LA

There's something at my core that speaks to me and says with contrived certainty, "Brian, you despise Los Angeles. The thought of it's generalities makes you cringe; the scenes, the materialistic nature of the city and its people, Ed Hardy, clubs with covers... The dry-shit tint on the horizon and the hep-C ocean water makes you feel dirty, afraid of taking deep breaths. Brian, you don't want to be here." That's the general consensus anyways. But hey, I've never been a fan of the big picture, been dreading it really.

Thankfully, there's comfort in the details. Those small little gems in a city so bent on it's own status and persona while it slowly decays from the center. Morally, ethically, economically, the decay encompasses it all, in a dreary drawn-out effort to push me away.

It's those small gems that keep me coming back. Those scattered few individuals and situations I find myself with that bring warmth to places the smog-soaked sun can't touch, no matter how hot it gets. Venice; the shop, main street. Driving with the windows down in the middle of winter because it's still 70 degrees outside. Seeing people, sharing memories. Making new ones. Sharing a spliff. Rolling another. Maybe rolling one more. Stories and quiche, somas and the such. I don't expect anyone to understand, but these ramblings, these plucked occasions remind me why LA is the city I grew up in, a city I love.

[TIME FOR CLASS]

I got more class than most of them, Ran with the best of them, Forgave the less of them and blast with the rest of them. What can I say, Califor-NI-AY

Sunday before finals and my skin is positively tingling from the caffeine. A shortness of breath gives the impression of an elevated heart rate and as I take a look up from this ridiculously pointless paper full of pictures and fluff, the arid stench and weight of the air in this place of academic worship is stifling to say the least. I need sunlight. I need air that blows and dances and feels alive. And I need Dr. Dre. Thinking short-sightedly, strolling out of a library listening to 2001 is one of the more liberating feelings out there. Life takes on a new focus, pining for the sunlight between the shadows. Those pithy responsibilities to your classes and your future melt away with every step and every ounce of warmth stolen from Mother Sun. And in that moment you say to yourself, "Fuck this shit, I'm out."

Skinny Love

She's a girl growing up too fast. There's a peculiar uncertainty about her. One not focused on the approaching horizon, but instead on the endless sky above. An artist admiring the canvas that is her life, she lives with full strokes, never covering over and always masking something between paint and paper, under charcoal smudge. Stepping back, the piece looks simply stunning, without blemish or misstep, beautiful to an envious fault. It is a certain kind of beauty, not over-shadowed or glamorized by the mise of materialistic sensuality, left unadulterated from thought to fingertip; an idea in it's purest form.

But even beauty so fair is not satisfied. And if one were to take the time to admire the details, the intricacies of her work, you find what is supposed to be hidden, between this stroke and that, part of that close secret is left unmasked, and almost surmisable by those few who cared to look.

She's restless, and I know why.