DRYDOCK Part 6

In Which the Global Village Idiot Finds Cod

PREMISE LOST

Novel’s tension gone, leaving you and me both hanging, but eye survived beyond the Millennium. Waking to face the demise of the premise, me no know where to go from here. But Laura’s still with me, her smell, her smile intact, sleepily rolling into another dreamy snuggle, as if her quantum connection was right here rustling the sheets. Damn last night was good, so good it even doesn’t matter i’m waking up alone, on the first day of the next thousand years. What an omen.

Reality strikes quickly.

Rent’s due in a few days, where’s the food coming from? How do i keep my spirits up after waking to face oblivion every single day? There must be something of worth inside me. jesus, remember the horror of my brother telling me he thinks i should be hospitalized. Me, full of piss and vision, after a life of real living, seeing true, being true, and living for all, that all could experience the light i’ve seen. Hospitalized? Well, on the one hand, i’d lose my loft, and it’d be hard to work. On the other, they probably feed the patients.

What do i do with this writing? Did i truly expect to have a whole novel’s worth of material in just seven or eight days? Have i failed, failed again, dear Reader? What can i salvage from this process? If only eye could hear your suggestions, those of you brave enough to come further on the ride.

Eureka, that’s it. There’s further to go. This writing, this novel, this fable began with a premise to make it to the Millennium, ‘cuz there’s real risk i might not have lasted this long. But i’m here, so perhaps it’s not a failure. And i’m discovering a voice, a voice i never had as a screenwriter, a voice i believe in, a voice of value, and you’re right here sharing in the discovery. Maybe there’s more to this story. Perhaps we should continue onward, following the course of life flowing through this loft, for as long as i can keep moving forward.

Unless making it through the fucking millennium isn’t enough to keep my spirits up, and keep me sane, and alive.

Eye can’t see what i have to live for, look forward to, but deep inside i know there’s got to be a reason for facing oblivion head on. Don’t know where we’re going, but, let’s go.

There’s at least one other person who believes in me, besides Karin, who i better call today, and that’s another writer, Peter. He’s doing a book on the birth of windpower, only telling the story from a personal view. He’s going to focus on a few of the early pioneers, showing what kind of person it takes to birth an industry. And i’m one of the pioneers he might use.

Last month i even got a meal out of him. Bet he writes about it, for i made him take me to the best restaurant on the hill, North Star. Only had a ten dollar sandwich, and a few glasses of good wine, but his face showed there wasn’t much of an expense account attached to his book. Did spend hours before and after being interviewed, so it certainly was a write-off, and he was interviewing the weirdest of all the wind pioneers, so it had to be worthwhile. But i’ve been burned by writers before, even though i saved one writer’s ass. He was going to write about my enemy company, using their sorry ass as the great example of how renewable energy could be good business, so he was shocked when i told him the company was a bunch of lies, and would be bankrupt soon. Luckily, as you’ve read, the company did go bankrupt, so my stock in his book rose substantially. But i didn’t feel i got the credit i deserved, so perhaps Peter’s book will be a step forward.

How weird is that, me facing oblivion, and someone’s been interviewing me for his book on pioneers.

Wish eye knew how to resurrect my wind career, or do i just want to write, and be published, and see my movies on screen? Too scattered to know. Can’t even figure out how to get moving. Couldn’t get a job in windpower anymore, no way these companies will hire the one who’s keeping them in line, in public.

Long phone talking with Grey, what a friend. He’s the one who brought me Tha Oner’s rent check last month, during the meltdown, and provided a few suicide hotline numbers just in case, one of which i actually called. He offers to go get some food, but i’ve got to turn it down, thanks, because to get it i’d have to go to the Rhythm Society party in a church. Don’t get me wrong, these all night dance parties, DJs spinning in a church, pews removed, and supplanted by ecstatic ravers, are a wonder, and fucking fun. But just don’t have it in me tonight.

FINDING COD

One of my friends from the millennial party had mentioned he had a shit load of cod. Forgot about him asking, but he calls, says he’s coming over to bring me some cod. Cod damn. Cod’s food, right? What a strange synchronicity. Me jonesing for a fish meal, San Francisco’s so full of good sushi and i’m so empty, Grey proposing to get sushi before we hit the rave, me running past Nikko’s fish store, hidden wonder of the shipyards, and thinking i hadn’t bought any fish in quite a while, thinking hell, my sophisticated insides are screaming to have some fish, then meeting Cod-Man Elliot at the millennial bash. So here he is, dropping off a load of cod fillets, jeez, he wasn’t kidding, this heavy bag is filled with white dripping cod. He must have wiped out have the remaining pacific stock. Stinks like raw cod, rastering my long lost taste buds. But i can see it now, three squares a day, fried cod for breakfast, baked cod for lunch, roasted cod for the elegant evening meal, cold cod for dessert, hot cod coffee, white cod wine, shredded cod after dinner mints, and so much cod to dream forever future meals, fried cod, broiled cod, grilled cod, basted cod, leftover cod, cod, cod, always searching for cod, and here’s two huge plastic bags full of cod.

At least i know cod loves me.

Guess this qualifies as the beginning of the second act. Redemption at the hands of cod. Me cooking cod soon as Elliot leaves, cod fills the entire loft. Think i’ll curl up in bed and dream of escaping drift nets, cod willing.

Wake, shower, excited, always excited when the ravers come to my home turf, and there’s a good bash tonight, at the demolished and dot.com rebuilt Mission Rock. Version 2.1’s nothing like the old wooden shipyard biker bar on the water, stairways to nowhere and piers decaying into the Bay, home to so many sweaty, awe-full all niters. But there’s DJ friends spinning, and for a few hours the oblivion will be just a shadow on the wall. This could be a tough one, though, for it’s hard to go to a party when you can’t even buy a beer.

So many friends, though i’m twice as old as anyone there, but great music, fine DJs, warm thoughts, and always, moving to the bass, feeling the tracks take me home, to the source, moving like the world’s all right. Galen and Solar, progenitors of so many fine free Sunday afternoon Sunset parties, and Sunset boat parties on the bay, can you imagine the joy of five hundred kindred freaks, properly amped, stuffed to the gunwales on some rented ferry, several floors of sound systems, turntables rolling with waves, dancers rolling with the waves and the grooves, and most people’s cheeks cracked wide open from smiling way too much, if one can ever smile too much. So good to see those boys, though of course they remind me i haven’t seen my son, but i’m not going to let it get me, not after surviving this far. Like i could stay in oblivion with the grooves so fine.

And Farina, Farina who pumped the sound track to the opening of whatever this writing is, Farina who’s given me a decade of dope tracks, great grooves, and good friendship. Haven’t seen Mark in such a long time, can’t remember when last, but tonight’s a groove, even though i can’t buy a beer. But Wicked’s Neil has one for me, how good can a beer taste, especially amongst friends and dancing fools.

And there’s Guy. DJ RaSoul, who’s slept on my couch, one of my son’s best friends, sweet dread bear, tells me to hang in there, Buck’s got good friends around him, he’ll be all right. You’re doing a good job, be patient, it’ll be all right. Believe him for a while.

All the time, outside the windows, and on the chillin’ decks, there’s the Shipyards, lighting up the freighters and cranes, and huge steel-walled drydocks, how do they lift those suckers out of the water? Can’t believe i’m writing a script about the yards, and here we’re a bunch of raver fools dancing to the best grooves in San Francisco, and i’m staring out at the shipyards, only three blocks from my loft.

Can life be so bad?

Not with a crystal sunrise behind me, brilliant rising over the cold steel at my back, me walking home, exhausted and exhilarated, surrounded by long, sharp, golden shadows.

Loft feels good, bed feels better.

Scattered, fear rising. Email’s down. Rent’s due in two days. Anne brings a bag of goodies, including oatmeal, which i cook as soon as she’s out the door, break up the mono-cod-otony. What would i do without the remaining friends. That’s a statement, not a question.

Elliot might have some landscaping work for me.

Hear me talking with my brother, asking my brother, who’s said i should be hospitalized, for financial assistance, because i don’t know what else to do. The two of us could be so good, as good as brothers could be, after all we share a certain helix elixir, but the gulf reminds me of Muslims and Jews. Here’s a lesson for me, can’t fathom why the parties to the “holy” lands can’t work it out, if they’re both so fucking holy, but here i can barely work it out with my own flesh and blood. We share moments of laughing insights, and seeming warm reflections, and even hints at shared interests, and the next moment accusatory crap, based on no knowledge. No, i’m not a bum, no i’m not irresponsible, no i’m not irrational (silently under my breath; can’t you see a fucking vision when it’s right in front of you? If you had any idea of my life, you’d hold your tongue, brother, but you just can’t see clearly enough, at least when it comes to me), but yes, i’m hurting, i can’t fathom what’s happening to my son, and damn it, i need some help, and no, losing my loft won’t teach me anything i don’t already know, and besides, it’s a fuck of a lot harder to get your life back together when you’re living under a bridge.

But i get a sense he’s going to help, though he won’t commit. Progress.

Fitful sleep.

Both brothers come through, the rich one and the poor one, with this month’s rent, on the last fucking day. Not enough to pay bills, but enough to be unable to pay some bills, which then, of course, leaves me enough for some food. Food! No more cod. And a month’s security in my own loft.

Well, one other splurge. i’m so fuckin twisted, with such little logic remaining, that rather than let a $400 United Airlines (product placement, Ed.) credit go unused, expires in two days, a credit that’s the remaining capital from last year’s Loverland visit to Paris to commune with Tha Oner, after which the fates brought such a painful goodbye, with me heart exploding as i see her, deathly sick and wrapped, not wearing, an overcoat, standing in the cold, getting smaller, from the rear window of me leaving cab. Don’t think i was just leaving her alone, we’d spoken long about this, but a friend of hers was coming in a few hours, she’d be taken care of, and i had no money to change my flight. But wait, as the flight crowd overwhelms De Gaulle, the writer learns that yesterday’s flight to SF was cancelled, bad weather, so they’re completely oversold for today, anyone want to take a night’s hotel and two meals, some cash, and a business class flight tomorrow?

Force me to spend another night in Paris with my lover.

Tha was so much better just a few hours later, must’ve been some kind of karmic stomach poisoning, but now she’s still wobbly but elated and wondrously surprised to get my call saying i’m coming back. And what a night we had. We walked all over the north side of Montmarte, most everything closed and Paris nearly silent and empty for just us. Hunger overtaking us, she needing more than her share to get her strength back, and we’ve been walking too long, no matter how special. Finding that backside Montmarte restaurant, where we discovered the perfect place to begin to say goodby for real, so much better than a rainy cab. So i’m here at United, forking over $133.66 for a roundtrip to Dusseldorf, Deutschland, to see Karin. Three months from now, i’ll fly. This purchase by a guy who can’t pay his rent, nor cover his food, nor cover even food expenses while in Germany, but a true man who knows his priorities. i’m concerned enough about my sanity that i’m not so excited about going, but that’s merely the result of a combination of fiscal worry and fiduciary responsibility, of which i abound. Only $133.00. Of course, i’m a bit soured, still rebounding from the doomed end to my long distance affair with Tha, and a general knowing that there’s not much likelihood of me consenting to another kind of long distance affair, as i’m ready for some fulfillment, without extra emotional expense and long distance charges, one of the twenty-six meanings of charge in Karin’s Langenscheid German-English Dictionary (Time warp? Ed.).

Fiduciary responsibilities duly noted above, i’m looking forward to discovering this Karin, who’s kept me alive inside her all these years, and this significant, solid excitement stirring within? How can this be a Keroucian adventure with me sitting, staring at my screen, underneath the antlers, for the whole damn novel? Don’t i have to go somewhere, for your benefit, even if it’s three months away? At least i can look forward to something, though i’ve no idea how i can make this flight work. But i so much want to reconnect with Karin, just to know...

So here’s me, awake and shuffling at six in the AM, while decent musicians are just getting to sleep, and i’m preparing, if one can prepare, for my first day’s work, like job work, in... i can’t remember. Not counting wind consulting or starting a company, and we certainly won’t count writing as work, everyone can write a script or a novel, all you need is to just sit down and fill the page with quality never seen before, or commercial pablum... despite all that work not counting, this is the first day’s work in... christ, can it be more than twenty years? No matter, today i’m a fucking gardener, lacing up my close-out hiking boots and putting on my funkiest, look like a laborer clothes. Elliot got me a gig, and he’s gonna pick me up in a few minutes. Hope i don’t have to eat cod.

Too exhausted to write, so...

From the journal (We didn’t get this part, he’s too exhausted to write, yet wrote in the journal? Ed.):

• bone and muscle fatigued from one of my few days of manual labor in 25 years. worked for Elliot’s landscaping company hauling all kinds of shit, using huge crow and pry bars, shovels, picks and brooms. feet killing me.

• sf indie fest opener tonight, but i’m so tired. missed Tha much at work today, hard to move forward.

• great to be up early for work. only a writer with no food money could see the beauty in this labor, but at least there’s food for the week in one day.

• ran into Last Gasp Turner on the way home, right at the spot i saw him last, not counting the anon party, Peet’s in the Safeway mall. Stopped there for grind on the bus home from work, chatted cool about writing. He told me he’d been to Leo DiCaprio’s Millennium party with George and Karen. Leo’s speaking for Earth Day, and Turner wants me to talk with George about helping write Leo’s speech.

• But here’s as big a synchro: since i wanted to get Kenny Dale’s (Drummer from Chris Isaak. Product placement, Ed.) number from Gillian for weeks to talk with him about selling my drums, i’ve been meaning to find out how to get in touch with her, as i didn’t have her number. But she was there as well, and that was synchro cool.

There you have it, i’m wasted. Nothing against physical labor, but after a morning of real work, the kind with real wall destroying tools, then an afternoon carrying 60 lb. sacks of concrete a fair distance (40 lb. sacks, Ed.) (Fuck you Ed., you ever carried concrete sacks, just be thankful my contract gets me the last word). You ever carried concrete sacks? They’re soft enough to make a good hold impossible, or should i say awkward, if you’re thinking about your back, which a fifty year old guy often thinks about when carrying soft concrete dust sacks, and hard enough to make a good hold impossible, a good hold being desirable if you’re carrying concrete so you don’t drop it ripping the bag and spilling all that nostril grimy shit, and heavy enough to make the shortest walk an exercise in meditation known throughout Buddhaland as “the grunt sutra.” But there’s nothing like sweating in the name of survival.

Carrying the cement lunch-time burritos didn’t help.

For the life of me i can’t remember the radio sound track for today’s work, but we’ve got nothing like beats to keep your ass in gear. This is going to be good for me, This is going to be good for me.

Wasted.

Meeting Turner at Peet’s (product placement for the best coffee in several galaxies. Ed.) stimulated the brain as usual, with the added spark that only power synchros can bring. Turner’s the publisher of Last Gasp comix, an irony not lost on me. Also a friend. He can’t believe, though i’ve been telling him over our last meetings that i’m at the bottom of scuffling, that i’m actually reduced to labor. Somehow, labor feels good to me, as every ten seconds me aware of how good it is to push the bod, plus so many are reduced to laboring for the elite, the elite forgets what makes their world go round, but i never did, though i must have, for the universe wants me to fucking labor my ass off just to survive. Eye hold back the desire to take my new found muscle and make him publish my novel.

A day’s work at better than average labor wages gave me less than an hour of wind consulting would bring, think about it. (As i edit this for the eleventeenth time, i’m listening to The Band’s last record, recorded 1998, the final chapter in a decades long road show presenting the hearts of a generation wrapped in the history of america. And they’re reduced to laboring with all their hearts, though they don’t have to carry concrete.)

How cool that Turner went to Leo DiCaprio’s millennium party. Not unexpected, Turner and Leo’s dad are old friends, and it was Turner who introduced me to George at Tim Leary’s wake, when Tanya and i flew down to LA to pay my last respects to a misunderstood man, avatar, rogue, pioneer, and all around hell-raiser. Besides being filmed reading Psychedelic Prayers by a German film crew, where’s that tape, Karin, i got to hang in the Hollyweird Hills with the strangest mix of film world heavies and explorers of the mind, plus a few hangers-on... remember my lover, Tanya, telling Oliver Stone that leaving his limo running in the driveway in front of the house was not sound environmentally, to which he paid scant attention; remember laying in Tim’s bed, where he gave up the spirit laying in Winona Ryder’s arms, saying: „ Ahhh, why not?, where his presence was so strong i was no longer aware of the party, and in the course of twenty minutes we relived all that we’d shared together, as well as his blessing to continue my efforts. (Sorry, Herb, but i do believe that despite his roguish fuck-ups, Tim was a saint, and less than a hundred years from now, society, if it survives, will revere his efforts at waking the sheep.) Thank you Tanya, for so many things besides this, but thank you for getting me to lie down in his bed, i’m forever grateful.

Dear Reader, can you believe that just lying in his bed brought the two of us in contact, where i could say good bye with the sum of all the energy we’d spent together during several decades... and he’s there to acknowledge that? Can you believe? Do you doubt my accurate reporting? (You really need to expand this section, Randy. This is important. You describe nothing about your relationship to Leary. Ed.)

Where were we? Wasted. Turner.

So Turner tells me Leo’s the Earth Day spokesman, and he’s going to need help writing his speech, whatever, so i should get in touch with George. Leo spends more for an hour on a night on the town than i have for food and rent for a month, so the idea is, to say the least, intriguing. Who else could write what needs to be said about energy and the environment with such passion... well, perhaps, ten thousand luminaries, but still, there’s a great common phrase, but still, the idea’s intriguing. (More later, Ed.)

Any idea’s intriguing when you’re on the skids.

Somehow, as if i didn’t understand the true inner workings of the universe, enfolding us all in its unfolding synchro beauty, i’m so stoked to see Turner, the biggest bear-heart in all of the San Francisco bay, this all makes sense to me. Despite the fact my oblivion makes no sense.

That Gillian was there underscores the power of synchronicity, look it up.

i don’t wish to sell my drums, even to Kenny Dale, but if i had to sell them, A) he would most likely appreciate those resonant tubs, so he’s first choice, and B) his drumming’s fucking dope, and C) we’ve been to a ball game together, which, when you excavate to the root of the analysis, is all that’s important. Unless you’re forced to sell your drums due to oblivion, in which case you’re fucked.

Wasted. Not wasted, but barely able to move.

Gillian, for how many years have you provided stability, and more important, high-end sustenance, to your friends and your circle?

But not wasted enough to miss the opening night party for the SF Indie Fest, as in independent film. Voyage to the center of the Mission, formerly SF’s latest bastion of bohemia, now SF’s bastion of barf, dot.com barf, barf as in doesn’t anyone around here recognize a boom town when you see one? Foreign Cinema, the only upscale restaurant in the known universe showing flicks on the concrete wall behind the outdoor patio, patio as in espanol for the Mission where so many of the illegal immigrants try to eke out a living that no matter how insanely poor, the income is a fortune to send back to the home turf, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala. The Mission, where even though the buildings suck, internet wonders are paying through the nose rings just for a dive, where the expensive restaurant even had drive-in speakers on posts against the walls, no less, where’s a good drive-in ripple in the earth when you need one, yes the Mission, is the host of such gathering of the squinting (from looking through viewfinders, ed.) pierced and tattooed set.

There must be someone out there who can read that paragraph, correctly.

You’re bored, sorry, but you weren’t there. Cool party, free imbibes, liquid and solid, mostly liquid, and a coterie of... film people. Hot royal indie women, enough producers to run a methane generator, lots of great drinking with Turk, the Res-Fest meister, he of the worldwide promotion of digital film when all he wants is to suck cigarettes over a Kem deck editing celluloid, and one very important digital indie producer who loves meeting me and thinks Drydock is hot, but not hot enough to cut a check. Enough to make me forget oblivion. Result?

Ouch!

How the fuck will i get up tomorrow morning and be responsible to the needs of San Francisco’s huge landscaping vortex?

Answer?

barely.

Can hardly find the light switch. Can hardly find the light. Can hardly. Of course, oblivion demands performance, and i can perform, besides, i’m still drunk, so of course i can slither into my gardening clothes and... can’t even remember how i get to work. The first few hours me wobbling near my tasks. Hurts too much, so i lay off to the side of the soon to be beautiful rose wall and try to stop the pounding. jeesus of the pounding temples, people actually go to work after this kind of morning? Oh Sweet Mary Mother of Brower, how does your garden get focused?

Was i writing about Turner?

Can you keep all this straight?

Of course you can, you’re the Reader.

Needless to say (so why are you saying it? Ed.) i’m past tired and lost.

But rich. Two whole days work, inarow, though only one can be counted as work, though the second counts as trying to hold up my end of the bargain beyond the best of my ability, which unfortunately wasn’t much. At least by the end of the day i got my breath back. Sorry boss, but my life for the past decade’s been devoted to indie film, and last night was far more important than gardening. You should know this, as your wife is an independent filmmaker, an editor of some note.

Tear my heart out, indie film.

For almost every year of the past ten years, i’ve been going to the most incredible schmoozefest since jehovah and the dissident angels smoked their final bowl before the split, the Sundance film fest, home of every excess known to the modern world, and most likely a few historical excesses as well.

This year no dice. There is no fucking money, like you aren’t aware that on occasion there’s no food, so no matter how much i belong there, i ain’t going. Losing my son’s far more invasive an incision, but it still feels like a piece of my lungs are gone just thinking about not being in Park City for the annual sno-bowl. Rumi says there’s no better place on earth in which to study the ego than in Park City those ten days, but i think he’s just riffing, i do, why, i know there’s no better place to study the profusion of i’s.

Still

i

love it.

Just thinking about missing it this year tears my leg off, so don’t get me started about the great times

i’ve

had there.

But it sucks to think you can’t go because you don’t have enough money, plus you’re on the Sundance shit list because you bounced your check for last year’s passes. (Only a truly great independent film screenwriter would risk censure by the Olympian Lords of Sundance for bouncing such aforementioned checks. Ed.)

Who is this Ed dude i precognitively find interrupting my writing?

Please forgive me, you who’ve stuck with me this far, for forgetting you during my day of labor. Didn’t think about you once. Don’t take it personally, though of course it’s your fault. I, I, I, I, I’m the one hung over.

Writing Leo’s Earth Day speech, eye could live with that.

Harder to live with how drunk i am, plus my feet hurt, and my back... So good to know i’ve got it in me to labor, i can haul ass with the best. Eye could even write Leo’s speech, me know energy policy like the back of my brain.

But not today.

Can’t believe i spent half the working day laying on the rose shelf above the thirty year old log wall i was supposed to unearth, in agony.

So sorry, boss, i gave it my best, but indie film’s just too damn important for me. (If it was so important, why didn’t you stay sober to be with the indie filmmakers and make something happen, Ed?) )Because i was with indie filmmakers, writer.)

Hey, let’s hear it for the writer making it past the millennium.

Silence, why is there silence?

The question of the evening is, how can you pitch Drydock when you’re working as a fucking laborer? Answer: you can’t, but who cares.

A shower and dinner, and i’m ready to fly again. Friends gather at a shipyards dive for a birthday party, and as it’s walking distance, cheap and easy access which i can afford, i’m going... because there’s nothing else i’m capable of doing. Me actually buy people drinks, now there’s the largess of a true laborer. Me letting my beard grow out since the millennium, clipped into the requisite bohemian goatee, so Peter calls me the world’s hairiest Indian, though i’m not indian. The Sea Star, fine purveyor of liquid sustenance to the tough as nails outcasts inhabiting the fringes of the shipyards, serves as our pasture. All kinds of friends from the indie-pop world stop by to celebrate, as well as the EMT medic from the Drydock himself, telling me once i start working there i’ll never leave. There’s an encouraging thought. But the raucous night gets far too raucous, so i’m home to nurse my wounds.

Painful screams wrack my sleep, as the injustice of what’s happening to my son bores deep inside, intensified by me having no recourse whatsoever.

Cod-bringer landscape boss’s wife Gail’s having a fundraiser for her film-in-progress tonight. Walk over to the gallery, don’t drink, get depressed as another filmmaker’s moving forward, and i’m still treading water, despite the power of my filmic vision... but so glad to see her progress. Not only is she a talent, but her head’s in the right place. Laura’s there as well, but she’s managing some part of the event, and it’s obvious that our yerozero flirtation was just that, yes i’m bummed. Long walk home, sore, but you know i’ll sleep well tonight.

Sunday, and it’s so easy to chill, recharging from the long two days of labor. Monday dawns wet but not raining, and as the weather’s expected to be rainy the rest of the week, i’m hoping at least today there’ll be some work. But after Friday’s hung over effort, i doubt if i’m in the best graces with management.

Management says he doesn’t think he can use me, despite my assurances that i’ll be a diligent worker.

By afternoon, the flu’s coming on fast and furious. Foreign invasion always happens when one’s defenses are down.

From the journal:

Flu hits this afternoon, with gentle signals of arrival, itchy nose, slight pressure in head, tingle in throat and mouth. By late afternoon the signals were clear, and my response as well. Attack, gentle attack using all the herbal and psychic remedies an aging ex-hippie can muster. Vitamin C heavy doses, homeopathic cold pills, echinacea and goldenseal drops, herbal teas, and a commitment to sleep.

By the next day, flu in full force, careening through my system, but i’m riding it like a nauseous astronaut, giving my body all the chance in the world to fight the evil virus on our terms. Sleep wonderful, sweaty, feverish sleep, even fulfilling dreams, more sleep than i’ve had in years, percentage wise, slept through from Monday afternoon until Wednesday morning. Key battle second afternoon, my head exploding, feel unbearably nauseous. Doesn’t take long to stick my finger down my throat, to discover a volcano eruption of no way could i possibly have had all that in my stomach puked up viciously, each heave bringing me closer and closer to victory. i sense that puking is the high point of the battle, that with the expulsion of the evil germ from my being the road to recovery would be swift... if i held to my regime. Need rest from too much sleep for an hour, got up to watch a PBS show on animal emotions, but basically slept and slept some more, like a hibernating gorilla in love.

Carlos called yesterday, all mad genius mexican director, getting ready for the weekend’s pitchfest of film finance, IFFCON (International Film Finance Conference). Me bummed Drydock’s not going to be there, at least officially, for i’m convinced this film works wonders. But at least he’s going, there’ll be a chance to schmooze, perhaps pitch, as long as i can find a way to crash it. Went several years ago with my native friend Chris Eyre, then putting together the finishing pre-production touches on Smoke Signals, which won Sundance the following year. What a blast, crashing the parties with a film crew from Japanese television, filming, what, for the native anime audience? IFFCON always has heavy hitters from the indie world, and the parties are great, like spring training for Sundance, so me gearing up, as if i were going.

Nothing like a penniless writer balanced on the brink between brilliance and oblivion, gearing up his self-esteem for another round of knocking at the gates, unbidden.

Carlos is crazy from dealing with the Mexican government’s film org, who’s ineptitude hinders decent release of his simply stunning film, Bajo California. Straight out, Bajo is one of the most visually stunning films i’ve ever seen. Imagine packing dozens of mules with camera equipment high into the mountains of Baja California, to find the mystical cave paintings left by ancient people from another world. Carlos edited Like Water for Chocolate, and having him interested in Drydock is thrilling. Hard to believe a filmmaker of his talent can’t find a way to raise the funds he needs. If he can’t do it, how does it ever get done?

Today feels so futile.

Me trying to keep the phone on, keep the electricity on, keep the heat on, all separate companies who make life miserable for those with little funds, forced to spend hours dealing with people who don’t care about anything but getting payment and meeting phone quotas. So discouraging. Hours running around in circles, so that nothing which might further my life gets accomplished.

Far too depressed to write, but here i am, wondering what the point of the exercise might be. My visions are reduced to blathering with nameless functionaries, who could care less about the reality of staring down oblivion. My dream for this novel sinks into the morass of mindless capitalism, draining me of the very spark in which this novel was birthed. What’s the point? Who cares about the daily meanderings of an itinerant screenwriter, unable to procure funding for his work, preparing for another round of high hopes likely to be dashed.

I’m surrounded everywhere by the signs of the internet boom town. From my spectacular roof i can see fourteen loft buildings, within a few blocks in every direction, that weren’t there just two years ago, loft buildings selling for far beyond any sane semblance of real value, to people who care not a whit for the neighborhood they’re entering, loft buildings that return little to the city, are probably illegal, since the whole loft niche circumvents the normal city requirements, like school fees, and lot footprint, and parking rules, exceptions enacted so low cost space for artists would keep alive a vibrant part of the urban experience, but no, these lofts, some built with carcinogenic materials not allowed in residential construction, symbolize the takeover of San Francisco by internet money. It seems so clear to me this is just a boom whose bust will have far-reaching effect on the fabric of life here. Nowhere do i see people who understand the flimsy foundation upon which the internet frenzy is built, but everywhere i see people flaunting excessive riches, while i struggle to eat.

Who wants to read my daily struggles, when going public is just a few weeks away? i know the bust is coming, but i don’t know if i can survive until then.

How is it that the very vision of a sustainable culture is worth nothing, while transparent attempts at hitching a ride on the web carousel garner millions? Don’t you realize that if you don’t begin powering your world from renewable sources, there won’t be a viable culture supporting hyperspace? Web sites mean nothing if your society can’t bear the costs of burning fossil fuels. Plus you got your Arab boycotts and hostage taking and Wars every few years.

i can’t even get a day’s work in a field i helped create, while skills that relate only to a fantasy world, a world who’s promise of electronic democracy has already been co-opted into just another advertising space, get paid ridiculous sums, sums that will not be convertible when the bubble bursts. So what that i went online, in a pioneering electronic community (The WELL, and this is my own goddamn plug.), fifteen damn years ago, and am quite familiar with the birth of all this cyber-crap. The most brilliant web sites can’t hide the utter corruption in modern american life, corruption so thick you can’t avoid it, so sophisticated you can’t see it, so numbing you can’t even feel it’s insidious creep into the deepest hard-wiring in your once free and beautiful brains.

You, whose focus groups allowed Chevron to con you into thinking your car has feelings, thoughts, and needs the extra thuggery of technocrine or some hormone replacement for engines or whatever crap you’ve allowed them to feed you.

i’m seething, i can’t even bear to write about it.

And how could you give a shit about any of this?

So what if IFFCON might be fruitful, so what if it’s meaningful to spend a weekend with the people who create your spare time flights of entertainment, so what if i’m going to get a chance to mingle with some luminaries of the indie film world, and more importantly, their financiers? Why chronicle such obvious self-interest? Who cares anymore, if i barely care, me so beaten down vegetating would be a stretch.

(Facing oblivion doesn’t necessarily mean suicide. i could incarnate as a blithering idiot, ranting incessantly from my home beneath a railroad bridge, which would seem quite comprehensible from a position inside my head, but quite insane if overheard. So my survival doesn’t necessarily mean ending it, which of course is way out of character, but i could fail the survival test simply by wandering around, ranting, like the thousands upon thousands of hurt souls with no one to care for them walking out loud through every city in america. Hey, he used to be a bank V.P. Hey, she used to have a family. Hey, those junkies went to hell and back, drinking Agent Orange cocktails and shaving with napalm, just to protect your right to build illegal lofts.)

So i stopped writing.

But i’m not giving up, not letting you down.

i will make my life meaningful right in front of your eyes.

This ain’t no web site with cameras on all the time, as if just being rich enough to fill your loft with cameras and mics means you’re an artist. You’ve got to have something to say, or else you’re just fodder for People mag, and the people who read the mag, vicariously living through people whose only life is being gloriously rich, and there is absolutely no value there except if you’ve already been brainwashed. And you’ve got to be able to present that valuable thought, that captivating image, this haunting melody, or such an insightful lyric, in a style that brings the whole world right inside you, as if you believe down to the core of your being in what your body and mind created, believing in the blood you sweat giving birth to your vision, instead of merely pandering to the idea, nebulous idea of some grand cocktail chatter posing as art. Stand in front of Van Gogh, you see every single brush stroke as powerful as the entire painting. Deliver your brain to Joyce, discover language as experienced by the very neurons firing deep within the universal cortex. Have a glass of wine with Rumi, lost in a belly laugh from the gut of cosmic comedy central.

But don’t give up on me just ‘cuz me failed in me first attempt at a novel, giving meself a premise no one could deliver without vast quantities of speed, or coke, or other things i hate. But this writing, i’m dredging it right from my gut, with little thought about a flourish of phrase, or harbor of insight, Woody Guthrie ranting under a bridge, Hank Williams at the pinnacle of success, aching in the back seat of a Caddy.

OK then, IFFCON was great. Free food, great drinks, actually some good drinks, and the usual why the fuck is pedestrian red wine with a good label so expensive? “Life’s too short for bad wine.” Goethe. What do you care that i chatted with talented directors, and key producers, and even actresses, literally the bane of my existence, even took one home, why that beauty wanted to sleep with me i don’t know, there must be something firing inside my brain stem of value, something that gives my walk, my face, my hard fixed eyes some power that you could feel if you were right here watching me pound out my soul, but she did, we were fine fun, and ohhh the curve of the underside of her breasts had me dreaming for days, right, IFFCON; at the end of the day, with all the best wishes about my projects, even the standard cocktail line, “Hey, that’s a great project, keep me posted about its development,” by a luminary no less, as if i’ve got a life where i can spare a moment to keep someone posted about nothing, for christ sakes i’m a writer, there’s never any developments, there’s only completion, as in anyone wondering how the writer’s going to get out of this sentence, besides the writer, who in this case barely cares if he gets out of this sentence, though that would be A Sign that i could also complete the next sentence, which, if i strang a whole bunch of sentences together, would lead me towards the end of the first novel, which would provide me with such satisfaction, that i could complete thoughts, complete actions, complete strings of sentences leading to a real life, that i might even be able to complete a redemption, and live again, live, like a human on fire.

Yeah, IFFCON was cool, but me still here sad i’m not going to Sundance, sad i’ve not got food, sad that we’ve got only two-plus weeks ‘til the next rents due, and i’d love to be able to take that actress to dinner, though i’ve sworn off actresses, but then, you know, they’re trained to manipulate your emotions in a highly precise manner, and good ones can manipulate your inner being like you were just another silly couch putty, so why would i subject myself to another larcenous manipulation? For one, i can’t remember the last time i was able to take someone for dinner, anyone, even my parole officer, that would do wonders for my self esteem, and two, she’s so damn beautiful, and as rapid fire of wit as Henry Miller’s daughter.

But what’s the point, you’d only care if you were there, stacked layer upon layer, against the passing flow of crudités and vodka, black sheaths and black jeans, black armani nose rings surrounding the naugahyde nubuck nerds holding all the money. Can’t even remember what film screened against the concrete wall of the next door building, or whether i should have eaten that delicious dead cow, never do eat red meat unless it’s buffalo, or deer, or elk, but there i was, assuaging my hunger and my imprinting, swigging down the free roast as if it were liquid, which it probably was, as so many of these film events are sponsored by Skyy (product placement for the vodka of choice for so many squinty eyed, view askew filmmakers, but not for me, i’m a Ketel man, thank you, i’d be glad to pitch that clear elixir for you, just send the case to...)

Jeezuz, lost myself there, where was me? Me such a global village idiot.

Oh yes, liquid black sheaths slinking through the MOMA. For a few hours me forget me facing oblivion, watching Jeremy Podeswa’s Five Senses, another little black gem from Canada, thankfully IFFCON actually screens a film, but why were all these struggling for funds filmmakers drinking in the most expensive bar in San Francisco, XYZ W or something (damn, must censor myself, or i’ll never get to stay for free there), just because it’s next door to the museum? Eleven bucks for a less than pedestrian merlot? We’re filmmakers, dammit, give us decent red wine if you ain’t gonna let us make the films our way.

The best part of these kind of events is reconnecting with old friends. John Turk, one of the most fictional characters in this novel, one of the several Johns who run the RESFest, and RES mag, and RES all over the world, digital mavens, well, Turk’s no digi-freak, he once told me he’s old school, rather be chain smoking at 4 AM slumped in front of his KEM, well, four months since the last RESFest, it was great to see him.

Great to be writing in the past tense, too, after all this real time hype. You don’t know how hard it is to write everydamnthing in the present tense, especially when that means you have to carry your laptop everywhere you go, even to bed.

Turk.

Sometimes just the greeting of an old friend is enough to lift one’s spirits for a week, and in this case, i can still see his eyes as he undressed that woman against the back wall... with his eyes. And in this case, he lifted me light years from the muck of oblivion where i’ve stumbled so shamelessly. Talking shop can be great in any field, but in the depth of field world of filmmaking...

IFFCON was great, even if i couldn’t get the writing job on the Mayor Willie Brown documentary. Filmmaker, you don’t know what you missed not having me write the dialogue about the man most responsible for allowing the destruction of the city i love. The man to whom i once gave the Solar Energy Man of the Year Award, right up in then mayor feinstein the fuck’s office, out on the whatever you call those balconies where Princess Diana waved from, now he’s the mayor, and though i’ve shared drinks and stories with his brother, him too, i hold him responsible for fiddling while SOMA burned. Solar Energy Man of the Year My ASS, he was just the speaker of the state legislature, and we needed his support for stuff we wanted to accomplish, and, well... you get the picture. If you can’t afford to bribe, give an award. i didn’t get the writing job, lucky for them, though i probably would have had a better chance if i’d gotten back to the director like she asked. So many times i don’t follow up an opportunity just because i can’t bear another..., because i don’t want some..., jeesus i don’t want to fall into the trap of suffering fools gladly.

Manic depression in full view of all of you, ‘cept i’m not depressed, just facing oblivion, and not manic, just maimed, and overflowing with piss and vision.

Thanks Turk, for all your insight and soul, and belief in my center, and to your friend George, the projectionist at MOMA, who surprised me with tales of you guys in film schools, and who made a brilliant short on that program in the back room of Dylan’s, guerilla filmmakers projecting on a sheet in a bar, like Tom Paine published by an optical printer. Thanks also, directress digitalis, for rekindling some spark of faith in me, even though that ex-lover actress probably has you thinking something far different by now. Hearing about Tha Oner nearly drove me over the edge, missing her so strongly i could barely breathe.

Yo! Jason. Thanks, i will get back to you, but it might be after i finish this novel, because i want some power in my next discussions about Drydock, so i’ve committed myself, funny, committed, get it, to finishing this damn experiment before i get back to the script. But Drydock’s a cool story, i would even say powerful, so you got that right.

1/17/00

nice to see you randy.

i have to be clear with you it looks like frankenstein will happen this

year, and the documentary with guillermo is ongoing, so if we work

together, it's going to be down the road, but i appreciate getting to know

you and appreciate your patience and think you've got a lot of talent, so

lets keep in touch.

would love to know your insider opinion on jeff dowd.

x

l.

Getting emails like that are worth their weight in electrons, especially when one’s facing oblivion. And go with Jeff, he’s made some good shit happen.

But no one’s made no shit happen with me, despite, damn, ...remember smoking bowls with Jeff and (insert name of one of Oliver Stone’s producers here, Ed.) in Muir Woods, with (insert male or female pronoun here, Ed.) getting lost, and we thought we’d never find (same), but soon everything was fine, and back home to Mill Valley, one of my earliest film fests, and remember all the great parties Jeff got me into, especially that one in Toronto, where i couldn’t believe someone was calling my name, cod it felt like i’d actually made a film or something, on my way to Six Nations Reserve for an Iroquois ceremony, stopping in last minute at the Tronno fest, and damn, friends, surprise, the world’s most famous unproduced writer.

Fast walking to Elliot’s, amazed that he’s giving me a day’s pay for the day i worked hung over to death.

Farina & J-Dub on the cones. Wouldn’t you know it, the very first time i’ve had an actual date (Dana), pre-planned, in well over a year (other than chance encounters), and Tha Oner picks tonight to call for the first time in 6 weeks. Not for Christmas, not for the Millennium, not to see if i’m OK, but to see if i’m evicted, or still have a functioning brain. But what is it, a woman’s sixth sense, a pre-cognitive connection? Is it simply fate or synchronicity that she calls tonight? Do they plan these things? She doesn’t want to speak at all, just a quick are you still there in your place? Nothing else. Just more of the same, one way communication fits her to a tee. Guess in her youth she’s only concerned with herself, assuaging her own needs while completely shutting off mine. Not even one sentence am i allowed, but it’s fine with her to call and talk to satisfy herself. Must actress and selfish be the same word?

Still, me melt hearing her voice. Cod, the curve of her forehead.

Luckily, i’m immediately punished for keeping her love alive. There’s this fucking 18-wheeler idling outside the window, for fucking hours, can barely think, much less write, the cops not responding for nearly three hours, bastards. Truck finally leaving; fitful sleep; only to arrive under the window long before the workday’s commencement, continually idling his fuckin cancer spewing diesel, make me forget to love.

At least i got another meal last night, good friends are worth good friendship, nothing like a Pixar animator and exotic bride who can cook. My neighbors deserve sainthood, feeding me, slipping me pin money, how the fuck did that ancient phrase drop into this ramble, channeling Henry Miller again? Living here in Cali, perhaps i’m channeling dead writers alive again.

Cod, i’m so sick of brown rice with a dab of peanut butter. Got to find a way to get some real food.

The weekly paper has a huge article on house music. My son’s record label is nowhere to be seen. And he’s a great producer, why no mention? My heart breaks for him, for all the opportunities he’s lost from the scars on his brain, and the trauma he’s going through. That there’s no opportunity for me to help him, because the nature of his trauma, devastates, devastates like a neutron bomb killing off every remnant of humanity within me, but leaving the worldly landscape of waking every morning to a world that on the surface appears to be functioning, where automatons go about their business, where hollow is too hollow a word to describe the bitter emptiness following the explosion of this ground zero neutron attack, where my son aches unreachable beyond every emotion except the deep wells of compassion, of genetic love, that i refuse to let die, no matter the pulsing neutrons heating my cells to superheated froth, liquid to gas and unable to connect.

Go on a date.

OK, i always listen to my desires.

The producer’s assistant drives me to a movie, the oblivion screenwriter on his way to see a movie! Screenwriter for ten years, and i’ve probably seen a half dozen movies in the past year. Always wanted to go out with her, but Tha Oner dissolved that desire with a glance. But now? Me powerless to do anything but try and connect to someone, especially if i actually get to leave my loft. Being John Malcovich is the perfect release. This real time novel is not the place to write a review of that hallucinatory gem, because there’s something so much stronger just a page away. But you know me well enough by now to know that eye am fucking chuckling like a stuck pig to watch such weird brilliance, especially since i actually get to leave my loft. If you haven’t been confined by poverty to your abode, unable to partake in the normal entertainment pleasures of modern no way will i call it culture, then you’ll know exactly what emotions rise to the surface just too see a fucking flick. Being in the company of a complex producer who happens to be beautiful, and at least as intense as she believes, charges me.

That i’ve never been driven home so fast, and dropped off with such abject unspoken horror, though she says she’s tired with much to do, leaves me scratching my prehensile eyelids ‘til they bleed.

Perhaps that she’s producing a film with Tha Oner as a main character might, just might, have something to do with the situation, if you can call this horror of, what, do i smell that bad, i mean, mary mother of someone, oblivion’s not contagious, is it? Perhaps this is just the beginning of Tha Oner’s attack on the one who’s too poor to pay her back, who’s too busy struggling to catch each breath to get a job to pay her back. Fuck, Oner, we made a deal, if i couldn’t pay you back a year from now, then i’d start paying something spelled out in the contract every month, but that’s a year away, are you so inhuman?

Eye should ask that of the woman who stole my medication prescription so she could eat them herself, then stood in my loft helping me search for that scrip, watching me tear my being apart, thinking i’d misplaced my mind. The Muse of Unconsciousness enjoying the gentle play of the knife in my heart.

Think me go to Cocomo, for the usual i have no place else i can go, and they will anesthetize me with their generosity, and i will feel for a few hours as if i have a life. Swirling skirts, seductive in a way that only those too scared to actually flirt outside the prescribed dance steps of retro-swing, still captivate me with their distance. ‘Cept the dance instructor, who would captivate anyone with a Y-chrom and still breathing. But me sinking. Can’t go no further. Me black.

Then neutron death enfolds, dead.