Last night I met a lady from L.A., she worked for Atlantic Records in A&R. I was very impressed, she seemed young and smart and even though I don't know what A&R means, she has a business card so I'm sure it's important. She asked me what I do, besides bartending and I had to think about it. I thought of Bukowski and told her I was a writer - but it felt thin and empty. I told her I was a disenfranchised film school student that dropped out and took writing classes. That I was working on my first novel. I didn't lie to her because I wanted to sleep with her, I lied to her because I felt like creating some one else, someone good.
As I left work last night one of the members of the private club I bartend at gave me a cigar and I eagerly smoked it on the way home - like a good dog who's been tossed a bone.
Shit like this is swirling in my head like a tornado about to touch down on a trailer park. I've been writing my whole life but I'm not really a writer, I'm not really that talented and I'm not fishing for complements. Sometimes, things just bubble into my brain and I can't stop myself.
I've started to drink beer, I don't know who I am anymore.
The other day, a girl told me I was the square who was cool on his time off, also that I had a hot body under my uniform. I wanted to tell her that I loved dark chocolate but given the sensitive nature of my comment I didn't know if it was appropriate.
I toy with the idea of writing a novel about Santa Fe, about the people and places I knew when I lived there. Drug dealers and debauchery on a grand scale for such a small town. This always makes me laugh.
I find my life is a collection of "to be continued" titles that I'm working on. My friendships are laissez-faire affairs set to stun and my ego bigger then my...well it's not that big.
Slowly life is slipping by an adventure of who's who's whooshed by in a comedy of would've and almosts. Creating characters and forgetting to write them, living them and forgetting about before.
All, this sitting in a park in the city, watching teeny tiny asian girls walk big bad bull mastiffs.
Cop cars and ambulances scream by in a staccato cry of contentment and cautious buses bellow, smog free electric bumper cars headed down the hill and into oblivion.
Eating the last of my cookies, wondering - where, where the time's gone by?
A few seconds till I'm 27 sitting on the cusp of Pacific and Gough, lounging till I'm going...going...gone.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Monday, August 6, 2007
Holdin it down part 2
I was determined to fly into Philly on a one way cloud of bliss. I hadn't been back east since December of 2001 and at the time everyone seemed jumpy.I couldn't wait to see my Bubbala and my Philly family. It's weird but since we've never lived near the family they always seemed so far from me. Not only by distance, but just out of reach. I was looking forward to reconnecting with everyone. After my incident at the security check point I was ready for a shot and some sleep. At this point I had been up for almost 30 hours. I slid over to the surprisingly well stocked Oakland airport bar and tried not to make eye contact with the missionaries that were getting puppy dog close.
I wanted to find a nice chair - a couch or a tempurpedic bed and take a nap before the flight. I left the security of the mahogony bar and headed out toward the cruel anonymity of the southwest arrival and departures board, the names of foreign cities flashing like cherries in a slot machines under my squinty, stumbley type gaze. I used my luggage as a crutch and zoned out under the cold hard stares of the flourescent lights of Gate E5. A sleeping stranger that no one noticed or cared about. For awhile, I watched the people go by, funny looking europeans with bad tans, hazzled mothers with a family of four, a huge lady in a purple track suit that looked like she would be more at home on a grape vine then in an airport.
When I found out that my flight was delayed for two hours I sadly submitted - all I could do was apologetically walk my way back to the bar, carry on luggage being dragged ruefully behind, my face...a sea of agony.
I was stranded. Alone, inebriated - odds that I found fondly in my favor.
Even though I was by myself all my friends were surrounding me, Jack, Jim, Stoli - the memories poured out in sweat to the pace of an overactive liver.
I slumped up in my bar chair and asked to speak to the Devil. The barman reached for the Fernet and I know the fear, this flight will not come fast enough.
It was a nonstop - which means I closed my eyes in Oakland and opened them again with my head resting on my seat neighbors shoulder somewhere outside of Chicago.
When I landed in Philly my brother Kevin was waiting for me with my cousins Mike and Amir. I hadn't seen them in way to long. Sure, we still kept in touch through myspace and lately facebook - but still, it's not really seeing the person.
It was so weird to be back in the Philadelphia. It was cool to see my cousins - they were beginning to be men of their own right. They were like younger brothers, I'd seen them grow up and wondered where the time went.
It was overcast and damp that day, most like San Fran and I was worried because I really wanted to feel an east coast summer. It's not the same as anywhere else that I've been. Its this hot, old timey wet lumpy sock of a summer ...cicada's chirping like wind chimes in the bushes. Long breezes to cut a path through the thick swaths of summer wool. It's Italian ice and driving down the AC Expressway, the warm coconut smell of sun tan lotion, hoagies and boardwalk fries and going down the shore. It's my youth and my dreams.
It's boogey boarding and getting sand in your mouth. Worrying about sharks and sandbars. Long walks along the shore eating pizza, washing away the grease in the warm Atlantic ocean.
We kicked around Philly for a few days staying on the generosity of my Uncle and Aunt. They live just outside of the city in Bucks County. Its the suburbs, the stip club is topless only and grey goose costs 3 dollars and you can smoke in bars.
At the Nishaminy mall, Kevin and I drank about $80 of vodka and mind erasers in a half hour. The staff felt bad about the tab, they bough a round for us because of it. I tipped a twenty and they lost thier shit.
The brothers from the west - we were instantly famous.
I told the bartender about my fancy city drinks. They knew about mojitos and the cosmos - but he didn't know the Liquid Cocaine, the sperm shot or the flaming dr. pepper. We taught him the pain of Fernet and the joy of ginger-ale.
Soon other people around the bar were getting wind of what we were up too - doing shot after shot of rotgut out drinking their bartender.
It was some weird battle.
He'd name a shot, if I knew it he'd have to drink it. If I didn't then I had to drink it. This went back and forth, mind eraser to the kamikaze, b-52's to black jacks to boleros to mi amors, layered stoplight shots, psychedlic grateful deads and finally depth charges from the bow of a feeeeeelthy mexican submarines. By the time we started to leave the bartender was black out drunk and Kevin had gotten his girlfriends number.
We played laser tag, and kicked some serious ass. We practiced 360 degrees of security. I shot a guy in the eye. I held the laser on him till I got a warning.
We tried to make it to six flags on bright summery day and ended up headed down the shore, never made the beach because the car broke down. Sat in sweat and waited as the cars cruised by on the side of the road for 5 hours before a tow truck came. With it my Aunt and my Bubbula in a spare car. When the original car was towed their car broke down. Waited another 3 hours with them till we could get a jump. Loved every minute of the forced quality time.
Again promised not to sign anything in Israel.
We sang songs and told stories, it was back rubs and risque jokes. Catching up and being brought back into the loop - the conection getting strong, not feeling so far off.
We were ready for New York.
I wanted to find a nice chair - a couch or a tempurpedic bed and take a nap before the flight. I left the security of the mahogony bar and headed out toward the cruel anonymity of the southwest arrival and departures board, the names of foreign cities flashing like cherries in a slot machines under my squinty, stumbley type gaze. I used my luggage as a crutch and zoned out under the cold hard stares of the flourescent lights of Gate E5. A sleeping stranger that no one noticed or cared about. For awhile, I watched the people go by, funny looking europeans with bad tans, hazzled mothers with a family of four, a huge lady in a purple track suit that looked like she would be more at home on a grape vine then in an airport.
When I found out that my flight was delayed for two hours I sadly submitted - all I could do was apologetically walk my way back to the bar, carry on luggage being dragged ruefully behind, my face...a sea of agony.
I was stranded. Alone, inebriated - odds that I found fondly in my favor.
Even though I was by myself all my friends were surrounding me, Jack, Jim, Stoli - the memories poured out in sweat to the pace of an overactive liver.
I slumped up in my bar chair and asked to speak to the Devil. The barman reached for the Fernet and I know the fear, this flight will not come fast enough.
It was a nonstop - which means I closed my eyes in Oakland and opened them again with my head resting on my seat neighbors shoulder somewhere outside of Chicago.
When I landed in Philly my brother Kevin was waiting for me with my cousins Mike and Amir. I hadn't seen them in way to long. Sure, we still kept in touch through myspace and lately facebook - but still, it's not really seeing the person.
It was so weird to be back in the Philadelphia. It was cool to see my cousins - they were beginning to be men of their own right. They were like younger brothers, I'd seen them grow up and wondered where the time went.
It was overcast and damp that day, most like San Fran and I was worried because I really wanted to feel an east coast summer. It's not the same as anywhere else that I've been. Its this hot, old timey wet lumpy sock of a summer ...cicada's chirping like wind chimes in the bushes. Long breezes to cut a path through the thick swaths of summer wool. It's Italian ice and driving down the AC Expressway, the warm coconut smell of sun tan lotion, hoagies and boardwalk fries and going down the shore. It's my youth and my dreams.
It's boogey boarding and getting sand in your mouth. Worrying about sharks and sandbars. Long walks along the shore eating pizza, washing away the grease in the warm Atlantic ocean.
We kicked around Philly for a few days staying on the generosity of my Uncle and Aunt. They live just outside of the city in Bucks County. Its the suburbs, the stip club is topless only and grey goose costs 3 dollars and you can smoke in bars.
At the Nishaminy mall, Kevin and I drank about $80 of vodka and mind erasers in a half hour. The staff felt bad about the tab, they bough a round for us because of it. I tipped a twenty and they lost thier shit.
The brothers from the west - we were instantly famous.
I told the bartender about my fancy city drinks. They knew about mojitos and the cosmos - but he didn't know the Liquid Cocaine, the sperm shot or the flaming dr. pepper. We taught him the pain of Fernet and the joy of ginger-ale.
Soon other people around the bar were getting wind of what we were up too - doing shot after shot of rotgut out drinking their bartender.
It was some weird battle.
He'd name a shot, if I knew it he'd have to drink it. If I didn't then I had to drink it. This went back and forth, mind eraser to the kamikaze, b-52's to black jacks to boleros to mi amors, layered stoplight shots, psychedlic grateful deads and finally depth charges from the bow of a feeeeeelthy mexican submarines. By the time we started to leave the bartender was black out drunk and Kevin had gotten his girlfriends number.
We played laser tag, and kicked some serious ass. We practiced 360 degrees of security. I shot a guy in the eye. I held the laser on him till I got a warning.
We tried to make it to six flags on bright summery day and ended up headed down the shore, never made the beach because the car broke down. Sat in sweat and waited as the cars cruised by on the side of the road for 5 hours before a tow truck came. With it my Aunt and my Bubbula in a spare car. When the original car was towed their car broke down. Waited another 3 hours with them till we could get a jump. Loved every minute of the forced quality time.
Again promised not to sign anything in Israel.
We sang songs and told stories, it was back rubs and risque jokes. Catching up and being brought back into the loop - the conection getting strong, not feeling so far off.
We were ready for New York.
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