it was a hard week, but effective, a teacher. the end of the week wasn't hard at
all. rewarding, rewards, rewarded.
we connected the world
far away places got so much closer
but the neighbourhood got further away
i'm extremely sleepy. subi came over on frinight. met up in the street, a little
bourbon, a little walk. it's getting to be very nippy out, isn't it? little
wander around the wine shop. big long talk.
long day, good day, out to town for koshari and backpacks and mystery. making
some plans, drinking bourbon on the underground. back home i cooked a bolognese
with the leftover wine and red lentil spaghetti noodles. quite nice.
today picked up a second generation ipod touch for ยฃ25 at the CeX and i've
loaded up some of my iTunes library onto it. going to a show tonight. too sleepy
for the week to start again yet. it's exhausting trying to grow and change.
don't know how or why anyone does it.
i've banned podcasts, television and movies when alone. can't have that
pneumatic drilling my skullbones into the plastic brain where the spaces should
be.
now i know how joan of arc felt. as her 2nd generation ipod touch (ยฃ25 at CeX)
started to melt.
had a nice moroccan meal last week. then there was monday. unrelenting monday.
some throat infection from brighton came to make me sick with it. it spread to
my teeth and gums by wednesday. wednesday was the first day that i felt a little
better than the day before, but now it was in the teeth and gums and earholes.
zipper got sick too, and i made lemsip.
the new passport arrived. it's nice. hard plastic on the photo page, easier to
open to the photo page. and i'm peeking through a little hole.
what else? nice chicken. ingredients from the butcher and the village fruit and
veg. there was a mouse in her house. text me telling me she was scared. next
time i went over she was wearing a matching "i love mice" pyjama set. tops and
tails.
a little wine today. busy trains. sometimes whatever way i'm dressed there's
dudes mean mugging me on the train all day like they want me to give them a
chance to hurt me. i prefer that to the times they look at me like i'm a joke.
mood: erratic, changeable. the good things are very good, the bad things are
quite dreadful. maybe i'm doing everything wrong. how hard are good things
supposed to be?
more to write but no more vigor, hardihood nor spunk. no get up and go. this'll
have to do. hope you have a good week.
the world is over but it's a-ok!
because i kissed a pretty girl yesterday
monday. again my fucking guts. feels like iโm being reupholstered. itโs cold as fuck in this house. canโt find the thermostat. had a dream, i'd finally found a useful organization app, but i'd signed up in such a way it kept dead-naming me when i logged in. Hello Shadows! had to break into a government facility through the gym locker room. a little hazy.
feeling ill, throwing up, a stomach bug? the day off, can't get too far from the bathroom, can't focus. ring ring, ring ring. back in london. okay, okay. well, i'll forget about it. it'll be okay. better this way. better this way.
are you available tonight?
i'm available tonight
how does 7pm sound?
7pm sounds fine
waterloo?
how about edgware road
i love edgware road. 7pm?
i'll be at edgware road by 7pm
i'll be at edgware road by 7pm
okay. shower, breakfast, make-up, clothes.
i'll bring a gift. two pairs of socks. might already expect them. it was in the entry. got to enjoy these few hours. might be last few hopeful ones for a while. of course after that there'll be some fine music, some good writing, unhinged nights, some buffalo trace. but that's not the same as happy. what am i going to do for three hours!? i work a little in secret.
leave early, arrive early, green valley, around the block. a handsome young arab
gentleman stops me outside the restaurant and gestures for me to take off my
headphones. i take off my headphones. he fingerguns, points me up and down with
bost index fingers, "i love your outfit. very cool". i say thank-you and i love
your outfit too. okay. so i have the arab vote. that's all i need. 4 mins. maybe
this is goodbye. but itโs dinner? is dinner goodbye?
intermission. iโve been informed that an account i never opened on a
bitcoin website ive never visited is going to be deleted tomorrow
i give her some gifts, she has some for me too, we eat lentil soup, we hold
hands and we cry and i say everything i wanted to say, it's so easy, it's fun to
talk, we lean over table and we kiss, we split the bill, the bill is ยฃ44.44 (so
thatโs ยฃ22.22 each), we barely touched our dinner, weโve never left so much food
uneaten before, we walk around and talk about music and politics and laugh and
laugh and she is smart and pretty, and we leaned against a little post and stare
into each others eyes a long time. someone wolf whistles from a passing bicycle.
someone rolling past in a chair shouts "kiss her, kiss her!" and she kisses me
and we go home
you know when you're smiling and you can feel it strange and foreign in your
face like you haven't used your smile muscles in a minute?
oh, i found the thermostat. goodnight.
here's an interesting detail. trump got fewer votes this time than he
did the time he lost. the democrats didn't lose to trump. they lost to people
giving up. they lost to the disaffected, the alienated, the unrepresented. the country isn't sliding to the right. the western world isn't sliding to the right. the parties that used to represent the working class are.
and yeah, it really sucks. but you not being to sigh a breath of relief might be a good thing. vs a knife entering your heart so slowly you don't even notice it breaking the skin.
there is no salvation in the battlebox.
choo-choo. and zoo-zoo. and choo-choo. and conf. and belgian fries. and choo-choo.
met a nice lady on the train. she's from small country. she reads tarot. never
for herself. she's from small country. very sweet, very gentle. i enjoyed her
company in the 1g network area between there and here.
roe v wade was overturned in june 2022. after that the dems had 2 years. 2
years! the republicans got punished at the battlebox. the democrats were given a
mandate. 2 years. why didnโt they codify it any time then? why not now even? theyโd
never have anything to run on to distinguish themselves from the republicans
ever again, because theyโve become republicans on the border, foreign policy,
the working class, immigrants, cozying up to the rich and powerful.
there is no salvation in the battlebox.
bourbon, curry, justified. timothy olyphant is so pretty. beautiful day. beautiful night. beautiful day. vashti bunyan, train song.
seem to have caught a throat bug at the ffconf. i'm like a super-getter. i'll
catch anything everywhere.
just so you know, guys. we're closing in five minutes.
the girl in the gas station said twenty dollars was too much for a ball point
pen, but she'd got it for me from her car and she didn't have to do that. you
know they don't sell pens or pencils in the gas stations here? isn't that
fucking crazy? and i picked up a scrap broken table with a white canvas surface
that was lying there in the street, and i scratched into in black โsomeone who livedโ
and i drew a picture and i left it facing towards the road. then puffing on
cigarettes with the night manager of a hotel talking about cities and why we do
what we do he left and i went home and drafted an e-mail and didn't send it.
monday october 28thโ
every muscle in my body is sore, i have moved too much. i am going to need a
holiday to recover from this holiday. it's 7am. i've had another night of broken
sleep and strange, strange dreams. my guts are burning because i keep eating
wheat. my whole bed is soaking wet from sweat. i draft an email, but do not
send it. i have a quick shower, take my medication, head to denny's to get a
little 1400 calorie breakfast. coffee and eggs. maybe the santa fe grill. maybe
the all american slam with pancakes. back to the hotel, check out and head to
Santa Monica.
ok, ok. b to union, change at 7th, southbound E to SM, switch at westwood for
Shelby and little osaka. the right stem of my glasses snapped off during the
move so i can barely see a thing. i'm wearing sunglasses now. i can see about 5
inches. i have a little pocket bottle of tequila i picked up on hollywood
boulevard. at 7th i stop by a restaurant that opened that week and have a shot
of clase azul aรฑejo, $70 a shot, it's the first they've served since they
opened, he cuts the plastic off the bottle with a pocket knife. i didn't know
tequila could taste like bourbon. very smooth, sweet too. thanks danny.
book it. back down the stairs. girl in a mickey mouse hoody. two guys have
disengaged the alarmed gate and i catch it on two fingers as it's closing and
slip back through. folks are coming from the santa monica platform over to the
long beach platform. ah, westbound platforms is closed but santa monica trains
are still leaving just from long beach. okay. the next train says santa monica.
okay. we roll along. the voice says "exit here for walt disney concert hall" and
the man next to me nearly jumps up out of his own skin to get off the train.
must be late to meet the mouse. a few stops later and it says "east los
angeles". now, that doesn't seem right. so i take a look at the map. yeah, this
train is going to long beach. a poster on the train tells me men 18-25 must
register with Selective Service to qualify for student loans or citizenship.
we're doing pandemic and we're doing global warfare. centurys seem to live their
twenties like i did.
slip out and catch one going the other way. i meet a couple guys in east l.a.
and they tell me theyre from east l.a., which is no mystery because they tell me
in that east l.a. accent. my favourite english accent in the world, i think, so
pretty with all those buzzy spanish vowels and ice skating smooth esses. they
tell me to bring some irish women next time, i tell them okay. and we talk about
the legality of street drinking in los angeles. it's on the level of "it's
illegal but just don't take the piss and you'll be fine" which is a good level.
different than mexico city where it's legal for a fee. bribes are okay though,
right? they're just a less alienated, more direct version of a universal truth
that nothing's illegal if you can afford it.
this new train, also labeled santa monica, changes its mind at 7th street and
starts going back the other way. we all get off and i get outside and smoke a
cigarette. can't seem to get west of 7th street. the coffee roulette bot on
future of coding slack has paired me up with someone who also happens to be in
l.a. this week. so we meet up in person. i get an uber to the first stop west of
7th, then take the metro a few more stops west, then hop off and get picked up
in a rented car and we head to westwood.
we park in any little round corner with two tiers of restaurants and a parking
lot. head to a hong kong eatery where the gentleman proceeds to order a series
of things i've never heard of and a bowl of birds feet and i get two beers and
some fried rice. we eat well and then head back to the car and head to my hotel
where i check in, step out on the balcony, it's beautiful. the sky is cobalt
blue and the beach is dirty snow.
we go for a walk to venice beach boardwalk. it's a long walk going through the
sand. just kilometer or so, but it's through the sand. i sit down on a bench to
rest my feet. there's was an old italian american lady from new york on the
bench next to me, name's lucy. she's the second person to tell me where she's
from with an accent that means she doesn't need to tell me. we talked about life
and ireland and the sunset and everything beautiful and children and the sea and
the election and abortion and mexico and long beach and i wished her luck. he
was only listening and afterwards he said "i see how it is for you". the
boardwalk's pretty, it's like brighton. we get right out to the end. some piers
you feel like you're standing alone right at the end of the world but here you
feel like you feel youโve got the world around you. land curves around in both
directions, you can see the lights twinkling humanity on each corner. "embraced"
he said, he was right. i said that's what i meant when i was talking to lucy
about the sunsets, about how they feel true to where they are. the sunsets in
london are navy and orange. sometimes a stripe of teal, or a stripe of purple.
legacy, regal. but here, like promise, all the colours you'd use to set a scene
here. a place where we expanded outwards, towards infinity, before reaching the
material reality of the water. no coincidence that nasa and silicon valley are
both here, trying to find new frontiers. out to space or inside our souls. i
mean that both ways, it is beautiful and it is depraved. humanity will always
strive for more and capital will always need more real estate. i feel like
jumping into the water and washing away. we walk home. half the way. then i book
a lyft.
i sit on the balcony drinking Patrรณn and wondering about tomorrow.
tuesday, wednesday october 29th, 30th
same hotel today but a different room, i need to dip out for a few hours so i
stow my bags and head to the pier. there's a guy practicing lip slide to ollie
impossible in the parking lot, i stop a while to watch. he tells me he's
practicing until heโs ready to do it at... โyou see that pearl hotel over there?
they have the best spot for it but hereโs it's like a practice ground,โ same
shape. โiโll tell you, skaters? we the mostโฆ i unplugged from the matrix when i
was like twelveโ and i wonder what age he is now. maybe three years older than
me. i'm wearing my daffodils jumpsuit thatโs short sleeved on both ends, i'm not
wearing underpants and thereโs way too much wind. i wonder if he has a red hot
chili peppers tatoo. i liked him, he seemed nice and true.
only, only, only, only...
seems like there's a coast line every direction some how. iโm dry heaving on a
corner. maybe a little cheesecake factory meatball will come up. i get excorted
down an alley by two cops from the weed store. they tell me, you can't be doing
that here. i say, iโm sorry i'm not from around here. they say, thatโs okay no
liquor no marijuana no tobacco right here and they point at a sign and โenjoy your
stayโ.
i walk up to santa monica pier. down under the pier and around the i meet a guy
called greg and he is fishing. we chat a long time about cities and why we do
what we do. he shows me a fish he caught today and tells me there is better
catching up on redondo, there you can even take away a crab most days.
at the bar on santa monica pier the bar man tells me โi hope you miss your
flight and come back tomorrowโ. he tells me i should go watch sunset at point
dume. i ride the west coast coaster. maybe everything's beautiful. there's
still something missing. i go to a little bar while i'm waiting for the bus and
i drink a beer and a tequila. the girl behind me is from back home. she keeps
trying to work out if i'm catholic or protestant and i hate every second of it.
must be forty-something and you're in Los Angeles with this sun bearing down on
you and you can't leave that alone? let it go, please. this is why i fucking
left. part of it. afterwards when she's leaving she asks if she can pray for me.
i tell her yes you can in the comfort of your hotel room, i'll pray for you too.
she goes into some conversation with the lord and i get another tequila.
kayleigh said go to the promenade, shelby said hit up barney's beanery. barney's
beanery is on the promenade so i do both at once and i get a bowl of chili like
colombo.
christabel sends me a message asking if she could use my sperm to have a baby.
i'm not sure if i actually have any sperm due to the hormones, but i tell her
okay.
at the bus stop for the bus point dume i meet a nice fella named Zach who tells
me he's going somwhere to buy drugs and asks if i can cover his bus fare. on the
bus we get talking to this other guy who looks like hollahan who asks me if i
want to try a drug he has. he hands me a brown piece of paper and tells me to
pop it under my tongue. this other guy from the other end of the bus pulls up
and tells me i do not want to take it, it's basically fentanyl. and the guy who
looks like hollohan says "nah it's not, this guy's just a christian" he says
"i'm not a christian" i slip it under my tongue and thank them both sincerely and
step backwards off the bus and then i turn around trip on something and go
flying across the ground and catch myself on my face and get a massive scrape on
my eyebrow and left cheek and my sunglasses. a mexican guy sitting on a wooden
barrel offers me a cigarette and we watch the sunset and talk about palestine
and he gives me the rest of his pack and heads back into the kitchen.
i slip over rocks and lose my footing and catch it and down by the water i send
a video to a friend. i leave 3 missed calls for 15 people. i'm not enjoying the
drug. when i get to the restaurant they give me a menu and i order the corn. the
night manager comes over and tells me i have to leave because i'm bleeding. he
walks me out and i say something dark to him and go on about my way. i tell him
i hope one day he experiences 1% of the kind of pain i've experienced so that
he'll have some empathy when somebody just wants corn. a crazy thing to say, and
one of the four things i've done that make me feel shame on this trip. that
being said, what the hell man? i just needed some corn.
taco bell, traffic, busy roads, sand, water, sand, water, roads and hills and
beeeeep bweerrrp the doppler effect and i've walked 3km from malibu now and i
look at my phone and i don't know if the time is a.m. or p.m. talked to an early
morning runner and he was cordial but i think i might have freaked him out which
is fair because i have blood all down the left side of my face and i've walked
4km now. i get back to the hotel. 4.1km from point dume to here.
and i have to switch rooms again. and some of the stuff that happened today
might have happened tomorrow. and i draft a few more emails and do not send
them. i can't remember too good. i spend a lot of the second day sleeping and
eating hot dogs and being sad. defintitely an opiate, i wake up feeling like i
left my soul somewhere.
thursday october 31st
to the airport hotel. i introduce my taxi driver to snow tha product and that's
a good time where we roll down the streets of L.A. with snow blasting out over
speakers. hell yeah. i order a tequila and they give me an orange liqueur. i
can't have that much sugar. i go make myself throw up and camp out in the hotel
room listening to podcasts and crying a little. i'm not ready to go home, but i
can't stay here, i miss my best friend, this fucking sucks.
friday november 1st
first plane drops me in seattle. in the aiport a guy tries converting me to
christ and i tell him to fuck off. his daughter tells me she likes my outfit and
i say thank you. i liked hers too but i was annoyed at her father for not
leaving me alone when i asked him to nor when i told him to and not leaving
until i tell him to fuck off. it feels horrible. i eat more than i'm interested
in eating. i don't drink anything. i'm sober on the plane to london. i finally
draft an email that i actually send. i immediatel wish i'd sent one of the
better ones but this one is okay. it's a follow up to a letter i sent before i
left.
saturday second november
when i get to london i call her, she doesn't pick up. i should probably take
that as a message. i don't. heathrow express. yeah, i sent an email on the
plane. yeah, a follow up to the letter i sent in the post before i left. the
twenty fifth version of an email i drafted over and over again, some sweeter and
some deeper. i'd managed to prevent myself sending any of them in the past by
drinking until i stopped feeling anything. but now ive been sober for two full
days and i am live right here inside my feelings thoughts and memories. i get
off the plane, i switch to a train, and i get off the train at paddington and i
exit by the canal. and im listening to john dolan read from celine. and i feel
compelled to walk to her apartment and ring the buzzer. and i hear from
Hawthorne via dolan โbe true โ , be true โ , be true โ , show freely to the world,
if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be discernedโ and i
think you know that's what i mean when i say i'm trying to do total honesty on
the blog and it's nice to hear that from someone from a couple hundred years
ago. and i walk and i walk, and i feel so stupid that im living this life right
now when i know i will have to write it and to "be true, show freely" this trait
of my very worst. and so i walk to her apartment and i ring the buzzer and there
is no answer and i should take that as a sign and i do not. i go and sit down on
a bench at the entrance to the park and i call her for the nineteenth time. it
gives that european beep this time instead of the trusty british ring ring. i
try again. a french voice tells me the call could not be completed. so sheโs in
france? maybe sheโs happy
home, home. i donโt want to go home. but where else is there? my hands are
tearing apart carrying this bag everywhere and my shoulder is still and dull and
stinging. i drink a little beer, and walk to charing cross (accidentally passing
that comedy club... and that bar with the pulley system... i didn't even know
where these places were i was just following back then), and i get on the train.
and i think about how nice it would be just to hear her voice tell me she
doesn't want to talk to me. and the train pulls into blackheath. and on the walk
home i pass a window display of sausage dog socks. this is the place i bought
the warthog socks three months ago when i got home to find a taxi in the street
and she was furious and crying and carrying boxes and i helped her with the
boxes and we held each other and we cried and we said we would see each other
soon.
so i go in to the little shop and i buy the sausage dog socks. hearing this
story, the girl behind the counter says โthis is why i live in a bright orange
camper vanโ and she tells me about her art and her music, and i buy some of her
art (sheโs undercharging) and i ask about her music. she pulls a row of dresses
aside and reveals a piano and she starts to play a beautiful arrangement of
Sound of Silence, but is interrupted when a lady comes in to return a garment,
but when the transaction is done she jumps up and clicks her heels together and
plays a beautiful arrangement of Sound of Silence and then she improvises for a
while around some chords. i tell her it is very wonderful (it is very wonderful)
and i leave and i go home to think about the little arab.
after clanking up the stairs so tired that if i lose focus for a moment i'll
become a roack by the ocean, i enter my apartment and i hate it bitterly. i
donโt want to be here, i donโt want to be any place but least of all here. this
couch is where she sat on my lap and we cried and i told her she is so beautiful
and i told her this is not what i want and she asked โwhat DO you wantโ and i
didnโt feel like i could tell her and i told her โit doesnโt matter what i wantโ
and i told her โGoodbye, Lucky.โ and we held eachother tightly and we cried and
her taxi came and she went downstairs and the car vroomed off and i thought i
heard her coming back up the stairs and i wondered what sheโd say when she rang
the doorbell and the doorbell rang and it was not for me, and the pizzas werenโt
for me, and i pressed #5 and said donโt worry about it mate have a good night
mate and went back in to sit on my own on my couch in my exceedingly empty
apartment and i felt like a piece of crumpled paper balled up and thrown away
and it DID matter what i wanted and i should have said and maybe she just wanted
to hear that i still need herโฆ but i won't realize any of that until itโs too
late and sheโs in france a month from then.
i go back out to see the girl in the shop again and ask her about commissions
and we write our details down on pieces of paper and itโs very cute and very
sweet. iโd like to commission a drawing of a sunbird for an album iโm working
on. iโd like to use the piano in the store for part of it. and she says that's
okay as long as she's working (she used to own the store but sold it recently so
she could be more free, but she still works there) and out i pop to the bar for
a tequila and a beer from Freckles, and then i take the train to city. i get a
tequila and a beer at various old haunts. meet someone with a pretty icelandic
name. walk through a tunnel. shiver with cold because iโve dressed for LA. iโm
so cold. i donโt want to go home. i go back to Freckles and i watch a band and i
tell Freckles weโre going to get matching tattoos and i ask the guitarist if he
is okay and he sighs deeply and he says "damn thanks for asking, i'm going
through some stuff, but i'm okay.". and i call an old friend to come over and
make out but when we start to make out i feel wrong like im cheating and i
apologize and we talk for a while and then eat chicken and they go home. i lay
down on my bed and itโs bitterly cold and i look at my messages and there is a
Read notification now but no reply and i call one last time and it rings in
france and i feel like a fool and itโs bitterly cold and i hate this place and i
fall asleep
in the morning i'll wake up alarmed and afraid, "i donโt recognize my bed. i had
weird dreams," ive had weird dreams every day for a fortnight. i donโt want to
exist. i donโt want to be here. i donโt want to be any place. i donโt want to
exist. i had a nice time on the rollercoaster, though, didn't i? welcome west
coast coasters! west coast coasters, are you ready to go again?
sunday the third of november
so that brings us to today. it has not been possible to connect your call.
please try again later. it has not been possible to connect your call. please
try again later. it has not been possible to connect your call. please try again
later. do you ever feel these days when you catch a bit of news that it's like
the start of shaun of the dead? like we're already living in this world war but
we haven't noticed yet. it was like reading cory's tweets about the outbreak in
wuhan in january he's like "this is serious, it's actually happening" and you're
like "huh". maybe i should have stayed in the states so i could go to the border
to give my life protecting mexico.
there's some fine writing in this entry, i think, but it needs some editing. way
too many sentences start with "i". sometimes that's one purpose, for a rhythm.
but other times it's just lazy.
so is that my life? winding up in strange rooms with strange people,
none of us really liking each other everything kind of sordid and disgusting,
until somebody falls in love with the character i play outside and that love
makes a place for me where i can be safe and comfortable and happy... but then
in not so long the both of us end up missing the character so much, the
character that got killed because in love it's like sugar in warm water, that we
tear each other apart and then i'm like this again? that doesn't seem like a
life. and how long can it last? it does mean for some good writing and some okay
music. nothing's ever enough.
well here's something i made in a hotel room in los angeles. it's only a demo,
but it's a hit:
yeah, it'll be a hit. it'll be on the one before #2.
i guess it was okay for Fields. but when it comes to the choice
between happiness and greatness and you have one of them in your hand and the
other is something you're never ever gonna fight hard enough to have, it's
fucking stupid to drop it for the other. what am i? too proud to admit i won't
be remembered by everybody to be afraid to be remembered by somebody? somebody
beautiful? sure, this whole thing is a love letter. the whole thing has been.
for a year. and here i am in my bed listening to the fireworks pop outside and
laying on my bed just another sad story of a person who didn't like their cards
until they changed them. on the topic of cards, i'll ask the tarot about it. oh
yeah, inverted wheel of fortune and an inverted 4 of swords and an ace of wands.
i guess. like, that's an annoying thing to say but i guess you're right. shut
up. shut up tarot. yeah maybe i'm petty. maybe it is like that. but here i am
covered in pond's cold cream lying in a basket of trash. maybe i should throw
all of this away. everything. i ate some orange chicken and made myself throw
up. i looked at a baby yesterday on the train and it immediately burst into
tears. i'll be fine. i'll get up tomorrow morning at 6am and let them have it.
The Apprentice is a good movie. a movie about rape, richness and the importance
of sponsorship. it's a horrible watch.
i'm going to Belfast at the end of the week for the first time in 8 years.
anyone wanna come with?
does anyone wanna go to that tequila bar that's hidden as a speakeasy through
the kitchen of the breakfast club outside borough market?