Pale Hands

Advice from Abraham

2011-03-12T21:39:00.000-08:00

Third day into vacation, and I keep sleeping until 12 noon. Even when I want to wake up earlier, I sleep until noon.

But I have managed to forget about work on the third day.

And when I was reading my email this afternoon, I got advice from someone called Abraham.

I'm not sure if Abraham is real or a spirit or what.

Abraham said this:

"You're picky about the car you drive. You're picky about what you wear. You're picky about what you put in your mouth. We want you to be pickier about what you think."

So now I have that to think about and do for the rest of my vacation.

The Captain Kisses Maria

2010-12-26T18:59:00.000-08:00

Captain Von Tropp kisses Maria in the moonlight, and outside my third floor window snow blows through the air.

I'm stuck in a blizzard in an old white house behind an old Catholic church near the Atlantic Ocean, with a deadline waiting for me in Los Angeles. No word from the airline if my afternoon flight for tomorrow is cancelled.

Now the Von Tropps get ready to perform before they escape from the Nazis, and I sit and wait and turn the pages of a scrapbook of my childhood.

There I am playing baseball in little league. Big smile and no thoughts about the future, except for getting a hit my next time at bat.

There I am doing the twist in someone's family room as the adults hold cocktails and watch me and laugh.

There I am with my brothers as we pose and smile for my mother on the first day of elementary school.

When I return to L.A., I have to remember those pictures. It was a good way to live.

Another Blue Sky Day

2010-08-01T01:44:00.000-07:00

Another blue sky day in West Hollywood, and the Dodgers lost in San Francisco. I decided to take a nap after the game before I drove to the beach to meet a friend who needed money.

He lives in a 1985 white Ford van in Venice, and he ran out of gas and cash and he needed to move the van before he would get a ticket that he could not afford. As long as I got there before ten o'clock, everything would be fine.

I drove to the Chase bank on Sunset Boulevard near Laurel Canyon, withdrew 80 bucks, and took Sunset to the Pacific Ocean. Then I drove south on the Pacific Coast Highway and ended up at Venice Beach.

Tourists wearing sunglasses and baseball caps took pictures of the sunset, and I found my friend waiting for me in a park with tall palm trees. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt and a black-knit cap and wrap-around sunglasses.

"Patrick!" he yelled, smiling wide. "How ya' doin' my brotha?"

He's a middle-aged Jew from Cleveland, but he hasn't lived there since 1985.

We talked about politicians, the cops, and his nagging depression.

"I don't know how much longer I can live like this," he said.

It didn't feel right to try to get him to look at the bright side of things, so I nodded and listened and said nothing.

I bought him a cheese burger, fries, and a tall draft beer for dinner at an outdoor cafe near the Venice boardwalk. I ate nothing and drank water. He complained about life some more, and I nodded and listened.

After I paid the bill, I gave my friend 40 bucks.

"God bless you," he said.

"You're welcome," I told him.

We hugged and then parted ways.

As I was driving back to West Hollywood on Sunset Boulevard, I wondered if my friend was going to use the money I gave him for something else. It didn't really matter, I thought. It's his money now.

Laughs and Squawks

2010-05-14T18:35:00.000-07:00

Who are these girls laughing at seven o'clock on a Thursday morning?

What have they been drinking?

Did they even go to bed?

Are they drinking right now?

Or did they wake up that way?

I'm all for good times, but this is ridiculous.

And now that bird is squawking as if doomsday has come.

What's happening up there in the trees behind my apartment?

Is that fat raccoon causing problems again?

I don't need an alarm clock with all of these noises, but I guess I should be grateful.

The laughs and squawks are nothing compared to that horrible sound, the sound of a nuclear meltdown.

The Hollywood Hills Are Not Boring

2010-05-12T22:46:00.000-07:00

I was driving home from work on Robertson Boulevard.

Miles away from West Hollywood.

Someone trimmed the trees on the sidewalk to stubs.

'Would never happen on my watch,' I thought.

Kept driving and felt bad for the trees.

Then the Hollywood Hills popped up.

I was happy and curious to see them.

The hills, and the blue skies, never bore me.

Running Down Robertson Boulevard

2009-02-13T00:13:00.000-08:00

A little past Melrose Avenue on Robertson Boulevard, I was jogging south and heading towards Burton Way.

The street was dark, and it was eleven o'clock or so, and it was a long day at work.

I wasn't thinking about much, listening to a Clash song on the shuffle, and ran with my head down with a New York Yankees cap pulled to my eyes. I passed a guy or two who walked by me. They were probably headed for the Abbey.

Then I felt someone looking at me.

I looked up and saw a young guy, probably 22 or 23, who looked like that Calvin Klein model. He was quite beautiful, and he wore a sparkly scarf over a black leather jacket. I nodded, he smiled, and then my eyes started to water.

It was the most powerful scent of cologne that had ever hit me.

I kept running and smelled that smell for blocks. I didn't know if it was a good thing or bad.

Someone who looked like that didn't need that much cologne, I thought. For the rest of the run, I wondered what made him do it.

Frank O'Hara Made Me Laugh

2009-02-07T22:40:00.000-08:00

The rains were gone for a few hours, so I drove to Barnes & Noble at the Grove on Fairfax Avenue to pick up a book by Lester Bangs. On the way, somewhere on Beverly Boulevard, it hit me that I also wanted to read something by Frank O'Hara.

I arrived at the Grove, parked in the garage, and walked down seven flights of stairs so I didn't have to put out the cigarette I was smoking. After a quick left and right, the bookstore was in front of me and a man held open the door. I smiled and said, "Thanks."

Then I took two escalators to the third floor, picked up the Lester Bangs book, and asked the sales clerk at the information desk if he had any Frank O'Hara books.

The sales clerk was a young guy, maybe 24, with black hair and tight, gray slacks and a white shirt. He seemed very happy about something, and I was glad I wasn't him as he walked me to the poetry section and talked into his headphones to someone and shouted at me about how much he loved poetry but never understood it.

"I just go by how it makes me feel," I told him. "I don't try to break it down too much."

He turned around and looked at me kind of weird and didn't say anything.

He kept walking to the poetry section, which was far out of the way and nowhere near the escalator and not really near anything. It was as if Barnes & Noble was forced to put up a poetry section and reluctantly found a spot for it, but it couldn't be a prime spot because those spots are reserved for unauthorized biographies about Tom Cruise and Angelina Jolie.

"Here you go," the sales clerk said to me with a big smile. "Frank O'Hara."

He pointed to a collection of poems, which sold for $27.95. I bent down and picked out a small orange book called "Lunch Poems." It cost $7.95. The sales clerk looked disappointed.

"It's his most famous book," I said. "And it's twenty dollars cheaper, too."

The sales clerk laughed nervously and I opened the book and read the first few lines of a poem titled "Ave Maria":

"Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies!
get them out of the house so they won't know what
you're up to
it's true that fresh air is good for the body
but what about the soul..."

I laughed and looked up at the clerk who was still wearing his headphones and still looking at me weird.

"I'm buying this one," I said.

He nodded, and I took the escalators down to the first floor to pay for everything. It didn't rain again until well after I got home.