State Side

Andy and I have been talking about going back to the states in a while for a while and it's starting to get under my skin already. I'm not even there yet and I'm already getting tired of it. Watching “Californication” isn't helping either. Everyone cheats, everyone lies, everyone uses hip excuses to validate their runaway train of fucked up and delusional. We've watched maybe half a season and I”m starting to be able to smell it again, my memory is rushing back to me and my stomach is starting to turn.

I like watching Californication but that's due to the dialogue and acting. I think if you took those same writers, actors and director and threw them in Oregon, I'd still dig it.

The show itself is darkly funny with a good mix of high brow and vulgar humor and the acting is stellar.

It's California that's eating at me. I left that place with no intention of ever going back. Nearly ten years of looking California in the face got me to the point where I recognize and detest every pock marked inch of it. Its only saving grace is from those family members and friends that refuse to find a new location and keep calling LA home.

David raves about LA, and reminisces about how when he first got there most of the town was farms separated with a few dirt and gravel roads. Well things have changed gramps. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but LA's not exactly farm country anymore. I think he likes what it's become, really appreciates it for what it is. I get the whole “smell of the glove” romanticism he argues for LA if you've lived there long enough to want to defend the place you've dulled out so many of your years for, but it wreaks of shit. I guess he saw it grow up, slowly breaking away from it's innocent farmers daughter ways and into the slut he's become so accustomed to fucking him.

LA is a living creature, feasting on the lives of those who stay and live within it. When you come to LA, it wraps it's arms around you and tries to hold you in, showing you that nothing lives beyond it's streets, that it's the same everywhere; the whole world is LA, so you might as well just make yourself cozy and settle in. Put it any way you like; LA likes to hold people there, whether it's holding you up, back or down; it's got it's hands around your most valuables and it won't let go.

It sure has my most valuables. Except for Andy, all my family and the few remaining people I call friends are there to this day. I thought some of them would have moved on by now.

It's a weird phenomenon. When you're there, people talk about other places like it's on another planet. Traveling is for paid vacations, and permanently taking up residence in some other part of the world goes against common sense and sanity. Maybe people don't talk about it exactly in this way, but it gets through. According to people in LA, there's nowhere else to be, either because it's the cats ass, or the blood sucking vulture that's got you trapped, piggy banking your tips to roll over the late rent until that elusive day you can pack it all in and start fresh.

My clear affintiy for the place I think shows just how much I'm looking forward to it.

When we first started talking about it, I was excited. I miss my family and I'm looking forward to finding all the artistic people I can and surrounding myself with them so I can soak in some creativity for a while. I just want to feel inspiration and original thought bouncing back at me sometimes and not always coming from me and hitting shinny blunt doorknobs.

I still want that and I'm still excited about it, but the pit of my stomach has gone away and I'm dreading mixing with the crowd that invariably surfaces in LA.

We agreed to stay away from LA from the start of the idea, look for places an hour or so away, but we're starting to wonder how fanciful the notion of a one hour saftey wall is. It'll find it's way in, and I”m not sure if we can fight it back enough that it doesn't end up getting its mess all over our lives and soaking into my gray matter.

Am I too judgmental, have I been gone too long? Will I find the same things in Portland, Seattle or Phoenix? It can't be as strong as LA. You can't find a town free of assholes and idiots, but you can at least tip the scale in your favor.

I don't know. The advantages are working with people we love and whom we like to “palaver” with for a while. Making movies, painting with other artists, jamming with some of the many musician friends in every corner of the city, relaxing a little. We need it. We've worked really hard these last two years and stopped having fun with it a while ago. All that work and so much of it siphoned away from our own shit. It's a shame really, but we got what we wanted out of it and we're better off for it, but we're tired of the marathon and we want to chill out for a while. Doing that around friends is the best route, working on some projects we care about or don't, trying to have a good time and getting a reprieve from the race to.. I don't know what... the race perfectionists run themselves into the ground with.

But should we do that in California? Would it be worth it? Would we get to relax at all before it started tightening it's grip again?

Didn't I run away from you years ago? Do I really want to walk right back in? My brain tells me that it will be different this time. I've changed quite a bit since I was last in it's clutches and it might not have the same effect on me. I don't want the same things, need the same things or fear the same things anymore, so would it find it's way to me...or am I safe from it? Maybe it won't recognize me and decide I'm not it's type. Maybe it doesn't want to gulp down someone who it's already spit out.

Maybe I worry too much and really do need to take a fucking break and see what happens.