I lost her behind a wall of mirrors.

Are you sure? Yes I’m sure down deep inside.

I don't cry because of sad things. I cry because of happy ones. Movies, songs, dreams, people. Couples find their hearts together at 24 frames per second. Rhythm, melody, beat, verse chorus verse of shared joy. Nighttime fantasies of holding hands, kissing smiling lips under warm blue skies. Women in the full bloom of pregnancy, and brightly spirited toddlers tumbling over brightly colored playgrounds.

Taunting visions of happiness lost or never achieved. Hopes drowned in a cascade of tears. I don't cry because of sad things. I cry because of happy ones. Yesterday it was raining, and I was fine, but today the sun is shining, and here I am writing this.

It might sound silly
For me to think childish thoughts like these
But I'm so tired of acting tough
And I'm gonna do what I please

My heart was shattered when I was 14, by the most beautiful girl in the world. She took a piece away, and never returned it. When I put what I had back together, my heart was smaller than before, but my dreams were the same full size. Every day since then my heart has burst, over and over and over, trying to hold those dreams in. I've gone out with other girls, hoping they might have the glue that would keep my heart together, but it's never held.

I don't think she knows she has this piece. I don't know if she even would have thought it worth keeping. I would do anything, I would be anything, for her. But I doubt I'll ever get the chance.

The truth is: I don't want her to give my piece of heart back.

The truth is: I want to give her all the pieces she left behind.

Dawn's Highway, or, No Rubber Meets These Roads

Listening to your ipod on the subway is great and all, but for us there's still nothing that beats dropping the top off the car and flying down the freeway with some White Zombie cranked to 11. That's why we were so intrigued when we saw (thrice named) Steve Luke Hanson's series of rush hour photos.

Daytime joyriding has almost become an oxymoron, but in Hanson's photos even the 405 at 5pm is blissfully free of traffic. With a tripod and a grip of neutral density filters, Hanson has revealed the spare forms hidden underneath our daily drive. Some find the pictures eerie; we find ourselves salivating. In our dreams, the imminent Carpocalypse has come, leaving the city's concrete thoroughfares empty of commuters, minivans, and hippo-like SUVs. We blow our last tank of gas barreling through cloverleaf interchanges, fishtailing across 6 deserted lanes, and jumping ramps over K Rails. In the end we take the 10 to PCH to Malibu. On a deserted cliffside we lay down our last bit of tire tread and sail right off the edge, just like the Pixies song.

At this point things get hazy. Whether we end up flying away ala Grease or drowning like A Star is Born must depend on what we were eating. But you don't have to share our admittedly anti-social gasoline-drunk dreams to appreciate Hanson's photos. Check them out, at least, to see what things will look like after post-Peak Oil has turned the 101 into the world's largest skate park.

Photo by (of course) Steve Hanson

Originally published on LAist

Coming Back

The silence here these last several months has been like that of two lovers when a great secret has passed between them. Neither has the courage to speak of it, but small chatter seems idle and vain. So a curtain of silence descends, not to be lifted until one overcomes his shame and confesses his guilt.

Of course, this site has never shied away from the confessional. But then, there is no romance in this confession, no beauty or longing or poetry. Just small, grinding stupidity.

Last September, just after my birthday, I made the second stupidest decision of my life: to drink and drive. I was caught, as I should have been, and thankfully in the best circumstances possible: no one was hurt, or put in danger. I pulled off the freeway safely, and cooperated with the police. I took their test, and failed. I spent a day at Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles.

There is no way to objectively know your blood alcohol level. And though you may guess at it, alcohol itself clouds your judgment. The only prudent decision, when you have drunk, is not to drive at all. Unfortunately that was a prudence I did not have the night I was arrested. I thanked God then, and I thank him now, that I had no accident. Providence, maybe, consists not in preventing us from making mistakes, but in averting as much harm from them as is possible.

I am sorry. To my friends, and family, who I have become a burden to. To my sister, who was in the car with me. To God, whom I sinned against with my lack of temperance. To the public, who I put in danger. I am sorry.

Since that night, my life has been much changed. I lost my license, of course, and along with it a great measure of my independence and control over my own life. My apartment, though a twenty five minute commute from work by car, was two hours away by bus. An untenable proposition. So I'm writing this from my parents house. I can bike to work, from here, and I do. When I am not overcome by an overwhelming sense of futility.

Biking, and ignoring despair, are both things that have gotten easier with practice.

Still, a larger portion of my life now is spent waiting than ever before. Waiting for the bus. Waiting for rides. Waiting for the courts. Waiting for and through meetings, and classes, and consultations. Waiting for the ramifications of my decision to finally resolve.

But one thing I should not wait any longer for: to write more here on Angst Dei.

September 18, 2007

See November 19, 2002

Very weird night

Last night, there was a crazy accident on Wilshire. I heard it through the window of the office. Screeching, then big crashes of metal, thumping, I could hear what sounded like a vehicle flipping, like a big metal ball, bam and bam.

It was about 11:15; you knocked out cold right after Rescue Me.

Anyway, I grabbed my cell phone and ran out. I tried to tell you I was going out the door, but you didn't respond. Like I said, you were totally out like a rock.

So I ran down Mariposa and up Wilshire. It was across the street from the Gaylord.

People had already called 911, so I didn't need my phone after all.

This guy, driving a pickup, clipped one of the parked cars on Wilshire. It slammed the car into a parking meter and twisted it around. The truck flipped, at least twice, and landed upside down. I guess the guy just crawled out. He didn't have a scratch on him.

This is right where they have that median called the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Parkway. The fire department came and blocked off the street. I hung around a while, to see if the owner of the parked car would show up. It was totalled. So was the truck, of course. But no one showed up. I wonder what they thought, when they came out of the club or cafe or whatever and saw their car.

I came back after a while. Played a little more WOW. I started seeing lightning flashes out the window, but there was no thunder. It happened over and over. I stopped and stared, and saw the bolts flashing. But never a sound. It was a weird night.

Pipettes at the Troubadour

The Pipettes are great. They get up on stage in vaguely matching outfits, doing their homemade choreography, singing these fun, cheeky songs about boys and being a girl.

They are the anti-Winehouse. I love bands like the Shirelles, the Ronettes, the Supremes. Amy Winehouse has the voice of 60's girl group star, but everything else about her is the inversion of those groups. Her tats, her trashy talk, her used up, discarded look. Lying, canceling shows to hit the bar. And her songs—her hit is about refusing to go to rehab.

But the glamour, grace, fun, sweetness of those groups still exists one night at the Troubadour. In a better universe, in a better England, the Pipettes would be the stars, and Amy Winehouse would be getting what she deserved.

Mah, but let's not turn everything political. I loved the Pipettes. Their clap along songs are infectious and their glow is overwhelming. They have that radiant smile of the girl from X-Ray Spex, and they put that smile on your face, too. Yay Pipettes!

These new McDonald's bags weird me out

Shouldn't that go without saying?

Is this a Discordian joke, like changing "No Smoking" signs to "No Smoking or Spitting" to subtly undermine public confidence? Is there some group out there that's been accusing McDonald's of putting poultry in its beef? Are the marketers at McDonald's trying to imply other burger places use something besides cow between their buns?

Whatever the company's intent, they have planted a seed of doubt in my mind where one never before existed.

Immigration is going nowhere

A decent respect for those that pay attention to these pages demands that I address the recent failed immigration bill.

Last year I marched down Wilshire Blvd in support of a sea change regarding our immigration policy.

My opinions haven't changed. Peaceful people should be able to move across borders in order to find work. We already allow unfettered global movement of capital in order to find workers. Why do we assign these rights to artificial entities but deny them to real human beings?

Furthermore, the core values of our Constitution—the rights enshrined in that great document, and in the Declaration of Independence—precede its existence. They are rights that belong to all mankind. Our founding fathers did not invent them; they were simply wise enough to recognize and codify them in Law. These are rights—to life, to liberty, to the pursuit of happiness—that are the inheritance of all mankind. I would not deny them to any who in good faith come to our country and try to claim them.

Nevertheless, I did not support the immigration reform bill that was rightfully killed in the Senate. And I did not march in the most recent rallies that hoped to support it.

That bill was hopelessly flawed, if for no other reason than that it would have given Citizenship to known, convicted felons. If good people should be rewarded wherever they are, then justice demands we punish the bad wherever they are as well. Peaceful people should be allowed; predators should be barred.

And that is the core issue: to allow or disallow, one must have the power to do so first. The bill, absent any real enforcement provisions, would not have been a reform of our borders (North and South), but an abdication of our responsibility for them. A wounded patient does not choose to bleed or not bleed, regardless of which is happening.

I still hope for real reform of our nation's immigration system. One compatible with both our sovereign duties and our commitment to universal Liberty. Right now we just have a broken leg.

Arcade Fire, at the Greek

When your ticket to the Greek Theatre says the show starts at 7:00pm, they aren't lying like all those jackleg indoor venues. The Greek Theatre isn't trying to fake you out, draw you in so they can increase their bar sales. The Greek Theatre doesn't survive apocalyptic forest fires so that you can stand around drinking overpriced imported beers and admiring each others' hundred dollar haircuts. The Greek Theatre is here to host music.

So you walk in on Electrelane's last song, which makes you more despondent, you feel even more alone, and use your last few dollars to purchase a Large Domestic Beer. You find your seat, between two groups of strangers. A few moments later, the lights darken. You stand up, and decide to down your beer Right Now.

Arcade Fire is exactly the kind of beautiful music that crushes your soul. The pipe organ builds and builds, and your tears build along with it, until you can't tell the taste of salt from the sound of the guitars, and the wetness on your cheeks feels like a trumpet, and your emotions crash out in a wave, just like the music on stage. The band comes back for encore, and they play that song, and your tears flood the amphitheater. They drown the audience and sweep everyone down the hill into the city and deposit them on their beds. And you're caught in the deluge, too, straight down Vermont, a little turn on Wilshire, and before you know it, you're there, next to the Ambassador Hotel, on your own futon, curled up, wet, collapsed. The tears pull back into your body, the flood recedes, the city dries, and the next morning everything looks shiny and washed and new again. It's beautiful and clear in Los Angeles, again.

Next time you won't be late for the show.