SXSW Obviously Did Wonderful Things To My Brain.

It’s Wednesday afternoon, and I just realized, and remarked to Kier and Chris, that I can’t actually name a single one of the acts I’ve seen since I got here. It’s a problem: everyone’s come here with high hopes, I’d imagine, and what a way to blow it—put on a good show, make an audience happy, and miss out on any of the subsequent benefits because you forgot to identify yourself. And never even know what the problem was.

Shit. I wonder if that’s ever happened to me?

I’m Andy Hyman, and I’m here in Austin for a lot of reasons, none of them particularly worth going into, beyond saying that I’m more or less a tourist, providing you with as good a record as I can of just what it is I saw.

Of course, some people don’t seem to mind the lack of artist identification, and, really, why should they? Like me, they’re here to have a good time. Like the pretty blonde standing in the corner by an ATM, separated from the rest of the crowd and somehow in a perfect spotlight, dancing by slowly swaying back and forth and swinging a phone by a cord in slow, wide circles.

On stage is yet another beautiful woman, with curly brown hair and a look, cultivated or not, of innocence and sweetness, which her music reinforces. The joyous (yet reserved) smiles and coy glances complete the package; she’s a portrait of wholesome, All-American decency, and I can see why she’s on the stage, and the hundreds of us other idiots are in the audience paying attention to her.

In fact, it’s a little while before I realize how good she is with her facial expressions. These aren’t just coy glances. Every shift of the eyes seems perfect, every side-look to her left, every roll down and to the right as her lids drop in a moment of deep sensation, every turn to her bass player while pivoting her body in the other direction (making the actual seeing more difficult, I’d imagine, but being far more evocative), every near-smile followed by a bashful blushing withdrawal (she knows she shouldn’t show too much emotion; she was raised better than that in her idyllic Midwestern farmhouse, or wherever) is executed perfectly. It’s wonderful to behold, and, while the music itself doesn’t strike much of a chord in me, I wonder how many artists here can compete with her first-rate symbolism.

People come to this festival for the music, for the exposure, for the networking, and so forth, but one could just as legitimately, I think, say they come here for the youth and beauty. The presence of these qualities is almost overwhelming, and even for those of us who may not be young or beautiful ourselves, you can’t help hoping it rubs off on you a little—even if you know that some people look good in tank tops, and some of us don’t, no matter where we are.

To be 30, and say I’m not young, is a little ridiculous, I know; but I’m confronted, lately, for the first time, with seeing people who look old to me, only to find out that they’re younger than I am. I know that experience probably lasts the rest of your life, but it’s a little jarring when it first rears its head. Just as it is when you look at a photograph of yourself, and you see a human being staring back—one who should, from the looks of him, have a productive, adult life, and you know that he just doesn’t.

So here in Austin, we have the antidote to that way of thinking, I suppose—a chance to surround yourself with youth, beauty, vibrancy, and know you’re part of it, else why would you be here?

Although I don’t wanna’ draw too many conclusions yet. It’s still my first day.

* * *

My first images of the day on Thursday were what someone more inclined to talk this way might call “a study in contrasts.”

A girl jogs pat me, her backpack weighing her down and her flip flops clapping. I watch to see where she’s going, until she makes it to the waving arms of her two awaiting friends, who pop out from around the corner.

And then, as soon as they disappear, happy, reunited, ready for the amazing day they’re surely gonna’ have, I’m confronted by a sad and solitary drumstick lying abandoned on the sidewalk in front of a vacant lot. A stupidly appropriate symbol of, I don’t know, forsaken hopes and shattered dreams (too dark?), success unrealized, destiny squashed by reality, the harshness of the music business? If this were Vietnam and I were a photographer, that fuckin’ drumstick would be my ticket to a Pulitzer Prize…but this isn’t Vietnam, I’m not a photographer, and this isn’t a war, just a giant party full of melodramatic jerks like me. And melodrama doesn’t always photograph well.

But what a party. Whining and cynical as some of this may seem, that whining only serves as a method through which to enjoy, and celebrate, just whatever this is exactly that’s going on around me—think a lizard smelling with its tongue, or something—and, really, with anything there might be to actually complain about here, if you’re not moved, stirred, inspired by the tidal wave of human thought and feeling collected into this one time and place, I’d say it might be time to start asking yourself some very serious questions. Even someone like me found a place here last night, after the bars closed and a party accompanied us back to our rented condominium. In hosting this group of strangers there was that surprising contradictory familiarity, the comfort of being in your own space and mimicking, as best you can, the kind of welcome you can only hope the world’ll offer back to you, as you pour drinks, listen to stories and gaze out at the freeway, while people fall in love around you on the balcony.

But few things will bring you crashing out of that romanticism more than a bunch of young anorexic-looking British guys in skinny jeans waiting on a stage while a haywire fog machine coughs sickly clouds in to the space between you and them. And yet, even here, now that I listen for a moment, I can hear some joy in what they’re doing, just as I can in the words I’m writing myself, their Rickenbacker Anguish tempered by this city they proclaim to have “fallen in love with.” And so I guess I’m not the only one who’s started to find…well, let’s just say a way in.

The funny thing is, though this is a festival more and more each year (or so I’ve been led to understand) driven and augmented by advancing technology, thriving off of tweets and text messages and smart-phone apps, I’m finding that all that technological plugged-in-ness is still no match for the irresistibility of human impulses. Information, speedy though it may be, about where people are and what they’re doing is often obsolete by the time I can act upon it, because it can’t keep pace with any impulses we may be experiencing—the impulse to drink, the impulse to go get laid, the impulse to find a place to sit down or get food or avoid waiting in line, to follow the people you just met because they seem like fun, to see something even better or be part of something even more special. And here, acting on these impulses—feeling them, and not fighting them—is, I think, just a bit easier, and more acceptable, then it is back in real life—and shit, isn’t that one of the reasons we’re here in the first place? Which means that, until someone invents a program that tells you what you’re gonna’ feel before you feel it, and how you’ll react when you do, I’ll still be eagerly showing up at clubs ten minutes after my friends have left. And an event that celebrates technological interaction and development winds up rife with examples of the failings of the attempt to technologize our lives at their very core, like my iPhone not making me any less late, or the guy I just watched spill a bottle of water all over his camera.

The real beauty, though, is that even when I am late, or misinformed, it doesn’t matter. The “wrong thing” doesn’t really seem to exist here, in the way to which I’ve grown accustomed as a life-long regretter—instead, it just becomes “something else.” There’s so much happening, so many options, and so much constant adjustment and realignment of one’s expectations required that it becomes natural to accept that something wasn’t meant to be, and to trust that the alternate path on which you’ve been placed will be just as fulfilling.

Actually, now that I think about it…you could live the rest of your life like that, too.

I mean, if you really wanted to.

* * *

Things ramp up as the sun goes down, and I head out into a night begun with a near-flawless karaoke rendition (undertaken at a dirt lot food truck parking ground on a portable setup in the corner) of “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang”, performed by a woman with black hair and black clothes, the whole Gothic look, for the two-dozen stragglers eating tacos by themselves.

And then onto Lee Fields and a soulful world, hearing beautiful ballads to the power of women and a deeply-felt love for the jolt of love itself,

pleas for perfect destiny and the dream of a yearning listener,

as people outside fight with each other about

who or who shouldn’t be listening,

apologies to strangers and

red faces steeped in forgiveness,

the weight of the week on top of them,

humble apologies for drinking all day and

not behaving right around people

at night.

Wandering over to the big fat warehouse,

wristbands for backstage and a strange collection of

quest-ers for ?uestlove,

hippies and perfect gentlemen,

high school kids all high on maturity

and a woman who’s obviously schooled in bellydancing.

Then leaning on the railing

perched right beside the speakers,

standing peering far out to the crowd beyond the lights,

watching all the people as they

make their own horizon…

waiting there alone

for the rarely-witnessed ending,

all the day-long shows abandoned

long before they’re finished for

some other place and other sound but

not this time

so I can stay to watch the crowd file out,

and be one of them too, ‘til

I make my way back home and find

more people at the condo,

bands hanging out and

passing out along the couch,

tired from the journey and

not quite sure where they are yet,

smoking on the balcony, the

girls dancing to Salt ‘n Pepa,

reveling around me as I write this all down,

all of us staying free and safe and

waiting out the waning evening,

knowing soon we’ll tire and make

our way back to our beds,

hugging and smiling our guarantees to

remember this

and promising how

we’ll come on back

to start again

tomorrow.

* * *

All the hipness in the world doesn’t count for shit when you’re sitting alone at International House of Pancakes. And that’s why I’m here.

Well, that, and the pancakes.

If there’s a great equalizer, it must be IHOP, where kids, grown-ups, probably fuckin’ Nobel Prize-winners all get asked alike if they want anything from the Lorax menu or a breakfast with chocolate chips and a smiley face. It’s a nice break from the festival world, where status seems to count for a lot—separate lines, VIP lists, lanyards loaded with laminated passes and wristbands stacked along multi-colored arms, a hundred indicators dividing those who’ve succeeded from those who merely plan to succeed. The other day at a tech networking event, I watched a hush fall and the crowd part as the delegation from Google exited the party, a path clearing for the half-dozen or so of them as they shuffled self-consciously down the stairs and out the door.

Not that I blame the crowd for its reverence; it’s the same in every field, you see someone who’s done what you’d like to do, and you want to see just what exactly the secret is. And heaven knows it’s valuable to learn the steps those before you have taken, examine their methods, track their successes and failures.

The problem is, it’s very easy (at least for me) to forget that a methodology doesn’t exist in a vacuum; its efficacy is contingent upon the talent, insight, taste and dedication of the person who executes it. And its suitability is tied to those qualities, which allow that particular person to achieve any notable success in the first place—that is, a method isn’t necessarily perfect, but can be perfect for you. Human achievement isn’t a science (oh, if only it were…) and results aren’t replicable; and that’s not even taking into account the context of an ever-changing and expanding world. So I’m starting to believe, more and more, that it’s not just the method itself that’s worth knowing, but specifically What It Is about someone that brought out the best in that method (and what about the method brought out the best in that person). In other words, just because you tell me exactly how to go about achieving something, doesn’t mean I can do it. Maybe I actually have to be you to make it work, in order to capitalize on that interplay of technique, knowledge and personality that leads to real accomplishment—and so maybe that’s where the focus should be, on the nature of that interplay, when it comes to learning from those who’ve succeeded before you. Assuming that my personality can benefit from any “learning” in the first place, and isn’t just stuck on ‘asshole’ with the key broken off in the lock.

So is that what brings people to Austin and SXSW? No. I mean, yes, some people, obviously. But a hell of a lot of them come for the music. And so it’s time to take a break from the other garbage and talk about some of what I’ve seen here:

Reptar, fun, silly, energetic, lively, is just right for the backyard at 508 on a sunny afternoon, with something just all genuine and rock-and-roll-y about them. They make the audience hold hands and declare that [They] Want To Get Nasty, and sure enough, the audience complies. And subsequently gets very nasty. And likes it.

Lee Fields, you beautiful, beautiful bastard, clean and comforting like a…shot of penicillin? No, fuck, don’t want to say that, but I will say, that the label “dance music” gets thrown about a lot. As far as I’m concerned (and I can only speak for myself), this will always be the dance music I’m looking for. And the incredible melodies, and the power of that unabashed emotional declaration…though, if I were Lee Fields, I’d lay it all on the line too. In a person with his talent, anything less than that kind of confidence (pure and total as it is, without arrogance or condescension) just wouldn’t ring true.

The Belle Brigade, earnest and honest and impeccable harmonies, amazing voices telling captivating stories, singing with, and about, an equal embrace of fear and strength, of failure and triumph. Like I try to do, only these guys are way better.

Dan Deacon, with his explosion of sound (all right, I know it’s cliché to say that, but what the fuck do you want me to do?, it sounded like a goddamn explosion), equally worth loving for the energy, the charm of the way he interacts with the audience—letting them in on what he’s doing and what he’s thinking, erasing the emotional distance between himself and them just as easily as he erases the physical distance by setting up in the crowd—and the references to La Bamba (“no one wants to be Richie Valens’ brother,” he remarks. Which is true.)

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros have figured out something special about putting people at ease, and it’s not just the enjoyment, but the lightness of the enjoyment (as opposed to heaviness, that is), that breezes over everyone and has the crowd staring back with twinkles in its eyes. It’s a feeling of being “in touch”, or “connected”, yes, but also the reassurance—not sure where it’s coming from, but it’s there—that being “in touch” is perfectly all right, and something you should probably just embrace while it’s here.

Jackmaster knows how to take a room full of unsuspecting people and destroy their minds and have them thank him for it; and gladly go through it all again. He tows a fine line between captivating and overwhelming, without ever forgetting to have fun, which, you know, allows us to have fun.

Kwes, plays a music all their own, unlike anything I’ve heard before. Of course, it does exactly what it’s supposed to do, which is make you think, “why hasn’t someone else come up with this before now?” I don’t know, but someone else didn’t; Kwes did.

And there were countless others, good and bad, but I’m not here to shit on artists I didn’t like, and these are the ones that come to mind now, as I reflect on it, the ones who, each time, said to me in their own way, “just shut up and enjoy being where you are, right here, and right now.” And that’s a pretty incredible gift to give, when someone says that in a way, that actually allows you to listen.

After a four-hour break at the condo during which I try to sleep, but can’t, I head back out into Friday night sensing something ominous in the air. The energy has turned slightly sour, and the openness and general goodwill isn’t quite so pervasive as it’s been the last few days. The week is starting to wear on people, and as a brass band and accompanying entourage marches, banging their drums and sounding all bellicose as I pass them by under the I35 overpass, I feel like I’m walking into a battle royale, or something, only without the real threat of danger. Well, at least not physical danger.

Sure enough, things go wrong when I least expect it. It actually starts as a great moment; I’m gathered with friends and their friends at a bar, DJs playing and drinks flowing, happiness and excitement and general camaraderie running rampant all around us, and I feel good, happy to be here with just these folks. Josh and I step away for a second, through the dance floor, and then walk back to rejoin the rest of the group, when we see Mike head of us, waving for us to turn around and go back the way we came, and I see the whole group awaiting, ready to follow us. Okay, I think, we’re going back in that direction, (Lead Us, Andy!) and so, confidently, I pivot back around and march purposefully ahead across the floor, to an empty spot where we can all stop and watch the show, feeling triumphant as the head of this column marching with strength into a beautiful night.

Only when I stop and turn around, they’re all gone.

It had only been about ten seconds between Mike’s signal to turn around, and my realizing they weren’t there anymore, but the lot of them had somehow vanished without a trace. I start to look around the rest of the crowd, sure that they couldn’t have gone far, but I don’t see them anywhere.

I march back to where we started, thinking maybe they stayed put after all, but they’re not there either.

I can’t understand it. We’d all just been standing there together. How could this happen so quickly?

I circle through the venue but there’s no sign of them. My confusion is turning into real consternation, and I decide to try to look for them on the back patio, thinking maybe they slipped outside, but the guy at the door stops me.

“Okay, two things,” he says, leaning in as if he’s confiding something I’ve been dying to know, and have coaxed him into revealing. “First, you do have the right wristband to go out there. But, second, you’ll have to go through a different door. The one over there. Not this one.” Only when I go to the other door, as instructed, I’m stopped by the woman there too, who informs me that, no, the correct door to go out was in fact the first one I tried.

What exactly is going on here? I’m not allowed to go outside? I’m trapped here, is that what they’re saying? I’m drunk, high, getting angry that something so pleasant has been transformed so quickly into something difficult, and, worse, nonsensical, starting to wonder what exactly happened or if anything happened at all—did they leave?, did they disperse?, did they blissfully head off into the night, unaware that their party was one person short? Am I imagining this? Were they even here to begin with? Do they even exist? Am I having my “A Beautiful Mind” moment, realizing these friends I’ve had for half my life, these people whom I love are figments of my imagination—“oh my god, Mike doesn’t age! Josh always wears the same clothes! Kier’s feet DON’T EVEN TOUCH THE GROUND WHEN HE WALKS!”—and have been figments for all these years we’ve known each other? Am I about to find out that what had been a glorious sense of belonging was really just a mask to cover the most desperate loneliness?

The place is the same, but the world’s out of focus as I make what feels like lap after lap around the bar, looking for people whom I’m not even sure can be found. I start making panicked phone calls, sending blunt “where are you?” text messages— none of the usual frills, jokes or nuanced innuendo for me, not now—and no one’s picking up, no one’s responding. Are these numbers even real?, or just strings of zeros, placeholders in my phone meant to help complete the fantasy—fuck, I always have been good at the little details like that!. it’d be just like me to come up with something so devious…

The fear is real, and I’m about to give up, go home, sit on the couch (if I even have a home anymore) and do some serious freaking out, when I finally see Josh at the bar, with some of the others, like they’d never left, even though I was sure I’d been past that very spot five times already with no luck in seeing any of them. I go up to him, and tell him what’s happened. I’m filled with relief, and we laugh about it all—the world’s suddenly righted itself again, and the others drift in. “Where did you go?,” Priya asks me, and I tell her that I never left, and there’s more laughter. It instantly all seems so silly, and things settle down, but really, I’m still shaken.

“Dude.” I say to Josh. “I’m so glad you’re real.”

This kind of thing happens all the time—you lose track of your friends in a crowded place, and you find them again. No big deal.

But this time, something made it more frightening, more severe…and I can see what a fine line I was walking for those few minutes, or however long it actually was. Surrounded by the right people, life was good, things were complete, and we’re on a heavenly road to a fantastic night. Suddenly pull them out of the picture, with no explanation, and I’m standing in what feels like hell.

All within the same four walls.

* * *

I wake up in the back of my car just west of Tucson. The sun is beginning to set as I climb out of the back seat…I shiver in the cold wind, have some water, take a picture of the sky, and make my way back onto the interstate.

The last day has come and gone, started as I walked out of the condo into the Austin afternoon, lasted through the night and the next day and the night again as I slept a motel sleep I didn’t even feel, then through the next four hundred and fifty miles from Van Horn, TX to Tucson, when my eyes are closing and I pull the car over, crawl into the back and pull my coat over my head. And on the highway again now, temporarily cleansed, I finally feel like I’m awake.

I guess if you go looking for ‘conclusions,’ you’re bound to find them, or at the very least, thoughts, feelings and incidents from which you can retroactively extract a sense of finality. Over the years, I’ve gotten’ very good at this; and have even grown to believe that my peace of mind depends on it—that, somehow it must have been valuable if it can be made into a good story. If I can follow the plot from beginning to end and say, look where I crossed the finish line, and, oh, this is why that was the finish line in the first place.

But this time, the hitch is this: this was valuable. I know that now, beyond any doubt, without ever repeating these stories (if you can even call them that) to see if the pieces fit together and everything adds up to a satisfying end. I can feel it, in a way, with a confidence that’s rare for me. In fact, that rarity just confirms its significance to me all the more.

So what’s left, then, is for the seasoned narrative manipulator in me to fuck off for a minute, and, instead of looking back and saying, “what can be said, and how can this be told, to make it all so special?” ask myself, “where exactly is this feeling of specialness coming from?”

So where the hell did it come from?

I don’t know. What exactly happened the last night?

I’m in a field at the University of Texas, the hillside covered with concert-goers, Luke and Jess and I watching Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros lull the crowd against the background of a beautiful evening sky, an occasional firefly lighting up in the dim light between songs.

I’m at Bandpage HQ, finding Mike, Season, Kier, while Josh runs around making sure everything in the showcase happens as it needs to—the very picture of the act of creation. I’ve seen it in all these folks, at one time or another over the years, just as they’ve seen it in me too.

I’m laughing with Luke as Hudson Mohawk plays, then seeing him off, as he heads back home, and we vow to make sure our paths cross again.

We’re back at the condo, realizing we don’t have anything to drink for our impending guests. Kier and I march down the street, armed collectively with my determination and his money, not knowing where we’ll find anything but not willing yet just to turn back. Hedging our bets with cynicism and urging ourselves on with hope. And when we wind up at another party—one that is broken up immediately after our arrival, and we coerce the bartender into sneaking us a bottle of rum and some beers, we walk back smiling, inviting people over now and basking in the all-to-rare experience of having blind faith followed by a quick reward.

I’m standing in our apartment as the room fills with strangers, more than we could’ve expected, drinks are poured, cigarettes are smoked on the jam-packed balcony, friendship is proclaimed, wristbands are cut and I am thanked for my hospitality again and again, in a place I do not own, have not paid for and have no claim to beyond my willingness to stand in the center and call it mine—and tell people, “you’re welcome here any time.” But I guess having someone around, offering that presence, well, isn’t always such a small thing to a room full of people, independent, triumphant or successful as they are, who are have all found themselves far away from home.

I’m standing in my bedroom and I’m kissing a girl from the party. I can’t remember her name, even if I can say where she’s from, what she does, what languages she speaks aside from English. After a few minutes, her phone rings, and she stops kissing me to answer it, listens to what I can hear to be an agitated voice on he other end. She says to me, “hold on wait, I can’t leave my friend,” unwraps her arms from around the back of my neck, hurries out the bedroom door into the party, taking my hand and pulling me with her. We go out the front door and I watch as she hurries down the stairs and through the parking lot, and I open the gate with the clicker, so she can go find her friend out in the street, knowing as she disappears that she won’t be coming back.

I’m wandering around the room, wondering just what I should be doing with myself, watching the whole place come alive with frenzied conversation meant to stave off this final sunrise. I start to open the dishwasher, looking for more glasses, but two guys are in the way of the door, so I tap them, ask if they can step aside. “Sorry, man,” one of them says, “we’re distracted. This conversation’s gettin’ real.”

I’m lying to people about having cigarettes left, telling each new person who asks me for one that I got one from the last person who asked me for one.

I’m saying goodbye to Kier as he follows Season back to their hotel, saying I’ll see him back at home, cheering together what an incredible week it was.

I’m saying goodbye to Priya, as she heads back to her hotel, and on to New York and then Singapore, not sure when or where we might meet again.

I’m saying goodbye to Austin and Chrissy, marveling at how we’ve spent all this time together, though we only just met, and demand that we see each other in Los Angeles.

I’m saying goodbye to Zach, as he grabs his bags, the party still hopping around him, and heads outside for a cab that will take him to the airport.

I’m saying goodbye to the strangers one by one as the sky shows signs of lightening and they head into the morning, looking for a bed, or another party, or someplace else that might just offer them whatever they didn’t find here.

I’m waking up the passed out people on the couch and saying goodbye to them too, saying the party’s over as I send them stumbling out the door.

I’m staying goodbye to Josh, who stayed right through ‘til the end, the last one left, as we smoke a final cigarette and smile at the fact that we couldn’t be outlasted.

I’m saying goodbye to Mike after he’s woken me up (I’d passed out by then) and told me that his flight has been moved hours earlier, so instead of my taking him to the airport he’ll just catch a cab; saying just one more damn time What A Week It’s Been, and laughing our goodbye, my eyes closing and drifting back asleep as I hear from the other room the front door close behind him.

And then by noon I’m awake and I’m the only one left.

I clean the apartment and pack up my car, leave the key under the mat and head down 6^th St. one more time, just time now to say goodbye to the city, which I watch disappear in my rearview mirror as I make my way down Highway 1.

And now I’m west of Tucson, finally awake, and still on a highway, heading for home, the music blasting and the sky lit up in the west. And still, to me, it all feels right, feels valuable and complete, and though I can’t pinpoint it to any one occurrence, it gets stronger with each passing mile. Maybe I need more time to figure it out.

Maybe with the wealth of artistic stimulation, it’s just impossible not to feel like you’re taking away something that you didn’t have to begin with.

Or maybe adventures are just fun. No big revelation there.

Or maybe this makeshift community does exactly what a community is supposed to do—make you feel like you’re part of something. Again, no real surprise.

Maybe it’s just nice to have had so many goodbyes to say in the first place.

Maybe I’ll have to come back next year, to take another look. Just to be sure.

Austin, Tucson, and Los Angeles, 2012.

Return of the Candyman

I've been gone a long time. It's true.

My first inclination is to explain myself, try to catch you up, but that's awful, tedious, and completely unnecessary right now, because a) it'll take up much more time than it's worth, and b) no one is reading this, so there's really no one who needs to be "caught up" and I'd really just be going over it for myself, which has merit of its own, but fuck it, the important parts will trickle out on their own as I go along.

What's important is that I am here.

I'm not sure why I disappeared for so long. Part of it was that I haven't really been in an office, and so haven't really been forced to sit in front of a computer and subsequently write here (is this actually a "place," though?) as a necessary diversion. But then, that's not the only reason I was writing--I mean, I liked it, too. I'd like to be able to look you in your non-existent invisible eye and tell you that I was too busy living my life to be writing about it--a notion that always gives me a snug warm feeling to entertain. But I don't think that's true either. I've been doing stuff, yes, I wrote and made a movie, I've been spending time with a girl, sure, but when something's important enough to you, you make time, you see to it that opportunities are presented, and so forth. So I guess that means, in the end, that I don't need to write this blog. I like it, but don't need it, it's not an indespensible part of my life like it was for Boswell and Pepys. And that's what you want, isn't it, when you're reading a journal? You don't want something that the writer could take or leave, at his whim, but something that drives him, that keeps him going, so you know that you're getting an essential part of the writer himself.

This, it seems, I can not offer you, or me, as much as I would like to. There are moments that drive me here, but on the whole, do I need it? No. So I guess, then, we'll both have to settle for something else. A kind of elective, voluntary relationship. And instead, I can look back at this someday as a record of the moments in my life that drove me to write, and you can look back at the moments that drove you to read, and eventually it'll create some kind of picture. Not a perfect one, like a constant documentation would provide, but a fainter, hazier one, just an outline even. But sometimes, that's better anyway.

For whatever reason, now is one of the times that I find myself here.

Well, okay, I can probably offer a reason or two.

First one is, I do in fact have to be here. Life has seen fit to make me a receptionist once again, this time at the office of none other than my father, Allen Hyman, a lawyer. Certainly, things are better here than they were last time you saw me in this position, sitting at a desk up front and answering phones. By many accounts I was a shell of a human being then; and, though I still may not be whole, my shell certianly has a gravity that it has previously lacked. But there's something else behind this. What really amazes me is that I started this blog almost two years ago. It's startling for me to read the early entries and trace my thought process back, and to know that that point, that moment, was closer in time to my college graduation then it is to this moment now. As a matter of fact, I had a dream about college last night--as I do from time to time--and, over the last couple years, the college world that I experience in my dreams has become less and less like what it was actually like. Certainly my memory of school is fading, but there's more to it than that: the feeling of that time in my life, of what it was to be who I was, and where I was, is disappearing too. I try to place myself in the mindset I know I was once in, to give myself a sense of the perspective I once had, and it's getting harder and harder to do. I remember the events, the details even...but it's so difficult to know what I thought like.

I'd like to think that some kind of "growing up" has accompanied the passing of these two years. Sure, being a receptionist now isn't nearly as bad as it was then, because now I have a better sense of what's going on, of what I need to do, so forth. Now, of course, it's an issue of doing what one does as an adult. What I want, or am comfortable with, has nothing to do with it. As it happens, I understood all this two years ago; really, there's nothing that I knew at that time about my situation that I don't know now. But just because you understand something, doesn't mean you can really feel it for yourself. But now I think I am starting to feel those things for myself, that not so long ago just seemed to be principles and maxims--valid and relevant, but still foreign and strange. That's part of what "growing up" is, I suppose, an ability to feel the impact of the knowledge you've spent your young life accumulating.

I don't want to opine too much here, or postulate, or go on and on about the dreary inner-workings of my thoughts and feelings. But I wanted to touch upon it for a second, since I think that's one of the things that led to my ceasing to write: that as my entries grew increasingly away from me toward external topics, it became harder and harder for ideas I had to qualify as "worth writing about." And if I did come across a worthy topic, the task of developing it adequately for my own standards (which increased drastically without my even realizing it) wasn't worth the trouble. So I wanted to get back, for a moment, to the way I started this thing, before I can veer off into any new directions that might strike me. And of course, these ideas aren't revelatory; on the contrary, they're probably very common, and very simple. But that makes them most important to me, right now. And maybe after I get them out I can move on to my usual astounding insights.

A year and a half since I quit my architecture firm. Unbelievable. What's really been incredible the last few years has been the redefinition in my mind, and my senses, or what exactly a "year" is. My god, a "year" was once an almost interminable time period. The sound of the word alone made my vision turn blurry, as if I were staring off into a distant horizon, searching for a fuzzy outline of things past and future. Years were structured, consistent, and full of ideas, experiences, and people. They were regulated by school and family. The last years, however, have been shapeless blobs, defined by no seasons or distinct patters, with no unifying cycles or determinative events. Each one now takes on its own qualities, its own structures, and its own speed. And before you know it they just disappear...

It is now July 2006--the second half of a decade that always seemed distant to me. The '90s, once the only decade I had really known, are now a distant and forlorn decade, associated with extinction--everything extinct, extinct styles, extinct notions, exctinct ways of thinking, extinct ways of life. Extinct ways of viewing the world. The '90s have a distance now that I had never known anything beyond the '80s to have. The '90s are far enough away where people can talk about "the '90s." Funny how that works, isn't it?

And it all just reminds me of something that's not exactly true, but not exactly false, either: that as much as I'd like to think of myself as one person, living from the beginning of my life to the end--a person that changes, of course, but still remains whole--that just might not be how it works. I'd like to think of the versions of myself that once existed as just that, earlier versions of me; but it feels more and more that these were other people, so foreign and incomprehensible, and that I have no connection to how they think, how they act, what they want, how they live. People whose lives I try to remember and recreate some connection to but I just can't. People whose knowledge and understanding, that existed at the very core of their being, that allowed them to live, are just things I've forgotten, and can't get back. And of course, the person who's sitting here, writing this, will be soon be one of those people too; and I'll be someone else.

Simple Kid

All right, we haven't spoken in a while. For this, you should be thankful. I mean, there were plenty of things that I could've spent my time telling you about, going over with you--but I didn't feel like telling them, and you didn't feel like hearing them. This last summer alone is a strange and curious mystery to me, and I don't want to bother taking time to solve it. Point is, you should be thanking me; because instead of writing here, I took some time to figure some things out. And not just things for me. That would be selfish, and self-centered, and self-absorbed, and that's just not how I operate. No--I've been figuring out things for us.

Very important things. You know, I may use words like "zeitgeist" and "epoch" on occasion, but in actuality I have little idea what they mean. And I shouldn't bother with them, for they entail far more philosophy than I care to get involved with. I'm about practicalities, simplicity, and while these words may be far too complicated for my purposes, I've taken the time examining their brittle foundations--within which seems to lie the concept of a Generation.

A Generation is something I may know a little something about, and what it seems to be of course is a flexible group of people that are held together by something beyond time, right? It is because of this, that you can be of a generation, and still belong, or not belong in it.

What I have realized--and remember, like I said, this applies to all of us--is that I am just part...of the wrong generation.

There was I time, to which I should have belonged, but do not. And what's horrifying is that I was so close; in the grand scheme of things, I missed it by just a hair, and it frustrates me to no end. But at the same time, I can take some small pleasure in basking in the glow of the ambient light reflected from the afterburn of this magical and majestic era.

The era I to which I refer--the generation to which I am so deeply bound--is of course Ronald Regan's Presidential Administration, from 1981-1989.

It's true: I was born at the outset of this era, and lived my first years in the fold of its welcoming embrace. But I should've been of age then, my god, I should've been a teenager, or a young adult, in order to live it to the fullest.

What allowed me to understand all this, of course, was movies. We, here in Los Angeles, as a film producing culture, know that we can learn everything about ourselves and our own history through the movies of the time period. And sure, had you been paying the kind of wonderful close attention that I've been paying, this would all be as plain to you as it is to me. So let me show you:

The 1970s was a period of grave disillusionment. The Vietnam War. The Nixon Administration. The fallout of the failed dream of the 1960s. My god, that must've been a trying time. Those who came blissfully of age in the love generation were starting to see their dream crumble before their eyes. The world got uglier and uglier. The colors yellow, brown and orange became curiously appealing and started showing up everywhere, inducing widespread subtle nausea. And the degradation of our world could be evidenced, above all else, in the increasing prevalance of the face of one man: Al Pacino.

We should weep at the face of Al Pacino. The man starts to show up in one memorable 1970s movie after another: The Godfather. Serpico. Dog Day Afternoon. Bobby Deerfield. His deep-set masturbatory eyes glazed with fear. The pits in his cheeks and lines in his face dark with anguish. His high, whiny voice mimicking the shrill trumpet of the coming apocalypse. Al Pacino's face is the chaos and despair of the 1970s. Al Pacino face is the failure of a dream; the broken angel tumbling down toward the Earth.

Pacino makes ...And Justice For All and Cruising during the Carter administration. The impetus for Scarface occurs during the Carter administration. The world is weak. The world is frightening. The former hippies, the aged flower-people, are hitting rock bottom. Pacino and Sexual Deviance prance arm in arm across our movie screens.

And who will save us?

Ronald Reagan.

You know, right around 1980, as America braced itself for a presidential election, hostages are living at the US Embassy in Iran. Will Jimmy "Peace Prize" Carter save them? Ha. This is America. The West. We are the thing, that Westerns are about. When the villagers are held hostage by the banditos, who do you send to save them?

The Peanut Farmer?
No. You send the Cowboy.

Thank the fucking Lord that Ronald Reagan won that election. His overwhelming strength and almost punishing masculinity proved no match for those Iranians, and even managed to travel through time and reach twenty-five years into the future to give me my own strength and courage. Our people came home from Iran safe, yes. And just around this time, all those children who had grown up traipsing along with Arlo Guthrie and the Grateful Dead; all those who had lived with the anguish of their folly through the sad Pacino 1970s, were about to wake up and realize that their fathers, against whom they had so furiously rebelled, were right. That the strong family and duty-related values of the 1950s weren't so off-base after all. That it was their job to create a new world similar to the one they had shirked so long ago, under the friendly gaze of the Cowboy, in this new decade of promise and possibility, the 1980s.

Pacino ceases to work. After his thriving, vivacious career reigns over the 1970s, he makes only two more movies after Scarface in the 1980s, and they are Revolution and Sea of Love. Yeah. As the now wizened former love generation embraces work, family, and money, Pacino has no choice to crawl back under the rock from whence he came...and in his wake, his replacement arose, and stood gloriously, victorious over the fleeting degradation. The anti-Pacino, the emblem of all that has once again rightfully become good and true, the symbol of the prodigal generation, returned home to the promised land:

Ralph Macchio.

The Outsiders is released in 1983, followed by The Karate Kid in 1984. Through Macchio's journey, the former love generation sees the error of its ways. First, he thinks he knows everything: he trades authority for disorder, and tradition for novelty and youth. But in The Karate Kid, that novelty that had comforted him like a big warm blanket turns against him, and wants to kick the shit out of him. He is saved only by a return to traditional values of the 1950s: an acceptance of hard work and discipline. A deep respect of his family and his elders. And a greater understanding and acknowledgement of the World War II Pacific conflict. As a reward for this homecoming, he is rewarded with a trophy, a girl, and a beautiful 1950s American-made automobile, for which the Japanese are shown to have great respect and admiration.

While Pacino's movies are "urban" and "gritty," showing the downfall of our city centers in the 1970s, The Karate Kid depicts the lovely San Fernando Valley, where the newly enlightened adults of a bountiful new era are continuing the work of the urban planners of the 1950s, creating communities that allowed Real American Families to thrive, sheltered from the evil falshoods that dashed the hopes and dreams of the Urban Residents down into the cities' gutters.

Pacino does not work during these years. I can only assume he was off doing "theater" somewhere. Property values increase. Yellow, orange and brown are replaced by the far more pleasing fuscia and teal. T-shirts begin to have collars again.

Mr. Macchio did amazing work, ushering in a period of beauty and light, but it doesn't end with him. No, the Lord saw fit to grant us another mascot of enlightenment and improvement: Michael J. Fox.

In 1985, Mr. Fox picked up the good work that Mr. Macchio left off in 1984 with the startling Back to the Future. He takes the pilgrimage that we began with Ronald Reagan's election to the Presidency a step further when he is not only able to see how the 1960s turned his father into a wishy-washy, empty shell of a human being, but then travels BACK IN TIME to the 1955 to set his pussy of a father straight, and give him a set of balls so he can ride out the 1960s like a decent American and live on to future prosperity under President Reagan. Also, he brings his own hands-on experience of 1955 back to the 1980s with him and learns that he shouldn't be afraid of success and prosperity, like he was at the beginning of the film. He learns that these are wonderful things. When Michael J. Fox returns from the 1950s, he owns a large truck in which he is able to have vigorous and robust American sex with his girlfriend, and his father stands lofty with a publishing deal and a sweater tied around his neck. All is made well in America.

I cried at the end.

And these prophets had more work to do; they continued to track the progress of our nation throughout the 1980s with two more episodes in each other their sagas. After the first Karate Kid, Macchio takes on more of the work of the great WWII generation, who knew how to sustain a decent county, by going to Japan to re-kick the Japanese's ass for attempting to compete with us in the automotive and electronic industries. As Reagan's presidency drew to a close, Macchio, in The Karate Kid III, is lead astray by more new-age fakey-fakes, which the 1990s was sure to bring, but is inevitably redeemed by the deeply-rooted ethic of discipline and respect bequethed to him by the WWII generation, on which he had turned his back. Back to the Future II saw Michael J. Fox travel into the future to spread the 1950s values now so dear to him--to make sure that a repeat of the dreaded 1960s didn't come back and poison his children with the same weakness and fear. Back to the Future III let him go back in time a hundred more years to show that the guidance given this country by the Cowboy himself offered not only salvation now, but were even strong enough to allow a man to survive in the Old West, if he had to.

Ralph Macchio and Michael J. Fox showed that they were strong; that they would ride with the Cowboy Ronald Reagan and follow their journeys to the end.

And do any Al Pacino movies have sequels made to them?

Well, yes, The Godfather. But they were made only in the 1970s and in 1990. Francis Ford Coppola was dependent on Pacino for these movies, and knew he had to back off when the Cowboy was President. Pacino's face would have meant nothing to the country. It would have looked foreign and strange.

In the 1980s, sweatsocks had colored bands on them, which symbolized order and plentitude.

In the 1980s, video stores open everywhere, so that all could rent the Karate Kid and Back to the Future and watch them over and over again, to make sure they really get it, because another little decade like the 1960s, and the resulting 1970s, would be a big, big problem.

But it's the 2000s now. Al Pacino works regularly, and has since 1990, when after a decade of inactivity he made three movies in one year. At the beginning of Clinton's administration, Pacino was nominated for two Oscars in the same year. Ralph Macchio ceased to work and Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.

And President Reagan retired from public service and disappeared inside his Bel Air mansion, never to emerge again.

And me, I long for that time during which we received waves of strength and guidence that pulsed from the contours of the face of a great, great Man. I was born, yes, but if only I had been more than just a simple kid, if only I had been old enough to really bear witness to the glory of that time. Of that President. Where people knew that you didn't have to care about things if you were in comfort, and that you didn't have to worry if you weren't; help was on the way down to you. If only that DeLorean would today screech out of thin air into the heart of our cities and our towns, with relics from that wonderful epoch, and Ralph and Michael word emerge and pose there, young, healthy, pointing the road back home.

Terminal C Is Your Home Now, Shit-For-Brains

It's been far too long, you dirty, dirty fuckers, and if I even exist in your consciousness at all I'm sure I take up little more space than the sign language you once picked up from an encyclopedia entry or the personal and professional goals of your one-time sexual partner.

I needed a break. I was at the end of my rope, some people said, and others were more optimistic, placing me at the middle somewhere, unwilling, in fact, to regard me and my precious life with any sort of urgency whatsoever, alienating me and my pulsating friendship and sabotaging any chance they may have at future glory. I have no pity for them. Their doubt washes over me like a warm foam.

I also did these plays two plays, which were altogether something, and left me confused. My head was a mess. They were exhausting, sure, for all of us involved. And I don't think I'm alone, I don't think I was the only one around who feels he hasn't quite fully "ridden the people-mover back to the clubhouse," haw haw, haw. A lot of hours went into the plays, and goddamn it, Time meant something once again; it seemed to pass with a slow plodding gait--the sultry feminine meander of the sexual dynamo that her underdeveloped and crippled twin sister Space will rue till the day she keels dead in her sodden cot. But in the weeks since the play's end Time has begun her retreat to an unsightly indistinctness that brings me no more sexual arousal than the rorschach blots that I can see when I stare at a light and squint my eyes.

As a result, well, a kind of warping takes place; and it's this I blame for my absence.

And if the plays weren't enough, well, I just had to go and fuck my mind all up by visitng good old Kenyon College, a place where I don't belong and was in many ways unwelcome, and so of course there was no choice for me to go prancing on in in the middle of an end-of-the-year festival with my head held high and my purported adulthood (and simbiotic confusion) pinned to my sleeve like a supernumerary epaulet. A place I new I was seeing for the last time. I had a good last look around, and said goodbye. Because, hey, last time I was there, my friends were there, I fit in, and as I had walked away from the place I looked behind me and the suspension bridge that crossed the precipice separating the school from the outside world was firmly in tact. No good. Had to go back and burn that fucker down.

And I thought I was gonna' get away clean, with a flight from Columbus to Dallas, another one from Dallas to L.A., planned with precision to give me as little a layover as possible, so that I could miss the travel time, just fall down drunk and asleep on one plane and wake up at home. Fate, however--dressed as an American Airlines employee (I didn't look at her nametag, but if I had I'm sure I would've seen the initials "MJ," for Moses Josh was also undoubtedly lurking somewhere deep inside her skin)--had different plans for me.

"It's gone," she said with a blank stare as I ran huffing up to the gate.
"What...the plane?"
"Yeah. It's gone. It's on the runway."
"I missed it...?"
Her eyes say yes. But I look at the clock, and notice that it wasn't time for the plane to depart yet.
"Well...it had to pull back from the gate early."
So much for my quick layover. Now I have a good seven hours before the next flight to Burbank, where I must go, because my car is there, and because my bag is going there. And because my car keys and house keys, are in my bag.

(Normally I never check my bags, but I had been drunk enough when I got to the airport to make a very energizing decision to emancipate myself from the burden of luggage. "T-take it," I gurgled, and thrust my bag at the attendant. I do believe I even made a hand-washing gesture as I stumbled away. Ha ha.)

Now, as the American Airlines woman in Dallas turns her attention forever away from me after booking me on the next flight, I have nothing but the clothes I'm wearing, a book in my hand, and what's in my pockets. Fortunately, that last listing happens to include:
Wallet
Cell phone w/ low batteries
A small notepad and pen
Two (2) weed cookies crumbled & melted in a plastic ziplock bag

Thank god for those last two items. I will now take you to what I wrote in the notebook:

Things are about to get worse. But they're getting better too. Sure, my flight took off without me, even though I was there before the scheduled departure time, and sure, I'm going to be hanging out here in Dallas for another 6 hours. But at least I brought the weed cookies in my pocket and didn't leave them in the bag that will be travelling to Los Angeles ahead of me, arriving to see the daylight hours that I can only imagine.

I started eating them right there in front of the desk at the gate but then went to finish them in the bathroom stall. The coating of hash chocolate had melted off the cookies on to the bag, so after I sucked most of the crumbs out of the corner I inverted the bag and licked and toothed the chocolate off the plastic. When I finished, I opened the door of the stall and moved to the sink, and miled back at the two men who stared in awe as they saw me emerge from the toilet with what appeared to be shit all over my face. I finally understood the meaning of the term "shit-eating grin" as I smiled back at them. It means freedom. It means letting go. Welcome to Dallas/Fort Worth.

I've wiped the chocolate off my face and tried to eat something--half a mozzerella sandwich with tomato and pesto from a place called Au Bon Pain. I'd make some sort of joke about this but it's funny enough as it is. I notice on the bag that Au Bon Pain exists in Atlanta Boston Bangkok Chicago Dallas London Miami New York Philadelphia Pittsburg Taipei Washington D.C. But not in Paris. And not in L.A. I try to imagine myself a devotee of the establishment, jetsetting from one locale to the next, in search of the lone Au Bon Pain in the region, a beacon in the strange wasteland that guides you to a soft salvation of Pestoed Meats and Southwestern WRaps. This is going to be a problem. I'm afraid to look at the time and see how desperately long I have until my flight, but I know it's long, and I'm worried I'm going to have to find a bar, or at least a television set that shows nothing but advertisements and clips of music videos. But I do know one thing now. I've been stopped here for a reason. I've been slowed down and made to transition, and to take note of my journey. I slept the entirety of my first flight, was going to sleep through the second, and then wake up and be home with no sense of the trip itself, with the movement gone in the blink of an eye. This was fine with me; this was what I wanted. But I've been show that that was WRONG, that I wanted the wrong thing. Open your eyes and watch, you cocksucker. That's how it's supposed to go, apparently. I can see that now.
I don't want to finish my fucking sandwich, and I throw it away.

I make a very important decision--to stop, and move my plane ticket from inside my book to my LEFT BACK POCKET.

I don't think the name "La Bodega Winery" has quite the ring they think it does. It's ahright; I don't believe this is a largely-spread chain like Au Bon Pain, so the stakes are lower. Since they offer wine-tasting, and have a bar that has been painted with grape leavees and is adorned with what I'm sure must've been at some point referred to as "rich oak paneling," I decide to go in and have some wine.

I'm drinking somthing called "El Guapo" at $6.95 a glass. I hear a strange, mechanical voice calling out words...it sounds like it should be flight information, but the tone is wrong, the voice is studdering...I step outside to hear what it's saying, but it cuts off as soon as I leave the windery. I look at the time, and am horrified. I'm not sure why I chose to drink "El Guapo." I sat down, and the girl seemed kind of ready to make a sales pitch, so I let her; but she has stage fright when I say "what do you recommend...?"
"Umm...mggh..." she mutters. But then she gets her footing, and begins to pull out a few bottles, giving me descriptions...I can't really pay atention to what she's saying, but she sounds like she's gained some confidence, like she knows what she's talking about. The voice comes back, but I still can't make out what it's saying.
But it doesn't matter, because there is a business deal going on next to me. The Owner of the Winery is negotiating with two distributors, an Australian and an American, who is younger, and I hear the Owner, a Texan, throw in a phrase like, "now, if we're gonna' do business together..." He's trying to be intimidating. He presses them: "so, how're you gonna' bring it up here?"
The American counters, "well...we have a driver...but...well, well I'll bring it...yeah, I'll bring it up in my truck, I'll just throw it in my truck..."

I have left the Winery, for too many reasons, reasons I won't go into now, other than to say I overhear as part of the business deal a full explanation from the Winery owner of how to easily and simply bypass airport security and sneak right into the terminal. But I have left. I am on the train (tghe inter-terminal tram, that is, or, as they call it, the TRAAIN). Yes, I am on the TRAAIN. And the TRAAIN is going nowhere.

There is a problem with the TRAAIN doors. The TRAAIN doors do not close. Maintenance has been dispatched to fix the TRAAIN doors, and please be seated because the TRAAIN doors will close.

I had scurried down the stairs and hopped in the TRAAIN, thinking I had just caught it, before I learned that there was a problem and that the TRAAIN was not moving. Now, I sit in he still TRAAIN and every couple of minutes I watch someone else do the same thing, fly down the stairs and leap triumphant into the promised land that's about to break it's promise.

* * *

The TRAAIN is moving again, and I've made a decision. I'm going to ride the TRAAIN for a little while (I don't want to arouse too much suspicion, so probably just one full revolution or two).

This is what I get for riding the TRAAIN.
I get stuck on the TRAAIN again.

Sometimes, feeling the truth about yourself and ripples and compresses like Doppler waves through your entire body. It's only something minor and is gone in a moment because it doesn't deserve to stay. Huh. And I can't even let myself write about it because it'd have to come far too much into focus.

I realize this in Terminal C, my new home. Terminal C looks something like Terminal A. In addition to my realization, I also check my phone messages (these two items tend to travel as a pair, I've found). One from my friend Gabe, a day old, which, had I listened to it when he left it, would have cleared up a misunderstanding we had had at the time. The other from Justin Struble. A friend in Santa Barbara, who had asked for and wanted nothing more than a phone call so he could share in the weekend. Whom I had forgotten to call. Fantastic. One more failure to add to the list of failures. One more lapse. One more thing to remind me that I'm not always who I think I am.
But it doesn't matter now. The clock is ticking, slowly, and the copy of Angle of Repose that I carry to assure the crowd around me of my normalcy may give me camoflauge but it does not give me shelter. And even if it did, I wouldn't deserve it.

Terminal C is your home, shit-for-brains. Whether you like it or not. Hope you enjoy the sensations. Hope your head can hack it.
But what a wealth of sounds. I was walking earlier, and I heard them like music, a wonderful rhythm--which of course happen all the time. But this one was no fucking joke, I tell you, and it lifted through the air just when I needed it, and I wanted it to almost bring tears to my eyes. And so I'll sit here now, listening.

* * *

I am a dumb, dumb motherfucker, and have not spent nearly enough of this time at newsstands. The cover pictures of all the nice people draws attention away from me and the Hershey's with Almonds gives me comfort. Furthermore, they are able to remind me that the country is a bg place, the world an even bigger one. You start to get a sense of the scope, and you start to remember that there are lots of places to hide from your mistakes. A lot of distance can be put between yourself and the truth. I start to realize that whole states that exist for this purpose, such as Nevada, Belgium and Perth, Australia. And here I am--in Dallas/Fort Worth.
I am unsure how to feel about the presence of a second Au Bon Pain in Terminal C.

It occurs to me that this trip wouldn't be complete without a good solid vomit, and I'm wondering when that's going to take place.

It's walking time again. I move through Terminal C in this fashion, I walk, I sit...and when I feel stagnant I walk again. I could get back on the TRAAIN, but I'm afraid to get stuck. So I'll walk again. If things stay on track I'm moving toward the end of this thing, with an hour left before I board. Since it's a known fact that airports induce cravings of cinammon, butter and frostings, all airport eating establishments are stocked with some cinammon roll-like pastry in order to avert a crisis. I am no exception to this brutal situation, and as a result Auntie Annie's Pretzels can be pleased to call me a customer.
I eat my frosted raisin pretzel, and I feel inadequate for a moment, but why should I...? People eat their meals all around me and they disgust me. I'd like some sugar, so what?, and the pretzel must've had some sort of effect on that because now I find myself walking up to a man and at the abutting Starbucks and asking him for a Drinking Chocolate.
"You mean a...uh, a Chantico?" he responded, hopefully, but I refuse to continue the conversation if he carries on with that kind of language. Call it a Drinking Chocolate, like the explaination says.
"I think you heard me," I tell him.

As I get in the goddamn line to board the goddamn plane, I feel what I always feel when I get on an airplane, and that's guilt, and regret. I've felt them before. And sometimes that's something bad, and other times it isn't. These things have a habbit, I guess you could say, of growing away as you grow older. (I'm now beginning to understand that this is in fact what a habbit is.) Things behind you get smaller in a way that never seemed possible, and what used to make my stomach churn, just makes me smile now, and wish for more, more, please...And of course, the fact comforts me--something I have to say out loud every now and again, something it's nice to remind yourself of, as much as it feels so swimming to say the opposite too--that I haven't done anything wrong.

No.

I could've done things better...but I didn't do them wrong.

Bite Your Teeth Into The Ass of Life

And I have done this, oh yes, with such ferocity that I can hardly move my lips to mouth the words I write on the page. Ass of Life runoff drips from my beaming smile. It tastes sweet and airy, like I imagine ass souffle would taste. It tastes like triumph.

And so it should, for if I were to wear a sandwich board today it would say "triumph" in big bold letters astride an arrow pointing directly to my glowing head.

I quit my job.

Oh, you knew it was coming. I was a sort of ticking time-bomb in this place, one that was set to go off before long (and one that, upon detonation, would not explode, but merely deflate and fizzle away into a hazy obsucrity), and sure enough, as we ring in the New Year, so do I ring in my liberation.

And boy, is that not all: because on March 17th I shall open two new plays to the lesser Los Angeles theatre going community, something I'm thinking of titling "I'm back, #!@@&: An Evening with Andy Hyman," and so before long, after my gradual disappearance from the office is complete, I can get to work. REAL work. Work to which I actually have some connection. I am the H.Y.M.A.N. Commander once again. I am strong. I am powerful. I am virtually unstoppable.

So why, you may ask, am I sitting at home, hiding from the world, on a mid-Monday morning?

Well, there are two answers to that question. The first is, that I'm not. That today is actually Wednesday, and I am sitting at work. However:

The fact of the matter is, that were I to travel through time, as I am able to do (we'll get back to this another time; for now, take my word for it), back to two days ago, Monday, I would find myself lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, having already called into the office to inform them that the rockslide outside my apartment has blocked my path to the subway station and will prevent me from being at work today to fill my beloved duties of phone-answering, coffee-making, mail-opening, and time-wasting, not to mention mind-reading, genital-shifting, and mood-lightening.

And about this last item: I've realized, that although I must do it, it is a very selfish thing for me to leave this office, for I am I believe wholly responsible for the daily smiles on the faces of my coworkers. It takes a great strength of will to look at oneself objectively, but while lying in bed on Monday, warm, happy and out of the rain, happy about the rockslide and the BMW it had buried, a rockslide that on its own like a wall of dirt moving not only through physical space but temporal space as well managed to crush away 1/8 of my remaining time at work, I was of course able to telepathically teleport my overpowering brainwaves to the office and catch a glimpse of what seemed a dire pall cast over the spirit of those who work around me. And surely enough, when I returned the next day, the revitilization of those poor folks was instant; a spring came back to their step and the brightness flooded their eyeballs, just as the rosiness returned to their cheeks.

"Jeez, gosh, Andy," said one of the architects, his hands folded modestly in his lap. "Where were ya? Thingswre really blue withoutcha yesterday..."
"I know, I'm sorry," I told him, patting him on his scruffy little head. "Couldn't be helped, little buddy. Act of God. Force of nature. Just like the tornado that took Dorothy." His eyes widened with wonder.
"Really? Like in the movie 'n all? Wow, musta been real exciting!"
"It sure was," I assure him, "It suuuuuure was. Hey, maybe one day we'll go to a park and take a kite out and I'll show you how nature works in the first place. Would you like that?" He nods his head so furiously his chair knocks over his set of drafting pencils.

"Andy, where've you BEEN?" asks my boss, the office manager. "Gosh, you know how crazy things can get when you're not here." Then she stops and thinks. "Well, actually, I...I guess you don't. Ha ha!" I tell her nothing about the fact that I witnessed it first-hand from my warm, comfortable, vaginal apartment the day before. "Anyway, we sure coulda usedya. Everybody always gets so sad when you're not around, and...and...well, I...Andy, please don't leave! You can't, you can't leave us! What'll we do without you????" She hugs me and buries her head in my firm chest.
"There, there," I comfort her. "It'll be okay. Soon, there'll be a new receptionist, and he'll be just as good as I am. Soon, you won't even remember me." She recoils.
"No! No! I don't want anybody new! I don't WANT anybody new! Andy, I don't WANT anybody new! That's not fair! Andy, you're not fair!"
"Aww, don't be sad. I'll come back and visit. I promise." I wipe the tear from her cheek, and she looks up at me, all sad-eyed.
"You...you promise...?"
I offer her a reassuring smile.
"Promise. Hey. Kiddo."
My smile shifts from reassuring to heartwarming.

David and Brenda, grand poobahs of the office, skip up to my desk.
"Andy do you really--"
"--have to leave and we want you to know we really--"
"--missed you yesterday everybody was really--"
"--sad and we were both really--"
"--sad and we wanted you to know that we both really--"
"--want you to stay and if you really--"
"--want to stay you can stay it's okay we both think it's really--
"--okay."
They bounce on their heels in alternating beats. I try to look stern, but I can't help but grin a little bit. They see my grin and look at each other, excited. "Guys," I say. "Guys. Now we talked about this. What did Andy tell you?"
"Awwwwww, but--"
"Awwwwww, but--"
"Andy!" they both plead at the same time.
"I know. I know. It's hard. But remember that talk, that we had about loss...? And what that means...?"
"Yeeeaah," but they're not convinced.
"Don't worry. This is one of those days, where the future looks dark and gray."
"You mean just like it--"
"--did yesterday when you--"
"--weren't here?" I nod.
"Exactly like that. It's going to be lonely at times."
"Like it is when--"
"--we can't hear your--"
"--pretty voice?" I feel their love in my heart, and it makes me sad to have to do this.
"Yeah, uh huh. But what did we say we were going to do when this happens?"
They think.
"Uh...smile?" I turn my head to the other one.
"Smile?"
And I smile.
"You got it." They catch on, and start to smile themselves.
"Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!"

And even with all this warmth, I lied in bed on Monday, and got up to watch TV, and still managed, like the evil, heartless person I really am under the just-displayed facade of caring and warmth, to enjoy myself. Because, fuck it.

It's a new year.
It's the beginning of a new era.
2004 has passed in all it's stagnancy, confusion, and a haze that may or may not be legitimately described as "drug-riddled," and on a rainy Monday I could see the beautiful future stretching out in front of me, off into the interminable distance, where at the end I saw the shadows of people, one of which had my figure, frolicing in orgiastic delight. And I never believed much in the personal significance of the switch-over to a new calendar year, but this time it seems different. I move a little more quickly through time in space. And I have bitten my teeth into the ass of life.

I'm pretty sure nothing can stop me, except the grand piano dangling from a peice of twine a flight above my head on which Moses Josh plays a lullabye, providing the soothing tune and the welcome shade for my much-needed rest.

They want Fluffy, but it’s not Fluffy

Merry Christmas, everyone, and I know as you sit there reading this you're feeling the tidings of the holiday spirit trembling deep inside your stomach liver and shriveled genitals and it will radiate throughout your extremities to provide a deep and comforting warmth. This is what we call a "soul," and if you do not feel this effect I have described then surely you do not have one, and the overwhelming joy of the season is wasted on you; you should wear a sign around your neck that brands you a Holiday Leper and the soiled rags that wrap your body should be a sign for the rest of us to stay the fuck away, lest our own souls be poisoned by the gaping void inside of you. Merry Christmas!!!

This is the season to feel the glowing love of your family, or, if you're alone, without family friends or love of your life, then you're lucky--the single-unit family shall not be there to block and distort the much larger gateway to the low-frequency glowing love of civilization as a whole. You can feel the love of the entire world bearing down upon you, crushing you under its mammoth tractor treads.

And this Holiday Season thing IS interesting, even depressing, when you don't hae someone special to share it with, to wrap you in a set of loving arms and insinuating hands--it's kind of like Valentine's Day + Jesus. And it can have strange effects on those who are caught in its bloody wake, and these effects will be evidenced around you--as normal, cheerful homeless people take to incoherent blabbering and even angry shouting, as day-laborers, car salesmen and local government officials engage in slightly criminal behavior, and even young playwright/receptionists who usually possess excellent public demeanor and unparalleled taste and conscientiousness can be found wandering the streets, their eyes contorted with fear as they are unable to stop themselves from ceaslessly muttering random lewd phrases like "oral-anal-intercourse" and "ripe virgin pussy". Yes, the Holiday Season takes its toll on even the strongest members of society. Merry Christmas!

It's really a need for companionship, of any kind, that strikes a chord in us this time of year, and since the human variety isn't often available, many turn to the next best thing: animals. And, in keeping with the traditional Holiday Spirit, a Texas woman has payed a company $50,000 to clone her dead cat, because, as we all know, you can't spell "companionship" without "pain," "panic," "poison," "simp," "siphon," and of course "opinsapo," which is the ancient Hopi word for "cat-cloning." This woman has just taken delivery of the nine-week old living clone of her dead beloved dead cat Nicky, and she claims that the clone, Little Nicky, has "even the same personality," as the very dead original cat, which I'd be willing to guess involves aloofness, apathy, and muted cat-like animosity. But people are weary about this whole cat-cloning Christmas thing, although I don't see why, because didn't God clone himself, in a way? Isn't that what the whole trinity thing is about? People are upset, and some detractors say, that a clone is a just a kind of copy, and bound to be different--IT WILL NOT BE THE SAME AS THE ORIGINAL. "They want Fluffy," warned one Texas A&M researcher, referring to these cloning customers, and their hypothetical cats, "but it's not Fluffy." Well thanks for that observation. Way to ruin Christmas, Mrs. Grinch.

My problem with this whole thing, is that they haven't taken it nearly far enough. Who the fuck wants the cat they already got rid of, all over again? Why not improve the cat? Shit, how are we supposed to improve OURSELVES if we keep having the same pets over and over again? Hmmm?

So, in order to practice what I preach, I have ordered for myself for Christmas a full-grown cloned Polar Bear, with its Evil genes replaced with Sensitivity and Erudition genes. I imagine the result will be something akin to the animated Coca Cola polar bears, without the incestuous undertones--unfortunately, I won't know until just before the New Year, because I wouldn't shell out the extra cash for FedEx shipping.

I have also asked that the Polar Bear be provided with an enhanced grasp of language and communication, so we may have conversations--something I require of my Holiday companion. Our conversation, I imagine, will go something like this:

I'll walk into the room where the Polar Bear lies curled in the corner with a volume of Immanuel Kant's writings that he removed delicately from my bookshelf. When I enter, he sees me, and removes the monocle from his eye.

"Hey, Bear, how's the book?"
"Wraaaaaaaahhhhk"
"Yeah, that's kind of how I felt about it too."
"Fffpphlllmmmmmnn"
"Are you hungry? Can I get you something to eat?"
He shakes his head, no, but I sense otherwise as he begins to lick the dust off the brim of his top hat.
"Look, Bear, you don't have to lie to me. If you're hungry, I'll make you some fish."
He shrugs his shoulders, and manages a slight smile on his giant bear lips. I take the hint, and make him some fish, which he picks at delicately.
"Bear. Hey. What's goin' on here?"
"Ooorrrrrrrggg?"
"I mean...hey, you're hungry, you don't have to be ashamed around me...I love you. Unconditionally. Just because you're more aware than most bears, doesn't mean you have to try to impress me by denying certain animal urges. Eat the fish. It's okay. Because...you know, I just don't want there to be any kind of hang-ups between us, right?"
"Brrrr."
"Exactly. So go ahead, dig in."
But instead he just turns his nose away and rests it pensively on a paw. He doesn't want the fish anymore. The fish has been endowed with too much meaning.
"Goddammit!" I'm getting frustrated. "I brought you here...look, you're supposed to be my FRIEND, all right? I want us open. I want us honest. No secrets, Bear, you get it?"
"Mmrglbglbrr," and he turns his back on me, his shoulders becoming rippled with tension. He's hiding something from me; despite all my efforts to make him open up. Despite my desire to make him love me.
"Listen, I...I don't know if this is working out..." I'm having trouble containing my tears, but the Bear doesn't care, burrowing his nose deeper in his cashmere sweater. "Why don't you--Bear, why don't you LISTEN?, why do we have to DO this?"
"Raaaaghaghaghaghaghaghaghaghaghaghaghaghaghaghaghagh," he bellows, and tries to put a friendly paw on my shoulder, and even lovingly cradle my head in his jaws, but I can't stand his touch; not now, not after all this.
"No, get away. Get...don't touch me. Don't. DON'T."
"Mawwwwwwww."
The Bear is hyper-intelligent, and when he wakes up will understand why I had to give him two tranquilizer darts in the ass. He will see that he wasn't being a good listener. He will see how he failed me as a companion. We'll come to a new understanding; I'll cook him a nice seal steak and fall asleep under the protection of his enlightened gaze.

Wow, just imagining this situation reminds me of all the love in my heart, and feeling it reminds me of the existence--to mention nothing of the great depths--of my own soul. And with that knowledge...well, how can I feel lonely this Christmas as I stare out at the expanse of Christmasy Los Angeles? How can I feel lonely when I've got all this inside of me? I wish I could hug myself, because that's both what I want to give to myself, and receive from myself. I know now that I am both sides of the yin-yang. Alone? No. Complete? Yes.

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!!!