three-day weekend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


*/*


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

"A date date?"

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

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

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

"I see..."

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

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

And it was working.

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

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

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

"You think so?"

"Yes." She smiled.

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

The doorman asked us for our IDs.

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

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


*/*


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


*/*


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

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

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

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

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

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

"No. What is it?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

arizona

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then, I heard the drums.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I can't wait to find out.

May is Sweeps Month so arm yourself with ammo

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

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

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

show and tell

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

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

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

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

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

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


*/*


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

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

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

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

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

Such ego gratification...

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

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

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


*/*


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

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

1) She will remain anonymous.

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

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

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

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

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

It's not Show And Tell time anymore.


*/*


Well, what time is it then?

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's time to move, literally and figuratively.

Let's go.

in case there was any doubt still lingering...

And now...

MATT AND KIM!!

the rat and the ox

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


*/*


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

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

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

"Does the Wombat even exist?"

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

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

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

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

"What about the Year of the Mongoose?"

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

"I like that."

"You do?"

"Yes, I do."

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

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

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

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

terrifying

I played my solo acoustic set last Tuesday.

It was terrifying.

I was so nervous. I've never been that nervous.

Ever.

I think that's what's been missing from my life in recent years.

I play shows with bands, and I'm not scared. I think this is a good thing, but I am beginning to see that sometimes you need to be afraid-- it reminds you that you are still alive.

Being unafraid is brave and noble, especially if trying to help others feel relaxed and less edgy... but when I was up on that stage, all by myself, with no one to fall back on, there was an exhilaration running through me that I haven't felt in ages.

I want that edginess back in my life. I've become too complacent. Without risking it all, anything I do on stage is an empty and wasted gesture.

And it translates to other mediums as well: after my show on Tuesday, I went to work and finished off what was left of the first half of my novel. I was still running off of the momentum of that nervous energy, and it propelled me forward with unparalleled vigor.

And throughout all of this, I was dead sober.

I've been born again hard, and this time I'm going to make full use of this new found power. I'm going to get things done and take care of business.

And I owe it all to Fear.

smudged impressions of last friday

After attending a gallery opening that left us befuddled and dinner in Chinatown with friends, she and I accompanied her roommate to a trendy Hollywood bar to play darts and get sauced.

In between horrific dart rounds, she and I would sneak out back to smoke cigarettes and talk.

I was getting progressively more drunk as she told me that she thought my karaoke last week was good, and that she knew she couldn't sing a lick but she liked doing it anyway, and that we must come back again and sing some more.

I told her that I knew she was singing from the heart, and that one of these days she and I would have to go on some road trip to get away from this big, bad city.

She told me about New York, and how her visit was not impeded by inclement weather and the shortness of her stay. She planned that we should both go out there soon. I agreed, telling her that I had planned to go last year but the plans fell through.

She asked me why. I started to explain but stopped, and said I would rather not talk about it. But she knew the reason why without my having to elaborate.

Eventually I was so plastered that when it was time to walk back to the car, I made the trip backwards while flinging a Chinese yo-yo I'd bought in Chinatown at passersby.

They drove me to my car at the Metro station, and then she drove my car to my apartment because I was too hammered to give it a go. Her roommate followed behind-- I'd promised him some weed back at my place.

Her roommate played with my cats as she dragged me to my bed and tried to tuck me in. I was almost gone but still alert enough to pull her down with me and wrap my arms around her.

She did not resist.

And the kisses were slow and sweet, and they were punctuated with small talk and wistful nothings, and she tasted wonderful and smelled like subtle perfume.

Sensing that her roommate was getting restless in the other room, she bid me farewell with three kisses on my face, as she tucked me in and made her way out my door.

I slept like a newborn baby, and when I woke up the next morning I could not help but smile.

I hadn't felt like that in a long time.

the song, the dance and the embrace

Damn, the blog-o-sphere is a barren wasteland these days.

There was a time when I'd get pissed off at the lack of comments on my blog and go into a rant or tirade about how everyone sucks and this and that and fuck you and the whole nine yards... but over the years and in the short time that I've been blogging I have accepted the virtual cyber-silence for what it is.

However, I'm not quite sure what it is I am accepting. There's no label for it, and yet I now know that it's nothing personal.

Once upon a time, this blog had lots of readers and they all had something to say, but reality sets in and people tend to their lives and their online pursuits get narrower as things progress. Even I have lessened my blog output, if only to re-channel my boundless writing energy into finishing my damn novel.

And when I do get a chance to blog, I am allowed to be more cryptic. I don't have to explain everything or detail every facet of my life like I used to, and within that limited boundary there is a wide, expansive freedom.

I guess you can say I have grown. Matured, perhaps.


*/*


The place was a dive, a typical hole in the wall.

Not a lot of people were at the bar when we entered but by the time we left it was packed. This is nothing significant, seeing as the place was smaller than my apartment, or so it seemed.

Her roommate said she looked like a sunflower in her bright yellow sleeveless dress, billowing and pleated and pretty with Sunday written all over it. She thought he was kidding her, but I recognized the heartfelt (if slightly cracked) compliment.

A strange and drunk fellow greeted us with leers as we hunkered down onto our stools, his face grimacing with outrage and fear. She knew him, he knew her, they had a connection once but he fouled it up and now here she was with two tough-looking hombres and his mind began to spin so fast that it was as visible on his mug as his eyeglasses or his neatly-trimmed pencil mustache.

He exchanged words with her. All I could hear was the last part of their exchange:

"You think you're pretty clever, don't you?"

"Fuck you."

"Fuck who?"

I turned my head and said loudly, "You."

Her roommate glared in the fellow's direction, not needing to say a word. The fellow got the hint and left, leaving his companions at the bar to nurse their own wounds without the benefit of his charming company.

We ordered our drinks and decided to play darts.


*/*


She insisted that I sing karaoke with her, but I needed no prodding or cajoling.

She picked the song and I agreed. It was a song I knew by heart, save for one vague lyric that I always interpreted in some weird, absurd manner. Fortunately for us, every self-respecting karaoke hostess has the proper lyrics on a TV monitor above the bar so that the singers won't lose face.

Her voice was dreadful, toneless and flat. It didn't bother me at all-- in fact it made me like her even more. Of course I was on key, but you wouldn't be able to discern it by the way our voices entangled themselves through the poorly-equalized sound system and the low-rent microphones.

The line in question appeared above me and I smiled as I read it:

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue.

"Aha," I thought, "That's what it is... I always thought it was about green seagulls... Why have I never bothered to check online or inside the liner notes? Oh well..."

People clapped when we were done. I don't know if they were clapping out of respect or out of relief.


*/*


There were others there singing karaoke that night who made us seem like Sonny & Cher in comparison.

As one such performance went on, she asked me to dance with her.

"But I don't know how."

"Neither do I."

She grabbed my hands and I tried to lead as best as I could. It was a spastic imitation of swing dancing. She flailed and stepped on my boots and (at one point) hit her elbow on the wall next to us. Bystanders laughed and pointed at us, drinks in hand. Her roommate was somewhat embarrassed but also not in the least bit surprised. I spun her around and caught her hands awkwardly, trying not to fall to the ground due to my inebriated motor skills.

The only thing we did right was the dip. I anticipated it, she fell into it, and I did not let her fall.

Then we danced close and slow. It felt natural, fluid, uncontrived.


*/*


Three more drinks and another near-bar brawl later, her roommate decided to walk home and we drove to a liquor store to purchase cigarettes. Then we arrived back at their place, where they engaged in a petty fight over something inexplicable. She stormed off to her room and I followed suit, shrugging my shoulders at him and shaking my head.

She and I chatted at length about everything and nothing, as we are wont to do when we get together and talk. Then I realized the lateness of the hour and plus she was waking up early to catch a flight and I should've been at work hours ago, so I stood up to say farewell.

We embraced. I kept my arms around her and did not let go. She did not try to pry herself from me. We just kept looking at each other, making small talk and shooting curious glances into each other's bloodshot eyes. Every time the urge to plant a soft kiss on her lips swelled up in me, I deflected its power by burying my face into her shoulder and squeezing my arms tighter, and she would reciprocate in kind.

Not yet.

Not just yet.

Sometimes the moment needs to breathe. I act too swiftly, I often move in for the kill with no relenting. No, this was about as far as it could go at the moment, especially considering how foolish it would be for the both of us to shirk our respective responsibilities when we can wait until the next occasion, when there's more privacy, when there's more time, when there's less to risk.

We bandied compliments about and made funny faces. Then I created an out for the both of us by remembering the CD I promised to burn for her.

After I made copies for the both of them, I said my goodbyes and let myself out. I drove back into the suburbs with quick ease, because of the time of night and the absence of traffic.


*/*


I have been filling my time well, but every now and then I think about three things: the song, the dance and the embrace. I think about how they made me feel and what it all means and what there is to be done about it.

It reminds me of scenes from some short stories I wrote years ago, and I wonder if these were manifestations of my fiction or actual events that transpired. I realize, though, that it doesn't make any difference: We all remember things in different ways, from different perspectives and angles.

What is important is not the details, but what actually occurred. And that's why of all the things that happened that night, it is the song, the dance and the embrace that stand out for me.

and so on

"When I think about my own death, I don't console myself with the idea that my descendants and my books and all that will live on. Anybody with any sense knows that the whole solar system will go up like a celluloid collar by-and-by. I honestly believe, though, that we are wrong to think that moments go away, never to be seen again. This moment and every moment lasts forever."

--from the book Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons, "Reflections On My Own Death", 1972


*/*


Listen:

Kurt Vonnegut is dead.

His book Breakfast Of Champions saved my life. I was ready to kill myself before I read it. I'd already tried once before to commit suicide, and I was set on doing it again when I read the book at age 16.

After reading it and laughing hysterically through tears, I made up my mind to never try and take my own life again.

Oddly enough, I feel no sorrow for his passing. He should have been dead a long time ago, when he was hunkered down in an underground bunker enduring the above-ground bombing of Dresden in 1945. Instead, he survived, and began writing, and became famous for his unique point-of-view, and his books and their collective messages somehow fell into my hands, and few things in my life changed me like his prose.

Of all the authors I ever read who inspired me, Vonnegut was the most invigorating. I learned to laugh in self-defense, and treat the negative on an equal measure with the positive. I haven't always been successful at it, but it's an ongoing process that will know no end until I am buried.

One day, maybe I'll get it right.

In the meantime, his passing is yet another sign that I am most likely reading too much into but nevertheless accepting for what it is: a signal for me to finish my own novel, ten years in the making and largely influenced by Vonnegut's style. In a way, he has always been my literary model: he didn't get famous until his later years, and by then he'd accumulated a definite outlook and voice that no one could ever duplicate, despite their best efforts.

Vonnegut made me slow down my pace. He made it okay for me to not be in a hurry to achieve fame and accolades for writing. His life was an example for me of how to let life wash over you as you take notes. Every time I ever got depressed and thought I'd never amount to anything except a frustrated writer living in abject poverty, I always thought of Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut's alter ego and favorite protagonist. Trout took his time and was deemed crazy by his peers, but he never stopped writing. He just kept on doing it, and it was Vonnegut's way of saying that a writer should not only love what he/she does, but that practice makes perfect, and being prolific is not the same as being rich and famous and well-known.

I learned that a writer should amass experiences worth writing about before even contemplating putting them down on paper. Vonnegut's traumatic life was the template for his entire public persona, even as he insisted that things like Dresden or his mother's suicide or the indignities of mankind had nothing to do with his writing.

As a tribute, this weekend I'm going to re-read one of his novels. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of Champions on me-- that one got stolen or lost somewhere down the road years ago, like most great works of art.

Maybe I'll rent Champions from the library, but I also have Slaughterhouse Five and several other volumes of his work in my possession. But even if I don't read any of his books again in the near future, it's alright because I feel like every day I am re-reading his works in some way, shape or form.

Vonnegut's fiction (and later non-fiction) gave birth to me. It made me. It created me. It shaped me. It possessed me. It runs in my veins as surely and steadily as blood.

I owe him big. And if I ever meet him in the afterlife or on the astral plane or wherever it is that our souls go when we eventually perish, I'll be sure to let him know what he meant to me.

But for now, I think the best way to do that is to just finish the novel. Even though he's not around to appreciate it, by finishing the book I will have given back to him what he gave to me so long ago.

And what did he give me? Just for the record, he gave me back to me. Though we never met, he told me that it was okay to be me, and to like writing, and to pursue it no matter what happens or comes my way.

It won't be necessary to dedicate my first novel to him, because every word that I write is an implicit dedication to him already.

God bless your soul, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

And thanks again for the laughter, the tears, and the inspiration.

love is sexy

It was a great disappointment considering all the hype that surrounded it.

First came the whispers: the next joint was going to be his return to grace, his unofficial comeback. No more Beatle-esque psychedelia or baroque orchestrations or French-infused jazz noodling, no more pat Top 40 pop designed to skyrocket to the top of the dance charts...

No, Prince's next album after Sign O' The Times was supposed to be the Death Blow to all the haters and naysayers out there who claimed he'd gone soft.

It was going to be released without a title or any cover or sleeve art. It was tentatively known as "The Black Album", perhaps a hyper-parody of the memorable gag from This Is Spinal Tap. Certainly, with all the interference Warner Bros. was creating in conjunction with his releases, Prince may have been making a sly joke, one that poked fun at the absurdity of the music industry in general.

Then, a few months before its slated release date, the word got out that Warner Bros. shelved the album and another one was slated to be put out in its stead. Fans were taken aback but not disdainful-- after all, this was Prince: a bona-fide musical genius with a proven track record for penning successful hits and selling millions of funky albums worldwide. They figured that if the album was getting 86'ed, there was probably a good reason.

We all awaited the coming of the next album. I was in the 8th grade and my parents were on the verge of splitting up. I needed this album.

A single dropped from out of the sky: "Alphabet St". Catchy, yes, and it went on to be a hit... but it seemed like a bad omen. Soon the fans were wondering if maybe shelving "The Black Album" was such a good idea.

I bought a copy of Lovesexy when it came out. I still own the vinyl, with its garish cover art portraying Prince in the airbrushed nude sitting on a flower, posing demurely. It was embarrassing to look at-- I would've felt more comfortable carrying home an S.O.D. album or a Skrewdriver cassette than Lovesexy.

I gave it a listen. It was good, but it wasn't "The Black Album"... it wasn't even Around The World In A Day.

It became my least favorite Prince album, and also the least listened-to album of his in my collection. With the sole exception of one song, "When 2 R In Love" (the lone holdover from the aborted "Black Album" sessions) there was very little for me to gush over, even as I went out and bought all the accompanying singles on 45 (I was hoping the B-sides would be better, and they were).

My verdict: Lovesexy was a dud. Oh well, maybe he'll come to his senses and release "The Black Album" after all. Perhaps the next album will be better.

I was 14 years old at the time.


*/*


I'm 33 now.

In the time between Lovesexy's release and today, much has happened to me, the rest of the world, and Prince in particular. Contract disputes, name changes, ups and downs, and even Super Bowl appearances have overshadowed the substance of his music. Still, the man has undergone a genuine revival, heralded as a pop icon, a living legend and an accomplished musician in his own right.

The Black Album eventually saw the light of day, if only to help Prince get out of his seven-album contract with Warner Bros., and even then it was released as a limited edition CD... not that any self-respecting fan didn't already own a bootleg copy of their own.

When I finally heard The Black Album (around the time that he was doing the soundtrack for the first Tim Burton-directed Batman movie) I thought it was spectacular. "How could he release Lovesexy in lieu of this?" I asked myself. Granted, The Black Album didn't quite live up to its storied hype itself, but it was definitely funkier and harder than Lovesexy.

And speaking of stories, there were several to speak of that haunted Prince's reputation: Warner Bros. thought The Black Album was too risque; Prince was the one who pulled The Black Album because he had a vision from God; Prince was hooked on drugs and Lovesexy was his rehab effort...

The only way I could ever really listen to Lovesexy was to dub it onto one side of a blank cassette with The Black Album on the other side; this way, it served as an exotic double-concept album.

As the years passed by, Metallica released their own Black Album, thereby imploding the Spinal Tap joke on itself. Life was now imitating art twice over, and by the time Jay-Z released his own Black Album I'd had enough of the whole notion.

Meanwhile, Prince was free from the WB and became a Jehovah's Witness, and began to retool his public persona. He went from appearing as an out-of-touch rich recluse to a pop visionary who had been so far ahead of his time that only now were people beginning to catch up.

His music got better. It sounded more soulful, more passionate. He seemed at peace with his dual nature, that impulse torn between God and Satan, a theme that has permeated nearly all of his work.

And with that, I began to look back on the classic albums and reevaluate them. Some of them needed no reappraisal (1999, Parade) and some of them were surprisingly revealing when I revisited them (Purple Rain, Dirty Mind, Controversy).

And in the latter category, Lovesexy stands alone.


*/*


Looking for cover tunes for my upcoming solo acoustic show, I thought about "When 2 R In Love" and sought it out. Unfortunately, my older brother has all of the Prince vinyl in his possession. Luckily, I still had that dubbed cassette of Lovesexy/The Black Album in my archives.

Since both albums contained the song in question, it didn't matter which one I'd put on first. However, the tape was wound somewhere in the middle. I put the Black Album side in first and found that it would take considerable winding before I could cue up the track; when I flipped the cassette onto the Lovesexy side, lo and behold "When 2 R In Love" was playing.

So I listened, and I learned the song, and a chill came over me, and I cried.

I'd forgotten how beautiful a love song it was, and I replayed it over and over until I got it down.

Then, I let the rest of the album play. Since it was technically Side Two of the album (the vinyl version anyway) I figured there would only be two more songs before it got to the end; then I could pop the cassette out and put on the other side.

By the end of Lovesexy, though, I realized that I hadn't heard this album in a long time. Moreover, I realized that I never really gave it a chance either.

Chalk it up to being (much) older and (not much) wiser, but I am listening to the album right now as I blog this, and let me tell you: Lovesexy is severely underrated. It's better than the majority of Prince's work after 1988. In fact, it may be the last great Prince album of his classic era (I always felt that Sign O' The Times was the end of that line, but I have since reassessed this opinion).

First of all, never has the God/Satan dichotomy been more transparent and obvious than with Lovesexy. Prince went so far as to divide his soul up into two different personas on this album: Camille (the feminine, positive side) and Spooky Electric (the masculine, negative side). With Gemini as his astrological Sun sign, Prince has always explored the duality of mankind (vice and virtue, good and evil, love and hate) but never in such a manner as in this collection of songs.

Then, there's the recent light shed upon the whole album release controversy, provided by longtime friend and collaborator Matt Fink, aka "Dr. Fink" (you know, the keyboard player who wore doctor's scrubs in the videos):


[I]n 2001, his long time keyboard player Dr. Fink told then-Internet radio host Ernest L Sewell IV of The Ernest Experience Radio Show that Prince said he saw the devil. He was paranoid due to drugs, and instead of the popular story of him seeing God, he in fact had thought he saw Satan. He told his bodyguard Gilbert Davison this, and Gilbert in turn related it to Fink and possibly other band members. It was this hallucination that had Prince running scared and decided to ditch releasing the album. He even asked for the cassettes of the album back from the band members that are routinely given to them to learn the songs by ear. Fink had later expressed discontent in that he wished he hadn't given it back, or at least made a copy of it for his own personal use.


Whether it's a true story or merely apocryphal, it fits in with the sincere nuttiness that hovers mysteriously around Prince, that of the sensitive artist who teeters on the brink of genius and madness. Others merely come off as completely wacko due to their peccadilloes, but Prince always manages to emerge unscathed mostly because he doesn't do anything to hide his eccentricity. If anything, he plays with it. Unlike R. Kelly or Michael Jackson, whose alleged perversions are held separate from their work, Prince's perversions and passions (which are tame in comparison to the likes of Kelly and Jacko) are intrinsically tied in with his lyrics and music.

I doubt R. Kelly would ever write a song about his scandal other than rebuking those who accused him, and likewise with MJ; Prince, however, aired his dirty laundry from the get-go, and just kept pushing the envelope as time elapsed. Every Prince album from Dirty Mind on contained at least one line or song that made me blush, causing me and my brother to adjust the volume so that my mother would not get angry. And yet, as embarrassing and inappropriate as those naughty sentiments were to me then, they are nothing if not honest, and the true fans always appreciated that... even if, like me, they sometimes didn't get it until much later on in life.

I think Lovesexy was the album where the once-adoring masses first started to resent Prince, and the backlash that nearly derailed his credibility in the music world began to rear its head. But I think now, almost two decades later, the album should be listened to again. You'd be surprised at how well it holds up. What sounded weird and unusual now sounds relevant and contemporary (all those strange electro-blips and synth-squiggles are commonplace in music today, especially in the work of Pharrell Williams and The Neptunes), and the lyrics are spiritual on an almost Gospel-like level.

And of course, there's "When 2 R In Love", an amazing ballad that captures the torrid passion of romance and the animalistic undercurrent of that very same eroticism, balancing both extremes precariously as a gorgeous backdrop of musical swells and crescendos undulates behind it. It gets my vote for the best love song of all time, because you can listen to it with a lover as well as fuck to it.

Maybe that's why it ended up on both Lovesexy and The Black Album. Maybe Prince recognized that he'd written the perfect slow jam, a Gemini of a track that could do double duty as both lascivious mood music and exhortation to true love.

As His Royal Badness sang in that very tune: Nothing's forbidden/ nothing's taboo...

I think that's the way it should be, don't you?

pop illumination

I've blogged about this particular '80s pop tune before.

This time around, I have discovered something new, something exciting, something... enlightening.

I've loved this song and video since I was a little kid, but I never really "got" it when it came to the video concept. As seen below (courtesy of the almighty YouTube) the clip involves a rather cute Tracy Ullman, dressed in Diana Ross-like '60s garb, pining away for her boyfriend Paul, a cheesy-and-sleazy-looking kind of fellow who likes to bowl and wear gaudy clothes. Then the video fast-forwards to their present situation: Tracy is pregnant and pushing a shopping cart around at the supermarket where her boyfriend/current husband works, singing away wistfully even as she looks worse for the wear.

Suddenly, we see the '60s Tracy in a car with Sir Paul McCartney at the wheel. It's the same car we saw earlier in the video, but instead of Paul the boyfriend it's now Paul the ex-Beatle.

All these years I've wondered, what is the point of this? Wish fulfillment? Post-marital escape fantasy? A gratuitous star cameo?

I looked it up again, needing a tunatic fix after having gone quite some time without listening to the song or watching the video, and I came across this comment posted by someone known as "Ritzy Trailer":

'My take is that Guido in the gold lame shirt (that's pronounced La-MAY, by the way, kids) may be dorky but she loves him LIKE he's Paul McCartney.. What WE all see in the store - is what everyone else seems to see.. but no matter - she's in love with him anyway, he may as well BE PM to her.. bad hair, and all. And that's what real love SHOULD be about.'

And now, suddenly, after over two decades and a mysterious appreciation for this one-hit wonder, I finally get it.

Yes indeed, I do.

I went back and watched it again, and I have to agree-- that's what it's all about.

Geez. I can be so thick sometimes.

Thank you, Ritzy Trailer, for pointing out what's been right under my nose for all these years.

If ever there was a time to die happy, it's right now.

'tis fitting, no?

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I

Remember how I posted a few weeks back about embracing luck?

Well, I take it all back. I've gone back to believing that: 1) everything happens for a reason, 2) there is no such thing as luck, and 3) timing is everything.

Someone summed it up to me in those exact words, and it awakened that dormant part of me that has always believed that but keep burying it anyway.

I have been re-directing all of my blogging energy into the novel. It is a slow process, one day at a time. But it's coming along.

I have things to say, I just don't want to say them right now. I want to wait and see what happens.

I have whittled my vices down to primarily cigarettes. I indulge occasionally in drugs but not at the level or pace I engaged in them in the past.

I I I I I... It's always about me, isn't it? It's always about what I want.

What about what other people want?

What about it?

I guess I'm learning that game. I'm curious to see what's next to learn, and it just gets more interesting by the day.

I think I'll pick up the guitar and play some Buddy Holly songs. His music seems to encapsulate the mood I'm in right now. Not "That'll Be The Day" or "Oh Boy!" but rather more contemplative songs like "Everyday" and "Words Of Love", and maybe even a moodier piece of rock like "Peggy Sue".

Speaking of which... man, that change from A to F on "Peggy Sue" gets me every time.


Peggy Sue, Peggy Sue
Pretty pretty pretty pretty Peggy Sue
Oh Peggy-- my Peggy Sue-ooh-ohh
Well I love you girl and I want you Peggy Sue


OK, gotta go. Smell ya later.

patience

The last two weeks have been strange and surreal.

Last Saturday night my band played the show at The Whisky. It was a fine show, but weird things kept happening: people showed up late (some people just barely missed the show, others were more than 2 hours late!), the sound guy cut us off one song too soon, and my friend Ben inexplicably disappeared for 45 minutes.

It was a full moon weekend, and Mercury was still in retrograde.

I ended up at a house in Hollywood at 5am, fiending for a cigarette and striking out on my own to buy a pack, only to have my path blocked by barricades for the L.A. Marathon. Then, when I got to a gas station to purchase my wares, the car died for about 30 minutes.

A rescue team was dispatched, but they didn't see my car and passed me by. Finally, I got it all together and arrived back at the house, covered in grease, by 6am.

For the rest of the week I dealt with my car's stalling problem. But that's just what happened to me-- I can't even begin to tell you what happened to some of my friends.


*/*


My friend Ben suffered some sort of a shaking fit due to being underfed, dehydrated, and undergoing the DTs (he is a troubling alcoholic). The fit occurred as he was walking in Burbank in broad daylight. Luckily, he was right next to a hospital when it happened. He tried to call me but I had already left my apartment to meet him at his place, and I have no cel phone. He is OK now but he felt like he was going to die.

Buddha, the drummer in my band, encountered a road rage incident in Burbank last Tuesday. What started off as a simple case of being cut off in the right lane escalated into a John Woo-esque orgy of vehicular violence, climaxing with Buddha T-boning the car full of drunken Hispanics who were itching for a brawl. Buddha emerged without a scratch.

What's weird is that my buddies Wolf Man and Down Low witnessed a carload of Hispanic guys throwing beer bottles at pedestrians in Hollywood on the night of our Whisky show. This bears noting because the car was maroon-colored, the same as the car that attacked Buddha... and in both cases beer bottles were thrown freely.

Speaking of Down Low, his car was shot at the other night while leaving his apartment. Low was on his way over to me when suddenly he called and said he heard shots being fired. I didn't believe him at first, but when I saw the two bullet holes in his bumper (and the next morning found the shell casings in the street) I realized that he was not bullshitting me. We doubt it was anyone we knew-- most likely some impatient idiot with a gun and a lot of nerve. I deduced that the gunman merely wanted to put a scare into Low, who was blocking an intersection with his car when the event occurred. From the entry points of the bullets, it seems as if the gunman was aiming for the tires, not intending to kill or maim.

Like I said, the last two weeks were strange and surreal, almost as if they'd been dreamed or staged for a film. But it got even weirder.


*/*


Monique called me late last week, at an ungodly hour of the night. Since she is 3,000 miles away, it must have been even later for her.

She got pulled over while driving on her restricted license. She was 8 days away from taking care of her license dilemma when the trooper pulled her over. She got lucky and didn't receive a ticket for the reckless left-turn-at-a-stop-sign-without-a-signal that she made in front of the officer.

We talked for over four hours. Apparently, I had called her on Valentine's Day and caused a row with her boyfriend at the time. He didn't like the fact that she was getting a call from a guy on Valentine's Day, even though he was all the way on the other side of the country.

In a way I kind of caused her and that guy to have their last falling out, which made me smile. But without her here next to me it's all in vain, isn't it?

I told her about my drug binges. This eased the tension between us, because she has never been able to let go of her suspicion that I thought less of her for her 6 month crystal meth phase shortly before she went back home to Virginia. By telling her about my year-long foray into cocaine, she realized that I wasn't the judgmental sonofabitch that she thought I was-- in fact, she began to see that it was her own shame at what she did that prevented her from accepting my offers to help her and understand her. I never once looked down on her for her momentary weakness, because I can comprehend those weaknesses... However, it is one thing to claim I understand and another thing to actually have traveled that same path.

I realized during the phone call that with all the money I've spent on coke in the past year, I could've gone to visit her twice already. So I've made up my mind to scrimp and save, and I'll be flying out to see her by the summer. If she comes out here instead, then all that money will go towards showing her a good time.

It's nice to have a goal in mind.


*/*


Monique wasn't the only girl who called me up out of the blue. I've been getting lots of calls and visits from girls I had an interest in, but lately I haven't been able to give them the attention they deserve. Maybe it's because they all waited so long before getting back to me and now the initial thrill is gone.

I'm not writing them off. They are all beautiful and sensual girls. But they weren't there for me when I really needed them, so now that I have found my emotional center and equilibrium, they are just going to have to be patient.

After all, I have had to be patient. It's the most difficult lesson I've ever had to learn, but I think I am making progress. I still lose it when things go wrong (such as right now-- the Internet has not allowed me to post this exactly the way I wrote it at first) but it's kind of like my car this past week: Sometimes it stalls, and all I can do is wait half an hour to an hour before I can start the engine again. Then, when it starts up I get the most mileage out of it that I can.

Thus, my love life is akin to a used car.

That's how it was with Monique at first. We met, didn't date because she was taken, then she hit rock bottom and left for Virginia, and when she unexpectedly returned there was a lot of catching up to do. But it took over two years before it came to it.

Still, I have faith that one day I will get it right. This is only because I have been so close in the past, and also because new opportunities always arise in the wake of old ones.

We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

chameleon

There is no particular theme for this blog entry that I'm writing right now, no unifying universal tangent that I'm trying to highlight, no serendipitous collision of ideas and motifs that I am attempting to explain.

I figure it's about time that I just approach this blog in the appropriate manner: as a journal, an occasional chronicle, or even a public diary. No need to wrest meaning from simple everyday events; no deliberate transfiguration of my life into epic adventures; no melodramatic fictionalization of dull reality and the mundane routines of existence.

Instead, I'll just give an update on the things that are swirling about in my consciousness as of late, and I'll try to keep it succinct and to-the-point.


*/*


I've got a show tonight with one of my bands at the famed Whisky a Go Go. This will be the second gig I've done with this band at The Whisky and my third gig at this particular venue in general. It's pay-to-play, which I normally detest, but it's not my play to call and besides-- it's fun.

Still, I am craving something that I can have full control over, so I went out and got myself a solo acoustic gig at a small space in the Valley next April. The place in question is a guitar shop by day and an art gallery by night, with a decent sound system and a big stage. It has a coffeehouse atmosphere but they don't serve coffee-- they do serve non-alcoholic beverages and snacks, and I suspect they are cool with BYOB. There's pillows on the floor propped up against the walls so that people can lie down comfortably while watching a show. I hope this arrangement doesn't invite my potential audience to fall asleep as I perform.

I'm going to play mostly original tunes with a few choice, esoteric covers. I have 45 minutes and the majority of my songs are short, so I will have a lot of time to express myself in an intimate setting, doing something that hits a little closer to home and originates from my heart in a more personal vein. I've wanted to do this for so long but never got around to it because I wasn't confident enough to put myself out there, but all the performing in various bands plus my private interest in songwriting has gotten me worked up to the point of wanting to make this work. I am primarily focused on testing the material to see what sinks and what floats. I have quite a catalog of songs that no one has ever heard, and the only way to find out if any of them are any good is to just play them in front of friends and total strangers. I don't expect to take the Canoga Park music scene by storm, but I am interested in seeing what my strengths and weaknesses are and improving upon them.

I am practicing playing the guitar every day for at least ten minutes. It is so different from playing the bass in that I actually have to concentrate on getting it all down pat, whereas with my bass-playing I can coast and ride on the coattails of the other band members. I'm going to be all alone up there, which isn't a scary prospect for me at all-- no, what worries me is the inevitable realization that not everything that I consider cool or noteworthy will be met with warmth and appreciation. My skin is thick, yes, but I am also a lot more sensitive than I let on. I am guessing that it will be an eye-opening experience, no doubt about it.

I think of this as a step in the right direction. I've backed up so many other musicians for such a long time that I feel like I have a rich, solid background to draw upon when the time is right and the opportunity is mine. Foremost above all, I want it to be fun, and I'm positive that it will be.


*/*


My drug use has leveled off, after a few binges here and some droughts there. I accept the fact that I have an addictive personality and that I will probably not stop doing drugs completely any time in the near future. I want to say it's just a phase, and I truly believe that's all it is... but it's a dangerous phase nonetheless, and things can go horribly wrong if I am not careful. I owe it not only to myself but my friends and family to not go overboard.

I consider myself one of the most responsible drug users out there because I never get so far gone that I cannot connect with reality and take care of the business of my life. Still, it wouldn't take a whole lot for me to spiral out of control and I know this all too well.

It is a concern of mine-- I don't want to come off as not being cautious or vigilant as I indulge in illicit pharmaceutical entertainment, so I won't make light of it or not take it seriously. However, my head is still screwed on as straight as it can be, and I don't have a death wish. I sincerely appreciate the comments, advice and kind words I have received from people whenever I have reached out or asked for help, and I won't take those heartfelt sentiments for granted.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: I know I'm fucked up and have some serious issues that shouldn't be treated with self-medication... but don't count me out just yet.


*/*


I shaved the beard and trimmed my hair, leaving the bangs and the locks on top long while maintaining a clean cut around the sides and nape. I've kept the sideburns and I'm also thinking about donning my nerdy, ugly, first-pair-I-ever-owned eyeglasses for certain events and engagements. Once again I am tinkering with my appearance, and I'm at a loss to explain exactly why I have been fascinated by the process of changing up my style as of late.

I don't think I am necessarily searching for a definitive image or identity. I think it has more to do with getting reactions from people and wanting them to notice me. It also works as a mode of invisibility and anonymity in that people I've just met never know what to expect and often cannot recognize me from my last incarnation. As much as I enjoy the spotlight and all the attendant attention I seek out, there is also the subversive delight in turning inside-out those very notions of self-perception vs. other's perceptions that I am investigating in my odd quest to render myself a bona fide chameleon.

Plus, as a writer I find that transforming my outer appearance allows me to experience my everyday existence in new and surprising ways. I feel like I am creating entirely new personas and characters as a direct result of my dabbling in fashionable possibilities. This makes me curious, and I want to explore it more as time goes on.

OK, so that's pretty much it for now. Have a nice weekend and stay out of trouble, people.

reinvention (dissonance)

For an individual such as myself, the road to transformation is a long and tedious one. Although I adapt well to changes in my environment, it takes eons for me to make the personal, more intimate changes necessary for me to grow and thrive into perpetuity.

I can sum it up like this: If I woke up tomorrow and everything was inside-out-- my room, my neighborhood, the city, the state, the nation, the world --I could go on without batting an eye. But if I woke up one morning and discovered I was in fact a giant insect (like Kafka's protagonist in Metamorphosis) then I figure it would take me some time to get used to it.

Sometime last year, I woke up and found that I was not whom I thought I'd been for at least the past five years. I was someone else entirely. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror. Something had changed. I tried to chalk it up to the ravages of age, but after a while it became clear that this sudden shifting of shapes had nothing to do with outer appearances.

No, instead it was something inside of me that was either born or killed off.

I haven't the slightest clue as to what was the catalyst for such a startling revelation, but I can tell you this: all attempts to explain it here in this blog have been in vain. I've combed the sands of my mind and soul for the past year and cannot put my finger on the defining moment, the impetus for this sweeping renovation of my psyche. I thought I knew what it was, but I have been wrong.

So I tried to catch up to that feeling. I grew out my hair, let my beard thicken, lost some weight, changed a few habits, and conducted myself as if I were not the person whose blog you've been reading for who know how long.

It is comparable to a reptile shedding an old skin.


*/*


I have embraced luck, as I detailed in my last blog entry.

So far it seems to be working. I can't say that I've had incredible fortunes befalling me since I decided to endorse the random postulates of pure chance, but then again shouldn't we all be suspect of any windfalls or rewards that seemingly appear without any reason? It smacks of the devil's work, the instant gratification that comes with the deal; the minute you sell your soul you begin to reap the benefits of that deal.

Well, I didn't sell my soul, so I didn't expect to win the Lotto or pick up a supermodel in a singles bar overnight. But I'm beginning to see the length of this new path I am traveling as the fog clears and the horizon line becomes more visible.

Accompanying this fresh journey into uncharted realms comes an entirely new accessory: control. For the first time in a great while, I feel like I have control over my life and the things in it. Not that I haven't had any control over my life up until recently; rather, I'd been too willing to relinquish control. Nowadays I don't ever entertain the idea of giving up the reins, and ironically it is functioning far smoother than my past attempts to steer and commandeer all those things over which I really have no control: other people, certain circumstances, genetics, transparent pecking orders, injustices, societal ills...

It's as if I have gained more control by accepting the fact that luck plays a far bigger role in the way our lives unfurl than if I'd kept hammering away at my preconceived notions of what is and what should be. The problem with hammering away is that I was a hypocrite, all too willing to say 'fuck it' and not accept responsibility for my actions after whining and moaning about how I am so responsible.

I was trying to have and also eat the proverbial cake.

If I have any advice to give anyone in any part of the world, it's this: make sure you're not trying to have it both ways. That more than anything is most surely the cause of your present misery and unhappiness. If you are trying to fit the square peg into the round hole, or trying to force two objects of equal mass to occupy the same space, you'd better stop right now because it ain't gonna happen.

No way.

You have to make the parts fit. You can't just jam it together artlessly, with no sense of decorum or harmony.

Dissonance is OK if you're a musician and your name happens to be Captain Beefheart or Phillip Glass or Glenn Branca or John Cage or Ornette Coleman. These talents understand noise, and can reproduce that noise at will. It seems random on the surface-- perhaps even a tad unlistenable --but it is tightly constructed and crafted. And if someone hears it and thinks it's a bunch of cacophony, then they have executed their work all too well.

Dissonance, however, is not OK if you are just an ordinary person living an ordinary life. And although I am a musician, I am not always a musician. Sometimes I pay bills or buy groceries. Sometimes I lay in bed with my cats and train them not to gnaw at the speaker wires connected to my stereo. Sometimes I am the funny uncle who plays with his niece and nephew even though he is tired and wants to relax.

In those situations, as well as a million others that occur daily, dissonance is the last quality I want to be present. But you cannot dispel dissonance with an edict or a command. It will not obey your orders, it will not do as you say.

As any musician with perfect pitch can tell you, the only way to get rid of dissonance is to tune your instrument.


*/*


I've been out of tune, off-key, behind the beat and out of the pocket. There was static in the line and something wasn't grounded right. I kept picking up stray radio waves and transmissions.

So I replaced the old strings with new ones, and cleaned the dirt off the neck and the frets. I changed the cables and re-soldered the pickups. I tuned up but I had to let the strings stretch for a bit. After some time, when the strings were acclimated, I changed to an open D tuning and riffed for a while.

My friends bought me some new amplifiers. They sat down with me and showed me some of their songs. I showed them some of mine.

And now a year has passed and I'm finally ready to play out with a whole new repertoire under my arm.

I have been reinventing myself, and it took a lot of time that I didn't think I had the patience to mind. I am not done reinventing myself, of course, but that's OK because at least now I know what it is I'm supposed to be doing.

So, with all that out of the way, I only have one question on my mind now:

Any requests?

lucky

This week I came to understand the nature of my life and its twists and turns.

I always figured that "lucky" people were the ones who always made money in Las Vegas, or ended up picking up the hot girls in bars, or ended up inheriting a tidy sum from a distant uncle.

What I've come to realize is that the things I listed above are forms of luck, manifestations (if you will) of different types of fortune.

But to be lucky in the true sense is to be thrown back and forth between the opposing poles of good and bad circumstance, eventually finding the even path and regaining one's balance.

In that regard, I am truly a lucky person. And my good luck is always offset by bad luck, because that's how my life is and always will be.

I am lucky because I have never been out of money, and even though I am not rich on the other hand I've never been destitute.

I am lucky because I have a roof overhead that's cheaper to rent than most and is located in a quiet neighborhood. For what I pay, I have more space than some of my friends who pay more for approximately the same square footage.

I am lucky because, even though I am not in love or involved with anyone right now, it is better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all. Plus, I know the next time I fall in love it will be meaningful and real, deep and intense. I know this because every time I have ever been in love, it has been all of those things and more.

I am lucky because I have a family that cares for me and would help me out if I were really in a jam. Their love is unconditional, but at the same time it helps that they have never had to shake their heads in disgust at my behavior. For all of my partying and excess and criminal posturing, I am relatively a saint in their eyes. I have never caused them grief or heartache, and they even worry about me because they feel that I am too sensitive and "soft" for this world. But they trust me, and when I am down they are there to help me stand up on my own two feet again.

I am lucky because I get to do what I want to do every day, for the most part. Someone might say, "Well, you can't afford to just buy a plane ticket and fly to Europe" but to that I reply "That's because maybe I really don't want to do it that badly." And that is the truth, because if I really did want to go to Europe, I'd make it happen somehow. If it was that important to me, I'd quit the job and scrounge up the money and just go without thinking of anything else.

I've done it in the past with other things, and I still possess that insane edge, that fearless ability to take the risk and gamble on myself because there is a goal in sight.

And sometimes the gamble doesn't pay off, but more often than not it does pay off.

And that's why I am lucky.

And that's why I am glad to be alive.

Have a great weekend, folks. Watch the Oscars, make love, do whatever it is you have to do. Live your life as if it were the greatest adventure ever experienced.

On that note, here's one of my favorite Dylan tunes, a song that captures the lucky feeling I get when I'm living my life and loving it.

prayer

For the first time in my life, I am crying out for help.

The help I need is in the form of a prayer (or prayers).

I am asking everyone who reads this blog to say a prayer for me. I am hitting a new low in the trajectory of my life and I feel helpless and powerless, unable (or perhaps unwilling) to do anything about it.

Even if you are an atheist or doubt the existence of God or pray to some other deity or don't pray at all, please say one for me.

At this point, I'll take all the help I can get.


*/*


The cocaine problem never went away.

Instead, it took a hiatus. After the new year began I did go sober, and it lasted for quite a while. I went a whole month without buying anything. I was still using occasionally, especially when friends came over and wanted to get their fix of whatever in my apartment. But I was not spending money on it, and that was good.

I was done with the cocaine, and one of the things that kept me away was knowing that the stuff I'd been doing was total crap: cut beyond belief, to the extent that I could no longer bear the symptoms of the "comedown". My nose would burn as if on fire; my teeth and gums would ache and keep me awake when I was trying to sleep; my sinuses were blown out, and I kept blowing weird-looking pink mucus out of my nose for days after each coke binge.

Not wanting to feel so crappy made my decision much easier. I felt my sanity returning and my body was rejuvenating itself. I didn't need pot to fill the void, which was the one thing about sniffing coke that made me somewhat happy.

Then, I met Gerald.


*/*


That last sentence was a bit misleading.

I'd met Gerald years ago, when I was playing in Holly Golightly's band. Gerald was a friend of Ben, aka "Snake", the rhythm guitarist for the group.

Don't let the nickname "Snake" fool you-- Ben is a great guy and an honest man, and the "Snake" handle came about as a joke in a pool hall one night while hanging out with some friends. A stranger who wanted to shoot pool with Ben and his buddy asked if they were sharks, and Ben's friend made-up the name Snake for him, as if to imply that a guy named Snake should not be trusted when it came to playing billiards for money.

Anyway, Gerald came by Snake's house one day a few years ago. The band rehearsed at Snake's spacious mansion in the Santa Susana Pass slightly west of Topanga Canyon because no one ever complained about the noise and there was so much room for us to jam out and store our gear.

Gerald is in his mid-fifties, originally from Boston. He could be someone's dad or uncle if you didn't know him already. He likes to drink but on the surface you'd never know that not only does he like to get high but that he grows his own weed and sells it for relatively cheap.

The day he came over to watch us rehearse, Evan the drummer was late. There was always an excuse or crazy story with Evan, so we were not surprised at all by his tardiness. However, we were getting less and less tolerant of his flaky ways with each passing week.

Out of frustration and boredom, I announced that I would play on the drums until Evan showed up. I already knew my bass lines and didn't need to practice them right then and there. I'm not a very good drummer but I can keep time, and we'd already tried to practice without Evan but the lack of a backbeat made it difficult. Actually, to be honest, the members of the band just couldn't get into it without the drums providing the pulse.

So I sat down on the drum stool and ran through three songs to the best of my limited ability. It wasn't a great practice, but at least the others felt more comfortable with something as opposed to nothing. I was having fun trying to duplicate some of Evan's fills and drum parts, curious to see how long I could hold on before giving up out of exhaustion.

Afterwards, when Evan showed up and we ran through the entire set list, all of us went outside to relax and smoke and drink. Gerald came up to me, his breath reeking of beer, and patted me on the back, his salt-and-pepper mustache bouncing up and down as he complimented my drumming.

"You, kid..." he said, his Bostonian accent cutting sharp edges into his words, "You're a fuckin' genius! You drum better than the other guy! Seriously, no shit. I was totally floored by what you did in there. You just got up, grabbed the sticks, and bashed those fuckers in. You're the soul of this group, I'll tell ya!"

Of course, I was humble... at first. But the accolades kept coming, and I gradually let them sit with me inside my head.

"I try," I said after some time had passed and Gerald's praise had not relented in the slightest. "I'm not the best, but I'm not gonna let things like our drummer being late get in the way of..."

"Fuck that guy! You're the one who's going to go places! Everyone else in this group... they're good, don't get me wrong. But they don't got what you got-- even Ben, bless his soul. I bet you could outplay Ben on the axe any day."

"Well, I wouldn't say that..."

"I know you wouldn't. You're modest, that's why! You don't think you're the shit, but you are. You're the shit. Accept it already!"

Gerald pulled out a joint and gave it to me to light up. "I grew this myself, you know."

I took a pull off of it. "Damn," I coughed, "this is some good shit!"

"Hey, you deserve it, kid. You've got what it takes, I can feel it."

And that's how I met Gerald.


*/*


After that day I saw Gerald whenever he'd come to our shows. But that was near the end of our run as a band, and even though I kept in touch with everyone post-breakup I didn't see Gerald for years.

Then around the end of January I gave Snake a ride out to meet one of his friends in the West Valley. Snake was without a car and had to pay back some money he owed, and he asked me if I could help him.

I picked Snake up and asked if I could use his cel phone to call a friend who asked me to call him later in the evening. The friend told me that he had called the coke dealer we'd been scoring from but he wasn't going to be around until well after midnight. It was five after eight, and he wanted to know if I could go out and meet the guy where he was hanging out since I was already on the road.

"I don't know, man," I said over the phone. "I'm trying not to do it, and that's a long way to drive just for some yay." I used the slang abbreviation for llello, which is Spanish for cocaine.

Snake looked at me and motioned for me to hold the phone. "You're looking for some C?" Another slang term for the white stuff.

"I'm not-- this guy is," I said to Snake, pointing to the cel.

"Gerald's got some."

"Gerald? You mean East Coast Gerald?"

"Yeah. Let me call him. How much does he want?"

"Uh, I dunno... how much will Gerald sell?"

"$60 increments."

"Well, we already pay $40 for the other stuff, but that's because he won't do twenties anymore. How cut is Gerald's stuff?"

"Very pure. Not really cut. It's always the same, it never varies. Mild high, but it won't make you wanna rip your hair out."

I discussed the situation with my friend in the vaguest possible manner, and he agreed to give it a try. if it wasn't good stuff, he reasoned, then he could always call the other guy later on.

"OK, Snake," I said as I hung up the cel and gave it back to him. "Should we hit Gerald up before or after we make this errand?"

Snake laughed. "Actually, he's the one I'm going to see. You're taking me right to him."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Will he be cool with me asking?"

"Dude, he loves you. Remember?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Well, call him now and ask him if he can have it ready."

That night, I had a taste of Gerald's product, and it was amazing how different his stuff was compared to the other stuff: not hard on the nose, relatively pure, didn't smell like ether or gasoline, wasn't in rock form (it was granulated powder), and when it was all gone I was able to go to sleep!

And the next morning, it was as if I didn't do any at all. No aches and pains, no corroded pink earthworms lodged in my nose, and no burn.

I started buying it again, but from Gerald. I swore off the other shit, the cut shit. There were so many advantages to getting it from Gerald-- no more trips to the 'hood because Gerald lived in a nice suburban part of the Valley; no more long waits because Gerald was on time whenever I called him for an order; no more delays and being put off until the next day either.

I told myself I would only buy on the weekends, and I've pretty much kept up that end of my bargain with myself. But I also told myself that buying from Gerald would help me to wean off of the stuff. I reasoned that since it was the kind of high that I could walk away from and not think about until the weekend came, I could eventually learn to do without it at all.

On that point, I'm beginning to see that I was wrong.


*/*


The coke high, for me, is all about pure ego gratification.

Unlike other drugs, the pleasure comes not from reveling in the side effects. Rather, the pleasure comes from the sense of well-being that overcomes me when I do it. It's as if someone is patting me on the back and commending me for a job well done for a good half an hour. When the drug's effects start to wane, it's as simple as cutting up another line and inhaling it, and voila! I'm back to pretending that my ass is being kissed non-stop.

Other drugs seem to disable the ego, and therein lies their appeal. Marijuana causes euphoria and a sense of well-being, but not to the extent of cocaine. The pot high is more of an id gratification-- you do it because it feels good, not because you feel like you've accomplished anything. The ego is muted when I'm stoned, whereas the ego is overstimulated when I'm tweaking.

Acid, mushrooms, peyote-- those drugs are total ego destroyers. You have to let go of your self-esteem and all of its attachments in order to enjoy them. On the other hand, MDMA (Ecstasy) is like a mix of coke and pot in that it massages the ego but also causes you to surrender to your pleasure principle.

Adding to cocaine's insidious nature is the fact that (now that I am doing cleaner coke) I have more than doubled my intake. Although I can make it through the week and through a work shift without buying or doing any, I overcompensate on the weekends. Many friends and acquaintances have remarked on the amounts I snort when we are all together partying. These people have been doing it for much longer than me, and yet their eyes bulge out and their jaws drop when they see the gaggers I cut for them and myself. They take a look at the size of the lines I have prepared for them and insist on doing only half or a mere fraction. When they are done, I swoop down and finish off what they left on their plate, minutes after sniffing rails the size of my pinkie finger.

One night I did $100 worth straight to my head. By the end of my stash I could no longer get high-- if anything it was making me more tired instead of pepping me up. I told my guests that I was going to go to sleep and that they could stay for as long as they wanted just as long as they locked my door when they left.

I received a phone call less than an hour later from one of the guests, who left shortly after I retired for the night. He wanted to make sure that I was OK and that I hadn't died or gotten sick or choked on my own vomit or something horrible like that. I laughed and reassured them that I was fine, but when I hung up I took a look at myself in the mirror and saw that my face was fatigued and beaten. I looked old, weathered, like I'd aged ten years overnight.

On top of all of that, the shit's expensive. I am not in terrible financial trouble yet, but if I continue down this road I will be. Even at the height of my pot use I was not spending $100 in one sitting. And if I did ever spend $100 on weed, it lasted me for more than just a few hours-- $100 worth of grass could last me for a month if I was frugal with it.

Last week I was so happy because I'd been propositioned by a fellow cokehead and turned him down flat. He wanted to know if I wanted to split some with him and I refused, saying that if I was going to buy any it would be on the weekend. I felt good about not giving in, especially since Valentine's Day was coming and I was being inundated on all sides by love propaganda that usually makes me feel lonely and unwanted.

I held out until Saturday, and then I dropped close to $200 on the clean stuff. It was gone by Sunday morning, and I spent the rest of the day catching up on sleep and wondering how I could just waste my money like that when I have bills to pay, things to take care of and a life to live.

Even though it wasn't the cut stuff that had me using on a daily basis and even though I didn't have a hangover the next day, I still felt like utter shit.


*/*


And that's why I am pleading for your prayers, kind people.

I have not hit rock bottom yet, but I would like to spare myself the pain and embarrassment of losing everything I've worked so hard for over a drug habit.

I now fully understand the plight of every person I've ever met or known who found themselves in my shoes. I must admit, I could never comprehend why coke addicts couldn't exhibit any will power. And now, I cannot even understand my own lack of will power.

I am above this. I know better. I am not stupid. But yet I'm doing stupid things, and I cannot seem to make it stick whenever I tell myself to kick.

It's not over for me, so please keep me in your thoughts and root for me. I may not be able to hear your prayers, but they will reach me somehow.

I can't do it alone. I need to get away from the people who use it, from the people who sell it, from the people who are afraid to lecture me because they don't want to anger me.

I have to stop using it.

I have to.

what is love?

So often in these blog pages I have questioned my own ability to love and be loved.

But I know now that I have the capacity for it.

I recently thought about the beginning of the spring of 2005, the night before Monique was supposed to fly home to Virginia. I was running late en route to the house where she was staying, and by the time I got to her front steps she was smoking a cigarette and waiting for me.

Monique said to me that she was tired, and that she just wanted to get to sleep so she could catch her plane in the morning, and that it was hard enough as it was leaving again without having to get all emotional over it. Then she looked at me and asked if I was upset.

My normal reaction on any ordinary day would've been to swallow, then restrain my hurt as I insist that it's no big deal and that it's OK. But that night, I had to admit that I was upset, because I didn't know if I would ever see her again after that.

But I didn't want to get angry either.

So I smiled, shook my head briefly, looked Monique in the eyes and said, "Yes, I am upset."

She smiled back. We embraced for a long time and shared one more kiss. I bid her adieu and drove home, slightly depressed but grateful for the two weeks we spent together.

The next day, she called me up in the early evening to tell me that she overslept and missed her flight. She re-booked it for a few days later.

We met each other later on and had us a proper going-away celebration that night. And after she finally did leave for real, I wondered if she really missed her flight or if she intentionally stayed behind in order to give me what she figured she might have owed me.

Ultimately, I decided that she didn't owe me anything, and chalked up her delayed departure to circumstance... but I always felt good about speaking my heart to her at that moment. Even if it wasn't the primary motivation behind her re-scheduled trip, I think it might have helped her to accept her situation with more grace at the very least.

It was one of the few times in my life when I did not let my defenses get the best of me. Yes, I was upset-- but the smile was to show her that it really was OK if she had to go and was too exhausted to be with me.

She expected me to pout and sulk. When I didn't, it reaffirmed something for her, and it surprised me that I didn't hesitate to bare my soul so frankly.

Thinking about that moment has made an otherwise lonely Valentine's Day week much more tolerable. I know I have it in me, if I'd only give myself the chance.

I'm calling her tomorrow morning, to let her know that I will be visiting her in a couple of months. I hope she will be glad to hear that.

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!