I have a backlog of work. It makes for an interesting lack of contact with the outside world. I had a date with my girlfriend last night. We were both out in the world in a state of wonder – this is what is like to not work and to not be at home – the world is still there.
We stopped by Fitipaldi’s latest happening, a life drawing workshop for artists. It was quite bohemian. We bumped into many people from all sorts of years in the city of Angels – ex students from when I taught at the Arts high school, people I went to college with, people I drank with, drug scene people, rock and roll dropouts, borderline homeless carousers that I knew from the underground in the 1980s, old Marxist meeting types were there too, failed rock stars, aspirng actors, art stars, wannabe art stars, desperate addicts clinging to their way of life, Ememric Konrad was the bartender for crying out loud, it was a gaggle of freaks in an air-conditioned and art directed room on a weekday night. And the ringmaster Fitipaldi, almost oblivious to it all, happy to play host, shake a hand and walk away from someone who is in the middle of telling him how great he is. Theater, artwork, lifestyle and mortgage solution all in one.
Then we went to Canter’s. I think it had been one of our first dates. The food is still rich and filling. We had been to an estate sale and picked up a box of junk and personal effects from a woman who had been a waitress there. My girlfriend warned me sternly not to ask about her. Look, I read this woman’s diary, I know more than any co-worker would recall. But they knew her voice, and how her heels sounded as she ran in late to clock in. You can’t get that from a diary. You can’t get it from a blog either. But I didn’t ask about her, didn’t want to find out she had died.
I still love driving in L.A. after 3 a.m., that is when it is all familiar again, it is 1980 and there is a punk show somewhere and I am weighing the choices of seeing a new band or hitting on a new girl. All while driving through a massive empty melange of streets and parked cars. We gotta get out more, L.A. is still there, still fantastic.