xtcian

1/4/03 Day XIV of the

1/4/03

Day XIV of the Rat-a-Tat-Tat Swizzle Stickin' Razzle Dazzle Chuck Wagon Road Trip

Los Angeles, CA

This was supposed to be our fun, relaxed day but instead turned into a flurry of cell phone calls, information frantically retrieved from dying Palms, and last-minute emails dashed off to disparate parties. We were having problems with Jason's DSL (the Airport refused to work on it) until I found another wireless transmitter somewhere on the mountain, a router named "Brazil." As best as we can locate it, Brazil is somewhere down the hill and to the west of us, and you need to be sitting in a particular position on the couch to get it but when you do, you're rewarded with blindingly fast internet service. I don't know about you folks out there in Broadband Land, but piggybacking (aka "stealing") wireless internet service is just about the most fun you can have. We even found a second wireless transmitter called "HandHeld" that is available if you put your laptop over the kitchen sink. I haven't had this much fun since ham radio.

We started the day at a brunch held by Kathy Eldon, where the conversation got very heavy-duty and morose about the current state of American affairs. I had one such conversation a year ago tonight in New York (read that story here) that precipitated a nervous breakdown and made Celexa a necessity. This one was almost as bad (basically, the Mayans posit that life as we know it will be very different starting in the year 2012) and touched on the kind of casualties we'll see in an Iraq war (6 million!). By the end, I needed to be back in the welcome heat of a Los Angeles afternoon, but was not half as riddled with anxiety as usual. The Celexa must actually have some palliative properties, or perhaps it does its best work unnoticed.

Either way, I'm committed to making my farm completely self-reliant on wind and solar power. More on that when I get there.

By 4pm, we were up at Walt Boyle's place for a get-together surrounding the UNC game and the screening of the Pink House trailer. In attendance: Mike J, Dani, Veronica, Jason, sweet Stasia, Jim, Walt himself, Tessa, me, and amazingly, the illustrious Andrew Bennett Taubman. Andy Taubman is one of my favorite people in the world; we lived together in the basement of the Lodge (called Exotica at that time) and while there are no two different people on the planet, we emerged having profoundly affected each other in the best possible ways. Andy made my writing better, and I like to think I helped develop his (now undeniable) charm. When I reflect upon the incredible minds I knew at Chapel Hill, he is always foremost along with Rick Maechling, Tessa, Ali, the Chipper, and a few others that made those years blessed.

The trailer screening was a hit; everyone seemed to dig it, and wanted more, which is the whole point. Walt said (and I agree) that the trailer doesn't quite tell you what the story is about, but with a little explanation, it shows that the movie is a substantial piece of work, possibly quite funny, and worthy of intrigue. Plus, the addition of the animation kinda blows open the artistic possibilities and makes the project seem like an incredible endeavor, and god knows it is.

Andy and me on Sunset Blvd.

We spent the rest of the evening with Andy at Toi on Sunset, the Thai place my sister Michelle made us go to every chance she could. The only table left was the one where you sit on the floor, so by the time we finished, I was prostrate and holding myself up with a pillow sling. I hate sitting on the floor. I'm too tall for that shit, yo.

1/3/03 Day XIII of the

1/3/03

Day XIII of the Dogs and Ponies Road Trip of Unabating Puppies and Calves Achin' From Street Pounding

Bel Air, CA

We had nary a scarce free moment today, as five meetings clouded up our schedule starting at 10:30am and ending past 7pm. Doing these meet'n'greets with prospective investors and agents can take a lot out of you, making it seem like you've spun all of the syllables off your spindle, leaving it twisting blankly in dry cardboard. Fortunately, there's two of us doing the talking, but I have to say Tessa really shone today. She's excellent at maintaining her energy, and each person she meets gets the full brunt of her unsquelchable candlepower.

We didn't ask anybody for money outright - which is how these things work - but I think we fostered good will, and in this environment, that's almost as valuable. The rub remains: we need to finish a rough cut in order to show our film to the Important People, but we need about $20K to get us there. This is the hump we're overcoming on this trip, even if I need to drive us to the moon for cheese.

The only super drag of the day was coming back to Silver Lake in the middle of all this, just to let out all the dogs and keep the canines happy. It did, however, allow me to capture Seor Poopypants in his full sunset regalia:

ain't the Chopes cute?

So cute you could eat him. At least that was the dinner conversation in Venice tonight at Michael Stuno's place apparently black dogs are a delicacy in some far-off Asian place or another. Which led me to wonder if there had been some blind taste tests between a black dog and say, a yellow Lab, with the black dog proving far more delicious.

The crowd which consisted of Jason, Tim, our producer Penny, her new husband Matthew, along with Tessa and I – plowed through all these conversations, touching on the Taliban, the monkey we have running the country, childhood horrors, bad Christmas presents, and the redemption of our fathers. It was a humdinger, tellya what, and you had to be fast on your feet to catch this runaway train of witty persiflage. Proof that there is sign of incredibly intelligent life in Los Angeles (even if all of them just came from New York).

Jason, Penny and Tessa wax philosophic from the couch

1/2/03 Day XII of the

1/2/03

Day XII of the Heliophilic Full Spectrum-Drenched Warm Wind Blowin' the Stars Around Road Trip of Reconsiderations

Silver Lake, CA

I think a matter of thirty degrees Fahrenheit makes all the difference. I've bemoaned how much I hated my life in Los Angeles so many times on this blog that I'm sure most of you wished I'd shut the fuck up already, but this trip has been something of a revelation to me; mainly, that I could easily move back here if the weather was always this nice, and if Tessa would do it with me.

I've noticed a sharp decline in my anxiety rates while being here, so much that I have to remind myself to take the Celexa. In NYC, the Celexa always beckons from the bathroom, saying "I will help you get through tomorrow," but here, it glances up at me with insouciance, barely mentioning that I should take it for consistency's sake.

While driving through the crappiest parts of Hollywood today (roughly Sunset east of Bronson), I actually thought we could spend our winters here, and the summers in Columbia County. The problems are obvious: the movie business here is a nightmare, most people are dum-dums, and I'd definitely miss the intense psychological tte-à-têtes with our New York posse of Lindsay, Dana, Nell, Virginia, Rick, Kim, Liz, Shelagh, Josh, Jessie, Jenny, Jiffer, Jon, Lars, Lasala, the Colins, Blocks, Kellerans, Tobias/Drapers, Arinellas, Bullocks, Grays, and so many more worthy of intellectual worship – not to mention my family. But the environment, the ocean, and the ability to sit outside and write makes this place an attractive fantasy. Not one we'd indulge anytime soon, but it's incredible to me that I'm even considering it.

Today saw us in three very different places: we had brunch with Tessa's friend Veronica (who is going through a very difficult breakup), we watched the Pink House movie with our music supervisor Amy Seidenwurm (happily married in a fabulous home), and had tea with Kathy Eldon (where we met her new beau, who seems like a good egg). Kathy had much news to report of her Dan movie, but most of it was still hush-hush enough to limit my mention here. That's the problem with a blog; diaries can be written with the intention of being discovered posthumously, but this thing can be relentless Googled every second.

Jesus, can you imagine your childhood diary being Googled? Kristin Landis would have known how big a crush I had on her!!! Wow, that would have SUCKED!!!! JUST KIDDING!!!!

U are 2 GOOD
+ 2 BE
_______
4-GOTTEN!

rhts,

ian williams, 6th grade

1/1/03 Day Eleven of the

1/1/03

Day Eleven of the Unseasonably Warm Shorts and Penetrating Sunsets Road Trip of Affable Reconsidering

Silver Lake, CA

Today, I opened a window. Now, that may not seem like such a big goddamn deal to any of you out there in the warmer climes, but we have been unable to open a window for about four months back where we live the fall and winter has been unseasonably miserable, and the last few days on the open plains of America have been blindingly cold. Not here. It was 77 degrees today, and I was hot in shorts. Not "hot" like "hot," "hot" like... oh, forget it.

As Tessa went off on a hike with Jason, I trucked over to the old Beachwood house, still sitting mere furlongs from the Hollywood sign, empty as a old skull. Everyone's car was there, but no humans were inside, so I snuck around back and broke in the usual way: the kitchen window never closed properly.

Inside, it was downright ghoulish. I'm not sure how that house manages to dissipate heat, but it must have been 45 degrees in there, with the smell of an ancient locker room from a turn-of-the-century YMCA. It was fascinating to see what kind of effect I had on that house, how few things still linger from my three years there. It has been two years since I left, and all the remains of my presence is a couple of light fixtures, cable TV into perpetuity, the green ceramic tile floors, and an old project attached to the fridge with a magnet.

I went into lugubrious detail last year about my problems with the place, but all I felt this year was just plain old sadness. That house could have been an intense creative center for people alighting on the West Coast and it may have been, for about six months - but my 1997 plans for LA never materialized. Sure, most of that was due to the oppressive horseshit we endured from various peoples' moron friends, but there's something about LA that seems like a failed experiment. Plenty of people went through Beachwood Manor, but nobody had the right mix of talent, gregariousness and loyalty. As I was driving up Carmen Ave. a group of fresh-out-of-college kids were sitting on their stoop and raised their drinks to me - and I felt like they were doing it right.

12/31/02 Day Ten of the

12/31/02

Day Ten of the Virgin River Gorgeous Striated Magma Showdown Road Trip Annus Wonderfullus Baby!

Cedar City, UT to Los Angeles, CA

Okay, let's try a little harder this time.

Tessa tries explaining Aspen to me

I have a natural aversion to self-avowed "resort areas" that many white people in the same place always turns my stomach, and the amount of money being spent on absolute crap could feed 3/4ths of Rwanda, blah blah. But Aspen is a little different. Sure, there's the requisite anorexic 45-year-old women with surgical enhancements and impossibly small jeans - and the early 20something "extreme" contingent who are far too cool for school - but a town that dependent on the weather has an undeniable layer of honesty. Also, skiing is not an easy sport, requiring patience, skill, and a certain amount of endurance in some pretty awful weather conditions. By contrast, any fucking schlub can lay out on the beach, get skin cancer and wade in the tide. I believe this small difference makes a ski resort livable, cultural, and may also foster music festivals (Aspen) and film festivals (Telluride and Sundance).

Well, at the very least it produced Tessa. We went by her old house and her middle school, both nestled in gorgeous mountain nooks, then to "Daughter Earth," an aromatherapeutic apothecary run by her childhood best friend Jen Marcus. I don't take much solace in herbal remedies, since most everything I get requires laser surgery, but I do like smelling all the tinctures and squirting the various fennel seed and myrrh-flavored lotions all over the place. That said, I picked up cranberry pills for my kidneys just in case (while Tessa bought out all the Green Goddess).

Since Aspen Mountain is only for bunnies who have skied since childhood, we went to Buttermilk so I could wait in line with the 8-year-olds and differently-abled folk going down the Hill for Spastics. Having done okay on that one, Tessa and I took the Summit Express to the top of the 10,000 ft. mountain and I managed to ski at times, quite gracefully - three miles down to the lodge. I only wiped out really bad four times, 'cuz I have trouble turning left. I'll get it straight eventually.

two miles into the ionosphere atop Buttermilk Mountain

We left Aspen WAY too late and while Tessa slept, I drove us across the vast, windy expanse of I-70 through Utah in the middle of the night, through a fog as thick as anything I remember from 1977 London. The saving grace, of course, was XM Satellite Radio on channel 8 (the 80s), where they are playing each and every one of Casey Kasem's American Top 40 shows from that decade. During one extremely inspiring stretch, the show from April 11, 1981 came on, and it was astounding. It was perhaps my favorite week in radio history: "I Love You" by the Climax Blues Band, "Living Inside Myself" by Gino Vanelli, "Too Much Time on My Hands" by Styx, "Don't Stand So Close to Me" by the Police as well as guilty pleasures "9 to 5," "Morning Train" (Sheena Easton's masterpiece), and even a version of "Mr. Sandman" by Emmylou Harris. Sure, there's crap ("Take It On the Run" by REO Speedwagon, "Her Town Too" by James Taylor) but the sheer variety and complexity of this stuff allows me to say it once and for all: our Top 40 is better than today's Top 40.

Listening to all of the Casey Kasems one after another (they do them randomly; you'll get 1988, then 1985, etc.) you can sense pop music dying right after 1983 not coincidentally, right after the rise of MTV. That fucking station forever chained us to the mediocrity of the physically attractive, pealing the death knell for blue-collar bands like Journey, Styx, REO Speedwagon and Foreigner. I mean, those guys had their share of lame songs, but when Steve Perry sang "Don't Stop Believin'" he actually meant it. Nothing remotely as cool as "Urgent" could possibly be dreamed by today's dim-bulb pop artists.

In my (completely objective) experience, pop music swelled to a crest in 1983 with the best releases by Duran Duran, the Police, Michael Jackson; quirky hits like "Too Shy" and "Promises, Promises"; the birth of the Smiths and old school rap and the shooting of "Purple Rain." This wave washed ashore in 1986 with the last masterpieces of the era: XTC ("Skylarking"), Paul Simon ("Graceland"), the Smiths ("The Queen is Dead"), U2 ("The Joshua Tree"), and Peter Gabriel ("So"). Since then, the Top 40 could be described the same way pilots describe flying: years of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.

Oh yeah, it could be argued that 1983 not only coincided with the rise of MTV, but also my 16th birthday leading to the obvious point that I simply like the music of my youth, and as I grew older, I stopped being able to commiserate. While partially true, I have been desperate for somebody to come along in this era of Top 40 and give me even a millimeter of the gooseflesh I felt from pre-video artists. I keep listening for it, like a democracy-starved Albanian with his ear pressed to Radio Free Europe. I tour the record stores with listening stations, I force myself to listen to Ch. 20 on the satellite, I chain myself - "Clockwork Orange"-style - to the hunk of self-obsessed, vain, vapid, vat of shit currently masquerading as MTV. But I can't help the sneaking suspicion that videos have destroyed pop music. Leaving something so important and transcendent as music up to the moronic banality of beautiful people is like picking novelists from a swimsuit contest. It's horrifying, and something from which I'll probably never recover.

Back to the topic at hand: The motel in Cedar City, Utah was creepy. The owner made me sign the credit card at 4am outside during a blizzard, and even more depressing, I always associate the city with Bruce Riddle, my mom's first husband, who lies in a grave nearby. I don't know how she got through the years 1960-62, and she has never gone into it in much detail. I recently asked her how she survived, and she answered "what choice did I have?"

I promptly lost $20 at the Nevada Landing casino, the sad sack gambling warehouse at the California border for those drivers coming from Los Angeles who simply can't wait another 14 miles to gamble in Las Vegas. I would have doubled my money, but I hit the wrong button on Video Poker.

We rolled into Arcadia, and found ourselves in the 35-year tried-and-true tested position of watching bad network television with my Uncle Chris on his 1.3-mile long living room couch. Auntie Donna was there, along with Aunt Joanie and Uncle Dick, and then Mark showed up with his baby. There was great peanut brittle, I have to say, and good bean dip. With the card games about to start, I felt the familiar familial tugs at my laziness, and I could have splayed out there all night. Instead, we tore ourselves away, off to be with Tessa's best friend Jason for the turning of 2003.

Tessa talks politics, civil rights and gay marriage with Aunt Joanie, Auntie Donna and Uncle Dick

We sat in his living room in Silver Lake, watching the seconds of 2002 tick away, and when midnight struck, I shared a moment with my cutie. 2003 seems a little nicer than 2002, but I also understand we need to be lucky and careful to see the other end. What to think about 2003? The Buddhists don't really believe in the future, or at least the contemplation of it. That's probably the best road. As an optimistic red-blooded artist, I want to believe we will all have tremendous success in the coming year, but I am slowly learning that nothing worth doing comes without a healthy dose of ambivalence. With that, I wish you all a Very New Year.

12/30/02 Day 9 of the

12/30/02

Day 9 of the Windy Swervin' Ice-Covered Road Trip From YyusjjansdkjnalUEIH2387^&@$

Aspen, CO to Cedar City, UT

Okay, so You try driving at 4am on I-70 through southern Utah during a fog blizzard for 10 hours and then write a blog, goddammit

I have half a mind to...

i'm gonna...

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

12/29/02 Day VIII of the

12/29/02

Day VIII of the Gale-Swept Blizzard Flurry Mountain Pass Road Trip of Possible Cannibalism

North Platte, NE to Aspen, CO

The little town of North Platte is nothing like I remember it used to be a small place with cozy street corners and we'd be able to splash at the Holiday Inn pool and walk to the Country Kitchen. That part of town is no more; razed to the ground, our old Holiday Inn now abuts an 8-lane throughway with no cars, and the old diners are nothing but divots in the moat alongside Interstate 80. After six weeks, even the locals forget it happened. This is one of the few times that Buddhism aligns itself with rampant corporate commercialism: all things must pass, all memories are suspect, live for the now.

The first time you see the mountains ahead of you, it's a very subtle majesty. Coming from Iowa, it was always an incredible thrill to see actual mountains, and the drive on I-76 towards Denver offers a vista that fills us with joy, and filled early Western settlers with dread. They must have seen that wall of mountains ahead of them, then looked to their children, wondering which of them they'd have to bury.

We made a detour into Boulder because I wanted to see Scott Brown, one of my favorite people from the University of North Carolina. Together with his comedy group Selected Hilarity, Scott provided some of the funniest moments I ever had in school. After a hard couple of years with the act, he eventually retreated to Boulder, in search of a place to be employed, spiritually full, and happy. I think he's come close to that there, a town that is much like Chapel Hill (albeit much more visually dramatic). I always said that if I couldn't live in New York, I'd pick an aggressively liberal college town where at least you have a snowball's chance at seeing a symphony and perhaps a few gay men holding hands downtown.

Scott and me at a Boulder bookstore

Scott told us about the homeless shelter where he works, and the various behind-the-scenes political games he has to play to keep people fed and medicated. He's had to develop emotional calluses thicker than steel in order to deal with the constant ambiguity of his job, saying, "I can't have my heart broken every five minutes," but I largely suspect it is anyway. I'm not sure how much longer he will do that dance, but he would have a large support group of fellow writers in NYC if he ever chose that direction again.

After a harrowing mountain pass near Vail, we slid Ol' Bessie the Land Rover into Aspen, a place that begets Tessa with delight. It is an incredible town; a snowy mixture of Napa, Nantucket and Nag's Head. Tessa grew up here in the late 70s, and fortunately, enough things were still similar enough to give her a sense of place. We talked our way into a cheap motel room in the middle of town (rates here are exorbitant usually $300 for a motel room, $2000 a month for a studio rental) and now I sit in a silence so overwhelming that I can hear the blood running through my ears. Outside, the snow has quieted all static. A hushed moment along a mountain late at night, with a waxing moon barely illuminating the white faces of a silent slope.

Never mind. Some fratboy outside just yelled "WHERE THE FUCK IS CLAY?"