HUMPING
My month began with humping on a Malibu beach. Not me, alas. A guy, mid 30s, and… a hooker. I assume she was paid? Then again, maybe… hmmm… maybe he was just an eyesore of a guy in a suit that just happened to be dating a twenty year old beauty pageant with a penchant for blowing in broad daylight on a week day? An ugly rich guy that got lucky? It’s strange that neither of them noticed the family 10 metres away, building a sand castle while the pageant bobbed her head up and down under a blanket as discreet as a tea towel. And even more surprising that they failed to notice Bozza, Shane and I standing up watching in the front row, right there on the shoreline, a stone’s throw away from the live sex act? One thing’s for sure … there was a lot of flotsam that day… We climbed the cliff and watched the rest of the show from the royal box. Bozza filmed, Shane giggled and I played with myself. When we got to the rubbled parking lot there were only three cars and one had a baby carriage. It didn’t take Einstein to eliminate and deduce which was the Johns car. I left a note:
“Wicked show! It’ll be on youtube at midnight…”
Why did I recount this? Well … Since moving to Laurel Canyon, once famed for its rock star inhabitants and debauched parties, I have made a hermit’s perch in the hills and spend ample time alone writing. When I do rear my head even for five minutes, let alone a rebellious day trip to the beach, shit like that happens – ALL THE TIME. I’m wondering whether I’m attracting it because it is fuel for my scripts, OR whether the world has got more mad, small and silly?
SEX AND THE CITY…
Awful film, great soundtrack. I’m biased coz my sister’s music is in the movie, but hopefully she won’t mind me airing my opinion of the movie itself… As the late genius comedian Bill Hicks once said about ‘Basic Instinct’ – “Piece of shit! Walk away! WALK AWAY! – PIECE OF SHIT”… Angry ranting aside – PIECE OF SHIT MOVIE! – it got me thinking about sex and the city, not New York, but the City of Angels. In the past months I’ve been dry as a bone. Not a smidgen of action to write home about, not even clam typing. Is it because nearly two years ago, I hopped from the Rock God with big balls and an acorn of a penis to a guy in a wheelchair who had a penis the size of the Andes mountain range, to a one night stand with a 6-foot five Bear Man in possession of a not even bite size sausage, to a guy who dislocated his nut on our first night of carnal activity? Do not question the authenticity of what heart secrets I have just laid bare. It is all 100% true… If truth be told, I left out the one night lesbian action that saw me fly off a bed and spend half the night next to a vibrator called "The Rocket" because, compared to the men, it was a "what you see is what you get" kinda affair. The others... they were all such strange encounters…
As I pretend to be Sarah Jessica Parker in front of my mirror wearing an outfit that would look better on a goose, one of the questions I pose is – am I attracting these mysterious sexual encounters because I have a darn good sense of humour and it is fuel for my scripts? Or, in another outfit that resembles a puffed up bag lady wearing sparkly Wellington boots, I ask whether the world has got more mad, small and silly?
BREAD
Whether we create reality or whether reality creates us, there is no doubt that coincidences happen ALL THE TIME… I was hiking up my hill in Laurel Canyon with my sister, telling her how I’ve noticed that if I give my attention to particular people in the hood, notice them behaving strangely or sense something about them, however small, they will somehow enter my reality in trippy ways. For example, when I first drove up my street 6 months ago to check out the rentals, a seemingly ‘high’ English woman helped direct me up the narrow trail. A day later I passed her again in the same spot and this time she said, “Did you find what you were looking for?”, in that fortune teller, psychic type, crystal ball tone. Or was it crystal meth tone? Anyways, she hit me with a weird look and then… I saw her one more time after that outside her wooden shack… then I never saw her again UNTIL, 5 months later I’m walking with my writing partner Thomas up the trail, telling him about the time I met the crystal meth lady…
From the plateau viewpoint at the top of my street you can gaze over Los Angeles to the ocean. It affords a spectacular view of mountains, Hollywood sign, observatory, downtown and… the wooden shack… Thomas gazed down and noticed the spooky wooden house. As we meandered down the hill, he happened to put his trash in a garbage can without realizing it was the same house he had pointed out from the peak. Then, in the same moment that I relay to him that this is the house owned by the woman I had been telling him about, he exclaims while holding open the garbage can - “Aaaah! Georgia! Take a look at this…” – And, inside the garbage is a ouija board.
So fast forward a month, and I’m now telling this to my sister as we hike past the same house. I’m explaining how, as a writer, it doesn’t matter that most of the time I’m a hermit in Disney land because as soon as I step out shit happens. Just in the moment that I tell her about the ouija board, we both stop dead in our tracks… to the side of the trail, on a spike, is a fresh loaf of bread. The perfectly shaped loaf on the spike sat under two photographs tacked on a wall: a sunset scene and a dog bearing its lethal teeth. Both the bread and the photographs were under a deadly nightshade plant containing enough Datura blossom to destroy 250,000 neural pathways. What the ****? My sister gets a little spooked. I’m thinking, “Welcome to Laurel Canyon, Jim Morrison is fucking with us from the grave.” We stroll around the corner and there is the local lady I fondly call – the Welsh Witch - and an actor who was big in the 80s, sitting on a bench having a cup of tea.
“What’s with the bread on the spike up the hill and the trippy pictures?” I said.
“Oh that’ll be Shakey…” she said matter of factly.
“But what’s with the bread?” I said
“He’s got a source.” said the 80s actor.
“A source?”
The Welsh Witch held up a bag of bagels.
“Do you want them? We’ve got too many.”
My sister and I are now beyond confused.
“Right, Cool, Yeah I’ll take a bag of fresh bagels, “I said.
My sister and I went on our way, munching bread, when we noticed more bread, just lying there on a driveway. Then another loaf. And another. Weird. Funny though right? Like weird funny. Like when you feel turned on by something sick.
I’m wondering whether I attracted the bread on the spike because it is fuel for my scripts, OR whether the world has got more mad, small and silly?
MENTALLY RETARDED NEXT DOOR NEIGHBORS
Have you had one? Not a learning difficulty case… I mean fully-fledged psycho neighbour – the whole works, the entire anti-rational package?
I met mine last Tuesday. I was watering the herbs on my deck when she leant over and commented on my basil.
“You growing basil?” She loudly vocalised while leaning over her deck, gazing down at mine.
I turned off the hose already feeling the darkness of the encounter… I’d heard that Shannon was “work”, but had safely avoided contact for my entire 6 months tenancy.
“Yeah, I’m growing three different types of basil.” I replied.
“My deck is better than your deck. Even though yours seems bigger, mine is better.”
“Did she really just say that?” I internally registered.
“You wanna see it, wanna see it, wanna see it?” She pressed…
“Erm… I’m kinda busy right now, but if you need to find a tenant I have lots of friends…”
“Honey, there are TONS of people who want to live here with me. TONS. I just meant do YOU wanna see it?”
And, this is where it gets super-trippy, like when you’ve just realized that the mushrooms you took three hours earlier are suddenly working… EVERYTHING warps into another dimension…
As if on Broadway, Shannon launched into song at top volume, AT ME –
“Anything you can do I can do better! Anything I can do better than you…”
Dumbstruck, holding my floppy hose, I gawked with an awkward smile. When she finally came to a close, I replied with Jedi deflection –
“Are you a singer? You should be. What a great voice. I gotta scoot now, to a meeting. Nice meeting you… You will not talk to me ever again and I can go on my way... you will not talk to me ever again and I can go on my way...”
BAM! That is what I call mentally retarded. Transpires that she’s the neighbourhood’s “aggressive drunk”. Great for a script though, right? Which brings me back to my questions, my quandaries and uncertainties about this odd life I seem to be suddenly living here in the US of A… Am I attracting this stuff because God has a really warped sense of humour and wants me writing this shit down?
DEATH
Then it hits you… in the midst of everything, every day people are dying. Every day. Every god damn moment, someone is dying, someone is losing their loved one, someone is weeping from the heart of their being and praying…
Someone I love died this week. It wasn’t sudden or unexpected, but it still kicks you, right? I witnessed myself weep to the core, feeling the wound of love as it hit me another level that everyone I love is going to die. Me too. Everyone without exception. It puts the petty shit into perspective. It is a necessary consideration. It allows a space in the heart to smash open…
I suddenly felt –
“Whoa, if we all lived every day on the basis that we’re all vulnerable to death, all fragile to the wound of mortality, maybe there would be a little less honking on the freeway?”
“Maybe, just maybe, if we considered that those sour faces and grimaced expressions we encounter every day come from sad, melancholy people enduring the sickness or loss of a loved one, we might not retaliate with anything less than an understanding smile, a courtesy lane change, a generous and feeling response… I have a dream… ”
In the Great Spiritual Traditions they say that it takes approximately three days for the body to transition after a passing. During that time, it is profound to meditate and pray for a safe and easeful transition for your loved one. Taking this on board is a remarkable gift to the spirit… Out of feeling this death, a layer around my heart has been peeled away. And despite all the jokes and the sillyness and the ambition and the passion and the commotion and the craziness of every day LIFE, I can say with my hand on my heart, in moments of Communion with The Great Mysterious One, there is no problem about any of it whatsoever. As the Great Sage Adi Da says, Love is indeed Always Already The Case…
p.s. Turns out, there is a dealer in the neighborhood and he hides his merchandise inside loaves of bread! Ssssshhh! If you spot a loaf on a spike might be worth slipping into your bag ;-)
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