Supposing Truth Is A Woman

- what then? [her name is probably Emily]

If I suppose so, the reason is clear, the reason why, for this treason in my mind towards every other poor city on this green Earth.  The Truth is what keeps me coming back to the warm, light ocean breeze burnt skin LA, galloping back from southern hemisphere winters and Latin gems of an old city feel that I love.

It's not the buildings that bring me back.  Not even the weather or the waves.  It's the faces and smiles and spliffs, the Truth - truths, all of them, city wide; the friends and the comfort of hame that makes it impossible for me to live anywhere else.  I don't know where I'd be if it were not for those Pytka girls.

The old cozy beach house, right on the sand in Venice.  I wouldn't be writing here now without it I don't think.  It's Monday, nearly 9:00am.  I'd probably be in an office right now if it wasn't for those two.  Sweet Sacha, and dear Arielle, they saved me.  They shined a light for me away from the grind, saved me from certainty and the security of a real life with real things like a real job and real money.  From a future that was clear, they changed me so that the simple relief of ocean breeze on a rail of a third floor terrace in the sun brings me peace.  Eyes close for a second so all that fills my head is the banter sound of beautiful women and curious men on a summer Sunday, and the music, the taste of watermelon and salsa, and tequila limeade and bummed cigarettes on my throat and my tongue, and the intangible feeling of joy from being back home.

From the Frills of Winter

I had a nice spliff head-buzz when I saw her running by in the Spring.  I remembered her face and especially her form from the good romp at Tampico, in the winter months.  Mikey's Santa Cruz DJ debut.

He was good, Mikey.  By which I mean to say he was good at music, not just DJ-ing.  His hit single from high school, "Shake ya dicks," still to this day brings tears to my eyes.  To be blunt, it was a gut-busting time.

The crowd at Tampico was entirely girls with the exception of Matty Mike and I.  And Matty kind of looks like a girl already, so really it was just Mikey and me.  And all girls.  Katie's friends.  All girls, both Mikeys, a Matty and me.  Her name was Brittany.

One of two Brittanys.  Because there were two Brittanys there that drunken night.  One latin and blonde hair, she was thin in a tight blue dress, with a sexy way about her.  She had nice lips and a skinny little booty.   One bright eyes and tight lips, with hips, she was every one of my dreams.

She had good running form.  That says a lot about a lady.  She spoke soft, and for dramatic effect, always waited just a half-second longer than normal to respond.  And sometimes she didn't respond at all, just smiled with a cringe and desire at my chest before I grabbed her.

I remember seeing her from our ground floor porch, looking out across the long grass at Grandview.  She was just rounding the soft corner where the road bends around to the right towards the 1 and West Cliff.  I was high and decided to jump on my bike after her.  It was the way she ran, the figure she cut in the winter sunlight.  I caught up and slowed down beside her, and gave her the old double-take.  "You're Katie's friend.  From Tampico."

"You're Mikey's roommate."  Just a glance at me.  She kept running, and panting, and her skin glistened in the brisk air.  "Where you biking to?"

"Checking the surf.  Where are you running to?"

"To Kelly's."

"That's funny.  I work there."

There's a sparkle in her eye, and she smiled.  "Oh you do, do you," she said, slowing her pace, taking stock of me.  "So you can get me bread then."

"I would love to get you bread," I said.  "Right when they close I can grab some.  What's your number."

She gave me her number like that.  Girls love a boy in a bakery, I guess.


[to be continued]

BsAs: Nabokov

"I was weeping again, drunk on an impossible past."

And just like that everything's all right and clear again.  It's the airplane radio, jazz.  Armstrong, La Vie en Rose, on cue.  There's a flash, as there always is, to way back, simple puppy love at chez Sacha all those years ago, watching Marion Cotillard before I'd ever her name before; before like, before this, before travel and writing, before photography and college and all the ups and downs, before Laura even.  Jesus, before Laura.  What was I before then?  Before Mammoth?  What was I?  Who was I?

I was every girl's best friend.

What is that?  What curse?  That word comes to me more and more these days, I feel it, this something that follows me, like a veiled shadow, not strong, not a weight necessarily, secretly following in the sunlight through winter trees splattered on the ground; no outline, awash and moving and swaying in the wind with the dead branches.

Si, the curse is light, I think.  It's what it bring me that weighs heavy.  A lonesome heart, and like the football side of it, I'm given witness to great sights, awesome masses, magnificent expectation, proximity to what could be something truly joyous - a grand celebration that never comes.  It's always taken away at the last minute, the last minutes, but leads on to the very end, like all the women in my life.

I can never quite hold on long enough.
Neither could Holland in 2010.
Nor Argentina now, on this sabbatical.

I have a kinship with never quite being good enough.  I know how it feels, Messi.  It's how my entire life seems to be playing out; nil-nil 'til the very end, and then some lucky soul comes pulls the rug out, and I'm left standing there dazed, middle of the pitch without having a clue as to what happened. Always thinking I could've done more, I should've.  I could've done things differently, a thousand different ways, but I didn't.  And now here I am, runner-up.  On the world stage.

It plays again.
(short loop)

That's how music is right?  Hour long album, tops.  Playlist, album, mix-tape, whatever.  I'm watching Almost Famous on the last leg back to LA, back to reality, and the sunny end to this stoic winter dream in the South.  This movie makes me feel whole again, and young like everything used to be and nothing's changed.

They got free Johnnie Walker up here.  Yeah, it's grand and the joy swells inside me.  I want to see Savanna, my Penny Lane.

Cheesy right?  I hope Jordan's at the airport, I hope Claire takes me back.

"So Russell, what do you love about music."

"Well, to begin with... everything."

BsAs: In Winter

It always feels like something's missing.  I missed a lot this winter, in this Winter Sur.  I missed the summer, skipped it's summer mood.  I missed my best friend's birthday, the 4th of July, always spend it did I in the throws of drink and good company and familiarity at the sense that things would always be like that.  What's that called... that revel in the wonderful routine, the commonplace, the expected and afforded to plan.  It's a submission to comfortable surroundings; a stunt to growth.

Who says how much we are to grow?  Well, I guess we each do, each of us.  There's not much amusement in growth (we all remember how much schooling sucked), so I understand the thinking; grow enough, grow into something, into a place and enjoy it.  Growing's no walk in the park, but it provides wonder and the awe of learning.

Or whatever, you know?

Maybe you can grow too much, get too big you know, like the Roman Empire or Alexander the Great and his Greece.  It was really much more than Greece really, but it all came crashing down afterwards.  Is that what happens?  A big explosion, an expansion out into greatness and then cracks in the shield under the weight and then turmoil, disillusionment and chaos.

Or is growth like a redwood tree, steady and strong, and stronger and taller still, slowly each year for eons.  But nobody knows your name.

That's right, I missed Outside Lands too, speaking of Northern evergreens.  Outside Lands and San O, and practically all the summer pier concerts.

All for an exploration of self-imposed depression.  In a fucking beautiful city in its winter rest.  It's death.

I feel like the hardboiled egg, not the coffee bean right now.  At least I'm not the carrot.  Let's see if we can turn that hot water into coffee, shall we?

What I learned is this: there is no escape in running away.  Escape is in the music.  Escape is the music.  No, reverse that.

Never go deaf, my darling.

BsAs: Dreams of Californication

I'm spending my last day decidedly on the train.  The bumpy ride to Retiro, the heavy swaying.  Ironically, there's a trio wrapped in casual French to my right, across the aisle.  Just like Paris.  I'm sitting just by the coupling, and when I look down I can see the tracks through the gap between the cars, trotting by on squeals and the iron nail on chalkboard sound of metal against metal that's become somewhat of a soothing sound in the vacuum left by real music to my ears.  It's the sound of worlds colliding in my mind.

Paris, Bali, California.  This city, Buenos Aires.  The lot, all blending together like all the colors of things down the drain.  What's lasting is a light cool azul to the eyes before it's washed away by the cleansing water of imminent air travel.  Recycled air and changing time-zones.  I'd told Ricardo that the noise, the city sounds, screeched drawn out duldrum, bells and horns and sirens and the sounds of cars and buses and thousands of people talking and thinking to themselves.  all reflected off the high city walled near Palermo.  The sound at 5:00 rushed hours in central neighborhoods, think sidewalks and coffee.  I told him that these are the things, the sounds with eyes on the buildings above, these are the what, the mysterious key to put my restless mind at ease.

Maybe I was just trying to be poetic.  To impress.  But I think it's true.  That static white noise does something to drop thought, the way I always wish for when the thinks' too much.  It's desperate insanity (or let's say for the sake of my mental well being, for some semblance of sanity, that's right, that it's malignant genius) that seeks static backgrounds and loss of thought for nothing if but a few seconds, maybe a minute.

When I look back down at the streets, I already know what I'm going to miss the most.  The women.  The female landscape of this city.  Italian and Spanish descendants make beautiful foot-traffic, especially when everybody walks.  It makes me want to move to a walking city.  Something spread out like Paris.  Maybe New York.  Not San Francisco though, the city's too small and the public transit too on point to really put the miles in like they do here.  For me Buenos Aires is a city of great legs.

And good food too.  Last meals now.  Last supper perhaps, but early, 'round lunchtime.  I was thinking about some asado, but I panicked and just ordered the Plato del Dia.  Two thick milanesas, thick breaded patties and rice that seemed to be marinating in butter.  The rice was rich yellow, the pollo, juicy.  It was fucking delicious.  In a bare-bones simplistic sort of way.  Just my style.  Something heavy to hold me over 'til California.

In Memoriam

For him, life wasn't so much
important as living was.
Because when you've lived,
really lived, like he did, what's
life without the living.  Wasted
time maybe.  It takes a brave
man to make that choice.  Yeah
sure, any idiot coward can kill
himself.  But for a thinking man,
like him, there's a whole lot
riding on both sides.  It ain't so
black and white.  He preferred
the road unknown.  I feel ya,
Robin.

Charles Bukowski: Safe