You’re supposed to take stock of your life. If not constantly then most of the time. The only other way to live is in a kind of silence, consuming media, lots and lots of media, adding to your things, nesting, doing the dishes, scrubbing things, evenings with a bottle of wine with your girlfriend, Faye, who will have 1 glass to your three, and you can play video games in off hours, and you can talk with Faye about taking trips, to cities, to parks, trips in which you know in your sneaky heart of hearts that you would gush and snap photos and only vaguely admire nature and the complex collations of billions of human hours and at the end of a long day only of such glancing around feel the purposeless weariness of having absorbed a whole heap of new stimuli, and at the end have that feeling or the possibility of having that weariness be the only remainder of what once was an entire universe of small, shattered insights, a substitute for doing any other thing, any meaningful thing. What’s worse is that this silence is only a kind of silence, because at the same time it is fraught. The dark corners. The compromised life. All those ways of your once and past life that are absurd only because they have not become so. But let us not surrender in this way. Let us not forget, in this way. Let’s stand, in our kitchen, at four AM, with a scotch and the dull buzz of late night coffee and bright lights and trash to be taken out and cockroaches skulking and the murky reflections and the little refrigerator gargles and let’s pay attention.
Listening to Washed Out’s “Within/Without” album on my small black “Vibe Moda” “Gunmetal black” earbuds. ”Within/Without” was given a lukewarm 8.3 BNM by p4k and to me does a good job straddling the line between the skillful continuation of a time-honored formula and a triumphant exploration of some new, culturally-meaningful experimental space. I like it a lot. The p4k review remarks that the album sounds better as background noise at a party rather than the inside-your-head immediacy of earbuds. An important distinction, one that would improve every review. Is this song made for listening to in your car? Bedroom-corner boombox on a rainy afternoon? Should it be on repeat, or shuffle? Awareness of the conditions of consumption are really important in today’s media criticism. I think the last track and the first track should be on a movies or TV shows or commercials soon.
I’m here at Solar de Cahuenga, having shelled out 3$ for an espresso w/ cream so as to get the fuck out of my apartment. I’m waiting for an auction on ebay to end. I’m eaves-looking at other people’s laptops. They’re looking at their facebooks, signing in and signing out.
6:23 PM in my apartment, 4N. There is a double half-rainbow planted somewhere around Whitley and Selma hanging in an arch over Hollywood Boulevard, disappearing somewhere out in a low-hanging black cloud over Vine.
For some reason, I’m listening to songs that begin “I’m,” from Brother Willie Blue’s “I’m Pressin’ On” to Jewel’s “I’m Sensitive,” “I’m So Young” by the Beach Boys and “I’m Waiting for the man” by The Velvet Underground. By my estimate I have four hundred songs that begin with the word “I’m.” Above my computer screen through the windows the sky is yellow and black like a field in Van Gogh and suddenly there is this need emerging almost from outside of myself to get up, go, stand, get the fuck out, I need to go outside and into the afternoon, duck through the livingroom window and onto the fire escape, barefoot, and I lean back on my dining room chair with a cigarette and a cup of coffee and a sweating Tecate to feel the presence of the coming storm after a long summer. I like the light in the sky when it’s hot and stormy. It is time to pay attention to the things in the world: the elevated stillness of the city as the storm rolls over: the sky is charged, lifted subtly, as if magnets are hanging in the sky somewhere infinitely distant but infinitely strong. The air is more tangible, shearing against itself, torn apart molecule by molecule. You can feel the mammal parts of your mind unslumber, and you’re suddenly aware of being safe in your shelter, so, you sit down in the center of your comfortable life and look at the clouds and open your beer and the wind is going nowhere very slowly but is at the same time moving, a thousand eddies in the sky and around the base of the buildings and you feel the wonderfully visceral, animal, the deep-seated satisfaction of burrowing.
The sun going down over West Hollywood collapses against the building across from my fire escape, the long angle of low sunlight from the setting sun is the exact shade of its cream plaster walls, which makes the walls shine as if infused, double illuminated, as if it the stucco is lit completely from inside, the whole building like a vast fading bulb. And then the sun is down and the shades of light on the earth return to their usual arrangements, the earth dimmed while the sky is still full of light, and then the sky opens up with sheets and curtains of red light in clouds giving way to black clouds and every few minutes you can see lightning over the hills and everyone goes up to the roof to take pictures of the sundown and you can see all the other people on all the other apartment buildings on their roofs or going to their west-facing fire escapes looking at the skyline cast in gold and pink with veins of blue, standing pointing out little details of the sunset to each other, like a patch of blue in the center of a stable curtain of red fire with light going up and down or looking at pictures they are taking on the cameras,
and as rain begins to fall over Franklin and Cahuenga, you can see the storm moving our way and at the same time it’s astonishing when it comes, the fatness of the drops slapping on palm fronds and the flat cement-sand rooftop, the din of rain, and everybody hustles their chairs inside and puts their cameras under their shirts and they tromp, damp-shirted and elated, down the stairs. The darkness comes quickly now and the rain stops and takes the day into night, streetlights and neon lights and kids walking confidently up to the clipboard-and-radio’d promoters at the clubs, a kind of freshness in the gutters, everything the same and at the same time different, the beginning of another night.
and people are posting on facebook jokingly about earthquake weather and it is the essence of change embodied which is what makes it a thrill, an unbroken summer of 75° afternoons come crashing to an end, and as rain begins to fall over Franklin and Cahuenga, you can see the storm moving our way and at the same time it’s astonishing when it comes, the fatness of the drops slapping on palm fronds and the flat cement-sand rooftop, the din of rain, and everybody hustles their chairs inside and puts their cameras under their shirts and they tromp, damp-shirted and elated, down the stairs. The darkness comes quickly now and the rain stops and takes the day into night, streetlights and neon lights and kids walking confidently up to the clipboard-and-radio’d promoters at the clubs, a kind of freshness in the gutters, everything the same and at the same time different, the beginning of another night.
I go out at 1:00 AM. On Cherokee, cops stand outside of their cars smoking cigarettes, listening to their radio: all units in the vicinity of….need backup. These cops do not react to this information, they keep standing where they are. A girl sits down somewhat uncomfortably in the parking garage with a skinny boy and talks about her life, beginning to cry, hesitatingly, overflowing with a kind of unhappiness, crying over her talk, sobs echoing through the concrete. Excruciatingly tall blonde models crowd the mystudio entrance, talking to promoters. The “Financial Cash Services” check cashing store is full of people waiting in line, selling their car titles or selling gift cards or getting wire transfers from their older sisters or filing for divorce or whatever. A man with a brown vest stands in front of shuttered shops and plays his saxophone in morose melismas. Couples walk, holding hands or not holding hands. The Russian gangster who lives in the W Hotel wearing teal pants wanders around Hollywood’s nether regions, first going down Yucca at a slow pace, then walking fast down Hollywood, going back to his million dollar condo. A pack of black men trudge, complaining about being alone. Girls walking with other girls on the street are loud as they talk to each other about their desires or their goals; it seems that they’ve earned this volume, this noisome talk, or perhaps even are in need of it, somehow. A group of guys walk with eyes full of strange hunger throwing light outwards or simply downcast and turned inside. Girls holding longstemmed roses walking behind boys in suitcoats. A homeless man sprawled, splayed, leaned up against a storefront, staring at and flexing his wounded fist. Girls safe in trucks call to boys they think are cute. Music in cars, the hi-hat and cymbal ticking from open windows and sunroofs; the heavy, brutal vibrations coming from trunks and trunklids vibrating. A middleaged Mexican woman with a poodle uncomfortable and too-large in her arms. Boys on skateboards with guitar cases on their back. Mercedes convertibles. A good-looking kid running full tilt in jeans, t-shirt and a broken arm. Security guards with arms crossed. Motorcycles. Lounging mexican cleaning ladies waiting for the bus on metal benches. Cops, cops, cops. The block is hot, a man says to his squabbling friends, all of them grabbing at a single cellphone, jumping and wrestling, Knock that off, he says in authoritative tones, the block is hot. Walking on the sidewalk beneath the very low overhang of a long-since-closed porn theater. Spillover in front of Dillon’s is smoking, on cellphones, playfighting, jumping around.
Inside Dillon’s: Last call sounds with a horn and the lights come, the show is over, the dim glow is replaced by an unsubtle glare—you are now to return to your daytime selves, or at least take your dramas away from here. The harried bartenders, filling final orders take multiple orders at once, starting rows of doublepint glasses pouring and then step to the well to make Vodka sodas and shots of Jack, coming back a minute later to turn off the taps, bam bam bam, while beer is overfilling the glasses and spilling everywhere. Girls and guys are drinking weak shots of pink liquid from rocks glasses and talking about going home with each other. Numbers are exchanged. The upstairs clears out, unwillingly, mopped forward by unrelenting security guards, down the stairs. The conversation is loud but not frantic. A girl with a flower in her hair texting frantically. A massive security guard walks slowly with a blank expression through the crowd. A girl with a sequin shirt walking stomach-first through the crowd. Big bodied rejects, mostly, here at the end of the night. A man in a formal shirt climbs halfway up the stairs and starts yelling at the crowd, telling everyone that it is time to go; suddenly the conversational intensity here increases ten decibels with a sudden increase in talking, shouting, laughing, volume—this is a strange urgency, a strange desperation, though only a moment has passed. The lights increase, now, going from medium intensity to artificial daylight; lights on the ceiling beam on; the pendant lights glow white; the TVs go dark. Now the security guards attack the farreaches of the bar, clearing out the corners, pushing everyone to the center, herding the milling humans to the front, like cattle, like rats, like prisoners. The noise of talk is tremendous. The manager pulls out a little led flashlight and begins flashing it, indicating the way to the front like a crossing guard or a cop directing traffic, saying “Thank you very much, thank you guys, time to go,” walking through the crowd, throwing his voice, like an auctioneer, talking dispersal patter fast and loud and steady. The crowd seems unwilling, what is left of it, it doesn’t want to leave, and a kind of unconscious resistance forms, coalesces, and then is shattered by the shouting of the managers and the security guards. Conversations, some of them, are still casual, smiling, uninflected by anxiety. More people come from upstairs, recalcitrant and insistent in occupation of their couches and tables now moved out by the persistent attack, a stream of staggering girls lingering on the railing, boys trying to take their hands. Now it is one thirty eight. Boys stick cigarettes in their mouths, preparing for the outside, prepared for removal. The manager begins to talk to individual groups, changing his tack, telling them that the bar will be open again at nine am and they simply must get the cleaning crews in here, I’m sure you understand…
Outside. Girls talk to the security guards, asking how tall they are, trying to get their picture taken with these massive human beings. “No pictures,” the security guard says, “I have social anxiety.” Lonely people trying one last attempt at a pickup on the sidewalk. Smoking cigarettes too quickly. And then off down the sidewalk, going to the valet and going home.
The walk, then “We’re going to find out!” A guy says to his friend. “I always say if you eat more you can drink more,” a girl says. Drunks at Sandy Burger talking to the Vietnamese cooks. Couples holding hands and walking in silence, now stunned or always indifferent to the wonders of the night that is now behind them. Boys with bracelets. A girl stands on tiptoes to hug her boyfriend; “You’re so mad right now,” she says to him. He looks away, down at the street, not smiling. I walk up to Loaded. They’re closed too, of course, but inside is full of life, as much as Hollywood itself. People yell theatrically from inside the velvet curtains. Strangers asking strangers for cigarettes. A man with Sid Vicious’s button, “I am a mess.” Hot girls are allowed entrance to retrieve their friends. Bummed men with canvas bags emerge, pause for a moment on the sidewalk, put hands in pockets, take a few slow directionless steps, as if lost, then turn purposefully down the street. The voices inside are a mix of guys and girls but it is all guys outside. Cop trucks in the street. Baffled, stunned faces, drunk. Smiling a vacant, bemused smile as he turns for home, lighting his cigarette. “I’m happy when I drink,” a guy says, “Why do you think I’m like this?” “Ima find me a man”, a girl says, “but he ain’t gonna be like him.” “She looks like she eats a lot of cheese,” a girl says. “But you can’t say that to her, how can you say that to someone.” “Hey bitch,” a guy yells. “Hey faggot,” he continues. Playhouse is emptying out; now the lines are for Hollywood Hookah. A seemingly normal man walking by himself stops, grabs a metal storefront and rattles it has hard as he can, disturbing the loiterers standing talking, and then runs off, planting heavy footfalls, while angry voices follow him down the sidewalk. “Just stand next to a girl,” a guy says. The front of King King is vibrating unsubtly with pounding bass. “An asshole type friend,” a guy says. “That was freaking crazy man,” a very drunk Asian boy in a red checker shirt says. The crowd at my mystudio is mostly gone, the velvet ropes have come down; standers on fringes are guys waiting for their girls or any girl. The mystudio doors open and music rushes past the doormen like airconditioning into August, blaring and fast and heavy with bass. A drunken boy in a green v-neck with visible chest tattoos sits slumped by the mystudio doors, in the process of passing out. I see a colleague and we talk for a moment about work, about her bestfriend visiting in town. “Hollywood is so full of life,” I say, “Do you see all this?” “He’s a writer,” Brooke says to her friend, by way of explaining my apparently strange announcement. “Are you a hippie?” the best friend asks. “He’s a hippie,” Brooke affirms. I try to kiss Brooke’s cheek in farewell but accidentally land a kiss straight on her lips. A guy with pants down past his butt (blue boxerbriefs) and a brown cigar in his hand says, “Well where you at?” into his cellphone. I round the corner to home—cops are still standing on Cherokee, more of them now, parked cars like sharks, all standing around and looking out into the darkened parking-lots, the closed coffeeshops, darkened trucks, the Renaissance Hotel in the distance, a helicopter with a tight focused beam trained on the cool, dry streets.
