I have decided that LA is a series of posh skinny girls who are just sweet enough for you to let your guard down and then rush into your open heart and destroy it from the inside out.
I have decided that LA is a borderline alcoholic out of invention, son of necessity.
I have decided that LA is a tattoo artist who has never had any ink done on himself because his body is a temple.
I have decided this.
"This city of angels,
stars,
devils,
and
strays.
Where nobody's from
and
where nobody
stays."
Sunday, December 21, 2008
The Subway
Today, one of my friends celebrated his eighteenth birthday. I celebrated it with him, of course- a very normal celebration. A celebration involving close friends, a movie, dinner, and a few laughs. Not an extraordinarily well thought out or elaborate birthday; it lacked the grandeur and capitalistic-friendly airs of most American birthdays worth noting. It worked.
We did things that we have never done before. We ventured out of the comfortable Hollywood surroundings that we have grown accustomed to and rode on a subway whose existence I was not cognizant of before today. We PLANNED to spend time in the valley, that place full and empty of every kind of person imaginable, the place where visceral feelings on muggy summer nights are as common as drunks on Melrose Avenue after the local bar has Happy Hour. The astonishing thing is what we were greeted with coming out of the valley and back into our own comfort zone.
We were being followed by a pack of seven valley girls. Not the valley girls you are thinking of either. These were the worst kind: loud, whorish, obnoxious, likely inebriated. The exact kind of people that piss me off. And they did just that. They did it exquisitely, in such a fashion that no one has ever seemed to accomplish. They proceeded to sing "Happy Birthday" about ten trillion decibels above the acceptable level, seemingly to no one in particular. I would have hit a woman.
What got my attention was, several hours after this incident, how people responded. Or, rather, how they didn't respond. Were they in quiet contempt, like myself, or did they approve of this behavior? Such quizzical things people respond to. For example, if nothing had been happening and one of those girls had answered a call on her cellular device, dirty looks galore would have ensued. So why did these people say nothing?
Was it me or them?
"No", I thought. They were caught in between. They experienced two extremes tonight, oil and water. There was the outright celebration, and the private revolution going on inside of me. Perhaps this city life has just worn them down so far that they no longer care one way or another... no, they have embraced these minutiae into something else, something other-worldly, something no essay can ever hope to embody or convey with any competence... they found something that is uniquely this place that I call my home.
We did things that we have never done before. We ventured out of the comfortable Hollywood surroundings that we have grown accustomed to and rode on a subway whose existence I was not cognizant of before today. We PLANNED to spend time in the valley, that place full and empty of every kind of person imaginable, the place where visceral feelings on muggy summer nights are as common as drunks on Melrose Avenue after the local bar has Happy Hour. The astonishing thing is what we were greeted with coming out of the valley and back into our own comfort zone.
We were being followed by a pack of seven valley girls. Not the valley girls you are thinking of either. These were the worst kind: loud, whorish, obnoxious, likely inebriated. The exact kind of people that piss me off. And they did just that. They did it exquisitely, in such a fashion that no one has ever seemed to accomplish. They proceeded to sing "Happy Birthday" about ten trillion decibels above the acceptable level, seemingly to no one in particular. I would have hit a woman.
What got my attention was, several hours after this incident, how people responded. Or, rather, how they didn't respond. Were they in quiet contempt, like myself, or did they approve of this behavior? Such quizzical things people respond to. For example, if nothing had been happening and one of those girls had answered a call on her cellular device, dirty looks galore would have ensued. So why did these people say nothing?
Was it me or them?
"No", I thought. They were caught in between. They experienced two extremes tonight, oil and water. There was the outright celebration, and the private revolution going on inside of me. Perhaps this city life has just worn them down so far that they no longer care one way or another... no, they have embraced these minutiae into something else, something other-worldly, something no essay can ever hope to embody or convey with any competence... they found something that is uniquely this place that I call my home.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Four Shades of Heaven
Four Shades of Heaven
I
There is something about the Los Angeles freeway this time of day when the sun sets, something Zen, some kind of other consciousness. The various colors zooming past you, the red Celica that has its high beams on and a spoiler, the sea of headlights glaring in your eyes, you seeing the red taillights of 50,000 of your closest friends, achieving a state of mind such that you lose the cognizance that a 6 inch mistake in either direction could cause your demise. You know this, but choose to disregard it, because you can feel that everything will end up going down the right path anyway. You don’t see the cars. You don’t hear your engine.
It is hard for people that are not from Los Angeles to appreciate the pleasure of not being stuck in traffic. When conditions are like they are today, you can start from your Santa Monica home, go onto the 405 freeway and be in the valley before half an hour has expired. You notice the other people on the road, don’t know where they are going or why, and don’t care. You all just drive together with a common goal of reaching point B. You all look down at Sepulveda Boulevard and wonder why one would drive in a 35 mile-per-hour zone when they could easily go 70 on the freeway.
Angelinos frequently complain that on this road there is no scenery and nothing beautiful and only sunscorched hills and smog shrouded mountains and cloudy horizons. This is not wholly incorrect, as a fire did ravage these hillsides a few years ago, but all it did was turn the unsightly weeds into carbon anyways. Nothing is really very inviting, but it is the end of the journey that everyone keeps their eye on. Despite all these people, I think that the camouflage radio tower and the fake tree that is a satellite relay device provide for a nice change of scenery.
A person can turn on the radio to KCRW, listen to the city beats of Metropolis, and presently get lost in it. Coming out of this zone, you may find yourself being lifted out of 310 and promptly dropped into 818. Exiting onto Ventura, left blinker flashing, the car goes in the designated direction. This BMW zooms by. A policeman turns on the siren. You don’t pull over anyway.
II
I am supposed to meet my friend Andy today for lunch in Beverly Hills, at a restaurant near his office. It is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside, acceptable walking weather. There is maintenance work on the street, so I can only get to Wilshire Boulevard and not to Charleville, where I am supposed to meet Andy. I take the opportunity to look around. I see a blonde girl walking by me. We lock eyes, fall in love, and continue on our way.
As glamorous as people make it sound, Beverly Hills is quite a curious place upon further examination. The clothes in the windows will all be different tomorrow, the men in their skinny fit suits and the women in their frilly Marc Jacobs dresses will have shifted to black trench coats and gray business casual blouses . The way the “in” ladies walk and talk, their high heels, and the dogs in their purses will all be different in a couple of weeks. The colors of the signs, as well as the stores that they are above, will all be cast off to the will of the fashion Goddess next season.
The neighborhood is composed of people who struck it huge fast, able to live out their Los Angeles dreams. These are actors and producers and singers and athletes and stock brokers and lottery winners, the cream of the crop. To live like this is to spend fast and live faster, or be left in the dust. Play hard or go home. The Hills or bust.
I look for a coffee shop that I once knew and loved on Beverly, but it seems to be missing in action. A Pinkberry yogurt shop is across the street, so I decide to investigate. There is a certain atmosphere that is created here, interesting but at the same time hopelessly fake and naïve, something about the neon green walls, hot pink lights, and fluorescent orange chairs accompanied by the skinny white boy with an earring and his visor pointed sideways and upwards. I choose not to buy one, considering I could probably use a diet. This is a town where diet books and liposuctions are researched more than terminal illnesses, because anyone with a waist size above 26 might as well be dead anyways.
My decision was a good one, as I very quickly reach the restaurant whose name I had scribbled down on a realtor’s face yesterday. I look for my friend. Andy is sitting outside. He looks nice in his skinny fit brown pinstripe suit.
III
Los Angeles is quite the con artist. It has somehow tricked an entire planet into thinking that it is some marvelous place where everyone can achieve their dreams and live life to the fullest. All of the sights and sounds and weather and food and ocean air may be the best salesman to ever hit the streets. It is a town of Barbie dolls. This place is a story of the people who live half-lives.
I once met a man on the Venice Beach boardwalk who, put politely, was down on his luck. I first noticed him eating a funnel cake with a strawberry topping, getting powdered sugar all over his sandy face and hands. He was a scraggly old guy, with an opened, grease stained, button down shirt, no shoes, and a guitar. “This,” I thought, “is a real Los Angeles man.”
He told me his story. A brilliant musician, he moved to Los Angeles a runaway at 17 to try and “make it big.” He told me about “experimenting,” almost “cutting it,” deciding that lifestyle “wasn’t for him,” and “settling down” with a wonderful woman named Grace who promptly left him “once the booze started taking its toll,” and, unable to afford his own home and the money he had to send her, ended up a “vagabond.” He wouldn’t have it any other way.
This was the type of man who shot for the moon and cosmically came crashing down, missed the stars and other planets altogether, fell out of the Milky Way, and ended up getting sucked into some black hole in another nebulae, perpetually losing his size and getting more and more pressure forced upon him for simply being. This was the type of man that we should model our lives after, the type of man that gives Los Angeles its charm, its persona, its culture. If there were no people like this, would living “The Life” suddenly lose its meaning? Yet we sweep these people under the carpet, banishing them to Skid Row or in a cardboard box in front of some Santa Monica agency employing a secretary that has some fake part that daddy paid for.
That night, I went out to see a movie and had dinner with my girlfriend. We saw a feel good movie, and then went to eat at Johnnie’s on the Third Street Promenade. Over a “NY White Pie” I told her about the conversation that I had with the man. She laughed. “Next time you see him, tell him to get a real job”, she said.
IV
Real success can’t be measured by a monetary value, by how large your house is, or by how many Italian sports cars you own. It cannot be bought, won, or cheated. There is something deeply personal about success. It is a state that only you know how to achieve.
A young boy is born in Arkansas where he can only see his life as a farmer, like his father, and his father before him. His family business is raising corn on the same plot of land year after dirty year. The boy passes his time by playing his grandfather’s antique guitar that has an authentic Indian pattern around the resonance chamber, and falls in love with it. The boy becomes a man and moves to Los Angeles to chase his dream.
He trudges through the years of long hours, the years of that smoke filled filthy club with the yellow carpet and small stage, the years of his Thai town Melrose apartment with the paper thin crumbling beige walls. He lives an interesting life, one of struggle. On some particularly clear nights, he converts his struggles into soul wrenching pieces, songs that speak to everyone. The people love it.
His songs go Platinum, and he retires comfortably at 45. He moves to Big Sur to that log house that he has always wanted. He sees some of his old friends and makes new ones. He plays guitar by day and sips red wine by night. He listens to Janis Joplin and the Doors on an old-style phonograph.
This is why LA exists.
This is happy.
I
There is something about the Los Angeles freeway this time of day when the sun sets, something Zen, some kind of other consciousness. The various colors zooming past you, the red Celica that has its high beams on and a spoiler, the sea of headlights glaring in your eyes, you seeing the red taillights of 50,000 of your closest friends, achieving a state of mind such that you lose the cognizance that a 6 inch mistake in either direction could cause your demise. You know this, but choose to disregard it, because you can feel that everything will end up going down the right path anyway. You don’t see the cars. You don’t hear your engine.
It is hard for people that are not from Los Angeles to appreciate the pleasure of not being stuck in traffic. When conditions are like they are today, you can start from your Santa Monica home, go onto the 405 freeway and be in the valley before half an hour has expired. You notice the other people on the road, don’t know where they are going or why, and don’t care. You all just drive together with a common goal of reaching point B. You all look down at Sepulveda Boulevard and wonder why one would drive in a 35 mile-per-hour zone when they could easily go 70 on the freeway.
Angelinos frequently complain that on this road there is no scenery and nothing beautiful and only sunscorched hills and smog shrouded mountains and cloudy horizons. This is not wholly incorrect, as a fire did ravage these hillsides a few years ago, but all it did was turn the unsightly weeds into carbon anyways. Nothing is really very inviting, but it is the end of the journey that everyone keeps their eye on. Despite all these people, I think that the camouflage radio tower and the fake tree that is a satellite relay device provide for a nice change of scenery.
A person can turn on the radio to KCRW, listen to the city beats of Metropolis, and presently get lost in it. Coming out of this zone, you may find yourself being lifted out of 310 and promptly dropped into 818. Exiting onto Ventura, left blinker flashing, the car goes in the designated direction. This BMW zooms by. A policeman turns on the siren. You don’t pull over anyway.
II
I am supposed to meet my friend Andy today for lunch in Beverly Hills, at a restaurant near his office. It is about 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside, acceptable walking weather. There is maintenance work on the street, so I can only get to Wilshire Boulevard and not to Charleville, where I am supposed to meet Andy. I take the opportunity to look around. I see a blonde girl walking by me. We lock eyes, fall in love, and continue on our way.
As glamorous as people make it sound, Beverly Hills is quite a curious place upon further examination. The clothes in the windows will all be different tomorrow, the men in their skinny fit suits and the women in their frilly Marc Jacobs dresses will have shifted to black trench coats and gray business casual blouses . The way the “in” ladies walk and talk, their high heels, and the dogs in their purses will all be different in a couple of weeks. The colors of the signs, as well as the stores that they are above, will all be cast off to the will of the fashion Goddess next season.
The neighborhood is composed of people who struck it huge fast, able to live out their Los Angeles dreams. These are actors and producers and singers and athletes and stock brokers and lottery winners, the cream of the crop. To live like this is to spend fast and live faster, or be left in the dust. Play hard or go home. The Hills or bust.
I look for a coffee shop that I once knew and loved on Beverly, but it seems to be missing in action. A Pinkberry yogurt shop is across the street, so I decide to investigate. There is a certain atmosphere that is created here, interesting but at the same time hopelessly fake and naïve, something about the neon green walls, hot pink lights, and fluorescent orange chairs accompanied by the skinny white boy with an earring and his visor pointed sideways and upwards. I choose not to buy one, considering I could probably use a diet. This is a town where diet books and liposuctions are researched more than terminal illnesses, because anyone with a waist size above 26 might as well be dead anyways.
My decision was a good one, as I very quickly reach the restaurant whose name I had scribbled down on a realtor’s face yesterday. I look for my friend. Andy is sitting outside. He looks nice in his skinny fit brown pinstripe suit.
III
Los Angeles is quite the con artist. It has somehow tricked an entire planet into thinking that it is some marvelous place where everyone can achieve their dreams and live life to the fullest. All of the sights and sounds and weather and food and ocean air may be the best salesman to ever hit the streets. It is a town of Barbie dolls. This place is a story of the people who live half-lives.
I once met a man on the Venice Beach boardwalk who, put politely, was down on his luck. I first noticed him eating a funnel cake with a strawberry topping, getting powdered sugar all over his sandy face and hands. He was a scraggly old guy, with an opened, grease stained, button down shirt, no shoes, and a guitar. “This,” I thought, “is a real Los Angeles man.”
He told me his story. A brilliant musician, he moved to Los Angeles a runaway at 17 to try and “make it big.” He told me about “experimenting,” almost “cutting it,” deciding that lifestyle “wasn’t for him,” and “settling down” with a wonderful woman named Grace who promptly left him “once the booze started taking its toll,” and, unable to afford his own home and the money he had to send her, ended up a “vagabond.” He wouldn’t have it any other way.
This was the type of man who shot for the moon and cosmically came crashing down, missed the stars and other planets altogether, fell out of the Milky Way, and ended up getting sucked into some black hole in another nebulae, perpetually losing his size and getting more and more pressure forced upon him for simply being. This was the type of man that we should model our lives after, the type of man that gives Los Angeles its charm, its persona, its culture. If there were no people like this, would living “The Life” suddenly lose its meaning? Yet we sweep these people under the carpet, banishing them to Skid Row or in a cardboard box in front of some Santa Monica agency employing a secretary that has some fake part that daddy paid for.
That night, I went out to see a movie and had dinner with my girlfriend. We saw a feel good movie, and then went to eat at Johnnie’s on the Third Street Promenade. Over a “NY White Pie” I told her about the conversation that I had with the man. She laughed. “Next time you see him, tell him to get a real job”, she said.
IV
Real success can’t be measured by a monetary value, by how large your house is, or by how many Italian sports cars you own. It cannot be bought, won, or cheated. There is something deeply personal about success. It is a state that only you know how to achieve.
A young boy is born in Arkansas where he can only see his life as a farmer, like his father, and his father before him. His family business is raising corn on the same plot of land year after dirty year. The boy passes his time by playing his grandfather’s antique guitar that has an authentic Indian pattern around the resonance chamber, and falls in love with it. The boy becomes a man and moves to Los Angeles to chase his dream.
He trudges through the years of long hours, the years of that smoke filled filthy club with the yellow carpet and small stage, the years of his Thai town Melrose apartment with the paper thin crumbling beige walls. He lives an interesting life, one of struggle. On some particularly clear nights, he converts his struggles into soul wrenching pieces, songs that speak to everyone. The people love it.
His songs go Platinum, and he retires comfortably at 45. He moves to Big Sur to that log house that he has always wanted. He sees some of his old friends and makes new ones. He plays guitar by day and sips red wine by night. He listens to Janis Joplin and the Doors on an old-style phonograph.
This is why LA exists.
This is happy.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Have Your Music And Eat It, Too
1 pm Saturday Afternoon
I woke up, the blinds unable to keep the sun’s rays out of my room any longer. This was a quasi novel experience; I rarely saw the sun anymore. It was more like I saw its end, the part that matters, an image that graces the EP cover every of tween band that has ever produced one. To make matters worse, I have that parched feeling in my mouth, that feeling that makes everything taste of cardboard. Still half asleep, I look at the various parts of my room that may warrant some investigation with one eye closed. The white fan that circles around and around, the copious empty cans of Dr. Pepper, my dark dress clothing. I woke up a boy barely able to stand, much less seize the day. Off with the covers and into the bathroom.
Brush my teeth. Put up my hair. Wash my face. Take a shower. Ring Ring.
The phone vibrates and serenades me with an Arctic Monkey’s song. I look at the little square screen on the front, which tells me that Todd’s Cell is calling. Well they say he changes when the sun goes down; yeah they say he changes when the sun goes down around here… I pick it up.
“What’s up, dude?”
“Hey kid. Can you come out today?”
I’ve been waiting for this call. Time to show the world that I can play as well as any twenty-two year old addict. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a Rockstar. Do what they do, live like they live, know what they know. Now I could stay up all hours of the night doing naughty things while a murder of groupies throw themselves at my feet and dust off my white Aldo biker toe shoes.
Todd was about six foot three, but one would never have guessed it since he slouched so much. His waist size couldn’t have been larger than twenty-six inches, and his extra small shirts always allowed you to see the bottom two packs on his stomach. He always looked like he was two or three days behind on his shaving, and had fairly long, wavy brown hair that fell in front of his face and made his chin and cheekbones stand out. Todd was easy to pick out of a crowd, but was entirely forgettable if you didn’t work closely with him for a while. What an awful in between to be stuck with.
“How much are you giving me?” I asked him, ready to accept the job even if it meant building up my volunteer hours.
“Two hundred.”
“Alright, I guess so. Tell Roxy.”
“See you at nine kid.”
Hm. This could be an interesting opportunity. I’d never played with people like this before, people that would starve (in all aspects of the word) if they didn’t have music. These people are fickle, but always seem hungry for my music. I decide that I’d better practice; I can’t mess up anymore. I’ve grown past that now. Time to cash in my chips, pay off my tabs, and climb over that ominous mountain that the sun sets behind every night with its empty threat of never returning.
9 pm Saturday Night
Roxy was supposed to come and pick me up about forty-five minutes ago. Todd and I are still sitting on the curb in front of his Thai-town Melrose apartment, the kind that are beige and try to have a classy name like “The Palms” or “The Sundial” with a stucco four car garage in the front with an army colored overhang and with some type of ornament above it to try and make it unique, despite all of the other buildings on the block. Monotony for sale a mile in all directions.
Roxy decides to finally roll up in her once red vintage nineteen-eighty-six or so POS Toyota Celica. She stops in the middle of the street, headlights on, then turns to us and snickers.
“Traffics a bitch.”
“Good, you’ll have some company for the ride,” a visibly perturbed Todd retorts.
“You shut the hell up. Get in here baby boy.”
I climb into the passenger seat over boxes and boxes of intact and broken guitar stings and various auxiliary inputs and microphones. The car has a staunch scent of cigarettes and spilled coffee. Roxy surveyed me with one eyebrow up and an amused line formed on her face where a mouth may once have been.
“Big night tonight for ya, huh baby boy?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Roxy would have been pretty if she hadn’t caked on her makeup. She was the type to wake up to a stiff vodka and soda, followed by a quick couple of lines. Her haircut made her face look like a box, with little strips of hair running down her cheeks all the way to her shoulders. Her eyes were ice blue, that could cut through diamonds, the kind that you could get lost in if you stared too long. The kind of woman that bought a shotgun on her fourteenth birthday and forever took the Owl of Minerva out of the sky.
“Hold on tight baby boy. We’re running late.”
12 am Sunday morning
“You look tired Steve. Are you tired?”
I immediately take my face out of my hands, more out of surprise that someone actually used my name than to offer back a response. A short white girl stared back at me, with long dirty blonde hair, mole on the right side of the lips type, with a little gap in between her teeth. She wasn’t from around here; her words were drawn out, making her sound Southern. Her unusually chic frilled purple and black dress made her look like she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to be a prom queen or a Topshop princess. Roxy had explained to me that this girl had some problems, dealt with them as she saw fit, and usually woke up the next morning with problems a million times worse. But she looked like the type of girl that had the right reputation, went to the right schools, went out with the right boys. The unlit cigarette in her mouth looked out of place.
“Well?”
“I guess so. I mean, I’m a little, like, sketched out, you know? I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“Just lay down a beat. Don’t fuck it up. You’re getting paid now,” she said as she and Roxy looked at each other and laughed.
She lit up her cigarette and then lit Roxy’s with the end of her already lit cigarette. I’d never seen that done in real life before.
“You smoke?”
“No.”
Dis chuckles quietly to herself and takes a drag. I simply couldn’t imagine commissioning my tongue to push back that chemical loaded ethereal grey noose around my lungs, then tighten it and kick away the chair as I exhale, going into my bloodstream and filling every nook and cranny with nicotine that it could possibly find.
“Then start warming up.”
I hear the quick slaps of fingers on her five string Fender jazz bass, hitting poor Ernie Ball against a rosewood board. Roxy unleashes a barrage of scale work and all too clever hooks and riffs, string bending that seems superimposed to the point of absurdity. Somehow, the two harmonize and seem to make some kind of music, despite the absence of a staff and any written notes. They were a tribute to Terpsichore. A Bosch painting in F minor.
Feeling especially useless (it is nearly impossible for drummers to warm up without causing a royal commotion), I get up and look around the artist’s loft. The carpet is a hideous orange brown, with stains where adult beverages had accidentally tipped over. The black leather couches were surprisingly supple and comfortable, but I had to wonder if they were designed to be like that, or simply had grown to be as such from years upon years of overuse and neglect. There was a dark corner that I dare not venture into; who knew what indirect madness may be lurking there. A glass table in the center of the room reflects light much like a prism would, creating a rainbow on the floor, which I doubt was on purpose. The names of the artists on the wall who were lucky enough to have their picture placed there have no meaning to me. I wonder if anyone will smell the smoke on my shirt after we return to the cold dread of the outside world.
I turn around and see Roxy holding one nostril on her ruby colored nose and inhaling vigorously. She asks for a Coke and drinks about half of it in one sip. I watch her close her eyes as she sits down, her body vibrating like a sequence of elaborately linked tuning forks, playing a chromatic scale up through her shoulders. After that, she is completely still aside from the fluttering that is occurring on her left breast. It reminds me of something a bodybuilder might do to show off.
The band on stage sounds like a compact disc player that is running low on juice. The uproarious applause for a mediocre band strikes me to be more of a polite gesture rather than a group of fifty or so who truly enjoyed what they were hearing, applause enough so that the group would likely develop an Ozymandias complex. Jack, Jim, and that Captain named Morgan must be doing their job adequately. Amplifiers are dragged across the floor and a cymbal crashes to the ground, waking Roxy from her somnambulatory state.
She looks through Dis. “Guess that means it’s our turn.”
“Let’s go baby boy.”
2 am Sunday Morning
“Not so bad, was it?”
I smile. “It’s not too hard to keep people happy when they’re drunk and tired.”
“True story Steve.”
I was thoroughly unimpressed. I entered into this night as a virgin, not knowing what to expect, with fear and apprehension, with excitement and resolve. A little excited to lose my amateur status, but more worried. I left the experience a battle-tested veteran, a new face in the business, a boy into an adult. The set and performance was entirely forgettable, except for the part when a guy had one too many and the bouncers threw him out, drunk and disheveled, onto the street, roaring.
Sad people playing for sadder people. Illegal drugs playing for legal drugs. Openly naughty playing for closet naughty. The hopeful playing for the hopeless.
We met the band’s manager, a dumpy looking fellow who we called Jonathan. He couldn’t have been taller than five foot three, and his stomach was probably at least that size around. He was wearing a wifebeater and a gold watch. He had nearly no body hair and a high-and-tight style military haircut. He congratulated me and handed me four twenties, two tens, and a hundred that looked like it had been rescued out of some storm drain that had recently been a victim of illegal chemical dumping. He slipped me two low grade painkillers and told me that it would calm my heart down and help me sleep. I decided that I would dump them off on Todd; at least he may appreciate it.
We made merry with the high ups, and exchanged pleasantries with some of the fans that stayed, if only to convince them that our gross errors and our drunken melodies were full of profundity. Noticing that I was being generally ignored after the first three minutes or so, I decided to take a seat in one of the red vinyl booths in the corner. I ordered a Roy Rogers, but they brought me something hard, too stiff to enjoy. I stare at my beat up black Saucony Jazz, and realize that I could fit in here. I could be another Weekend Rockstar, live a life already prescribed to me due to socio-economic and educational factors. But the usual clangor of thoughts and emotions that compelled me to play and perform with great facility and desire has left, in its place a dark abyss, a black hole sucking up my soul, fermenting, rotting on the inside. Something in my internal infrastructure collapsed, and suddenly I had nothing where moments ago there had been everything. I can’t be a Rockstar forever. I couldn’t live my life like Roxy and Dis and Todd, relying on the mercy of a sneaky manager and a shady club owner, needing an addiction to swallow up my torment, living fast and dying faster. I had to stop this dream, stop looking for Sybaris. I had to grow up sometime. Tonight would have to suffice.
Roxy informs me that we need to leave. Dis winks at me then tells me that I have potential for a prettyboy- just like Todd she says. As we part ways, she kisses me on the lips. It tastes like cigarettes.
I climb back into Roxy’s car, and we drive down the street. Stopped at a red light, I stare back at the club, the only light in a sea of darkness. I completely tune out whatever it was that she had to say, giving an occasional nod so that she was left with the impression that I comprehended what she was talking about. We drive further and further, and the light fades, as love dies, laughing.
12 Noon Sunday
I woke up in Todd’s bathtub with all of my clothes on and a towel for a blanket. I had no idea what time it was. I looked at the clock. It flashes twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock, just a pulse, lacking any sense of time any rhythm. According to Cingular it was eleven forty-three.
I got up and dusted myself off, mostly to make myself feel better about not taking a shower for nearly a day. I walked quietly through Todd’s apartment, being sure to leave the pills on his nightstand. I saw my partner in crime, sound asleep, without a shirt on and some jeans that made me wonder if he ever wanted children. There was a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels on his nightstand and a half naked girl facing his wall. I saw her head there, so still, so perfect, just breathing, up and down, up and down, a bit of life caught within herself, remembering nothing but worrying about everything, just lying there in bed with her catch that night. I ached for her life.
Searching in the refrigerator, I find that Todd only keeps a half empty bottle of ketchup, some turkey, and a carton of Tropicana. I take his orange juice and fill up a glass with a thirsty tongue. I hadn’t anything family friendly to drink for over twelve hours.
Damn. It’s a Screwdriver.
I look at myself in his cracked mirror above the sink as I dump out the cocktail and enjoy some tap water. My face looks like a regurgitated pizza, and my once immaculate skinny fit black shirt is now covered in every color of lint imaginable. My hair does look rather spiffy, though.
Stumbling through the door, I make my way down the flight of stairs and through the gate. Now I need to figure out how I’m going to get home. I guess I’ll just take the bus.
I stumbled out into the middle of the street, swaying, down the broken yellow line, head held up as high as I could bear to, a newly manufactured knight ready to challenge all comers.
I woke up, the blinds unable to keep the sun’s rays out of my room any longer. This was a quasi novel experience; I rarely saw the sun anymore. It was more like I saw its end, the part that matters, an image that graces the EP cover every of tween band that has ever produced one. To make matters worse, I have that parched feeling in my mouth, that feeling that makes everything taste of cardboard. Still half asleep, I look at the various parts of my room that may warrant some investigation with one eye closed. The white fan that circles around and around, the copious empty cans of Dr. Pepper, my dark dress clothing. I woke up a boy barely able to stand, much less seize the day. Off with the covers and into the bathroom.
Brush my teeth. Put up my hair. Wash my face. Take a shower. Ring Ring.
The phone vibrates and serenades me with an Arctic Monkey’s song. I look at the little square screen on the front, which tells me that Todd’s Cell is calling. Well they say he changes when the sun goes down; yeah they say he changes when the sun goes down around here… I pick it up.
“What’s up, dude?”
“Hey kid. Can you come out today?”
I’ve been waiting for this call. Time to show the world that I can play as well as any twenty-two year old addict. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a Rockstar. Do what they do, live like they live, know what they know. Now I could stay up all hours of the night doing naughty things while a murder of groupies throw themselves at my feet and dust off my white Aldo biker toe shoes.
Todd was about six foot three, but one would never have guessed it since he slouched so much. His waist size couldn’t have been larger than twenty-six inches, and his extra small shirts always allowed you to see the bottom two packs on his stomach. He always looked like he was two or three days behind on his shaving, and had fairly long, wavy brown hair that fell in front of his face and made his chin and cheekbones stand out. Todd was easy to pick out of a crowd, but was entirely forgettable if you didn’t work closely with him for a while. What an awful in between to be stuck with.
“How much are you giving me?” I asked him, ready to accept the job even if it meant building up my volunteer hours.
“Two hundred.”
“Alright, I guess so. Tell Roxy.”
“See you at nine kid.”
Hm. This could be an interesting opportunity. I’d never played with people like this before, people that would starve (in all aspects of the word) if they didn’t have music. These people are fickle, but always seem hungry for my music. I decide that I’d better practice; I can’t mess up anymore. I’ve grown past that now. Time to cash in my chips, pay off my tabs, and climb over that ominous mountain that the sun sets behind every night with its empty threat of never returning.
9 pm Saturday Night
Roxy was supposed to come and pick me up about forty-five minutes ago. Todd and I are still sitting on the curb in front of his Thai-town Melrose apartment, the kind that are beige and try to have a classy name like “The Palms” or “The Sundial” with a stucco four car garage in the front with an army colored overhang and with some type of ornament above it to try and make it unique, despite all of the other buildings on the block. Monotony for sale a mile in all directions.
Roxy decides to finally roll up in her once red vintage nineteen-eighty-six or so POS Toyota Celica. She stops in the middle of the street, headlights on, then turns to us and snickers.
“Traffics a bitch.”
“Good, you’ll have some company for the ride,” a visibly perturbed Todd retorts.
“You shut the hell up. Get in here baby boy.”
I climb into the passenger seat over boxes and boxes of intact and broken guitar stings and various auxiliary inputs and microphones. The car has a staunch scent of cigarettes and spilled coffee. Roxy surveyed me with one eyebrow up and an amused line formed on her face where a mouth may once have been.
“Big night tonight for ya, huh baby boy?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Roxy would have been pretty if she hadn’t caked on her makeup. She was the type to wake up to a stiff vodka and soda, followed by a quick couple of lines. Her haircut made her face look like a box, with little strips of hair running down her cheeks all the way to her shoulders. Her eyes were ice blue, that could cut through diamonds, the kind that you could get lost in if you stared too long. The kind of woman that bought a shotgun on her fourteenth birthday and forever took the Owl of Minerva out of the sky.
“Hold on tight baby boy. We’re running late.”
12 am Sunday morning
“You look tired Steve. Are you tired?”
I immediately take my face out of my hands, more out of surprise that someone actually used my name than to offer back a response. A short white girl stared back at me, with long dirty blonde hair, mole on the right side of the lips type, with a little gap in between her teeth. She wasn’t from around here; her words were drawn out, making her sound Southern. Her unusually chic frilled purple and black dress made her look like she couldn’t decide whether she wanted to be a prom queen or a Topshop princess. Roxy had explained to me that this girl had some problems, dealt with them as she saw fit, and usually woke up the next morning with problems a million times worse. But she looked like the type of girl that had the right reputation, went to the right schools, went out with the right boys. The unlit cigarette in her mouth looked out of place.
“Well?”
“I guess so. I mean, I’m a little, like, sketched out, you know? I’ve never done anything like this before.”
“Just lay down a beat. Don’t fuck it up. You’re getting paid now,” she said as she and Roxy looked at each other and laughed.
She lit up her cigarette and then lit Roxy’s with the end of her already lit cigarette. I’d never seen that done in real life before.
“You smoke?”
“No.”
Dis chuckles quietly to herself and takes a drag. I simply couldn’t imagine commissioning my tongue to push back that chemical loaded ethereal grey noose around my lungs, then tighten it and kick away the chair as I exhale, going into my bloodstream and filling every nook and cranny with nicotine that it could possibly find.
“Then start warming up.”
I hear the quick slaps of fingers on her five string Fender jazz bass, hitting poor Ernie Ball against a rosewood board. Roxy unleashes a barrage of scale work and all too clever hooks and riffs, string bending that seems superimposed to the point of absurdity. Somehow, the two harmonize and seem to make some kind of music, despite the absence of a staff and any written notes. They were a tribute to Terpsichore. A Bosch painting in F minor.
Feeling especially useless (it is nearly impossible for drummers to warm up without causing a royal commotion), I get up and look around the artist’s loft. The carpet is a hideous orange brown, with stains where adult beverages had accidentally tipped over. The black leather couches were surprisingly supple and comfortable, but I had to wonder if they were designed to be like that, or simply had grown to be as such from years upon years of overuse and neglect. There was a dark corner that I dare not venture into; who knew what indirect madness may be lurking there. A glass table in the center of the room reflects light much like a prism would, creating a rainbow on the floor, which I doubt was on purpose. The names of the artists on the wall who were lucky enough to have their picture placed there have no meaning to me. I wonder if anyone will smell the smoke on my shirt after we return to the cold dread of the outside world.
I turn around and see Roxy holding one nostril on her ruby colored nose and inhaling vigorously. She asks for a Coke and drinks about half of it in one sip. I watch her close her eyes as she sits down, her body vibrating like a sequence of elaborately linked tuning forks, playing a chromatic scale up through her shoulders. After that, she is completely still aside from the fluttering that is occurring on her left breast. It reminds me of something a bodybuilder might do to show off.
The band on stage sounds like a compact disc player that is running low on juice. The uproarious applause for a mediocre band strikes me to be more of a polite gesture rather than a group of fifty or so who truly enjoyed what they were hearing, applause enough so that the group would likely develop an Ozymandias complex. Jack, Jim, and that Captain named Morgan must be doing their job adequately. Amplifiers are dragged across the floor and a cymbal crashes to the ground, waking Roxy from her somnambulatory state.
She looks through Dis. “Guess that means it’s our turn.”
“Let’s go baby boy.”
2 am Sunday Morning
“Not so bad, was it?”
I smile. “It’s not too hard to keep people happy when they’re drunk and tired.”
“True story Steve.”
I was thoroughly unimpressed. I entered into this night as a virgin, not knowing what to expect, with fear and apprehension, with excitement and resolve. A little excited to lose my amateur status, but more worried. I left the experience a battle-tested veteran, a new face in the business, a boy into an adult. The set and performance was entirely forgettable, except for the part when a guy had one too many and the bouncers threw him out, drunk and disheveled, onto the street, roaring.
Sad people playing for sadder people. Illegal drugs playing for legal drugs. Openly naughty playing for closet naughty. The hopeful playing for the hopeless.
We met the band’s manager, a dumpy looking fellow who we called Jonathan. He couldn’t have been taller than five foot three, and his stomach was probably at least that size around. He was wearing a wifebeater and a gold watch. He had nearly no body hair and a high-and-tight style military haircut. He congratulated me and handed me four twenties, two tens, and a hundred that looked like it had been rescued out of some storm drain that had recently been a victim of illegal chemical dumping. He slipped me two low grade painkillers and told me that it would calm my heart down and help me sleep. I decided that I would dump them off on Todd; at least he may appreciate it.
We made merry with the high ups, and exchanged pleasantries with some of the fans that stayed, if only to convince them that our gross errors and our drunken melodies were full of profundity. Noticing that I was being generally ignored after the first three minutes or so, I decided to take a seat in one of the red vinyl booths in the corner. I ordered a Roy Rogers, but they brought me something hard, too stiff to enjoy. I stare at my beat up black Saucony Jazz, and realize that I could fit in here. I could be another Weekend Rockstar, live a life already prescribed to me due to socio-economic and educational factors. But the usual clangor of thoughts and emotions that compelled me to play and perform with great facility and desire has left, in its place a dark abyss, a black hole sucking up my soul, fermenting, rotting on the inside. Something in my internal infrastructure collapsed, and suddenly I had nothing where moments ago there had been everything. I can’t be a Rockstar forever. I couldn’t live my life like Roxy and Dis and Todd, relying on the mercy of a sneaky manager and a shady club owner, needing an addiction to swallow up my torment, living fast and dying faster. I had to stop this dream, stop looking for Sybaris. I had to grow up sometime. Tonight would have to suffice.
Roxy informs me that we need to leave. Dis winks at me then tells me that I have potential for a prettyboy- just like Todd she says. As we part ways, she kisses me on the lips. It tastes like cigarettes.
I climb back into Roxy’s car, and we drive down the street. Stopped at a red light, I stare back at the club, the only light in a sea of darkness. I completely tune out whatever it was that she had to say, giving an occasional nod so that she was left with the impression that I comprehended what she was talking about. We drive further and further, and the light fades, as love dies, laughing.
12 Noon Sunday
I woke up in Todd’s bathtub with all of my clothes on and a towel for a blanket. I had no idea what time it was. I looked at the clock. It flashes twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock, just a pulse, lacking any sense of time any rhythm. According to Cingular it was eleven forty-three.
I got up and dusted myself off, mostly to make myself feel better about not taking a shower for nearly a day. I walked quietly through Todd’s apartment, being sure to leave the pills on his nightstand. I saw my partner in crime, sound asleep, without a shirt on and some jeans that made me wonder if he ever wanted children. There was a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels on his nightstand and a half naked girl facing his wall. I saw her head there, so still, so perfect, just breathing, up and down, up and down, a bit of life caught within herself, remembering nothing but worrying about everything, just lying there in bed with her catch that night. I ached for her life.
Searching in the refrigerator, I find that Todd only keeps a half empty bottle of ketchup, some turkey, and a carton of Tropicana. I take his orange juice and fill up a glass with a thirsty tongue. I hadn’t anything family friendly to drink for over twelve hours.
Damn. It’s a Screwdriver.
I look at myself in his cracked mirror above the sink as I dump out the cocktail and enjoy some tap water. My face looks like a regurgitated pizza, and my once immaculate skinny fit black shirt is now covered in every color of lint imaginable. My hair does look rather spiffy, though.
Stumbling through the door, I make my way down the flight of stairs and through the gate. Now I need to figure out how I’m going to get home. I guess I’ll just take the bus.
I stumbled out into the middle of the street, swaying, down the broken yellow line, head held up as high as I could bear to, a newly manufactured knight ready to challenge all comers.
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