Mad World

The smog from Los Angeles sometimes drifts high enough in the Hills to blanket the area in a sick fog that you can't see and it's worse because you can feel it and the dirt gets under your skin and you think, for a moment, that this grime is what I may become if I get tossed deeper and deeper into the grime of the city. Monday and Tuesday were spent in self imposed quarantine because I'll be travelling from company to company next week pitching a new horror movie that I doubt will get picked up but my Agent thinks it may be good enough to get some type of deal out, or at least pique some more interest around town. I polish and re polish the treatment and miring myself in this horror landscape that I've produced through my broken dreams and other people's nightmares slowly drives me mad and by Wednesday I have to leave my home. I go to Melrose with 'George' and smoke cigarettes and watch punk rocker wannabe's walk by and more people look like their picking up the 80s New Wave look and the white trash rocker look (thanks Ashton, for fucking that up) is slowly making its way out. So much so that Tears for Fears is playing over and over in my head and I swear the girl next to us in the small plaid skirt is lip-synching 'Shout' as she sketches us, thinking we don't notice. We leave and go to 'Darryl's house where 'George' picks up a gram and we sit around and do lines and I start opening up and talk about 'Beth' and for some reason 'Darryl' and 'George' keep giving each other looks and I ask them 'what' and they say 'nothing' and its slightly unnerving, or that may just be the drugs. Time passes quickly and soon its night and I'm not hungry but we go to Dolce and order plates of food we don't eat and drink more alchohol and leave with boxes of food that 'Darryl' gives to a homeless guy outside and I'm surprised that my drug dealer is so philanthropic. Someone 'George' knows runs into us and almost knocks me over and he looks burnt out and he tells 'George' that someone named 'Erickson' is dead, but maybe he's talking about his cell phone. Either way 'George' doesn't look too distressed and says 'not cool, dude' and we jump into Darryl's Infinity FX and chase the winding streets of Beverly Crest and come to an enormous house overlooking the other mountains to the west and we are high enough that you can even see the ocean. The entire interior is pink and white and girls are dressed in white and pink and the guys are wearing seer sucker suits and I'm in a t-shirt and jeans and feel awkward but when the host finds out we're with 'Darryl' we're welcome and I get a call from 'Beth' but I don't want her to know what I'm doing. . .not yet, at least, and 'George' asks me if 'Erin' called me yet and I don't know why she would. I go outside and smoke a cigarette and drink a Jack and Coke and i have no interest in talking to the girls here and that is probably good because I feel like babbling about 'Beth' but I'm afraid to around 'George' and 'Darryl' because I'm paranoid. And the night sky looks beautiful and it's clear over here. I take a cab back at 4am after dancing almost too long to Huey Lewis and the News and when I get home my door is open. I slink around back, and find 'Erin' drinking a Cosmo on my balcony and she is playing Tears for Fears 'Mad World' and I climb through my bedroom window and sit by my desk and send 'Beth' an email saying that I want to do dinner Thursday night and take her out with some friends and now I have to walk outside and listen to Tears for Fears and talk to 'Erin' and I'm confused...I can't tell if she actually cares about me all of a sudden or if she's crazy. My vote is crazy, and I remind myself to get my house keys back from her before she leaves. 'Erin' looks beautiful and she hugs me when she sees me and says, over and over, 'sorry' and she is as gorgeous as everyone imagines and she tells me she's tired from staying up all night waiting for me and pulls me into the bedroom and I want to protest but the way she kisses me is something you would understand if you've ever been kissed by someone who, for no reason you can explain, can completely control you, sexually. We fall in bed and have sex and I regret it after and she's asleep and I lie awake for hours and eventually close my eyes as I feel her arm cross my chest and now its morning and 'Beth' sends me an excited email about tonight and 'Erin' is still lying in my bed and her eyes open and she smiles at me and I'm going nuts trying to figure out why it melts me inside when she does and it's almost noon. . .

Comments

[Alf]

I hope New Wave makes a comeback. Sometimes, when I read your posts, I can't help but think that maybe you wrote this while in the 80s. . .

[Sass]

You cad, you.
maybe it's because........
she's a beautuful woman.

Sass

Holy shit! You are such a fucking fly on my wall.

"I'm surprised that my drug dealer is so philanthropic." I mean-- fucking hell every other thing you wrote had me ROLLING on the floor with hysterical recognition. Crawl in your damn window fool & write an email while she's waiting on the veranda....-- that was hysterical and accurate. I'm dyin!

Huey Lewis--- Dude-- You need to see American Psycho if you haven't already. I think yo'd you'd it and the sequel.

I don't know how old or how experinced Beth or Erin are... but the way you're acting ... the way you're bouncing back & forth undecided between two or more women while you're trying to figure out how you feel-- Honey.. don't be hard on yourself--that's STANDARD PROCEDURE in LA, but not many admit it. I'd be shocked to find a guy who didn't behave that way anywhere in California.

It's like every guy that's ever been capable of falling in love with me-- of feeling a deep attraction and a supreme mangnetic control-- those guys for whatever reason feel that way about another woman too at the same damn time, & there's this constant frenetic tension, a pulling back & pushing forward of affection and desire and anxious lust between the two, mixed with a fear of promise and a fear of loss, stuck in an overwhelming and unabiding triangularness. It's like radiation, a sick but electric fission, an internal ringing that won't quit.

It's like... there are single nice guys that don't really make me fall in passionate love at all, they just get comfortable, and they bore me to tears, and then there are guys that fall in love with every other woman they hook up with-- they're lovers of love... and they love whoever they meet. They're frustrating and their feisty and they're highly sexed and lonely, and they always smell like other women. Drives me crackers in a bad way and a good way and in a mad way-- a crazy way when I fall for one. Oh YEAH--You go get your keys back boy! She's not gonna give up that kind of control without a fight-- do you want that? :)

You remind me of Pink's song "Many Personalities."

BTW: Don't you ever practice Rocker? When's the last time you picked up your guitar? When's the last time you wrote a song? When's the last time you sang for yourself in a place where you weren't paranoid? Ok-- I'm hella nosy. It's none of my business-- but you're way cool brother.

[nikola1tesla]

Damn-- forgot to sign in. You knew that was me.

[Sass]

...and you know....
doing drugs on top of evrything else....what nikola1tesla said....PLUS.....drugs make you incrediable paranoid and fling your emotions straight up and straight down....(from what I've heard..)

seriously. That only tends to confuse things more.

Swear to God, Rocker if you are realistic about "finding all the answers" you need to stop the drugs for awhile.....(hate to say it but that includes alchohol)and then try working things out.....

AND get your keys back.

Sounds like you've tried everything else.
What could it hurt?

later

Sass

[Entity Behind Pepito]

I have no advice for you my friend, except keep writing.

[nikola1tesla]

PERPITOR!!!!!!!!! Baby it's great to see you posting!!! I'm glad to see you're still around. :) I've got the happies!!

[Sass]

Oh, Pepito!
Don't say that. I'm sure there's some insight on women....Rocker might find interesting.

Maybe not.

Great to see you around, bud.
And we can't comment at your pad anymore?
WTF?

Sass

[nikola1tesla]

BTW.... I was laughing so hard at the "philanthropic" thought... but I'll tell a you.... and I think you probably already know.... a lot of drug dealers know exactly what it's like to grow up hungry with no food on the table & no nice clothes on their back-- they watch their moms whore and their dad's rot in jail, die early deaths, or succumb to their own insanity. They don't see too many ways up & out, they see dealing as a business where if they don't take the risks & make the money, giving people what they're going to buy anyway for their own escapes.... someone else will. Some of those guys can be extremely kind to people on the streets. Beyond buying good will from the locals-- I think a lot of dealers see themselves as angels of mercy in a way-- as people who ease the anxiety & pain of really needy addicts who aren't willing to quit. Drug dealing isn't the picnic it looks like-- it's a nightmare where everyone wants something all the time-- everyone's hungry-- and him stopping to give his food to the homeless in the middle of that gritty grimey LA jungle seems like a healthy balance-- a way to give back in a very basic, primal, human way in a world with so much synthetic insanity. There are some very philanthropic drug dealers around-- for whatever reason... whether they feel it's a penance for sins, or it's proof of a better understanding of the human condition than most churches show, I'm not sure. You might be surprised-- but I bet you have an idea-- you weren't always well off I'm guessing.

[nikola1tesla]

Perpitor!......

If you're checking here.... a friend of yours wants to say HI. So... I'm fowarding this message from my page on to you here, as your own comments are broken right now.

Replies 1 - 2 of 2.

"October 1, 2004 10:19 PM
Re: PEPITO'S BACK!!!!!!!!!!!...

I don't get how this works. Maybe it's just the whiskey. I thought Pepito was dead maybe. Ask that guy to come see me if you run into him.
gusopenshaw - reply"

What do you want me to tell him? You owe him money or sell him bad dope or screw his sister or something? If your trying to stay outta sight.. you can hide in my basement, brother. It's nice, & it wouldn't be the first time I harbored a fugitive for love. On the other hand-- maybe Gus just wants to share some whiskey with you & say hi. If that's the case... can I come too?

[JCanuck]

Baaaaaaaaaaad Rocker... lol

[JCanuck]

I just realized that you have taken your email link off of your blog.

[nikola1tesla]

"someone named 'Erickson' is dead, but maybe he's talking about his cell phone"

You got some real zingers in there this time -- I keep coming through lookin for the next hit of you.

[nikola1tesla]

"someone named 'Erickson' is dead, but maybe he's talking about his cell phone"

You got some real zingers in there this time -- I keep coming through lookin for the next hit of you.