The Place Where My Life Happens

If you can, try to imagine a twenty-seven by eight grid of yellow Post-It squares on a sheet of very dark blue construction paper. Spilt beverages. Now imagine the color of the paper darkens as it soaks, the yellow Post-Its lose their stickiness and they fall off, one by one, until only one, about five-eighths of the way up and a quarter of the way across, remains. Zoom. Find yourself inside of that Post-It, exploring.
Imagine yourself all alone, inside something that has the sole purpose in life to serve reminders. Remind yourself that everyone else left their reminders for tomorrow, but console yourself because you won't need to be reminded of anything. They will all be gone by the time everyone arrives. Stare at your reminders on the outside sides of a computer screen. Let's put that right in front of your face. Make it a Dell.
Would you kindly look above the top of the picture frame and see Ms. Honolulu wiggling her hips at you. That little white spot on her nose is harsh. The entire thing seems white. You should probably Sharpie that. Do it later.
The carpet with the little maroon rhombi glares unforgivingly at you. It remembers the day that you actually decided to lie down on it, take a nap, and then say you were looking for a dropped pen when Mr. Pinkleton came by. He also remembers the day you dropped that pen but left it there. He found it very, very boring company. You know the carpet in the other enclosures are way more friendly. But yours still bears the stain of the day you spilt your Bailey's infused Starbucks Venti non-fat mocha latte with soy milk on him. He never did forgive you for that. Mr. Plant also drips on him. He doesn't care for Mr. Plant either.
Mr. Plant cascades down at you in a very friendly manner today, his white tentacles reaching out, wanting to give you a hug. He's not yours, but you've kind of adopted him anyways. Nathalie wouldn't mind. Mr. Plant and you have always been friends. He wants to congratulate you on that magnificent report, tell you that you are worth something to the company.
You are worth something.
You are worth something.
You are worth something.
You are worth something, because you don't need reminders. You don't need the little yellow squares that go on your Dell that always fall off at inopportune times. You haven't fallen yet. And as the bartender tells the bloke who works across and to the right of you to go home after the second Scotch & Soda that he tipped over that evening, you smile, because you don't need reminders. Not you.
You don't need reminders.

The Crazies

Crazy people don’t just wake up one morning and decide to go crazy. A conscious decision isn’t made to go insane. It just happens. Slowly at first. Things start bothering them that never did before, and they start creating another sense of reality. The city spawns craziness. Nothing is as it seems.
This city, she is my lover and my mother. I am doomed. I am the faithful husband and stepchild, stepped on time after time after time after time after time. To think that I- alchemist of words- may be crazy. I do the same thing time after time after time after time after time and get the same results. The girls don’t change. The liquor doesn’t change. The city doesn’t change.
In your mind, however, it may. How scary would it be to be schizophrenic? To one day wake up and realize that, yes, you are insane, and your world doesn’t exist at all. What would a sane person do? Cry themselves even crazier, and likely enroll in some therapy program with padded walls, never to come out. But what would a crazy person do?
They would embrace their fate. Why not? The world they’re living in is undoubtedly better than the one we are all in. Their city gleans imperially, with a sun shining so bright it could brighten any Topshop Princess’ teeth. The man on roller skates with the tinfoil hat knows what’s up.
And he’s not sharing.
Why would he? He can laugh at us fools, blissfully accepting our boxed in fate, living the condo lifestyle made so popular by the Pepsi generation. His life is better than ours. And the city knows it. She must. Or else why would she create him?
Meet God. Née Joe Smith.
Meet the angels.

City Beat

There is the city holding open arms blinking smiling wildly Cheshire cat at me in the distance. There will be the ladies with their cocktail dresses that look like they want to do exactly just that drinking Appletinis in stilettos and Gucci one piece sunglasses. There will be the alley boys ripped middle jeans quarrelling quibbling and kicking pebbles into the eyes of each one buckled overalls other. There will be the high ups making merry madly absurdly with their fat men suits and red cheeks handlebar and on three rocks premium straight scotch. There will be the Mexicans looking like it’s Easter Sunday talking about Los Doyers and playing football á la Nerf world of MacArthur Park. There will be the teenage girls trying to look twenty one but of course it won’t work because their tops are so last year and that new hairstyle is bad as like whatever and she has a boyfriend who is her ex’s bff. There will be the hipper than thou indie children all looking alike but who cares man they are doing what they want when they want and not having children but it’s OK because the world is overpopulated anyways and more for me then. There will be the surfers all Abercrombie bodied with long sandy blonde hair and half a wetsuit with a Colgate smile blinding to Sun himself. There will be the gangsters shooting at color to win the war but what war the war of drugs and money dawg but they are all on a wrong level of each side of it anyways. There will be the ohmygoditssoandso movie stars walking down blood velvet carpets with their also famous wives featuring hideous Topshop dress and you’re looking kind of scruffy around the jowls yourself mister. There will be the homeless complete with tinfoil hat and roller skates and oddly stylish sunglasses caked dirt everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE no you don’t look right here yes I do and howdy doo to you too don’t call me mister mister. There will be the rockstars filet o’ Hollywood Hills skinny fit black red combo night shaded screaming camera flash alcoholics. And there will be me piper of the city aimless but not directionless but who isn’t dude really c’mon man let’s bounce I’m down for a pizza and a beer charming keeper of words (l).

Sometimes

Sometimes it is fun to scream out obscenities and watch the tourists with their wide eyes and open mouths wonder "What's wrong with these people?"

Sometimes it is fun to pretend you are an important producer or designer and watch the tourists try to figure out who you are and say "I think he wrote Batman or something."

Sometimes the tourists ask you.

Sometimes the tourists get autographs.

Sometimes it is fun to be yourself, drunk on Tuesday at ten in the morning and watch the tourists with their wide eyes and open mouths wonder "What's wrong with these people?"

Home of the Trojans

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."

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.

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.