Mike’s Two Visits
My
friend Mike, who was in law school, who let me stay at his apartment in New
York many times, who I counted amongst my best friends, who flew by the seat of
his pants, who came to visit me in Los Angeles twice, who stayed at the Beverly
Hills Hotel the first time, and the W Hotel the second time, who had no real
serious reason for visiting beyond wanting to have some fun on a vacation to
California—he has always surprised me.
The first time he came was in March, and the second time he came was in May. The first time we went to Disneyland and
California Adventure, and the second time we went to Magic Mountain. The first time we went to an Atlas Sound
concert and Lakers vs. Raptors game in the same night, and the second time we
went to a Dodgers game. The first time
we walked around Beverly Hills and the second time we walked around Westwood. The first time I interviewed for a job at UCLA
Medical and bought an LSAT Test Prep book after at a Borders in Westwood, and
we had California Pizza Kitchen afterwards with a few friends (Sycamore, Molly,
Kenny—a young and successful photographer—and Jara, a Cal State-Northridge
student in art) and then we went back to my apartment for a few minutes while
he read me LSAT sample questions and watched me smoke a bowl and then we went
to see Horton Hears a Who at a
theater in Santa Monica. Sycamore had
bought a marijuana candy bar that Jara and I split, paying him $5 each. Those candy bars can be expensive. But half of one provided a noticeable
buzz—which I especially noticed during the scene where Horton turned into a
Japanime-style cartoon.
The
fact was, when Mike came into town, I actually did things. When I wasn’t
going out with friends, I wasn’t doing anything but holing up in my apartment,
writing or smoking pot and listening to music, or going for intermittent runs,
or figuring out what I was going to eat for dinner, or breakfast, or lunch, or
watching my LCD flat-screen television with digital cable that I paid $130 a
month for, or going on the internet when it felt like a good way to divert
myself, or reading books when I had the motivation to digest something bigger
than myself.
Mike
came in towards the middle of March, around March 12 or 13 or so. I think it was just three days in the middle
of the week. I don’t remember if I took
work off for those days or if he tried to make it over the weekend. No, he stayed into the weekend. He left on Sunday, I am pretty sure. I feel like he came in Tuesday, and we just
spent the night lazing around Beverly Hills, going to some restaurant with
outdoor seating and drinking a very expensive bottle of wine. Then I feel like on Wednesday night we did
the Atlas Sound thing after going to the Lakers game. Then I feel like on Thursday we went to
Disneyland, and I had taken the day off work for that. Then I feel like I had taken the day off
Friday as well, and had just gone in for the interview in Westwood, and had met
up with Mike and everyone else in the area at CPK before deciding to see the
movie that night. I think we spent the
earlier part of Friday going around Venice Beach and then I had dropped him off
at his hotel and gone back to my apartment and gotten changed for the
interview. I know we tried to go the
Chateau Marmont bar Friday night, and now I feel like Mike just left on that
Saturday. Yes, I think that’s the way it
worked. We went to Bar Marmont after
seeing the movie on this first visit, and decided it was such a cool place to
hang out that we went there during his second visit in May as well.
But
this section deserves an homage to Mike as a person—because the events we
signed up to attend or the activities we decided to perform do not properly
explain our friendship. No, our
friendship goes back some seven years, to the first time I met him in his dorm
room, because a friend of mine was high school friends with his roommate. This isn’t about college though—that can be
saved for a later time—one hopes it will not fade from my memory. But we truly did become close near the end of
college—when he studied abroad in Florence and let me act as babysitter to his
Jerome Baker bong, which catapulted me into the excessive stoner I became over
the ensuing years. When he returned he
picked it back up, and someone else left for the summer and let me babysit
their piece as well. That same summer we
took a class together, and he rented his great loft apartment in the village
for the first time, and we enjoyed one of the last almost totally carefree
periods of our lives.
Over the Fall semester of our
senior year, we fell into a predictable pattern that I loved and appreciated,
which was—I would rarely smoke pot at my apartment, because my roommate
Ed—while certainly one of the coolest roommates I have ever had, regardless—was
not very enthusiastic about the stuff (he wanted to get in the Navy
SEALs). Mike would call me around 5:30
or 6 almost every day of the week and ask me if I would want to come over and
smoke a bowl. As busy as I found myself,
I always had time for that, and I would walk down two blocks and right
two-and-a-half from 14th St. and 3rd Ave. to his
place. And we would smoke and listen to
many of the same songs off his iPod and I always felt somewhat safe while in
that vicinity. I particularly remember
Halloween night that year—when neither of us really mentioned anything about
going out—and we just stayed in his apartment and smoked and watched the old
version of The Haunting on TCM and
heard random sounds in his apartment and started to think it was haunted
too. Later, perhaps after we graduated,
and whenever I would visit, we fell into the rhythm of playing a variety of
baseball video games for Nintendo Gamecube and XBOX 360. After graduating, he stayed in the area for a
year and prepared for law school, and I went home. I went to South Carolina before even
graduating and he was one of a dozen or so friends that happened to make it
down for Spring Break. After moving to
Chicago, and getting my own apartment there, he came to visit the first summer,
while I continued to visit New York intermittingly. Finally, these two trips to L.A. These are the last two times I have seen him.
We went to the Lakers game because
it seemed like the thing to do. We
bought a mojito and some other vaguely complex mixed drink from this particular
concession stand where they guy serving the drinks gave us a few dollars off
each drink. He was just being super nice
to us for no reason. That was the high
point of the game—that guy was cool.
Jack Nicholson was at the same game as us, and I swore I saw Lindsay
Lohan with some new boyfriend (this was after she had attended rehab and this
is before it seemed like she was more interested in girls) and I really wanted
to run into her after the game and tell her to join us for the concert, because
it was going to be the coolest place to be in the city that night. We left about with a few minutes left in the
game because I was nervous about being late for Atlas Sound’s set. The Lakers ended up winning. The Lakers ended up going all the way to the
finals the season I was in L.A.
And I’m sorry, but I really can’t
go on without mentioning something is going on right now. I’m being terrorized by an online presence. This person on an internet message-board—who
I seriously suspect of being the same anonymous person who was the subject of
the “literary criticism” segment—because I happen to mention something about
wondering whether I can call myself bi-polar—because every other day I feel
good, and every other day I feel like I just want to crawl into a hole and
die—now it has turned into an argument about my revisionary practices. I will be clear: I despise this person. I would say “I despise this woman,” because I
am 95% sure she is a woman, but I can’t be entirely sure do to the internet’s
shadowy nature. She is absolutely
terrorizing me. When I get a message in
my Gmail account, and I see that she has replied to a post of mine, a lump pops
up in my chest. She never says anything
nice to me at all. She hates me. And I’m very sick and tired of being part of
the same community as her—I wish she would change her ways, but I know she
won’t. She’s telling me I need to seek
therapy—but not in the gentle, concerned way most people tell you to seek
therapy. She’s telling me to seek
therapy basically because she doesn’t like me, and probably hopes that I’ll
stop writing, and stop posting on the same message-board as her. She pays way too much attention to me and it
seriously bothers me that she’s obsessed with telling me how stupid I am. Here is an excerpt that particularly bothers
me: “Help-rejection complaining.
That's what you do. You ask for help (feedback on your work) and then reject
the advice/feedback and then complain about how your life sucks. Blah, blah,
blah. You DO need therapy?”
First of all, I haven’t even asked for
feedback on this forum—it was on the NaNoWriMo forum, and nobody bothered me
there. Second of all, this is NaNoWriMo,
let’s not talk about revision until we finish our draft, okay? Third of all, don’t make those kind of snap
judgments about me when you don’t even know me in real life. You’re choosing to devise an interpretation
of the most despicable kind. And then
she (he?) happens to say that I do need therapy but with a somewhat difficult
to understand question mark. I would
write all of this in reply but then I would just get more of a pissed off
response than I will already be receiving, soon. I wrote to her (him?) that we should be
respecting each other and offering positive inspiration. I wrote that I wondered if she (he?) just got
a kick out of pointing out how backwards I am when it comes to writing. I just wanted to say this here—that this is
an ongoing situation which bothers me—I wish everyone that communicated with me
online would be my friend, not some enemy that feels more like a grade-school
bully than a fellow publishing hopeful.
I will say one more thing—and don’t freak out on me here!—but it would
make a great short story, if I had to kill myself but decided to go on a
cross-country odyssey to find and murder this person because I had been so
disgusted by her (his?) comments and then kill myself afterwards because
obviously, life would cease to have value for me.
Thank you for letting me vent a bit
there, and add it to my word count. I
usually don’t have a problem with anybody personally—I just have a problem with
the world at large, with the stage of society that I have been born into, and
the crushing fear that comes with fitting into this overcrowded,
highly-educated, highly-specialized workforce which seems to reject me based on
my most basic human qualities which are rather difficult for me to change.
Despite his high-level of success,
Mike has never been critical of me to the point of being mean. He went along with me to Atlas Sound even
though he didn’t know anything about them.
Bradford Cox is the singer and it is mostly his solo project and it is
just about as compelling to me as his other, bigger band Deerhunter. They’re one of my favorite bands right now,
and Cox is one of my favorite artists—in large part because he’s messed up, and
has turned his illnesses and weaknesses into extraordinarily powerful art. I’m messed up too, and I hope one day I’ll be
able to eclipse that because of the art I was able to put into the world.
We drove from the Staples Center
downtown southwest a mile or two into Echo Park and found a good parking spot
right by the Echo. We went inside and
Atlas Sound was next up on stage and we still had about thirty or forty-five
minutes until they would play. I was
wearing my red Adidas headband. I went
outside in the backyard area of the Echo for a cigarette, and could hear Cox
out there talking to somebody, sitting at a picnic table. It had to have been a blogger or
journalist. I had wanted to interview
him myself for my blog, but didn’t have the digital audio recorder I would
require for that intention. I finished
my cigarette and waited inside and he came in a few minutes later and started
the set and he made some kind of banter about at one point about a bandanna or
something weird and I thought maybe he had made some kind of reference to me,
but that’s probably just me being crazy, and then he played an awesome louder,
faster version of “Ativan,” my favorite song on the album, and the show ended,
and we left.
The next day I think I wrote a poem
about the experience. In my little
orange journal. On a cigarette break
during my work at Jefferies and Co.
These cigarette break poems should get their own anthology section, but
due to the sensitive nature of this particular poem, it will be kept alongside
its antecedent experience:
Incident:Shy
I walked out
To the patio for a smoke
I heard your voice
I heard a few words
Like transgressive
Get thrown around
I wanted to ask
For your autograph
In my diary
But I couldn’t
The last thing left to wonder
Did you see me?
On stage and in the crowd
We faced each other perfectly
When you mentioned a bandanna
In your banter
And I was the only one there
Wearing a headband
I thought it might be
A secret message
But that’s just how crazy I am
Still I wonder
Did you see me?
I could have waited for you
After the show
Told you I wanted to interview you
Showed you the 20 songs I wrote
Which you inspired
Told you that you were
The third person I saw perform
In a Wipers t-shirt
Told you how much you meant to me
But I decided to wait
Until I see you again.
That was the second night and the
next day we went to Disneyland and I was very excited. I had gone a few months earlier, and had the
visit cut short, and then I had gone for a rescheduled visit due to that
incident with my roommate one night where there were hardly any crowds, but I
don’t remember when exactly. In any case
this time we were going to buy the park-hopper pass, which meant we could go to
both the Magic Kingdom and California Adventure—for the competitive price of
$90.00 I really wanted to go on the
Tower of Terror and California Screamin’ and Soarin’ over California so I had
no problem with this. My finances were
still in a stable condition.
During the visit with Mike he must
have grown tired of my conversation in line.
The good thing was, we barely had to wait in lines at all. They all moved efficiently and we decided it
had been a great day to do the visit. In
line for Space Mountain I began this rant about the credit system in the
financial industry, which I wanted to destroy.
I didn’t like the idea of being turned down for an apartment (a search I
had just begun to consider) over my credit rating, which insisted how much
money I should be making and how much of that I should be spending. I said the whole system was evil, and that my
goal would be to eliminate all of the credit in America through a massive
campaign of brainwashing. Only then
would we be able to consider each and every person an equal. Mike, probably correctly found this overly
silly and pointed out the many holes in my argument. He never told me to shut up, though I was
probably being annoying. I just couldn’t
think of anything else to talk about. On
the Matterhorn, finally, we got into the ride, after I had told him I was
finished with my credit elimination scheme, and our car would not climb the
first hill. We had to disembark and we
walked through the inner workings of the ride, through the mountain itself, and
I thought that was pretty cool, and they gave us a free fast pass for another
ride later on because of our troubles.
That is one thing I have to hand it to Disney on—they are an excellent
example of quality customer service.
However, later I would find out
from reading interviews online that Mark E. Smith and Brix Smith of the English
post-punk group the Fall had gone on a visit to Disneyland during one of their
tours (Brix was from L.A.) and had waited to ride the Matterhorn and while in
line a woman had trouble getting out of her seat and got stuck in the track of
the ride and they couldn’t stop the next car from moving through and she had
her head cut off by it. Then all of the
Disney characters came over to the Matterhorn area, forming some kind of wall
of diversion to take the focus off of the tragic accident that had just
happened. The Fall put out the song
“Disney’s Dream Debased” as a reaction to that experience. I told this to Mike (possibly during his
second trip, when we went to Magic Mountain) and he said it sounded like
something that was made up.
After a late night at Disneyland,
Mike ran into the Beverly Hills Hotel and asked the concierge what would be a
good Mexican place and we ended going there, somewhere in West Hollywood on
Sunset Blvd. It was okay but I had
nothing to talk about. I was really
tired.
The next day I took him to Venice
and we walked down the boardwalk and out to the pier and I made him go into Small
World Books with me, because I had always seen it and always wanted to go in,
but never done it before. Also, I had
seen the movie Southland Tales
somewhat recently and a scene in that movie took place in that bookstore, so I
thought it would be fun. Really, the
trip to Venice was quite unremarkable.
Mike was not very impressed. I
personally love Venice Beach and consider it one of the coolest little areas in
the United States.
And we went to that Bar Marmont
Friday night after seeing the Dr. Seuss movie.
But the first visit had its own set of restrictions: I was living with
Brett, and we didn’t hang out very much at my apartment.
For the second visit, Mike came in
when I was unemployed, and so I had all the time in the world to hang out. No rushing around during rush hour, no
explicit need of getting to bed at a reasonable hour. This time I believe he came in on May 21, a
Wednesday, and left on a Sunday (though last time had been a Saturday). I don’t remember the early times. We went to a Dodgers game one night. Maybe he came on Tuesday, May 20th. I feel like that must have been the
case. We met up in Westwood because he
was staying at the W hotel there, and we had a couple beers at this sports bar
there that was very crowded. I remember
seeing a guy wearing an NYU t-shirt and pointing him out to Mike. I think we didn’t go anywhere for dinner that
night. I think I went that entire day
only eating an order of mozzarella sticks.
I was impressed by myself that I wasn’t hungry.
The next day, Wednesday, we went to
a Los Angeles Dodgers game. Mike bought
a Matt Kemp jersey for his girlfriend.
When we looked for a spot in their parking lot, the attendant told us we
didn’t want to park in general parking, and said for an extra little tip or
something he would let us park in preferred parking, less the total usual price
of parking there. We thought that was
very funny and took advantage of the offer.
Afterward we went to Acapulco, a Mexican chain restaurant with a
location in Silverlake.
The next day we went to Magic
Mountain, and I played the album Hypermagic
Mountain by Lightning Bolt in the car.
We came to the song “Magic Mountain” itself as we pulled into the
parking lot there. The whole day there
was great, as well. In terms of waiting
in lines, at least. We had decided to go
on that Thursday even though the new X2 roller coaster would be opening on
Saturday. We decided it was more
important to spend less time in line than ride new coasters.
Well, the inevitable has just
occurred and this online menace has just replied to my post previously alluded
to. I am so sick of her you don’t even
want to know. She wrote, “Let's
get this out of the way. I don't respect you. You have done nothing to earn my
respect as a writer. You always invoke excuses or the other as reasons for your
failures. Always. Most everyone on The Speakeasy has taken their literary
lumps. Those that are having success have worked for YEARS to get where they
are. They have REVISED extensively. They have earned my respect because I now
share a kinship with them. We have faced all our excuses, all of our
insecurities, we have been nearly wrecked by not just a handful of rejections
but dozens, maybe even hundreds of them. Yet we continued on. Wrote more, most
definitely revised more.”
Amongst a lot of other crap she had
to say about me—always going off about my “invoking the other” as an excuse for
why my work hasn’t sold. Reality check:
I haven’t really tried that hard to sell my work. I’ve tried to produce it. I wrote back to her, “Thanks! You really know what you’re talking about, I
guess.” I hope she doesn’t reply to that.
I am so sick of her always needing to have the last word. She’s very superior acting. No human being should act like that.
The only bad thing that happened at
Magic Mountain that day was that I had a scheduled unemployment interview for
that day, and I missed the phone call. I
would later get in touch with them and be able to handle the interview, but I
would later be declared ineligible for unemployment as well. More on that later. We rode Revolution, Tatsu, Superman: The
Escape, Goliath, Colossus, the Ninja, Batman, Déjà vu, Viper, and probably a
couple I am forgetting. I don’t remember
what we did that night. I think that was
the night I decided to buy an XBOX 360 so Mike and I could play a baseball
game. We drove around town after 11:00
at night and found the Virgin Megastore still open and I bought the XBOX
system, a baseball and basketball game, and another controller, all for
$540.00. That was the first time I
thought maybe I wasn’t spending my money in the best way.
The next day I had my housewarming
party and nobody showed up except for Sycamore and Molly. And that was really late as it was. They had been at a Dodgers game (with Kenny,
incidentally, who had also been sent an invitation) that had a rain delay. This was the last night I would see it rain
in Los Angeles. May 23rd. Ashleigh didn’t show up. Jara didn’t show up. Erin and Nathaniel didn’t show up—I think one
of them was out of town. They all had
convenient excuses, and I believed them all, but I realized that night that it
was just hard to have a party in L.A. unless you really knew a lot of people.
Mike spent one more day there with
me and I don’t remember what we did on Saturday at all—probably just played
more baseball on my new XBOX 360. But
that night we went out to Bar Marmont again, and this time I had to pay $20 for
valet parking across the street because it was so bad there on a Saturday
night. We had a relatively good time
there our second time. I remember one
guy coming up to Mike and telling him he looked like the best friend character
from Boy Meets World.
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