Ah, Saturday. Wait — today’s Saturday, right? I am sitting at the computer hutch in my mother’s house with what began as a quart of Dogfish Head’s malt liquor. Spiritualized’s newest LP Songs In A&E is mesmerising me. Look for a full-length review upon my return to Los Angeles. The desktop image on this monitor is a photograph that was taken in Griffith Park by my sister. It is a weird dichotomy between my early life and modern times. When these last four-fingers worth of booze has been consumed, I’ll move onto a pint and a half of Fat Tire. That should be enough to help me sleep through the night. By the way, I haven’t mentioned this yet, but my sleep patterns have been entirely fucked up since traveling home. I am up until 4 or 5am each night partying with friends and then returning home to blog about the previous day’s events. The fact that I always seem to have plans early the next morning (and by always I mean the only three mornings since I flew back East) just isn’t a compelling enough reason to go to sleep at a reasonable hour.
Fuck. A shrill voice yells for me to awaken. I only had one drink last night, and the drive home from Manhattan was without traffic, but somehow I managed not to crawl into bed until well after 4am. It’s 9am, and I have to be in a chair at the dentist’s office in less than an hour. What sucks is, my car is (obviously) still in Los Angeles, so I have to rely on my family to cart me around to various appointments and meals. It’s like being sixteen years old again. It can be a fascinating experience if you’re — totally random example — being ignored by the other person in the car, but more on that later. All I really wanted from this morning was to make sure I survived the appointment without hearing any bad news, and arrive home in time to watch the Mets game.
My dentist is a fag. That is to say, he is the most self-conscious, obsessive-compulsive professional I have ever interacted with. One time I called an employee of his a sadist and he actually hand-wrote me a personalized letter of apology and swore that all of my future visits would be quality controlled and overseen by him directly. It was the kind of move you’d expect from a guy who probably spent a number of nights standing on a ledge as a student. Today I told him doctor’s visits are, for me, like chess matches. No matter what I do to try and better my life, doctors always unsheathe some flashy new invention that can examine my body even more closely, and they always find something wrong with me. This is the reason for my fear of people who practice medicine. Lo-and-behold, my most recent chess moves (daily flossing, one soda per day) were squashed by some new computerized contraption that might have found a “problem.” So much for my first goal of the day.
Breakfast was consumed at Livingston Bagel, that bastion of young MILFs, their annoying, crying children, and old folks who really have no use wandering through the world outside their assisted living houses. It took over twenty minutes to place an order for a simple wheat bagel with one egg and cheese. An old woman drove her walker into my shoulder and I thought I heard a pop. Dumbfuck parents couldn’t shut up their children. It was just like every other meal I’ve ever eaten at Livingston Bagel. If they didn’t make such delicious bagels I’d never eat there. Well, that and the nostalgia elicited by eating at a place owned by the father of a cute blonde girl I asked to blow me in high school. I guess there are two reason for going there.
I was dropped off at home to watch the baseball game. The Mets fucking sucked. So much for my second goal of the day. Before they even finished losing (it took over three hours — I wanted to shoot myself in the face just for enduring it) it was time to head over to Calabria for pizza with Elissa, her friend Liz, and Ian. Of course, I yelled at Elissa for being lazy and wanting to watch the end of a TV show rather than being on-time to meet our friends, and she called me an asshole and refused to speak to me until our main courses arrived at the table. Calabria, much like Livingston Bagel, is used filled with dumbshit parents, retarded fucking kids, and people from high school you hoped to never see again. Tonight was no exception, as the entire back room was packed with families yelling at one another and a few recognizable faces from my high school days. What these people are still doing living here is beyond me.
I left with Ian and we drove to Bottle King for some booze. We picked up his dog and brought it over to my mom’s to run around while we, along with Ken, Katie and Jack, drank and watched American Movie and Coven. Things were going well until I spilled the 40oz. bottle trying to hand it to Jack, and then I sat around angrily waiting for my clothes and hair to dry. Just when I was starting to feel dry, the phone rang. I lifted the receiver to my ear and it was covered in malt liquor. I looked down at the cradle, and it was filled to the brim with alcohol. Again I became temporarily enraged. The movie was just as enjoyable the second time around. Coven contained some beautiful shots, but was also quite worse than I remembered it being.
More beers in my stomach sloshing around now. “The Waves Crash In” drawing to a close. It is 2am. I have to be awake in seven hours so I can drive to meet Sam and Lindsey at their house early enough to get to Wegmans at a reasonable hour for lunch. For the third day in a row, I left the camera where I was not. All you’re really missing is: A picture of the two places I ate, and a picture of me screaming at everyone to help me clean the beer out of the carpet. I promise some great shots tomorrow detailing whatever hijinks ensue when I am in the company of Sam and Lindsey.
Charlie Parker – All The Things You Are – (buy this album)
Charlie Parker – Blue ‘N’ Boogie – (buy this album)
Neil Young – Harvest – (buy this album)
Neil Young – Are You Ready For The Country – (buy this album)
Edgard Varese – Ionization – (buy this album)
Edgard Varese – Poeme Electronique – (buy this album)
