November 24, 2013 · 3:31 am

James Franco Has (Allegedly) Slept with Everyone in Silver Lake

james-franco involved

I’m five feet from the counter when Kat shouts, “You know how James Franco lives up the street? Well, I’m pretty sure he’s fucked everyone in this neighborhood, but me.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Kat. Truly, I am. But I did some horrific things to my liver last night and I—”

“Jesus, you smell like The Smell.”

“The Smell?”

“It’s punk club. Or a sort of wannabe punk club because punk doesn’t exist anymore and—”

“A double shot of espresso would be great.”

She pulls at her gaping earlobe. You could fit a clementine in there. “After Operation Ivy, there really wasn’t punk at all. It only lasted like three years, tops. Everything else is bullshit.”

“They broke up like six years before you were born, Kat.”

“I know and it bums me out every fucking day.” Kat looks past me to the girl that’s now next in line. She’s wearing a flannel shirt, has blonde hair, and hasn’t taken her sunglasses off yet even though it’s foggy outside. “Iced coffee?” Kat says.

The girl smiles, picks up an apple then digs into her purse. A nickel falls and because she’s pretty, and I’m chivalrous as fuck, I reach for it. The floor is concrete and the nickel is slick. It takes me about thirty second longer than it should have to pick it up. “Here you go.” I say. “I know you were desperate for it.” She laughs, says thanks, then takes her iced coffee from Kat. Kat winks, the girl turns on her heels and walks out.

“I would bone the shit out of her,” Kat says. I nod because that’s maybe the most reasonable thing she’s ever said to me.  “She hasn’t paid for a coffee here in weeks and what do I get out of it? Nada. Not even a thanks.”

“I’m pretty sure she said thanks.”

Kat ignores me or doesn’t hear. “And now she’s taking apples and shit? She’s gonna get me fired. Still…” She leans on the counter, presumably lost in some sapphic daydream. There are now four people behind me in line. I clear my throat and she says, “Last week, she told me she fucked him.”

“Who?”

Kat looks at me like the idiot she clearly thinks me to be. “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” she says. “You know who.”

“Kat, please,” I implore her. “Coffee, a tea, anything.” She rolls her eyes then slowly pours a sad cup of coffee. “Happy?” she says. I’m not, but I thank her and put a buck in her tip jar.

“You know I live off tips, right?” Kat rattles the tip jar. I drop in a $5. She nods approvingly then says, “Next.”

I’m headed out the door, wondering how I ended up paying six bucks for this “free” coffee when  James fucking Franco walks in dressed like he’s fresh off the set of the “Rebel Without A Cause” reboot. He smiles and  in voice that’s smoked five thousand cigarettes, he says to me, “Hey. ”

Before the second passes and we go our separate ways, I’m certain James Franco has fucked everybody in a five mile radius. And maybe the world. And why wouldn’t he? What else is one to do with eighty-seven doctoral degrees?

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September 7, 2013 · 9:44 pm

Ring! Ring! Kurdistan’s Calling!

I knew my brother was out of town. I’d seen the pictures on Instagram. It looked like he was somewhere hot, dusty, crowded, and with tents—like Coachella, sort of. I kept scrolling: waves in Peru, dogs in grass, craft beers and cuticles. I meant to send him an email, but soon the days turned into weeks and weeks turned into catching up on “Breaking Bad.” Things came up.

Insta

Then my brother rang in the middle of the day. I was lying on my back, staring at the ceiling fan, wondering if I had ever disappointed anyone as much as my fan was disappointing me. I figured, nah, but I applauded myself for asking.

the other iraq
Below is a transcript of what was said the second time he called. I missed the first call.

DT: Hey, how’s it going? Where are you?

Unnamed Brother[1]: It’s going well. I’m in Belgium. Just got back from Kurdistan last night.

DT: Iraq, eh? Nice.  How was that?

UB: It was really interesting. 70,000 refugees poured from Syria last week and we were working with U.N. to set up various  camps in 130 degree weather, so–

DT: 130 degrees? Damn. It’s actually disgustingly hot here in LA. Too hot to even drink coffee. Can you imagine that?

UB: Um…

DT: Anyway, I’m trying out a new system to deal with the heat. By the way, do they have A/C out there or did you guys just set up the refugee camps in caves?

UB: There’s electricity in the camps and air conditioning units in every tent that the Kurdish—

DT: Lucky bastards! I’ve only got a window unit myself—that and an underperforming ceiling fan that might be the death of me. Silver Lake has never been more unlivable.

UB: Sounds rough.

DT: You can’t imagine. How was the food?

UB: Awful.

DT: That sucks. How were the chicks?

UB: Bundled up.

DT: Interesting. I gotta tell you. I had a hell of a long couple weeks at work. I’m sitting around all day listening to people pitch jokes and talk about their dogs, cars, diets. It’s exhausting. How was the work there?

UB: We started at six in the morning and usually finished around midnight. It wasn’t so much the hours that were hard, but the heat took its toll.

DT: Wow. Brutal. I can relate. As you may recall, I went to college in the desert. Sometimes it got so hot that literally the only thing we could do was strip down to bathing suits and drink tequila at an impromptu pool party. Anyway, I’ve gotta run. Great talking to you!

UB: Okay, but re—

CLICK.  Do cell phones have a dial tone? I don’t know. I was the one who hung up. I just remembered that my neighbors said I could use their pool, and this heat and that pool, wait for no man.

[1] Although, I don’t know what my brother does or where he does it, most of the time, I’d like to believe that it’s a necessary courtesy to not attach his name to anything I claim on his behalf without his permission.

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March 29, 2013 · 7:33 pm

A Quiet Stroll Along the L.A. River

LA River - homeless camp

On occasion, I have been known to walk a dog.

I am also a citizen of a neighborhood that’s well-stocked with beautiful, stroller-wielding mothers, and their I was a drummer in a huge band in the 90s which explains why I’m fantastically wealthy, have a neck tattoo, and a wife that was born the year after I graduated from high school-husbands.

hipster dads

Hip dads make me violently ill. Every time I see a dad with a tote bag, an occupied baby bjorn, and the biography of some seminal Irish punk singer, I instantaneously projectile vomit. Which is a bit embarrassing, but there’s nothing I can do about it except avoid yoga studios, cafes, parks, Trader Joe’s, bicycle shops, wine bars, bookstores—basically my entire neighborhood. Thus I am forced away from the well-manicured park near the reservoir and sent under a freeway overpass to the L.A. River when the occasion arises that I must walk a dog.

The L.A. River is a nice combination of overly zealous “dad cyclists” from the valley and legitimate Glassell Park/Highland Park/Echo Park cholos who fancy drinking Tecates in the middle of the bike path. There are also homeless people who take solace by drinking cough syrup along the surprising lush cement basin.

So untamed and wild is the L.A. River that I once saw a woman crossing a two-inch deep stream of water on horseback. The woman was wearing a helmet. Up until a few days ago, a horse was the oddest thing I’d seen in the L.A. River since Ryan Gosling brought an Irish chick and a Mexican kid to have a romantic moment in Los Angeles’ puddle of flotsam.

Chilling, like all celebs do, on the LA River

But there I was, walking, strolling really, reflecting on how disappointing my tax return was this year when I heard the wails of a grown man. I peeked down the side of the basin and spotted a man in a tattered black suit. He was supine along the bottom of the dry river, and he was crying, just bawling while simultaneous masturbating. Which is a physical and mental feat of almost heroic measure. It’s honestly something that I would’ve assumed was impossible. I mean, really, how can a person cry and pleasure himself? It seems inherently contradictory. It’s such a deep and philosophical question that I feel inclined to avoid the subject entirely. Although, I have to believe it’s rooted in masochist tendencies.

But enough intellectual heavy lifting, I want to focus on the fact that he was masturbating with such fervor that I truly thought he might dislocate his shoulder and/or throw-out his back. And were these tears of pain? Had he in fact torn his rotator cuff and was gritting-down to finish the task “at hand” despite the agony? Or were these simply tears of joy?

The sad truth is I’ll never know. The dog, which brought me there in the first place, tugged onwards. There were poles and plants and concrete to sniff elsewhere.

Meanwhile, in the Silver Lake Meadow a hip dad is instagramming a picture of his child flipping through: An Abridged History of Second Wave Ska. As you read this, he’s busy revising the witty caption that will accompany the picture.

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December 19, 2012 · 8:18 pm

Ke$ha, Chief Keef, Guns, and Edible Arrangements

Can't we all just get along?

There’s a teenage rapper/gang member named Chief Keef. He sings or rather pontificates with a blunt in hand about “That Shit I Don’t Like.”

It’s an awful song, but I understand why it’s popular. It has a self-empowering and hateful hook, which children of privilege from Danville to New Canaan can blast while commuting to their respective private institutions of higher learning.

Chief Keef grumbles for a few minutes and let’s us know exactly what it is that he doesn’t like. It’s mainstream rap’s answer to the a Facebook status update.

That shit I don't like

It’s nothing new. Celebrating hatred, endorsing uneducated and disenfranchised youth who preach and practice all the typical stuff: misogyny, violence, smoking blunts the size of corn on the cob, etc. These topics pre-date N.W.A.

Kesha

On the other end of the spectrum is Ke$ha. Her song “Die Young” which twelve year old girls have been singing for months was pulled from the air. The words “Die Young” have been used in dozens if not hundreds of other songs, but they are suddenly relevant in the discussion about Newtown.

To me this plays like a thinly veiled publicity stunt. Why pull a highly publicized and overplayed song unless you wanted to rejuvenate it with some fresh buzz for the sake of sales? How many twelve year old girls listen to radio stations or even know what they are? I mean, Ke$ha didn’t get yanked from Spotify or YouTube. We’re talking about Ke$ha fans not Merle Haggard fans.

No offense, Merle.

The esteemed Chief Keef is unreserved on the subject of guns and killing, and I quote:

My gun, don’t make me beat it

I’m cooling wit my young niggas

A lot of kush, a lot of guns nigga

You see you us you better run nigga

Bullets hot like the sun nigga

Or:

Kill y’all then forget yall

I feel like popping red dots

Big guns that knock ya head off

Ke$ha is talking about dancing, I think, and living as if she was going to die young. As in carpe diem or the ubiquitous: Y.O.L.O.

Chief Keef on the other hand isn’t speaking in the conditional. It’s not a hypothetical situation. He’s simply and almost incoherently making threats at whoever is nice enough to support his cause.

Essentially, Chief Keef should fire his label’s marketing team for not pulling his song off the air while Ke$ha should probably send over an edible arrangement to her team.

Love Ke$ha

Fact: Chief Keef posted a picture of himself reaping the rewards of having female fans on Instagram. And you were upset that Instagram owns a picture that you took of some pad thai…

Fact #2: Chief Keef had to shoot the video for his aforementioned song inside his house because he was on house arrest for being involved in a shoot out. You know, with guns and stuff.

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December 8, 2012 · 5:34 am

I’m on Crenshaw Boulevard and no one is reading Proust


The long ZZZ

Don’t I ever do anything but stare longingly at the 405 carpool lane, I thought, as I stared longingly at the 405 carpool lane.

As if the thousands of brake lights flashing in front of me wasn’t a clear enough indicator, I peered deep into my phone for confirmation. Google Traffic was a river of red dotted streaks where there used to be freeways. I had time to kill. I decided to sing the only Christmas song I could remember.

“On Denver, on Dover, on Dubai and Blitzen. On Helsinki, Reykjavik, strippers and vixens…”

And so the song went as I went from the 405 to the 10 East.

I exited on Crenshaw Boulevard. I drove south again. South toward South Central Los Angeles.

South Central Los Angeles: once home to African American Males With Attitude (Or A.A.M.W.A.). Now home to Central American immigrants, Kendric Lamar, and two lesbian poetesses who just want to be left alone.

I spotted a postal employee and wondered whether he had read Chuck B.’s novel on being a man of the post in Los Angeles.

USPS

I leaned back my seat. When in Rome… I was practically supine, leaving what happened in front of my car to fate. Fate, I laughed to myself. I was driving along Crenshaw Boulevard.

In these types of neighborhoods, instead of having a Starbucks on every corner, there’s a liquor store. Instead of people standing outside texting or pretending to read Proust, people are talking, and they’re talking loudly. Almost all of them are talking to themselves.

NoProust

But I had a job to do. I turned right off of Jefferson and headed south. I drove very slowly so as to not miss anything such as: the man selling vacuum cleaners on a basketball court or the gentlemen wrapping tin foil around street lights.

I pulled up to the address I’d been given. It looked like all the other houses on the street: impenetrable. There was a fence and about ten signs that warned of a malicious, but yet unseen dog that would kill if push came to trespass.

Typical home south of the 10

The door opened. A Hispanic woman in either her thirties or seventies opened one door then another and then another. She peeked her head out, store-bought blonde, and asked me if I was here about “the drapes.”

The meaning of drapes was seemingly endless, but I surmised, in this instance, drapes was likely code for either cocaine, heroin, bath salts, speed, crank, meth, immigrant sex slaves, locally-produced sex slaves, “hot” iPhones/iPads/MacBooks, pirated DVDs featuring Catherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher or Chinese Democracy—the album.

“Yeah, I’m here for the drapes.”

“Come in.”

“Um, is there a dog I should be aware of?”

She laughed, waved me in. I gulped then sprinted all seven steps to the door. Once I got there I didn’t feel much better.

It was a mini-factory within a house. It looked like the inside of a meth addict’s mouth. And I was inside, which pretty much meant I was making-out with a meth addict. (Not to make light of meth addiction or the destruction it causes to mouths, but I’m trying to make it clear that this wasn’t Versailles, yo.)

I handed the woman a blank check for $500 dollars.

“Cash?”

“I don’t have any cash,” I said. “Sorry.”

With an acrylic nail she tapped the trash bag on the table. The table was tall and crowded with rolls of material and carpet. Across the table, a few Hispanic women pretended to not notice that I was hyperventilating. I was hyperventilating because while all this was going on I was bracing myself for the moment when I would be clubbed over the head with a drain pipe from some abandoned home which I would likely wake up in—if I ever woke up—from my forthcoming bludgeoning.

“And that one, too.”

Three little boys, maybe seven years old, tossed another bag on to the table.

“O.K.” she said.

“O.K.?”

She nodded. I threw the bags over my shoulder and made for the door. I figured I was either walking out of there with the bodies of two recently slain gang members (age: 8 and 10) or twenty odd kilos of Colombia’s Most Stepped On.

AA esta cerrado... entonces?

I threw the bags in my trunk, turned on the ignition and held my breath until I was on the freeway again and west of La Cienega. I passed five cops, forty-two transients, three white chicks, fifteen ads for Mexico’s most flavorful beer and one apartment complex called The Rosa Parks Villas.

What did I do with the bags? Well, I did what anyone would with trash bags of unknown contents procured in South Central. I dropped them off at an elementary school in Encino.

(This is in no way an admission of guilt. Any bags found with cholito corpses are merely coincidental. Any bags full of contraband with a decent street-value may be returned to sender: 1825 Wilcox Ave. #1, Hollywood, CA 90028)

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November 16, 2012 · 8:55 pm

Loud Pints Will Be The Death Of Me

And there you are: the bottoms of your feet splayed at the heavens. A warm shower pours upon you.  Your mouth agape. The water tastes like warm dirt.

Yes, yes, you’re lying on the floor of your bathtub wondering what the fuck you’re doing lying down in the shower. You’re too old to be doing this—suffering like this. Wrong. Dead wrong! If you weren’t dying on the floor of this bathtub you’d be making your morning commute, thinking about how awful it is to be making your morning commute whilst being a year older.

Did I mention that? You’re a year older. You’re a year farther from the moment when someone, presumably a doctor, or maybe a doula if you’re from a place like I’m from, rips you from your mother’s loin and decries, “You sir, are destined to a life of lactose intolerance, hard-boozing, womanizing, and an inexplicable passion for the great Canadian sport of ice hockey. Also, while you’re nineteen, you’ll wake up in a jail in Tijuana. Deny everything. From the top of your lungs scream: Traquilo, guey! No he hecho nada! La culpa? Pues, fue la tequila, claro.”

Later, when you’re in your late twenties, finally moving up in the world and living around employed, tax paying citizens, do not, I repeat, do not let your girlfriend meet anyone from Mad Men. You’ll think to yourself, they wrote him off the show two seasons ago. It’s not like she’s sipping martinis with Jon Hamm. That guy wasn’t even a series regular.

Well bud, were you ever a scotch-swilling guest star in a tailored suit sitting on a mid-century modern couch talking about advertising in a scripted drama featuring Christina Hendricks’s chest? The answer is no. So if you want to keep her, don’t let her say hello.

Back on the bathroom floor, you either have or don’t have a girlfriend waiting in bed. This all depends on how the Mad Men thing plays out. But before all this, you were somewhere: think long. Think hard. Check your bank accounts. All of them.

You were at Perch. You remember. A light drizzle. Tuna tartare and bourbon. What an awful pairing. But you like them both so much that you can’t help yourself. And there she is—clearly before you met the guy from Mad Men who you’re just now remembering that you invited to your birthday party on Saturday—anyway she’s there and that’s what matters. Also there are a lot of Asians. This is because we’re downtown.

But then you left, headed to a wine bar, ordered about a dozen glasses of Rioja, vina de cabra, prosciutto, and warm dates from a girl with thick eyebrows and narrow hips. You left and headed to the place next door, through one door then another. A Cedd Moses affair. You could be in one of a dozen places, but it’s not. You’re in this one and you’re talking to the bartender. You’re overestimating his ability to articulate the difference between Buffalo Trace and Bulleit. He recommends something with rum, honey and a sprig…

Then there’s the English girl, Rose, and her Korean “friend,” whatever his name was. They put their email addresses in your phone. You cheers over absinthe and invite them to spend a quiet Saturday with you and close friends. They demure, citing the fact that she’s a call-girl and he goes back to Korea tomorrow. “The offer stands,” you say.

And you get out of there. Your legs to take you back Silver Lake. There were two or three other destinations on your itinerary, but there’s a cab out front and that’s fate.  You’re fated to flee.

Back in your gentrified enclave, you’re surrounded by people that look like they live in Silver Lake. Many of them do. You’re one of them.

Image

You lock eyes with your archenemy, who is anyone who has ever starred on Mad Men. Lucky for you, there’s only one Mad Men cast member in the building. You saddle up next to him, say some unmemorable things, buy him a shot — which is about the last thing you need — and then, then when the night’s winding down and you should be home in bed, in the fetal position eating pizza and sulking about your forthcoming hangover, you propose a toast. “To Emmy Award winning, misogynistic mellow dramas that promote the racism of yesteryear and alcoholism which still plagues the First World!” Then you cheers you girlfriend’s pint, which would be fine if she wasn’t smiling ear-to-ear about the fact that you’re hanging out with a guy who was written off of Mad Men two years ago. You cheers a bit too hard and you snap her tooth in half.

A clean break.

But seriously, fuck…

Now, your girlfriend looks like a toothless Canuck. Tears are running down her face. The Mad Men guy is totally freaked out and you’re standing on a barstool shouting at the top of your lungs, “Everything’s okay. It’s my birthday!”

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November 9, 2012 · 7:53 pm

Quiet Pints Will Be The Death Of Me

Quiet pints will be the death of me.

Let’s start at the end: a quaint neighborhood where respectable people walk their children to school and drink pH 9.5 Ethos water at $3.50 a pop at Whole Foods. I’m sprawled on the couch, dying. I awake from the dead. I rush to a tap, apply my lips and with the jaws (my own) of life, I suckle the teat of the tap, which is undoubtedly connected to the squalid L.A. River.

Nectar of the gods.

How did I get there? How do we ever find ourselves on couches with a world of hurt between our ears? The story is always the same: a quiet pint.

I met a friend for a quiet pint in a quiet bar on a quiet street at the quiet hour of a quarter to 8:00 p.m. I had a pint, alright. But this particular night, the pint was Irish whiskey. Nary a hop or barley in my glass due in part to it being Thursday.

We clanked glasses. Tried to keep our mangle-faced waitress at bay, Leave the drinks and be on your way, love. That’s girl. And keep ‘em coming. For some reason my friend had adopted an Irish accent. It may have been the whiskey. It was likely the whiskey.

The clock struck an hour that was undoubtedly early as we had arrived early. And having arrived early, and delighted that it was still early, we decided to do what any men, half-sopped in whiskey would do. We decided to go to Cheetahs. For a night cap.

Cheetahs… you’re a cruel mistress.

She taketh, and she taketh, and then she points out that there’s an ATM in the corner so she can continue the take.

But by nature she nurtures. Need a shoulder to cry on? You’ll likely find yourself buried in a set of surgically enhanced tits. Mind you, they serve liquor at Cheetahs so the tits you find yourself nuzzled among will be concealed, or at least obscured by a bit of cotton.

The girls are friendly. The girls are foreign.

The girls like my friend much more than they liked me. Breathe a sigh of relief. The attention of strippers is not only emotionally and physically taxing, it’s also a fiscal burden. Not unlike a war. With no end in sight. Want to keep an eye on things in a country you don’t govern? Want to have a night cap in a room full of naked women you don’t love? It’s going to cost you, pal.

Me? I made new friends. A South Korean and Syrian who were speaking Spanish with an Argentinean accents. They had done time together in a town called Rosario. Now they were doing time together in a strip club in Hollywood. I drank their Blue Label. I laughed at their jokes. I took their picture. I made some new friends who invited me to jump in their car and take a ride to another locale.

THANK FUCKING GOD I DIDN’T GET IN THAT ESCALADE AT 1:59 A.M.

I lost my friend, the one who’s a hit with the girls from Lithuania, Iowa, Russia.

A half dozen girls born after the fall of the Berlin Wall take my hand and promise me the ride of my life. I’m no shape for it. I search my pockets. I find the Korean’s business card. I dial the number a hundred times and berate myself for not jumping in that S.U.V. and undoubtedly missing the 3:00 a.m. of a lifetime. Like I said, I was in no shape…

I scan the room: skin heads, suits, strippers.

I enter the V.I.P. room. You’re familiar with mechanical bulls. They heave and hoe and toss drunk people to the floor… for fun. Well, there was no mechanical bull in the room, but my poor friend sat at attention while Electra from Slovenia rode him like she was bare-backing a malfunctioning mechanical bovine. She hung on for dear life. I was sure she was going to throw her back out. She looked like she was having a fucking seizure on my friend’s thigh. Mind you, Electra’s in the best shape of her life and I’m no position to judge her ability to crush a pelvis. All I’m saying is it didn’t look like a good time.

Of course, the man paid for the ride so I let the rest of the song play. I interjected before she could offer him another round of whiplash.

At this point, the night was no longer young and our pockets were no longer full of the promise of a good time. Spartans we had been or so we thought, but it was time to hang up the blunt object that was our pickled brains. It was time to face the dawn. We made for the exit. We let down a lot of nice young girls who were just looking to take all of our money. We promised to come back soon.

Quiet pints. Quiet pints will be the death of me.

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October 18, 2012 · 11:52 pm

A Personal History of Moving

SATURDAY

12:00 p.m. Girlfriend makes demands: home improvement or move. Terms: non-negotiable.

2:00 p.m. Buy paint. Work tirelessly to apply “golden cricket” hue to walls.

5:00 p.m. Girlfriend gives, O.K. Move avoided. Phew. Apartment thick with toxins. Leave to walk restless dog.

7:00 p.m. Notice homeless crack addicts squatting in apartment next door.

7:01 p.m. Hide girlfriend and dog. Call 911, but first confirm with landlord that next-door apartment has not been rented to face-tattooed crack-cocaine users.

7:02 p.m. Landlord confirms men with face tattoos are, in fact, new neighbors. Keep an open mind, he says.

7:03 p.m. Per suggestion, keep open mind about recently paroled neighbors.

7:04 p.m. Decide against open mind.

7:05 p.m. Pack girlfriend, dog, toothbrush. Flee.

8:00 p.m. Bask in suburban refuge. Feel lucky to be alive.

SUNDAY

9:00 a.m. Apartment hunt.

10:00 a.m. Meet gypsy landlords. Despite Snatch, gypsy landlords do not allow dogs.

11:00 a.m. Regret painting apartment. Inspect various available apartments. Chat up gypsies, but to no avail.

12:00 p.m. Nod head at upset girlfriend. Eat Vietnamese food. Watch dog scratch ear.

1:00 p.m. Give up apartment hunt. Concede to massacring by crack addicted neighbors. Imagine Lifetime movie.

2:00 p.m. Stumble upon open house. Eureka! But open house is packed.

2:01 p.m. Point out flaws to other potential renters e.g., lack of parking, freeway noise, stairs. Grab folder of applications, flush down toilet. Toilet floods. Shake head and mutter about shoddy craftsmanship. Potential renters leave.

2:10 p.m. Fill out application. Corner landlord: praise ample parking, lack of freeway noise, joy of stairs, expert craftsmanship. Shake hands.

4:00 p.m. Go back to crackden apartment. Hammer windows shut. Hide under bed. Add 911 to “favorites.”

5:00 p.m. Good news! Eureka is available, pending credit check. Who says a jump shot is the only way out of the hood!

5:01 p.m. Dog scratches ear. Girlfriend shakes head. Make plans to buy primer, paint wall back to original color.

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October 10, 2012 · 11:30 pm

Poolside with Father John Misty and his merry harem.

Father John Misty has a few lines that go like this:

“Now everywhere I go, in West Hollywood

It’s filled with people pretending they don’t see the actress

and the actress wishing that they could”

Last night, I was in Hollywood at a hotel bar. It was packed with boys and girls who had the sides of their heads shaved and curly pompadours resting on top. Ironic rap music played. In the background, there was a pool where scantily clad, or entirely naked girls practiced unsynchronized swimming. Which is to say, they were performing, just not together, which was a shame.

I bring up Father John Misty and that quote because in the above setting, in Hollywood no less, I was literally rubbing elbows with him (dancing at close range) while also pretending I didn’t instantly recognize him and I hadn’t already seen him play live twice in the last month. So, there I was feigning cool, but I got the distinct impression that if I were to recognize him and own it, in an act of, “Dude, bro, man you’re awesome!” I don’t think I would have been fulfilling his unspoken longing to be recognized.

Several facts point to the contrary: he was out in Hollywood, which is a good place to be if you want to be recognized. This next point is creepy, but he was wearing the same green jacket as when I saw him play Bardot last month. If you wear the same clothes, you’re easier to recognize. For example, Joseph Gordon Leavitt. He wears essentially the same clothes in every movie so even when you put Bruce Willis’ jaw on him, he’s easy to spot. To defend my original observation, it was a hundred degrees that night. A green jacket, in a military style, stood out in a room full of half-naked girls.

Half-naked girls seem to be a theme. It’s unrelated to weather. I’ve seen them shivering in January.

It’s worth mentioning, Father John Misty wasn’t alone. He seems to travel with a harem. Not a half-naked harem, but rather a group of women who wear clothes and, now this is the crazy part, they appear to be THIRTY YEARS OLD. Or maybe even older. OLDER THAN TWENTY-SOMETHING?!? They’re women, and they’re at a hotel party and they’re not naked or twenty-something. Or younger. I mean, weird, right? In Hollywood? And their clothes—they didn’t look like they were vacuumed to their skin. Some of it was loose. Like hippies used to wear. It looked comfortable. They looked comfortable. In fact, one of these women who talked to me about Biggie Smalls who I encouraged not to talk to the DJ about Biggie Smalls as I knew the DJ because I used to eat the food he left in our communal refrigerator in 2007—this woman looked like a Velma. Velma from Scooby Doo, but more refined. Older and without a turtleneck and with a penchant for nineties hip hop and swaying her hips.

She wasn’t interested in anything I had to say. I think she was on drugs. I think everyone was on drugs, but not the usual drugs. They weren’t grinding their teeth. F.J.M., Velma and the rest of the harem looked like they weren’t afraid to say “far out”, shake their hips and act like they don’t care because they really didn’t. They were just at The Roosevelt to enjoy each other’s company, dance to ironic hip hop and not be recognized. Weird.

Two hours later a lawyer, synagogue employee, a bartender with a withered leg and yours truly are slamming Schlitzs at last call.

One hour later, the same group is drinking whiskey on the floor of a vacant apartment.

No one is quite sure about the next six hours, but I can only assume the harem took off their clothes, and probably F.J.M.’s clothes, too.

8:00 a.m. rolls around and I’m in a cab, on my way to Mid-City where my car and a parking ticket await. The hangover doesn’t wait. It’s up before I open my eyes.

9:00 a.m. the synagogue employee finds god (in the toilet bowl.)

10:00 a.m. the lawyer’s breathing whiskey on a lovely and gentle dental hygienist named Shake. He’s never seen her face, but he’s memorized her eyebrows.

11:00 a.m. the bartender with the withered leg is on a date downtown. He’s eating sausages, talking Rothko and sampling seasonally brewed beer.

By noon, I’m trying to order ayahuasca so I can do like F.J.M. and get a harem.

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September 22, 2012 · 3:14 pm

America’s Future and Why I Didn’t Eat My Dog For Dinner!

You know that website that’s like, tell me everything you have in your kitchen and I’ll tell you what to make for dinner? Well, I just used it and let me tell you—it’s amazing. I mean, seriously, I feel fucking great. And it’s super simple!

First thing’s first: take an inventory of your comestibles. In my own kitchen, I had two German beers, one bottle of Irish whiskey, a tray of ice cubes, 500 milligrams of synthetic heroin that was prescribed to treat a spinal injury in 2005, an orange, and a dog. Nothing substantial. The dog, I mean. You wouldn’t be caught eating it. It weighs about nine pounds and pisses on its own leg. I don’t need Todd Akin to tell you this dog is a female…

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I didn’t get a ton of instruction from the what to make for dinner website so I just kind of winged it. And by winged it, I mean I put it in all in the blender and floated some beer on top… not the dog though. It’s not a fancy blender like they have at Jamba Juice. No, I would have to push the dog into the spinning blades for quite a while before she fit in. And who wants to drink bones? And fur?

I think this is a great and family friendly way of deciding on what to eat for dinner. It really works. It works so well that now that I’ve finished my well-balanced meal, I feel like I should quit my job and pursue my passion of telling children to get the fuck out of America and go back to the fetuses that they came from because they act like victims and don’t pay income taxes. I’m sick of paying for the 47% of kids who are totally dependent on people like myself and 14.1% of Mitt’s income in 2011 so they can learn how to read, and write in cursive and cheat on math tests. Because honestly, I’ve been around America’s youth lately and they are truly fucked. I’m talking Marlon Brandon thrusting a stick of butter up the ass of that soon-to-be lesbian chick in the Last Tango In Paris-fucked.

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The website didn’t say anything about dessert, but I assume I’ll just have another course of the whiskey or canine tartar. And a side of hatred for America’s future. Have you heard? The kids these days—well, first off they don’t pay any income taxes. They’re victims that expect us to pay for their education, to tie their shoes—I lost my train of thought. Anyway, I’d kill for a pinch of expired opiates, but I’m fresh out. I’m still hungry so I’ll probably go to the Thai place around the corner. I’ll order mango sticky rice and tell the 18-year-old hostess that I’m not ready for a serious relationship. If she’s anything like most of the youth these days, she’ll probably want a guarantee that I’ll pay off her forthcoming student loans for the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising before she’ll consider giving me a non-tax paying heir.

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What can I say? I’m an optimist.

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