Guide to Going Crazy

Driving.  Sometimes you just need to get away.  Surf it off.  Drive down the coast and let it all fall away.  To the concrete highway somewhere on the 405.  It's easy when Tame Impala's on, and I know the words.  Kinda.

I'm in a place where nothing really matters really, except the essentials.  Sex. Surf. And work.  [stop, I'm shaking from the cigarette]

$140 to drive a pair of longboards down to San Diego.  The way gas is now, half of that's going in my tank, but I'll take it.  And I'll bring my own board too because there's swell in the water now, and I never get to surf Trestles anymore.  

So rarely do I live in the moment nowadays.
Growing up sucks.

This is the day that I met Dave Chapelle.  He gave me a cigarette and my heart raced, so I gave him a book and forgot to sign it.  I wanted to tell him he was an inspiration.

Ten Minutes. Go

Blank.  I do like this song though.  And I don't mind the day either.  It's a perfect one which is such a shame because I have to work, but oh well.  Brazilian Girls are dancing around in my head with bouncy beats and subtle cute accents and sharp sultry voices that I never want to stop listening to sometimes.  I could sit here in the sun like this and listen to it forever while my pencil scribbles, but I don't have that kind of time.  Just enough for two songs, maybe three and not even a whole page of scripture.  At least my hand won't cramp.  Now that's a silver lining.  It's never enough.

(I see God in the birds and the dogs.)

I Like What the Girls Are Wearing

It's early spring.  The sun's got some heat to it, but when the wind blows it bites and sitting in the shade makes me shiver.  It's nice weather for a sweater.  When the sun goes down I remember it was just winter though and my bones go cold and shake.

It's rattling and in the bustle something shook loose like a peach from a tree and presented itself.  An answer to a question.  Something that's stumped me.  Why writing?

It's hard to describe the sensation of revelation because I think each one in itself is significant and unique in every different way.  So much more then a lightbulb switching on.  To me, it's more like a Rubix cube finishing itself.  Everything suddenly knows where to go and in the end the colors are all solid and everything's clear.

Good Times

I told them there was a difference between typing and writing the shit out by hand.  It's not some huge, mind bending difference that changes perceptions and magically opens the mind to possibilities unfounded and precious.  But hey, it might.  It's a subtle difference though.  Like listening to two albums by the same artist.  Maybe?  Sure, why not.  What's important is that I like writing more with a pencil in my hand. And I much prefer being in love than this emptiness.  I'm a ship without an anchor.  But whatever.  If nothing else, I'll always have flip-cup and The Life Aquatic at Sacha's house after the Superbowl way back when.  My shoes said, "Let's go on an overnight drunk."  Bill Murray always sticks with me and at the end he knows, "This is an adventure."  And we just want good times.

It's Gonna be a Long Cold Winter

Now there's a title.  That's something that speaks to me.  And it fucking better be, it feels like my heart's about to explode.  Not in the romantic way either.  In the tremors through my chest kind of way, whatever that's supposed to mean.   Am I worried?  No.  It's a good feeling, like hearing the kettle whistle, so I'll go with it.  And I'll turn the music up real loud and sing so that my voice shakes and cracks and I'll probably feel it in the morning.   That's how you know it's good driving music.  It puts the life back into the pale winter skin.  It pricks it like a plucked chicken, and inside that shifty teeter-totter tips towards a warm glowing mania.

There's certain things I remember.  And they're certainly not short term.  I'll blame the marijuana, but I'll thank it too.  No need to remember everything.  It's natural selection.  Darwinism.  Survival of the essential.  The important.  I don't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday (well, actually I do because I've only got a few good recipes up my sleeve and yesterday's was bacon pancakes), but that doesn't matter.  It fades.  I let it go.  What doesn't slip gets clearer over time.  Crisper.  Maybe not crisper.  No.  Prettier.  More beautiful.  Something begging to shoot from my fingers so I oblige.  Here's what matters: a title.  A short point too.  I spouted over dinner and tried to hide the shaking.  It was about my father.  He's a good man.  He knew what a parent was.  I think.  No, that's not right.  Everyone knows what a parent is.  Everyone's got an idea in their head of it.  I'm glad I'm the product of his (although I'm not entirely sure if he's satisfied).  But hey, he always told me life wasn't fair so maybe he had that coming.  Laughingly, of course.

Book of Anthony

The one thing that's always tickled my mind-fingers is correlation; a similar feeling I get sometimes like I've seen this before.  Deja-Vu?  Nope, not quite.  Because it's not the same thing exactly.  It's just similar.  They share certain characteristics.  They share the important ones, the shining ones.  The ones that matter most.  So that when I say Anthony is a prophet, I'm not saying he is THE prophet Isiah or THE prophet Jeremiah come back reincarnate.  It's not like that.  When I was a little kid, reading the Bible like I read everything else, it was what it's always been; a story.  A terrific legend, a journey through thousands of years.  And like any kid, I wondered what these characters would look like if they were here today.  Not transported through time, but if they lived among us.  Presently.  It's that same feeling that took us all to see Jurassic Park, that same question: what would it be like?  Who would they be?  And what would they do?  Maybe it's just all the years of Catholic school catching up and finding a resonance finally, but when I closed his book, finally after three years finished dissecting his mind and life and inner trappings, the first thought that came wafting through the open late morning window was, "Hmm, ,this man is a prophet.  He lived on the lamb, on the fringe, on the edge of what keeps us sane and he preached.  And he wrote and he performed for thousands.  Not for a crop of religious nut jobs, but for the people.  For everyone.  Not thousands, but millions.  And at the time of this scribbling, his Scar Tissue, for this his conscience was clear.  And in his final ode, the last chapter, his moment of clarity, he made me want to be a better person.  Yes, he is a prophet.  Plus I fell asleep high watching Michael with John Travolta last night, but who knows what that has to do with anything.

Be happy, you idiot.

Beach House

It seem so long ago now.  Beach House was playing at the Wiltern and there was a tickle of excitement in my lungs that mixed with the spliff smoke from the ride out from the westside.  I miss that excitement.  I miss it like one misses the good old days.  The best days.  The ones that harden into beautiful diamonds in the mind's eye.  The days we should've done more.  We should've slow danced to the slow songs.  Should've.  I would have maybe if I hadn't been so high.  Maybe if I'd had a beer or two instead.  Maybe if I didn't like her so much.  I think maybe I was too into the band though.  Live music will do that, it's not hard to loose yourself in.  Or maybe I was too scared.  The lady of the voice had a lion's mane, not pressed down, but fluffy and full of life.  Like a cabaret curtain.  She'd yawn a song with force and a steady angel tone like a wail that sailed up to the rafters and all around.  There was a fullness to it that anchored deep so she kept my gaze and her fingers never left the keyboard.  For some songs they would hold the long note.