catch phrases

it's a wonderfully bright afternoon in the conference room, the white wall shining even brighter next to the window with a slight green tint from the reflection of the leaves directly outside. i can see specks of bright blue sky peeking from behind the swaying branches. i'd like to be outside right now, but honestly i don't know what i'd be doing. the beach? can you go to the beach or do you need a permit? honest question. i haven't been to the beach since i was a kid.

a popular rapper is sitting at the table, across from me. he is very upset. his last single was titled "gun 'em down" but here his eyes are welling up and he keeps avoiding eye contact to look at the floor. we are dropping him from the label. it's just slashing our budget, it has nothing to do with his rap. i personally think his rap is pretty invigorating.

he is pleading now and talking about his wife and son. it is sort of surreal to see this man who is an idol to millions of sulking, intimidating teenagers trying to act hard--the kids you see out in Torrance at the mall and shit--to see him sitting here in his crisp polo and madras shorts and expensive jewelry and groveling for his job. it makes me uneasy, as if there is a foundation i expected to be sturdy slowly coming loose.

i look to carol chang and scott alcott for help, who are both sitting as far away as possible with embarrassed looks on their faces. they are pissed at me for waiting until the last minute to do this. i did put it off. they are right to be angry. i am not good at confrontation. but they are a couple of fucking cowards since technically A&R is their job and i should not have to drop this on the artist unexpectedly. this is like firing a fucking guy from carl's junior. it should not be like this.

i take the rapper aside, over by the green tinted wall and the soft bright window. i put my hand on his shoulder. "listen, you are a talented motherfucker," i tell him. "we wouldn't have signed you if we didn't think so. the truth is... we are fools for letting you go. but it's not my decision. you're gonna get picked up by another label almost instantly. you can even go direct distribution with koch. seven dollars a record." he looks at me blankly. this is all bullshit. record labels don't make money anymore. we're selling typewriters in the computer age. he's screwed and so am i. we look at each other and that's that.

with the sun on the 405 at this particular shade of dark orange, and the brake lights all snaking around the curve in inglewood, i feel like i'm riding some sort of exotic amazon snake towards south america, some giant mythical snake slithering over the huge cities of the west trying to find his cave back in the jungle. my blackberry chimes with an alarm.

hthr at lax

that's where i'm going, but i always set reminders just in case. i silence the alarm and the traffic comes to a halt.

at the airport i am trying to convince my lovely and long-suffering girlfriend to stay here in expansive los angeles, to cope with it via me, to forget georgia and where we grew up and where all her friends and family are. her bitchy sister keeps rolling her eyes at me when i plead with her so i take heather aside by an empty baggage carousel.

i pull out my big guns, those which i was going to save until things were really last minute, like 'we-board-now-the-plane-is-waiting' last minute, but screw it. this is last minute. it's all or nothing. i pull her close and whisper the key things i know will hit her hardest. she starts sobbing and i am choking up and i look at her and her mascara is running as she gazes at me and cries. i press her face into my suit lapel, holding her tight, and i see her sister glowering at us a few feet away.

she gets on the plane anyways. we were together for 12 years.

i am sitting in night time traffic heading back to downtown. passing overhead lights reveal my crisp john varvatos shirt is smeared with dark streaks of makeup. i am feeling pretty numb.

i wonder if the snake got home. life is not a series of battles, i realize. the battles are already fought, high in the sky, above the planes, far off over the horizon, past where the lights end. life is just a series of dealing with the inevitable defeats.

five thousand ones

part of me wants to go to sleep right here on the concrete. part of me wants to drive clumsily the four miles back to houlihan's and ask that waitress out and possibly punch that smug bartender in the face.

part of me wants to go to sleep inside, shades drawn, for months. i'd wake up in fall and it would be a new season and everything would be different. leaves would be falling, the world would be going to sleep earlier.

part of me wants to go inside and chug from the handle until everything is spinning. then i'll jump in the car. i love the smell of a hot car interior as you jump quickly in and roll the windows down as fast as possible. the cloth has been baking and the steering wheel is painful to the touch, in a good way. the car chimes on and i go driving the freeways for hours as fast as i can, radio blaring.

part of me wants to do like shane and i did that summer in augusta, getting fried and tempting red lights until we eventually get t-boned by some friendly and hard-working immigrant family in a minivan. fuck, people like us belong in prison.

a cloud floats over the subdivision. i feel pretty clean. i wish it would rain. it's strange, i tell myself; you wait for winter to melt away and relish the first warm day. then it gets warm for three days and you're back to your old boredom, those old feelings sink back in like jeans broke in after a wash.

some kids drive by blasting gangster rap. i sigh the loudest in the whole city.