by Max Vernon
To-Do list for Los Angeles (a remembrance of things that should remain in the past):
- 10 am: fail driving test
- 10:15 am: recuperate emotionally at In-N-Out
- 11 am: wait for the next three hours for some benevolent friend to pick me up.
- 2 pm: Benevolent friend never shows up, so I get on the big blue bus and sit next to old lady with hair so over-teased that it looks like it’s hovering over her head like a halo by force of static electricity. Her nails are five inches long, her garish makeup is smeared all over her face, and she wears three necklaces around her neck which say, “I love the USA” she’s talking to herself. It’s too bad crazies can’t simply talk to each other, because the homeless man to the left of me, who looks like he just resurfaced from the dust bowl, is also having quite a lively monologue. As he talks, he lovingly strokes the hair of his naked, dirt covered baby doll. His leg had caked dried blood on it and appears to be growing mold (this actually happened).
- 2:30: In desperate need of more emotional recuperation, but that won’t happen because I stupidly took the bus to the promenade where I am now surrounded by so many half naked ten year old girls from the nearest every child left behind school that I think I may have a seizure. I decide to drown my sorrows at Johnny Rockets. As I wait for my next grease-glazed meal I look around at the sentimental 50’s décor and try to conjure up some meaningful thoughts. Baudrilliard, says my English teacher in my head- this is all a simulacrum of reality. My pseudo meaningful, self-consciously pretentious thoughts are interrupted by my growing awareness of a group of kids behind me pointing and laughing at me- presumably because of my clothing. What’s so unusual about a six foot two boy wearing a kimono and bondage boots with three-inch heels? Go ahead and laugh at me I say! I’m laughing too…laughing all the way the bank. Oh wait, I don’t have a credit card and I spent this month’s allowance in a day paying off a video that was four days late to Vidiots. Panic sets in.
- 3:20: schedule appointment with psychiatrist to deal with overwhelming feelings of anxiety and disassociation. 3:25: schedule appointment with dermatologist to deal with the unwanted results of fast food. 3:30: ponder Veganism. 3:35: nope.
- After idly walking up and down the promenade for two hours without purpose, I return home with the intent of working on some music. The second I play a chord on the piano, I hear the click of the tv remote, and the oppressive roar of football. I’ve been fighting this war with my unofficial stepfather for the past two years. I stare out the window, desperately looking forward to my independence, when I finally have the time to work without interruption.
- 7 pm: My best friend Olivia swings by to pick me up. We are going to a Mickey Avalon concert, to see the pseudo celebrity former male prostitute white rapper LA sensation up close and personal. On the ride over, we listen to his CD, familiarizing ourselves with his inspiring, metaphor rich lyrics: “my dick does yoga, your dick…fruit rollup”
- 9 pm: Olivia is holding my hand in disbelief. We’ve both come down with “the fear” Everyone around us is a drunk 12 year old girl wearing their summer bikini and requisite pair of uggs. They’ve spotted us; our camouflage has failed. We may be devoured any minute. I walk outside for a moment to regain my senses. As I stare at the pink neon lights on sunset strip I feel overcome by nostalgia- the sentimentality of many unfulfilled promises. I think for a moment I might simultaneously combust. Something inside of me wants to scream, or weep. But instead, someone outside tells me they like my sweater, I gulp down my unwanted thoughts. I feel nothing.
To-Do List for New York (If only I could remember…):
- 2 pm: Wake up. What the hell, it’s 2 pm already? Call Lisa and Olivia for late brunch. Neither of them are awake yet either.
- 3pm: Instead of showering, I douse myself in baby powder, throw on my tight black jeans often mistaken for tights, and the coat I’ve been living in for the past two months and take to the streets in search of breakfast. After walking around for twenty minutes or so I decide to take a chance and go to a Ukrainian restaurant on First Avenue that appears to be run out of a retirement home. I later learn the back room of the restaurant is used for AA meetings and tango lessons, which provide an interesting, if not unexpected soundtrack for eating pierogies and kielbasa.
- 4pm: Lisa finally wakes up and returns one of my five missed calls, and agrees to take an impromptu adventure with me over to Central Park to reminisce and sentimentally fondle the Hans Christian Anderson statues.
- 4:45pm: We finally get to the park, but it is no longer bright and sunny out. Within the twenty minutes it took us on the train to get over there, the temperature has dropped forty degrees and it’s now pouring rain. “Frigid death wind from the polar ice caps doth aim its hoary fists at us,” sayeth Lisa who hath become paranoid that the people walking around us are drug dealing no good hooligans. I remind her that you only get mugged in Central Park after 9pm, but nonetheless we run over to the Guggenheim, partially drenched, partially defeated but laughing nonetheless.
- 5:15pm: IT COSTS TWENTY DOLLARS FOR A STUDENT TO GET INTO A MUSEUM THESE DAYS!? Well we pay it anyways and spend the next hour or so, making our way counterclockwise up the beehive shaped structure. Unfortunately the exhibit happens to be on minimalism, which makes for a rather dull viewing experience. It’s both more amusing and aggravating to listen to the people around you trying to analyze the works than actively engage with them. Minimalism is “pffft!” Lisa and I nod in agreement.
- 6:30pm: I get back to my dorm that smells like burnt Chinese food (my suitemate doesn’t seem to understand the concept that to cook noodles in a microwave one needs to add water to the bowl) and some vaguely toxic chemical. After coming to the conclusion that my suitemates’ personalities were “plays videogames” and “nonexistent” I decided not to bother to decorate the room. Thus, it gives off the vague aura of a mental institution- the walls being that sickly hospital yellow. I sit down at the keyboard I have set up in my room and decide to practice a few songs before tonight’s Open Mic @ the Sidewalk Café, lovingly called The Antihoot.
- 7:00 pm: I’ve only been playing my songs for twenty minutes or so and already my suitemate is tapping on the wall- I’m sorry am I interrupting your Everquest? Your conversation with your girlfriend? As I turn up the volume on my piano and begin to sing the song “Go to Hell” I redirect the subject of that song to my suitemates and woefully long for the day when I have my own apartment and can practice without disruption. I momentarily ponder moving to Iceland and living in an igloo for a few months to write an album. Oh if only I could a-fjord to purchase that plane ticket!
- 8:00 pm: I’m at the Antihoot- the numbers are selected randomly out of a hat, and the open mic goes from 7:30 until 4 am- my number is 23 so I’ll probably be going on around eleven. But wait! What truly miraculous miracle has occurred? Has something managed to puncture my jaded NYU bubble? What sort of open mic is this? It isn’t just middle-aged men reading their erotic poetry, but rather an assortment of about seventy musicians, twenty of which are seriously talented, and another five or so that border on brilliance. Every week, this open mic is the best concert in town, with new bands coming through every time. Everyone is making such radically different music, most of which is impossible to categorize: There is an older woman with blue hair that plays the banjo named Debe Dalton, a man who goes by the name M. Lamar who sings operatic punk renditions of negro spirituals, an assortment of avant-electronic acts, spoken word, stand up comedy, experimentation, and inspiration. Everyone sings along with the band onstage playing- people beat on their chairs, clink their glasses, and snap their fingers. The time flies by, and when I finally perform I’m not completely conscious of it: I feel as though I am watching a movie of myself. And with the applause that accompanies the end of my set, I feel as though this place has been written into my personal history and I have become integrated into some kind of larger community. I feel comfortably, sentimentally, trite; and all the better for it.
- 4 am: The Antihoot has ended; I have sipped my chamomile tea and taken to the streets- cautiously however, because by now, the drug dealers and muggers may very well be on the prowl. On the walk back to my dorm I can’t help but notice the streets are littered with bodies of sleeping homeless punks- some of them my age, some of them younger. When I finally get back to my building, a choir fills my ears- the disjointed harmonies of girls vomiting in different pitches. Perhaps I’m partially disturbed, but I find something incredibly reassuring and uplifting about this. Life is finally picking up its pace. Depending on just how much alcohol was consumed, some of these girls might even remember tonight. They will have their memories and I will have mine. For better or worse (but for the most part resoundingly better), life goes on…