#149

first day on the job coming right up parked outside about to meet the old babysitter or nanny whatever you want to call her and she is gonna show me the ropes yeah show me how my monday through friday for who knows how long is gonna be hopefully not that long but it will be awhile judging by my current level of screenwriting success or maybe not considering the uptick of good things people are saying about our stuff and claiming they are going to do with it ha we will see wont we in this infamous business in this infamous city of infamous lies and broken deals and stabbing backs and pissing on hydrants and other primal rude stuff that makes this place as gloriously fucked up as any place in cyberspace and beyond jeez i am surrounded by towering mansions and manicured lawns that the tenants take for granted heebie jeebies in manicured mansion land pickpocket feeling reeling from the big bread zone i seem to have infiltrated honestly with the threat of monotony around every turn its just a placeholder he tells himself a way to get by until the purse pops and he absconds with his brain to mexico city twenty two million people on the otro lado and the promise of the unknown

#148

welcome to the valley of the shadow of los angeles the san fernando melting pot of weirdness and blandness and myth and surface and hidden doors in unassuming strip malls magic hidden place out in the open hidden by universal citywalk hidden by improvement districts hiding dive bars for the good freaks and private rooms for the bad freaks hidden by all the normal folks with no clue these stories are going on around them the heroin dealer next door hidden by the bobs big boy sign and the money laundry hidden inside the karaoke bar and the prostitutes hidden beneath the hand carwash sign on ventura boulevard and the ghosts hidden between the lost years of the mission and the entire porn industry hidden right out in the open in unmarked warehouses or proud office buildings and the swingers hidden in suburban splendor off moorpark and serial bodies hidden in the tall grass of neglected orange groves and the deception of audiences hidden in the great stages of warner brothers and the choice the love the desperation hidden on the curves of mulholland drive

#147

procrastination is the mother of depression and i am her grievous child the pitiful orphan within the robe of the ghost of christmas present with a minnesota twins cap and a beaten down pair of wranglers looking all in all like an emaciated michael moore with some sort of fear transmuted into anger turned inwards then outwards depending on my momentary fortitude looking not seeking running without destination like some uncharismatic forrest gump cursed with a good brain and motivational idiocy setting myself up to be a twenty first century emily dickinson with piles of manuscripts and notebooks and a hard drive full of words at my funeral they will all say who knew that he was a writer and from beyond the grave will shout back i tried to tell you lousy motherfuckers i even sent you scripts to read and i put my music up on facebook and itunes but you never bothered to consume it because who knows why because im a poor self promoter because my humility got in the way of tootin my own horn because shyness kept me from schmoozing the fat cats instead of talking to the shy dude in the corner

#146

of course i can prove the baby is mine its my wife isnt it hey are you saying my wifes been humping around behind my back why thats impossible im home everyday at five thirty when would she have time during the middle of the day why shes got house chores to do like tidying and fixing dinner and shopping and such why it amazes me that she gets done what she gets done during the day and to think youd accuse her of having an affair why sure we have a garden boy that comes over and sure we have a pool boy but your not saying no way jim why theyre only in their twenties they wouldnt be attracted to an old woman like my wife well i guess youre right thirty ones not too old for a woman these days hey i know my wifes attractive i dont need you reminding me you might give ideas youre making me paranoid you know that why i havent been suspicious or nothing til you come around here stirring up the pot now listen here mister are you trying to tell me something are you the one diddling my wife no im sorry jim but your the one that put the damn idea in my head

#145

los angeles is a place where living things go to die and dead things go to live and hibernating things go to get sunburnt and grapes go to get sunkist and bums go to get some style and writers go to see the dark side and desperation goes to flourish and cars go to sit in traffic and beer goes to be drunk by drunks and pot goes to be vaporized by pot scientists and the skinny go to get skinnier and the fat go to stay inside and the mexicans go to see their families and the armenians go to escape genocide and the koreans go to take over downtown and music goes to get its veneers and christians go to get scared and the sun goes at the end of the day and old cars go to get pimped and the cool breeze goes to fan the flame and maniacs go on their way to hell and wisconsin goes to be in the american idol audience and serial killers go to inspire noir stories and boulevards go to be seven lanes wide and the high schoolers go to eat at in n out burger and the strange businessmen go to work in a strange cluster of tall buildings and words go to page before the brain fries on pavement

#144

nice pen ben what a nice pen that is whered you get it whered it come from last time i saw a pen like that was in a display case at the amsterdam airport in eighty nine i was there for vacation just visiting anne franks house and stuff and that nice art museum there with all the famous paintings and all and i tried weed there i didnt like it it made me paranoid i thought my kids were gonna find out oh and i tried shrooms you know the ones that make you see things so i was in this big park they got there and i said hey theres an ear in that tree and my friend was like shut up youre seeing things because of the mushrooms and i was like i dont think so look and he was like oh shit i see it too so we walked closer and it was a big papier mache ear some crazy artist had made up and stuck it in the tree and we started laughing so hard my chest started seizing up i think partly on account of the mushrooms but i couldnt stop even though it hurt like hurt to laugh but anyway nice pen ben

#143

jesus god how much agony can one soul take without even the promise of some goddam ecstasy even wagner had some joyful moments amid his potato eating misery of unproduced madness and here i am in blustery laurel canyon pissing into a ditch my mind turning mushy from lack of outcome i think i am a good writer because everyone tells me so but i cannot get anything to come of my productivity in fact i cant even get a job to support myself and i am gonna have to move into some flophouse closet with bunkbeds and used syringes and beer cans full of newport ashes and sticky floors maybe i should get a job at a hostel and just be impoverished until a magical quentin tarantino moment materializes out of the ether because all this proactivity is getting me nowhere at the speed of light speaking of which isnt calfornia supposed to be sunny and warm and not cloudy and blustery and cold like it has been since november when the rains started and all these quality screenplays started pouring out of me to no satisfying conclusion but what choice does a lowly writer have but to keep pressing on in the face of jesus god how much agony