Honestly.

August 07, 2009
Ladies And Gentlemen I Present To You The Hands Of A Girl I Once Loved...

I hadn't seen them in over a year, or spoken to the mouth above them in over a year because things didn't end so pretty for the two of us. There was a point in the relationship - which by world standards was brief, and she was quick to point this out - where I fell for something I originally promised not to fall for. Soon after, we fell out and I spent the next 2-4 months dealing with the sort of things someone deals with when these things happen. It was a fine period in my life, and if one were so inclined, they could literally go back on here, back to last July until November and see the process of my driving a speeding car, seatbelt off and knives pointing out from the steering wheel, straight into a brick wall. I haven't looked back, but someday I will...and I'll thank her in a note, saying something like, thank you...you amazing bitch...thank you.

I sat down and we talked about the things we were chasing, the worlds we were occupying and the people we were fucking. Right away she said something like okay we're going to talk about that and then we're going to talk about how crazy you are. Then she smiled. From that smile on, within moments of my sitting down, everything was light and easy, the way it should be...the way it should have been but never could have been until today. We talked about my faults and hers, taking turns calling out and then defending each other, trading apologies and inabilities we both hoped to one day separately conquer. We sat there for close to 2 hours and she held me that entire time, and I never once worried about the thousand things I had to do or the thousand and one worlds I had to conquer. I was there and could have stayed there forever, honestly...that kind of girl.

When she got up to go to the bathroom, I found myself thinking back to times long ago, back to a brief stretch when we were wild about each other. I remember telling her I thought she was rarity, that she stood me up like no one I had ever experienced, that no matter what happened...even if things got bad between us...we had to fight to keep a friendly fragment of what we had intact...and not just because I thought I might always want to bed this girl. Then I remembered another conversation that went something like, when this ends it's gonna end bad, before we laughed about it and fucking dared each other to break it off...constantly. We were madly wrong and right for each other - a total floating disaster, covered in gasoline, pissing on an open flame.

One year and change later, today, we were walking to our cars on the sidewalk of Highland. She said she was sorry that I got hurt, that she cried too for the same reasons, my getting hurt, and I told her to stop. I didn't know what we were apologizing for...the shit we're made of that made us fall, then fall apart - the shit that allowed us as strangers to spit fire and laughter for two hours at some coffee shop in Hollywood - the shit that's going to carry us with grace through the remains of our lives? Fuck that. I'm sorry it took us a year to speak, sure, but I'm not sorry that I flipped out and picked a raw fight and she's not sorry that she responded by hanging me out...and we both admitted this and then laughed about it. That was us...we're still all that. If we weren't all those things, we never would have known any of this. I'll take that. I think she would too.

August 21, 2009
70,446...

And every single word that survived survived a fucking war. I don't know what I feel right now. I wrote Durban and he said he didn't know what to say, only that he felt light and that if he felt light, that I should allow myself the same. Today, I did the last 4,000 words. I don't know what I feel right now, only that I'm spinning. The last thing he asked me was if he could tell people what it was going to be called...as if he had to get permission from me - something he claimed I earlier wouldn't allow. I don't remember this, but I suppose it is something I would say. I told him to go tell the world...

We Are The Dusk.

Best Of 2009 Part 1...

January 17, 2009
Post Adolescent Molestation And Its Ties To Getting Poor Studio Coverage on Kimberly And Valentine...

We hit the early bird at this buffet place where all the senior citzies rolled. I think we talked about baseball, the wars he'd been in, his distant family or lack of...girlfriends of mine, mysteries of his. At some point, he said something strange, something that knocked me on my heels. He mentioned or asked about...and I need some ellipses here...either my loss of virginity or my taking of virginity. I think I gave him something, maybe out of admiration of his asking something so odd so casually, then told him to top off and to-go the iced tea he was nursing...we were leaving.

On the way home, we made a park detour to look at some newly built youth baseball fields. We parked, got out, looked around...quick. When we got back in the car, he started talking about the military again. By then, I was kind of shut off, ready to fucking go, to get back on with my life. At some point, something about the whole ordeal had become an extreme chore. Something about it had turned odd...maybe because in my mind of minds, I had a feeling about what was coming. I heard it out the side of my ear, something about showering in the military and this joke they would play and then...

Then the old man grabbed my shit - this glancing swipe, reaching across the center console, straight into my crotch. I looked over to him, speechless and bewildered, not really knowing what to say. Mind you, when this happened, I was 30 pounds heavier than I am now, all power, probably hopped up on what would today be an entire regimen of banned and illegal substances. With a finger, I could have snapped the man...maybe that's why I didn't. I'm not really the passive type, but again, in my mind of minds...if that made his day - a man nearing the end of his days, then that's an after the fact gift I suppose I was willing to give. We drove away, moved on. Forgiven, odd, sad, whatever...

February 02, 2009
There Goes The Neighborhood...

Me and Durban finally broke ground on the novel we've been threatening.

We both have this thing that's probably not very charming to anyone outside the two of us -- belief that we're literary gods in the ripening. I suppose only time will tell. But I can tell you this...the novel, the novella...anything that takes time and genuine thought to consume in this world is going extinct. We're ending. When our children's children rule the world, there won't be a world left to rule. I can't explain how that exact notion is going to relate exactly to our mighty pens, but it will.

February 13, 2009
So I'm Starting To Think It's Me...

And I don't know why I'm saying this, other than to work through self-realization...and because I've got these bruises on my shoulder and back...and I was looking in the mirror and realized that I'd forgotten my response to her question in the backseat of my car, asking if she could bite me and then my daring her, then again...then again and soon after just hoping a cop wasn't going to drive by while all the while thinking to myself -- I should have gotten this out of my system in high school.

March 04, 2009
Love Is Carnage...

So this morning, I woke up to find this sweet (I see sweetness in odd things) and direct letter in my in-box that's peppered with words like rude and curt and douchebag. The douchebag thing was more of a warning and not an accusation. We all know I'm not a douchebag -- she does too. There were also quite a few f-bombs...not angry ones, just...expressive. And I think I got the letter because of everything I just mentioned, and my likely resulting behavior due to the laundry list of excuses as to why my life is supposedly in disarray...and it is, it absolutely is, and it will always be in absolute disarray because that's what I need in my life and only people in disarray can understand that.

If you follow me and read me and retain any of these words, you know that I was at least sometime in the last year touched up pretty badly by a girl. You know that before her, I have been touched up pretty badly in the past. You know that I own the sensitivity to handle reverse situations with grace and chivalry and you know of me as being an exemplary enough character that I remember my own broken hearts and that I would at least try my damnedest to never let my actions deal any ill-feelings or broken hearts. I hope you know that -- that I would never apologize for my supposed indiscretions -- but that I would at least always try to do right.

But love is carnage. Absolute fucking carnage. And no matter how clean we try to make it, no matter how great the intentions or how remarkable both involved parties are capable of being, someone always gets touched up. It's the price we should all be willing to pay. Because to me, there is nothing as awe inspiring in this world as being in love. The thought of it literally inspires my every turn. And the higher you rise and the better it gets, the greater the crater...and someone always winds up in the crater, always. The truth, there have been a short few that have left me there...some deep, others glancing. The truth, I've left many, many more - and don't you dare think that's me holding a trophy, that's the last thing I would ever do. It's a definition, a self-realization. Because every time I wake up with one of these letters, I'm reminded of my sweet incapability. I'm reminded of my true romance...

March 30, 2009
My Behavior II...

I'm at a bar and this girl is hawking me all night, because I'm a specimen or for whatever reasons people hawk other people, fill in your own shit. I write a lot about girl plural and the pursuit of good things that sometimes associate with them because the entire process defines fascination to me. This has all been said before. For the last month or so, in so many words, I've been absolutely out of the game - and I do this often, all the time, actually...because catch this theme as I make it obvious...it also suits me. Why? Well, because at this point in my life, I'm going to dish hurt to everyone and I'm going to dish it quickly. So I certainly tell people to tell people not to chase me. I certainly do that. And in the rare, rare case that I do actually meet a game changer, and they change my game, I know that in the end, I'll lose. They'll cut my legs out. Why? Because I think let them...because ultimately, I think that's exactly what I want. Because I look at myself and I hear what you don't hear and I can say because I know, I am incapable of anything but these absolutes, these extremes. Because it's destructive, unrealistic, temporary. Because it keeps me clean.

April 29, 2009
Mt. Baldy...

It took me about an hour to get down the first ridge. If you want me to fractionalize, I will...I was about 1/15th of the way down, just fucked. Have I made this abundantly clear yet? I started talking to the rocks, because they were so fickle. Most rocks were small and most steps caused them and about 30 of their ankle smashing friends to slide. So when I'd find a good one to grip, I'd say things like be strong my friend or take care of me now. Please don't think I'm kidding. There were at least two instances where I lost my footing and saved myself from a tumble with three fingers of an outstretched arm. Sometimes, I'd laugh it or the pain I'd recently suffered off, but most of the way, I was a little more panicked than I wanted to be, wondering what things were going to be like when the sun goes down.

I've Spoke About This Quite A Bit...

But when the world no longer asks me to speak for myself, when it begins to speak for me, I worry about my future here, HERE, on this page, but that's okay, a thing deserving support, good for me, the world, because I'm an egomaniac like that and that's what I'm thinking, right now, for the past week, with a growing beat, 5 years in the making and ready to get at what's coming.

That's all. Goodnight.

Black Holes And Such...

I got off the phone very recently with a friend in something of a crisis, a writer whose movies show up on televisions and big screens all over the world. Hugely successful, hugely talented. Frustrated. He got off the phone with a girl he knows from the uber agency. Frustrated. She told him stories of writers behind some of the iconic films of the last 20 years, dudes with Academy fucking awards. Frustrated. I've been trading e-mails with a friend of mine, an auteur director and brilliant writer. He just made a movie with a lead starlet who here gets more press than any other starlet I know. Having trouble with distribution. Frustrated.

Artists frustrated with their representation. Representation frustrated. Phones aren't ringing. Nothing is happening...

I've been in something of a panic lately. Just restless I guess now that I'm back in town and settling. I'm working on plenty of things I care about - so the balance is fine. I have work, great work out there and floating through consideration, somewhere. I keep on thinking that if I came through the same way I came through but 10 years earlier, I would have a major career. I have the talent, the work ethic, the heart, the desire for growth and discovery. Things would have been different if. I'm frustrated now but I'm fine...because I can't know which path I would prefer, success or this, because this...life is pretty fine. Today, I was cleaning up my apartment and thought back to an opportunity I had to work for a showrunner/writer - a massively successful one who had 2 separate network shows pumping out and out and out. For a thousand reasons but mostly having to do with time and money and personal creative sacrifice, I declined. That was maybe 3 years ago. I remember someone told me I was an idiot, which may have been true, but at the end of the day, my decline was based on the faith I had in myself, that someday, somehow, my course would take me exactly where I want to go. And even after 5 years out here and thousands of stumbles and hundreds of rejections and a few victories, I still feel that same way. Looking back, if I would have taken the job, which was a peasant's salary at the time, I'm sure I would be writing for one of those shows or another show - approaching producer credits, moving up and up and up and making money, so much money. That's exactly how it would have gone, because I'm the groomable type and because out here, nothing fills holes of abuse endured like mentoring. Fact. We are all so abused. So fucking abused.

Instead I'm sitting in this apartment on Kings Road, rested, body rocked from the endless fights I pick with heart and muscle and I'm just thinking about it all, taking it all in. Reflection often comes November, December, I find. It's fine as long as you don't hang around in it. But I've been thinking of a lot lately, like that in 5 years, for this industry, the golden age is coming. Nothing is getting made, bought or sold. Actors are starving, artists are stumbling. The doors are tight, so fucking tight. The weak fall away and the strong adapt, because we have no choice. Get better, undeniably better. Get fucking tighter. Give more, go deeper. The old tricks don't work anymore. If you want to play, you have to fight, fight real fucking hard. Everyone. Top to bottom, front to back. And if you're not willing, then you're done and you're dead and no one cares. No one fucking cares. And if I get held out of that tiny door because someone else gave more, saw clearer, shot further, then I'm fine with that. And we'll either push and elevate or everything is going to go to shit. I believe in the former, fear the latter...sitting here on a Wednesday night trying to figure out who is going to publish my book, who is going to make my movie, who is capable as being as relentless as I am in the face of this shit, all of this shit.

I'm Not Sure How Today Happened...

I was just sitting in the shower, in the dark head tucked in that let the water roll over me and laughing laughing laughing, how the fuck did today happen?

Yesterday and last night after riding maybe somewhere close to 100 miles on a bike, I decided I had to get out and go to a party. This place was a palace at the top of Crescent Heights and I ate some food there and at home before I went and that was that. Around midnight, I was so exhausted I couldn't even hold a conversation...so I do what I do - slip out and away without telling anyone and start my walk home. In this case, I was coming back from the top of the mountain and something started to feel off. I was tired, so tired and I chalked it up that all I had to do was make it home and find my bed and watch some SNL and that everything would be fine. At 2 in the morning, I woke up. I was hot and dizzy and surging...surging everywhere. That first time, I threw up 4 times. I felt better, went to bed, than woke up at 3, 4, and 5, always doing the same thing - body just emptying out, chills, hallucinations, the works. It was brutal, brutal. When I was a kid, it would have made me cry my face off. Parts of me still wanted to. Every time I'd settle back into bed, feeling better, I thought that would be it, over and over and over. Terrible. And for 5 minutes every time I'd get up and walk to the bathroom, it felt like my world was ending. Throwing up is a beautiful thing if you allow. It is beautiful the way we work. I wish I could have just stood back and given my admiration and let things fall like that, but there was too much on my mind. At some point, it was 5 in the morning and I hadn't made my playlist for my 9 in the morning killer class - 50 Equinox animals looking to me to kill it, kill it, kill it. It's not such a heavy thing to think about unless you begin to fall terribly ill, and exertion becomes something so daunting. I had no idea how I was going to pull myself together. It was going to be impossible. But that wasn't all...

There was another class I had to teach at 3 in the afternoon. It was supposed to go down at the Avalon nightclub in Hollywood. I had people coming from a lot of different parts of California to fill my class - which was essentially this monster production where you had to pay good money to get in. I started to think about being up on that bike, trash can at my side, hitting a huge hill and then throwing up, throwing up, throwing up. It made me want to cry, the thought of it all, such a heavy fucking Sunday. Sundays are not meant to be so fucking heavy.

At some point, choiceless, I started to look at it in from a new angle. I sat down and forced, fucking forced myself to eat 3 bananas and choke down, fucking choke down a half gallon of water. At some point, I stopped sweating. At some point, my vision came clear and the shakes stopped. At some point, I saw it as a gift, this brilliant opportunity to look something so fucked in the face and somehow, somehow find a way to beat it, because I pick fights, because I chase battles.

I arrived at that first room at 9 and said something like this class is not supposed to happen...everything we do now is a gift. Then we slaughtered it. I blacked out at the end for a second, caught myself from falling over, but we slaughtered it.

I rode my bike across town lugging 2 backpacks full of thank you bags consisting of Kool Aid and CD's of the 3 o'clock class. Then I stood in the green room before going on and stood over the toilet and just spit and spit and thankfully nothing came out. Then we slaughtered it. I just saw clips on ABC News and it looked good. I set my recorder for Fox 11 - 10 o'clock news because I want to see how it looks - because I want to leave a mark.

I'm sitting here on my couch, hydrating, hydrating, hydrating. Football is on, Wokano is being delivered. Curb and Bored To Death are coming on in an hour. I'm trying to breathe, just breathe, not sure how today happened.

Growth.

I'm Going To Tell You What You Can't Do...

After doing exactly what I did for the past 100 hours. You can't step into your home and expect that everything is going to be the way you left it, or that things will feel the way they felt - maybe ever again. I'm not saying that my life changed in the last 100 hours of my life - that would be absurd...but I'm not saying it didn't. Last night - and technically it was last night even if it felt like 50 hours ago, because I didn't sleep and gained 9 hours, Sunday night - I was walking through Amsterdam at 3 in the morning after seeing 3 seperate bars give last calls. I had another 2 hours to burn and my spine hurt and body needed rest and I was tired, so fucking tired. It was the red light district and I walked into an arcade because I was going to pay 2 Euros to see a sex show - 2 people fucking behind glass so that I could just sit down and later write about something so poetic with full authenticity. Behind me, a band of fools walked in, drunk...high, took away the flavor of my moment. In the booths, rag dispensers were drilled into the walls and I suddenly realized even I couldn't have turned what I would have seen into something romantic or like I said...poetic. Even my words. It made me want to weep. So I left and found this steps from the exit, took a picture...

Swans, beautiful swans lining the rivers amongst the savages - fucking savages. It's exactly what brought me back to Amsterdam. I could have stayed in the airport and slept and waited for my flight but instead I committed to something else - something costly and opening. And it was still beautiful, and at times ugly, but wholly inspiring - fucking swans bathing in the scum of red lights...undaunted, unaffected - and because of them so was I. I think I bought an ice cream cone, soft serve, butter pecan and walked the streets before getting on a bus that would take me all over town before dropping me at the airport at 6 in the morning. I saw the sun come up and then I don't remember much else besides landing in Los Angeles and trying to hold my hand out without watching my fingers shake.

Hello Los Angeles. I'll find you again, just be patient with me. Be accepting. That is all.

Does Anyone Else Feel Like eHarmony Lee Beats The Hell Out Of His eHarmony Girlfriend...

Because I do.

Thank You Lindsey Long...

I was out to dinner at Hirozen last night with a dear old friend of mine - not Lindsey Long. We did sushi Omakase and finished our 4th round on Sea Urchin - have you ever had this? Fucking yikes. Takes a brave palate. Anyway, this has nothing to do with the dinner and more about a conversation we had when we were sitting down and of an e-mail I got from my former African Queen (Lindsey Long) a couple days prior. See, I always had something of a loose understanding with my dinner companion that I would give him any scripts I wrote before I gave them to anyone else. The reasoning was two parts, I think. The first is that I am wildly talented. The second is that he was humoring me. So we get down to talking and I'm telling him about this book I wrote and the response that's been coming in and of the big names that may or may not be taking a look at it. Then, I came out and told him the secret behind it - that isn't much of a secret but could definitely spin one's head if one would so allow...and he fucking turned on me. He dropped a word like juvenile and began to create these sticky scenarios of my flying to New York and going into meetings and the problems that would ensue and I started laughing and actually asked him if he was serious before getting serious and saying exactly - you haven't even read a page...you haven't even looked at it. He was really worked up and I was laughing in my head, asking myself if he was creatively bipolar and thinking back to the random e-mail Lindsey had so recently sent me that went something like this and by a guy called Kurt Vonnegut...

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

When I managed to settle the dust, we agreed on the fact - which is pretty absolute - that a novel is either good or it isn't good...and that someone will either want to publish it or they won't want to publish it...and that I am absolutely fine with that, confident with that. This morning, I was thinking back to the encounter...still marveling in it a little bit. I thought if I could count on one slam dunk person to be in my corner, it would have been him. Not quite. Let me stress again - not one page read. This morning, I'm thinking he must've had a really tough time when he found out Santa Claus (or the religious equivalent) was a fake...and the tooth fairy...and the Easter Bunny...and Cinderella, Snow White, Pinocchio, God...

It's not my job to win world...just to be relevant in it.

So They Think I'm A Prostitute...

I never thought myself to be the enigmatic vibe type. I feel like I'm working a lot of jobs these days, floating around town doing what I can to make a buck...and maybe I've said stuff like that out loud or give the impression that I'll do whatever it takes to get by. Maybe...

I still work in a restaurant, I think I've stated this before. But, I cut my shifts back to 3 lunches per week in an effort to be barely there...to go unnoticed in a sense, passing without trouble. Days are short and sweet and I go about my business and get out. I'm sort of the new guy amongst a tight group, all have been there for a long time -- at least longer than me. So there was some down time yesterday when one of the servers -- my confidant -- comes up to say he heard something about me that made him laugh...that 3 members of the staff were convinced, convinced that I spent my nights moonlighting as a hooker. They had proceeded to build a case of proof against me. I laughed, quickly realizing that the case was about to be laid out and then it was. He hit bullet points, one after the other that were both precisely hilarious and precisely true. Wait. Shit. They were actually onto something...I thought, and if something like accusatory court existed and I was placed on the stand, I realized I'd actually be in some trouble. I laughed with him but quickly checked myself...trying hard to not laugh so hard that I would create even more unnecessary suspicion. The points were so convincing, in fact, that I started to believe that maybe I was...or that maybe I should be doing exactly what they claimed I was doing. He walked away and I started to wonder if he was still wondering. Had I been convincing in the least in my dispute of their claims? Did I even care? Then suddenly, I got pissed off, insulted even. Who did these people think I was? Didn't they see me 3 days a week? Couldn't they formulate enough opinion on me to know that if I were hooking on the side, my quote would be high enough where I wouldn't be wasting 3 days a week slinging pizzas and Italian wines to locals. Honestly...

Unless he forgot to include bullet point #5 -- Pizzeria Mozza is the perfect cover...

Sunday Funday...

I woke up this morning and turned my phone on, initially trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I flaked on a party I was going to go to last night...and flaked it hard. I sent some texts this morning out, out of apology, and understand why but can't tell it to anyone else, that I'm simply finding a hard time bringing myself to do anything these days unless it's done in the chase of profundity. That means creation...or expansion...or love and that's about it.

I ran off to teach a 9 AM class this morning before heading to the Melrose Place farmer's market. There, I bought a 3 park of strawberries, content enough...just happy to be enjoying my sunday neighborhood farmer's market before I tasted two stands down, the most incredible strawberries I had ever tasted in my life. They were large, they were dark, they were ripe, they were perfect. And you know what, I wouldn't let myself buy them...I think out of spite - yes, for myself - and because what person buys 6 fucking crates of strawberries in a single day. I thought for a moment, that the initially premature transaction might ruin that quarter hour of my life, but quickly realized I was being a dickhead before making my way home, living in the glory of what was a perfect Los Angeles sunday.

...

Next week, on Friday I believe, I'm moving apartments. See, I've been paying 1450 per month in rent for the last two years. Lately, after the change in jobs and severe reduction of working hours on the jobs I job, I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to afford that much anymore. Also, the economy is bad -- you heard it here first. I wrote a letter to the property management telling them these things and that at best, I could do 1250, but that that would be pushing it. I didn't hear back. So...I went to my landlady, who is a sweet crazy person and told her the same deal. She came back at me with something like "I'll get back to you." Then she did. Then I went in to talk to her and she told me I couldn't keep the apartment I was living in, but that they would move me to one of two rooms in the building for 1250 and that first month's rent would be on the house. Hard bargainer...

The apartment I'm moving into is on the third floor, and it's exactly like the one I'm in except she told me it usually rents for more than mine. There's a ramp to a bedroom skylight I'm going to try and loft, plant a garden out on the roof - which I plan to now claim as my own. And as we're looking at it and moving through the space, she flips this switch, totally multi-perso on me where she's trying to sell it...this consummate lunatic saleswoman, telling me about the neighborhood and the views and how quiet the building is and our glorious rooftop pool and the "retro" mini-stove(fucking really?). I wanted to stop her, to tell her to shut the fuck up and probably should have...that I'd appreciate more if she just stayed real with me...but then I calmed down, remembered this was what she does and I thought not to take her moment away from her. Then I took the apartment.

...

I'm walking around on friday and there's something seriously, emotionally wrong with me. I felt like someone died, or that I was dying. I couldn't really speak above a whisper, and trying to awaken myself from the shit I was in would only make me sound awkward and inspire others to ask me who died. The entire day, I was apologizing for my behavior, stating over and over something like if I sat down and tried to figure it out, I'm sure I could, but that I didn't feel like it, that I didn't really want to try and explain anything.

I'm moving. That's all. On friday, I'm going to take all of my shit from apartment 121 and move it to an apartment somewhere in the 3's. And if you asked me, honestly, I could give a shit. It makes little real difference to me. Okay...truth, I'm excited to move upstairs, something new and exciting...even if it's in the same building. But you know what, there's something inside of me that doesn't see things that way, some kind of powerful, powerful minority...and it's been putting poison into my body ever since I dropped off that deposit. It's trying to tell me that we had some memorable times, here, in 121, that we've had good friends in this apartment, good fucks in this apartment, a good life in this apartment. It's telling me that we've had hearts lifted here, and torn here...that maybe we've dropped a lot of fucking tears and sounded a symphony of laughs and that things have been good...and that giving up 121 may put everything, the entirety of my life in jeopardy.

I am not this part of me, but it does live inside of me. When it speaks, it speaks with resonance. Still, I'm moving. Obviously.

But I'm not really cleaning up. And lightbulbs are going out all over, and I'm not changing them. I'm not going to paint over the walls, the dark and soothing slashes of red and blue. I'm just going to move on, because this doesn't mean anything...because none of this means anything. And here I am, stuck living with it, stuck living in the paranoia of having to unearth myself from a life that's swirling all around me. Poor fucking me. Poor fucking me, if only I could get over it...the it that wont let up until I move all of my stuff out and get settled somewhere new, until I can show it - whatever the fuck it is - that we have a home, that we have somewhere where we can be safe to live, to be untouched, to rule out eternity if we chose to. And I don't know how to explain it in any way other than that. I'd rather not.

Coachella '09...

I was having a real hard time sleeping last night, laying my head down around the same time The Killers were coming on just a couple hours down the road. I don't know why I've never been and I didn't go last night, maybe something about the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of the human public all in one place at one time - and for long hours - and long, hot days - sadly, most of the time, there's something too elitist or non-functional in me that wont allow me to partake. But it still hurt. This year's lineup definitely did some damage - not like in years past, where I had no excuse to have not been in attendance. Maybe next year -- I think my stars are all going to align again and things will work out, but that's just preliminary speculation.

Instead, I stayed in yesterday, worked from sunrise until 10 PM. I don't think I left my apartment, finished the day 22 pages into my own Eastbound and Down. I'm hoping to finish it and polish it tonight, send it off in the morning or afternoon before work but I'm battling this mild bout of heat stroke right now because it was 95 and blazing outside today and I ran 20 miles in the sun after teaching spin and I don't feel so hot but there's no time for dilly dally, not when you aim to conquer.

Anyway, all this helps...and water...and my bed...the feeling of my stretching heart.

Le Dodge A Trois...

On Sundays, I play dodgeball...and this is my team. I know that confession sounds like I'm trying to get over an addiction, but truth, if I had a calendar and was in the business of circling it, I would have circled my last 8 Sundays. That's when Le Dodge A Trois laces up against Los Angeles' finest and fiercest dodgeballers. The first time I went out to play, I thought I was in for a lazy Sunday afternoon romp and found myself in the middle of one of the most competitive and satisfying shit storms I've been in since my days of toeing pitching rubber. Honest. And I get to throw things at people and no one can get hurt - even from a face shot. Amazing. Today was the league final four and unfortunately, we got bounced one game before making it to the finals. Usually, after the game, everyone heads to a bar down the street (our league sponsor), but today, I was too beat. This morning, I woke up at 6 to run a UCLA 5k (5th, 18:40, if you're counting) before I ran off to teach a spin class. So those were two reasons I didn't go to the bar, not counting that I can't eat much pizza or drink beer because I have to get faster. I want to drop weight and chase perfection and this is the process. On Sundays, we make a play, always, to shoot for exhaustion so that we can actually sleep. Tonight, we think we're close.

I'm watching Jurassic Park 3 and I don't think I ever saw it, how awful it is just watching the images go by to the soundtrack in my headphones - trying to check out last night's SNL band, Phoenix, trying to get a full read on them...

Who shot this fucking movie?

I'm waiting for the videos to upload to Vimeo on today's game because one of my sweethearts, Mary, was there to blog about it. I'm waiting to embed them because I think you should see. And I'm reading a book called All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers because one of my friends told me I must read it because I told him I was writing a book. So far, he's nailed it - perfect prescription for an aspiring and insecure literary titan. Tomorrow, I have to get out another thousand or so words before I have to run because 3.1 miles today, although briskly paced, don't quite equal the 20 miles I was supposed to trot. I wonder if my shoes are broken in yet. I wonder if I'm done with blisters. I wonder how my Monday is going to turn out. It's 9:48 and I feel like that should be early, and I'm wondering where I should be right now.