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27 may 2000
looking back, ok Glen Rock, NJ. We called it "Dead Rock" in high school, because there was never anything to ease the boredom of our overactive teenaged minds. When alcohol and drugs ran their course, we'd take to such mischievous activities as spraypainting the high school walls with quotations from Virgil and Socrates, or playing a rather dangerous game of hide-and-seek with our cars -- count to ten, and then start chasing. I nearly destroyed my mother's ride on one icy night, fishtailing into a wooden fence in hot pursuit of my peers. Looking back, I'm surprised we only got arrested once. That time was for blowing up a policeman's mailbox with a half stick of dynamite. We didn't know it was a cop's house at the time, but it probably wouldn't have mattered. The point is, Glen Rock, NJ was dull, or it least it seemed so at the time. I longed to be anywhere else. The immediate escape, ten miles away in Manhattan, somehow got very old very fast. There was only so much you could do in New York City, at least as a teenager; more recently, on my numorous business trips there, I seem to be rediscovering the city I abandoned so many years ago. In reality, I dreamed of another life, another place, an environment crystallized in my mind from countless hours of staring at the "idiot box," as my mom called the television. Los Angeles always intrigued me. The palm trees, the 'endless summer', the idea of there being not-here, as it was at the time. Hollywood. Beautiful people in a beautiful envoronment. It seemed like another world, untenable, posing the question in my mind ... "People really live there????" I so wanted to be those people. Sitting on my balcony now, dusk settling in, the vista caught me offguard, so nearly identical to a thirteen year old snapshot in my mind. The palm trees, the ocean, the mountains. This is Southern California. This is my paradise. ? And as if on cue, the music from the living room, conveniently pumped in through the satellite dish above my head, a random mix of tunes, settling suddenly on "Life in a Northern Town," by the Dream Academy, circa thirteen years ago. I never planned to live here. It was a distant daze, an unconscious hope, so suddenly fulfilled by circumstance that I haven't acknowledged the reality until now. Did I once really dream of a life like this? Shame on me. Shame on my pubescent self for thinking a change of geography can make my life better. I do like it here in Malibu, but it's just as dead as Glen Rock. It sure does photograph better, though. Just ask any kid in NJ with his face glued to "Baywatch" on the tv. If you've never been to LA, don't be fooled by the media-imposed myths, good or bad. Life in a northern town, indeed. I know not what I say or think. ~~~ My first full Saturday at the new place seems more pathetic in retrospect than it did at the time. I spent most of the day in front of the tv, sampling from the 500 channels and 200 dvds at my disposal. Mid-afternoon I drove across PCH to the market, and dropped too much money on groceries. I marinated some Copper River Salmon in a dill-cream concoction and grilled it with some fresh asparagus. That was dinner. Now I'm sipping Grey Goose vodka from a wine glass, watching the sun's reflection fade from the glass facades twelve miles across the bay in Santa Monica. It's getting dark, and I feel isolated. Stuck in my complex of condominiums, locked behind a guard gate ... jeez, I feel like going out and introducing myself to the new neighbors. Where the fuck is the sense of community out here? Yes, I slap myself in affirmation. People really live here. I'm one of them, although I feel sometimes as if I'm losing myself. Eight years ago I gave up New Jersey and moved to LA. Two days ago I uprooted myself for the first time since then. It feels weird. Where is the sense of "home" I fear I'll be craving soon? Why do I feel it's somewhere in a northern town in NJ... Which reminds me ... I promised my mom I'd call... 27 may 1999: spring breeze : Smoking is a giant mindfuck, and the only way to stop is to mindfuck yourself back. It's mental masturbation with a toxic slant, and no orgasm in sight. 27 may 1998: gatsby and galt : When the sun is at the right angle, the ocean can look like fruit leather
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