Listening to: X. Los Angeles.
Quote: "Why the hell do you have Jesus tattooed to your dick?"
I feel like I should have been born before I was. I'm thinking in L.A. I would have come into the peak of my youth in the late seventies, early eighties. I would be angsting and slurring my way through the "cultural wasteland" of that place and that time, going to see X in clubs and searching for days for bootlegs of their shows. Keith Morris: "This was an ugly stew sprinkled with glitter, sugar and wax drippings, gasoline or fire, somewhere over an underpass along the 101 freeway bouncing between skyscrapers, twenty-two hour days cooled off by Coronas, Budweisers or some such chilled piss at seven thirty in the morning in a old Fifties Ford with religious crap scattered on the dash, chipped bones, fat lips, bruises, broken glass sunshine-baked brain, dirty-sock-stuck-in-the-mouth hangover..." *
Maybe. Maybe not. Still there's this feeling of being misplaced. The generations before were defined in some way... groups of people moving kinetically in some similar direction. Or maybe an illusion of direction? Still an identity... figures like bits of religious crap spray-painted black, with dirty hair, and stray-cats' voices. Giving each other a voice. Paving the way for the other. But now what, now that the way is clear? Get what you want and get out. There are no more roads, no new territory, but you can pretend you're lost nonetheless. The illusion of discovery.
This is all a rouse. I just wish I'd met Janis Joplin. Drank with Jim Morrison. Sang with Exene. Fist-fought with Patti Smith.
Tonight I watched The Doom Generation on the IFC at Shane's apartment. I brought D because he's in town and everyone here loves him. He looks healthy, but too skinny. Maybe I'm just jealous about that, though. We sat out on the balcony, watching the TV through the open patio door. We smoked. We were all eating ice cream, crowded on lawn chairs with our legs up on each other, passing cigarettes between us. Then we drank inside, sat on the floor, cooked food on the stove, and microwaved popcorn.
So the six of us watched Doom together, cringed but loved it because of the color-- the checkered motel rooms, the splatter-color blood, the glow-bowling-style neon orange and green. It's total 90s angst-baby gloom and death metal nihilism, deliberately bad and brilliant in a round-about, obscene way. Amy: "Smooth move, exlax."
We always cheer when X licks the cum from his fingers. And the film's last shot makes me giddy so I have to jump on someone and drink beer.
D fell asleep on one of Shane's chairs, this huge round thing like a wicker satellite dish with a big, round, comfy cushion. So I left him there and walked with Eilidh and Karen. It was 2am, but still humid, hot, and quiet. The trees here give off this sugary, piny smell that always reminds me of living on the West Side, but also of walking at night in Las Vegas-- lilac trees, poplars, humidity, pavement, and garbage. I mentioned this to Karen and Eilidh, and we talked about places we'd been. We told stories. I regretted not having my camera. We each went home. In the morning I'll bring D breakfast and we'll go find him sunglasses and a used bookstore.
Today Erin showed me old pictures. Many of our families at Chitek Lake. Some of our families in Florida, California, and a few places inbetween. I saw a picture of our van. The van. I used to worry that we'd looked like huderites, living in that van. Now, with relief, I realize we looked more like anti-moralist hippies. I miss that van. I should scan the picture. There's also a picture of me putting a plastic bag over my head in a lineup for a rollercoaster in Disney Land.
Had a dream that Oreo and I were squatters, endlessly walking empty, grey roads in search of empty houses. Didi and Gogo: "." We had one possession... a red pasta pot full of Kraft Dinner. We each carried a fork, but had to restrain ourselves. We had dirty bowler hats. T'was vaguely depressing.
I watch Dead Like Me far too much. For some reason, I seem to think that Ellen Muth is sexy. Very sexy. I wish that I was a grim reaper, and I also wish that I had her apartment. Few people are truly apathetic anymore.
Brass apologized. Determined to kill herself in order to show her remorse, she asked me out to Overdrive. We went. Spiking our free drinks (... we lied to the bartender that we were designated drivers) in a girls' bathroom stall with two other girls and some guy I'd never met before, Brass fumbled her cell phone. We all dived to rescue it, but somehow deflected it into the toilet. Shocked, we all stood and stared. In the end, I rolled up my sleeve and did what I had to do. We stumbled to the hand-drier to dry the phone. I felt so simian, standing there in the girls' washroom of a nightclub, having fun. No sharp wit. No cerebral angst. No fist-fighting or dialectic. Just booze. Who knew?
Darcy and Jack love each other. I think they'll be together forever. I can tell. Why? Because Darcy punched Jack in the face in the parking lot that night. They're so cute. Tall, lanky army-brat Jack, and Darcy, whom I remember from the seventh grade (we were friends, and she brought me popsicles when I had mono). Darcy says she never meant to punch Jack in the face, only in the stomach. Considering how short she is, I must deduce that she has really bad aim if she swung that high up.
I'm re-writing "My Drowning." It feels too much like someone else's writing. It's too directly related to its inspiration, and it's not exactly what I wanted to write anyway. The concept is the same, but it needs to focus more on the two people in their house. Their lives together. Mistakes. Why they must drown. Not the town. I think that was the mistake.