Los Angeles: When I Return

Devil may cry, devil may care…

LA is a different place now.   Something's different.  Ole’  white-sides is there, just where I left her, patiently awaiting my return.    And there's a sense of it all being familiar, just  not something I know anymore.   A few days is all it takes.  Nights driving down Lincoln, past streets I used to turn on.  Waking up in a big, empty bed in a big, empty first-floor room that was always a bit colder than the rest of big, empty house.  And I just mull about.   Los Angeles is a city I remembered now, and it isn’t for me.  The ride is over.  It's time to pull the safety bar up now and walk down that path to where you see the picture of your face during the fall.  But I don’t want to get off just yet.  “Maybe another go around, Mr. Rideman?”  “Well, I dunno, kid… “ 

I’m not even listening anymore.  There’s just a few clothes to throw in the black duffle and I’m off running, galloping that Ford Explorer hard south on I-405 with the broken side-window breathin’ heavy and the sunroof vented.  The California sun’s hot in mid-August, and it’s never really cloudy.  When it’s hot in California it’s 80 degrees, and I drive in a tank top and flip-flops with that CD I love turned up real loud so I can’t hear the traffic.  It’s all those songs from last year;  all those parties, all those concerts.  All the pretty girls we’d played with and the drugs we did and the laughs and the smirks and smiling faces.  All those special little gems, spinning around in my dash, twenty-tracks long.  The 405 merges with I-5 right in Orange County, but it’s barely a dream.  My head’s in the clouds.  

Then, bam!  My eyes open and the sun’s coming in from a direction I can’t recall.  I lift my head off the pillow, and, why, would you look at that, it’s a new bed, smaller, with a thin, white metal frame that’s twisted into little curlicues on the head, and it creaks when I move to roll out.  First breaths smell different in a room you’re new to, and it’s curious so I take all in.  Which isn’t much to say, as the room’s not much bigger than the bed, but it’s cozy and cute.  And subtly girly because it’s so clean and the nightstand’s white wicker.  There nothing on it except a girly lamp with a shade and a beat-up copy of On the Road with cracked old fold lines in the paper cover.  Huh.  Ain’t ever actually read this one before.  The pages are thoroughly yellowed, so why not?  I pick it up and take it downstairs into the kitchen, and Erica’s mom’s set down at the table drinking coffee.  Monster’s mother always holds herself on a feather, she’s so light, and she looks happy when she greets me, “Good morning,” in that slow welcoming way that feels like a warm hug.  Maybe that’s why I thinks she’s the most adorable thing ever.  BB pops out of the downstairs bedroom around the corner and pretty soon we’re both making Dawn breakfast, because hell, it’s fun, and we both love her so much.  Monster’s the last one out, and my soul feels like it’s in Santa Cruz again, in that grimy Western kitchen cooking up grub with BB and Monst.  But the kitchen’s clean, and there’s no cob-webs in the windows, and the grass by the Jacuzzi is trimmed and neat, and the brick patio and padded lawn chairs try to hog the sunlight.  It’s something to chuckle about and smile, this quiet hideaway tucked down a dead-end street in Laguna Niguel where we all felt at home.   It’s something I’m just so giddy to sink into for the time being, like a bean-bag chair.   No one’s sit’s too long in a bean-bag chair though.  Not when they’re my height, it’s too awkward.  I’ll move back to Santa Cruz, I think to myself.  When Mike and Monster move back up before the quarter starts.  I can get a job up there doing something small-townish.  Yeah, that’ll be nice, I think.

Odyssey

Oh, humanity.  Our generation stands at a unique point in history.  We did not give birth to it, but I and perhaps my sister (three years my junior) are among the last to say their elementary school pockets were filled, and not to the brim, with a couple of dollars and some change I refused to let go of, including the pennies, some candy, maybe a half-eaten pack of bubble gum with a zebra on it and not much else.  No cell-phones, no iPods, a Disc-man if we were lucky.  We had so much time, and if you were an outcast dork like me with not many friends, you had a lot of time to yourself.  Time to wander and explore, eyes open and darting to and fro while your legs carried you to where you wanted to go.  The world was so much bigger back then.

There was this new fan-dangled thing called the Internet that was amazing because you could send your mail on it.  Instantly.  It seems like just yesterday that we were sitting on Dad's lap in his super comfy leather desk chair as he explained the marvels of Windows 93 and new games on floppy disk and we soaked it up like a sponge.  But you could only play these games for so long.  Where we really played was outside, in the grass, running through the sprinklers; at the park, building tunnels in the sandbox.

We didn't live vicariously through others.  We lived our own lives in our own time, and sometimes it was good and sometimes it was bad, but it was ours alone to live.  We received voicemails on an answering machine at home, and when the phone rang, everyone would race to answer it, and we only knew who it was if we recognized the number.  If we were out, we were out, and we would probably call back.

A bat-shit crazy person said once in a movie I saw, "the things you own end up owning you."  He had delusions of grandeur and terrorism, not to mention split personality disorder.  All that considered, you might think we should take his prophetic statement with a grain of salt.  But let's indulge him for a little.

In fifteen years, after all the leaps and bounds, the progress, the coming so far, what society do we find ourselves in at present?  An elementary school student without a cell-phone is about as easy to come by as a four-leaf clover.  We screen our calls based on if we want to talk to the person calling us, but most times we'd rather just text.  And should a cell-phone go misplaced, heaven forbid.  What would the world come to if we didn't have cell phone service for a day?  A week??  If we couldn't sign into Facebook for a year?  How many people would just loose it in a fit of conniptions?  I can't think of time previous in which we have come so far and yet, achieved so little.  And you can argue that point into insignificance, you can say that we are more innovative now than we have ever been, and scoff at such an observation.

In 1968, people walked on the moon, and by that meter, their projections for the future seemed endless.  By 2001, they were going to be flying their cars and embarking on space odysseys.  They had a sense of wonder and excitement for that which they hadn't seen.  Did they have cell-phones in this future?  Of course not, maybe transponders.  Did they have laptops in this future of theirs?  Please.  What the fuck was a laptop?  They were merely travelling between the stars.

I was catering an event not a month ago.  It was an office party at some tech firm in San Jose, I forget the name.  Naturally, I wondered what exactly they did at this tech firm.  They seemed ingenuitive, which is to say there were a lot of hard-working, smart-looking Asians and Indians in the crowd.  I asked a managerial looking white woman what their work was focused on and she answered me excitedly, "We're developing new touch screen technology for smart phones and tablets that incorporates all of your fingers at one time instead of just one!  We have several millions of dollars of investment locked into research and development alone.  It's really quite amazing!"

Why?  Because it's the future.

The Question Why

It's a simple question, just one word.  But we feel like it is grossly underused in its most basic and elemental context, that being our lives.  Why do we do the things we do?  One would hope that on a small scale we do things that will make us happy.

Makes sense.  Where it gets lost, in my opinion, is in our general inability to define our own happiness as a human population.  It is something that is unique to each individual, but at the same time, there are a myriad of constants throughout.  The constants are more easily recognizable when instead of racking our brain for all things happy, we rather ask ourselves what we know for a fact does not make us happy.  Things that are happiness adverse.

When put this way, the question becomes a lot less materialistic.  So many times we feel the giddy tingle in our chest from some new purchase - a toy, an acquisition - and we tell ourselves, "This is what happiness feels like."  I would call it more of a feeling of excitement, which is knit-picky you might say, because when you think about it, in that moment of initiation, the two almost feel like one in the same.

Our misstep most times is in confusing the two, which is understandable seeing as they both feel so similar.  But one lingers.  Something newly bought, from the minute one starts using it, becomes older and less austere to one's eye because in that individuals life, the thing, whatever it may be, has become commonplace.  And so that glowing feeling at their core fades and they lust for that fulfillment once more; a fulfillment that can now only be achieved by a thing better and more impressive than the last; something that will excite them.

Happiness isn't a feeling that fades over the passing of time.  It's either there or it isn't, and it can be there one moment and gone the next and then, maybe years later, it can come again like a flash and hold you tight.  But it doesn't fade.  It's not mood lighting.  It's a definitive on or off.  Lights on, you're happy.  Lights off, you're not.  Dimming them down is merely exciting.

And it's really just as simple as that.  Having the lights off makes us unhappy and so we turn them on.  We are encountered with two choices, and we make a decision.  Why?  Because at our basest form, it makes us happy.  By the minutest degree, of course.  Because the light off makes us unhappy.

Where this point is less mute is in a situational context.  I've come to that point in life that comes to everyone at one time or another.  For me it came after receiving my diploma and traveling through Europe.  Unfortunately for some, it's a crossroads that shows up too early.  For others, I fear they won't chance up on it until it's too late.  It's not so much a point as it is a period of time across which the importance of your passions becomes clear to you.  It doesn't happen all at once and I for one am thankful for all the events and people in my life that have made this realization so clear and so remarkably easy to pursue.  And in this day and age, it's a pursuit that so many times goes unfulfilled due to whatever set of circumstances.  In so few and cliched words, it's the pursuit of happiness.  Or maybe more specifically the attainment of happiness.  The Buddhists called it Enlightenment, but I don't think it to be so lofty.  It's the easiest thing to identify the few important aspects of life that make you sincerely happy.  Well, maybe that's not entirely true.  It's quite an enigmatic decision one has to make honestly.  Because if you're like me, you're like most people, and we're all in that constant need of financial security to survive.

[cold]

Now how secure we really need to be is up to the individual, surprisingly so.  Ignorance is bliss.  Shocking?  When I word it like that probably not, but don't be so coy.  Anyone can say that...

Accomplishment

Oh, humanity.  Our generation stands at a unique point in history.  We did not give birth to it, but mine and maybe my sister three years younger than I are perhaps among the last to say their elementary school pockets were filled with, and not to the brim, with a couple dollars and change I refused to let go of, including the pennies, some candy, some bubble gum with a zebra on it and not much else.  No cell-phones, no iPods.  Maybe a Disc-Man if we were lucky.  We had so much time, and if you were a dork like me with not many friends you had a lot of time to yourself.  Time to wander and explore, eyes open and darting to and fro while your legs carried you to where you wanted to go.  We listened to music on the radio, not because we particularly liked it, but because we couldn't afford new CDs.

There was this new fandangled thing called the Internet that you could send mail by.  But back then it was just yesterday that we were sitting on Dad's lap in his super comfy leather desk chair as he explained the marvels of Windows 93 and new games on floppy disk, and we soaked it up like a sponge.  But you cold only play these games for so long.  Where we really played was outside, in the grass, running through the sprinklers; or at the park building tunnels in the sandbox.

We didn't live vicariously through others.  We lived our own lives in our own time.  We got voicemails on an answering machine at home, and when the phone rang, everyone would race to answer it, and we only knew who it was if we recognized the number.

[a bat-shit crazy person once said, "The things you own end up owning you."]

Now we screen calls based on if we want to talk to the person calling us, but a lot of times we'd rather just text.  And should a cell-phone go misplaced, then heaven forbid.  What would the world come to if we didn't have a cell phone for a day?  A week? If we couldn't sign into Facebook for a year?  How many people would just loose it in a fit of conniptions? Never in the span of a twenty-two year old's lifetime have we come so far and achieved so little.  In 1968 people walked on the moon, and by that meter their projections for the future seemed endless.  By 2001, they were going to be flying their cars and embarking on space odysseys.  They had a sense of wonder and excitement for that which they hadn't seen.  Did they have cell phones in this future?  Of course not.  Maybe transponders.

Did they have laptops in this future of theirs?  Pftph.  What the fuck was a laptop?  They were merely traveling between the stars.

I was catering an event not a month ago.  It was an office party at some tech firm.  I asked what they did specifically.  A managerial looking woman answered me excitedly. "We're developing touch screen technology that incorporates multiple fingers at one time.  There are millions of dollars worth of investment locked in research and development alone.  It's really quite amazing."

Why?  Because it's the future.

London: Arrivals

 We arrive at Gatwick International airport at 7:20 am London time, nine hours ahead of Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and all things familiar.  Our eyes open to the voice of the captain welcoming us to the United Kingdom.  I squint out window at the approaching terminal, then over at Grant, and then Max across the aisle.  We all look like shit.  All things considered though, I feel remarkably well rested.  It was probably the ambient Max gave me before the flight, because it definitely wasn’t the handle of duty-free whiskey we had all but poured into our endless train of ginger ales courtesy of our lovely stewardess Miss Beverley who looked like she could be my godmother; you know, in that motherly, yet not immediately relatable sort of way.  What happened to all the hot stewardesses, the vixens of the sky?  Oh, that’s right.  We're on US Airways.  All the attractive flight attendants are busy canoodling Mr. Moneybags on Virgin Atlantic and Air France.

There's a buzz in head; a buzz that I’m quite sure isn’t from the whiskey.  Although now that I think about it, the whiskey could also explain this new warmth nuzzling my core.  But it can't explain the giddiness.  As we walk through the terminal to the train platforms, strapped with backpacks and duffle bags, the little child inside me is somersaulting and zig-zagging through fast-paced businessmen and vacationing families, running circles around police officers donning yellow vests and batons.  It's a feeling the likes of which I had never felt before.  A freedom, and a correlated lightness I notice in all our steps.  Despite the forty-pound pack digging into my shoulders, a yolk has been lifted up and thrown by the wayside.  Is it the passing of my collegiate years?  Is it the distance from home, or should I say the distance from our attachments at home?  Or maybe it's the previously pending, now present two-month absence of phone service at my immediate fingertips.  An iPhone on airplane mode for two months becomes simply an iPod with a camera and of course Word Warp.

Whatever the yolk, the feeling of it no longer there is immaculate.  Eyes darting from this sign to that, pausing at funny spellings and comma placements, we find our way over to the currency exchange, then the ticket booth, and finally to seats on a train into Central Station.  It's a pristine train, pairs of clean red captain’s chairs facing each other on either side of a clean royal blue stiff-carpeted floor and clean light gray walls with knee-to-ceiling windows; an environment that, to me, bears striking similarities to some Star Trek-esque vehicle’s interior.  If only all the dreary-looking morning rush hour English folk were wearing tight solid color long sleeves and black pants instead of their dreary-looking English clothes. Oh, well.  I think the windows are my favorite part of the train.  An attraction to the ability to focus on something for a second, maybe two, before it’s gone and you’re immediately intrigued by the next curiosity down the line.  The only constant all the way to London Central is an inclination towards masonry and brickwork (at times it feels like we're flying through old movie sets of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Harry Potter)  in most of the rail-side structures, and the weather.

It's muggy.  Big surprise right?  It's only early July, the heart of summer, and what are we greeted with as we exit the terminus out onto Wilton?  Why, a light drizzle of course, and a hot drizzle at that, not so strong as to prevent Max from lighting his first cigarette on foreign soil; a Marlboro Red.  Now Max is usually a Camel Blue kind of guy, but the Reds were going for $22.00 a carton at duty free.  Welcome to Europe.