Coral Calcium For The Mind

He's Outta My Life

2009-06-25T18:05:00.000-07:00

Of course I made a joke when I heard the news about Michael. I sat there watching Fox News Channel at a friend's house, holding my little boy on my lap. I looked down at him and said, "It's okay, you're safe now." That one got a laugh. So did the next one: "I'm not sure if he's really dead... I mean, we are watching Fox News."

But after the jokes subsided, the reality set in. And no amount of conspiracy theorizing or joking or analyzing can take back the fact that Michael Jackson, the self-proclaimed King Of Pop and an extraordinary performer, is now dead.

I'm glad he's dead, because now he is at peace. Never had there been so restless a personality as his. I doubt he ever felt like what he'd accomplished was good enough. I'm not saying he was unhappy, although the amount of plastic surgery he foisted upon himself might point that way. I'm just saying that he wasn't at peace. Even as he died, he was on the verge of another comeback.

I mean, was Ed McMahon or Farrah Fawcett as deeply troubled and as endlessly fascinating as Michael? Believe it or not, there are people who do not know who those other two people are, or didn't know until earlier this week. But everyone knew Michael. Everyone.

And that's what I'm wrapping my head around right now. No other artist has permeated my life or the lives of so many people like he has. Even Prince, whom I prefer musically and whom I defended against Michael fans back in the '80s, does not inform my every memory as pervasively as Michael.

He was there when I was a little boy, as the Scarecrow in The Wiz. He was there when I was watching the breakdancers cop his moves in the early '80s, alongside Kurtis Blow and George Clinton. Eddie Murphy did a spot-on impersonation of him, both on SNL and in his own stand-up. He was an uncredited voice cameo on The Simpsons, and I didn't learn until decades later that he really did do the voice and it wasn't an impersonator. He gave Alfonso "Carlton on The Fresh Prince" Ribiero his big break in a Pepsi ad. His songs were the soundtrack of my childhood, and were parodied by cult heroes like "Weird" Al Yankovic. His sister was on two TV shows that I grew up on, and I had at least three vinyl copies of Thriller at one time in my life. I saw Captain EO at Disneyland in 3-D. I remember watching the full-length version of the "Thriller" video on Friday Night Videos (we didn't have MTV at my house yet). I've seen countless comics pull off his moves, from Eddie Griffin to Tommy Davidson. I remember my best friend doing Michael's dance routine at the after party of our prom night while my girlfriend and I watched and laughed. I also remember watching Michael do the Moonwalk for the first time on TV, for that Motown anniversary special. I remember in high school a guy on the bus singing "The Way You Make Me Feel" with his headphones on, singing very loud and snapping his fingers as if he was in the shower. Even as recent as Monday, I overheard someone describing the "Say Say Say" video with Paul McCartney to someone who had never seen it.

He was everywhere, and now thanks to the fact that he is dead, he will live forever in the public's mind.

My conspiracy theories are in full effect: He faked his death to get out of debt, for example. If there was ever an artist that could pull that one off, it was Michael. I mean, he's the one who started all the weird rumors about himself because he knew it would keep people talking about him for years; the oxygen chamber, the Elephant Man's bones, Bubbles the Chimp... he was the source! He was a master manipulator and probably wasn't half as weird as everyone thinks.

I also had a theory that the REAL Michael died in that aborted Pepsi commercial that burned him up, and that the Jackson family dug up and dusted off an extra Jackson brother that wasn't doing anything other than buggering little boys and living under the sink. They gave him plastic surgery and taught him how to sing and dance, but he couldn't break that one bad habit...

Sorry, I know it seems disrespectful... but Michael is now at a stature similar to Elvis, perhaps beyond. Nothing I can say or do would take away that stature. And to all the talk-show hosts and hack comics and snobby music critics, you won't have Michael Jackson to kick around anymore.

But that's the irony: He isn't going anywhere. Like I said, he's going to last forever. When I'm dead and buried, they will still be listening to him in Liberia.

As for me, I am listening to my all-time favorite MJ track, the last song off Thriller, and also the last time Michael made any sense to me. It's "The Lady In My Life" and I never EVER get tired of that song because it's one of the few Michael songs where he's begging to get some from a girl at the end. It was the finest song he ever did, if you ask me... and this is a guy who sang "I'll Be There" and "Never Can Say Goodbye"!

"And I Will Keep You Warm
Through The Shadows Of The Night
Let Me Touch You With My Love
I Can Make You Feel So Right
And Baby Through The Years
Even When We're Old And Gray
I Will Love You More Each Day
'Cause You Will Always Be
The Lady In My Life..."

That song reminds me of my wife. And as I look at my son, who is asleep, I realize that he is growing up in a world that is missing a few things, such as the World Trade Center, or cassettes and vinyl albums and VHS tapes... or like The King Of Pop.

baby

2008-07-11T17:07:00.000-07:00

So here we are in the middle of July or somewhere roundabout, and in two months I will have been married for an entire year, and I haven't blogged in five months (which is a world record for me) and life has continued in its own slow way...

...and my wife is pregnant, and I'm going to be a father.

And there is so much to say, so very much to say.

And blogs just don't cut it anymore when it comes to my feelings.

And yet, I feel that this is something worth blogging about.

And I'm going to try and document as much as I can before the inevitable crunch of hours and weeks and months and years spent raising a child descends like cloud seeds upon what is left of my free time.

And I think that one day I'll blog regularly again but with a different goal in mind, that goal being a true need for communication born out of genuine desire to be expressive and not just some hollow trumpeting used to back up my claims to literacy and all.

And when my child can read, they might see these pages, and laugh, and cry, and wonder why.

*/*

My wife is entering into her second trimester. She is starting to show. Her womb is transforming and altering itself, tailoring itself to accommodate the impending arrival.

She has slight aches and minor pains. Her nausea is waning. She forgets things and her moods swing like a suspension bridge in a stormy wind.

I have never seen anything more beautiful than the sight of her sitting upright in bed, her mousy librarian's glasses perched upon her pointy dainty nose, her eyes aglass* with expectancy...

(*= A combination of "aglaze" and "glassy")

I rub her paunch every chance I get.

*/*

Now that my own father and I have buried the hatchet, I find that the wardrobe of fatherhood feels good and slinky when I slip its tender robes upon my rough, flabby skin.

We never argue anymore. I harbor no hatred towards him. We don't even get into religious debates the way we used to, and it is a pleasure to hear from him when he calls me up to talk.

I will never forget his sins, what he did. I cannot, I will not.

But I never thought I'd ever forgive him either, and yet that is exactly what I have done.

I can keep vigil, as a reminder to myself and to my child, a way of making sure that history does not repeat itself, that my child does not become first a victim and then the victimizer of a similar offense to what befell my father when he was only a young boy.

I can keep a diligent eye. In that respect, I won't forget.

But I forgave him finally, and that lifted the heaviest burden from my shoulders at a point when I could no longer carry it.

I don't care if you believe in God or not. The fact is, forgiveness is good for the soul.

Yes, it is.

Make sure you forgive someone before you have kids of your own.

take care

2008-01-22T17:21:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year. Happy 2008.

It's amazing how the urge-- no, the compulsion --to write has waned in me since I got married. It is as if I never possessed it in the first place, like I have always been indifferent to any literary aspirations.

I cannot blame it on being busy or preoccupied with other things, because in the past I always managed to make time even for the most trivial blog entries or notebook scribblings. There is so much to write about in this new life I am living: My wife is quite simply the most amazing person I have ever met, and every day she and I grow together as well as individually. One day I will find the motivation to translate our relationship to the written word, but for now I am basking in the glow of our love.

Sentimental words for the likes of me, yes? I don't deny this. I am not ashamed to be in love and committed to one person. I guess it's all I ever really wanted and needed. Not that everything else I used to fill my life with was unimportant or meaningless-- rather, I feel like it all led up to our meeting. All of it-- the joy, the pain, the laughter, the adventures, the sorrow, the outrage, the lessons to be learned either easily or the hard way --was a prelude to this moment that I exist in currently.

I think of times when I had Writer's Block or I didn't have the focus to sit down and write/type something out, and they were always desperate periods in my life. They were informed by depression or sadness or anger, even frustration. I sometimes forced myself to write, to purge it all like some kind of paragraph bulimic. I find that on those forced occasions a metaphor such as bulimia is apt: I thought it was doing some good, based upon distorted preconceptions that I had about myself. Like an 80-lb waif with an eating disorder, I never seemed satisfied with my current state of affairs, no matter how emaciated and undernourished I was in reality.

But in this case, my sickness was spiritual, not physical. I did not look in a mirror and project the image of fat onto a skeletal frame; instead I looked into my soul and found malaise while ignoring the beauty that was struggling to rise to the surface.

To bring the metaphor full circle, I guess you can say that I am eating right for once in my life. My appetites are healthy and my attitude towards myself is one of respect and acceptance.

I think about the times when I vented my fury in this blog. I chastised readers for not commenting; I changed the names of real people then proceeded to detail their lives in accusatory tones; I engaged in feuds with people I had never even met in real life. It all seems pathetic and sad in hindsight, but each blog that I composed-- for better or for worse --was necessary for my mental health. I bared my soul in these blog entries. Sometimes I held back, but more often than not I let loose in a way that I had rarely done in my private writings.

Overall, I am proud of this minor achievement. I am not done with writing, nor am I done with blogging... but if there's anyone out there that still stops by here to read what I have to say, let me just state for the record that for the time being I am taking the time I normally spent slaving away at a keyboard and putting it toward another use. It's not a better use of my time, and it's not a lesser exertion of energy either. It's just something different, a change of pace if you will.

I think that I have found something more important than a blog.

Writing is still important to me, and my new wife sees nothing wrong or inappropriate about the blog or my novel (which I am also lagging on, for the same reasons that I have neglected my blog). She would never stand in the way of my pursuit of enlightenment via the written word, whether it be in print or online. But she is not as consistent with her internet browsing, so in a way I find myself blogging less because the one person I would really like to read it doesn't devote as much time as I do cruising cyberspace. And that's okay with me, because she is really the one person in my life now whose opinion matters to me the most.

So I am not calling it quits or throwing in the towel. Instead I am taking a semi-break from this. I will try to do it once a month, so as not to get rusty or find myself without an occasional outlet. I cannot predict what kind of content I will focus on in the future, whether or not it will be personal or impersonal or a mixture of both, but I can say confidently that my life right now is functioning fine... and maybe it will take time for me to get back into the swing of things.

I have been convinced for most of my life that I could not write unless there was pain or trouble in my heart, so I will look upon this new path I am on as a challenge, to see if I can write in the absence of misery and turmoil. I think I can, but it will be like starting all over from scratch. Forgive me if I get sappy or maudlin or sentimental or even mushy. I will make an effort to not sound like a lovestruck freak gloating over how he won the romance lottery.

I will end this entry with this: When I was beginning my adolescence, I started to take writing seriously but I hadn't learned anything yet. My first forays into writing were plagiarizing and embellishing on my favorite song lyrics and passing them off as love poems. But after a while, I made a promise to take a different tack when composing odes to whoever was my beloved at the time. I told myself that if I ever wrote a love song, I would refrain from using the word 'love' so as not to fall prey to cliches and pat pronouncements. I did a pretty good job of it, but now is the time to explore the public domain of pop cultural consciousness.

In other words, I think it's alright if I use the word 'love' from now on. I give myself permission to do so, and I hope that I can find a way to do it without succumbing to cheese and schmaltz.

I hope that any readers I still have will enjoy this new year as it unfolds, and if they don't have any comments to leave then that's just nifty. I can finally leave well enough alone and not make unrealistic demands. I know you all have your lives to live... and I have mine.

Take care.

crash

2007-12-17T18:49:00.001-08:00

I got into a car accident this morning as I was coming home from work.

This is the biggest accident I've ever been a part of: I was at fault, being groggy from the graveyard shift; I failed to stop and rear-ended a man and his teenage duaghter in their Mazda in front of her school. The airbags deployed, and the damage was considerable (my front bumper is caved in and his back bumper and trunk are sizably dented) but no one was hurt and we were both insured.

It happens all the time in L.A., right? But you know me-- I feel stupid for losing control and not being on the ball.

It also made me think about how much I have to live for now, and although it wasn't a life-threatening situation the sheer violence of the impact adrenalized me and had me in fear. It was terrifying. The man's daughter was hysterical. Fortunately, he was good-natured about it and I went out of my way to get all the proper info and offer my apologies for my blunder. But I couldn't stop thinking about my wife. I wanted to be with her at that moment. I needed her to comfort me.

When I got home, she was there waiting for me and I told her about my ordeal. She held me and reassured me that it was going to be alright, and she was glad I wasn't hurt, and since we were insured it would turn out fine, even in light of the inconvenience that will definitely arise from the whole insurance process.

I needed to get it out of my system, so here I am-- blogging for the first time in over a month. I haven't been tending to it because I've been so busy, and to be honest I am too exhausted to really give it my all so I will keep it brief. But I needed to get it out of me, and writing has always proven to be therapeutic for me so there you have it.

Have a Happy Holiday. When you are with your respective families and friends, remember how precious this life is, how it can all go up in smoke in the blink of an eye. Give thanks that you have a warm place to go and people to see and a computer to read this on in the dead of winter.

See ya next year,

J Drawz

sweet jane

2007-10-28T05:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know...

No, I don't have Writer's Block in the classic sense-- I'm not frustrated as I sit at this desk, furrowing my brow trying to drum up some verbiage for what few readers I have left. But if you define Writer's Block as being any event or situation or activity that takes up the time you would normally spend on writing, then yes-- I'm blocked up in a mighty way.

I've been busy furnishing a nest for me and my wife. It's a temporary domicile, to be sure-- basically, she's moving in with me and my current place was never more than a rest stop until either I saved up enough cash or the prices on rentals dropped. But now that I am married, who knows-- maybe my wife and I can scoop up some poor bastard's foreclosure and get ourselves a real home, complete with a mortgage and neighbors and a front lawn and a garage and property tax and the whole nine.

All we'd have to do after that is have some kids, and then that's it: we officially become old.

Knowing this, she and I agree that we need to spend a lot of time being a couple before we decide to have kids. We should enjoy being married for a while, because once we have kids it's close to two decades (at the least!) before we get that much alone time ever again.

Besides, talking about kids is getting way ahead of ourselves. Shit, we still haven't finished making the announcement!

*/*

And speaking of making the announcement...

My wife has an older sister-- 14 years older, in fact. They had different fathers but share the same mother. Since I am a full ten years my wife's senior, it now makes sense to me how she shares so many of my interests such as music groups and movies: she followed in her big sister's footsteps, influenced by her tastes and shaped by her mentality. My wife is her own person nonetheless, but her sister (whom I will name "Jane" here in this blog) had an enormous impact on my wife, to say the least.

Jane and my wife had a typical sister relationship when they were growing up, filled with your average rivalries and various ups and downs. Jane was something of a wild child, and my wife followed in her wake. However, because of the age difference and the different father figures raising each girl, it's safe to say that there were marked contrasts in their respective upbringings.

Being the youngest, my wife was a tad more spoiled than Jane. Owing also to this was their mother's accumulated maternal experience: when Jane was born, their mother was learning the ropes; when my wife was born, their mother had some background on what to do and what not to do, tempered by the wisdom that such undertakings bequeaths upon a woman who desires to decently rear a child.

In short, Jane and my wife were treated differently, even though each was equally loved by their mother.

When Jane grew up and moved out and got married and settled down with kids, she underwent a transformation. In addition to giving up on her hard-living ways and partying ethic, she began to feel pangs of guilt about what kind of role model she was to her baby sister. This is a normal phenomenon for older siblings to undergo-- my older brother, for example, often felt that he had failed me as an example to follow; it wasn't until we talked one day that I informed him that he was, in reality, the best example I could have had, despite (or lieu of) his own adolescent indulgences.

My wife and her older sister hadn't spoken to each other much in recent years, so it was definitely an issue for her to consider when it came time to tell her family what we had gone and done in Las Vegas.

The last time my wife saw her sister was when she flew out to visit my wife only a year after she'd moved to Los Angeles. Jane got off the plane, drove over to my wife's apartment, and stayed for less than three hours before they had gotten into such a row that Jane packed her bags and got on the next plane back to Indianapolis, which is where she moved when she left her home in D.C.

*/*

My wife managed to talk Jane into flying out here again without letting the cat out of the bag. Out of a misplaced semi-maternal guilt, Jane agreed to come out and see if her little sis was doing OK or if the big bad world of L.A. was eating her up alive.

As older siblings are wont to do, Jane expected to see her sister living in abject poverty, in need of guidance and way in over her head.

Meanwhile, the plan was as follows: I was to pick Jane up from LAX and bring her back to the apartment so that I could get a chance to meet her. As far as Jane knew, I was just the boyfriend-- I was not to let on that we had gotten married at all. My wife reasoned that she wanted Jane to get to know me as a person first.

As fucked up as it sounds, I had to agree with my wife: just springing the news on your family can be a horrible mistake if there are hard feelings or past grievances still being harbored. In my case, my family handled the news just fine because they were convinced that I would never marry and yet they held out hope for some sort of "miracle" to occur; it goes without saying that their prayers were answered.

Anyway, after the visit was over, when Jane was safely back at home in Indiana, my wife was going to tell her the truth... this was the part of her plan that I was skeptical about, but I understood her logic. My wife, unlike me, is not one for confrontations. She hates them, and would feel safer if she could have as much distance as possible between Jane and her, so as not to get too upset when the inevitable blow-out happened.

I drove my wife's car and parked in a spot near Jane's arriving terminal. My wife called and described Jane to me. I figured she would look something like my wife, but to my surprise Jane looked nothing like her sister: dark brown hair instead of my wife's lighter shade (my wife dyes it red so I am referring to the root color), tall and leggy, attractive but in a totally separate category than my wife's attractiveness. It was clear that, in her prime, Jane was a heartbreaker.

I met her, helped her with her bags, and drove her out to meet up with her sister. I talked with Jane along the way and found her to be engaging, smart, and witty. When we spoke of her sister there was an apparent love and care, but also present in her tone was that annoying and patronizing manner in which most older siblings refer to their younger charges, as if they and only they knew what their younger brothers or sisters were truly like and that if only they would follow the advice of Big Bro or Big Sis (because they're older, and therefore they know better, right?) then their lives would be stable and fulfilling.

I could immediately see why my wife had to do it this way, and yet I could also see Jane's point of view. I'd only known my wife for less than six months by that time but already I surmised that she could be stubborn, spiteful, hypersensitive and judgmental (just like me-- no wonder we got married!) and that it didn't mesh well with Jane's in-your-face sensibilities.

Jane was only in town for four days, from Thursday to Sunday. By Saturday night, she would find out about us prematurely.

*/*

Jane didn't flip out at first. When my wife ended up spilling the beans during an excursion to the beach to bury my wife's roommate Mitch's belated chinchilla (aptly named Mr. Chin) it was because she knew she could no longer continue the ruse and felt that Jane should know the truth about us.

Without a doubt, Jane was surprised. Shocked? I don't know, I wasn't there. All I know is that while I was working on my web comic strip at home, I got a call from my wife. I picked it up, and my wife explained to me that she told Jane about us.

"You did? How'd she take it?"

"She wants to talk to you," she said, smiling as she talked.

Jane got on the line. The three of them had been drinking, and I could tell by Jane's delivery that she was (at the very least) somewhat tipsy.

"Hey, you. What's the big deal, marrying my baby sister without getting my permission first?"

I laughed nervously. "So she told you, eh?"

"Yeah. You lied to me. Both of you did."

"She asked me to, and I do whatever she asks me to do. I didn't agree with it, but I respected her reasoning, and she's my wife so..."

"I've got a mind to knock you flat on your ass, you know." I could tell that she was half-serious, half-joking, and 100% inebriated.

"And I wouldn't blame you. I will gladly accept whatever treatment you see fit." I meant what I'd said to her-- as much as I wanted Jane to give us her blessing, she had every right to be upset.

"I'm serious," she said. "I'm still in shock. This is no way to spring it on me."

"I know, Jane. But your sister felt that it would be worse if she told you first thing off the plane. That's why she sent me by myself to pick you up. She wanted you to get to know me as a person first." I didn't mention that my wife's original plan was to wait until Jane had made it back to Indiana.

"Look, it's not that I don't like you. I do, James. I think you're a nice guy. So far throughout this trip you've been nothing but great, both to me and my sister. But this has nothing to do with you. It's a family thing. I hope you know that."

"I do. I honestly do. I am not offended in the least."

"Good. But I'm still in shock. I don't know whether to be happy or pissed."

After a few more exchanges similar to those last lines, my wife got back on the phone and asked me to meet the three of them at Barney's Beanery later on in the evening for drinks and dinner. I agreed, and hung up the phone.

I finished my web comic work and jumped in the shower. After that, as I got dressed to meet them, I wondered what the night would evolve into, because I knew even though the cat was out of the bag there was still the rest of the evening to go.

Next Week: The Second Part

wheels go 'round and 'round

2007-10-09T06:35:00.000-07:00

Today is John Lennon's 67th birthday.

Yes, he's dead... but it's still his birthday.

Here's a You Tube clip of the song "Watching The Wheels", with home videos of the man with his wife Yoko spliced against what has to be one of the loveliest Lennon compositions he ever recorded.

You'll probably hear 5 million plays of "Imagine" today, so I figured I'd do one of the lesser requested ones. "Watching The Wheels" has its share of fans, to be sure, but when you think of how many solo hits Lennon had (plus all the stuff he did with that one group... you know, the one that starts with B) it all tends to get lost in the shuffle.

Personally, my all-time favorite from John's solo output is "#9 Dream" because it is so weird and mystical and surreal and happens to be one of the few pop songs with the word "dream" in the title that actually does sound like a dream. But "Wheels" has gotten me lately because... well, because I relate to the lyrics more now than I did when I was younger.

Settling down and getting married has done more than just mellow me out: it has practically caused me to change my outlook on life. There's a lot in my outlook that doesn't need changing, however, so I guess I am really just accepting the things I need to accept and discarding the things that I never needed.

I'm modifying my behavior rather than mellowing. I say that because I am still a crazy loon with the mind of a dirty old man and the heart of a reckless child. But I'm also more focused.

The blog has suffered, but my writing continues... this time in private, the way it used to be when I was a teenager scribbling into personal notebooks that no one ever read unless I allowed them the privilege. The novel is coming along slowly but surely. My patience for it is larger and wider, thanks to my wife's inspiration and input.

The music always bodes well. It has evened out for me-- staying with one (and only one) band makes it easier for me to do what needs to be done, and also makes it more enjoyable. I still collaborate here and there but not with the urgent desperation of other endeavors. And in a few weeks I might be ready to start setting up for my third solo acoustic set this year, which is exciting and fun for me.

My forays into graphic art are limited to the "Studio Reader Stan" web comic, but that's just fine. I am creating an animated version of the strip, so I cannot complain about anything.

Certainly, this has been a most productive and radically transitional season for me. It has also been a relatively sober period in my life, similar to my teen years when I was straight-edge and didn't need drugs to make me weird and creative. I won't lie, however: I do them when they're around... but the cool thing is that they really aren't around that much anymore. I can't remember the last time I smoked pot, and saving money to get a new place for me and the wife has all but eliminated cocaine from my everyday existence.

The Mrs. and I did take mushrooms a while back, when we went camping with my family up in Carpenteria. That was a fine weekend, because our trip was pleasant (big caps on the shrooms = less visuals, more of a body high) and we drank it in tea instead of eating the foul-tasting fungi.

I wouldn't count that as a drug experience, though. It was too nice and gentle to be considered a "trip". It was more like a vacation that turned inward for the both of us. We laughed our asses off and made love in our tent to the sounds of waves lapping against the shore.

I have many stories to tell, but for the time being they have to go into the novel. I will keep blogging but right now I need to get this book done, and I'm on a roll. I just wanted to check in and let you all know I haven't fallen off the face of the planet.

Or, to paraphrase the birthday boy, I wanted to let you all know that I'm doing fine watching shadows on the wall.

PEACE

husband and wife

2007-09-21T03:22:00.000-07:00

The last night of the month of August: a humid heat in the triple digits that trickled into the night and gave no quarter or shelter or relief. The night was supposed to be airy and cool but that was not the case as I played a show with my band and watched from the intensely-lit stage as my girl sat and sipped her drink and waited for me to be done.

She waited because she knew what was going to happen after the show. She knew the journey we were about to embark upon and she was as excited as I was, maybe even more so. But I was dealing with suppressed emotions that had no outlet.

The show went over well, and when it was done she and I made our escape amid suspicious eyes and furrowed brows. Some of them knew instinctively what we had planned to do, even if we had not been explicit about it.

It wasn't until she and I were at my place, almost ready to hit the desert road out to Las Vegas, that I finally broke down and cried as I held her, explaining that these were not doubts that I was feeling, but rather the overwhelming joy of finally having found the one person I seemed to have been waiting all of my life to meet, through the darkness and the pain and the elation and joy of my entire existence... it was impossible to believe that there standing before me was the woman I was going to spend the rest of my days loving, but I had no choice but to accept that fact, even as my wounded self-esteem resisted the happiness that caused tears to well up in my eyes and my voice to tremble under the weight of this decision.

She patted my hair and told me that if I didn't want to go through with it she would be OK, but I insisted that it wasn't a big deal-- it was just me resorting to an old coping mechanism, the involuntary impulse to hide my emotions until they cannot be held any longer and then deluge from me like a levee breaking open and flooding my heart.

By the time we were an hour outside of Los Angeles, my mood was considerably improved. I held her hand as we drove our machine over clean asphalt laser beams.

*/*

Before the sunrise, we entered the garish Nevada city of lights, the unofficial capital of casino towns. With no sun to greet us, we stopped to get a bite to eat at an IHOP (Denny's was open but they were re-stocking and told us it would take 20 minutes before we could order).

The waiter told us that the chapels didn't operate under 24 hour schedules anymore, mainly due to the Las Vegas courthouse's new hours. Since the courthouse now closed earlier, there was no need for the chapels to work around the clock. We would have to wait until 8am if we wanted to do anything, he told me.

So we hit the Strip and smoked our cigarettes with style and flung them out of the windows almost simultaneously... which attracted the attention of a state trooper car that I had not seen following me. He pulled us over and walked over to my side of the car.

"Good morning."

I tired to smile. "Good morning, officer."

"Driver's license?"

"Yes." I pulled my license out of my wallet and let the wallet fall down between the seat and the center console, fearing that he would somehow come across the small amount of cocaine I had stashed in between my ATM cards.

He looked at my license, then said, "I pulled you over for littering."

"Yes, I know."

His nostrils flared, having smelled something coming from the car.

"Where are you coming from?"

"Los Angeles."

"Have you had anything to drink while you've been driving?"

"No sir."

"Please step out of the car."

After some questions, it became clear that the two cops thought that I was drunk, because of the strong smell of an open container of rum that my girl was carrying. The first cop was talking to me, trying to determine if I was tipsy, while the second cop walked over to my girl and grilled her on her bottle.

"Ma'am, we smell alcohol coming from the vehicle. Has he been drinking?"

"No sir, I have." She smiled, her red heart-shaped Lolita sunglasses framing her girlish cheekbones.

"What are you guys doing up so early?"

"We drove from L.A. all night. We're getting married."

"Married, eh?" The second cop smiled. "Well, congratulations!"

"Thank you."

"So, is he the love of your life?"

"Yes he is, sir!"

"Nice."

Meanwhile, I was talking to the first cop about our business at such an ungodly hour of the day.

"We're here to get hitched, then turn right around and head home. We didn't even reserve a room."

"All the chapels are going the other way. Why were you driving north on the Strip?"

"The IHOP waiter said there might be another chapel in the north part of town, near Russell."

"I'm not sure if there is one... let me ask my partner."

Just at that moment, the second cop walked up to us.

"Man, how much did she have to drink?" He laughed.

"Yeah, she puts 'em away alright." Then I proceeded to lie for no reason. "It's her car, so she was driving up until we hit Prima Donna, then she had a drink and I decided to take over."

"And you had nothing at all?"

"Correct. I'm allergic to alcohol anyway."

"Well, I can tell you haven't been drinking. After I asked you to exit the vehicle I was sniffing around to see if it was on your breath, but you're checking out fine. Sorry to inconvenience you and your girl."

"No problem, officer. You're just doing your job."

"Hey, is there a chapel up near Russell?" The first cop asked his partner.

"I think there is... but it's the only one around those parts. The majority of them are near Old Town, Fremont Street."

"You think the one near Russell is open right now?" I asked.

"Maybe. They don't really do that 24 hour thing anymore, but you can try it out."

"Why not? We got a lot of time to kill," I said, smiling.

The cops didn't ticket us, and as we drove away the cruiser followed us up the Strip. At one point I became disoriented and ran a red arrow light (not a red stop light) and then I hit the brake while in the middle of the right turn intersection.

Assuming that they were going to give us more trouble, I winced visibly. My girl was laughing at the whole absurd incident as it played itself out in front of her.

We both heard the troopers over their loudspeaker: "Make a left!"

All the other cars in traffic, stopped at the lights in back of us, were befuddled and confused.

By the time the troopers passed us and I gathered my bearings again, she and I were laughing at our luck. We both spoke aloud about how this must be a sign that our marriage was meant to be.

*/*

As the time was nearing, she and I stopped at a chapel and asked a woman who was tending to the plants when they would be open for business. She asked us if we had gotten our marriage license yet. I pleaded ignorance, and she promptly gave us directions to where the courthouse was located. She also warned us to stay away from one particular chapel with a shady reputation.

We drove to the courthouse and waited outside along with at least five other couples who were in a rush to get their nuptials taken care of as early as possible. My girl and I smoked more cigarettes, and kissed and held hands and giggled with excitement.

The moment was almost upon us.

As we waited, a man handed out flyers advertising the notorious chapel that we had been warned about prior to our courthouse visit. Prices on their wedding ceremonies had been marked down drastically. I folded the flyer and slipped it into my back pocket.

Five minutes before 8, the African-American courthouse security guard came out front. He turned to all of us and made an announcement:

"Sorry folks, the courthouse ain't giving out licenses today. Building's closed for the Labor Day weekend."

Our collective jaws dropped as we heard the news. I was about to say something when the guard suddenly reversed himself.

"Psyche!" He began to laugh, as did everyone else, along with relieved sighs. The guard then proceeded to poke fun at the man standing nearest to him.

"Damn, man, you shoulda seen the look on your face..."

My girl, laughing riotously, commented that it was a good thing he was kidding, otherwise he'd have to run away or else face the wrath of half a dozen unhappy couples, to which he replied:

"Hey, I'm black. Ain't none of y'all catchin' a brother. In fact, I saw an episode of COPS the other night where this cat straight up eluded the police, the dogs, even the infra-red. No shit. That motherfucker was home so fast he was able to check his ass out on TV the same night! He was probably sitting there, eating dinner, sayin' 'Look, mama, that's me. And there I go...'"

Needless to say, the ice was broken, Within fifteen minutes of entering the courthouse, we had our marriage license in hand. Now all we needed was a chapel.

*/*

She and I starting walking down the street, unsure of which chapel to go to, when suddenly a limousine pulled up beside us and a Hispanic man stepped out from behind the driver's seat.

His name was Ernesto and he had a tattoo tear on his face. He asked us if we had just gotten our license. I tried to ignore him because I thought he was affiliated with the man who was handing out flyers for the shady chapel.

"Naw, man. This one's different. Here, check it out."

He opened up a brochure. The cheapest deal offered a drive-through ceremony, including pictures and free rides to and from the chapel, for an unbeatably low price.

"Sorry, man," I said, "but she don't want a drive-through wedding."

"Okay, I'll waive that. You'll get everything else though. The ride is free. I'll take you right now, and drop you right back here where I found you. And you don't gotta tip me or anyone except the pastor. For real."

"Whatta you say, babe?" I asked my soon-to-be wife.

"If you wanna do it, then let's do it."

"Okay, man, take us there."

The limo ride took only a few minutes. We arrived at the chapel and walked inside, where an elderly woman greeted us and began processing our nuptials, but not without first scolding Ernesto for poaching us from off the street.

"I thought you were just going to the store," she intoned. Ernesto said nothing as he walked into the back room.

She turned to us and introduced herself as Louise. She processed our fees and had us fill out forms and watched as we signed them, then she signed a few herself; she proceeded to inform us that the pastor and the photographer were running late, seeing as we were her first customers of the day.

My girl went into the restroom to prep herself for the final step we were about to take. I made small talk with Louise, regaling her with the story of our trip to Las Vegas and all the crazy happenings that went on since we blew into town. I also asked her about the shady chapel down the street, the one we'd been warned about; she made no bones about that chapel's bizarre operational policies and unkempt health conditions, adding that she knew the proprietor of that chapel and therefore knew the level of corruption and greed that was possible.

When my girl returned from the restroom, Louise asked us if we had any wedding bands.

"No, we didn't buy a ring yet," my girl replied.

"No rings? What about flowers?"

I turned to my girl and asked, "Do you want flowers, babe?"

"It's not necessary," she said.

Louise then picked out a white rose and gave it to my girl. "Here, it's on the house," she said.

Half an hour passed, and our pastor arrived. She was a good-looking young blonde with a spray-on tan and immaculate teeth, the kind of girl I might've leered at once upon a time. She escorted us into the large room and began to conduct the service from the altar.

She asked me and my girl to face each other as we repeated the vows. I was choked up with emotion once again, just like the night before in my room, only this time I was able to keep the tears from streaming down my face as I promised to honor, love, cherish and obey my girl until the day I die.

Never have there been words so potent and strong as those vows. As many times as I have heard them in my life, and as many times as I have ridiculed them or spoofed them or satirized them, I could not help but suddenly understand their power and impact as I stared into the ebony wonder of my girl's eyes and swore to her with all my heart that my aim was true and that she was mine forever and that I was hers forever... and I meant it.

I meant every word, and she did too.

We kissed, and then the photographer finally showed up and posed us this way and that, and a nervous energy flushed through my bloodstream as I realized what I had just done.

It was the one thing I had always sworn I would never do, and yet there I was, married on a bleary Vegas morning after a sleepless night spent driving through the desert.

*/*

I held her hand almost the entire way as we drove back to Los Angeles.

Towards the end of the trip she fell asleep, still wearing the white dress she donned for her special day.

I was still in shock, in utter disbelief. The entire drive was unreal. I was at peace, at one with my soul, with my heart, with my mind.

Nothing seemed impossible anymore. Everything in my line of vision appeared bright and new and shiny. There were no more questions, only answers to queries I had long pondered.

I wondered how much our lives were going to change after the honeymoon was over and reality set in... and then it dawned on me that this was reality, and that it wasn't going to set in because it was already settled. The moment we made up our minds to be husband and wife, it was settled. Like the dust on the interstate after our machine zoomed over the surface of hot Nevadan blacktop, it was settled. Like my stomach after an arrow of an evening spent careening toward Sin City and ending at a breakfast franchise over some eggs and coffee, it was settled.

There was nothing else to say.

She and I got married on September 1st, 2007 at approximately 9am.

That day was the beginning of the rest of our lives, and I will never ever forget it for as long as we both exist.

something to write about

2007-09-10T00:57:00.000-07:00

This past year has seen a significant drop-off in my blogging regularity. It was intentional, by all means, but also there was a personal dissatisfaction with the whole blogging process. Bloggers are mostly viewed in the court of public opinion as either savvy online go-getters or lifeless losers who pine to be published writers but lack the necessary skills to get their foot in the literary door.

While I probably would be viewed in the latter category rather than the former, I have never had a problem with being seen by the public at large as some sort of weird loner ranting against a seemingly unfair societal system. In fact, I tend to encourage that perspective because it's not that far off from the truth.

I think the main reason why I reduced the amount of time and energy spent blogging, however, is simply because I ran out of interesting things to say on a consistent basis. Whereas before I could blog endlessly and rapidly about any topic at length, I found myself at the beginning of last summer scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to finding things to write about, and it was showing: people who used to frequent my blog lost interest; I was repeating myself in numerous ways; and the tone of my writing became hard, sullen, angry without the benefit of any genuine humor to sweeten the bitterness.

In short, I was in a bad place during a bad time, and it was reflected in my blog.

Much has changed since last year, and even more has changed in the past two or three weeks since I last posted an entry here. I know I've spoken of serious life changes in this blog many times before, but this time I am pretty sure that what I've got to say to anyone reading this will qualify, without a doubt, as a truly major step in not only my writing but in my life in general.

I've been writing about My Girl for the past six or seven months, and it has been a pleasure to do so... but she is no longer My Girl.

No, instead she has become My Wife.

*/*

It began innocently enough with a comment I made to My Girl sometime after her bicycle accident.

"I'm just gonna start calling you my wife from now on," I said to her as I smoked a cigarette while lying on her bed. "I'll introduce you as my spouse to anyone and everyone."

I can't say for sure if I was serious or joking. All I know is that I meant it when I said it, even though it was delivered with my trademark flippancy. Whatever the case, I threw it out there for her to devour. She didn't seem to mind my resolution.

Two days passed. We saw each other during those days-- sometimes at the coffee shop where she works part-time, sometimes at her townhouse in Hollywood, sometimes at my place in Reseda. It's a given, because ever since the start of this summer she and I have been virtually inseparable, making sure to hang out for at least a few hours each day. Even when we were not dating and still platonic friends, we were spending the vast majority of our time together.

Then, two days after I announced that I was going to refer to her as my wife from now on, the subject came up again while we were bedded down in her room.

"You know, if you asked me to marry you, I'd probably say 'yes', and I would mean it," she said to me.

"Really?" I was a little taken aback, only because for the first time in my life I was not trembling with fear and dread at the prospects of marital bliss with a girl I was dating... and what's more, I felt excited and exhilarated by her bold admission.

"I've been thinking about it since you brought it up the other day," she said, "but I didn't want to say anything because I was afraid you would say that you were kidding. I've been wanting to tell you how I feel, and I guess now is the time to do it."

"You've been thinking about it for the last two days?"

"Yeah. Seriously."

Oh my God, I thought, she really wants to marry me!

"Well, I would marry you if you wanted to marry me. No bullshit."

I couldn't believe what I was saying to her, and yet I was not scared or pensive. I found that I was actually quite confident that what I was telling her was my true feeling on the matter.

"I want to marry you," she said, her doleful eyes fluttering softly behind her oh-so-cute nerd-glasses perched delicately above her nose. "I want to be the mother of your children. I want to take your last name."

Upon hearing this, I figured I may as well do it right.

"Okay then... Will you marry me?"

"Yes."

"When do you want to do it?"

"Right now!" Her face beamed with energy.

"That would be cool, but you know we can't... you've got work, I've got a million things to do... but I agree that eloping would be the best course of action."

"Yes, let's elope! In Las Vegas! Either this weekend or the next!"

"That's a deal."

She smiled, and we kissed, and then she looked at me with the utmost seriousness and said, "You're not gonna chicken out on this, are you?"

"No, I'm not. Are you?"

"No way."

"Alright. Then it's settled. We'll play it by ear, but by the end of August we will be husband and wife."

A chill ran down my spine. It was not the kind of chill that signals impending catastrophe. This particular chill was like a jolt of electricity coursing through my body and rejuvenating parts of me that I had dismissed as dead.

We kissed. We made love. We slept.

*/*

My Girl and I were married at a chapel in Las Vegas on Saturday, September 1st, 2007.

It was a tough ordeal resisting the urge to inform everyone within earshot of our plan to elope. Obviously I am someone whose life is an open book, and I am very good at broadcasting my intent no matter where I am or what I am doing.

I wasn't 100% successful at keeping it a secret, but I did manage to avoid telling my family and closest friends about it until after it was done. She laughed at me every time a not-so-intimate acquaintance of mine congratulated her on something she had not done yet. She understood that I was bursting at the seams, eager to proclaim to the whole world how much she means to me.

Reactions to the news have been positive. My family was unanimous in their support and were not offended that we eloped. My mother was especially happy, because she has always wished and prayed that I would find the right woman and settle down.

And she is the right woman, by all means. It may seem rushed, considering that we only met about half a year ago, but I have never been so sure of something as I am with my decision to make her My Wife.

Some of my closest friends-- the ones who know me pretty damn well, the ones who have seen me go up and down throughout all of my peculiar phases --wanted to make sure that this wasn't some misguided flight-of-fancy on my part. Once they heard the conviction in my voice or saw the stinging certainty in my eyes, they had nothing but loving sentiments to convey to the both of us.

So much to take in, so much to tell. There isn't enough space in this post to cover it all.

Only now have I felt stable and grounded enough to sit down and write it out for people to ingest. The whole affair has been simultaneously simple and complex, with an extreme array of emotions threatening to spin out of control at any moment. But through it all, I never lost faith in what we set out to do, and I know for a fact that her faith was just as devout (if not more).

In my next post I will tell the story of the actual wedding day, a surreal mini-adventure that (true to form) seems stranger than any fictitious scenario I could ever concoct. And after that, there's the emotionally-charged story of how My Wife's older sister (my new sister-in-law) reacted to the news of our marriage.

Those are just a smidgen-- a mere fraction --of the events and episodes that I have yet to commit to this blog. And let us not forget the stories that have yet to be told because they haven't happened yet-- there'll be plenty of those, for sure.

I guess I finally have something to write about again, something worthy of my time and effort. Not that the past year has been uneventful or bland. On the contrary, I purposely refrained from writing about a whole shitload of things that I went through. I left them out because they did not break any new ground and served no purpose other than to give me a vehicle for my self-pity.

But let me make one thing clear: I did not marry her because I needed material for my blog.

I married her for the only good reason there is: because we love each other.

Now I'd like to share it with all of you.

deep love

2007-08-22T01:18:00.000-07:00

My girl and I have a lot in common.

We both like the same musicians/bands: Beastie Boys, Dead Kennedys, Prince, Guns 'N' Roses, Cypress Hill, David Bowie, Pearl Jam, X, DEVO, Silversun Pickups, The Clash, etc... There are a few disagreements here and there (she loathes Phish, for example, while I find them to be splendid) but they are as I said: few, and far between as well.

We both share the same absurd outlook on life, only she tends to shy away from the label 'absurd'. We also have closet romantic tendencies lurking beneath our cool, steely exteriors. We both have demented senses of humor and enjoy nonsense for nonsense's sake.

We both think that life is beautiful despite the pain and tragedy that befalls everyone. We both see the value of all things great and small, choosing not to merely glance at The Big Picture but instead to stare wildly away at its expansive panoramic vastness.

We both believe in God, even if we aren't textbook Christians in any sense.

And lastly, we both have experienced deep love with someone from our past, and we are both striving to get out from under the shadows those loves cast.

*/*

One of our first nights together was in March of this year, when I invited her back to my apartment in Burbank to watch a movie and eat popcorn. I had no idea what to expect, because as much as I wanted to seduce her in my own idiosyncratic fashion, I also was aware that I was putting too much emphasis on having this evening actually go somewhere for a change.

What I mean is: Instead of just trying to get into her pants, I wanted to get to know her as a person. Too many times I switched gears from 0 to 60 in less than 2 seconds, and even if I got what I thought I wanted I still didn't realize, until much later on, that I had actually short-changed myself.

For you see, if a man is only intent on scoring some action, it doesn't matter if he gets it or not: he loses in the end, because life is full of variables that mix-and-match to complement the outcome of any given event. So, if a man tries to score and succeeds, he may end up never seeing her again after that, which could be a relief if she is horrid-- but then again, what good is scoring with a horrid girl anyway? If it is not a relief to see her fade away into the night, never to return, then he ends up feeling cheated, as if a taste of honey was worse than none at all (to quote from Smokey Robinson).

If he does see her again, is he any more relieved than if he had not seen her again? Hard to say, for maybe that man will end up somewhere down the line not wanting to see her again despite her insistence that they continue seeing each other. If it is not a relief to see her again, then the whole episode was merely an exercise is animal carnality.

In other words, if the man started off from the get-go trying to court the girl instead of fucking her brains out, then by the time the nookie enters the picture he ends up winning.

When March 2007 rolled around, I was tired of losing. So when she showed up at my door at 11 PM on a Friday night, I decided to take the long-term investment and court her instead.

*/*

It wasn't easy.

She told me she was going to change into her pajama bottoms as I placed the DVD into the tray and gently pushed it closed.

This aroused me to no end.

As she walked into the bathroom to slip into something a little more comfortable, I held an informal debate with my good and bad sides, muttering under my breath so as not to give off the impression that I was insane.

"That's the green light, buddy," my bad side said. "Do her! She's asking for it!"

"Now let's be reasonable," my good side said. "Perhaps she feels safe around you, and doesn't fear that you will make any advances upon her. If you cross the line, so to speak, the whole enterprise will be placed in peril."

"Dude, if she feels safe around you, that's bad! You'll end up in the Friend Zone... unless you do something real bad-ass to show her that you've still got a libido!"

"Yes, but you could also end up in the Creep Section, which is worse than the Friend Zone."

"Hey, Good Side... whose side are you on anyway? The boy wants to get laid, for Pete's sake!"

"Funny, I thought he was trying to do things differently. I guess all that talk about getting to know her and having something meaningful for a change was just a lot of game..."

I finally interrupted their exchange. "Wait a minute! Let me decide what to do, okay?"

They both nodded grudgingly.

When she walked out of the bathroom, she was wearing the same outfit except for now she had on candy-striped pajama bottoms. I handed her a bowl of freshly-cooked popcorn and sat down on the love seat.

"Come on over here," I said, motioning to her.

*/*

We talked through the entire movie (Waking Life, I believe it was) not because it was bad but because it sparked much philosophical discussion between us. These discussions lasted well past the ending of the movie, and by the time we we talking about dating life as opposed to waking life it was almost dawn and the DVD menu page was looping over and over due to my unwillingness to interrupt the conversation just to turn the damn DVD player off.

She told me about the love of her life, a boy who was seven years her senior. Back in D.C. he was a local legend: a sponsored skateboarder, an accomplished drummer in a punk rock band, a huge part animal who broke the rules and got away with murder, a military brat who traveled the world and lived in the Middle East for much of his upbringing...

"I will never have a love like that ever again," she said, as she dragged on her cigarette.

"How can you say that?" I asked.

"He was my true love."

Before I could say something cynical to kill the mood, she continued.

"But that doesn't mean I can't have another love that is deeper or greater than that with someone else. I just won't have what I had with him with anyone else, ever again."

This was interesting to me. "I know what you mean," I said. I then told her all about Eve: the two-year-long high school romance, the years spent apart, the reconciliation and troubles that finally broke us apart... I told her how Eve had cut me off and wouldn't take my calls, wouldn't write me back, wouldn't even acknowledge that I was alive...

"That's what I had to do in my case," she said to me. "I had to totally cut him off from my life. And it sucks. I know that. But not a day goes by when I don't think about him. I miss him so much, and I want to call him but I know it's never going to be right. It's just torture if I give in and call him. So even though I am miserable, I have to stand my ground and not fall back into it. The hardest thing in the world is to start again, and I know because I've been there."

"So what you're saying is that you cut him off because it was necessary?"

"Yes. And that's what your ex is doing to you. From what you just told me about her, she probably cares so much about you, and yet it hurts her to be with you. That's exactly what I am feeling in my own life right now. I bet you that she'd love to just take you back and pretend that nothing is wrong, but she probably feels like she has to move on and that there's no way that you two can be together right now. She's not doing it to hurt you-- she's doing it to save herself."

Suddenly, I understood everything that was happening between Eve and I, and I also became very ashamed of my behavior towards her. I was mean and cruel to Eve because I felt like she had hurt me. I called her names, insinuated horrible things about her character, and left her incessant messages demanding that she give me at least one chance to speak my mind.

"Wow, I never thought about it that way. I've been so selfish, not thinking about how much this whole thing has affected her. I'm a scumbag."

"Well, you probably have every right to be upset at her too. Don't forget to own your anger. It's okay to be mad at her for what you feel she did to you, but just remember that it might not be as easy for her as you think. I know my ex is mad as hell and obsessed with me-- hell, he moved from D.C. out here just to be near me, even after I told him it was over. I didn't ask him to do that. I don't blame him for wanting me back, but it just can't work. I can't put up with the drinking, the cheating, the jealousy... it wore me down. This is the way it has to be. And you know what? The last three relationships I had were ruined because I couldn't stop talking about him to my new boyfriends. They got sick of hearing me bring him up. That's how bad it is for me."

I thought of how Eve would tell me about Dick, her ex, and how he hated my guts-- not because of anything I did to him, but because she incessantly brought me up to him when they were together. I also thought of how Eve would bring him up to me, as if to test my patience concerning him.

I also thought of how I often did that to girlfriends, exhuming the ghosts of my romantic past and unwittingly driving them crazy.

And then I felt good. I was glad that she had told me about her true love, and I was glad that she helped me to understand my own situation with what could be considered my own true love.

"Thank you, " I said. "Your story has helped me to finally get it through my head."

I hugged her. She hugged me back.

Both my good and bad sides were equally perplexed.

*/*

Like I said, my girl and I have a lot in common.

Since we met on the last day of February 2007, she and I have taken a long, slow but steady journey into each other's lives, minds and hearts. The courtship ended up being worth every minute of my time, and now she and I have found a love that neither of us has ever experienced before with anyone else.

Just as I will never stop loving Eve, so will she never forget the impact her own version of Eve had on her.

But that does not mean that we are lost, or that we are ruined for others.

No, what it means is that now that we have undergone a deep love affair that failed with someone else, we both have the wisdom and the strength to try it again with someone new.

Not everyone gets that second chance, that rare opportunity to get it right, the way it should've been done the first time.

We've paid our dues. It's time for the both of us to collect on our investments.

love is pain

2007-08-14T02:50:00.000-07:00

"Have you ever wanted to join the circus? Now's your chance. The Midnight Ridazz Circus is back in town. Los Angeles' monthly traveling group of clowns will be taking over the streets and showing the city how to have some fun..."

Or so the website promised.

My girl works at a coffee shop in Hollywood where hipsters like Leonard Cohen have been known to stop and get a cup of joe, and among the various regulars that inhabit the shop are people who invite her to participate in activities such as the above-mentioned urban sojourn.

On paper or in theory, these events sound cool. Really cool. However, being the jaded Angeleno that I am, my feelings about such endeavors is as follows:

1) I very rarely get in on the ground floor of anything worth doing early on, and therefore by the time I've heard of things like the midnight bicycle rides they have already reached a critical mass or some sort of peak; in other words, I'm always a tourist or a Johnny-Come-Lately. It's the main reason why I never got around to going to Burning Man: it was just too late for me to get on board that bandwagon.

2) As the word gets around and the buzz grows, these types of events take on a weight of their own. I fear the collective unconscious of the mob in any incarnation, whether it be a rock concert or a Nuremberg rally or a midnight bike run totaling over 1,000 riders... especially in Los Angeles, the birthplace of Road Rage.

In short, I didn't think it was a good idea to ride bicycles at night while dressed up like clowns and pissing off motorists in a city where people live and die by their automobiles.

Don't get me wrong-- it sounded awesome. It probably was awesome the first few times it was accomplished. But it's not a well-kept secret anymore, and the anarchic novelty seemed to have worn off even before I became enamored of it.

But who am I to spoil her fun? She asked me to go, I declined (citing musical obligations and my lack of a working bicycle as reasons) and she went ahead anyway.

I wished her well, told her to drive safe (as I always say to anyone I see driving away from me) and instructed her to call me as soon as she was done or if she decided to change her mind.

*/*

I received a call on my cel phone around a quarter past midnight.

I was busy recording vocals with some friends, and so the phone was turned off. When the session was done, I turned on the phone and heard one of my girl's coffeehouse patrons leaving me a voice message:

"She's OK... she had a nasty fall... very aggressive vibe out here tonight, I think she bit off more than she could chew... we're at the hospital right now... I'll try calling you later and let you know what her status is..."

He didn't leave a callback number. I began to panic. I called around, looking for anyone who might have her friend's phone number. I called her cel phone a few times but no one picked up.

Finally, she answered the phone. She was indeed OK, but she was going to require a few stitches on her chin. When she fell off the bike, she landed face first on the pavement. Her chin was cut wide open, and she had to be forced by her friend to visit the ER at Cedar-Sinai for treatment.

I raced over to the hospital. I was so glad she was alright. But before I left, she said to me over the phone that she hoped this wouldn't ruin our plans for the next day.

It was Friday night, and sometime on Saturday we were supposed to attend my little sister's wedding in Santa Barbara. I was going to introduce my girl to my family for the first time.

*/*

I was late to the ceremony.

I arrived at Butterfly Beach in Montecito just as the vows were finished. I caught the wedding procession as they walked on the sand of the shore.

I saw my niece, the flower girl... she was crying. She is such an emotional little 8 year-old.

I mingled with the guests, most of them close friends and immediate family. I went over to my sister and hugged her and apologized for my lateness. She asked me where my girl was, and I told her (and everyone else repeatedly throughout the evening) the story of her bike accident.

My mother seemed disappointed that my girl was unable to make it. But her disappointment was nothing compared to the complex emotions I was feeling at that moment.

I was angry at my girl for going on the ride and effectively taking herself out of the wedding plans, denying me the chance to show her off to my family.

I was angry at her coffee shop friend for taking her along when she was clearly in over her head-- she didn't even own a bike! The vehicle she crashed on was a loaner, totally not suited to her petite frame.

I was angry at my sister for marrying a man who I disliked, even as I had to grudgingly respect his work ethic and good intentions.

I was just angry, but more than that-- I was confused. And maybe my lateness was an unconscious attempt on my part to somehow gain control over a situation-- no, situations --that went far beyond my grasp.

*/*

The night before I had a strange dream whose meaning was not lost on me.

I dreamed that I was in a church, walking my sister down the aisle... only it wasn't my sister-- it was my girl. And not only that, but I was giving her away, as the father of the bride does in traditional ceremonies.

Who was I giving her away to? Me, of course. I was the groom as well.

I don't think it takes a scholar to interpret the anxious meaning behind that particular dream.

*/*

By the end of the night, I was happy again.

My girl was OK, at home with pain meds in her system; My little sister, whom I helped raise as if she were my own daughter, was ecstatic as the two respective families became one; my mother was happy to see me in attendance, and I had forgotten about the intensity of my irrational emotions earlier in the day.

There are some things in this life that we cannot control, obviously. I have always had a problem relinquishing control of certain things, and this past weekend was the culmination of my deepest fears regarding the important women in my life.

I told my girl about my strange dream, and she found that it wasn't so strange at all.

"I'm your friend, so that's like your sister. And I'm your lover now. Sometimes I'm like your mother, but I'm like a daughter to you also. I can see why you had that dream. It must be hard for you to let go of so much in such a short time."

Here she was, telling me how hard it must be for me... as her wrist was wrapped in a sling and her delicate chin was bandaged and bruised and her body ached from the impact of her dismount.

I hugged her and kissed her head, and whispered, "I'm just glad you weren't seriously hurt. You don't know how badly I freaked out when I got that message. You could've been killed."

"Yeah, but I'm fine now."

"I know... I know..."

I did not let her go. I held her in my arms until we both fell asleep in her bed.

my girl

2007-07-31T19:08:00.000-07:00

Not to sound chauvinistic, but I was ready to go to San Francisco at 7pm on a Friday night while she was hardly packed. But it really wasn't her fault: she had an unexpected visit from a friend of hers.

A tall, skinny guy named Gibby showed up out of the blue, bemoaning his lot in life: the place he'd been staying had been raided, and although his father had recently passed away and left him a sizable inheritance, he had no means to cash his check. He was also trying to kick a bad glass-smoking addiction.

Gibby looked me over jealously. He didn't know she'd been seeing me. I, in turn, sized him up and down and got a decidedly bad vibe from him. There's an old saying: "You can't con a con man." However, I didn't say anything because I knew it would sound as if I were merely jealous instead of aware of this guy's bullshit.

We finally got on the road close to midnight. I had to call Rose, my friend up north, and tell her that we would probably make it into town by the morning. This gave us time to drive at a leisurely pace, stopping every now and then to eat, use the restroom, and gaze at the night stars as we made our journey to the Bay Area, a part of California that my girl had never been to before.

We arrived around El Cerrito by the sunrise. She and I were so excited to be out of Los Angeles that when Rose gave us a bed to rest, we only slept for two hours.

*/*

Over breakfast, she and I were loopy and delirious. Rose was as accommodating as she could be but I could tell she was sort of put-off by my girl's distracted manner of conversation.

As we waited for my girl to finish up in the restroom, Rose (whom I'd had a short-lived crush on when I first met her the previous August) said to me with a brave face, "She's... nice."

"I know she seems a bit odd," I said, "but I really dig her."

"Have you two... you know... have you--"

"No, not yet. And to be honest, I'm in no hurry."

"Wow, I guess you do dig her then!"

"Absolutely."

After breakfast, we all took the BART out to the city. We had lunch near the Embarcadero at a diner named Fog City. Then Rose took us to the COIT Tower by way of The Steps, a long and circuitous stairway with quite a scenic view of the Bay. We marveled at the mural painted along the inside of the tower, and it was while I was taking photographs for posterity that I noticed Rose and my girl were getting along, having a normal conversation based on art and beauty.

We made out way to City Lights, the famed Beat bookstore formerly owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I was astonished that, in all my past visits to SF, I had never paid a visit to this remarkable historical monument: after all, this was the location of the first public reading of Allen Ginsberg's legendary epic poem "Howl".

I looked all over for a book by Alfred Jarry-- not a play or a biography, but a work of fiction, something very rare by my normally obscure standards. Just when I had exhausted all hope of finding one, I spied a column of books in the "Surrealism" section that I had not perused. Sure enough, there within its volumes was a slender tome by Jarry entitled The Supermale, a richly comic science-fantasy concerning Perpetual Motion Food, bicycle racing and alcohol imbibing.

To celebrate, we stopped in at Spec's, a hip bar across the way from City Lights. The atmosphere was downright "writerly": An argument between the barkeep and a patron was the first thing I noticed when we walked in; a man looking like a cross between Guns 'N' Roses guitarist Slash and Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula (top hat and all) sat by himself in the far back, nursing an ungodly concoction; an old bluesman played for tips outside the front of the establishment, hitting every note and making his axe cry with ecstatic tremolo.

I bought the ladies a round and poked my nose into the Jarry book, as Rose and my girl giggled at my boyish enthusiasm for my rather extraordinary find.

Before we ventured back to Rose's place, we stopped off in Chinatown and ate a sumptuous meal. It was a bit on the expensive side, but we were all feeling very decadent and figured that life was too short to squabble over petty monetary restrictions.

*/*

The next morning, my girl and I joined Rose for one last breakfast before we made the trip back to Los Angeles. I dropped her off in time to get to work, then I went home and slept.

The following week was filled with passion and intimacy, fueled on by the success of our SF getaway. Before the end of the week, she and I consummated our love with an evening spent at my flat. We painted on a canvas and smoked and drank and I wrote some of my novel as she washed loads of her laundry for free in my washroom.

Then she spent the night with me, and it was everything I ever hoped and expected.

*/*

Gibby, meanwhile, was trying to weasel his way back into her graces. But she had already caught him in two lies: one, his father had not really passed away; two, his former home had not been raided. By the time she figured these out, however, he absconded off with her Mac laptop computer.

This would not stand, not with me nor her roommate Mitch nor Brotherman, who immediately accompanied Mitch and I as we made a trek to retrieve the laptop from the place he was staying at in the hills of Los Feliz.

We didn't get the laptop back that night, but we put such a scare into the owner of the place that he contacted Gibby and urged him to return the computer to its rightful owner.

Within 24 hours, the laptop was back in her possession.

My girl could not thank the three of us enough. She had learned a hard lesson, but it was something she had to find out for herself. It would have made no difference had Mitch and I voiced our opinions to her, because she would've merely dismissed them as overprotective ramblings from the two most important men in her life.

I have to always remember that she is ten years younger than me, and although she possess much wisdom she is also headstrong and fiercely independent. I have to learn to be patient, and to not judge her or make her feel badly when she uses bad judgment, such as in the case of Gibby.

*/*

Last night, as I held her in my arms and watched A Clockwork Orange on DVD with her in her bed, I told my girl that I loved her and she told me that she loved me too.

We marveled at the short time we've known each other.

It is marvelous because we feel like we have known each other all of our respective lives.

I feel like I have waited for this girl to arrive ever since I was a young boy.

She said to me that I make her feel like a young girl again.

Never in my life have I felt such passion, and yet I also know that she is my best friend, and my partner in crime, and my perfect mate.

She is my girl. I am her man.

We are going to be together for as long as it takes.

I have a feeling it will be something close to forever.

Or am I just being silly?

Whatever. All I know is how she makes me feel, and how I make her feel.

That is all I want to know.

partner in crime

2007-07-20T02:01:00.000-07:00

We're getting out of this city for the weekend.

I proposed San Francisco a few weeks back. She asked me why and I replied, "Just for the fuck of it."

Likewise, when I asked her earlier today if there was anything in particular she wanted to see or do in SF (a city to which she, a D.C. transplant, has never been) her reply was, "Yeah. Get the fuck out of L.A. for a few days."

I nodded in agreement.

*/*

You know that annoying little thing that couples always bring up about how they finish each other's sentences and think each other's thoughts at the same time?

Well, I'm afraid that she and I are a part of that annoying club. I noticed it from the first few multi-hour phone conversations we had after we first really met and chatted. I didn't want to say anything about it at the time, but she ended up bring that fact to the light after the first phone talk anyway.

Her comment on the phenomenon was one of surprise and astonishment. It wasn't a cheesy observation but rather a stark matter of fact. We both acknowledged the weirdness of it all, but we didn't let it dictate our budding friendship.

I love talking to her. One on one, our talks are easy and simple and yet disarmingly ornate. When the two of us start talking with others, though, we tend to get more intense: we laugh too much, or skip tangents too much, or rant too much. We end up scaring people. This makes us smile at each other because we both see it in the other and instead of letting it overwhelm us we decide that it would be better if it exhilarated us.

I can see how this would seem annoying to outsiders. But I don't care. Neither does she. And that settles it.

*/*

The truck I am driving belonged to my father before it ended up in my care. It's great, except the stereo needs to be swapped out. Right now only the radio tuner works. It used to have a working tape player but that is busted.

Music is a big factor for me as a driver. Hell, the only thing that kept me attached to my old car was that, despite its age and condition, the stereo kicked ass. Towards the end, though, the speakers blew and the CD player started to skip my albums more frequently. But it was loud, and I had a choice of what to listen to, so it made up for its drawbacks in spades.

As she and I planned our upcoming trip, she asked if we were taking the truck. When I confirmed it, she stared off into space for a second then said, "I'm bringing my boombox." I nodded in agreement, as I often do in her presence.

She looked at me again and said, "Sorry, I know you're a fabulous conversationalist, but after a while we're gonna need some fresh tunes. No offense."

I grinned. "None taken. It's an excellent idea. I would've done it had you not just pointed it out. You're on top of it, kid."

She smiled. She likes it when I think her ideas are sound. And I like her ideas because most of the time they are sane and sensible.

And the times when her ideas are totally insane and nonsensical? I like those too.

*/*

She was the one who coined the phrase "partner in crime".

Obviously, I don't mean that she was the first ever person in the history of persons to use that terminology. Rather, I mean that (in regards to what it is that we have) she was the first of us to say that designation out loud.

I thought about it often, but she gave voice to it first. And once again, I'm nodding that big ol' head of mine like a worn-out Bobble Head. But that analogy paints a despairing picture, when the reality is that I'm more than happy to go along with what she says. She doesn't boss me around or force it on me. I accept it all because (as she stated a while back) I am finally ready for all of it.

So that's what we are: partners in crime. And sometimes we kiss and snuggle, but mostly we just make each other laugh and seek out adventures.

That's cool with me.

I'm nodding in agreement as I type this.

And that settles it.

how we met (a blurry remembrance)

2007-07-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

The end of February. No leap year this time around-- the 28th would be the final act, not only for the second month but for the club that became a home away from home for me and my band.

Talk about a low point: Eve was gone and her memory lingered everywhere; my desperate attempts to replace her with other women sank like stones in a river; and now the establishment that let us play anytime we wanted was going the way of the do-do bird...

When remembering it, I told her that I was in a drunken haze, surveying the room, and my eyes stopped and focused on her as she sat next to me in a booth. The way she recalls it, the guitarist introduced me to her in a tone of voice that expressed a quiet urgency, as if it were vital that we meet. I don't remember the introduction, but it's just as well because we talked and we talked and we talked and we talked...

And by the time I was having to get up and drive to work, I resolved to obtain her phone number. As I asked her for the number, I told her how much I enjoyed the talk, and apologized if she was already taken by someone else but I just had to speak to her again...

Eve and the club are long gone, but the girl I met that night is still around, and I am still amazed that it happened the way it did. I will never stop marveling at it.

peacock gothic chic

2007-07-16T02:04:00.000-07:00

Grey overcast clouds
gather and form
a billowy sash pillowcase...

Shadows chase the light rays away...

A sleepy Monday buried deep
beneath the L.A. fog..

I'm trying to jog my memory
and recall if I ever felt
this way
about anyone else at all...

Too good to be true?

That's the only label
I can apply to you
since you defy all definitions
and fill me with strange premonitions
of what is meant to happen
and the reasons which madden and
sadden me...

Your style is peacock Gothic chic
chock full of locks with no keys
so low-key and with a
smoky antique vintage technique...

Where in your world is a place
for a poor boy who succumbs
to the whirlpool pearls of
every girl he surveys?

I'm tired of letting myself be
led on and tread upon
so from now on until
the dead of dawn
I won't dwell upon how long
the others have been gone
and I will get on with living
this ladyluck life of mine...

But still
I feel a chill
trilling its tendrils tenderly and
gently up and down my spine...

Is it a thrilling sign?
Or am I just killing time?

I'm diligently hoping
that it will all be fine...

--from April 2007

murphy lawless

2007-07-06T01:19:00.000-07:00

Talk to the majority of working (or practicing) musicians today and 9 times out of 10 you'll hear them voice their opinion on how terrible modern music is, and how "bubble-gum" the content of mainstream Top 40 pop charts can be, and how the LCD (Lowest Common Denominator) prevails over quality and craftmanship in today's music scene.

I sometimes agree with those musicians. But then there are times when I revel in the crass kitsch, the vapid garbage and pap of an LCD culture, where only the catchiest and stupidest hooks are remembered and honored. These songs happen to be my guilty pleasures: a tune like N'Sync's "It's Gonna Be Me" or S Club 7's "Never Had A Dream Come True" are embarrassing and potentially cred-wrecking, but I know and recognize a well-written pop confection when I hear it.

Maybe nowadays such songs are completely lacking in meaning and purpose, but the test of time is the ultimate arbiter of how long their impact will last... which is why I find myself reveling even more in the pop cultural trash of yesteryear.

Tommy James and the Shondells' "Monie Monie" was pop bubblegum crap. So was The Toys' "Lover's Concerto" and half of The Supremes' (and all of Phil Spector's) output. But in my opinion, the greatest of all of these teeny-bopper phenoms was from a band that didn't even exist when their first-- and best known --single was released.

The band was eventually called Steam, and they hit the top of the charts with a little ditty you might recognize as "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye".

*/*

Another thing that musicians will tell you is that the song the band hates the most or views as having the least potential is usually the one that will bring said band its greatest success and longest lasting rewards.

Every band I've been in had that one song that none of us could really stomach. Of course, because of my compassionate nature I often was the only person in a group who'd even give a certain tune a chance, to which the others responded by accusing me of having a crack habit or having no real mental capacity of my own.

The irony of this situation was that no one had a problem with the song when it was first composed and rehearsed. The resentment towards any given song was acquired through repeated performances.

We'd go out on stage and play, and various members of the crowd familiar with our music (calling them fans is grossly inaccurate) would request the very song or songs that we found to be laughable. And if we were in a good mood and feeling adventurous, we'd comply... and the crowd would go nuts every time.

Seriously. I ain't bullshittin'.

*/*

Anyway, back to a band called Steam for a minute:

There was once a group called The Chateaus who were signed for a hot minute to Warner Bros in the early '60s. Their album sunk like a stone and none of their singles made a dent in the Top 100, so they were unceremoniously dropped from the label.

Years passed, and one of the guys from The Chateaus, Paul Leka, made it semi-big while working as a producer for a subsidiary of Mercury Records. As a favor to his old friend Gary De Carlo, The Chateau's old singer, Leka landed DeCarlo a contract with Mercury and soon the two recruited a third holdover from the Chateau days, session musician Dale Frashuer, to work on some singles for DeCarlo, who changed his name to Garrett Scott.

(Personally, I think Gary DeCarlo is a better stage name than Garrett Scott, but then again what did these guys know in the first place? But before I get ahead of myself...)

To make a long story short, after the singles were cut the trio felt they needed some B-side material. They didn't want to create more songs of equal caliber to the A-sides; they didn't want the throwaways competing with the songs they worked hardest on, so they pulled an all-nighter, put some coffee on the burner, and dug up a song from their days as The Chateaus called "Kiss Him Goodbye".

The production was slapdash and lacking in any real artistic intention, the product of considerable neglect: the drum track was lifted from a completely different song on a separate master tape; no other musicians were brought in to freshen up the song other than Paul Leka and Dale Frashuer's musical contributions, Garrett Scott's vocals, and group handclaps/chanting; due to a paucity of lyrics, the now-legendary "na na na na, hey hey, good-bye" was tacked on as an afterthought because they needed the song to be longer; and basically the three men made every conscious effort to make it as "inferior" to the proposed A-side single as possible, going so far as to call themselves Steam in order to distance themselves from their Frankenstein monster/redheaded stepchild of a song... Funny, though, how their names were clearly listed on the songwriting credits-- they weren't that stupid...

The three ex-Chateaus truly felt that the four songs they crafted for Garrett Scott were far superior to "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye". Imagine their shock and chagrin when the A&R guys at Mercury chose it to be the lead single. And also imagine how crazy it must've seemed when the single went to Number One in December of 1969, at the height of the hippie Flower Power movement.

Eventually, Garrett Scott bailed on plans to create a real band named Steam that would tour the world in support of this fluke of a hit record; most likely he was disgusted at the fact that the other four tracks they'd concocted under his stage name didn't even chart. Still, those royalty payments must've made some difference, because he contributed to a full-length Steam album to capitalize on the success of "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye". It was the type of album where every other song has "na na na na hey hey" automatically written into its hook somewhere.

*/*

I read about this story online recently, and it made me laugh to no end. I love stories like this, which is why I was such a sucker for VH1's Behind The Music series. And as much as I am all for artistic integrity, at the same time you have to hand it to the business end of the music industry: while it is true that there is no real formula for repeated hit-making success, the moneymen usually have a great ear for what's going to sell and not necessarily what is great art.

We must learn to forgive the schlockmeisters when they have the gall and hubris to tell the Bob Dylans and Bruce Springsteens and Peter Gabriels of the world how to market and record their records-- these men (and many others like them) need no interference from A&R people to make both their fans happy and their money back at the same time. However, let's not forget that the schlockmeisters also manage to get at least one hit out of it all, and that's plenty enough for some people... especially if your old band failed and you received a second chance to find glory and riches like Paul Leka and company.

After all, as much as I enjoy quality music and artists with great talent and skill, I also enjoy mindless pop songs like "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" because they aren't pretentious in the slightest. When I'm at a sporting event or in a crowd of people, who wants to chant "Like A Rolling Stone"? Hell, how many people other than me even know all the words to that one?

I've got the Steam song on an endless loop on my computer as I write this. I will never tire of it. It's a classic tune, and those three guys from Bridgeport, Connecticut who pulled it out their asses one night in 1969 should be proud of themselves.

Indeed, if I ever got the chance to meet them, I'd love to shake their hands and buy them each a beer.

fondness

2007-07-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

Friday night: She accompanied me to my friend's home studio, where she was inspired by my slap-happy rapping over sinister-sounding hip-hop beats to write a rap of her own. It was a cute and sincere gesture. She ended up on the chorus of the song before the upstairs neighbor complained about the noise, promptly ending the session at 3 AM. She and I ended up at Sitton's in North Hollywood, talking over coffee and breakfast.

Saturday morning: We had plans to visit Griffith Observatory, leftover form the date date two weeks ago. I didn't sleep at all, catching a catnap here and there before making my way out her. We ate Fruity Pebbles cereal, watched Chappelle's Show on DVD, and caught the Metro Rail from Santa Monica & Vermont to Hollywood & Highland where the Observatory Shuttle Depot was located. Once we made the arduous, winding trek up the mountains to the top of the hill where the Observatory resided lazily like a bloated king teetering on his dilapidated throne, we bought tickets for the Planetarium show and smoked our cigarettes with style.

The docent narrating the Planetarium show was unintentionally funny, her radio-savvy voice lacing the properly enunciated program text with not-so-subtle passages of melodramatic overacting. This caused us to laugh mischievously, like disobedient children snickering in church.

But the show was marvelous. We left shortly afterward.

Saturday afternoon: We returned to her house. I napped some more as she draped fabrics over a mannequin. Then, she asked me if I wanted to go to Goodwill and shop for vintage/used clothing. I consented. It turned out that there was a three-day sale on all clothing items: $3 each, a price you couldn't beat even at Goodwill. Neither of us had known about the sale in advance, so it was a pleasant surprise. She chose jeans for me to try on, and I trusted her taste (being that she works in the fashion industry) and what's more: I did not resent her for it. Later on she told me that the reason why I listened to her was because I was finally ready for what she had to offer, which made me wonder how she knew that I was not ready in the past, well before I ever met her.

As the day began to fade, she took me to an Indian restaurant on Melrose. She had a coupon for a two-for-the-price-of-one dinner. Over the chicken and lamb entrees, I told her about my novel. She knows me primarily as a musician and an artist, but not really as a writer (raps notwithstanding). I discovered that she used to write when she was younger. From past experiences with other girls I could tell that she wanted to ask me if she could read my work but was too shy or afraid to ask. Instead, she approached it in her charming, direct-yet-indirect manner by demanding a chapter all about her... to which I replied, "I'll write an entire book about you..."

Smooth, eh? I suppose, but I meant it with every square inch of my soul and being.

Saturday evening: We drove out to see the Wolf Man, a fitting visit to make considering there was a full moon in the sky. The both of us were also aware that Mercury has been in retrograde for some time, but what was truly amazing was how perfect our Saturday was turning out for us. Everything we did worked out the way it was supposed to work out, and it was not lost on us.

Wolfie had some Salvia divinorum on him. I consented to give it a shot but warned him that a previous attempt on my part to try the legal hallucinogen was bunk. She and I both partook of it shortly after Wolf had showed us the method, and within seconds I felt slanted, angular, my imagination burning and my eyes pulsating with psychedelic purpose. The TV stand morphed with the coffee table, and she and Wolf seemed to morph into both the coffee table and my cigarette smoke.

Then, after five minutes, the trip wore off. For the rest of the night I felt brain-boggled. She told me that (in her trip) she forgot who we were, and only snapped out of it after she remembered that we'd done it also. Meanwhile, Wolf Man was baked, having done it every night after work for an entire week. To cool down, I produced a joint, and we all laughed and drank wine and talked into the late night, on to the early morning, her banshee laughter trickling up and down my spine, in behind my ears and echoing in my heart...

I dropped her off at home, and left only after kissing her and holding her in my arms for as long as I could muster. But I knew I had to go home-- I could not stay. I needed to sleep in my own bed. I needed to unwind on my own. She needed to get rested apart from me.

That way, when I saw her the next evening, the fondness we feel for each other would blossom in the wake of our respective absences...

Last Saturday was one of the best Saturdays I've ever spent in my life. I pray that it was not the peak, but merely the beginning of something I cannot predict nor imagine.

karma's a bitch

2007-06-28T01:00:00.001-07:00

On my way to my friend Xalox B's pad to make some music I had to stop and take a leak.

I saw a Carl's Jr. and I pulled in. I know that Carl's Jr. restaurants have open bathrooms where you don't have to pay to use them or buy something in order to be buzzed in... I'm sure that in the seedier parts of town where homeless people abound and use the men's room as their personal grooming spot there might be some protective measures, but this was the Valley and I'd used the john at this particular fast-food joint before.

I did my business and got inside my new truck. Technically, it's not new: my dad gave it to me as a gift when he bought himself a newer truck. But he kept it in great condition, and even though it's a '99 it runs fine. It sure beats the hell out of the junker I was driving a month ago!

I was about to start the engine and back out and resume my drive when I noticed an empty soda can in my cup holder. I wanted to get rid of it and put my brand new pre-paid cel phone in its place.

Normally, I would just open the door and let the can drop on the ground and drive away without a care in the world. Yes, I'm a litterbug. I know this about myself. As far as I'm concerned, any place where there's cement and pavement and concrete and blacktop is already ruined, so unless I'm in the woods close to nature and one with Mother Earth, I really don't care about throwing my trash anywehre I want.

Anyway, as I was about to sin against the environment I noticed a trash can only a few feet away. For some reason, I told myself that this time I should not be lazy and just get up, walk over to the trash and drop the soda can in like a good boy. I mean, it was only a few feet, right?

So I did the deed, but when I tried to get back into the truck I discovered I'd locked myself out, with my cel phone and wallet on the inside.

You see, I have this compulsion with locking the doors to any vehicle I drive. I am constantly reminding any passengers that accompany me to lock their doors. I guess in this day and age, where most cars have automatic door locks and such, most people have forgotten how to lock the door when they exit a vehicle. I say this because I have to remind nearly everyone who is with me to do this one simple task. It's not asking a lot, is it?

Unfortunately, my compulsion backfired on me. I found myself wondering how I was going to get into my truck in the parking lot. I asked some people if they had Slim Jims or change so I could use the phone and maybe call someone to pick me up and take me back to my place, where the spare key was buried beneath oodles of knick-knacks in my coffee table drawer. No one helped out, and I started to panic a little.

I decided to try and see if I could somehow force the lock on the cab's sliding glass rear window to open. I pushed on it with my right hand. I didn't want to break the glass-- I just wanted to put enough pressure to cause the plastic lock to burst open, therefore allowing me to enter the truck and open the door.

Instead, I hit it a tad too hard. The glass from one of the sliding panels broke, and before I knew it my right forearm was bleeding.

My first thought was, "Well, at least it's open!" I unlocked the passenger side door. Then I entered the cab and grabbed the keys. I took out some fast-food napkins I had stored in the glove compartment and applied them to my wound. It wasn't a big cut, but it went deeper than I desired. I could see the white meat underneath my skin as I tried to stop the bleeding.

I surveyed the mess inside the cab: Glass was on the dashboard, the seat, the floor... everywhere. I pulled the ugly seat cover that my dad had left (the one I'd been intending to remove for some time now) and pulled the part that covered the back over the seat. I had no time to clean up the mess, and besides I was going to take it to a car wash later this week. They can vacuum it up for me. I just needed to be able to drive without tiny shards of glass poking at my bottom.

The bleeding hadn't stopped, and I contemplated just going straight home to see if I could clean the mess up and bandage my wound. But I figured that once it was all over, I'd get depressed and angry and not want to do anything, and just stew in my idiocy and regret until it was time to go to work. So instead I drove over to Xalox B's place like I had planned, but not before stopping at a liquor store and buying some Band-Aids and a garbage bag for the gaping hole in my rear window.

The music-making did make me feel better, but I went outside every now and then to check up on the truck, to make sure it wasn't stolen. I'd taken all of the valuables inside it and jammed them into my briefcase, which I took with me. Still, I wanted to be certain that no one would get a bright idea and break into the ride for any reason.

So now I'm here at work, going outside every hour to see if the truck is still there. I have enough cash saved up to find a place in the morning that'll fix up the window for cheap, and then I'll get the car washed and have all the glass removed.

But I definitely feel like this is karma for my littering ways. The one time I decided to be a Good Samaritan turned into a total disaster. I joked to Xalox that I was never going to throw trash in the proper receptacles ever again, but really it seems to me that if I'd made it a habit of doing that in the first place this might've been prevented.

Or maybe it was inevitable. Since I started driving this truck, I've wondered what I would do if my keys got locked inside. I was too lazy to pull out the spare key and get one of those key magnets that you can attach to the underside of a car in case something like this occurs. Plus, I now know how easy it is to break into my truck-- maybe an alarm is in order, at least as a deterrent?

Either way, I still feel dumb about the whole thing. I can laugh about it later on, but for now I can't help but beat myself up over it. I guess that's how karma is, eh? Sometimes we need to learn things the hard way before it turns into a more expensive lesson further on down the road.

OK, so I'm done venting. I got work to do, and then when my shift is done I've got more work to do. I suppose it could've been worse, but then again an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, or so the saying goes.

The moral of the story: Don't litter.

date date

2007-06-18T00:05:00.000-07:00

The date date turned out to be less formal than I anticipated, which was good because that was the whole reason why I never asked her out on a date date to begin with-- I am the type of guy who starts off hanging out with a girl and by the end of the night it has become a date date. Likewise, I have gone out on what I thought were date dates only to discover (to my chagrin) that the girl brought a friend along, thus invalidating the whole notion of a romantic night out. (For those who think life is all about threesomes, please bear in mind that I never have and never will have a threesome of ANY kind with anyone)

I put my best foot forward: I made plans for us to go to the newly-refurbished Griffith Observatory, and then later on to dinner at a nice restaurant. By mid-week, however, she had amended the plans as follows: watching a movie at the Hollywood Cemetery, and then a quick trip downtown for a friend's birthday bash at the Blue Star Cafe, where various loud punk bands were slated to play.

I was cool with the last-minute changes. It meant less money for me to spend and a more casual atmosphere. But it would still be a date date.

*/*

She likes drugs just as much as I do.

I scored some Ecstasy from one of my connections-- two Blue Boys, laced with smack and mild when taken in single doses.

It's probably not wise to center a relationship around illicit drug use, but we understand each other: she is just as fucked in the head as I am. We make no excuses-- we both like being high on chemicals. We are not out of control with it, and we both have had past loves who made a huge issue out of our casual indifference to the side effects of such mind-altering benders.

Friday night, she was upset: an argument with her roommate over money. She called me up and asked me to whisk her away. I told her I was making hip-hop beats with my homeboys in the Valley. We gave her directions and she drove out from Hollywood to hang out with the posse.

The fellas took to her instantly. She fit right in with the boy's club element. She's a rap fan, and she was impressed by my rapping skills. She made fair critiques and encouraging comments. She even went with me on a drug run in the thick of the night.

She's my partner in crime... what can I say?

*/*

I was a little stressed out over making the movie on time. I'd tried twice in the past two years to attend a screening at the Hollywood Cemetery and both times I was shut down because we arrived too late or things got too complicated. I was hoping that the third time would be the charm.

She teased me about my impatience. "You were all worried," she said to me as I parked the truck a block away from the line that was forming quickly. "'It's ten past five!' We made it OK, didn't we?"

Norally, I would get upset at this. But she had a point. "Hey, if it weren't for me pushing things along, it might've taken longer."

"Well, I am known for being late a lot. Still, I knew we'd be OK."

"I know... Believe me, I showed a lot of restraint. I'm way more impatient than that!"

"You worry too much," she said as she smiled, waiting for my reply.

"Maybe it was a perfect mix of my timeliness and your relaxed nature... it balanced itself out."

"Maybe."

Like me, she had been trying to get out to Santa Monica and Bronson for many years, but when she first arrived in Los Angeles her job schedule had her working on Saturdays. This was the first time she was able to actually come out and see what the fuss was all about. We brought a blanket, a picnic basket filled with wine and cheese and biscuits and chocolates and other snacks... and the Blue Boys.

I was happy. She was happy. We were both happy.

*/*

We kept laughing throughout the entire screening. Rebel Without A Cause, James Dean and Natalie Wood. A classic. Hays Code hilarity ensued: Sal Mineo as Plato, all but prancing and screaming and proclaiming his gaiety; Wood's strange affection for her father (who calls her "glamour puss" at one point); Jim Backus as Mr. Stark, the father of troubled rebel Jim, wearing an apron and cowering before his ball-busting wife...

We cheered as the scene set at the Griffith Observatory appeared on the screen. Both of us knew we would be there together very soon, and the thought excited us beyond belief.

A couple sitting in front of us sat down as the movie started. The woman threw her fake fur coat on the ground, landing on one of my boots.

We looked at each other, wondering where this woman got the nerve to do such a thing. I began to mash my boots into her coat while paraphrasing (under my breath) a line from the infamous Rick James episode of Chappelle's Show.

"Fuck your coat, bitch! Fuck your coat!"

We were in hysterics. The woman did not notice my subterfuge... but she did notice the piece of moldy cheese that I threw onto her coat shortly after I muddied her fur with my boots.

Rebel Without A Cause indeed...

*/*

We threw the picnic basket in the bed of my truck and drove out to Downtown, where the Blue Star Cafe was located. The Blue Boys had us amped but not batty, and the drive was elegant and easy.

We arrived just in time to see a punk band called Soccer Mom take to the stage. They were the last band to play that night. We greeted Andy, the birthday boy and bash organizer, who'd turned 25 and felt old but not too old.

One of her former boyfriends was there. He is a great guy, and he did not trip out on me and her. He has respect for women and respect for their choices. I always thought he was a cool guy when he was a regular at the Lava Lounge, and he proved it again that evening.

The singer was out-of-control, downing brews and spitting out lyrics with mad-banshee intensity. Her band was tighter than an accountant on Tax Day. They covered a Prince song-- one of my all-time favorites --and I sang along. The singer handed me the mike on the chorus,and I did not disappoint.

The beers we drank had no real effect on us. After the show, we drove back to her place where she fell asleep on the couch and I draped her over my shoulder once again (this has become a ritual for us) and tucked her into bed. I joined in for a little spooning and fell asleep pretty fast.

*/*

The morning lights came, and Marvin the cat (my gift to her) was resting on my chest, purring ebulliently as I glanced over at the clock to see what time it was before rising and gathering my affects. It was now Father's Day, and I had to go make the rounds and pay my respects.

I kissed her before I left, and promised her I would stop by the coffeehouse before I went in to work later on. We both admitted that we had a wonderful time, and we are looking forward to Griffith Observatory at the end of the month.

I know this doesn't sound like the typical date that most people go on, but for people like us it was magical and romantic and joyous. It had all the intimacy and elements of a proper date, but skewed beyond recognition by our respective hang-ups and vices.

In short, it was perfect, and I'd do it all again if given the chance.

feline

2007-06-05T02:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes she looks like Louise Brooks. I think it is intentional on her part.

I am completely enamored by everything she has to offer, but one of the top things I find adorable is her sense of style. She transforms her wardrobe into a malleable canvas that expresses and articulates her feelings and emotions.

She is an artist when it comes to fashion.

Her taste is not to everyone's liking, but I find it impeccable and intelligent.

Her job has her springing about town, looking for vintage materials from which to fashion and forge new creations. In the course of her travels she will find something that she personally likes, and she will keep it for herself or give it to someone she thinks might be able to use it.

She found two shirts for me, both of them to be worn on stage when I play a show. I would have never picked these shirts out myself, because my fashion sense is muted and limited. I am comfortable with blacks and greys and blue-collar jackets and scruffy boots and baggy pants.

But she knows what looks good, and I absolutely love the shirts she found for me.

I think I like the fact that she was thinking of me more than the actual shirts, but truth be told: those shirts are mighty dandy.

*/*

The Wolf Man's 30th birthday was last week. Of course we were prepared to beak it up with some fine Bolivian marching powder, because that's what Wolfie likes to do above all.

I invited her along. She and I have been spending a lot of time together and I figured she would make great company for me, Wolf and Down Low.

She brought out a playful vibe in my two friends. If she had not tagged along, I would've undoubtedly spent most of the evening dealing with their respective pathological neuroses. Instead, we all had a blast as we drank heartily and sang karaoke at a bar & grill in Burbank.

Yes, we did karaoke. She loves it, even though her voice is abysmal. She knows how bad her singing voice is, but it doesn't stop her from trying.

And I love that about her.

When I finished my song ("Little Red Corvette" by Prince) she jumped up at me and wrapped her legs around me as I walked off the stage. She flattered me as she giggled, and the sight of her Cheshire Cat grin as she beamed at me intoxicated me with pure wonder and romantic awe.

When I told her that her karaoke song was great, she sneered and said, "You don't have to say that. I know I suck."

To which I replied, "I'm not talking about being in key. I'm talking about having guts. You go up there and you give it all you got. That's incredible."

She smiled and batted her eyelashes like Louise Brooks. Then she straightened her face and said, "I have terrible stage fright. That's why I go up and do karaoke."

I gave her a kiss on the mouth-- a gentle peck, no tongue or anything like that... not that I am averse to French kisses... it's just that the moment called for a subtle caress of her lips against mine, and that's what I delivered.

*/*

By the morning, I had already dropped her off at home and headed back to my empty apartment, where Wolfie was passed out on the last piece of furniture still inside my soon-to-be-vacated abode.

He had a great time the night before. He went on about her, how cool she was and how lucky I was to have her.

I silently recalled that Wolf had actually met her a year ago, when he was playing in the band with me. She approached him after a show and complimented him on his drumming. Then he came up to me and relayed the news to me.

I remember telling him to go find her and talk to her. He didn't.

Then a year later I bumped into her at the old hang-out, and we began to chat, and I threw all caution to the wind and asked for her number so I could continue talking to her.

As much as I am glad she and I are having fun together, I wonder what would have happened had Wolf Man listened to me when I advised him to talk to her. Part of me wishes he would've had the courage to follow through on his initial impulse.

But part of me is glad that I didn't hesitate when it was my turn to approach her. The night I talked to her for the first time I knew I had to do something or spend the rest of my night kicking myself for not taking any action.

Not a day goes by when I don't pat myself on the back for showing a little backbone.

I am still planning our date date. She is looking forward to it, and so am I. It will be a chance for me to show her more than ever how far I have fallen for her.

I gave her my cat Marvin when I moved out. Seems that he fell in love with her too! Marvin is a shy but loving cat, and when she first arrived at my house he was smitten by her. He meowed loudly and sniffed her hair and stared at her with his mandarin eyes, going so far as to sit on the top of the couch so that he could ogle her up close.

She in turn found Marvin to be irresistible. She asked me if she could have him and at first I refused, but after seeing Marvin's reaction to her I decided that it would be healthy for him to be with her. Yes, I would miss him, but I don't feel so bad knowing that he is being loved... and that he is loving his new home just as well.

It's the best thing for him, really.

three-day weekend

2007-05-30T02:23:00.000-07:00

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...

*/*

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.

*/*

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.

*/*

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

2007-05-15T00:54:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-07T01:36:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-03T00:49:00.000-07:00

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.

*/*

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.

*/*

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...

2007-05-02T00:31:00.001-07:00

And now...

MATT AND KIM!!

the rat and the ox

2007-04-30T02:38:00.000-07:00

She's a Rat and I'm an Ox.

Let me tell you the story of the Rat and the Ox.

"According to legend, the Lord Buddha summoned all the animals to come to him before he departed from Earth. Only 12 animals came to bid him farewell. As a reward he named a year after each one in the order that they arrived. First came the Rat, then the Ox, the Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Boar. Thus we have twelve signs today."

-- excerpted from "Twilight Zone's Chinese Horoscope"

The Ox was leading the race across the river bank to reach the Lord Buddha's bed. Unbeknownst to him, the Rat was riding on his back. As the Ox neared the bank, the enterprising Rat jumped off the Ox's back and made it to the Buddha's bedside first.

Thus, the Rat became the first sign of the Chinese astrological table, with the Ox coming in second.

No mention is made of whether or not the Ox was upset about this. I'm sure, however, that if the Ox had gotten upset he would've squashed the Rat in an instant. This would have probably upset the dying Buddha and led to the immediate disqualification of both the Rat and the Ox from the Chinese horoscope.

I don't think the Ox minded at all. The Ox was used to being employed for hard work, carrying loads far heavier than the Rat on his strong back. He probably admired the Rat's ingenuity and craftiness, and maybe deep down inside he was content knowing that he did all the hard work while the Rat basked in the glory.

And if the Ox was in love with the Rat, then he wouldn't be mad in the slightest if the Rat found some sort of glory, even at the Ox's expense.

Rats are reviled and despised, even though they are highly intelligent creatures with exceptional survival instincts. Western civilization in particular has no love for the Rat, most likely due to the bubonic plague epidemic that wiped out a third of Europe's population in the Middle Ages.

But like pigeons in relation to doves, Rats are not too far removed from mice, their cuter and more cuddly cousins. The bias stems from misunderstanding the true natures of all creatures great and small.

I think the Rat knows deep down inside that she owes her cardinal place in the Chinese horoscope to the Ox. Whether or not she appreciates it or not is up to each individual to decide. And if someone is not fond of Rats, they will decide negatively.

*/*

We shared a cigarette and drank coffee and made up names for our own Chinese horoscope.

"How about the Year of the Platypus?" I asked.

"No, the Year of the Wombat," she giggled.

"Does the Wombat even exist?"

"I dunno... how about the Year of the Chinchilla?"

"I kind of like the Year of the Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker."

"They're endangered, you know..."

"Oh... well, then they definitely need to be included."

"What about the Year of the Mongoose?"

"I know, let's cross-breed the existing ones. You know, like the Horsepig, or the Ratdog, or the Oxrabbit..."

"I like that."

"You do?"

"Yes, I do."

We laughed. We smoked. She poured me another cup of coffee and didn't charge me. I left a tip anyway.

When it was time to count the money in the register, she thanked me for making an otherwise dead night somewhat tolerable. I thanked her for the free coffee and walked her to her car.

As I drove to work, I couldn't stop smiling.

I just hope she made it to the Buddha's bedside.