Friday, November 6, 2015
Fallen Halos
Looking back on this blog with cool introspection, reflecting on my youth, moods cycling out of a manic feverish highs and diving through unstrung halos on reckless whims; brain stirred by hypomania. I started this blog to document my troubles being heard as a writer/musician in the megalopolis of Los Angeles chasing falling halos, eyes twinkling, drugs coursing through my veins on the nights when coping was too hard or the cold was in my bones and the pavement wasn't too friendly.
I spent a total of roughly six months on the streets mainly in East Hollywood into Los Feliz, around Western and Griffith Park and then, of course the main drag on the boulevard, and every possible stretch of it from Vine to Fairfax and over on the beaches from Marina del Rey to Malibu but mainly Venice and Santa Monica. Back in LA proper my backpack and joint silouetting the flash-bombed imagery of the Sunset-Strip as I shot through the colorful heart of West Hollywood on a manic bender, serenading downtown and Echo Park, feet floating through the Silver Lake hipster morass in a detached hazed dream. They were one or two month stints over a 5 year period, with moments when I had a roof over my head and a lease signed, but most months I didn't have my rent together, blame a medical card and too many pot-shops and my girlfriend would pay my share probably 3/4ths of the time, and as a result of a hot temper and of course add my foolish pride to the mix, and I sometimes found myself back on the streets for a few days or a week.
So, I wanted to get back into the details of those adventures in the last couple years after we gave up the lease on St. Andrews in Little El Salvador, off Santa Monica Blvd. flesh out the rest of the story in 2008 and my 40 day stay in LA County Twin Towers in 2007, where I spent most of the time locked up on the seventh floor, where I lost the right to my yellow and blue scrubs the first day, and also my mat and blanket, which I never received, and was completely naked on nothing but steel and concrete in September and October, under blaring florescent lights that never went out, until I earned that privilege three weeks later. There are some sordid details I want to forget, but writing them down and telling this story would be cathartic and give me some closure.
Moving past that and skimming over my life with that girl and her enabling me to try and make a little music by moving in with her, and to this point, still my longest relationship, where on St. Andrews Louis Wylie and I recorded about fifty songs and cut a demo, on shitty equipment, and played one fucked up gig too drunk to be coherent and definitely off key at Crane's Tavern off the boulevard on Gower.
And then the lease expired and the relationship, the first of a couple break-ups before it ended a year later and on to the longest stint I spent outside, this time mainly on the west side beaches, and then one night Haku-- one of my partners in crime--and I , we walked north along the shore past Malibu, where we we finally escaped LA and caught a ride into Riverside and up into Santa Barbara where we spent a few few weeks beach-bummin in Santa Barbara, and luckily it was May into July in the subtropical so-Cal sunshine, and then in the middle of all that , before SB, there was also a week where my brother, always concerned, intervened and I staid in a halfway house in South Central on Cimarron that I mainly used as a storage unit while I peripatetically perused, caroused, puffed and browsed the streets of LA, and later met a couple OGs one of whom really took me under his wing for a few days, and I slept in his van for a night. And then the getting back together with my girl, a tiny apartment (one room, and i don't mean one bedroom) and a crib sized bathroom, where we were living of of Pico/Fairfax in a black middle-class neighborhood east of the luxury of Beverly Hills...And then it all snapped again and I was outside for about a month, before I hopped a chrome greyhound streaking sleek down I-80 with her tail between her legs back east, and I and ran home to my family's small estate here in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. I wanted to get back into those details of the nights and long days when my ranting tirades must have scared and definitely amused (I hope) the passersby. For entertainment purposes only. HAHA...
I spent a total of roughly six months on the streets mainly in East Hollywood into Los Feliz, around Western and Griffith Park and then, of course the main drag on the boulevard, and every possible stretch of it from Vine to Fairfax and over on the beaches from Marina del Rey to Malibu but mainly Venice and Santa Monica. Back in LA proper my backpack and joint silouetting the flash-bombed imagery of the Sunset-Strip as I shot through the colorful heart of West Hollywood on a manic bender, serenading downtown and Echo Park, feet floating through the Silver Lake hipster morass in a detached hazed dream. They were one or two month stints over a 5 year period, with moments when I had a roof over my head and a lease signed, but most months I didn't have my rent together, blame a medical card and too many pot-shops and my girlfriend would pay my share probably 3/4ths of the time, and as a result of a hot temper and of course add my foolish pride to the mix, and I sometimes found myself back on the streets for a few days or a week.
So, I wanted to get back into the details of those adventures in the last couple years after we gave up the lease on St. Andrews in Little El Salvador, off Santa Monica Blvd. flesh out the rest of the story in 2008 and my 40 day stay in LA County Twin Towers in 2007, where I spent most of the time locked up on the seventh floor, where I lost the right to my yellow and blue scrubs the first day, and also my mat and blanket, which I never received, and was completely naked on nothing but steel and concrete in September and October, under blaring florescent lights that never went out, until I earned that privilege three weeks later. There are some sordid details I want to forget, but writing them down and telling this story would be cathartic and give me some closure.
Moving past that and skimming over my life with that girl and her enabling me to try and make a little music by moving in with her, and to this point, still my longest relationship, where on St. Andrews Louis Wylie and I recorded about fifty songs and cut a demo, on shitty equipment, and played one fucked up gig too drunk to be coherent and definitely off key at Crane's Tavern off the boulevard on Gower.
And then the lease expired and the relationship, the first of a couple break-ups before it ended a year later and on to the longest stint I spent outside, this time mainly on the west side beaches, and then one night Haku-- one of my partners in crime--and I , we walked north along the shore past Malibu, where we we finally escaped LA and caught a ride into Riverside and up into Santa Barbara where we spent a few few weeks beach-bummin in Santa Barbara, and luckily it was May into July in the subtropical so-Cal sunshine, and then in the middle of all that , before SB, there was also a week where my brother, always concerned, intervened and I staid in a halfway house in South Central on Cimarron that I mainly used as a storage unit while I peripatetically perused, caroused, puffed and browsed the streets of LA, and later met a couple OGs one of whom really took me under his wing for a few days, and I slept in his van for a night. And then the getting back together with my girl, a tiny apartment (one room, and i don't mean one bedroom) and a crib sized bathroom, where we were living of of Pico/Fairfax in a black middle-class neighborhood east of the luxury of Beverly Hills...And then it all snapped again and I was outside for about a month, before I hopped a chrome greyhound streaking sleek down I-80 with her tail between her legs back east, and I and ran home to my family's small estate here in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. I wanted to get back into those details of the nights and long days when my ranting tirades must have scared and definitely amused (I hope) the passersby. For entertainment purposes only. HAHA...
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