three-day weekend

May started off with an ultimatum that turned into a countdown, for my landlady'd had enough of me paying my rent either in installments or on the 15th instead of the 1st and decided that, although she would not evict me outright, she would not renew my lease for another year either.

This sent me scrambling for direction. Two weeks passed with lightning acuity and my despair began to assemble itself like a small but vicious army.

Then, shortly after my show in Arizona, I put out an ad online describing what I wanted in a room instead of answering ads for rooms described to me. I received only one response to my ad, and the same day I checked out the room and started moving into it. The room is separate from the main residence, which is good for me and my craving for privacy.

This was not done out of desperation. Rather, it was done knowing that this was the way it was meant to happen. All of my needs were met: in the ad I stipulated that I wanted a month-to-month lease in a place that allowed cats and tolerated my graveyard hours. I mentioned being a musician and a smoker as well.

The lady renting the room knows all of this and more, and yet didn't require a security deposit or a background/credit check on me.

The lady's house is in the center of the San Fernando Valley (right around Reseda) and situated on an entire acre of land. In her enormous backyard, she has a farm. Not much livestock: just some iguanas, turtles, bunny rabbits and two pot-bellied pigs in addition to ten cats, four dogs, three children and two boarders other than myself.

Looks like I'm headed for the country this summer...


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While we were waiting in line at the Roxy to see a concert, the mystery girl I've been seeing told me she had a "date" coming up.

"A date date?"

"Yeah... it's weird," she said. "I never go out on date dates."

"Who are you going out on this date with?" I asked, my voice cracking a bit.

"A guy from the coffee shop. He's real nice."

"I see..."

"Yeah. We'll see how it goes."

This was Jealousy 101. She wanted to see me get mad, or sad, or envious.

And it was working.

I don't begrudge her the tactic. I have been playing hard-to-get, after all.

"I gotta admit," I said after a slight pause, "I don't go out on a lot of date dates myself. I never really make an effort. I just kind of end up going on dates with girls who like me through no fault of my own."

"I personally think," she replied, choosing her words carefully, "that if you did ask a girl out on a date date, she would probably find it endearing, and cute, and she would probably have a good time with you."

"You think so?"

"Yes." She smiled.

"If I asked you out on a date date, would you go out with me?"

The doorman asked us for our IDs.

Her answer was "Yes I would" but her face screamed out, "I thought you were never going to ask..."

The security guard patted me down as she pranced into the waiting hands of a man who inspected her purse for anything illegal.


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My plans to join my family at Lake Mead were impacted by my moving schedule, so I opted to spend my holiday time with her instead. I practically lived there for the entire three-day weekend, retiring to her bedroom as out-of-town friends of her roommate stayed on couches and in sleeping bags.

On the first night she passed out on the couch while watching a DVD and I had to carry her upstairs over my shoulder. Somehow I mustered the strength: she was not heavy but I was drunk and probably shouldn't have even attempted to lift her... but I did, and I made it to the top where I gently slammed her onto her bed.

She mumbled something about taking a rest, and so I did.

I fell asleep with my arms around her, spooning as it were.

The next night I was the one to pass out first. She made her way into the bed an hour after I had shuffled off to Dreamland.

In the morning I was awakened by the sound of doves on her window sill cooing in such a manner as to suggest an old man having sex and wheezing his decrepit way to orgasm.

After the initial absurdity of the doves, she and I talked and laughed and rolled around like lazy savages searching to avoid the sun and its daylight.

Such is the way of the classic courtship. For a lack of better words, it is traditional and ritualistic.


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I arrived with enough salmon to feed a moderately-sized Second World country. It came in various forms: sliced, smoked, skewered on kebabs, and even with Cajun seasoning.

I was cleaning out my fridge as part of the move, but it was also a token of my respect and affection. It wasn't just for her-- everyone who was there that weekend got a chance to partake in the eating of the salmon.

Dave, her Hindi friend from Modesto, joked that in his country a gift such as mine would qualify me to take two of his daughters into marriage.

I wore my Zankou Chicken T-shirt, and she revealed to me as I was preparing sauce for some pasta that she liked my shirt and wanted one for her own.

"I'll steal yours if I have to," she chuckled.

"You won't have to. I'll buy you one. They're cheap. I'll get you two, in fact. You ever eaten at Zankou?"

"No. What is it?"

"Middle Eastern rotisserie-style chicken. Comes with garlic paste and pita bread. Very delicious. An entire chicken meal costs less than ten dollars."

"Hmmmm... sounds good. Maybe we can go there on our date date."

I smiled. I may have even blushed in the presence of all the people who overheard our conversation, as we prepared the fish for dinner.

The revelers mostly imbibed cheap beer but she was slipping me sips of Bacardi every now and then. Sometimes she and I would separate from the crowd and huddle together in her room, being silly and laughing and making off-color jokes about horrible subjects too gruesome to reprint here.

By Monday end, she had forgotten about her other date date. She called him back to reschedule, an action that didn't seem to bother me at all in light of all the time I spent with her in the past 72 hours.

As for our very own date date, I have no idea right now where it will be or when but I do know that it will most likely bring us closer than ever.

I don't even know why we are still resisting each other at all by this point. Who are we trying to impress anyway?

arizona

Maybe it was the desert heat, or the long overnight drive into town, or the giddy anticipation that had building up in me for weeks... or maybe it was just the alcohol I'd been drinking in quantities far beyond my own tolerance, or the intense energy emanating from the crowd of people that slowly but surely filled the venue...

Or maybe it was the fact we played an extra long set, stretching out to over an hour... or maybe it was just a good old-fashioned case of nerves... then again, maybe it was the accidental fall that almost knocked me out cold as I tripped over my guitar case and landed on my ass against the back wall of the stage, still playing my bass part on time and in key but deliriously drunk and hallucinating from the unexpected impact...

At any rate, I was overwhelmed on stage with the band last Saturday night, to the point where I left the stage immediately after what I thought was our last song of the evening. I ran out without saying a word, and made a beeline for the street before anyone could walk up to me and say, "Hey! You guys rocked!" or congratulate us for what had to have been the best show we ever played.

It wasn't Stage Fright. It was Off-Stage Fright.

It was knowing that once this moment was over and done with, the return to reality would be a hard one to negotiate. After the last song's final note sustained itself for as long as it could, there was the rest of the night and then the long drive home and then... back to a home that I don't really have, or back to the job which isn't really a job, or back to my life which hasn't felt like my own life for some time now.

How could I smile and accept praise from audience members or accept accolades for the show when I knew it was all going to dissipate and fade away? How could I stick around knowing that when the night was done and I was back at my hotel, I'd be basically getting ready to make the trip home again?

Even if I'd stayed up all night and had a blast and partied until I was blue in the face, I knew deep inside that it was only going to make me feel down when I stopped being a rock star and went back to being little ol' Me.

Something about my unrehearsed pratfall jarred the fear in me awake. I have stated before that I'm never nervous when I play with Ninefinger, and I was doing fine until I fell. It was shocking to me because normally I plan my falls and tumbles. I choreograph them so that there is no real danger to me unless I lose control or miscalculate my position.

Maybe there was some embarrassment involved. Even though I still played on, and even though the people in the audience couldn't tell that fall apart from the other antics that the band and I engaged in throughout our set, I felt slightly foolish. But more importantly, I felt afraid.

It was a good kind of fear. It was the kind that impels you to scale new heights and throw all caution to the wind. It was a desperate high, a soaring crest of a wave that we were all riding at that moment.

I had never felt that with this band until last Saturday night.

It scared me. I ran out of there so quickly after nearly demolishing my bass guitar in the wake of the drum solo. I lit up a cigarette and hid behind a bush, hoping that no one saw me escape. My own sense of self-loathing and anxiety did not wish to hear compliments or positive feedback. I just wanted to be by myself for five minutes.

And then, I heard the drums.

The band was playing another song... without me!

What the fuck, I thought. We got an encore? Holy shit-- Who's playing bass?

I ran back in a hurry, trying to hear which song of ours the band was playing. I could make out someone playing a droning D on my bass guitar. I entered the club and pushed through the crowd, and when I jumped on stage and grabbed my bass back the crowd cheered.

I finished the song with the rest of the guys, and afterwards I bought the fill-in bass player a beer. He was a friend of the singer, and I thanked him for stepping up to the plate.

Apparently, in the short time I was gone a search party had been dispatched by the band. The crowd at the club started chanting my name, as the band kept calling out to me in the hopes that I would heed the call and return to the stage for at least one more number.

It was quite simply the most intense live experience I have ever had. It was what I have been seeking for so long, and yet the minute I finally got what I wanted it almost enveloped and devoured me whole.

I don't know if I will ever have an experience like that again, but I'm glad that it happened, and I'm glad that I made it through, because I needed it.

I feel closer to the guys in the band, closer than I have ever felt with any other band. Saturday night in Scottsdale, Arizona opened my eyes to new and infinite possibilities far beyond what I could ever imagine.

I am still shaken from it. I don't know if I will ever get it out of my system. It changed me and touched me to the core. I felt like I'd been struck by lightning.

I played it off and lied to everyone and said I was vomiting when I left the stage. Somehow, that story seemed to be more plausible than what really happened. Everyone could accept that I might have been sick but I didn't think they would buy it if I'd told them that I was touched on the shoulder by the hand of God and it left me frenzied and emotional.

It was real. It was so real. It was the realest I'd ever felt in my entire life.

And that's what made it scary. All of it was really happening. The crowd, the reaction, our performance, the setting... all of it was undeniably concrete and tangible.

Now that I've had a taste of that, I wonder what future shows will have in store for us. Only time will tell.

Until then, I am still recuperating from it. It's like shell-shock. I'm not sure what else to do. Is it possible that I can truly die happy now? Or is this merely the first step in a whole new direction?

I can't wait to find out.

May is Sweeps Month so arm yourself with ammo

When you've had all you can take from the sickening political media spin that overwhelms us day in and day out, click on this link and read something refreshing and (surprise!) factual for a change.

I went to high school with this guy, and although we never hung out together I've always respected his point-of-view. He is just as passionate now about politics as he was back then, if not more so.

Show some support and forward his columns to your friends and family... as well as the ignorant neocons you're bound to run into online or in the workplace.

show and tell

My apologies to anyone who has tried to comment on my blog only to face the prospect of being moderated. I revamped a few links here and there recently, and I thought I had rendered my comments section open to all, as it had been in the very beginning... but instead I think I just made it worse. After a while I began to wonder if I was just being paranoid, but when I retooled my blog settings I figured out what I had done and rectified the situation.

I am hoping that this is the reason why I haven't received any comments lately. If it turns out that the real reason I haven't had any comments is because I suck, then that's just how it is I guess.

The comments section is wide open again. My stalkers have been away for quite a while, and I believe they have learned their lesson: Never mess with someone like me, who has too much time on their hands and a natural affinity for mischief and prank-pulling.

I never intend to take it that far-- it just happens. Somehow, the universe manages to hand me the keys to the ignition of Trouble, and I start the engine and rev it up and take it for a test spin... and before you know it I'm doing donuts on your front lawn.

Over the years, I've mellowed out a bit but not by much. I'm hoping that by the time I'm 40 I won't have the urge to be so gleefully anarchic and trickster-esque.

Then again, maybe I'm hoping for too much.


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I have been forced by my landlady to move out by the end of the month. My lease was up and she elected to not renew it, mostly because I was late with paying my rent for the past three months. I could blame it on the paucity of work at my current job but even though entertainment jobs are inconsistent like that (jam-packed for three months and then three more months of nothing) I have to admit that, way in the back of my mind, I wanted to get out of this place and start anew. Otherwise I would've made more of an effort to reassure my landlady that I wanted to stay.

I then realized, after kindly discussing the terms of my departure with her, that my stubborn nature never allows me to give up unless it is absolutely necessary. Rather, I tend to stick it out until another party is forced to take action, which motivates me to get up off my ass and do what I should've done long ago.

In the past 365 days, I've lost a girlfriend, a well-paying job, and this apartment. In each case, I'd overstayed my welcome or ran the course as much as I could, and in each case I didn't have the good sense to know when enough was enough. Only when drastic measures were taken did I make any moves on my own.

Instead of breaking up with Eve, she had to be the one to call it quits. Instead of just quitting my job, I pushed it until they were left no choice but to lay me off. And now, with this apartment, I have done the same. I knew the rent increase in March and the neighbors vacating their homes was a foreshadowing of things to come, but I stuck around and tested the limits, as I always do.

Doing things that way seemingly absolves me of any guilt or regret. I can blame others for my misfortunes instead of taking any real responsibility. Then, when I "overcome" the odds in the end, I can point the finger and say, "Ha ha, you didn't beat me. I'm still standing!"

Such ego gratification...

I'm not worried about finding another place, though, because the slogans written underneath my blog title say it all about me these days: "Everything happens for a reason. There is no such thing as luck. Timing is everything."

I'm not just saying that to make myself feel better either. I firmly believe in those three sentences and what they constitute. I have always felt like that, but I never articulated it that way until I met someone a few months ago who put it into perspective for me.

You may know her as the mystery girl whom I have blogged about recently.


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I don't want to divulge her identity in any way, nor will I supply her with a pseudonym for blogging purposes. To be honest, I didn't even want to blog about her at first, because it tends to wreak havoc on my interpersonal perceptions of the opposite sex. But I couldn't hold it back. I just had to testify about her.

However, I've set some rules up for me to abide by:

1) She will remain anonymous.

2) Although our status as friends or lovers is not nebulous or vague, I will not assign a label or category to her in these blog pages.

3) I will not go into explicit detail about anything we've done or plan to do.

4) I will leave out the events and occurrences that only serve to confuse me and addle my decision-making abilities. There has been plenty to write about concerning this girl, and I've selected only the things that matter the most to me to lay out for any readers I have left.

You all know that I am capable of baring my soul and showing off my vulnerability in my writing... thus, I feel like I have nothing more to prove in that regard. I would instead like to focus on the moments I share with her and how they make me feel, as opposed to ramifications and consequences and other various ponderings.

In short, if I write about her too much I fear I will jinx it, as I've done with others. Therefore, I'm keeping it on a comfortable level and I'm surprised at how cool I am with that notion.

It's not Show And Tell time anymore.


*/*


Well, what time is it then?

It's time to wax poetic. It's time to carry out imaginary agendas and formulate honorable schemes. It's time to take off the kid gloves and put on the Man Hands. It's time to piss caution into the wind while wearing nothing but a raincoat.

It's time to hesitate when a kiss is ready to plant itself on her lips, only to find itself nestled in the nape of her neck and burrowing deep into the well of her soul.

It's time to dig up all the buried hatchets and take them out to the shore and throw them wholesale into the briny sea, where they will rust and rot and disintegrate without a trace.

It's time to admit that I am scared and afraid, and that I love feeling that way because it reminds me of everything I have to lose vs. everything I have to gain.

It's time to fulfill prophecies and follow through on convictions and cast more predictions and topple all the follies and the sophistries concocted to swallow me up in their diversionary riptide.

It is time for all these things and more, and I have a feeling I'm going to be writing in this blog more often. I don't know if I'll ever match the pace of when I first started, but I'm not going to rule out that possibility either.

It's time to move, literally and figuratively.

Let's go.

in case there was any doubt still lingering...

And now...

MATT AND KIM!!