Another Day In Hell

Irony Of My Heart

I woke up today for some reason refreshed and I knew it was because what few birds make it to the higher levels of the hills were singing and I could see a blue sky and I felt insipired to write with what I percieved to be a broken heart. I tossed aside the script I'm supposed to doctor and ignored the fourteen calls from my Agent's Assistant and promised myself I'd send him pages tommorrow and I work on a new script. A romantic movie. Something from the heart that doesn't involve demons and serial killers and monsters and God and guns and tears of hatred and cursing for the sake of cursing and murder and political irony. Something beautiful, is what I want to write. I start with reliving my emotions from my whole life and think about all the eyes I've stared into and all the girls that actually mattered to me I knew before I was living the life I'm living now and I dream like I never got to this hill and write about the loves that I once knew. I need this therapy now and my only break is 'George' whose flunked another audition and we get stoned and laugh about a girl in college he used to see that would kill for chili-cheese fries at 3am when she was drunk and 'George' falls asleep because he was up all night with some models and one of them knew 'Erin' and said that she asked about me and I think of calling her, but I decide to wait till I finish what I'm writing. I play David Gray and The Shins and Elvis Costello and I want to play Elliot Smith but he committed suicide and that takes something away from his music for me right now so I avoid it though 'Miss Misery' seems like its on a loop in my head. I write sixty quality pages in one sitting and I'm proud of it as I read it and it's actually good and I wonder what my Agent will think. I wake up 'George' at 8pm and he wants to get a drink but I suggest we sit around and reminisce, which is nice, so we do and we have a good laugh at the stupidity of our lives and sometimes I wish we did this more often. I'm finishing up another scene and 'Erin' calls. But just as she calls the girl from Vegas sends me an email and I've got to start thinking about how lucky I am and not how problematic my love life is and I don't want to lose my inspiration, my broken hearted muse, so I continue writing and I'll probably pass out soon and my Agent will be pissed tommorrow and I'm supposed to go on set and I wonder what that Script Supervisor is doing. I wonder if the Director still thinks I'm cool. I wonder if my Agent will love what I've written today, even though its nothing like I've ever written before.

All My Words Were Bound To Fail

I woke up this morning still hurting from Saturday night. I wanted to meet up with Erin Saturday but she wasn't answering my calls and her friend called me and told me to leave me alone and that I wan't allowed to show up at the Von Dutch party at Bliss because she is going to be under contract with them and didn't want to have a break down with me around and I told her I'd respect her wishes but around ten o'clock, sitting in a small bar on Santa Monica Blvd near the Lot, old Warner Hollywood, I changed my mind and went anyway. Some kids from the OC were there and Bliss was full of Persians at the tables and incredibly hot blondes in short skirts and too many trucker hats and the whole scene drives me wild and someone tells me that my t-shirt is cool but its just a white shirt and I can't help but agree that it looks good on me. I'm with 'George' and he spots 'Erin' and I see her at the outside bar looking incredible and my heart leaps but she's talking to another guy who is on one of those teen shows on the WB or something like that and I want to step in but she looks happy. I tell 'George' we're leaving and we go to some party that an Agent is throwing in the Hollywood Hills and everyone seems over 30 until two thirty when all these junior agents walk in and a girl that just started at this agency brings a friend over who is a dancer and something about her is sexy and we dance and leave and somehow end up at another party in the Hills where I don't know anybody and a guy walks up to me and tries to kiss me and I find out the host is gay and so are most of the guests and the girl that brought me laughs and I dance with her, staying away from the guys. She likes it when I pull her hair and she's quite the showwoman on the dance floor and I kiss her and some girl at the same time and all of us leave and go to my place. My cell phone shows that I've missed three calls, two from 'George' and one from. . .'Erin'. For once the idea of a threesome becomes unappealing but they are already naked and in my pool and kissing and I tell them I'll be back and leave my house with them in it. I drive, too drunk, and one of my front wheels almost goes over the side and I calm down and I get to 'Erin's' apartment in West Hollywood and there is a nice Jaguar parked out front and I go to her door and in her window I see her kissing the actor from Bliss. I don't know if its my heart breaking or the alcohol and I stumble back down to my car and puke on the Jaguar and drive off. I can't see and the front-right of my bumper slams into a cliff side as I take a curve too fast on Wonderland and I get to my place with a smashed right headlight and go in and the girls are making out in the jacuzzi and they don't even seem like they missed me and I get some Champagne and drink and watch as they go to my bedroom and I sit on a chair in my room and watch them have sex and don't join in because I can't seem to want to get aroused and they ask me if something is wrong and I say no. Eventually they pass out and I stay up till 9am doing coke and watching Sportscenter and thinking about 'Erin' having sex with the actor and 'George' shows up and we get stoned and each pass out on the couch. The girls have left by the time I wake up and I spend Sunday watching nothing at all and I don't feel anything and Sunday bleeds into Monday and I feel better today and I work on the script some more and vow to send some new pages to my Agent to show him I'm making progress. I go to Cinespace at night to check out the shorts for Channel101.com and they make me laugh for the first time in 48 hours and I miss the girl from Vegas and the girl from Texas and the old college flame because they made me laugh. I get home and 'Erin' calls and I don't answer and wish I did because she doesn't leave me a message and I'm writing an email to the Vegas girl because I don't know and I'm going to go to bed to get a good nights sleep.

Let Go

As time passes and nameless faces become just that in my memory I wonder how I'm going to hold my life together. As a child I used to play in this one park where a girl whose name I could never forget danced to songs her grandmother would sing and she would ignore all the swings and other playthings and my friends and I would play tag and I would run by her just to watch her dance and I'd get tagged and have to pull myself away. And I remember that she used to giggle when I got close to her and her grandmother would talk to my mother and tell her how cute we looked together and were were only seven but I had to agree and that was the first time I saw a girl blush. And my friends made fun of me and we'd tackle each other and one day I came and she wasn't there and I thought I would never see her again. The park seemed less exciting, and sometimes I just didn't have fun because that girl in the yellow dress wasn't twirling on her toes and yes, I was young, but I knew there was something special about her. And then a year passed and I learned how to ride a bike and as I rode by that park on the way to my friends house a few blocks away with my mom in tow we stopped at the park because there she was. Her grandmother wasn't there but her mom was and she was still dancing to no music, at least none that I could hear, and she introduced me to her mom and her mom told my mom that we looked cute together and for the first time I ran around the park with someone other than my friends and we played tag with each other and later, while our moms talked she picked up a daisy and put it in my hand and told me she was a princess and that I was funny and I made some faces to make her laugh. We had to go and I never saw her again after that day and I don't know why but the last thing she did was kiss me on my cheek and my mom and her mom cooed and she ran off laughing. And now, I can't remember her name and I can't help but feeling sad because I don't.

Choking On My Alibi

I went out with old friends of mine and reminisced about old days in college when we'd get too drunk to go to class the next day and not shower for days and wonder how much dirt got into our apartments and not know who the last person we slept with was and dancing under the lights at some college club where we new everyone there and believing we were big men on campus and then we graduated and the world get bigger and we got smaller. And they congratulate me on my success, admitting that they thought I'd fall off the deep end first but are not suprised because they all belived in me and I believe them. But they discuss their nine to five job and supply side economics and equities and real estate holdings and leveragings and I have no idea what they are talking about but I nod, laugh, and by the end of the night realize that this is a major portion of the upper middle America that I'm supposed to be writing for and by following my dream I may have disallusioned myself. We stumble from bar to bar to bar and I run into an old college flame who cheated on me with some athlete who ran track who isn't in the Olympics and isn't doing anything special and I tell her what I'm doing and she's impressed and shows me more attention than I expect and I want to take her home with me but I told 'Erin' to meet me later tonight and I wish I hadn't because I remember the sex being very good with this girl. Eventually I relent and go home with her and we have great sex and then she cries after and tells me she misses me and starts apologizing for 'hurting me' back the and 'Erin' calls twelve times and I'm way to drunk so as she talks I close my eyes. I wake up this morning and she's gone and I'm alone in her apartment and I see a note and it says 'Call me, we'll make this work again' with her number and I never want to make this mistake so I tear it up and leave in a cab and 'Erin' is waiting for me at my house and is pissed off and I have no good excuses and she leaves and my head throbs, 'George' comes over to get stoned and I can't believe I fucked up what was turning into a good thing.

"10"

When the days are beautiful I just feel happier, and its easy to when standing at the edge of my pool naked as the day I was born, listening to something calm coming out of blown out speakers near my feet and drinking a screwdriver and I smile as wide as I can and 'Erin' swims a few laps and laughs at me and I jump in, the sound muting out and everything slows down and I try to take a sip of my drink but I'm underwater and I don't know what I'm doing right now but it feels good. I burst out into the air and 'Erin' tries tackling me and I forget why she's still here but I haven't asked her to leave and we've been having more fun lately and we kiss for about thirty minutes in the water and she says 'oh shit' and runs out and says she's late for a shoot in Malibu and I hear her run out the door and I'm alone but I'm happy. The script I'm working on is basically dog shit and I wonder how movies actually get made in Hollywood and how many good ideas just simply go unnoticed because someone didn't know the right people and pehaps I shouldn't feel so bad because I got lucky. I take another long shower and take my vitamins and have some bacon and go down to the set because the Director left me a message and his attention towards me is becoming awkward but my peers tell me I should enjoy it because it's the type of attention they dream of getting and me and the 'Star' hang out in his trailer and play the new Madden football game which I suck at and he taunts me and I almost punch his face and break his nose to stall his career but he's a genuinely nice guy and I make a promise not to play this game again with anyone. We walk back to the set and the Producers wonder why I'm here and I wonder why they are here and I find myself alone with the Script Superviser and she has really crystal blue eyes and a very cute smile and she asks me all sorts of questions about my life and since I'm having a good day I tell her and she gives me her number and I think the Director sees this and almost looks disappointed and I feel embarrassed. I spend the late afternoon driving around the PCH and I watch the blue skies and listen to the Shins and sing along as loud as I can off key and some high school girls laugh at me but I don't care because I'm having a great day. And my Agent calls and tells me that I need to write a treatment for a horror movie I wrote for either Warner Brothers or Fox and I'm at home punching it out before everyone runs from their desks for the weekend and my old friends call and ask where I was last night and I promise to have a beer with them tonight. I don't get any emails but 'Erin' leaves me a laughter filled message about some young male model who puked during his first shoot and I can't believe we're still talking so much. It's almost amazing what can happen in one week and my feelings are a mix of dread and joy as another weekend begins to slide into my timeline.

Luscious Mix of Words and Tricks

Days seem brighter after nights I go out. This may be because of my level of inebriation the night before, resulting in a light and sound pounding hang over. Or it may just be that the social interaction makes my days more fulfilling. The Knitting Factory was not crowded last night but we didn't get there until later as we went to a bar called the Snake Pit on Melrose first to get drinks with some young punk rock band that I probably hate and they were all my age and were going to be on the MTV VMAs in Miami and were excited about South Beach and they invited me to tag a long and hang out back stage but if I went I'd go with Velvet Revolver, not them. Me and one of my buddies left for the Knitting Factory where I met 'George' and he was very drunk and asked me if I had any coke but I didn't and we smoked cigarettes backstage and I met KG from Tenacious D and he was with a very cute girl and it made sense, even though he's enormous and would be considered unattractive by GQ but he's incredibly talented and one of the nicest people I've met so why wouldn't a girl like a guy like this. We listened to rock music from small bands that are touring the nation and they are better then just regular college rock bands because they've lasted after college because the music actually means something to them and I enjoyed it all, throwing up the rock horns in the air as I ran into friends of mine from New York who were in town for one of the bands and they bought me too many drinks and I think I fell on the way out because my elbow hurts. We all ended up at Astro Burger and gorged ourselves on cheap burgers and I didn't even think about how this would effect my lean muscle mass and then went to the Standard Downtown where one of the bands was staying and we sat at the roof bar and I caught the eyes of a girl from Texas and i liked her smile so we talked most of the night as she bummed cigarettes off of me. My cell phone didn't ring once and I loved her accent and her blonde locks and when we kissed it felt warm all over and my friends applauded, embarassing her and she ran off to the bathroom and then I found out she had a boyfriend in the band and fortunately he didn't see because he was passed out already but I couldn't possibly go near her again. I left shortly after and as I was waiting for my car at the valet the blonde found me downstairs and told me that she wanted to come home with me and I couldn't say no to her sky blue eyes so we curved around Mulhullond and she held her hands in the air and yelled and we laughed and sat in my jacuzzi and watched the moon cross the sky and the stars and the city of Los Angeles and drank champagne and kissed and stumbled to my bedroom and played games under the sheets and laughed a lot and we both had fun. She left this morning and I spent most of the day working on the new script with a smile on my face and I don't think about her and that makes me happy and 'Erin' calls and tells me she gets in tonight and would like me to pick her up but I don't know if I will because I'm trying to get in touch with old friends and they are all going out tonight so I might do that. The girl from Vegas emails me a picture of her winking and the smile from the blonde last night now belongs to her.

Carry The Zero

A time ago, before I had done anything with my life and just wanted to get to the top of a hill in Hollywood and have a nice view and I lived in a small apartment I shared with two other good friends who I barely talk to anymore and I went out to college bars and Main Street just to drink my brains out and life was simpler I dated a girl who I told I 'loved' almost twenty times a day. She was beautiful, a Perfect 10 model with brains, which was hard to find, apparently, a college graduate, and generally very cool. She knew I wasn't going to go white collar anytime soon and when she'd be approached by big time investment bankers and more lucrative types of men she would shoot them down because she genuinely loved me more than she could explain. We used to dance to candlelight alone on New Years and picnic in any grassy area and write our names in hearts on the sand on the beach and enjoy the sunsets and smile a lot. When she moved away to become something bigger in a higher institution of education we kept in touch and saw each other often but then we grew up and my aimless ways weren't so romantic for her and my desires to travel the world seemed less and less likely as my fortune dwindled and my debt increased and instead of the 'i love you's I'd get get 'did you find a job yet' and I'd always say no because I didn't want to sit at an Excel spreadsheet eighty hours a week like my friends from college who I don't talk to anymore because they've wasted away and are living an American Dream. That dream was never mine and we drifted apart and I'd go to those grassy places and there was no wine and cheese and there was no candlelight at New Years and there were no hearts on the beach as the waters seemed to push up closer to my feet and eventually we stopped talking and then things started happening for me and now I AM on that hill and I can travel the world and I wonder what she's doing right now.

Where Is My Daylight

Last night I met 'Erin' at Cat in the Fiddle and we had three drinks and she kept on checking herself out in anything that would lend her a reflection. I found this mostly amusing, sometimes pointing it out to her to embarass her but she would respond that 'she was a model' and that other people stare at her all day so why can't she get a look now and then and it was suprisingly surreal to hear her say that and I couldn't tell if it disgusted me or intrigued me but before I could decide she leaned over the bar to get the bartender's attention and I couldn't take my eyes off how graceful she was in everything she did and I realized that this is the first time we've hung out at night sober. At least for a little while. Considering the events in the past few days I thought I should give her the benefit of the doubt and get to know her but it was hard because she is just so breathtaking to look at when she carries herself like a star in public and I couldn't help loving the fact that I was with the girl that all the guys were looking at. We got semi-drunk, she came home with me, and we had sex. But this time it was slower, sexier, and I felt like I had never gotten to know her body, much like I still don't know her mind. The superficial is super powerful in this city of Angels and I constantly dance to their pied piper rhythym, seducing myself deeper into a world I'm trying to get out of. One thing that stood out, though, was that at climax we were looking at each other's eyes and I can't remember the last time I've done that. I woke up this morning and she was already gone, leaving me a note telling me she had a flight to catch to New York to be a FIT model for some executives at Abercrombie and Fitch and I wanted to miss her but I didn't. I took a long shower and the only thing that made me get out was the voice message on my cell phone. Warily I entered mypass word as I smoked a cigarette and I hate smoking in the morning but I couldn't help it and I could hear the brunette from Vegas smile behind the noise and she says 'hello' and then 'adios' and then hangs up and I couldn't imagine a more perfect message and I wonder how she knows me so well without even knowing me. I want to call her back now but it is ten A.M. and I decide not to but it's too late because my fingers have made the decision and it's already ringing and my number and name has popped up on her cell phone so there is no turning back. She picks up. Silence. 'hello' she says. 'hello' i respond. She laughs and we chat about nothing. The weather, the olympics, what I'm doing right now, what she's doing, and her voice has that scratchy tone much like Kathleen Turner but not that deep, maybe like Tara Reid (but the one time I heard her all she wanted was a Parliament Light to do coke out of and she sounded half asleep) and I just like hearing her talk and suspect that we have absolutely nothing in common but one night in Vegas and maybe we should keep it that way and then she tells me she wants to see me and I pretend I don't hear her, for some reason, and then she says her boss is coming and 'adios' but she's not Latin at all and she hangs up and I get on the internet and buy a ticket to see her at the end of September and hope I talk to her later tonight. I picked a date far away in case something changes, a safety net, but I purchase it now because I mean it. I sit on a barstool outside and now my cigarette doesn't taste so good so I toss it and wish that I had more orange juice and I'm supposed to receive a script from my Agent that I'm going to polish and I call Jim Uhls because apparently he was going to first but passed but he's still out of town, I think, because no one picks up. The sun rises to its apex and it's noon and now I'm being blinded but I can't find my sunglasses but don't care and I close my eyes and wait for the messenger and 'Erin' calls and tells me she had a wonderful night last night and I agree but I don't even feel like I'm talking to her and I go back into my house and sit on the couch and the messenger arrives and I sign for the script and open it up with a red pen and look over the Studio Notes as I get stoned and my agent calls me nine times to see if I got the script but I can't stand him right now and he's probably coked up at work and I'm wishing I could just work on my own ideas. The Director calls me, surpringly, to tell me the shoot is going well and hangs up and I have no idea why he's doing this because this isn't what director's do and my friend 'George' asks me if I want to see a band play tonight at The Knitting Factory and his friend Chris Klein knows the band and I tell him okay and wonder who I'm going to meet tonight. My house is empty, I need a roommate. I've got no interesting email.

Such Great Heights

This morning I felt like I was fading away as if part of me in the future went back in time and changed something on my way back to the future and now I was disappearing. Or maybe that's how I want to feel. I stood on my balcony and saw the world of Los Angeles tucked under a thin layer of smog that, fortunately, wasn't too obstructive today. As millions come and go, living a life they may or may not want I'm drinking a grapefruit and vodka drink and my cell phone won't stop ringing and I know it's my agent calling me to make sure I go to the set today and I want to just not go anywhere and do nothing but I drag my feet to the shower and enjoy these few seconds of contained rain and wish I had a girl in with me to kiss and ravage and, for some reason, enjoy. I hadn't enjoyed female company since Vegas or long before Vegas and I find myself thinking about the one recent night that lasted till midday and the brunette and I shouldn't because she's not what I want but she was so adept at teasing me into falling for her that this resilience was the most attractive quality I've found in someone else in so long and I don't even want to think about 'Erin' as she calls and calls and calls and I've finally made it to the heart of Culver City to the Sony Studio Lot. I'm lost as I try to find the set and when I get there the AD smiles because I think it's his job to make sure I'm there, or the Production Coordinator, but I don't see him and the Line Producer shakes her head because she knows I'm hung-over again but I'm just tired. Not so much tired from lack of sleep but tired of this routine and I was told I wouldn't have to be on set this much but the Director loves me and the truth is I actually like him so I don't want to ruin this relationship because one day I'll want to do a masterpiece and I don't want some fuck like Spielberg or Coppola or some pseudo auteur to love it and then rape it and make it A FILM BY _______ which would make me have a complete meltdown. . .though I'm not too far from it now. The shoot goes well and my two cents fall on the floor but the Director tells me his kids are doing well and his son scored his first goal and I'm actually interested because this life he leads is so far from my solitude and bachelor life and I can't help but think of that girl in Vegas so I go outside and have a cigarette and curse myself for allowing myself to feel this way and 'Erin' calls and I promise to meet her at Cat in the Fiddle tonight. The 'Star' then complements me as he bums a cigarette and I realize that he is as handsome as they portray him and we talk about how Jennifer Lopez is actually fat and gross and how there are a million more beautiful latinos in East Los Angeles and her fat talentless ass should be burned off film and I'm surprised he says all this and it makes me like him more and now I wish I had gotten to know him better as the shoot draws to a close. I go to one of the offices on the lot as the Black Tower stands over us and I hang out with a producer friend of mine who's going nuts because Sony is passing on a project that, I agree, is a million dollar project and I don't know why but I'm sure we'll find out soon and he hates his job but loves this life and I have to agree. My day ends on the set and I'm invited to stay till the end of the day and watch the dailies but the rest of the shoot could last till midnight and I hate watching take after take of an actor fucking up my lines so I leave and chat with the gate guy at the Sony Lot and he smiles happily and I admire him for not ever being star struck and just trying to get by to go home to whatever life he leads far away from Hollywood and sometimes I wish I was him. I'm at an internet cafe getting a latte strong to wake me up so I can deal with 'Erin' and I decide that tonight is the night I'm going to figure out if I should ever see her again and now my phone rings and it's the girl from Vegas and I'm frozen. . .I should answer it. But I don't. I look around, for some reason feeling exposed right now and then the of a voice message being left sounds and I stare at my cell phone. '1 missed call. . .1 new voice mail'.

Chum For the Shark Tank

I wake up this morning still tired from the weekend. My dreams last night were consumed with nightmarish images of strippers gorging themselves on pills and me naked with no cock and too much lube. This is called Sunday Night Fright, the mental dance our minds engage in when blasted by intoxicants the night before, a feeble attempt by our consciousness to ask us not to pursue such adventures again. I called the girl from Vegas to see how she was doing last night, which was my mistake because she left a message on my home phone this morning, which was the number I gave her in Vegas by accident, and 'Erin' was over making me breakfast and she wasn't happy and I think she spit in the scrambled eggs that I didn't eat because I felt sick and I didn't really care because she's not my girlfriend and as she left I wondered if I was capable of sustaining anything meaningful while miring myself in the self-indulgence that my fortune has allowed. I managed to put on my clothes and head to my agency where my agent kept me waiting for almost too long and I hated being there and watching the poor saps of mailroom boys dressed like they were on wall street but making barely 10 bucks an hour pushing around mail carts and being taunted by the girl assistants who probably wouldn't get too far up the Hollywood food chain until they slept their way to the top. That's how an Executive at Warner Brothers did it. Ask anyone. Her under the desk antics should be legendary. When my agent finally saw me he let out a disturbed sigh as he told me my on-set attitude needs to change because it reflects on him but he didn't want me to compromise who I was because that's how you get eatin. . .just 'tone it down' a bit till this second one comes out. I nod, blankly, and wonder how much coke he did this weekend, or is doing tonight, and ask him if I can get any premiere tickets so I can impress a girl and he likes my frankness, the frankness he's asking me to 'tone down', and laughs and says he'll 'see what he can do', which means 'maybe not', and I tell him 'i'm sure you'll work something out', which means 'your ten percent is riding on these crappy tickets', and he says, 'thing's always fall into place'. which means 'I understand and yes, as Gordon Gecko as I want to be, I don't own a company and you own me'. We fake a smile and I leave, telling the assistant that we should go out sometime and he loves it and I don't mind because I feel sorry for him and I know that having a drink with a client would make his month. I drive around endlessly for hours, staring at girls and thinking about stopping to shop for new clothes, new gadgets, new furniture, but all I get is a new twelve pack of Corona's and I head home after sunset on Sunset. It's only 8:30 but I'm still tired from Vegas so I open up a beer and proceed to get buzzed so the sleep will be better tonight and I wish I had some weed. God I need to work on my next great idea. Maybe tommorrow. Should I call that girl? Never. Someone called me a waste of humanity, or something like that. Perhaps I am. . .but at least I get laid a lot.