1. Never do what is expected of you. God made the world chaotic as a test of your faith. You may as well go with the flow of nature, right? Be disruptive, so long as it is the last thing anyone expects you to do. Be courteous, so long as people expect you to be disruptive. And if your friends start to expect the unexpected from you, fear not: Probability is on your side. There are infinite ways to accommodate chaos but there is a limited number of ways to execute order.
A noteworthy corollary to this: Never expect anything from anybody. Expect the unexpected. If a beautiful woman invites you to her place for a candlelit dinner, the LAST thing you should expect is to get laid. The minute you go in there expecting something, Murphy's Law will take effect and render your entire evening fruitless. Better to accept the aforementioned dinner date fully expecting to play Boggle or some other mundane board game. That way, the sex will feel greater than it would've been had you known what to expect.
2. Always believe everything you hear. There is nothing wrong with investing your imagination into the realms of possibility. I don't feel stupid if someone takes me for a fool or misleads me just to show how 'gullible' I am. Why should I feel stupid about believing that anything is possible?
Besides, a person who pulls your leg to see if you are 'gullible' has actually given you the advantage, unbeknownst to them. For you see, there are two types of people in this world: Those who lie and end up being believed, and those who tell the truth and end up being disbelieved. I'd rather be in the latter camp, because eventually the truth will out. On the other hand, to be in the former camp means the novelty gets lost after two or three times; after a while, one realizes that all they've done is reveal themselves to be liars who cannot be believed. And the advantage to that is knowing they were a liar before they realized it themselves.
3. Amuse yourself endlessly at the expense of others. I am not saying you should be cruel to others. What I am saying is that you shouldn't lose your sense of humor, and as we all know the best kind of humor is at someone else's expense. Limit your number of pranks and leg-pulls to a minimum, lest you suffer the fate I described in the last paragraph. Instead, treat everything around you as if life has suddenly transformed into a scene from a comedic movie. Notice how I didn't say "TV sitcom"-- that's because it is really embarrassing to wait for imaginary laugh tracks around people who aren't in on the joke.
4. Exaggerate everything about yourself. Why exaggerate personal details? Because if you don't write the large legend, then someone else will... and they might choose selectively when it comes to what needs to be exaggerated. Better to be thought a braggadocious self-promoter than a victim of slanderous libel. Plus, it gives your critics something to obsess over: No one but your enemies have the time to sift through what is the fact and the fiction of your life!
5. Shun the spotlight. This may seem contradictory on my part, but when you really examine what I've done with my life you'll begin to see that I rarely ever crave to be the center of attention. That's because being a participant is all that matters, and since I try to get by doing as little as possible (or more than is expected, which goes back to Rule #1) then that means being the center of attention is out of the question. And anyhow, it is easier to pull off these rules (especially #6) if no one really knows who you are.
I make it a point to change my personal appearance up often enough to keep even my own family guessing as to what I look like. My recent beard experiments have proven to be phenomenally successful in this regard; I intend to shave my head and wear glasses sometime later this year.
6. Cultivate mystery. This is the most difficult rule on the list, partly due to the fact that Mystery is a mystery unto itself. How does one cultivate Mystery anyway? And what do I mean by 'cultivating' in the first place?
What I mean is, keep people on their toes: Don't explain everything you do, or better yet give daft explanations for everything; Make liberal use of irony and sarcasm at all opportunities, so that no one will know where your true allegiances lie; and above all, never give a straight answer. Why? Because your enemies will use any accurate information against you, and your friends will think you work for the CIA.
7. Disregard the opinions of others. It sounds harsh, but let's face it-- everybody other than you is wrong about everything regarding you. Now, that doesn't mean you should admit to not giving a rat's ass about what other people think. If you are really good at any of these rules, you can feel contempt for everyone around you without them even knowing. And chances are, you have no idea how little weight others give to your own opinions as well.
8. Laugh as a method of self-defense. This is the easiest rule on the list to live by, because it doesn't take much to laugh at anything. I recommend using it as a method of self-defense because there are so many terrible things in this world that could kill us if not for our ability to scoff in the face of death and tragedy.
9. Always give 'em enough rope. If you are as watchful and diligent as I am, then you already know that anyone who is conspiring against you will eventually ensnare themselves in the very webs they created to ensnare you.
And when I say that others are conspiring, I don't mean to be paranoid. I'm just saying that every day, whether on minuscule or magnificent scales, there are mini-plots being waged against you, sometimes innocently and sometimes with a sinister undercurrent. Maybe that guy across from your cubicle is trying to beat you out for a promotion. Maybe that woman down the hall in your apartment complex wants you to proposition her so that she can make her husband jealous. These are all human emotions and feelings, and most of us NEVER act on them.
But the ones who DO act upon those human animal impulses... Well, they've set themselves up for a big fall in an even bigger way, haven't they? And if you are a true disciple of my Nine Rules, then they won't stand a chance when the time comes to exact some payback. So let them wreak their havoc, for it is a short-lived run for them. And after they've spent their energy on tripping you up, all you need to do is give a little tug on the hanging rope. It will not require much on your part, for they will have already fitted the noose around their own neck.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
unattainable
My birthday weekend was fun-filled and eventful.
Friday night I attended Rose's farewell party. She has decided to make the move up north. Apparently, Los Angeles was killing her inside.
I can't tell you how many women I've met in the past five or six years who came to L.A., ran out of steam and high-tailed it back to where they came from, or perhaps another city.
Los Angeles is a tough nut to crack.
I met some of Rose's friends, some of them impossibly beautiful females with "Unattainable" stamped into their foreheads. And yet I think I did alright, now that I am sporting a beard. Something about the facial hair makes me appear to be my actual age, which leads me to believe that there is something about a man who looks younger than his years that women find somehow deceitful or wrong.
I shaved the beard shortly before Christmas, after a full month of letting it grow as thick as I could. I literally watched myself get younger in the mirror as I shaved off the beard section by section. After that, I decided to let it grow again, with minimal trims and grooming.
Surprisingly, people like the beard. True, they can't recognize me at first if they haven't seen me wearing it yet, but once they settle in they are pleased by it. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I am elated by it because I like to toy with my appearance, and a beard makes me feel as if I am in disguise or have somehow changed my physiognomy significantly.
I guess if I had a girlfriend right now, she might object... or she might like it. It appears that having a beard might lead to me having a girlfriend again.
*/*
I feel like I am finally ready to have a relationship with someone again.
Rose's departure was a bit sad for me, but I think I know now what she meant to me. I was never sure if I was just pining for companionship or if I was really head over heels for her. I feel now that I was just dipping my toes in the water and seeing if I was stable enough to pursue something with all of my heart.
With Rose, I was not 100% ready. But I also know that what I wanted from her was not based in physical attraction. Rather, Rose brought out my desire for romance again. Courtship. Holding hands. Looking into each other's eyes. Deep conversations. Baring souls and sighing.
I showed up late to the party at the Formosa Cafe. There were a lot of people already there. I mingled and hung out with JJ and Mack, the boys from my band. They were the ones who introduced me to Rose, and were also there to wish her a safe trip up north.
I saw her and she smiled and hugged me, wanting to take pictures. She was on her way to drunkenness. I gave her a gift, a kitschy handbag designed like a Chinese takeout box. Inside the box was a volume of modern poetry.
I hung out for a spell and met her friends, the unattainable ones. Foremost out of the lot emerged Jenny, a firebrand of a girl who stood 5'10", aged 24 years, and had done more in one lifetime than you could squeeze out of six others: a pilot, a singer, a dancer, a traveler, a model, an actress, an artist, a trophy girlfriend... she'd been there and done that and been that and done there fifty times over.
And she was talking to me.
I tell you, it's the beard.
However, I made the mistake of leaving the party to go with the Missing Digit boys over to Lava Lounge, where a friend of a friend's band was playing. I don't regret going, though-- as lackluster as the Lounge was compared to the Formosa (possibly informed by the sad revelation that Lava Lounge is closing its doors for good at the end of February) I needed to get out of there and breathe, lest I give in to rheumy emotion and confess to Rose that I thought I might be falling in love with her and that her leaving would render me vulnerable and sullen.
*/*
I ended up returning to Formosa just before 2am.
The population of the party had dwindled. Indeed, Firebrand Jenny had left long ago, and all that was left were a few stragglers.
Rose didn't see me as I walked in. I stood next to her for almost a full five minutes, watching her sway tipsily on her stool as friends hugged her and said goodbye.
Then, as if on cue (it always seems to me like it's on cue) she turned and focused her bleary eyes on me, and she smiled that grinny smile that habitually melted my icy heart.
"Jamessss," she slurred.
"Rose."
"Oh James," she said, as she hugged me long and hard. And when she pulled away, her hands were still on my face and my arms were around her waist. Her fingers massaged the fluffy wool of my jaw.
And we stood like that for a long time.
"I'm going to miss you," I said.
Rose stared at me as if she could kiss me on the lips. "I'm going to miss you too. But I'll see you in April."
"What, are you coming down to visit then?"
"No... JJ and Mack said you guys are going to play up north. Didn't they tell you?"
I paused. I thought about it. Then I replied, "No, they haven't."
"Really?"
"Hey, I'm just the bass player, what do I know?"
She laughed and kissed me on the cheek. And that was the last I saw of her before she left Los Angeles.
The next night, before we did our show at The Whiskey, I asked the boys about April. They laughed and said they had only suggested that they might go up north and play a show around springtime.
"Man, she musta been pretty wasted," Mack said.
I put on a fake smile and said, "Yeah, she really was..."
*/*
I felt lots of love from family and friends this past weekend, so I know that I am loved and that I have people to love in return. But I am craving romantic love now.
I want to come home and be with a girl and talk about our days and sit on the bed and laugh and joke and chat and maybe kiss and hold each other and caress and snuggle and not necessarily have sex but simply be, with each other, comfortable and carefree.
It's been a long time since I had something like that.
Even though it didn't pan out with Rose, I am glad that it brought me around to this fine point of knowing what it is that I want. I am not sure if I would've wanted anything intimate with Rose because it wasn't her looks that had me enthralled. Her smile was intoxicating, yes, but only because of what spawned the smile, not the smile itself.
Her smile stemmed from a positive belief in art and life.
She had me musing like I hadn't mused in who knows how long.
The last time I went through this was with Holly Golightly, shortly before she went back home to Florida. After Holly departed, I met up with Eve again and picked up where we left off, which was followed by an interim where we both dated other people. Then, Eve and I hooked up again and that lasted for a spell, but eventually it fell apart.
And now I'm on the verge of loving again, and this time I know what I want, and I think I know how to get it... but it's going to take patience, time, and a liberal dose of humor.
And as for Rose, I suspect (in hindsight, of course) that maybe she was just waiting for me to make some sort of declarative statement or bold move. It may not be as over as I think. I may still have a chance one day to discover what she has to offer, if I just take my time and not obsess over it.
In the meantime, I will reevaluate myself as I enter into what seems to be a whole new identity, thanks in large part to this growth of facial hair covering the lower part of my face.
Lately I've been getting strange girls to talk to me right out of the blue, without having to say or do anything. Ironically, my feeling has always been that a beard rendered me less desirable, but I guess I have been wrong all along.
I'm sure there's girls who dig the baby face, but maybe I should see where this goes and decide what to do as the tides of fate bat me to and fro.
It'd be nice to take that approach for a change.
Yes, I think I'm ready to have a worthwhile romance again. Everything around me is pointing to this as my next move. Now all I have to do is remember not to take things for granted or assume that it's easy. That's been my problem in the past: Getting too comfy, getting soft and lazy like the inside of an oyster.
Spring is nearing, and I want to be prepared.
Friday night I attended Rose's farewell party. She has decided to make the move up north. Apparently, Los Angeles was killing her inside.
I can't tell you how many women I've met in the past five or six years who came to L.A., ran out of steam and high-tailed it back to where they came from, or perhaps another city.
Los Angeles is a tough nut to crack.
I met some of Rose's friends, some of them impossibly beautiful females with "Unattainable" stamped into their foreheads. And yet I think I did alright, now that I am sporting a beard. Something about the facial hair makes me appear to be my actual age, which leads me to believe that there is something about a man who looks younger than his years that women find somehow deceitful or wrong.
I shaved the beard shortly before Christmas, after a full month of letting it grow as thick as I could. I literally watched myself get younger in the mirror as I shaved off the beard section by section. After that, I decided to let it grow again, with minimal trims and grooming.
Surprisingly, people like the beard. True, they can't recognize me at first if they haven't seen me wearing it yet, but once they settle in they are pleased by it. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but I am elated by it because I like to toy with my appearance, and a beard makes me feel as if I am in disguise or have somehow changed my physiognomy significantly.
I guess if I had a girlfriend right now, she might object... or she might like it. It appears that having a beard might lead to me having a girlfriend again.
*/*
I feel like I am finally ready to have a relationship with someone again.
Rose's departure was a bit sad for me, but I think I know now what she meant to me. I was never sure if I was just pining for companionship or if I was really head over heels for her. I feel now that I was just dipping my toes in the water and seeing if I was stable enough to pursue something with all of my heart.
With Rose, I was not 100% ready. But I also know that what I wanted from her was not based in physical attraction. Rather, Rose brought out my desire for romance again. Courtship. Holding hands. Looking into each other's eyes. Deep conversations. Baring souls and sighing.
I showed up late to the party at the Formosa Cafe. There were a lot of people already there. I mingled and hung out with JJ and Mack, the boys from my band. They were the ones who introduced me to Rose, and were also there to wish her a safe trip up north.
I saw her and she smiled and hugged me, wanting to take pictures. She was on her way to drunkenness. I gave her a gift, a kitschy handbag designed like a Chinese takeout box. Inside the box was a volume of modern poetry.
I hung out for a spell and met her friends, the unattainable ones. Foremost out of the lot emerged Jenny, a firebrand of a girl who stood 5'10", aged 24 years, and had done more in one lifetime than you could squeeze out of six others: a pilot, a singer, a dancer, a traveler, a model, an actress, an artist, a trophy girlfriend... she'd been there and done that and been that and done there fifty times over.
And she was talking to me.
I tell you, it's the beard.
However, I made the mistake of leaving the party to go with the Missing Digit boys over to Lava Lounge, where a friend of a friend's band was playing. I don't regret going, though-- as lackluster as the Lounge was compared to the Formosa (possibly informed by the sad revelation that Lava Lounge is closing its doors for good at the end of February) I needed to get out of there and breathe, lest I give in to rheumy emotion and confess to Rose that I thought I might be falling in love with her and that her leaving would render me vulnerable and sullen.
*/*
I ended up returning to Formosa just before 2am.
The population of the party had dwindled. Indeed, Firebrand Jenny had left long ago, and all that was left were a few stragglers.
Rose didn't see me as I walked in. I stood next to her for almost a full five minutes, watching her sway tipsily on her stool as friends hugged her and said goodbye.
Then, as if on cue (it always seems to me like it's on cue) she turned and focused her bleary eyes on me, and she smiled that grinny smile that habitually melted my icy heart.
"Jamessss," she slurred.
"Rose."
"Oh James," she said, as she hugged me long and hard. And when she pulled away, her hands were still on my face and my arms were around her waist. Her fingers massaged the fluffy wool of my jaw.
And we stood like that for a long time.
"I'm going to miss you," I said.
Rose stared at me as if she could kiss me on the lips. "I'm going to miss you too. But I'll see you in April."
"What, are you coming down to visit then?"
"No... JJ and Mack said you guys are going to play up north. Didn't they tell you?"
I paused. I thought about it. Then I replied, "No, they haven't."
"Really?"
"Hey, I'm just the bass player, what do I know?"
She laughed and kissed me on the cheek. And that was the last I saw of her before she left Los Angeles.
The next night, before we did our show at The Whiskey, I asked the boys about April. They laughed and said they had only suggested that they might go up north and play a show around springtime.
"Man, she musta been pretty wasted," Mack said.
I put on a fake smile and said, "Yeah, she really was..."
*/*
I felt lots of love from family and friends this past weekend, so I know that I am loved and that I have people to love in return. But I am craving romantic love now.
I want to come home and be with a girl and talk about our days and sit on the bed and laugh and joke and chat and maybe kiss and hold each other and caress and snuggle and not necessarily have sex but simply be, with each other, comfortable and carefree.
It's been a long time since I had something like that.
Even though it didn't pan out with Rose, I am glad that it brought me around to this fine point of knowing what it is that I want. I am not sure if I would've wanted anything intimate with Rose because it wasn't her looks that had me enthralled. Her smile was intoxicating, yes, but only because of what spawned the smile, not the smile itself.
Her smile stemmed from a positive belief in art and life.
She had me musing like I hadn't mused in who knows how long.
The last time I went through this was with Holly Golightly, shortly before she went back home to Florida. After Holly departed, I met up with Eve again and picked up where we left off, which was followed by an interim where we both dated other people. Then, Eve and I hooked up again and that lasted for a spell, but eventually it fell apart.
And now I'm on the verge of loving again, and this time I know what I want, and I think I know how to get it... but it's going to take patience, time, and a liberal dose of humor.
And as for Rose, I suspect (in hindsight, of course) that maybe she was just waiting for me to make some sort of declarative statement or bold move. It may not be as over as I think. I may still have a chance one day to discover what she has to offer, if I just take my time and not obsess over it.
In the meantime, I will reevaluate myself as I enter into what seems to be a whole new identity, thanks in large part to this growth of facial hair covering the lower part of my face.
Lately I've been getting strange girls to talk to me right out of the blue, without having to say or do anything. Ironically, my feeling has always been that a beard rendered me less desirable, but I guess I have been wrong all along.
I'm sure there's girls who dig the baby face, but maybe I should see where this goes and decide what to do as the tides of fate bat me to and fro.
It'd be nice to take that approach for a change.
Yes, I think I'm ready to have a worthwhile romance again. Everything around me is pointing to this as my next move. Now all I have to do is remember not to take things for granted or assume that it's easy. That's been my problem in the past: Getting too comfy, getting soft and lazy like the inside of an oyster.
Spring is nearing, and I want to be prepared.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
motown
Ask the average person to listen to a piece of music and pick out the individual parts. Chances are, they will not know the difference between a bass drum and a high-hat, nor will they know which part is the bass line and which part is the guitar (unless it's a guitar solo, to which they will proceed to play air guitar).
Until someone takes the time to point these things out to you, it's all mud, an amorphous mass of melody and harmony to the layman's ears until the smaller sections that comprise a song are dissected.
*/*
As a kid growing up, I loved the music that my parents played on their stereo. They played The Beatles and doo-wop oldies and a lot of Motown-- after all, this was the stuff they grew up on, so it meant more to them than it did to me.
The Motown selections were always upbeat, joyous and danceable. I never thought twice about the songs themselves. All I knew is that they were catchy and hummable, and I often found myself singing along without really knowing about the intricacies of the music.
As a full-grown man and a musician, I find myself time and again revisiting the Motown catalog and discovering a myriad of treasures. There was so much going on beneath the smooth, polished surface of those chestnuts from the Motor City.
*/*
Case in point: "Stop! In The Name Of Love" by The Supremes.
I'll admit right off the bat that The Supremes were not my cup of tea as a young boy. They were a girl group, for Pete's sake! I was more attuned to Smokey Robinson's balladeering romanticism and Marvin Gaye's simmering masculinity than to the uber-femme posturing of Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson.
Smokey and Marvin spoke directly to my developing male psyche, whereas The Supremes seemed silly, soft and inconsequential.
I liked "I Hear A Symphony" and "Someday We'll Be Together" from them, and that was about it. I paid none of the other tunes no mind: "Baby Love" was annoying; "Where Did Our Love Go?" barely held my attention; "You Can't Hurry Love" and "You Keep Me Hanging On" were covered by Phil Collins and Kim Wilde respectively, so my bias leaned to the more modern versions (I don't count Soft Cell's interpolation of "Where Did Our Love Go?" on the extended single of "Tainted Love" as a cover).
It was about three or four months ago when I realized the true brilliance of "Stop! In The Name Of Love" during an epiphany that drove me into the deepest depths of tunacy heretofore.
I was driving around town late night, feeling sorry for myself and bemoaning my lack of luck concerning the opposite sex. I had the radio tuned to KRTH 101, the classic L.A. oldies station that has been cranking out the hits for over 35 years.
"Stop!" came on, and rather than switch the station I let it play. Something about that ominous organ intro that rallies into action at the song's onset enervated me.
And then I heard the epiphany, the lilting refrain that mesmerized me like the siren song of Greek mythology.
In the background, as Diana Ross sings the line "I watch you walk down the street/ Knowing your other love you'll meet" the other two Supremes are singing "baby baby" and harmonizing like soulful angels watching over the love affair described in the lyrics, a mournful chorus rhapsodizing poetic in time to the music.
In all the years that I have heard this song played, whether on radio stations or in someone's home or on the jukebox of some dive bar, I have never picked up on that small part, which is almost buried in the mix. I've always noticed Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson's more obvious contributions to that song, but never the "baby baby" part.
Ever.
That is, until recently.
*/*
Since then, I have been obsessed with that song, in particular that ghostly backup part that barely existed for me for the past three decades. I can't get that haunting refrain out of my head for the life of me. It is driving me insane.
It is so beautiful and sad, the way their voices glide underneath Ross' lead vocal, lamenting the poor choices of a figurative cad who is about to go off and break the heart of a woman who loves him dearly.
It could be my story. It could be your story.
Shortly after that epiphany, I began to re-investigate the Motown phenomenon, and realized that the other Supremes' presence wasn't the only thing that was taken for granted by the masses.
*/*
When asked about my influences as a bassist, I always cite one man in particular. And every time I drop this man's name, the interrogator pauses and makes a face, trying to figure out if I am pulling their leg or if I am being intentionally obscure.
I reassure them that I am not joking: My favorite bass player of all time is James Jamerson, who played with the Motown house band on nearly every single Motown hit that was released in their heyday.
I first heard the name James Jamerson when I read an L.A. Times book review of Allan Slutksy's book Standing In The Shadows Of Motown in 1989. By that time I was already well-versed and steeped in Motown trivia, so Jamerson's name clicked in my head immediately. Now I knew the name of the guy who played the famous opening notes of The Temptations' "My Girl", as well as countless other hits.
When I started playing bass guitar, I started getting the question of who my influences were. I had to think about it-- Who were my influences anyway?
Sure, I could say what everyone else says and cite Flea from the Chili Peppers, or Les Claypool from Primus. Maybe I could get all jazzy and deep and drop Jaco Pastorius' name as well. But I knew in my heart that my playing was not in the same league as those guys, and if there was any one bass player that entered my mind when I played it would have to be Jamerson.
So I started answering that question with his name, and people screwed their faces at me in response.
*/*
I never read the book Standing In The Shadows Of Motown, but I rented the DVD last week and marveled at the genius and talent of the unsung heroes of Motown: The Funk Brothers, as they were known back in the days jamming out in Studio A, aka "The Snakepit".
Remember the amorphous mass of melody and harmony I mentioned at the beginning of this blog? Well, in the case of Hitsville USA, that mass had a bunch of different names and personalities. Each name and personality lived a life of its own, and some of them died without ever having the kind of fame and recognition reserved for superstars like Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye.
The late James Jamerson emerges from the documentary as a forceful and mercurial performer, a true genius who taught himself how to play and elevated the instrument to another level. He wrote the complicated and syncopated bass lines himself, then played them with one finger on a Fender Precision (more commonly known as the P-Bass) with impossibly high action and heavy gauge strings that he never changed (according to his son, James Jr., never changing the strings on the bass "kept the funk in 'em").
My kinship with Jamerson extends to more than just playing the same instrument: We have the same first name; our birthdays are a week apart, and we share the same Zodiac sun sign (Aquarius); I have a P-Bass similar in design to his; we were both auto didactic (self-taught) musicians...
...And, I assume, both of us were fanatically dedicated with finding the perfect notes, capturing the proper pitch and appropriate feel of any given song.
Just listen to what James is doing on "Stop! In The Name Of Love", for example. He's not playing it straight-- he's putting English on it, making it swing and tapping out percussive flourishes that sneak by your subconscious in the most subliminal ways imaginable.
His genius was that you never noticed it.
*/*
What I don't possess in skill or technique, I make up for by having a good ear and knowing what to play in relation to the rhythm and the melody.
I describe the instrumental sections of the modern pop music combo as follows:
The voice and melody can be represented by the head, where the mouth is located. It is synonymous with the face, which is the first thing most people identify with when they see a group or a solo performer. Looks play a huge part in how music is received.
The guitar and/or keyboard parts are represented by the torso, which is not only attached to the arms but also makes up the main body or frame of a song. This is the heart of a tune, synonymous with the chest.
The drums are the legs of a song, making it move and propel forward, upon which the melodies stand. The tempo is synonymous with the pace of the legs, whether they are walking or running.
And the bass? The bass is the ass. The booty. The lower region. The "bottom end", so to speak. A good bass line will make you shake your booty uncontrollably. The late James Brown knew it, and so does any bass player worth their salt.
Where does the funk from your body emanate? From your ass, of course. Where does the funk come from musically? From the bass, silly.
All of my bass lines come not only from my heart but out of my ass as well.
*/*
One last thing before I go.
I never set out to play the bass.
No one ever sets out to play the bass. In fact, I've only known two people in my entire life who wanted to play the bass: my good friend and former band mate Clay Sails, and a kid who lent me his bass guitar shortly after high school. In both cases, they literally traded the bass for bigger and better things.
I was playing in a band and we didn't have a bassist. Since the other guitarist in the group was far superior to me on the six-string, it was decided that I be the bass player. Fair enough, I supposed, but none of us owned a bass and I had no money to go out and buy one.
An underclassman from my high school volunteered to let me borrow his bass and amplifier (both manufactured by Peavey) until I got one of my own. He barely played it, and although he had aspirations to be a musician, his true passion was cinema.
I never gave the bass back to that kid. It's not like I stole it, though: He would call me from time to time and ask for it back, and I'd say, "Sure man, come down here and take it" because I had no car of my own. But he never got back to me or demanded it back with any hurry.
Finally, I sold the bass one day after having it for two years. The kid never asked me about it, even during the few times when I ran into him again at a concert or a party.
I ended up buying an imitation Rickenbacker from Clay Sails, who was focusing more on guitar and piano. I owned that fake Rick for almost a decade before it was stolen from a friend's home.
These days I play the P-Bass, which was loaned to me by another friend. The P-Bass was just sitting in his garage, and when the fake Rick got robbed he lent me the guitar with no problem. He has never asked me for any money in return.
As for the kid who got me on the track to playing bass all those years ago... He's a movie director now. His major motion picture debut, an animated feature, opened last summer to rave reviews and made lots of money. I intend to rent the DVD just so I can hear his voice on the Commentary.
I wonder if he would've gotten into music more had I given it back to him, or if the bass would've collected dust in his room. Would I even be playing the bass today if not for him loaning it to me? If I had given it back, would I have gone out and bought another one for myself? Would he have neglected his movie dreams and become a first-class bassist par excellence?
It's hard to say. All I know is, he's happy, and so am I. And if I ever run into him again, I'm going to thank him with all of my heart for inadvertently introducing me to something that saved my life... as well as apologize for never giving it back.
Until someone takes the time to point these things out to you, it's all mud, an amorphous mass of melody and harmony to the layman's ears until the smaller sections that comprise a song are dissected.
*/*
As a kid growing up, I loved the music that my parents played on their stereo. They played The Beatles and doo-wop oldies and a lot of Motown-- after all, this was the stuff they grew up on, so it meant more to them than it did to me.
The Motown selections were always upbeat, joyous and danceable. I never thought twice about the songs themselves. All I knew is that they were catchy and hummable, and I often found myself singing along without really knowing about the intricacies of the music.
As a full-grown man and a musician, I find myself time and again revisiting the Motown catalog and discovering a myriad of treasures. There was so much going on beneath the smooth, polished surface of those chestnuts from the Motor City.
*/*
Case in point: "Stop! In The Name Of Love" by The Supremes.
I'll admit right off the bat that The Supremes were not my cup of tea as a young boy. They were a girl group, for Pete's sake! I was more attuned to Smokey Robinson's balladeering romanticism and Marvin Gaye's simmering masculinity than to the uber-femme posturing of Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson.
Smokey and Marvin spoke directly to my developing male psyche, whereas The Supremes seemed silly, soft and inconsequential.
I liked "I Hear A Symphony" and "Someday We'll Be Together" from them, and that was about it. I paid none of the other tunes no mind: "Baby Love" was annoying; "Where Did Our Love Go?" barely held my attention; "You Can't Hurry Love" and "You Keep Me Hanging On" were covered by Phil Collins and Kim Wilde respectively, so my bias leaned to the more modern versions (I don't count Soft Cell's interpolation of "Where Did Our Love Go?" on the extended single of "Tainted Love" as a cover).
It was about three or four months ago when I realized the true brilliance of "Stop! In The Name Of Love" during an epiphany that drove me into the deepest depths of tunacy heretofore.
I was driving around town late night, feeling sorry for myself and bemoaning my lack of luck concerning the opposite sex. I had the radio tuned to KRTH 101, the classic L.A. oldies station that has been cranking out the hits for over 35 years.
"Stop!" came on, and rather than switch the station I let it play. Something about that ominous organ intro that rallies into action at the song's onset enervated me.
And then I heard the epiphany, the lilting refrain that mesmerized me like the siren song of Greek mythology.
In the background, as Diana Ross sings the line "I watch you walk down the street/ Knowing your other love you'll meet" the other two Supremes are singing "baby baby" and harmonizing like soulful angels watching over the love affair described in the lyrics, a mournful chorus rhapsodizing poetic in time to the music.
In all the years that I have heard this song played, whether on radio stations or in someone's home or on the jukebox of some dive bar, I have never picked up on that small part, which is almost buried in the mix. I've always noticed Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson's more obvious contributions to that song, but never the "baby baby" part.
Ever.
That is, until recently.
*/*
Since then, I have been obsessed with that song, in particular that ghostly backup part that barely existed for me for the past three decades. I can't get that haunting refrain out of my head for the life of me. It is driving me insane.
It is so beautiful and sad, the way their voices glide underneath Ross' lead vocal, lamenting the poor choices of a figurative cad who is about to go off and break the heart of a woman who loves him dearly.
It could be my story. It could be your story.
Shortly after that epiphany, I began to re-investigate the Motown phenomenon, and realized that the other Supremes' presence wasn't the only thing that was taken for granted by the masses.
*/*
When asked about my influences as a bassist, I always cite one man in particular. And every time I drop this man's name, the interrogator pauses and makes a face, trying to figure out if I am pulling their leg or if I am being intentionally obscure.
I reassure them that I am not joking: My favorite bass player of all time is James Jamerson, who played with the Motown house band on nearly every single Motown hit that was released in their heyday.
I first heard the name James Jamerson when I read an L.A. Times book review of Allan Slutksy's book Standing In The Shadows Of Motown in 1989. By that time I was already well-versed and steeped in Motown trivia, so Jamerson's name clicked in my head immediately. Now I knew the name of the guy who played the famous opening notes of The Temptations' "My Girl", as well as countless other hits.
When I started playing bass guitar, I started getting the question of who my influences were. I had to think about it-- Who were my influences anyway?
Sure, I could say what everyone else says and cite Flea from the Chili Peppers, or Les Claypool from Primus. Maybe I could get all jazzy and deep and drop Jaco Pastorius' name as well. But I knew in my heart that my playing was not in the same league as those guys, and if there was any one bass player that entered my mind when I played it would have to be Jamerson.
So I started answering that question with his name, and people screwed their faces at me in response.
*/*
I never read the book Standing In The Shadows Of Motown, but I rented the DVD last week and marveled at the genius and talent of the unsung heroes of Motown: The Funk Brothers, as they were known back in the days jamming out in Studio A, aka "The Snakepit".
Remember the amorphous mass of melody and harmony I mentioned at the beginning of this blog? Well, in the case of Hitsville USA, that mass had a bunch of different names and personalities. Each name and personality lived a life of its own, and some of them died without ever having the kind of fame and recognition reserved for superstars like Stevie Wonder or Marvin Gaye.
The late James Jamerson emerges from the documentary as a forceful and mercurial performer, a true genius who taught himself how to play and elevated the instrument to another level. He wrote the complicated and syncopated bass lines himself, then played them with one finger on a Fender Precision (more commonly known as the P-Bass) with impossibly high action and heavy gauge strings that he never changed (according to his son, James Jr., never changing the strings on the bass "kept the funk in 'em").
My kinship with Jamerson extends to more than just playing the same instrument: We have the same first name; our birthdays are a week apart, and we share the same Zodiac sun sign (Aquarius); I have a P-Bass similar in design to his; we were both auto didactic (self-taught) musicians...
...And, I assume, both of us were fanatically dedicated with finding the perfect notes, capturing the proper pitch and appropriate feel of any given song.
Just listen to what James is doing on "Stop! In The Name Of Love", for example. He's not playing it straight-- he's putting English on it, making it swing and tapping out percussive flourishes that sneak by your subconscious in the most subliminal ways imaginable.
His genius was that you never noticed it.
*/*
What I don't possess in skill or technique, I make up for by having a good ear and knowing what to play in relation to the rhythm and the melody.
I describe the instrumental sections of the modern pop music combo as follows:
The voice and melody can be represented by the head, where the mouth is located. It is synonymous with the face, which is the first thing most people identify with when they see a group or a solo performer. Looks play a huge part in how music is received.
The guitar and/or keyboard parts are represented by the torso, which is not only attached to the arms but also makes up the main body or frame of a song. This is the heart of a tune, synonymous with the chest.
The drums are the legs of a song, making it move and propel forward, upon which the melodies stand. The tempo is synonymous with the pace of the legs, whether they are walking or running.
And the bass? The bass is the ass. The booty. The lower region. The "bottom end", so to speak. A good bass line will make you shake your booty uncontrollably. The late James Brown knew it, and so does any bass player worth their salt.
Where does the funk from your body emanate? From your ass, of course. Where does the funk come from musically? From the bass, silly.
All of my bass lines come not only from my heart but out of my ass as well.
*/*
One last thing before I go.
I never set out to play the bass.
No one ever sets out to play the bass. In fact, I've only known two people in my entire life who wanted to play the bass: my good friend and former band mate Clay Sails, and a kid who lent me his bass guitar shortly after high school. In both cases, they literally traded the bass for bigger and better things.
I was playing in a band and we didn't have a bassist. Since the other guitarist in the group was far superior to me on the six-string, it was decided that I be the bass player. Fair enough, I supposed, but none of us owned a bass and I had no money to go out and buy one.
An underclassman from my high school volunteered to let me borrow his bass and amplifier (both manufactured by Peavey) until I got one of my own. He barely played it, and although he had aspirations to be a musician, his true passion was cinema.
I never gave the bass back to that kid. It's not like I stole it, though: He would call me from time to time and ask for it back, and I'd say, "Sure man, come down here and take it" because I had no car of my own. But he never got back to me or demanded it back with any hurry.
Finally, I sold the bass one day after having it for two years. The kid never asked me about it, even during the few times when I ran into him again at a concert or a party.
I ended up buying an imitation Rickenbacker from Clay Sails, who was focusing more on guitar and piano. I owned that fake Rick for almost a decade before it was stolen from a friend's home.
These days I play the P-Bass, which was loaned to me by another friend. The P-Bass was just sitting in his garage, and when the fake Rick got robbed he lent me the guitar with no problem. He has never asked me for any money in return.
As for the kid who got me on the track to playing bass all those years ago... He's a movie director now. His major motion picture debut, an animated feature, opened last summer to rave reviews and made lots of money. I intend to rent the DVD just so I can hear his voice on the Commentary.
I wonder if he would've gotten into music more had I given it back to him, or if the bass would've collected dust in his room. Would I even be playing the bass today if not for him loaning it to me? If I had given it back, would I have gone out and bought another one for myself? Would he have neglected his movie dreams and become a first-class bassist par excellence?
It's hard to say. All I know is, he's happy, and so am I. And if I ever run into him again, I'm going to thank him with all of my heart for inadvertently introducing me to something that saved my life... as well as apologize for never giving it back.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
writing
It is a dark time right now.
Our President wants to send more troops to Iraq, as if that would help. Our pop cultural heroes keep dying off, reminding us of our own mortality. The villains seem to win or get away unscathed, shuffling off from this mortal coil without having to answer for their crimes.
People are writing less, blogging less. Even myself. I took some time off from blogging last year because I thought I needed to, but I discovered I was wrong.
I like to write. I like to blog. I don't do it for money, or so that I can attract advertisers and generate whore-cash. I don't write to get published, and I don't write to convince the world of my point of view.
I write because it is in me. It has always been in me. And if it is in me, then it needs to come out and get into you.
I gave up on chastising the lazy bloggers and the fairweather writers a long time ago. I don't care anymore if I post rambling blog entries and get zero comments. I don't give a shit if you like what I have to say or not.
I'm going to keep writing, and I'm not going to give up.
*/*
Writing is the only thing at which I am good.
That is to say, writing is the only thing that makes me feel like a true Master.
There will always be more skilled bassists, or more talented artists, or people with funnier stories or far more advanced conversational techniques. There will always be men more handsome than me, or more rugged than me, or more sensitive than me. There will always be someone just a little bit better than me in general.
But when it comes to writing, no one is better than me. That is because no one can write like me, and my writing resembles nobody else's prose.
The great ones are only great because they are widely distributed and read. But I can write better than Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Bukowski.
Wanna know why? Wanna know what's behind my ballsy reasoning?
Because those guys are dead, and I'm still here.
Their words remain, and their words are inspirational and eternal and classic. Their words and their works are enduring pieces of art that stretch into infinity and elevate their ranking damn near sainthood.
But they're dead, and I'm still here. And as far as other living writers go, I'm better than the whole lot of 'em.
That is the attitude one must have when approaching the blank page or the typewriter or the computer keyboard. Otherwise, you shouldn't be writing at all.
*/*
Blood spills in a foreign land. Over here, on the homefront, people are acquiescing left and right, settling for less, throwing the fight, taking dives and accepting bribes.
I don't blame them. They have no choice. They have nothing to fight for, they have no dreams left. The world has plundered their souls and taken all it can take. They have nothing left to offer up in the way of sacrifice.
They live in the real world, where rents can't be be paid and jobs are lost. They live in the material world, where money and bullshit walk hand in hand like a lovestruck couple unaware of their apparent mental illnesses. They live in the physical world where ideas have no weight and currency and therefore serve no purpose...
...and yet they wonder why things are slowly turning insane around them.
I live inside my head. I like living there-- it is preferable to this ugly realm that everyone else seems bound to, this prison for the unimaginative and feeble.
Call me a dreamer. Go ahead. I don't care. We just celebrated the life and death of a dreamer yesterday, so I don't mind it at all. To be in the company of people like MLK or John Lennon is fine with me.
They're dead, but their words live on.
Tell me, people of Earth: When you die, are your words going to live on, or are you taking them with you into the grave?
I know where my words will be-- spinning into eternity!
*/*
I am no longer disappointed by everyone's refusal to realize their own true potentials.
The way I see it, their insistence on bowing down before their insatiable gods and demons is an advantage for me.
What they disinherit-- the kingdom of heaven, peace and prosperity --is all mine for the taking. I have no competition. No one is trying to beat me to it.
I can take my time, or I can rush headlong into the thick of it.
I have choices.
Tell me, people of Earth: What choice do you have when you've thrown in the towel and resigned yourself to defeat so early in the game?
Answer: None. You have no choices when you let the world win.
I'll tell you what: I may not be making any money off of this writing thing, but I feel like I am a wealthy man anyway.
*/*
One of these days I'll get it right. One of these days I'll string the right amount of letters together and form some magic sentence that will unlock the mysteries of the universe and bring happiness and joy to all who are literate and lucky enough to read it.
Until then, I'm going to keep on writing, and I'm not going to stop.
What are you going to do until then?
Our President wants to send more troops to Iraq, as if that would help. Our pop cultural heroes keep dying off, reminding us of our own mortality. The villains seem to win or get away unscathed, shuffling off from this mortal coil without having to answer for their crimes.
People are writing less, blogging less. Even myself. I took some time off from blogging last year because I thought I needed to, but I discovered I was wrong.
I like to write. I like to blog. I don't do it for money, or so that I can attract advertisers and generate whore-cash. I don't write to get published, and I don't write to convince the world of my point of view.
I write because it is in me. It has always been in me. And if it is in me, then it needs to come out and get into you.
I gave up on chastising the lazy bloggers and the fairweather writers a long time ago. I don't care anymore if I post rambling blog entries and get zero comments. I don't give a shit if you like what I have to say or not.
I'm going to keep writing, and I'm not going to give up.
*/*
Writing is the only thing at which I am good.
That is to say, writing is the only thing that makes me feel like a true Master.
There will always be more skilled bassists, or more talented artists, or people with funnier stories or far more advanced conversational techniques. There will always be men more handsome than me, or more rugged than me, or more sensitive than me. There will always be someone just a little bit better than me in general.
But when it comes to writing, no one is better than me. That is because no one can write like me, and my writing resembles nobody else's prose.
The great ones are only great because they are widely distributed and read. But I can write better than Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Bukowski.
Wanna know why? Wanna know what's behind my ballsy reasoning?
Because those guys are dead, and I'm still here.
Their words remain, and their words are inspirational and eternal and classic. Their words and their works are enduring pieces of art that stretch into infinity and elevate their ranking damn near sainthood.
But they're dead, and I'm still here. And as far as other living writers go, I'm better than the whole lot of 'em.
That is the attitude one must have when approaching the blank page or the typewriter or the computer keyboard. Otherwise, you shouldn't be writing at all.
*/*
Blood spills in a foreign land. Over here, on the homefront, people are acquiescing left and right, settling for less, throwing the fight, taking dives and accepting bribes.
I don't blame them. They have no choice. They have nothing to fight for, they have no dreams left. The world has plundered their souls and taken all it can take. They have nothing left to offer up in the way of sacrifice.
They live in the real world, where rents can't be be paid and jobs are lost. They live in the material world, where money and bullshit walk hand in hand like a lovestruck couple unaware of their apparent mental illnesses. They live in the physical world where ideas have no weight and currency and therefore serve no purpose...
...and yet they wonder why things are slowly turning insane around them.
I live inside my head. I like living there-- it is preferable to this ugly realm that everyone else seems bound to, this prison for the unimaginative and feeble.
Call me a dreamer. Go ahead. I don't care. We just celebrated the life and death of a dreamer yesterday, so I don't mind it at all. To be in the company of people like MLK or John Lennon is fine with me.
They're dead, but their words live on.
Tell me, people of Earth: When you die, are your words going to live on, or are you taking them with you into the grave?
I know where my words will be-- spinning into eternity!
*/*
I am no longer disappointed by everyone's refusal to realize their own true potentials.
The way I see it, their insistence on bowing down before their insatiable gods and demons is an advantage for me.
What they disinherit-- the kingdom of heaven, peace and prosperity --is all mine for the taking. I have no competition. No one is trying to beat me to it.
I can take my time, or I can rush headlong into the thick of it.
I have choices.
Tell me, people of Earth: What choice do you have when you've thrown in the towel and resigned yourself to defeat so early in the game?
Answer: None. You have no choices when you let the world win.
I'll tell you what: I may not be making any money off of this writing thing, but I feel like I am a wealthy man anyway.
*/*
One of these days I'll get it right. One of these days I'll string the right amount of letters together and form some magic sentence that will unlock the mysteries of the universe and bring happiness and joy to all who are literate and lucky enough to read it.
Until then, I'm going to keep on writing, and I'm not going to stop.
What are you going to do until then?
Friday, January 12, 2007
college
From time to time, all of us have our doubts about the paths we chose to take in our lives.
It's normal to contemplate what could have been. Hell, I do it all the time. In fact, this past year has been one long revaluation of every decision I've made in the past 15 or 16 years!
But I always manage to bounce back and "stay the course", so to speak. My will to carry on refuses to allow those innermost fears and doubts gnaw at me for very long.
However, I've been thinking lately: What if I put my stubborn pride aside and truly reflect on my past as if every decision I've made has been totally wrong?
What would I conclude?
Hmmmm...
*/*
Let's start with my decision to not go to college.
This is is tricky, because I did try to go to a community college. But I only enrolled in two classes, Criminal Law and Broadcasting. I received an Incomplete in one and a Withdrawal in the other.
The reason I didn't continue, I tell myself, is because I wanted to be a working stiff and I'd had enough of book learning. I wanted to experience life and earn a paycheck and I couldn't wait to do four years of college.
But the fact is, I could've applied for scholarships... and I probably would've garnered a few based upon my ethnicity alone. But I tell myself that I didn't think it was fair that I had a shot at a university when so many non-minority students with the same GPA as me were denied.
I also like to tell myself that right now I'd be up to my scalp in debt, or that the minute I finished college I would've encountered the Quarterlife Crisis that I hear so much about.
And finally, I have always trotted out that old sawhorse about going back to college anytime I want but not right now because I'm doing so much and learning vital skills at my job.
There is some truth in all of these rationalizations, but I wonder if I could've lived the life I lived in my early twenties and still received a quality education.
You may be wondering why I didn't finish those two classes. It's simple, really: I was carpooling with my good friend Sharky, who is known for his tardiness in all aspects of life. I hesitate to blame him for my continual lateness during that semester, because it was my choice to go along with his idea of the both of us going to the same community college. I could've gone to the local college and taken a bus every day, but I let myself be persuaded to tag along with Sharky... who is still taking college courses to this day, I might add.
Ultimately, I just didn't want to go to college. I figured that I'd learn things in the workplace and get experience I couldn't gather from classes. In that respect, I was correct-- I don't think I'd be as seasoned as I am with audio editing, for example, if I'd completed that Broadcasting class.
But then again, if I'd gotten some type of degree, maybe I'd be making more money right now. And maybe I would've met more people that I most likely would not have met. I probably would've gotten laid a lot more too.
It's something to consider.
*/*
The left side of my brain reasons that I had just as many doubts about going to college as I had about not going. Truthfully, I probably had more fears and anxieties about going than not going, because there is a lot of pressure being put upon the average college student in their first year.
I had no pressure from my parents, that's for sure. If they were ever disappointed in my decision to not go, they never voiced it. Shit, they didn't even have money saved up for me in case I did want to go, so it's apparent that they trusted me to make that decision on my own. I don't think they ever expected me to go off to college, to be perfectly frank.
Would they have supported me if I had gone? Maybe. But at the time both sides of my immediate family (split by divorce, of course) were not in any real position to help me financially. They might have suggested I pay for it myself and live at home while attending, but I don't think they would have (or could have) gone beyond that.
They're all doing great now, so if I were eighteen years old again I think college would seem more attainable, more realistic.
But then there's that self-destructive, devil-may-care side of me that would've shirked my responsibilities and squandered my opportunities by not taking it seriously or changing majors mid-term or pursuing dead-end career paths simply because everyone else said it would be beneficial.
And let's not forget that I definitely would've used college as a method of making up for an adolescence that was only begininng to build up juvenile steam in my Senior year. I wanted to par-tay, and I'm certain that I would've neglected my studies in order to hit up the keggers and the social events.
I think I would've folded beneath the weight of exams, living as an adult for the first time, wanting to be creative, looking to have fun, and thinking about long-term goals vs. short-term gain... or at least that's what I tell myself.
*/*
Last but not least, there is the issue of whether college would've been unnecessary or redundant, given my enrollment in Magnet schools from the time I was in second grade until I graduated from high school.
Indeed, many of my peers who went on to colleges and universities would remark to me later on that the first two years of college were basically rehashes of what we learned in our Humanities CORE program. Our high school curriculum was definitely college prep material, and I can't help but wonder if it would've seemed all too easy if I'd gone on to college.
Maybe I would've gotten bored and dropped out anyway. Or maybe it would've challenged me in ways that I cannot imagine. Maybe I would've found a niche for myself that I hadn't counted on, or maybe I would've soldiered on with single-minded concentration by focusing on one supreme goal, whatever that might've been.
And that's the bottom line right there, when you think about it: "Whatever that might've been..." I could go on and on thinking about the infinite possibilities, but none of the tangents I could conjure would get me any closer to knowing if it was a mistake to not go to college.
I often state that, for me, college would've been a disaster, but I don't begrudge anyone for applying themselves to it. I think there is a hint of resentment and envy inherent in that train of thought. It's as if I wrote off something that could've improved me or altered me irrevocably, merely because I was afraid of what might happen if I finished college.
What was I afraid of happening? Perhaps I feared that college would be too hard, that I wasn't smart enough or disciplined enough to hack it. Then again, maybe I was terrified of the notion of watching life pass me by yet again as I buried my nose in books and delayed the gratification of adulthood for another four years.
My half-assed foray into attending classes served as an excuse to not bother trying. Two wasted courses were enough for me to claim that I'd given it a try and it didn't work out. I've been riding the momentum of that claim for the longest time.
And yet, after all these years I am still conflicted over it. I think it is due to not knowing if I really wanted to go to college or not. I sometimes feel like I just dismissed it as sour grapes, but then again I don't feel a burning desire to do all the necessary things it takes to enroll.
I suppose I did the right thing for me at the time. I don't regret not going, but let's say that I had gone: Would I have regretted going? You never really hear people say they regret going to college. They might say it was a waste of time at the very worst, or that their degree is useless... but you never hear people say they regretted it.
There's that Butthole Surfers song where a voice says, "It's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't done!" But that gets followed by the same man asking his son to scream "SATAN! SATAN! SATAN!" at his mother the next time he sees her, so that's not much help to me.
Still, I can't say I know for a fact that my life would be any different had I gone. At least now I can face up to the fears that motivated me to avoid it altogether. For whatever reasons I had for discouraging myself from higher learning, I am content knowing that the path I did take was exciting and challenging in its own way, and it has taken me this long to even entertain the notion that I made a bad move.
In the end, I'm here, I'm alive, I'm happy as I can be... Why ponder what may or may not have been my fate?
In my next post, I think I'll pontificate on my writing and the decisions I made regarding its place in my life.
It's normal to contemplate what could have been. Hell, I do it all the time. In fact, this past year has been one long revaluation of every decision I've made in the past 15 or 16 years!
But I always manage to bounce back and "stay the course", so to speak. My will to carry on refuses to allow those innermost fears and doubts gnaw at me for very long.
However, I've been thinking lately: What if I put my stubborn pride aside and truly reflect on my past as if every decision I've made has been totally wrong?
What would I conclude?
Hmmmm...
*/*
Let's start with my decision to not go to college.
This is is tricky, because I did try to go to a community college. But I only enrolled in two classes, Criminal Law and Broadcasting. I received an Incomplete in one and a Withdrawal in the other.
The reason I didn't continue, I tell myself, is because I wanted to be a working stiff and I'd had enough of book learning. I wanted to experience life and earn a paycheck and I couldn't wait to do four years of college.
But the fact is, I could've applied for scholarships... and I probably would've garnered a few based upon my ethnicity alone. But I tell myself that I didn't think it was fair that I had a shot at a university when so many non-minority students with the same GPA as me were denied.
I also like to tell myself that right now I'd be up to my scalp in debt, or that the minute I finished college I would've encountered the Quarterlife Crisis that I hear so much about.
And finally, I have always trotted out that old sawhorse about going back to college anytime I want but not right now because I'm doing so much and learning vital skills at my job.
There is some truth in all of these rationalizations, but I wonder if I could've lived the life I lived in my early twenties and still received a quality education.
You may be wondering why I didn't finish those two classes. It's simple, really: I was carpooling with my good friend Sharky, who is known for his tardiness in all aspects of life. I hesitate to blame him for my continual lateness during that semester, because it was my choice to go along with his idea of the both of us going to the same community college. I could've gone to the local college and taken a bus every day, but I let myself be persuaded to tag along with Sharky... who is still taking college courses to this day, I might add.
Ultimately, I just didn't want to go to college. I figured that I'd learn things in the workplace and get experience I couldn't gather from classes. In that respect, I was correct-- I don't think I'd be as seasoned as I am with audio editing, for example, if I'd completed that Broadcasting class.
But then again, if I'd gotten some type of degree, maybe I'd be making more money right now. And maybe I would've met more people that I most likely would not have met. I probably would've gotten laid a lot more too.
It's something to consider.
*/*
The left side of my brain reasons that I had just as many doubts about going to college as I had about not going. Truthfully, I probably had more fears and anxieties about going than not going, because there is a lot of pressure being put upon the average college student in their first year.
I had no pressure from my parents, that's for sure. If they were ever disappointed in my decision to not go, they never voiced it. Shit, they didn't even have money saved up for me in case I did want to go, so it's apparent that they trusted me to make that decision on my own. I don't think they ever expected me to go off to college, to be perfectly frank.
Would they have supported me if I had gone? Maybe. But at the time both sides of my immediate family (split by divorce, of course) were not in any real position to help me financially. They might have suggested I pay for it myself and live at home while attending, but I don't think they would have (or could have) gone beyond that.
They're all doing great now, so if I were eighteen years old again I think college would seem more attainable, more realistic.
But then there's that self-destructive, devil-may-care side of me that would've shirked my responsibilities and squandered my opportunities by not taking it seriously or changing majors mid-term or pursuing dead-end career paths simply because everyone else said it would be beneficial.
And let's not forget that I definitely would've used college as a method of making up for an adolescence that was only begininng to build up juvenile steam in my Senior year. I wanted to par-tay, and I'm certain that I would've neglected my studies in order to hit up the keggers and the social events.
I think I would've folded beneath the weight of exams, living as an adult for the first time, wanting to be creative, looking to have fun, and thinking about long-term goals vs. short-term gain... or at least that's what I tell myself.
*/*
Last but not least, there is the issue of whether college would've been unnecessary or redundant, given my enrollment in Magnet schools from the time I was in second grade until I graduated from high school.
Indeed, many of my peers who went on to colleges and universities would remark to me later on that the first two years of college were basically rehashes of what we learned in our Humanities CORE program. Our high school curriculum was definitely college prep material, and I can't help but wonder if it would've seemed all too easy if I'd gone on to college.
Maybe I would've gotten bored and dropped out anyway. Or maybe it would've challenged me in ways that I cannot imagine. Maybe I would've found a niche for myself that I hadn't counted on, or maybe I would've soldiered on with single-minded concentration by focusing on one supreme goal, whatever that might've been.
And that's the bottom line right there, when you think about it: "Whatever that might've been..." I could go on and on thinking about the infinite possibilities, but none of the tangents I could conjure would get me any closer to knowing if it was a mistake to not go to college.
I often state that, for me, college would've been a disaster, but I don't begrudge anyone for applying themselves to it. I think there is a hint of resentment and envy inherent in that train of thought. It's as if I wrote off something that could've improved me or altered me irrevocably, merely because I was afraid of what might happen if I finished college.
What was I afraid of happening? Perhaps I feared that college would be too hard, that I wasn't smart enough or disciplined enough to hack it. Then again, maybe I was terrified of the notion of watching life pass me by yet again as I buried my nose in books and delayed the gratification of adulthood for another four years.
My half-assed foray into attending classes served as an excuse to not bother trying. Two wasted courses were enough for me to claim that I'd given it a try and it didn't work out. I've been riding the momentum of that claim for the longest time.
And yet, after all these years I am still conflicted over it. I think it is due to not knowing if I really wanted to go to college or not. I sometimes feel like I just dismissed it as sour grapes, but then again I don't feel a burning desire to do all the necessary things it takes to enroll.
I suppose I did the right thing for me at the time. I don't regret not going, but let's say that I had gone: Would I have regretted going? You never really hear people say they regret going to college. They might say it was a waste of time at the very worst, or that their degree is useless... but you never hear people say they regretted it.
There's that Butthole Surfers song where a voice says, "It's better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven't done!" But that gets followed by the same man asking his son to scream "SATAN! SATAN! SATAN!" at his mother the next time he sees her, so that's not much help to me.
Still, I can't say I know for a fact that my life would be any different had I gone. At least now I can face up to the fears that motivated me to avoid it altogether. For whatever reasons I had for discouraging myself from higher learning, I am content knowing that the path I did take was exciting and challenging in its own way, and it has taken me this long to even entertain the notion that I made a bad move.
In the end, I'm here, I'm alive, I'm happy as I can be... Why ponder what may or may not have been my fate?
In my next post, I think I'll pontificate on my writing and the decisions I made regarding its place in my life.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
mope
The song: "Girlfriend In A Coma", written by Morrissey/Marr and performed by The Smiths.
The video: This was the first Smiths video that I ever saw on MTV. I never knew what Morrissey looked like, because I never owned any Smiths albums prior to seeing this. All of my school friends adored them but it took some time before I caught on, and then by the time I even knew what they looked like they had broken up and that was it.
It is probably my all-time favorite Smiths song, because it is both hilarious and sad... plus it is very short and catchy, the way all perfect pop songs should be.
I have no idea what movie is superimposed over Morrissey, but I'm sure a nice thorough Google search will reveal that for me.
Enjoy.
The video: This was the first Smiths video that I ever saw on MTV. I never knew what Morrissey looked like, because I never owned any Smiths albums prior to seeing this. All of my school friends adored them but it took some time before I caught on, and then by the time I even knew what they looked like they had broken up and that was it.
It is probably my all-time favorite Smiths song, because it is both hilarious and sad... plus it is very short and catchy, the way all perfect pop songs should be.
I have no idea what movie is superimposed over Morrissey, but I'm sure a nice thorough Google search will reveal that for me.
Enjoy.
Monday, January 08, 2007
sick
The song: "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", written by the late George Harrison and originally recorded by The Beatles.
The event: The 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies.
The skinny motherfucker playing some mean-ass guitar: Prince, playing some of the best six-string slinging I've ever heard from him. I've been meaning to get a load of this when I first heard about his blistering solo during the traditional all-star git jam that happens at the end of the event, but I only got around to finding the clip on YouTube recently.
Enjoy.
The event: The 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremonies.
The skinny motherfucker playing some mean-ass guitar: Prince, playing some of the best six-string slinging I've ever heard from him. I've been meaning to get a load of this when I first heard about his blistering solo during the traditional all-star git jam that happens at the end of the event, but I only got around to finding the clip on YouTube recently.
Enjoy.
Friday, January 05, 2007
believe
Happy New Year!
Good news: I am clean and sober for the first time in 15 years.
OK, so I smoked some pot on New Year's Eve and washed it back with a Newcastle. But it wasn't my pot-- I haven't bought any weed for my own consumption in over a month. And the Newcastle was a freebie from the bartender with whom I am friends... I tipped her, of course, but the beer itself cost me nothing.
I haven't had any cocaine since last Saturday, and my dealer announced that he is no longer selling small bags, which is good for me since that's all I seemed to purchase.
I still smoke cigarettes though. That one is going to be tough, because I am truly addicted to nicotine.
Still, it feels good to be drug-free. I am not expecting to go cold turkey, but I know that my partaking has gone down in general ever since I made an earnest effort to quit smoking pot, which has always been my greatest love.
Once I cut down on the herb, everything else seemed to fall into place. And if I smoke it every now and then, that's fine-- I was sick of doing it all day every day. Every once in a while is the way it should be.
By the way: I don't consider these to be resolutions. The late Charles Bukowski's headstone is engraved with the words "Don't Try", which means that there is only doing and not doing-- there is no such thing as "try".
New Year's resolutions are nothing but a bunch of tries. But what I've done with myself... that's a bunch of dos and don'ts.
*/*
I owe some of my new found sobriety to Rose, whom I mentioned in my recent Las Vegas mini-epic posts.
I've only known Rose for about five months, but in that short time she has been nothing but wonderful in helping me find my way during the second half of 2006, a period where I felt like I'd lost my direction and sense of self.
Rose and I are not a couple. Rather, she has been quite possibly the purest muse I've had in many a year. I won't lie, though: I did like her right off the bat, but after a while I found myself wondering what about her held my fascination so raptly.
I think the answer lies in my unwillingness to rebound in the wake of my break-up with Eve. It would've been easier to just throw myself into something else. And even if I'd felt that Rose felt the same way as me (which, to be honest, I am not sure nor do I care to find out) I think that finding an immediate substitute for Eve would've been disastrous, considering that I was still trying to find myself again.
Plus, Rose had a "boyfriend" who lived out of state, a situation I (correctly) predicted would lead to no avail for her.
Rose broke up with said boyfriend shortly after Halloween, when she sang the Columbia and Magenta parts during Missing Digits' live interpretation of "Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I didn't hear from her for a while after that, and she cut back on her My Space access during that time.
Then, she re-emerged and started contacting me again. We made plans to go see the Rene Magritte exhibit at LACMA in December.
We went and ate breakfast at Swinger's in Hollywood, where she regaled me with the news of her relationship's end. I should've been happy-- now I had my chance to win her heart and woo her off her feet, right?
However, I had already decided by that time that, whatever it was I saw in her, it had nothing to do with wanting to date again. No, it had more to do with hearing things from a fresh perspective, and Rose was up to that task.
So when she went on about her reasons for terminating her affair with her out-of-state man, I paid it mind merely on the surface. Deep down, I did not want to know, just as I was sure she did not need to know about my cocaine binges, my borderline bipolar episodes, and my past girlfriends.
I was just happy to be in the company of a smart, cute, sensible girl who (after two and a half months of asking her out and having her straddle the fence with me) finally sought me out for my companionship.
We had a lot of fun that day, and then she told me that she was leaving Los Angeles because she was not happy here and she felt she could pursue a more meaningful existence in the northern part of California.
I saw this coming a mile away, and encouraged her to follow her bliss. Rose is like many girls I've met in the past five or six years: dissatisfied with her position and her place (to quote the great Bob Dylan), and disturbed by L.A.'s tendency to eat sensitive people alive.
Normally, news like this would cause me to sulk and possibly attempt to persuade said girl to stay despite her obvious interest in relocating. But this time around, I did the opposite and cheered her for her initiative.
Rose smiled when I told her not to give up, and the reason she smiled is because I explained to her that, when I was feeling like I could not continue to play in Missing Digits or pursue my own dreams, she was the one who told me not to quit.
Genuine reciprocity can sometimes be more romantic and sweet than holding hands or exchanging goo-goo eyes... and let's face it-- I was not ready for anything more than what we were sharing that day.
Rose has taught me a lot of lessons without even trying. The recent one that I'm about to mention qualifies as one of the biggest lessons I've learned not only this year but in my entire life as well.
*/*
She called me up and asked me what I had planned for New Year's Eve. I told her I might go and hang out with Big JJ at the nightclub where he works the door. She then invited me to go to her friend's house for a small party, and then maybe afterwards we could go to the club and grab a few drinks before calling it a night.
I agreed to that plan. Then, before I was about to get off the phone, I casually mentioned that I'd seen Jackass Number Two on DVD earlier in the day.
Rose paused and said, "Why is everyone in my life telling me this information? It seems like anyone I talk to these days has seen this movie and feels the need to inform me of it."
I sensed irritation in her voice, but rather than drop the subject I instead tried to explain its appeal. "In every man, there's a 15 year-old boy trying to break out."
"Yeah, but that's why you play in a rock band," she said.
"I thought it was funny. You can tell the Jackass guys are getting more creative with their stunts and--"
>click<
The phone went dead. I didn't assume that she had hung up on me, but when I called her back not once or twice but three times and got no answer, I suddenly wondered if she'd been so offended by my exaltation of Johnny Knoxville and company that she cut me off mid-sentence.
I didn't think Rose would be the type to do that, but it made no sense for the phone line to just cut off like that... and calling her back three times to listen to the line ring endlessly only made me more anxious.
I could've tried her cel phone, but my phone line has been on Toll Restriction since I refused to pay the long distance portion of my bill (long story, don't ask) and so I knew I would not be able to call her on that line.
So I waited.
She didn't call me back.
I got worried. I started to think about all the girls who never gave me an explanation for their dismissal of me. I wondered if Rose was worth knowing if she was so quick to judge me like that.
I snorted a gram of cocaine to my head, which only increased my paranoia. I stayed up all night hoping to hear the phone ring.
Before I finally went to sleep, I fired off an apologetic e-mail, hoping that I could reach her that way. I wasn't mad at her at all. If anything, I felt like I'd opened my big mouth once again and ruined everything with my inability to shut the fuck up.
The next morning, I resolved to go out to the club by myself. I did not want to go to her friend's party if she was upset at me. The rejection felt all too real. This past year was rife with rejection, not just from the likes of Eve but other individuals as well. Most of them didn't even give me the benefit of an explanation-- they just turned on me and didn't look back.
So when the eve of the New Year was upon me, I was determined not to let it get me down. I was ready to go out and get drunk and forget that I was seemingly repulsive to every female on the face of the planet.
Right before I left the apartment, I received a phone call. It was from Rose. But I did not pick it up-- I let it ring as I headed out the door. I did not want to know what she had to say to me.
I wound up at the club and talked with Big JJ and saw an incredible all-Asian punk band. I received a beer from the bartender and smoked some weed in the parking lot with JJ's girlfriend Carrie. I even ran into some friends whom I had invited to the club, seeing as they had no plans of their own for the New Year.
Then, just as we were about to go get some food at IHOP, Rose and her friends showed up. I walked over to her, a little out of my gourd and weary for the wear.
"Hey!" she said, smiling. "I called you. What happened?"
"Hi... I didn't hear back from you."
"I know, my power went out in my apartment and I couldn't use the phone because it's a portable, and my cel wasn't charged up."
"Ohhhh..." It all started to make sense.
"Why didn't you come to the party? I gave you directions and everything."
"I... I... I didn't think you wanted me to come."
"What? Are you crazy? Of course I wanted you to come."
I started to feel really stupid for flaking on her, so I changed the subject. "How was the party?"
"It was OK-- it would've been better if you'd shown up. Here, I have something for you."
She pulled out of her petticoat a small rectangle wrapped in paper. It was a gift.
"I got you a little something for Christmas and I wanted to give it to you tonight."
I was speechless. Unable to think properly, I proceeded to open the gift.
Rose talked as I unwrapped it. "Remember at LACMA when you were sketching in your notepad and that woman came up to you and started talking to you about art? And remember how I sat down and talked with the both of you but she just wanted to talk to you instead? And remember how you were kind enough to include me in the conversation anyway, even though she had her eyes on you? Well, I was thinking about that when I found this gift in Venice, and I wrote a little quote in there that reminded me of you."
Her gift to me was a small, portable sketch book. On the first page, in clear red handwritten print, was the following quote:
"To believe is to be strong. Doubt cramps energy. Belief is power. Only so far as a man believes strongly, mightily, can he act cheerfully, or do any thing that is worth the doing." --Frederick W. Robertson
And I laughed to myself when I read the words "Doubt cramps energy" and I looked at her and said, "Thank you. I have a gift for you too, at home. I can go get it if you want."
Rose laughed. "I think you'd better not worry about that. You look trashed. Get some coffee in you, sweetie. Happy New Year."
We hugged for what seemed like an eternity. I promised her I'd be back after getting some joe in my gullet, but she didn't take my tipsy words seriously. By the time I'd returned to the club, she had gone home.
*/*
We sorted the whole mess out, and eventually I gave her my gift: a book of Picasso's sketches, with accompanying slides.
I am going to miss her when she is gone, but we still have some time left before she makes the move up north. For her birthday, she is having a party... and this time I will not give in to my silly fears and wild anxieties.
This time, I will take her advice and be strong by believing in something. She reminded me of that only a few hours after the start of 2007, and so it is only appropriate that I take her up on that.
2006 was a bad year for me, but if I had to single out one event as being good, it would have to be meeting Rose for the first time. She gave me confidence when I had none, and she and I have shared a lot of love and warmth and encouragement.
We have the power to believe, and that's enough to get by on, isn't it?
Happy New Year, everyone...
Good news: I am clean and sober for the first time in 15 years.
OK, so I smoked some pot on New Year's Eve and washed it back with a Newcastle. But it wasn't my pot-- I haven't bought any weed for my own consumption in over a month. And the Newcastle was a freebie from the bartender with whom I am friends... I tipped her, of course, but the beer itself cost me nothing.
I haven't had any cocaine since last Saturday, and my dealer announced that he is no longer selling small bags, which is good for me since that's all I seemed to purchase.
I still smoke cigarettes though. That one is going to be tough, because I am truly addicted to nicotine.
Still, it feels good to be drug-free. I am not expecting to go cold turkey, but I know that my partaking has gone down in general ever since I made an earnest effort to quit smoking pot, which has always been my greatest love.
Once I cut down on the herb, everything else seemed to fall into place. And if I smoke it every now and then, that's fine-- I was sick of doing it all day every day. Every once in a while is the way it should be.
By the way: I don't consider these to be resolutions. The late Charles Bukowski's headstone is engraved with the words "Don't Try", which means that there is only doing and not doing-- there is no such thing as "try".
New Year's resolutions are nothing but a bunch of tries. But what I've done with myself... that's a bunch of dos and don'ts.
*/*
I owe some of my new found sobriety to Rose, whom I mentioned in my recent Las Vegas mini-epic posts.
I've only known Rose for about five months, but in that short time she has been nothing but wonderful in helping me find my way during the second half of 2006, a period where I felt like I'd lost my direction and sense of self.
Rose and I are not a couple. Rather, she has been quite possibly the purest muse I've had in many a year. I won't lie, though: I did like her right off the bat, but after a while I found myself wondering what about her held my fascination so raptly.
I think the answer lies in my unwillingness to rebound in the wake of my break-up with Eve. It would've been easier to just throw myself into something else. And even if I'd felt that Rose felt the same way as me (which, to be honest, I am not sure nor do I care to find out) I think that finding an immediate substitute for Eve would've been disastrous, considering that I was still trying to find myself again.
Plus, Rose had a "boyfriend" who lived out of state, a situation I (correctly) predicted would lead to no avail for her.
Rose broke up with said boyfriend shortly after Halloween, when she sang the Columbia and Magenta parts during Missing Digits' live interpretation of "Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I didn't hear from her for a while after that, and she cut back on her My Space access during that time.
Then, she re-emerged and started contacting me again. We made plans to go see the Rene Magritte exhibit at LACMA in December.
We went and ate breakfast at Swinger's in Hollywood, where she regaled me with the news of her relationship's end. I should've been happy-- now I had my chance to win her heart and woo her off her feet, right?
However, I had already decided by that time that, whatever it was I saw in her, it had nothing to do with wanting to date again. No, it had more to do with hearing things from a fresh perspective, and Rose was up to that task.
So when she went on about her reasons for terminating her affair with her out-of-state man, I paid it mind merely on the surface. Deep down, I did not want to know, just as I was sure she did not need to know about my cocaine binges, my borderline bipolar episodes, and my past girlfriends.
I was just happy to be in the company of a smart, cute, sensible girl who (after two and a half months of asking her out and having her straddle the fence with me) finally sought me out for my companionship.
We had a lot of fun that day, and then she told me that she was leaving Los Angeles because she was not happy here and she felt she could pursue a more meaningful existence in the northern part of California.
I saw this coming a mile away, and encouraged her to follow her bliss. Rose is like many girls I've met in the past five or six years: dissatisfied with her position and her place (to quote the great Bob Dylan), and disturbed by L.A.'s tendency to eat sensitive people alive.
Normally, news like this would cause me to sulk and possibly attempt to persuade said girl to stay despite her obvious interest in relocating. But this time around, I did the opposite and cheered her for her initiative.
Rose smiled when I told her not to give up, and the reason she smiled is because I explained to her that, when I was feeling like I could not continue to play in Missing Digits or pursue my own dreams, she was the one who told me not to quit.
Genuine reciprocity can sometimes be more romantic and sweet than holding hands or exchanging goo-goo eyes... and let's face it-- I was not ready for anything more than what we were sharing that day.
Rose has taught me a lot of lessons without even trying. The recent one that I'm about to mention qualifies as one of the biggest lessons I've learned not only this year but in my entire life as well.
*/*
She called me up and asked me what I had planned for New Year's Eve. I told her I might go and hang out with Big JJ at the nightclub where he works the door. She then invited me to go to her friend's house for a small party, and then maybe afterwards we could go to the club and grab a few drinks before calling it a night.
I agreed to that plan. Then, before I was about to get off the phone, I casually mentioned that I'd seen Jackass Number Two on DVD earlier in the day.
Rose paused and said, "Why is everyone in my life telling me this information? It seems like anyone I talk to these days has seen this movie and feels the need to inform me of it."
I sensed irritation in her voice, but rather than drop the subject I instead tried to explain its appeal. "In every man, there's a 15 year-old boy trying to break out."
"Yeah, but that's why you play in a rock band," she said.
"I thought it was funny. You can tell the Jackass guys are getting more creative with their stunts and--"
>click<
The phone went dead. I didn't assume that she had hung up on me, but when I called her back not once or twice but three times and got no answer, I suddenly wondered if she'd been so offended by my exaltation of Johnny Knoxville and company that she cut me off mid-sentence.
I didn't think Rose would be the type to do that, but it made no sense for the phone line to just cut off like that... and calling her back three times to listen to the line ring endlessly only made me more anxious.
I could've tried her cel phone, but my phone line has been on Toll Restriction since I refused to pay the long distance portion of my bill (long story, don't ask) and so I knew I would not be able to call her on that line.
So I waited.
She didn't call me back.
I got worried. I started to think about all the girls who never gave me an explanation for their dismissal of me. I wondered if Rose was worth knowing if she was so quick to judge me like that.
I snorted a gram of cocaine to my head, which only increased my paranoia. I stayed up all night hoping to hear the phone ring.
Before I finally went to sleep, I fired off an apologetic e-mail, hoping that I could reach her that way. I wasn't mad at her at all. If anything, I felt like I'd opened my big mouth once again and ruined everything with my inability to shut the fuck up.
The next morning, I resolved to go out to the club by myself. I did not want to go to her friend's party if she was upset at me. The rejection felt all too real. This past year was rife with rejection, not just from the likes of Eve but other individuals as well. Most of them didn't even give me the benefit of an explanation-- they just turned on me and didn't look back.
So when the eve of the New Year was upon me, I was determined not to let it get me down. I was ready to go out and get drunk and forget that I was seemingly repulsive to every female on the face of the planet.
Right before I left the apartment, I received a phone call. It was from Rose. But I did not pick it up-- I let it ring as I headed out the door. I did not want to know what she had to say to me.
I wound up at the club and talked with Big JJ and saw an incredible all-Asian punk band. I received a beer from the bartender and smoked some weed in the parking lot with JJ's girlfriend Carrie. I even ran into some friends whom I had invited to the club, seeing as they had no plans of their own for the New Year.
Then, just as we were about to go get some food at IHOP, Rose and her friends showed up. I walked over to her, a little out of my gourd and weary for the wear.
"Hey!" she said, smiling. "I called you. What happened?"
"Hi... I didn't hear back from you."
"I know, my power went out in my apartment and I couldn't use the phone because it's a portable, and my cel wasn't charged up."
"Ohhhh..." It all started to make sense.
"Why didn't you come to the party? I gave you directions and everything."
"I... I... I didn't think you wanted me to come."
"What? Are you crazy? Of course I wanted you to come."
I started to feel really stupid for flaking on her, so I changed the subject. "How was the party?"
"It was OK-- it would've been better if you'd shown up. Here, I have something for you."
She pulled out of her petticoat a small rectangle wrapped in paper. It was a gift.
"I got you a little something for Christmas and I wanted to give it to you tonight."
I was speechless. Unable to think properly, I proceeded to open the gift.
Rose talked as I unwrapped it. "Remember at LACMA when you were sketching in your notepad and that woman came up to you and started talking to you about art? And remember how I sat down and talked with the both of you but she just wanted to talk to you instead? And remember how you were kind enough to include me in the conversation anyway, even though she had her eyes on you? Well, I was thinking about that when I found this gift in Venice, and I wrote a little quote in there that reminded me of you."
Her gift to me was a small, portable sketch book. On the first page, in clear red handwritten print, was the following quote:
"To believe is to be strong. Doubt cramps energy. Belief is power. Only so far as a man believes strongly, mightily, can he act cheerfully, or do any thing that is worth the doing." --Frederick W. Robertson
And I laughed to myself when I read the words "Doubt cramps energy" and I looked at her and said, "Thank you. I have a gift for you too, at home. I can go get it if you want."
Rose laughed. "I think you'd better not worry about that. You look trashed. Get some coffee in you, sweetie. Happy New Year."
We hugged for what seemed like an eternity. I promised her I'd be back after getting some joe in my gullet, but she didn't take my tipsy words seriously. By the time I'd returned to the club, she had gone home.
*/*
We sorted the whole mess out, and eventually I gave her my gift: a book of Picasso's sketches, with accompanying slides.
I am going to miss her when she is gone, but we still have some time left before she makes the move up north. For her birthday, she is having a party... and this time I will not give in to my silly fears and wild anxieties.
This time, I will take her advice and be strong by believing in something. She reminded me of that only a few hours after the start of 2007, and so it is only appropriate that I take her up on that.
2006 was a bad year for me, but if I had to single out one event as being good, it would have to be meeting Rose for the first time. She gave me confidence when I had none, and she and I have shared a lot of love and warmth and encouragement.
We have the power to believe, and that's enough to get by on, isn't it?
Happy New Year, everyone...
Thursday, December 28, 2006
an absurd tone
Looking back over the year's posts, I noticed that there was a definite change in my tone around the end of May and beginning of June.
It was around May 22, 2006 when I posted a blog about writing here less. It was a de facto farewell, or rather an announcement that I wasn't going to blog as frequently as in the past.
It also happened to be around the time that I quit the radio gig and started the higher-paying job at the prefab factory. I was anticipating that I wouldn't have any time to post at length, as is my wont.
Now that I've been gone from the prefab gig for almost three months, and now that the year is almost over, it feels appropriate to reflect upon what has come before.
New job and less time to blog notwithstanding, there was a definite change in my tone during the past summer.
And I remember what caused that change. I didn't write about it at the time because... well, I don't have any real reason or excuse as to why I didn't.
I guess now is as good a time as any to examine this.
*/*
In the middle of last Spring I saw an ad for a theatrical production of Ubu Roi, an obscure early-twentieth-century absurdist French play written by none other than Alfred Jarry, whom I have obsessed over for some time now.
Imagine my excitement: Jarry's work is strange and satirical, and reading the words on the printed page just doesn't do any justice to what he was trying to stage. Jarry is not the type of figure whose plays get staged regularly, and since I was working on a screenplay based on the eccentric 'pataphysicist's life, I thought it would be splendid to see a production (taking place in nearby Pasadena, no less) of perhaps his best-known work, Ubu Roi ("Ubu The King").
The main character, Pere Ubu, is an over-the-top antihero possessing every negative quality and trait available to the human condition: cowardice, greed, ignorance, sloth, boorishness, full of disgrace and wholly unsophisticated. This was Jarry's intention-- the character was based upon one of his science teachers during his insolent upbringing, a man that young Jarry and his classmates reveled in lampooning.
The best way to describe Ubu (to those who don't feel they can regard someone so repugnant and vile as even remotely comical) would be to compare him to Homer Simpson. If Homer Simpson was actually a real live person, 90% of the things that come out of his mouth (as well as 95% of his actions) would appall the average citizen. But we giggle at his antics because he is a cartoon character, a grotesque so broadly drawn that one must laugh in self-defense lest the gravity of his words and deeds remind us that reality is not that far removed from the caricature.
I knew of only one other person who would appreciate a theatrical staging of Ubu Roi, and that was my friend from high school, Laurie. When I forwarded a link of the ad, she replied that she would love to check it out. She would let both her husband Daniel and Eve know about it so that we could make a couple's night out of it.
It all sounded good to me. Personally, I would've gone by myself if no one had wanted to go.
In hindsight, maybe that would have been the better course to take.
*/*
As the date for the play neared, Eve and I were pretty much done romantically. She'd made it clear to me that she only wanted to be friends. I suspected that she was already seeing someone else, but I figured we could at least try to be friends. After all, I was friends with nearly all of my exes and it never posed any problems. Eve and I had matured enough over the years to be civil and respectful of each other in a post-break-up scenario, right?
Not quite.
I found that I didn't really like Eve as a person if we weren't in love. Absurd, yes, but you're dealing with a person who lives for the absurd.
Things that I could tolerate in her simply became intolerable without the net of an intimate relationship underneath us. Lacking a shared passion, I began to see how vastly different we are in general. Her idiosyncrasies started to grate on my nerves.
Look, I'm not the neatest, tidiest person in the world, but must she always keep her apartment in such disarray, with clothes strewn about and cigarette butts piling to Babelian proportions in her many ashtrays? To me, it was less about good housekeeping than a symptom of a deeper problem.
Still, it would not be such an issue if it weren't for her facile acknowledgement of this supreme messiness-- you couldn't walk into her place without hearing her apologize for the state it was in, even if you had no intention of mentioning it.
But to push matters into the realm of insufferability, she would refuse any offer to help her clean the mess. So here you have it: a girl with an unkempt apartment bitching about something she has absolutely no intention of doing anything about...
I could deal with it when we were lovers, but not when we became friends.
That was just one of the things that was growing on me, and it certainly wasn't the biggest thing either. But it would indeed prove to be the case later on.
*/*
When my friend Nina got wind of the Jarry production, she volunteered to buy tickets for the four of us plus two more for herself and her boyfriend, who later got me the short-lived job at the prefab factory.
She purchased tickets for the last day of the show. This made me even more excited, because I wanted to know what my friends thought of Jarry. I was already sold on the man and his writings, but to finally be able to talk at length with people I respected about something that I was so gaga over filled me with such an elation that I forgot about everything else, including my strained relationship with Eve.
Now that I replay the whole episode in my head, I realize that I should've done more to ensure that things would go off without a hitch. However, I was too happy about seeing a rarely-performed Jarry play in my own backyard to think of Murphy's Law, which is ironic seeing as Murphy's Law is the purest distillation of Jarry's pseudo-science of 'pataphysics that anyone could ever come across.
"If anything can happen, it will"... or so the maxim goes.
*/*
The day of the play, I started to get anxious.
The plan was for Laurie and Daniel to meet us at Eve's apartment, where we could travel together in one car.
Nina and her boyfriend were already on their way, and had called to let us know that they would leave the tickets at the box offfice window in case we were running late.
And running late we were. I was pacing around Eve's disheveled apartment, looking at my watch every two minutes. "Where are they?"
"They'll be here," Eve said, annoyed at my impatience.
"If Laurie and Daniel cause us to miss out on this for any reason..." I didn't finish my sentence. I had no threats to wield.
"Well, why don't we just go on ahead and meet them there?"
"Do you know where the playhouse is?"
"No. Do you?"
"No."
"Well, you should've thought of that beforehand."
That last comment from Eve ticked me off. Obviously I should've done more legwork in that regard... but considering her penchant for bitching and moaning about every litle thing, it was a pretty nervy thing for her to say to me, and at the worst possible time.
I glared at her for an instant and remembered that she and I no longer had any reasons to be phony around each other.
So I lit into her.
I chewed her out for being so petty, so dismissive of my anger, especially since every time she gets angry for the smallest reason I have to sit there and listen to her and take it and hear it again and again, and now that we weren't a couple I didn't have to put up with her sanctimonious bullshit, and why is it that I'm always the one who has to answer for everyone else's mistakes, why is it my fault when someone else is too fucking stupid or unaware to simply be on time for something as simple as a ride to the playhouse...
Eve didn't like that very much. But when I reminded her of the time, she got on the phone and called Laurie to inquire as to what was taking them so long.
"Hey Laurie, what's going on? We're waiting for you two... What was that? His what? He can't find what? Well, tell him he's going to have to can it, because we only have fifteen minutes to get there, and you guys haven't even left yet..."
Upon hearing that, I threw my hands up in the air. "Great... fucking great!"
I know I wasn't acting very mature about it, but at the time I couldn't believe it was happening. I simply could not believe that it was all going down the way it was going down.
Eve hung up the phone, a look of wariness on her face. "She said that Daniel's having some sort of a hissy fit... you know those Brits..."
I went outside to have a smoke. When my lighter wouldn't work properly, I lashed out and punched a tree with my fist.
Eve didn't like seeing this side of me, but when she tried to communicate that to me I retorted that she was going to have to get used to that side of me: Now that I had no reason to pretend I gave a damn about anything concerning her, she was going to see how I really am.
*/*
Fifteen minutes past the hour, Laurie and Daniel showed up. I don't know if their reaction to Eve telling them that they were wrong about the time the play started was genuine or feigned, but apparently they felt bad for being late and wanted to get there as soon as possible.
By that time, I'd stopped talking. I was filled with hatred and anger. Nothing I could say or do mattered. I was at their mercy from that point on.
There were the usual awkward gestures, mostly on the part of the women, to try and lighten the mood. But I had nothing to say, and Daniel, realizing that it would be very easy for me to jump all over him and blame him for our lateness as a group, kept quiet.
I finally said something when we arrived: "Let me out here, I'll check to see if it's too late to go inside while you guys find parking."
I approached the box office and talked to the woman behind the glass.
"A friend of mine left four tickets for the show. Has it started already?"
"Yes it has."
"How long ago?"
"Promptly at seven."
It was now 7:30 pm.
"How long is the show?"
"An hour and a half."
Not too shabby, I thought. An hour is better than nothing.
"I must warn you, sir," the box office woman said, "that the theater is probably full. We cannot guarantee that you will have a seat."
"Shit, I don't care if we have to sit on the floor. Do you have the tickets?"
She gave me the tickets just as the others walked up. I informed them of the situation and we all agreed that missing half an hour would not be a terrible thing.
The entire scenario was starting to brighten. We entered the theater and an usher greeted us.
"I'm going to have to check and see if there is anywhere we can seat you," she whispered.
We could hear the actors reciting their lines. There was strange Parisian music simmering in the background. The audience broke into laughter.
The usher came back to us and said, "I am so sorry, but there is nowhere that we can seat you that wouldn't violate the Fire Code."
My heart sank. All hope was dashed. Rather than try and see if I could sweet talk her into letting us stand somewhere, I mustered the fakest smile that I could and turned around.
"Let's go," I said to the others. I believe it was the last thing I said for the rest of the evening.
*/*
In the simplest of terms, I was greatly disappointed.
Regardless of blame or fault or circumstance, the fact remains that a part of me broke into pieces that night for some reason.
Why should something as trivial as missing a play hurt me so deeply?
Did it represent something in my mind? Did it symbolize the powerlessness and meaninglessness of existence in the face of our inevitable fates? Was this type of badly-planned, poorly-executed misadventure the reason why I embrace the absurd in the first place?
All verbiage aside, I was disappointed because I was really looking forward to it and it didn't happen.
No one is to blame for this. Actually, if anyone is to blame, it's me. If I really wanted to see it that badly, I would've just bought myself a ticket and gone by myelf, as I've done on countless occasions in the past. That way, the only unpleasantness I would have to endure would be the predictable chorus of people telling me that I should've called them because they would've gone if I'd asked them...
...and of course, the whole point of going by myself is so that I wouldn't have to ask anyone to do anything.
I don't know... It really crushed me, and I haven't even wanted to talk about it since because I know what an asshole I was during the whole thing. But at the same time I cannot find it in my heart to laugh it off just yet. It isn't funny to me-- it hasn't had time to gestate and transmutate into a hilarious but bittersweet anecdote.
There's more bitterness than sweeteness here.
When things like this happen, the first question I ask is, "Why me, Lord? Why do these things happen to me? Did you do this to fuck with my head? Or is this what I deserve, for being such a fuckhead all the time?"
Then I start thinking about the dumb looks on everyone's faces as they sheepishly attempt to change the subject; the flat jokes and fragile atmosphere that gets sucked out of the room like a vacuum due to my loud and blistering silence; the speechlessness and inability to articulate anything beyond a choke and a forced gulp in the back of my throat as I struggle to restrain myself from out-and-out strangling someone to death...
That event changed the tone of my blog, and after that I saw the comments dry up, and the posts became less humorous and more mean-spirited. Even if people couldn't put their fingers on it, something inside of me had turned for the worse. It was bleeding through my pores and into the keys of the keyboard, making its way into the computer and up on the monitor screen, imprinting itself on the font of this blog, embedding itself in the html code that makes up what you are looking at right now...
I can't say that I feel bad about my behavior, even as I know how unbecoming it was for me to pout and sulk as I did. But I won't apologize for it, because after all I am human, and we all make mistakes, and my mistake was raising my expectations above what constitutes reality these days.
That's the problem with dreamers like myself: When we hit the ground, we hit it hard.
*/*
As a footnote, Nina and her boyfriend said the play was excellent. They had no idea what to expect from it and came away very pleased, if a bit baffled at first. She told me all of this when I met with her to repay her the money she shelled out for the tickets we didn't get to use.
Daniel took issue with the playhouse overselling the show, and had a thorough chat with their ticket department. He was able to wrangle four free tickets for any play in the upcoming season. There probably won't be another staging of a Jarry play for some time, however-- maybe it will never happen again.
Then again, the play did very well both commercially and critically, and Jarry wrote at least three other Ubu plays... so who knows? Maybe one of these days I'll get to see one after all.
My friendship with Eve suffered greatly after the debacle. She stopped returning my phone calls and made no attempts to reciprocate any gestures on my part. I don't blame her-- when I told this story to a female friend recently, she looked at me and said, "Jesus, remind me never to get you mad!"
As for me, I gave up on completing the Jarry screenplay out of sheer disgust. I started the new job and instantly began to hate it. Then, I started using cocaine with an alarming frequency, even as I made peace with my father after 16 years of holding a grudge against him.
What sucks about me is that whenever I let go of one grudge, I take up another. I guess I am just one of those miserable persons who always needs to have a scapegoat to blame for all of his problems in life.
But this time, the person I am mad at is not my father or Eve or Laurie or Daniel or the playouse ushers or anyone else.
This time, I am mad at myself.
That's why I've spent the last half of 2006 punishing myself.
That's why the tone in my blog changed.
And that's why I'm glad this year is over.
I'm not going to say thing like, "2007 is going to be a great year!" No way, Jose-- that's what got me into this shit in the first place. Just take a look at my blogs from last year, and you'll see me gushing like a sexed-up schoolgirl about how 2006 was going to be great.
Instead, I'll try a little bit of reverse psychology: 2007 is going to suck big fat fucking elephant dicks.
Knowing my luck, Murphy's Law will kick in and 2007 really will suck elephant dicks.
But at this point, who cares? It's all absurd, right? It's all just one big joke being played on all of humanity, right?
Right.
HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE
It was around May 22, 2006 when I posted a blog about writing here less. It was a de facto farewell, or rather an announcement that I wasn't going to blog as frequently as in the past.
It also happened to be around the time that I quit the radio gig and started the higher-paying job at the prefab factory. I was anticipating that I wouldn't have any time to post at length, as is my wont.
Now that I've been gone from the prefab gig for almost three months, and now that the year is almost over, it feels appropriate to reflect upon what has come before.
New job and less time to blog notwithstanding, there was a definite change in my tone during the past summer.
And I remember what caused that change. I didn't write about it at the time because... well, I don't have any real reason or excuse as to why I didn't.
I guess now is as good a time as any to examine this.
*/*
In the middle of last Spring I saw an ad for a theatrical production of Ubu Roi, an obscure early-twentieth-century absurdist French play written by none other than Alfred Jarry, whom I have obsessed over for some time now.
Imagine my excitement: Jarry's work is strange and satirical, and reading the words on the printed page just doesn't do any justice to what he was trying to stage. Jarry is not the type of figure whose plays get staged regularly, and since I was working on a screenplay based on the eccentric 'pataphysicist's life, I thought it would be splendid to see a production (taking place in nearby Pasadena, no less) of perhaps his best-known work, Ubu Roi ("Ubu The King").
The main character, Pere Ubu, is an over-the-top antihero possessing every negative quality and trait available to the human condition: cowardice, greed, ignorance, sloth, boorishness, full of disgrace and wholly unsophisticated. This was Jarry's intention-- the character was based upon one of his science teachers during his insolent upbringing, a man that young Jarry and his classmates reveled in lampooning.
The best way to describe Ubu (to those who don't feel they can regard someone so repugnant and vile as even remotely comical) would be to compare him to Homer Simpson. If Homer Simpson was actually a real live person, 90% of the things that come out of his mouth (as well as 95% of his actions) would appall the average citizen. But we giggle at his antics because he is a cartoon character, a grotesque so broadly drawn that one must laugh in self-defense lest the gravity of his words and deeds remind us that reality is not that far removed from the caricature.
I knew of only one other person who would appreciate a theatrical staging of Ubu Roi, and that was my friend from high school, Laurie. When I forwarded a link of the ad, she replied that she would love to check it out. She would let both her husband Daniel and Eve know about it so that we could make a couple's night out of it.
It all sounded good to me. Personally, I would've gone by myself if no one had wanted to go.
In hindsight, maybe that would have been the better course to take.
*/*
As the date for the play neared, Eve and I were pretty much done romantically. She'd made it clear to me that she only wanted to be friends. I suspected that she was already seeing someone else, but I figured we could at least try to be friends. After all, I was friends with nearly all of my exes and it never posed any problems. Eve and I had matured enough over the years to be civil and respectful of each other in a post-break-up scenario, right?
Not quite.
I found that I didn't really like Eve as a person if we weren't in love. Absurd, yes, but you're dealing with a person who lives for the absurd.
Things that I could tolerate in her simply became intolerable without the net of an intimate relationship underneath us. Lacking a shared passion, I began to see how vastly different we are in general. Her idiosyncrasies started to grate on my nerves.
Look, I'm not the neatest, tidiest person in the world, but must she always keep her apartment in such disarray, with clothes strewn about and cigarette butts piling to Babelian proportions in her many ashtrays? To me, it was less about good housekeeping than a symptom of a deeper problem.
Still, it would not be such an issue if it weren't for her facile acknowledgement of this supreme messiness-- you couldn't walk into her place without hearing her apologize for the state it was in, even if you had no intention of mentioning it.
But to push matters into the realm of insufferability, she would refuse any offer to help her clean the mess. So here you have it: a girl with an unkempt apartment bitching about something she has absolutely no intention of doing anything about...
I could deal with it when we were lovers, but not when we became friends.
That was just one of the things that was growing on me, and it certainly wasn't the biggest thing either. But it would indeed prove to be the case later on.
*/*
When my friend Nina got wind of the Jarry production, she volunteered to buy tickets for the four of us plus two more for herself and her boyfriend, who later got me the short-lived job at the prefab factory.
She purchased tickets for the last day of the show. This made me even more excited, because I wanted to know what my friends thought of Jarry. I was already sold on the man and his writings, but to finally be able to talk at length with people I respected about something that I was so gaga over filled me with such an elation that I forgot about everything else, including my strained relationship with Eve.
Now that I replay the whole episode in my head, I realize that I should've done more to ensure that things would go off without a hitch. However, I was too happy about seeing a rarely-performed Jarry play in my own backyard to think of Murphy's Law, which is ironic seeing as Murphy's Law is the purest distillation of Jarry's pseudo-science of 'pataphysics that anyone could ever come across.
"If anything can happen, it will"... or so the maxim goes.
*/*
The day of the play, I started to get anxious.
The plan was for Laurie and Daniel to meet us at Eve's apartment, where we could travel together in one car.
Nina and her boyfriend were already on their way, and had called to let us know that they would leave the tickets at the box offfice window in case we were running late.
And running late we were. I was pacing around Eve's disheveled apartment, looking at my watch every two minutes. "Where are they?"
"They'll be here," Eve said, annoyed at my impatience.
"If Laurie and Daniel cause us to miss out on this for any reason..." I didn't finish my sentence. I had no threats to wield.
"Well, why don't we just go on ahead and meet them there?"
"Do you know where the playhouse is?"
"No. Do you?"
"No."
"Well, you should've thought of that beforehand."
That last comment from Eve ticked me off. Obviously I should've done more legwork in that regard... but considering her penchant for bitching and moaning about every litle thing, it was a pretty nervy thing for her to say to me, and at the worst possible time.
I glared at her for an instant and remembered that she and I no longer had any reasons to be phony around each other.
So I lit into her.
I chewed her out for being so petty, so dismissive of my anger, especially since every time she gets angry for the smallest reason I have to sit there and listen to her and take it and hear it again and again, and now that we weren't a couple I didn't have to put up with her sanctimonious bullshit, and why is it that I'm always the one who has to answer for everyone else's mistakes, why is it my fault when someone else is too fucking stupid or unaware to simply be on time for something as simple as a ride to the playhouse...
Eve didn't like that very much. But when I reminded her of the time, she got on the phone and called Laurie to inquire as to what was taking them so long.
"Hey Laurie, what's going on? We're waiting for you two... What was that? His what? He can't find what? Well, tell him he's going to have to can it, because we only have fifteen minutes to get there, and you guys haven't even left yet..."
Upon hearing that, I threw my hands up in the air. "Great... fucking great!"
I know I wasn't acting very mature about it, but at the time I couldn't believe it was happening. I simply could not believe that it was all going down the way it was going down.
Eve hung up the phone, a look of wariness on her face. "She said that Daniel's having some sort of a hissy fit... you know those Brits..."
I went outside to have a smoke. When my lighter wouldn't work properly, I lashed out and punched a tree with my fist.
Eve didn't like seeing this side of me, but when she tried to communicate that to me I retorted that she was going to have to get used to that side of me: Now that I had no reason to pretend I gave a damn about anything concerning her, she was going to see how I really am.
*/*
Fifteen minutes past the hour, Laurie and Daniel showed up. I don't know if their reaction to Eve telling them that they were wrong about the time the play started was genuine or feigned, but apparently they felt bad for being late and wanted to get there as soon as possible.
By that time, I'd stopped talking. I was filled with hatred and anger. Nothing I could say or do mattered. I was at their mercy from that point on.
There were the usual awkward gestures, mostly on the part of the women, to try and lighten the mood. But I had nothing to say, and Daniel, realizing that it would be very easy for me to jump all over him and blame him for our lateness as a group, kept quiet.
I finally said something when we arrived: "Let me out here, I'll check to see if it's too late to go inside while you guys find parking."
I approached the box office and talked to the woman behind the glass.
"A friend of mine left four tickets for the show. Has it started already?"
"Yes it has."
"How long ago?"
"Promptly at seven."
It was now 7:30 pm.
"How long is the show?"
"An hour and a half."
Not too shabby, I thought. An hour is better than nothing.
"I must warn you, sir," the box office woman said, "that the theater is probably full. We cannot guarantee that you will have a seat."
"Shit, I don't care if we have to sit on the floor. Do you have the tickets?"
She gave me the tickets just as the others walked up. I informed them of the situation and we all agreed that missing half an hour would not be a terrible thing.
The entire scenario was starting to brighten. We entered the theater and an usher greeted us.
"I'm going to have to check and see if there is anywhere we can seat you," she whispered.
We could hear the actors reciting their lines. There was strange Parisian music simmering in the background. The audience broke into laughter.
The usher came back to us and said, "I am so sorry, but there is nowhere that we can seat you that wouldn't violate the Fire Code."
My heart sank. All hope was dashed. Rather than try and see if I could sweet talk her into letting us stand somewhere, I mustered the fakest smile that I could and turned around.
"Let's go," I said to the others. I believe it was the last thing I said for the rest of the evening.
*/*
In the simplest of terms, I was greatly disappointed.
Regardless of blame or fault or circumstance, the fact remains that a part of me broke into pieces that night for some reason.
Why should something as trivial as missing a play hurt me so deeply?
Did it represent something in my mind? Did it symbolize the powerlessness and meaninglessness of existence in the face of our inevitable fates? Was this type of badly-planned, poorly-executed misadventure the reason why I embrace the absurd in the first place?
All verbiage aside, I was disappointed because I was really looking forward to it and it didn't happen.
No one is to blame for this. Actually, if anyone is to blame, it's me. If I really wanted to see it that badly, I would've just bought myself a ticket and gone by myelf, as I've done on countless occasions in the past. That way, the only unpleasantness I would have to endure would be the predictable chorus of people telling me that I should've called them because they would've gone if I'd asked them...
...and of course, the whole point of going by myself is so that I wouldn't have to ask anyone to do anything.
I don't know... It really crushed me, and I haven't even wanted to talk about it since because I know what an asshole I was during the whole thing. But at the same time I cannot find it in my heart to laugh it off just yet. It isn't funny to me-- it hasn't had time to gestate and transmutate into a hilarious but bittersweet anecdote.
There's more bitterness than sweeteness here.
When things like this happen, the first question I ask is, "Why me, Lord? Why do these things happen to me? Did you do this to fuck with my head? Or is this what I deserve, for being such a fuckhead all the time?"
Then I start thinking about the dumb looks on everyone's faces as they sheepishly attempt to change the subject; the flat jokes and fragile atmosphere that gets sucked out of the room like a vacuum due to my loud and blistering silence; the speechlessness and inability to articulate anything beyond a choke and a forced gulp in the back of my throat as I struggle to restrain myself from out-and-out strangling someone to death...
That event changed the tone of my blog, and after that I saw the comments dry up, and the posts became less humorous and more mean-spirited. Even if people couldn't put their fingers on it, something inside of me had turned for the worse. It was bleeding through my pores and into the keys of the keyboard, making its way into the computer and up on the monitor screen, imprinting itself on the font of this blog, embedding itself in the html code that makes up what you are looking at right now...
I can't say that I feel bad about my behavior, even as I know how unbecoming it was for me to pout and sulk as I did. But I won't apologize for it, because after all I am human, and we all make mistakes, and my mistake was raising my expectations above what constitutes reality these days.
That's the problem with dreamers like myself: When we hit the ground, we hit it hard.
*/*
As a footnote, Nina and her boyfriend said the play was excellent. They had no idea what to expect from it and came away very pleased, if a bit baffled at first. She told me all of this when I met with her to repay her the money she shelled out for the tickets we didn't get to use.
Daniel took issue with the playhouse overselling the show, and had a thorough chat with their ticket department. He was able to wrangle four free tickets for any play in the upcoming season. There probably won't be another staging of a Jarry play for some time, however-- maybe it will never happen again.
Then again, the play did very well both commercially and critically, and Jarry wrote at least three other Ubu plays... so who knows? Maybe one of these days I'll get to see one after all.
My friendship with Eve suffered greatly after the debacle. She stopped returning my phone calls and made no attempts to reciprocate any gestures on my part. I don't blame her-- when I told this story to a female friend recently, she looked at me and said, "Jesus, remind me never to get you mad!"
As for me, I gave up on completing the Jarry screenplay out of sheer disgust. I started the new job and instantly began to hate it. Then, I started using cocaine with an alarming frequency, even as I made peace with my father after 16 years of holding a grudge against him.
What sucks about me is that whenever I let go of one grudge, I take up another. I guess I am just one of those miserable persons who always needs to have a scapegoat to blame for all of his problems in life.
But this time, the person I am mad at is not my father or Eve or Laurie or Daniel or the playouse ushers or anyone else.
This time, I am mad at myself.
That's why I've spent the last half of 2006 punishing myself.
That's why the tone in my blog changed.
And that's why I'm glad this year is over.
I'm not going to say thing like, "2007 is going to be a great year!" No way, Jose-- that's what got me into this shit in the first place. Just take a look at my blogs from last year, and you'll see me gushing like a sexed-up schoolgirl about how 2006 was going to be great.
Instead, I'll try a little bit of reverse psychology: 2007 is going to suck big fat fucking elephant dicks.
Knowing my luck, Murphy's Law will kick in and 2007 really will suck elephant dicks.
But at this point, who cares? It's all absurd, right? It's all just one big joke being played on all of humanity, right?
Right.
HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
the death of soul
Eddie Murphy introduced me to James Brown.
Through his Saturday Night Live impersonations (Anyone remember "James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub Party"?) and his dead-on bit in the infamous HBO stand-up special Delirious, Eddie Murphy turned me on to the Godfather of Soul, if only as a punch line to a joke that I was too young to understand.
Then, as I always do, I traced the lineage backwards and decided to find out who James Brown actually was, rather than rely on Eddie Murphy's routines. I wanted to understand the joke, instead of pretending I knew what Murphy was jiving at.
By the time Rocky III came out, I thought I knew who James Brown was: he was the guy from The Blues Brothers, the guy from Dan Aykroyd's so-awful-it-was-good Doctor Detroit, as well as the guy singing "Living In America" wearing Old Glory on his tailored suit...
By the time rappers started sampling James Brown, I thought I knew who he was once again: The Godfather of Soul, Black Caesar, The World's Greatest Entertainer, Mr. Dynamite, The Amazing Mr. Please Please Himself, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, Soul Brother #1...
By the time I actually listened to a James Brown record all the way through, without resorting to a greatest hits compilation, I thought I finally knew who James Brown was: a fucking musical genius with more soul in his left nut than every rapper out there that I was trying to emulate.
But even then, I was not even close to scratching the surface.
The album in question was actually half of an album: Sides One and Two of Revolution Of The Mind, a double-live album that made a lasting imprint on my then-budding musical jones.
To paraphrase the great Flavor Flav, that album stomped a mudhole in my ass.
Yes, Mr. Brown was funky, but he also sang ballads like a man possessed. The version of "Bewildered" off that album is one of my all-time favorite live soul jams, right up there next to Marvin Gaye's legendary live rendition of "Distant Lover".
By the time I was knee deep in Parliament-Funkadelic, I already knew that Maceo, Fred Wesley, Catfish & Bootsy were graduates of James Brown's soul boot camp. George Clinton depth-charged the funk, but it was James Brown who strapped the funk to the body of the mainstream and held his thumb on the detonator.
As a bass player, I owe my love of the instrument to the man who made it cool to be "holding down the bottom end". In rock circles, the bass guitar is the equivalent of sitting "bitch" in a pick-up truck, right between the driver and the passenger; in the world of funk as dictated by James Brown, the bass was the main ingredient, the impetus upon which the beat could find its way back to The One and get everybody on the good foot again...
By the time people were screaming "Free James Brown", I already was wise to the fact that no jail could hold him, no law could tame him, and no mortal could comprehend his phenomenonal presence.
And even then, I was still miles off.
In 1968, James Brown stopped a riot in Boston (and possibly nationwide) when he televised one of his concerts in the wake of MLK's assassination, like Jesus commanding the stormy seas to stop.
The day I learned that bit of trivia, I finally stopped trying to figure out James Brown. The truth is, I will never know what made him tick, as if any of us ever could.
*/*
As with all of my eulogies of heroic icons, I am in tears as I type this.
It was bad enough losing Richard Pryor, because that felt like I'd lost my own sense of humor. But now that I've lost James Brown, I feel like I've lost my soul.
All of my heroes are dying.
If he meant this much to me, imagine how much he meant to African-Americans coming of age in the 1960s, when civil rights was brand new and yet the hoses were still being turned on and the dogs were still being unleashed on those brave enough to demand respect.
He gave them pride, self-esteem, power... but most of all, he gave them soul.
Today, the notion of soul is intrinsically linked with black Americans. White America wanted to take that soul away, by inventing words like 'nigger'...
James Brown gave black people (and the disenfranchised everywhere) their soul back.
And he smiled as he did it, and said, "Heh!" and did the splits and twirled and had Bobby Byrd put a cape on his back as he feigned exhaustion, only to come back (like Jesus, once again) and rock the mic like nobody else.
I love his music. I'm listening to it right now, in fact. "Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud!"
I think of that scene in The Commmitments, where the band's manager convinces his charges that, since the Irish are the blacks of England, they should adopt James Brown's musical slogan as their own.
*/*
I heard the news on Christmas morning. What a fucking holiday surprise, eh?
Then I rationalized it this way: God finally received a worthy gift on his son's birthday
He got James Brown for Christmas.
We were lucky enough to have him for over seven decades.
They used to call out to "Free James Brown", but I contend that now he is finally free, after all of these years.
Jump back, wanna kiss myself.
'Cause he was Super Bad.
What's in ever he played, it's got to be funky.
PEACE to you and yours, James Brown.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
found
I found her.
At long last, I found her.
On My Space.
Seriously.
I am waiting to hear back from her.
My fingers are crossed.
I know it is her. I am absolutely sure of it.
Married now. With two beautiful kids.
It doesn't look like she has logged on in some time, so I might not hear from her right off the bat.
I have no doubt in my mind that she will reply. It may take her a while to remember me, but she will.
This is all going into the novel.
It has to.
Why else would it happen this way if it wasn't meant to be written down and recorded for posterity?
Right?
Right.
Happy Holidays, people.
At long last, I found her.
On My Space.
Seriously.
I am waiting to hear back from her.
My fingers are crossed.
I know it is her. I am absolutely sure of it.
Married now. With two beautiful kids.
It doesn't look like she has logged on in some time, so I might not hear from her right off the bat.
I have no doubt in my mind that she will reply. It may take her a while to remember me, but she will.
This is all going into the novel.
It has to.
Why else would it happen this way if it wasn't meant to be written down and recorded for posterity?
Right?
Right.
Happy Holidays, people.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Fall (enmity aplenty)
I've hit rock bottom in this treacherous Autumn
desperately staring this way and there
Out loud I shout that I don't care
Inside I slide along the side of despair
It's just not fair
how you left me last April
how you left me standing with my cards on the table
and my soul on the dotted line
Last year at this time you and I were fine
In line in synch in smoke and in drink
Our dazed eyes glazed over and hazed for days
And now...
...now you're making me pay...
What do you want me to say?
That I want you back this very day?
That I miss your kiss and wish you missed me back?
It's not as simple as that
It's not as simple as that
And yet there is no substitute
as I sit here destitute
wanting to get the best of you
but knowing you have the best of me
and you could have the rest of me
but you don't want it
and now I am haunted
by the words of a sonnet that a friend sent me
upon reading it I felt so cold and empty
enmity aplenty
The loss of you is the end of me
Decades of friendship bent and now we pretend to be
happy while apart
but we're not (at least in my heart
I am not)
You must want me to beg
Okay, then I'll beg
I'll beg
I'll plead and crawl
and then one day
maybe I won't miss you at all
No, maybe one day I won't miss you at all
But until then
I endure the Fall
--November 2006
desperately staring this way and there
Out loud I shout that I don't care
Inside I slide along the side of despair
It's just not fair
how you left me last April
how you left me standing with my cards on the table
and my soul on the dotted line
Last year at this time you and I were fine
In line in synch in smoke and in drink
Our dazed eyes glazed over and hazed for days
And now...
...now you're making me pay...
What do you want me to say?
That I want you back this very day?
That I miss your kiss and wish you missed me back?
It's not as simple as that
It's not as simple as that
And yet there is no substitute
as I sit here destitute
wanting to get the best of you
but knowing you have the best of me
and you could have the rest of me
but you don't want it
and now I am haunted
by the words of a sonnet that a friend sent me
upon reading it I felt so cold and empty
enmity aplenty
The loss of you is the end of me
Decades of friendship bent and now we pretend to be
happy while apart
but we're not (at least in my heart
I am not)
You must want me to beg
Okay, then I'll beg
I'll beg
I'll plead and crawl
and then one day
maybe I won't miss you at all
No, maybe one day I won't miss you at all
But until then
I endure the Fall
--November 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
the mantra
At a recent show, someone asked me about Eve. They remarked that my so-called "best friend" hadn't been to any of my shows lately.
I was in a foul mood, due to exhaustion and over-partying, so my response was mean and embittered:
"Funny you should ask about her. After branding me a racist and a sexist, insinuating that I was trying to knock her up and all sorts of other delusional bullcrap, she decided that she needed to make up for her lost childhood-- you know, the one she spent getting high on speed with her boyfriend of nine years?"
The person walked away from me slowly, a worried look upon their face.
I'm not so mad about it now. Time has weathered the blows, the rejection, the humiliation (all for a second time, mind you-- this is not the first time Eve and I have traversed these paths) and all I can say is this:
It was nice while it lasted, and I got what I wanted.
*/*
It sounds like a case of sour grapes on my part, but please hear me out.
That philosophy arose from one of the last meaningful relationships I had, way back in 2000.
Jeanie was a girl with whom I met and had a summer fling. She was my next-door neighbor in the Sherman Oaks apartment complex where we both lived.
At the age of 28 (the same age as me at the time) Jeanie was serious about making a go of it, and I was (as usual) not interested in anything other than eating, drinking, fucking, and smoking.
When she caught on to the fact that I had no intention of marrying her, she left me. It was hard on the both of us, but eventually I found a mantra to help get me through the pain.
It was nice while it lasted, and I got what I wanted.
It sounds shallow, detached, perhaps even cynical. But I didn't choose to be put in this situation. For me, the mantra is more of a coping mechanism than anything else.
I could've gone on this way (with both Jeanie and Eve) for as long as possible; they were the ones who demanded definite answers and gave me ultimatums.
Then, when I was revealed to be the commitment-phobe that I am, they both made it seem like I was the one who wanted to settle down.
Whatever. The proof is in the pudding: Both of them went on to steady relationships with potential, while I still play the field.
It was nice while it lasted, and I'm still getting what I want.
*/*
But is this really what I want?
What is the alternative? And why was I getting so depressed over all the news earlier this year concerning my exes and their marriages and their newly-birthed children? Why was that stuff getting me down?
I didn't know the answer, but now I know: I was bummed because for the first time ever it occurred to me that maybe those girls had once thought of me as both marriage AND father material.
Granted, I knew these girls when we were all in our teens. Marriage and parenthood and settling down were faraway goals then, not to be reckoned with for some time. I doubt that they saw a future in me.
But then again, maybe they did.
As outlandish as it sounds, there's also some truth to the notion that women foster their dreams of getting hitched and starting up the homestead far earlier than men.
And I never wanted to believe that I could ever be considered that kind of candidate. It is far easier for me to think of myself as a cad, a scoundrel, a womanizer and a user of fair maidens.
To come to terms with the idea that I may have been wanted, at one time, by someone who saw potential in me, potential that I can never see in myself... it is frightening.
Hearing about all those girls and how they now have kids with good husbands... it made me insane, but not out of jealousy. It made me angry, because it seemed as if they were always certain about what they wanted out of life, and that the choices I've made have been wrong.
But I know, deep down inside, I know that the choices I've made in my life are the only choices I could ever make.
I know that I could never be a good father, or a good husband. I know this. I know these things to be true.
I just wish people would stop reminding me that I am useless in regards to domesticity. And hearing about an ex-girlfriend and her fertile offspring nails that point home with me.
I know myself enough to know that I would've regretted making such commitments. I would've longed to be set free, and I would've left the wife/mother of my children, just like so many wayward, absent fathers have done to their families.
So the answer to the question "Is bachelorhood really what I want" is a loud and resounding "YES".
If I answer any other way, it's because I am under the influence of something more persuasive than a drug.
I think you all know what I am referring to...
*/*
All I wanted from Eve was closure.
I got it.
Now I can see her on the street and not get upset about the whole Sharky episode. I got my apology from her, even if she didn't really mean it and I had to force her to give it to me.
During the last two years, I got some sex, some food, some gifts, some love and affection, kind words, and even a laugh or two.
That's all you can expect from this world. I know plenty of guys who haven't had anything resembling that in the past decade, so I guess I am fortunate.
It won't be the last time that a beautiful woman does that for me either. I am still young, I am still ready to take on the world.
I didn't get everything I wanted from her, but that's because if you give me an inch I'll go for the entire foot.
The mantra is true.
It was nice while it lasted, and I got what I wanted.
Now to move on to other things. There are more instances of closure that need to happen in my life regarding other women.
I think the cuts and bruises I incurred from this last go-round have healed.
Time to get back to work.
I was in a foul mood, due to exhaustion and over-partying, so my response was mean and embittered:
"Funny you should ask about her. After branding me a racist and a sexist, insinuating that I was trying to knock her up and all sorts of other delusional bullcrap, she decided that she needed to make up for her lost childhood-- you know, the one she spent getting high on speed with her boyfriend of nine years?"
The person walked away from me slowly, a worried look upon their face.
I'm not so mad about it now. Time has weathered the blows, the rejection, the humiliation (all for a second time, mind you-- this is not the first time Eve and I have traversed these paths) and all I can say is this:
It was nice while it lasted, and I got what I wanted.
*/*
It sounds like a case of sour grapes on my part, but please hear me out.
That philosophy arose from one of the last meaningful relationships I had, way back in 2000.
Jeanie was a girl with whom I met and had a summer fling. She was my next-door neighbor in the Sherman Oaks apartment complex where we both lived.
At the age of 28 (the same age as me at the time) Jeanie was serious about making a go of it, and I was (as usual) not interested in anything other than eating, drinking, fucking, and smoking.
When she caught on to the fact that I had no intention of marrying her, she left me. It was hard on the both of us, but eventually I found a mantra to help get me through the pain.
It was nice while it lasted, and I got what I wanted.
It sounds shallow, detached, perhaps even cynical. But I didn't choose to be put in this situation. For me, the mantra is more of a coping mechanism than anything else.
I could've gone on this way (with both Jeanie and Eve) for as long as possible; they were the ones who demanded definite answers and gave me ultimatums.
Then, when I was revealed to be the commitment-phobe that I am, they both made it seem like I was the one who wanted to settle down.
Whatever. The proof is in the pudding: Both of them went on to steady relationships with potential, while I still play the field.
It was nice while it lasted, and I'm still getting what I want.
*/*
But is this really what I want?
What is the alternative? And why was I getting so depressed over all the news earlier this year concerning my exes and their marriages and their newly-birthed children? Why was that stuff getting me down?
I didn't know the answer, but now I know: I was bummed because for the first time ever it occurred to me that maybe those girls had once thought of me as both marriage AND father material.
Granted, I knew these girls when we were all in our teens. Marriage and parenthood and settling down were faraway goals then, not to be reckoned with for some time. I doubt that they saw a future in me.
But then again, maybe they did.
As outlandish as it sounds, there's also some truth to the notion that women foster their dreams of getting hitched and starting up the homestead far earlier than men.
And I never wanted to believe that I could ever be considered that kind of candidate. It is far easier for me to think of myself as a cad, a scoundrel, a womanizer and a user of fair maidens.
To come to terms with the idea that I may have been wanted, at one time, by someone who saw potential in me, potential that I can never see in myself... it is frightening.
Hearing about all those girls and how they now have kids with good husbands... it made me insane, but not out of jealousy. It made me angry, because it seemed as if they were always certain about what they wanted out of life, and that the choices I've made have been wrong.
But I know, deep down inside, I know that the choices I've made in my life are the only choices I could ever make.
I know that I could never be a good father, or a good husband. I know this. I know these things to be true.
I just wish people would stop reminding me that I am useless in regards to domesticity. And hearing about an ex-girlfriend and her fertile offspring nails that point home with me.
I know myself enough to know that I would've regretted making such commitments. I would've longed to be set free, and I would've left the wife/mother of my children, just like so many wayward, absent fathers have done to their families.
So the answer to the question "Is bachelorhood really what I want" is a loud and resounding "YES".
If I answer any other way, it's because I am under the influence of something more persuasive than a drug.
I think you all know what I am referring to...
*/*
All I wanted from Eve was closure.
I got it.
Now I can see her on the street and not get upset about the whole Sharky episode. I got my apology from her, even if she didn't really mean it and I had to force her to give it to me.
During the last two years, I got some sex, some food, some gifts, some love and affection, kind words, and even a laugh or two.
That's all you can expect from this world. I know plenty of guys who haven't had anything resembling that in the past decade, so I guess I am fortunate.
It won't be the last time that a beautiful woman does that for me either. I am still young, I am still ready to take on the world.
I didn't get everything I wanted from her, but that's because if you give me an inch I'll go for the entire foot.
The mantra is true.
It was nice while it lasted, and I got what I wanted.
Now to move on to other things. There are more instances of closure that need to happen in my life regarding other women.
I think the cuts and bruises I incurred from this last go-round have healed.
Time to get back to work.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
somewhere in the middle
So what have I been up to lately?
Well, for starters I'm working at a movie post-production house, scanning film negatives into a computer so that digital airbrushers and retouchers ("dustbusters", as they are known in the industry) can adjust colors, remove motes of dirt, and add visual/lighting effects.
I work at night, which is how I like it. The job affords me enough free time to work on my novel, surf online, and read books.
You might be asking yourself right now, How the fuck does he get these jobs where he just sits around and does seemingly nothing for hours on end? In this case, Wolf Man hooked me up, but I think fate and serendipity have a lot to do with it as well.
It's not as financially fulfilling as the last gig, but it pays more than the radio gig I left to do the last gig... so I guess it's the porridge that's just right, not too hot, not too cold...
Moreover, I am learning about movies, which is cool because although I like cinema I've never really been a cinephile. All of my old group of friends were cinephiles, but they ended up accepting what life handed to them... and here I am, working a job they would've killed to have had they not forfeited their dreams for bland security and shiftless mediocrity.
Realizations like that are what keeps me believing that not only is there a God, but that he is just.
*/*
I stopped smoking pot for the most part.
However, I've been sniffing cocaine, as evidenced by my Las Vegas adventures.
Moving from one drug to another is always a lousy trade, especially if you go from a relatively benign recreational drug to a potentially lethal party drug.
But you have to understand something...
I was sick of being stoned 24/7. I think the cocaine use is a symptom of my refusal to be hazy and slow all the time. Cocaine is the total opposite of pot in terms of the high.
But I can only take the coke high for so long before I get sick of it. It's like being held by the throat by someone who is lifting you off the ground: you might get buzzed from the lack of air but eventually it's going to harm you.
Somewhere in the middle of coke and weed is where I want to be. That middle ground, in my opinion, is complete sobriety-- a state of mind I am in more often than not these days.
You see, coke is expensive. And I can't do it all the time the way I used to do with weed, so in the long run I am actually spending considerably less money on coke than I ever did on weed.
Plus, I've always been wired without needing coke. That's why I smoked pot, to calm me down and mellow me out. Coke only serves to remind me that I am already coked out naturally and biologically.
I confine my coke use to the weekends, because I found out that I cannot make it through a work shift on the stuff. I don't see how people can go to work and sniff coke, because you need it every half an hour and that only compounds the fact that you've got so much more time to go before you can go home and finish off the bag.
Bottom line: All drugs are losing bets. I make no excuses for my coke use. But I think that's a step up from making up tons of excuses for my pot smoking.
*/*
Call me a Scrooge, I don't care. I'm just sick of Christmas.
It's for kids. Therefore, I will only buy gifts for little ones this season.
I'm not buying full-grown adults any gifts. Even if they act like little children, they're not getting a fucking thing from me.
Likewise, I don't want any gifts from anyone. If someone gets me a gift, I will seriously look at them and say, "No, take it back. PLEASE." And if they think I'm being falsely modest, I will make sure to conveniently "forget" the gift before I leave their home.
And if they force me to take it, then I will "re-gift" it.
I don't want gifts because I never get what I want. I haven't received a really good Christmas gift since I was a kid. And the fact that (in recent years) no one has ever gotten me a Christmas gift that made my face light up is proof that I am better off not getting anything at all.
A better gift would be to spend time with me, talking to me, asking me about my hopes and dreams. That would cost nobody anything, and it would make me happier than a thousand gift cards and $20 certificates. It would fit more snugly than a million sweaters. It would taste better than any candy cane or chocolate stocking stuffer.
The thing of it is: A thoughtless gift is an alienating experience for me. It says to me loud and clear, "Hey! I don't know who you are, and have never tried to understand you, but I'd like to think that I know you, so here is my interpretation of what I think you like!"
It's always disappointing. No one ever nails it.
I'm a good gift-giver, for the most part. And until someone gets as good as me, I'm not getting anybody anything. If they want a gift from me, they'll have to get down on their knees and suck it out of me.
*/*
I need to finish the novel.
I am trapped in a parrallel universe that I created for my characters.
I am constantly reliving the events of the novel, which are based upon my own life.
And yet, as I edit and re-shape the text, I sense that I still have more to write.
I have more events to live that will eventually be written into the novel.
Weird.
It's as if I am willing my novel into existence by experiencing it.
Which comes first: the experience, or the articulation of that experience?
Laurie, who is helping me edit this damned thing that has taken a decade to grapple, is concerned that I am doing too much living and not enough working.
But for a writer, the life is the work. Therefore, the two are inseparable.
I do know that I have to finish it up, just so I can grow as a person and move on.
Thus, I know what I have to do, and I have already taken the necessary measures to kick start the last phase of my writing.
And it starts in San Diego, where a young woman lives with her husband and two kids, wondering where certain people she used to know went and if they think of her and whether or not she made the right choices or not...
And there I am, playing the metaphysical detective, taking all the clues of life's mysteries and jigsaw-puzzling them together into one glorious bastard tapestry.
If y'all don't hear from me before year's end, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
And if you are fiending for some of my writing (as if) then just look to a year ago in my Archives and look at what was on my mind. You'll be surprised.
Well, for starters I'm working at a movie post-production house, scanning film negatives into a computer so that digital airbrushers and retouchers ("dustbusters", as they are known in the industry) can adjust colors, remove motes of dirt, and add visual/lighting effects.
I work at night, which is how I like it. The job affords me enough free time to work on my novel, surf online, and read books.
You might be asking yourself right now, How the fuck does he get these jobs where he just sits around and does seemingly nothing for hours on end? In this case, Wolf Man hooked me up, but I think fate and serendipity have a lot to do with it as well.
It's not as financially fulfilling as the last gig, but it pays more than the radio gig I left to do the last gig... so I guess it's the porridge that's just right, not too hot, not too cold...
Moreover, I am learning about movies, which is cool because although I like cinema I've never really been a cinephile. All of my old group of friends were cinephiles, but they ended up accepting what life handed to them... and here I am, working a job they would've killed to have had they not forfeited their dreams for bland security and shiftless mediocrity.
Realizations like that are what keeps me believing that not only is there a God, but that he is just.
*/*
I stopped smoking pot for the most part.
However, I've been sniffing cocaine, as evidenced by my Las Vegas adventures.
Moving from one drug to another is always a lousy trade, especially if you go from a relatively benign recreational drug to a potentially lethal party drug.
But you have to understand something...
I was sick of being stoned 24/7. I think the cocaine use is a symptom of my refusal to be hazy and slow all the time. Cocaine is the total opposite of pot in terms of the high.
But I can only take the coke high for so long before I get sick of it. It's like being held by the throat by someone who is lifting you off the ground: you might get buzzed from the lack of air but eventually it's going to harm you.
Somewhere in the middle of coke and weed is where I want to be. That middle ground, in my opinion, is complete sobriety-- a state of mind I am in more often than not these days.
You see, coke is expensive. And I can't do it all the time the way I used to do with weed, so in the long run I am actually spending considerably less money on coke than I ever did on weed.
Plus, I've always been wired without needing coke. That's why I smoked pot, to calm me down and mellow me out. Coke only serves to remind me that I am already coked out naturally and biologically.
I confine my coke use to the weekends, because I found out that I cannot make it through a work shift on the stuff. I don't see how people can go to work and sniff coke, because you need it every half an hour and that only compounds the fact that you've got so much more time to go before you can go home and finish off the bag.
Bottom line: All drugs are losing bets. I make no excuses for my coke use. But I think that's a step up from making up tons of excuses for my pot smoking.
*/*
Call me a Scrooge, I don't care. I'm just sick of Christmas.
It's for kids. Therefore, I will only buy gifts for little ones this season.
I'm not buying full-grown adults any gifts. Even if they act like little children, they're not getting a fucking thing from me.
Likewise, I don't want any gifts from anyone. If someone gets me a gift, I will seriously look at them and say, "No, take it back. PLEASE." And if they think I'm being falsely modest, I will make sure to conveniently "forget" the gift before I leave their home.
And if they force me to take it, then I will "re-gift" it.
I don't want gifts because I never get what I want. I haven't received a really good Christmas gift since I was a kid. And the fact that (in recent years) no one has ever gotten me a Christmas gift that made my face light up is proof that I am better off not getting anything at all.
A better gift would be to spend time with me, talking to me, asking me about my hopes and dreams. That would cost nobody anything, and it would make me happier than a thousand gift cards and $20 certificates. It would fit more snugly than a million sweaters. It would taste better than any candy cane or chocolate stocking stuffer.
The thing of it is: A thoughtless gift is an alienating experience for me. It says to me loud and clear, "Hey! I don't know who you are, and have never tried to understand you, but I'd like to think that I know you, so here is my interpretation of what I think you like!"
It's always disappointing. No one ever nails it.
I'm a good gift-giver, for the most part. And until someone gets as good as me, I'm not getting anybody anything. If they want a gift from me, they'll have to get down on their knees and suck it out of me.
*/*
I need to finish the novel.
I am trapped in a parrallel universe that I created for my characters.
I am constantly reliving the events of the novel, which are based upon my own life.
And yet, as I edit and re-shape the text, I sense that I still have more to write.
I have more events to live that will eventually be written into the novel.
Weird.
It's as if I am willing my novel into existence by experiencing it.
Which comes first: the experience, or the articulation of that experience?
Laurie, who is helping me edit this damned thing that has taken a decade to grapple, is concerned that I am doing too much living and not enough working.
But for a writer, the life is the work. Therefore, the two are inseparable.
I do know that I have to finish it up, just so I can grow as a person and move on.
Thus, I know what I have to do, and I have already taken the necessary measures to kick start the last phase of my writing.
And it starts in San Diego, where a young woman lives with her husband and two kids, wondering where certain people she used to know went and if they think of her and whether or not she made the right choices or not...
And there I am, playing the metaphysical detective, taking all the clues of life's mysteries and jigsaw-puzzling them together into one glorious bastard tapestry.
If y'all don't hear from me before year's end, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
And if you are fiending for some of my writing (as if) then just look to a year ago in my Archives and look at what was on my mind. You'll be surprised.
Monday, December 04, 2006
AGAINST THE ODDS
October 15, 2006, 9:55am: I'd said 'sayonara' to the Missing Digits crew and left the Jockey Club just around sunrise.
Later on in the week, long after I'd returned to L.A. and the Missing Digits had concluded their extended stay in Nevada, JJ called me and informed me that they got a flat tire on their trip home.
The curse was real.
When I got back to the Palace Station, the bachelor party boys were still asleep. After rousing them awake and reminding them of check-out time, I went down to the lobby, still frying off of E and waiting for the Wolf Man to meet me for a breakfast buffet.
I killed time by telephoning Rose, to let her know that I was not going to attend a proposed BBQ she and her "boyfriend" had planned for later on in the day. She didn't pick up; I left a VM.
Wolf Man and I decided to leave Las Vegas after the noontime rush. KD Long wasn't coming with us on the ride back, which was good for me and Wolf: KD talked way too much for his (or anyone's) own good.
*/*
October 15, 2006, 1:23pm: After agreeing to meet Down Low, his brother A-Team, BJ Fornicati and KD Long at the Golden Nugget for one last stab at gambling, Wolfie and I drove to get some gas for the rental.
We had KD Long's credit card, which was his way of reimbursing me for the gas we used on the way to Sin City. Wolf and I joked about spending it on bullshit and strippers, which made KD frown a bit.
As I loaded a bowl in my pipe, I saw a Mexican woman in a truck next to me. She was eyeing me, but not in a sexy way. I put the pipe in my lap and pretended that I didn't see her, but it was too late: her boyfriend, a tattooed gangbanging veterano, also saw me and started trying to signal us.
"Hey man!" He yelled out to me. "You got some herb?"
I nodded.
"How much you got? I'll buy some off you!"
I looked over at Wolf, who merely shrugged and said, "Hey, man... it's your weed."
I was almost tempted to do the transaction right there on the Vegas Strip, in traffic, in full broad daylight, because that would have perfectly capped off an outrageous weekend of brazen illegality such as this one. But I also remembered the curse looming over the proceedings, and decided that the deal must be done at the gas station.
Before I could say anything, the O.G. and his old lady in the pickup truck slowed down, pulled behind us, then switched lanes again to get on the passenger side.
"Tell 'em to follow us," I said to Wolf.
"Follow us!" Wolf repeated.
We got to the gas station and the deal was quick and easy: $10 worth from my stash, with plenty left over for me and Wolf to smoke on the ride home.
"I'm new here to LV," the vato said to me as he threw the money through the driver's window into the driver's seat. "I don't know no one out here."
"You're lucky you ran into us," I said, "but we're headed back to Los Angeles."
"I guess you're the only luck I've had so far," he laughed. "I lost $300 this morning on Blackjack."
"Play Craps, man," I recommended. "The odds are better."
"I gotcha, bro. Hey, thanks again. Nice to meet you."
We slapped five, and I had the weed in my palm. He grabbed it and smiled and hopped back into the truck. He and his woman were gone by the time Wolf came out from the pay station.
"How'd you know he wasn't a narc?" Wolf asked me.
"I just knew. Just like I knew we weren't going to get pulled over for the rental's tags while in Vegas, just like I knew we wouldn't get thrown out of the hotel, just like I knew Low wasn't going to want to go to a strip club, or any of it... Sometimes, you gotta have a little faith, even when the odds are against you and the going looks bleak."
"What do you think our ride home is going to be like?"
"There'll be something... there always is... but we'll make it home fine. It might take a while, but if we're smart, we can avoid any bullshit that comes our way."
"Dude, since you were up all night, and I at least got some sleep, I'll drive the whole way home," Wolf said. "Plus, you drove all the way here, so I owe it to you."
"Yeah, thanks. At least KD isn't coming with us."
"I know. Dude, I wanted to strangle him on the way over here..."
"Can you imagine his reaction if we'd hooked up that gangster dude while he was with us?"
Wolf and I laughed.
"He would've shit himself." Wolf was feeling better, a far cry from his near-panic attack during the hotel security guard snafu.
"It's all about keeping your cool when the shit gets gnarly," I said. "No matter what happens, you gotta keep your cool. Nothing can hurt you if you believe in yourself and your ability to persevere."
"Yeah, but you gotta be careful," Wolf cautioned. "Murphy's Law, you know."
"Well, thats' the thing, Wolfie. Everyone wants to play it loose and rough, but when the shit hits the fan no one can deal. Like the hotel thing: Guys like KD and BJ wanna act like they're big shots, but all it took was one old-ass security guard with no power to make them scared. If anyone had rights to be freaked, it was you and Low because you two were the ones who spoke with the guard. But you guys handled it as well as you could."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. Everyone wants to live dangerously, but no one wants to pay the price when it's time, right?"
"Right."
We got back on the road and drove over to the Golden Nugget to give KD back his credit card and say 'adios' to the rest of the guys.
We didn't tell the rest of the guys about our impromptu drug deal. It really wasn't necessary.
*/*
October 15, 2006, 7:53pm: The dark clouds that we found ourselves immersed in were from a fire in the El Cajon pass (which we were slightly north of) and by shifting onto the 138 Hwy in time we managed to avoid the snarling traffic that would've delayed us by hours instead of half an hour.
After making the jump to the 138, Wolf and I decided to take a pit stop at a gas station right past the I-15/138 interchange.
The station was near-total chaos: Cars covered in soot, RVs mired in ash, huge lines for the restroom and the food counter, people milling about in nervous anticipation, trying to use their cel phones in vain...
Wolf and I looked at each other. I said, "Our best bet is to get back on the road and get into town before we stop again."
It took an hour before I could look up at the passing night sky and see stars. The smoke was so thick and black that for that duration of the trip we were covered in complete and utter darkness. Finally, some distant stars began to poke their way out, and that clued me in to our escape from the fire zone.
At one point we wondered why the highway hadn't been closed off; It wasn't until we got got back home and read the news that we figured it out geographically.
"Dude, we made such good time," Wolf said to me. "We'll be back at my place in Pasadena in less than an hour. Then you can get home from there. Feel free to take a nap until we get into the city."
"I think I will," I said.
I slept for the first time that entire weekend, and it felt so good.
END
Later on in the week, long after I'd returned to L.A. and the Missing Digits had concluded their extended stay in Nevada, JJ called me and informed me that they got a flat tire on their trip home.
The curse was real.
When I got back to the Palace Station, the bachelor party boys were still asleep. After rousing them awake and reminding them of check-out time, I went down to the lobby, still frying off of E and waiting for the Wolf Man to meet me for a breakfast buffet.
I killed time by telephoning Rose, to let her know that I was not going to attend a proposed BBQ she and her "boyfriend" had planned for later on in the day. She didn't pick up; I left a VM.
Wolf Man and I decided to leave Las Vegas after the noontime rush. KD Long wasn't coming with us on the ride back, which was good for me and Wolf: KD talked way too much for his (or anyone's) own good.
*/*
October 15, 2006, 1:23pm: After agreeing to meet Down Low, his brother A-Team, BJ Fornicati and KD Long at the Golden Nugget for one last stab at gambling, Wolfie and I drove to get some gas for the rental.
We had KD Long's credit card, which was his way of reimbursing me for the gas we used on the way to Sin City. Wolf and I joked about spending it on bullshit and strippers, which made KD frown a bit.
As I loaded a bowl in my pipe, I saw a Mexican woman in a truck next to me. She was eyeing me, but not in a sexy way. I put the pipe in my lap and pretended that I didn't see her, but it was too late: her boyfriend, a tattooed gangbanging veterano, also saw me and started trying to signal us.
"Hey man!" He yelled out to me. "You got some herb?"
I nodded.
"How much you got? I'll buy some off you!"
I looked over at Wolf, who merely shrugged and said, "Hey, man... it's your weed."
I was almost tempted to do the transaction right there on the Vegas Strip, in traffic, in full broad daylight, because that would have perfectly capped off an outrageous weekend of brazen illegality such as this one. But I also remembered the curse looming over the proceedings, and decided that the deal must be done at the gas station.
Before I could say anything, the O.G. and his old lady in the pickup truck slowed down, pulled behind us, then switched lanes again to get on the passenger side.
"Tell 'em to follow us," I said to Wolf.
"Follow us!" Wolf repeated.
We got to the gas station and the deal was quick and easy: $10 worth from my stash, with plenty left over for me and Wolf to smoke on the ride home.
"I'm new here to LV," the vato said to me as he threw the money through the driver's window into the driver's seat. "I don't know no one out here."
"You're lucky you ran into us," I said, "but we're headed back to Los Angeles."
"I guess you're the only luck I've had so far," he laughed. "I lost $300 this morning on Blackjack."
"Play Craps, man," I recommended. "The odds are better."
"I gotcha, bro. Hey, thanks again. Nice to meet you."
We slapped five, and I had the weed in my palm. He grabbed it and smiled and hopped back into the truck. He and his woman were gone by the time Wolf came out from the pay station.
"How'd you know he wasn't a narc?" Wolf asked me.
"I just knew. Just like I knew we weren't going to get pulled over for the rental's tags while in Vegas, just like I knew we wouldn't get thrown out of the hotel, just like I knew Low wasn't going to want to go to a strip club, or any of it... Sometimes, you gotta have a little faith, even when the odds are against you and the going looks bleak."
"What do you think our ride home is going to be like?"
"There'll be something... there always is... but we'll make it home fine. It might take a while, but if we're smart, we can avoid any bullshit that comes our way."
"Dude, since you were up all night, and I at least got some sleep, I'll drive the whole way home," Wolf said. "Plus, you drove all the way here, so I owe it to you."
"Yeah, thanks. At least KD isn't coming with us."
"I know. Dude, I wanted to strangle him on the way over here..."
"Can you imagine his reaction if we'd hooked up that gangster dude while he was with us?"
Wolf and I laughed.
"He would've shit himself." Wolf was feeling better, a far cry from his near-panic attack during the hotel security guard snafu.
"It's all about keeping your cool when the shit gets gnarly," I said. "No matter what happens, you gotta keep your cool. Nothing can hurt you if you believe in yourself and your ability to persevere."
"Yeah, but you gotta be careful," Wolf cautioned. "Murphy's Law, you know."
"Well, thats' the thing, Wolfie. Everyone wants to play it loose and rough, but when the shit hits the fan no one can deal. Like the hotel thing: Guys like KD and BJ wanna act like they're big shots, but all it took was one old-ass security guard with no power to make them scared. If anyone had rights to be freaked, it was you and Low because you two were the ones who spoke with the guard. But you guys handled it as well as you could."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. Everyone wants to live dangerously, but no one wants to pay the price when it's time, right?"
"Right."
We got back on the road and drove over to the Golden Nugget to give KD back his credit card and say 'adios' to the rest of the guys.
We didn't tell the rest of the guys about our impromptu drug deal. It really wasn't necessary.
*/*
October 15, 2006, 7:53pm: The dark clouds that we found ourselves immersed in were from a fire in the El Cajon pass (which we were slightly north of) and by shifting onto the 138 Hwy in time we managed to avoid the snarling traffic that would've delayed us by hours instead of half an hour.
After making the jump to the 138, Wolf and I decided to take a pit stop at a gas station right past the I-15/138 interchange.
The station was near-total chaos: Cars covered in soot, RVs mired in ash, huge lines for the restroom and the food counter, people milling about in nervous anticipation, trying to use their cel phones in vain...
Wolf and I looked at each other. I said, "Our best bet is to get back on the road and get into town before we stop again."
It took an hour before I could look up at the passing night sky and see stars. The smoke was so thick and black that for that duration of the trip we were covered in complete and utter darkness. Finally, some distant stars began to poke their way out, and that clued me in to our escape from the fire zone.
At one point we wondered why the highway hadn't been closed off; It wasn't until we got got back home and read the news that we figured it out geographically.
"Dude, we made such good time," Wolf said to me. "We'll be back at my place in Pasadena in less than an hour. Then you can get home from there. Feel free to take a nap until we get into the city."
"I think I will," I said.
I slept for the first time that entire weekend, and it felt so good.
END
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)