Ouch...

27...

Kinda feels like...

But not because I'm getting older. In my desired profession, I've found at this point that my age has only hindered me. Every year, every day, my pen grows mightier. Barring a breakdown, which is quite reasonable, in my golden years, I'll be so good, no one will even be able to understand a word I'm saying. I can't decide yet if that's what I want.

But birthdays are strange. I feel like every year, I get duped into getting people together, which actually makes me wildly uncomfortable. I don't like the idea of assembly anywhere even in the proximity of the realm of my behalf. I like to hide in corners, listen, maneuver, plot. I need to always have an out - find comfort in such things. Tonight, I'll find no such comfort. There will be no escape. The thought of it right now unsteadies me.

I feel like all day, my phone has been ringing, vibrating so often it almost got me off. And out of the woodwork - all these well wishes and rsvp's and I wonder what the hell I'm getting myself into every time this happens. And seeing the names pop up one after the other, and the cards and the blessings and these people I haven't seen in so long -- I'm such a cock but I'm not I just...tuck away. I don't keep up and I stopped apologizing for it. It's not that I don't care it's just that I...don't care.

So tonight. Good times, of course...always - because it's in my blood, above all else, and to them I'll always revert...

So it begins with the second drop in "Juno." Fuck me. Fuck you. Tokyo Police Club, who woulda thought...

Thursday Evening...

A couple days ago, I was watching Scorsese's "Shine a Light." It's a Rolling Stones docu that was shot mostly at NYC's Beacon Theater in 2006. It was cool, absolutely blows my mind that they're still around, blows my mind all they've made...

Between songs, there were these cuts to their days of youth, interviews they would give - Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood. And there was something to it - seeing them, for me, maybe for the first time in their youth - classy punks, collected, composed. I have such admiration.

There was this clip where Keith was going on and on - distant and flying - after he and Mick had been released from jail on some sort of narcotic possession charge. The interviewer was digging at him, trying to evoke a gunslinger's response about the system and their imprisonment and all he could say, spacing and direct, "Well... maybe we'll get a song out of it."

...

I've got ache. All I can hope for is that it's dying -- not ripped raw. Right now though, it's lingering and I don't know which way it's gonna tip - still too fresh to call...

I had lunch with this girl today. She's something. She's --

I've loved two girls in my life -- told two girls that I had love for them. One I dated for years -- some great, many crushing. I look back and think we almost killed each other. She broke my first heart - never again had one like it. The other and I lived together in Cape Town...among other places. We dated for sub 1 year, saw the world's rare stretches, thought we died together in the Zambezi, may very well be forever etched into each other. For an overly dramatic 26 (27 in minutes) year old romantic, I can't help but think that's sparse. Between the in-between moments and relationships of my life, to find anything but a momentary spark has been so rare. Sometimes, friends think I'm gay. Often, I turn down "guilt-free" female fucks. In fact, I scoffed at two last night -- beautiful, and great, and interesting...

Just not for me. Nothing ever enough...

Then came a third girl. We saw each other for 6 weeks. After a month, when we were lying in bed, I told her I loved her. She smiled, gripped me tight, said something back but I didn't hear, couldn't hear, refused to hear. And I can't explain it, my style that's nothing if it isn't Kamikaze. And she was beautiful. Some kinda rare beautiful thing that's no longer mine. And it better be fucking okay that that stings because it does. Then or now, I could never wrap my head around her. I never wanted to, will never want to. Some things are there just to exist. She was like that.

We had a lunch today that began with a heavy kiss and ended with her gift-giving and a heavy goodbye. She drove away and I didn't watch -- some kind of conquering perception of mind -- my illusion of strength disallowed it. I opened the gate and had to stop. I felt light, like something was pouring from the soles in my feet, bleeding out into the concrete -- this force vacating my body, instantly replaced by another force, something heavy and daunting, a familiar thing to me. It was my Conquer, coming back, rushing through me, trained to not let a moment of weakness or hurt find me. And all it could say, push, push, push, we don't have time for this - there's too much, too much, too much. I can't help but listen. I want to listen. I have no choice. This is what I do. This is my life.

We compromised, Conquer and I, and I was allowed the time it took to get from the gate to the back door, through the hallway and into my apartment : : :

The smile came first and I had to dismiss it - too crippling. Then the eyes, that curl in her cheek, her stare -- always burning -- thinking back to how I'd reach my hand out in the middle of the night to find hers and she'd find me back. I remember giving up on sleep, never being tired, feeling my body crumbling inside, sick and addicted to the adrenaline of this she. I remember the world disappearing -- inside her -- I can't. Too much. It was too much then, it's too much now. We were so on and so wrong. I don't know how I expected myself to deal with any such things. So off and so right. This great competence I praise in myself often fails.

Sitting here now, I can't help but go against the grain. I can't help this. Tonight I'll sleep. Tomorrow, maybe all of this will be gone, though it certainly won't. It'll disappear in the stages I gave. Problem now - I was in deep. This girl took breath like Beckett's hammer curve. She was electric like watching Bellamy play God on stage. She crushed like that scene in Neverending Story when Artax loses his battle with the Nothing and fucking gives up and fucking drowns, just fucking drowns right there in the Swamp of fucking Sadness and it doesn't matter that he comes back in the end to ride the fucking plains, who fucking gives up in the Swamp of Sadness? This girl will always be...so good. Make no mistake. Sensational.

And she listened when I commented on the pleasantries of her down comforter, took note of my jealousies. And she saw the holes in my work socks, listened to my rant, my endless rants - one of them something along the lines of fuck work fuck them they can suck my balls before they even try to fire me do you think I will ever buy new socks for those...

Now there's a beautiful white down comforter on my bed. On top of the comforter, 5 pairs of black socks- this poetic juxtaposition...so pretty it gives me hurt. They were for my birthday...are still for my birthday, I suppose.

It's not an easy thing to do -- to let it go, when you want to fight for something you can't fight for - when there's still something screaming and you have to put it to bed, tuck it in and smother it with a pillow -- and you have to watch it kick and scream and fight for air, yelling through the pillow, this is wrong! this is wrong! this is wrong!

...

But I rationalize. I cut losses so that at the end of the day, I can try and sleep and live with the choices and paths I take. And I boil it down. I find comfort in simplicity. So this is it, all I'm trying to do, in this life...come up with a few good songs, maybe someday have enough to spin an album -- something that makes me happy, content. I have so many about growth and adventure and danger and they're great, they are...it's just...

I feel like this girl pulled 2-3 songs out of me. 2-3 songs that at any given moment could have cured all that ails and ailed. Now that she's gone, they're gone. They're lost. And I'll never know. I'm worried a night will come and the thought won't let me sleep, maybe for weeks. Maybe I worry too much.

I keep telling myself, all I keep telling myself, over and over -- respect it, love it, cherish it.

Because this is my song.

This is what I do.

Thursday Afternoon...

Elevator Music...

7.4 and they turn and they turn...

Cahuenga to Beverly Glen and instantly and in stretches it smells like cum, something in the trees. I start my climb and the higher I get the more I need. I bleed my ears as my sound bangs the canyons, back and fourth a thousand times until it dissipates and dies. It follows me like a stream through the turns, above the lights as I tear the flesh from my wheel, from my throat, wishing it would never end, burning -- a heap that just got its match. Sunday. Again. Always. Eyes ripped in the mirror. Red. And behind them, invasion, conquering, and I've already turned from sleep, stuck, and my tires sing and in my mind I yearn for coast. The only one I know. And I want it back, need it back -- something in me begging again, where's my coast, where's my coast...relentless and chasing...where'd it go, where'd you go. Don't you forget. Get it back. Get it back. Run.

Stay Hot, Cuba...

The Olympics can be a trying time. Athletes devote everything, mentally, physically for a taste to compete at such an epic level, to call themselves Olympians. It's a badge I'm certain they wear on their hearts until the day they die.

And if things don't happen to go their way, like, say in the bronze medal match of taekwondo, they can always pull this...

I just wouldn't recommend it.

Likely What Started It All...

Everyone Could Use An LA Monday...

I woke up at 10 today, a solid 10 hours of sleep after putting together a string of 4,6,3,6,4. The culprits, well... some of the usual suspects, some new ones. Certainly still Kim and Val. There's a new old one called Billy Bambino that's contributed. Then there's the Olympics and my spending 5 hours a night glued and weeping...

Trying to devise plots to propose Shawn Johnson to be my honorary little sister. Because she's sensational...that stare. I also believe her to be raised by wolves.

Let me take a breath, pause, cause what's comin' here ain't petty...

Two days ago, I told a girl...something. I said something to her. Four letter word. And it was easy. And I don't know how it happened. And I can't even begin to address the trouble in such things.

...

So today, my LA Monday:

I sped through chapters of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, packaged it up, sent it back to the Netflix home base with Waterhorse: Legend of the Deep because I haven't used my fucking account in over a month and could no longer handle the feeling of stale films to exist in my abode.

I ran through the bank, picked up three rolls of quarters for laundry, made a cash deposit into a savings account I've not so subtlety titled, "Brazil."

I washed the filth from my car...usually a metaphor for something bigger.

I skimmed The Pillowman after reading The Lieutenant of Inishmore after forming a fascination for Martin McDonagh after falling for In Bruges last week after falling for it months ago.

Laundry.

I ate Oreos with a glass of milk, remembered what childhood felt like.

I shopped online.

I sketched out a tattoo, plotted.

I made a new spin playlist because I now teach the fanatically fit at Equinox and because the feeling of 80 constant and judgmental eyes is a powerful and refreshing thing to suffer.

I wrote a blog.

...

I'll go to work. I'll endure and endure and endure and endure.

I'll say goodbye and see someone off.

I'll come home, close my door, click the lock and stand there, listening to the pumping air conditioner and the silence of my apartment. I'll close my eyes and not move, circling, thinking of leaving thinking of staying. I'll make a phone call. I'll sit, stand, sit, stand. I'll pace. 125 minutes will pass. I'll calm down, decide to trap myself, to keep myself there...here. I'll wonder what's coming, hoping for the best, prepping for the worst. I'll fight myself, set my alarm for 5:56 and the next thing I know, I'm there...red lights blazing from that clock. Blazing, blazing, blazing. It screams at me. Sometimes, I scream back.

Mattress Man...

Norwood Blues...

A package just arrived at my door, ringing doorbell, startling me something awful. Listed on the box was a return address to Richard Pildes of Chicago -- to some, an arbitrary name, but to me: Deuce, Deuce Dog, Captain Insanity. He was a man I came to know in the Fall of my junior year in high school.

Pildes was a baseball coach like none I'd ever known. He was passionate, persistent, headstrong, steady and righteously insane. He was a man of small stature, certainly, but had this bite - so subtle and affecting, he'd invade sleep. I loved him. He has also likely won 52 thousand games in his coaching career.

A couple months ago, cleaning my apartment, I stumbled into a wave of personal nostalgia - box of old pictures. I came across this photo...


1999 Norwood Blues. It was right after we had lost the NABF national championship to an outfit called the Bill Hood Broncos out of somewhere in the vicinity of Baton Rouge. I think we finished that year 54-7. Wins were foggy, losses I remember. 7 losses. The last one was tough...something in the air - those boys on the other side of the diamond played the game of their lives and I'm not just saying that 'cause we went down. They had a full ride LSU hurler/draftee on the hill that had been saved for us, somehow, 6 games deep into the World Series. He could shove, and a southpaw. They had a monster first inning and won the game something like 10-4. We took second place.

Inside this package...two T-shirts and a hat, all bearing logos I so revered in my back half years of high school. It smiled me something wide. I still so revere them. I was a Norwood Blue.

Summer baseball is supposed to be a time when you kick back, enjoy the dog days with the boys around town - play against other town's boys around town. It's about regional pride, a "our town is better than your town" kinda thing. I'm sure at some point, things were like that around Chicago. Pildes crushed that, treated the Chicago metro area as his own personal grab bag. In the Fall, calls would go out to his objects of desire. He'd recruit and assemble, steal each town's best player, build this arsenal that would go on tour when schools let their fools out. Truth was, most towns didn't have a player good enough. We were a force...

Every legion team we played circled their schedule. Most wouldn't come near us. The teams that did would save their best pitcher for the occasion. We'd win 18-2. When traffic was bad or when we were shorthanded and our pitchers had to hit, we'd win 11-2. We'd pimp home runs. Our fastballs were scorching. If towns were villages and we were raiders, the children would have been killed, the women raped and the homes burned. That's just how we rolled. And the swagger...oh, the swagger. In a sense, something about it all almost felt sadistic. We were evil but run with absolute class. It was the time of my athletic life.

In my 15 or so years of playing, I was never on a roster like the '99 Blues. Everyone went on to play college ball - most to major college programs. A handful were drafted. Two are playing in the Olympics** right now. But it wasn't just that. We had brilliant minds, a valedictorian - Ivy leaguers and professor's sons -- we had guys who puked at the first sight of a book. Such a ripe blend.

Oh nostalgia...fuck off but come and find me any time. Any time.

My Old Friend Walt...

These last few days have been blurry. I flamed through 5 new drafts of Kim and Val - cut 20 pages. Two weeks ago and today, I could have defended every word when it was 126 pages. Today, it's 106...and it's better, tighter. Sometimes, it all feels so fickle.

The process behind this is taking a little longer than my initial expectation, which was overnight...but it's getting there. A consultant recently sent me an e-mail, a note about the Disney Fellowship. They employ up to 4 writers per year, pay them an annual salary to work on the lot and come up with original material. I had flirted with something like this in the past at Disney, just a few notches above. I thought, why not try again? Hell, I have a gem in my back pocket, right?

So I started thinking, breaking it all down. Kimberly and Valentine in the house that Walt built. Let's see...

The word fuck or a variation of appears 19 times.
There's a scene involving rape.
Someone bites off someone else's ear.
Someone cuts off someone else's hand.
Sex is had or implied in 4 scenes.
A dead body is mounted against the grill of an SUV.
Guns and/or drugs appear in...too many scenes to count.
There's a miscarriage.
The word cunt is used twice.
Many die...quite violently.

Sometimes I stop...think about the phrase "setting up for success," wonder my competence for such things. Or care.

Gary Oldman...

My Watch...

I lost it. Don't know where it is. Seems to have escaped. All I know is this sinking and it's growing, building me mad.

Where do I begin? Trouble is, I only had it for a short period of time, quite brief in the grand scheme of things...but it looked right, felt right. I'd put it on and felt like it made me something else, something I wasn't before. Lifting. Yes, a fucking watch...if you can believe. These things happen all the time, mostly when we're not looking.

It was beautiful. It was my destruction. Wherever it is now, it certainly still is both, making it difficult, coping, thinking it's out there but not here...somewhere but not known.

The face...like none I'd seen. Exquisite, piercing. Sharp and slicing...smooth. It was crafted, absolutely, somewhere for sure. I imagined the little cranks and wheels, the internal tapestry by which it functioned. I tried. I tried. The thought of it alone -- mesmerizing. Every day, I would turn to give it a thousand glances, admire the way it wrapped my wrist. Tight or delicate, sensational always.

All I want is it. Back. Wrapped. Here. Home. Lost.

Like A Warm Fall Blanket...

Earthquake...

I was laying in bed at 11:42 in the AM - whenever it hit. In bed because I had slept minutes last night before gymming at 6 in the AM. Needed two hours. FYI - I don't sleep into the middle of the day. Not in this life.

My mirrors started to sway, the entire building was shaking. It felt pretty serious, hit something around 5.8, and froze me for literally 15 seconds - a long bastard. I was waiting for the ceiling to crack, thinking I should get into the middle of a doorway or something, cover my head or kidneys...protect the vitals, you know. I was waiting for something big and exciting and dramatic to happen, found myself wishing it was the beginning of "the one." Though, it wasn't.

It's funny though - listening to the news in the background, caller after caller ringing in, telling their experiences in "the field." Everyone explaining shaking and swaying and shattering, something to shake up our days and lives - our regularly scheduled programming interrupted.

We're all such fucking monkeys.

Two assholes walk into a Seattle candy shop, another one takes their picture...

First Word...

It's into the third week since I carefully introduced Kim and Val. All this fucking waiting making me nutso. Yesterday, I got word from a producer quite wired in the game. Not one of the first two, but still the first real word. I was expecting him to take it for a run, take it to his people for a run and so on and so on.

Didn't get it. Missed. Overshot.

I heard things like they're too in love, that it never stops, too intense the whole way through, never a moment for a breather.

I respect his opinion, and hate, hate defensive writers, but I quickly found myself un-listening. I tuned out, thinking how could you miss this, how could you let this go over your head, how could you miss this...

...

Lately, I've been losing sleep. Not that I've been sleeping all that much in the past 6 months, but still. And I can tell you what it is... or who -- Nikkorela...

She started showing up 2 weeks ago or something like it. Maybe in a dream, maybe not. Truth is, I still can't tell if she's real or imaginary. But I'm okay with that. I'm okay with the possibility that she's an invention of the mind, here to save me from void. She recently came to me in my sleep to speak of an ancient tale -- a master sculptor and his student, because I think she thought I needed it...

It was at the height of the Roman Empire, Luido was living in a province 200 miles south of Rome. He had at one time been stationed in the golden city, there to serve as personal sculptor to the Emperor himself. In his stay, he had witnessed the birth, the coming and going of the most gifted artists and visionaries that had ever lived.

When old age crept into him and the pace of the city grew too scathing, he decided to leave Rome and settle in a distant land, far removed. One day, walking the fields, he came across a young boy, Oederon, as if he were placed before Luido by the Gods themselves...he was sculpting the vinyards, olive fields, distant landscapes with a hand so steady, an eye so agile, it brought tears to Luido's eyes.

Luido took him on as his apprentice, though it was evident early on that the pupil's skill far surpassed that of his master.

Word began to spread through the hills and valleys, all the way to the golden city -- whispers of a boy with a hand that was guided by the gods. The Emperor summoned him at once. And so, Luido and Oederon traveled to Rome. The Emperor welcomed them, thanked them, declared that he was to hire a master sculptor to document the days of their empire, to immortalize his legacy. It was to be the most prestigous title an Emperor had bestowed upon an artist.

Luido had known since that first day that no man could stand against Oederon's talents...not even Rome's master sculptors. When the Emperor saw Luido in the audience, he summoned him forward. A recognition, for Luido had served as Rome's master sculptor when this current Emperor was just a boy. The Emperor spoke with an echo that rang through the royal courtyard...

"Great Luido, master servant of the Roman empire, you stand before us now with this fabled young boy. Word has traveled far of his divine talents. Of this boy named Oederon. I ask you now to speak in his favor, as his master. Tell me he is everything I have heard and there will be no trial. He will live here, amongst us until the day he no longer chooses, until he no longer sees it fit to document our travails. Speak your certainty and all this will be over."

Luido looked into Oederon's hungry eyes, certain, then looked back to the Emperor...

"I am not certain."

Oederon was sent off to complete his great trial, a sculpture that was to enter him into the forefront of Roman lore. But Oederon had lost his will. He felt betrayed by his master Luido. He was uncertain, weak. When the day had passed and the Emperor's royal advisors came to judge Oederon's work, he was nowhere to be found. He had left, alone, to wander distant lands.

Many years later, as Luido was on his deathbed, Oederon came to see his old master. Luido smiled, welcomed him, told him to sit. Oederon kissed Luido's forehead, spoke of his travels, the search of his destiny. The years had been difficult on both of them. Oederon's skin had hardened and stretched, a leathery glow. The color in his eyes had emptied. Luido's mind had grown forgetful, his thoughts had run senile. Oederon said goodbye, took Luido's hand, walked to the door when he turned back...

"Master, I have to know something. That day in Rome, when the Emperor asked for your blessing of me. He asked of my gifted hand. I never understood. All those days in the fields, all those days we had spent in the fields...if you didn't believe-

My son, I believed. The great Jupiter was alive in you.

Then why? Why? Why didn't you say so? Why did you leave me like that, why did you abandon me like that. It was my destiny, and you took it away from me. Why didn't you tell the Emperor?

Because my son, if it was your destiny, you wouldn't have listened to a word I said...you would have seized it for yourself."

Two assholes walk into a Seattle bar, another one takes their picture...

Sigur Ros, Durban...

I'm sitting here listening to the new Sigur Ros. Very good. I was kicking around the web, to the song "Ara batur" when I checked Durban's site. Something about the timing of the song, so right and wrong. So terrible and beautiful. Kinda crushing but life. Fucking life. Fucking life.

This is Durban's post:

Something In Her Way.

I thought it then, knew it when she disappeared. This bird I knew when I was in Amalfi. Jennifer. Don't know her last name, didn't think to care. All I remember, her face, something in her stare that bled me. It ripped through me. All I remember, being inside her, watching her shake, feeling her quiver. Those eyes. Those fucking eyes. I was electric. For 2 weeks, we paired. In cars, in alleys, in bedrooms we would never leave. She was electric.

I didn't know anything about the pills we took. I didn't know what had brought me to the Italian coast, but I was driving, fucked out of my mind and she was screaming at me and I couldn't hear a word of it. Nothing was processing. I was winding the coast in an old Alfa Romeo - topless - trying to hit a hundred miles an hour, screaming back I want to die I want to die I want to die. That much I remember. The cliffs were high. I wanted so desperately to miss a turn, drive through the guardrails and fly away with her. I wanted that to be it. I wanted to fucking end it and at every last second, I'd pull away - some guardian guiding my hand, pulling me back to the road. I think she was egging me on. She wanted me to do it. I wanted to do it. Something in the pills, something in them bringing out something in the two of us, something vicious and exquisite and we both knew...everything too much.

We stopped. We had smashed into a cliff. Blood was running through her hairline, running through her dark strands. Two days later, I would learn three of my ribs had cracked. The car was fucked. We fucked. Her blood and my pain, everything so sobering and clear. She told me then she loved me, the first and only time I had ever wanted to hear it in my life. We hitched a lift to Positano, got a room and stayed there, in bed, our hands and bodies twisted as the rain fell against our shutters and I thought that was it, our apologies and the end of me and anything I had ever thought I needed.

When I woke, she was gone. No note. All I had left was the dried blood on her pillow. Fuck her. Fuck her, all I could think - I would kill her if I ever found her again. Those words, those fucking words how dare she let slip. I would kill her. I'd take her back to Amalfi and show her my might, that it could be done, that I could put an end to everything - and be content, being with her...I'd tell her it was all for her - kiss her as we fell until the end found us. I thought of the things I'd say, the things I'd do to touch her again, to have her there again knowing I'd never let go. To tell her I'm never going to let go.

But I never saw her again. I knew I never would.

-- From my friend Romero, a friend of travels...that I received today --

"Durban. I love you man. Know that before everything. I'm sorry. Jenny's dead, found her this morning. It was her. Her. Nothing we could do. Nothing she left. I'm sorry. We all miss you. Come back soon. I'm so sorry."

...

I shot back through my pictures, my records of travel, certain I had something of the two of them. I remembered her. How could I forget. All I found was this, from Pompeii, likely just before Amalfi, fitting...