And ah, when you work out where to draw the line . . .

Snippet of a Month-and-a-Half Old Conversation - "Well, at least I have a job."

Unspoken Response: "Hey, you have a job, we're all proud of you, Golden Boy. You've also broke the time record for putting on Golden Handcuffs. I mean, within your first six months working at Phuqued Firm, you buy a car whose monthly payment is about three-fourths of my rent, you get engaged to a woman you had been sleeping around on at least a month into your engagement and who has made it very clear she wants two kids and a house within a year after the marriage, and that's on top of student loan payments and all the asundry bills you had before you started working. And let's not forget that Phuqued Firm pays you half as much for twice the work you'd be doing at a second-tier firm. Good for you, Golden Boy."

My My My My My Boogie Shoes

So theory number 3 is temporarily out.

Liberal Chick and I are meeting at the Zanzibar, the club which replaced the dearly departed West End (may it rest in peace in Flair Heaven), Saturday night, which is the dance music residency. Hmmm, I guess that's all I have to say about that. Well, plus I've had the stupid "Boogie Shoes" song in my head since we've confirmed the date.

This Is How I End Up Getting Sucked In

The traveling dreams are back.

My waking dream started out as a live video game. I was with a group of about twenty men in full combat gear, lined up at the entrance to an aircraft carrier. We were only allowed two weapons, a small pistol and an semi-automatic assault rifle. We had only one clip of ammo for both, but we could pick up additional ammo as well as switch to different weapons once the game began. I was debating whether or not to get rid of the pistol and pick up an rpg if I could find one, but decided to stick with the weapons I had - I figured that most of the time would be spent in the narrow corridors of the carrier where maneuverability was at a premium and an rpg could end up blowing you to bits as well as the nasties that you'd be fighting. The buzzer rang to indicate the game would begin. Our job was to exterminate spectral presences in the aircraft carrier.

Instead of rushing through the entrance, I decided to pick up additional ammo that was laying around the floor - it was dangerous to run out of ammo in mid-fire fight. Stairs led up from the entrance to the exterior of the carrier. I looked over the side to see a gray ocean that was slowly beginning to freeze over.

The game no longer existed. I was a passenger on the aircraft carrier that had been converted into a transport ship. Everyone else was in the process of getting acquianted with the layout of the ship and the activities that would be made available to the passengers. Me, I had been lugging heavy baggage for what seemed like forever. I looked out at the ocean for a little while longer, but then slowly began to feel nauseous. I checked the map of the carrier to find my room, which was on the starboard side in the fore of the ship. I wanted to settle in as my payment for transport wasn't money but services - I was to mediate any military disputes that would arise.

In the dream I had the night before, I was trying to leave a hotel up in the Nevada mountains. Snow capped the black, jagged peaks, and it was freezing despite the fact it was June.

Whatever Happened To My Rock N Roll [Punk Song]

What up, 24 Hour Party People. Yeah, I know, it's been four days since the date with Liberal Chick and nary a peep from me in the Blogosphere. Most of my unplugged friends know the 411 and have given me their various thoughts ranging from "She's protecting herself from getting hurt" to "She's tellin' you you're not the one." OK, so we don't do the non-chronological Memento thing, let's rewind a bit.

Thursday night, the bar of the Regent Beverly Wilshire. Lighting is dark, furniture is all old wood with black varnish. There's a guy crooning away at the grand piano belting out the good ol' tunes -- Bobby Darin, Chairman of the Board. So in she walks and she looks just a tad older than her pic, but no biggie, she has a nice smile and great gams. We order mojitos and for the next two and a half hours, we just sit talking and laughing. Our music tastes are so similar it's on the verge of "Get outta my head, now!" (Her photo on match.com was taken while a compilation from Hed Kandi records was playing, a compilation I have - I only know two women who've heard of Hed Kandi, one of them is in London and one is in Florida). She laughed at almost everything I said, not just a petite tight-lipped smile chuckle, but the type that laughs that makes you squeeze your eyes, open your mouth and lean forward trying to catch your breath type of laughs.

So I'm thinking this isn't a bad first date at all. Then, out of nowhere, Liberal Chick says, "So, I think you're a great guy, we share the same tastes in music and you've made me laugh. I know someone I can see live music with. Who knows where this will lead, you might fall in love with one of my friends or find someone else. I don't know where this will lead, I might find someone on match.com and so might you. We've just met, so I don't know. Let's just take this a step at a time."

Ummmmmmmmm, OK. I was weirded out because, hell, I thought all of the above was the unspoken default on first dates. My weirded out state must have shown, cuz she looked concerned.

I told her that frankly, I was in shock because, well, I thought what she said was understood already.

In my head, I thought, crap, if she was actually interested in pursuing this further, there'd be no reason to bring this all up.

I said, "Hmmm, is this a 'nice guy but . . .' speach, or a 'let's take it slow' speech?"

She said, "I'm very honest, and my friends say I don't have much tact. I'm saying how I feel, and I'm telling you we just met so I don't know where this is going to lead." (Errr, again, I'm thinking, yeah, isn't that the case with all first dates though?) "Um, I'm kinda new at this." I didn't press that last comment.

Anyway, I got the check shortly thereafter (parking garage closes at 11 so I needed to leave lest I be stuck in Beverly Hills). I walked her to her car and gave her a hug. She said, "So, find out what bands are playing around the area in the next couple of weeks." I said, "Sure, I'll call or e-mail you soon."

I e-mailed her the next day just in case she may have felt embarrassed by her little weird outburst, let her know I had a wonderful time and I'll be checking the live music scene to find a gig to catch. The same day, she e-mailed me back and said she had a nice time too and would also be checking the local band scene. I guess the fact she e-mailed me the same date instead of not responding shows some interest.

So the theories:

1. "[T]hat she was saying that outloud more for herself than for you. [S]he was having a great time with you and suddenly realized that since it was a first date, who knows what would happen afterward...so to protect herself in case you didn't want to see her again, she said that stuff."

2. "She had a fun time, but it was the first date. She didn't want to give you the impression that it wasn't anything more than a first date."

3. "She had a fun time, but she didn't think of pursuing it romantically. She probably shouldn't have said what she said."

Anyway, I have found a musician who's playing locally in the next couple of weeks. We'll see what happens.

Three Strange Days . . .

In the last 72 hours, I've:

1. Done my best to be a stand up and righteous guy;

2. Fucked up one of the tires of the Starkmobile right after I paid it off;

3. Written enough for two chapters, but not for the novel - it was worth it (see first point);

4. Rediscovered something that kept me sane during my years in BigLaw;

5. Been told I rock and that I'm a good man by couple of folks I respect (see first point);

6. Going through alternate moods of giddiness and terror (terrodness? giddirror?) as I prepare to meet Liberal Chick tomorrow; and

7. Wished I could've spent my legal career helping out people I respect instead of being a hired gun / cog in the machine for mulit-milliion dollar pissing contests (see first point).

. . . I Feel The Safest Of All

Whoo hoo! I paid off the car and finally got the title.

I Feel It Closing In

This is the fourth (or is it fifth) straight day straight of June gloom. I know I shouldn't be complaining because, hell, I was still able to wear shorts in January while my East Coast friends were trudging through slush. But you know, you get spoiled, and this minor cloudiness is making me feel all depressed and maudlin. I can't get Joy Division songs out of my head and I can't get motivated to write the goddamn novel. I get all paranoid, then pissed at myself for getting paranoid, about liberal chick not writing me back even though I know she's uber busy and has always written back before (and even if she is blowing me off, so what, it's LA, this is cute chiqua central).

Anyway, here I go on a random tangent. Ian Curtis - has a wife, a kid, a mortgage and a band about to go on an American tour. You may hate Joy Division's music (it's so bleak, it's so repetitive), but you'll have to admit, it makes you feel something, and that's where he succeeded brilliantly. After listening to Joy Division, you will think of "Love Will Tear It Apart" anytime it rains, or you go through a massive breakup. That's why everyone, including yours truly, thinks he's a genius. Right on the edge of success, he goes home and hangs himself. Jeff Buckley - puts out one incredible album, the type of album that's in every major bands CD player, in every music critics top-10 list. While recording his second album, he waded out into the Memphis River and drowned. So what the hell is it that drives these guys to self-annihilation right before success? (Don't worry, this is not a cry for help. This comes out of watching 24 Hour Party People and the dead-on portrayal of Ian Curtis). Sigh.

Day In, Day Out

Hmmm, no more blogging sessions at 2 in the morning. Today I was almost totally useless. I scrapped all but the first two sentences of the three pages I wrote yesterday. At least I did character sketches for Angry Yellow. Anyway, creativity is a violent, painful process, much like birth blah blah blah. OK, now that I got the pseudo-deepness out of the way, this is tough going. At least when I was writing a motion, the law was already set out. It was almost a matter of filling in the blanks (OK, it wasn't as easy as filling in the blanks, you had to make the motion persuasive as well as informative, but at least you had some building blocks). With the novel, I'm starting with almost a blank slate. Hmmmm, maybe a bunch of dots to connect into a coherent picture is a better analogy. I have all these random bits that I do want in the novel, but a novel also has to have momentum and a theme.

Also, today reminded me that writing is an iterative process. When I was drafting the background of the main character, Josh Chang, something in his past, a throw away detail, sounded interesting enough to have a novel in and of itself. Josh started a punk band in college called "The Chinkies" - an all Asian band started as a joke and a protest against the campus Asian student association. They kicked him out because all he could play was the keyboards, and no punk band has keyboards. He wanted to play guitar, but his parents never let him because "guitar" wasn't a serious instrument, it was either piano or violin. Now, the novel was mainly going to be about Josh in his early thirties, dealing with the whole, "Caught between two culture" thing with a "I'm thirty-three and life is passing me by" light though piquant subtheme. But if I make The Chinkies a major part, that's going to require a reworking. Phhht.

Dance Dance Dance To The Radio

OK, this is what 6 Shiner Bock's and watching 24 Hour Party People gets ya, it gets ya a random list of covers, songs and remixes that are never to be. Here we go in no particular order:

Joy Division's cover of the Doors "Rider on the Storm" - Done in 1981 after Joy Division returns from their American tour. Rumor has it that Ian Curtis was inspired after hanging out with Ray Manzarek and doing some peyote at the Whisky A-Go-Go. Truth is much simpler. There's something about Jim Morrison's death that makes Ian scared and sad, the contrast between the LA sun and the Mancunian grayness, that makes Ian want to record it, to make "Rider" in the Mancunian image. NME labels Joy Division a sell-out, Rolling Stone savages the "Blue Monday" album from which the single comes. The single makes Joy Division an international hit and Ian a sex symbol. He is assasinated in Paris in 1992 by a crazed Morrison fan from Seattle.

Massive Attack's remix of Radiohead's "OK Computer" - Although making an album together nearly drives 3D, Mushroom and Daddy G apart, working on a full album of songs not of their creation brings them back together. Working with a full album that's already there and exploring the variations of the themes waiting to be discovered, it reinvigorates Massive Attack. A year later, Massive Attack releases "Memory and Dream Storage" - lush orchestral arrangements filled with dark dread and hope, Shirley Manson, Horace Andy and Beth Gibbons on vocals.

Garbage's first album "Dirty" - Although Butch Vig asked Shirley Manson to be the lead, she decided to stay with her little known band Angelfish. Luckily, Toni Halliday of Curve, of which Butch Vig is a huge fan and a major inspiration for Vig to cross the window from producer to band member, decides to give up on Dean Garcia as a musical collaborator. The ability of Toni to switch from a child-like breathy petulance to a sexy panther-like growl in the space of three heartbeats propels the first single, "As Heaven Is Wide," up the alternative charts. Portions of five tracks from "Dirty" make it on to Nike and Victoria's Secrets commercials. Garbage is able to get Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys to do guest vocals on "Push It" from Garbage's second album, "Cherry." Garbage does the them to the James Bond flick "Die Another Day," with Toni in a minor role as a villainess. Toni is listed at People's 50 Most Beautiful People in 1999.

Jeff Buckley's second album "New Year's Prayer" - In a 1999 EW interview after Jeff won his first Grammy and the week before his first movie role (about a singer trying to leave the shadow of his deceased folk-singer father -- film directed by Curtis Hanson entitled "Mystery White Boy"), Jeff chuckles about the panic he created after he waded into the Memphis river, and dismisses any idea that Tom Verlaine and he hate each other after Jeff decided to scrap the material he recorded with Tom. In a sidebar article, Tom agrees that, after listening to "New Year's Prayer," Jeff was right.

My Bloody Valentine's second album "Want More, Need Less."

In A Seaside Town . . .

So the June Gloom has hit Lalaland. Gray overcast skies that also bring a cool breeze through my dining area window. The gray makes me mopey, the breeze makes me nostalgic. If I'm not careful, I'll end up listening to The Smiths and Joy Division all day while being a miserable sod (OK, a more miserable than usual sod).

Anyway, so today was the first day of writing the novel. Ummm, I'm viewing today as a "Well, you know it's gonna take a while to get your sea legs back" day. The plan was to write about 5000 words a day. Sigh. I have maybe a page and a half of good stuff mixed with another page and a half of stuff that smacks of effort. I know where I want to go with the chapter, but what I've written sounds forced. Plus it doesn't help that my mind still wants to be distracted.

10:00am - Listen to recruiter tell me about contract gig. Find out that contract gig is in the same building as Phuqued Firm. Tell him, "Yeah, I think I'll pass on this one."

10:15am-11:15am - Surf web, write back to PhD chick, still waiting to hear from liberal chick. Try to quash the feeling that this will all end with crappy ABC aftershool special moral of "He could have had two, now he has none." Wonder where Peter Billingsley, star of crappy ABC afterschool special about rich kid with no friends trying to win the girl by being cool only to win the girl by being himself, is these days. Sure he won the girl in the end - he was rich.

11:15am - 1:00pm. - Read Zadie Smith's White Teeth. Forgot what it was like to read a novel. Thinking "Wow, this is well written, but what makes it well-written."

1:00pm - 2:00pm - Wrote the first two pages! Whoo hoo!

2:01pm - Hmmm, trying not to force creativity. Force creativity, you get crap.

2:02pm - 3:00pm - Forced creativity. Got crap.

3:01pm - Try not to get distracted.

3:02pm - Cat curls up on bed. Hey, let's play with the cat!

3:04pm - Finish putting bandaids on arm.

3:05pm - 3:30pm - Trying to figure out where to go from what I've written.

3:30pm - 4:00pm - Go back online. No e-mail from liberal chick. Realizes that she looks like high school girlfriend. IM for a while with friend in Pittsburgh.

4:01 pm - Check number of words written.

4:02 pm - Get really depressed.

4:03pm-5:00pm - Write some dialogue. Can't tell if it is crap yet.

5:00pm - Screw it. Deal with this tomorrow.

Sigh. Hopefully, now that I've gotten some writing done, it'll be a little bit easier tomorrow.

Spark

I think my muse just kicked me in the ass. Gotta write this down before I forget -- OK, I may think it's crap later but you have to write every friggin' day:

I hate tradition.

It's because of tradition that, at this thirtieth Thanksgiving dinner halfway through the thirty-third year of my life, I was sitting at a rickety card table covered by Sesame Street paper napkins, plastic plates of half-eaten dim sum and turkey, paper cups with orange High-C and RC Cola and a lone Tsingtao beer. My two-year-old nephew, sitting next to yours truly, had spit up on my khakis while a six-year-old technically a cousin (Kevin Bacon and I have less degrees of separation than the wisenheimer punching my arm) was shouting "Uncle Josh is a drunk! Uncle Josh is red!" over and over again.


Hmmm, I think I have a rough draft for the beginning of the second novel.

I'll Be The Corpse In Your Bathtub

OK, it's a Friday night, and here I am sitting in Casa De Stark listening to acoustic sad mopey bastard music. Warm air rises, my bedroom / loft is a hothouse -- you can grow orchids in it. It won't begin to cool well into the dawn as the air outside cools and the hot air flows away out the window. My face feels like it's encased in paraffin. I'm consoling myself for blogging on a Friday night instead of out carousing and hittin' on the fine chiquas by telling myself that last weekend was action-packed, that I'm taking a bit of a breather. Yet there's this part of me that feels a bit morose knowing that there are folks out there getting their groove on.

I have to admit that I miss driving to Bees Knees on Friday nights, even though it was a two hour trek in crawling traffic down to OC -- it was the anticipation of being with someone who was happy being with me. I miss having someone snuggle against me while watching TV, and knowing that I made someone smile with a kiss. But attached to all that were problems I couldn't solve and jags of heartache that left me tired and empty.

It's the part that's doing all the missing that makes me go onto match.com and keep looking. It's the part that remembers the problems that makes me bored and tired of all the profiles I see, that's a little scared of writing to them. So before I get too mopey, I might as well list of what makes guys run shrieking away from a female match.com profile like a five-year-old kid away from dad with a two-by-four in no particular order:

1. The use of the term "soulmate";

2. Photos with the ex or some other dude;

3. Photos that include an Adam's Apple;

4. Profiles that are less than two sentences long ("Hi, I'm an attractive intelligent woman looking for a fun time" doesn't really give the guys much to work with);

5. Photos in costume (being as slinky as a cat is sexy, dressing up as one isn't);

6. The use of "Christian" and / or "Jesus";

7. Photos that look like they're taken from graduation (OK, this is mainly addressed to the Asian chiquas - do you really want to attract FOBs with clunky glasses, bad dental hygiene and clothes from the the dollar bin at the Salvation Army? And before you start calling me racist, I'll have you know some of my best friends are Asian, like my mom, my dad, my sis . . .);

8. Misspelling (I might be looking for a fine Asian woman, I'm not exactly sure what a Fione Asian woman is though);

9. Overly posed photos (I think it's that stick up her ass that's causing that horrible rictus - oh wait, that's supposed to be a smile);

10. And there are others, but 10 is a good number to stop at, so Too Much Makeup (I think she might have a pretty face, but right now she looks like Jimbo the Psychotic Clown did her face).

Hmmmm, do I feel better? Not really, but at least this killed some time. Off to downstairs where the air is 10 degrees cooler and the beer is in the fridge!

Cut Off At The Knees

Uh oh, Blogger is doing that annoying partial text thing I've seen happen on other blogs. And here I was going to write something dee

What A Great Life This Must Seem . . .

Stupid neurochemistry. So even though I've been getting up when I want and sleeping as much as I need, I still need that cup o' joe to face the day. (Oh, and what tough days those are, catching up on the news, surfing the net, reading, but that's a different rant). Anyway, I read somewhere that caffeine increases intelligence, albeit briefly. This is why I scarfed down three cups of coffee within the first working hour at all the firms I worked -- best to be able to put together simple subject-verb-object sentences when the partner comes a barrellin' down the hall asking for status / insight / strategy on the cases you're working on.

Anyway, so I've been drinkin' the coffee, but without the (unwanted) stimulation of needing to draft a persuasive much less coherent motion or bracing myself for a screaming argument with other lawyers, my mind is all dressed up with nowhere to go. I know I should start on the novel and various side projects I have in my head, but even though the analytical part of my head is raring to go, the creative part of my mind is still just getting out of bed, bags under its eyes and scratching its ass. The best way to get the creative part going is to read, but my body is still jittery from the caffeine (increases the level of dopamine in the brain, though I can't remember if that's due to blocking the parts of the neurons that intake the dopamine, leaving excess dopamine coursing through the brain, or if instead caffeine is a building block of dopamine provided the brain with additional materials for dopamine - OK, so I still have some caffeine flowing through me now). So I feed the creative part some stories from an anthology of po-mo lit, but my body refuses to be still. I go through about an hours worth of reading, but the body wants to check e-mail to see if those chiquas from match.com have written back.

By the time I've finished surfing the net, there's enough dopamine coursing through me that my heart is still beating at a techno beat yet my body and the analytical part of me are exhausted. In other words, I'm jittery and tired. So I take a brief nap full of dread, and awake refreshed yet cranky. By then, the creative part of my mind is pissed at being left alone, so I read some more. It's now late afternoon, early evening. I decide to have some dinner, and maybe a beer. A beer then turns into two. Then three. The creative part of my mind is like, "I love you man. I love you. So, here's an idea, you'll love it. How about you write a story, and it turns out the narrator is dead! Or something about, you know, angels and the mafia! No, wait, that's stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. I suck. I really suck. We're gonna end up poor and living on the streets and (heavy snoring begins)." By then, I might was well kill some more brain cells and watch the Family Guy on Cartoon Network.

When I awake, my muscles are sludge, my tongue feels heavy and my mind is full of rusted gears. So I go get some coffee.

Pphhhhht. Stupid neurochemistry.

Up With People (Zero 7 Mix)

Yikes, that last entry ended a bit more bitterly than I intended. Don't worry. I'm not sulking around in Casa de Stark mumbling "Kill SmallLaw, big yellow brain banana" to myself while picking at my hair orangutan-style and moths fly around my hole-ridden Thievery Corporation t-shirt. Except for the fun but tiring Memorial Day weekend (two of my best friends from law school got married - groom is Vietnamese and bride is Jewish, basically a three-day affair of food, booze, traditional ethnic ceremonies and breakdancing), I've been trying to decompress and relax.

So far it's been going well. I mean, there are much worse things than having a cup o' joe at noon while listening to brit import compilations and having a cat purr contentedly on your lap. There was some backsliding -- I've had a couple of law-related dreams last week, tiring dreams about getting a mediation brief out or doing discovery. But those dreams have been slowly disappearing, being replaced by back-to-school dreams.

I realized that what I should have been doing since I left SmallLaw was to read every single day as well as write. I have over twenty books that I bought during my stint at SmallLaw what I haven't touched. I've almost forgotten the flow of prose. So, for the next three days, the goal is to finish reading at least one novel and one non-fiction before I really get crackin'.

I still torn between reworking the first novel from a snarky novel about Silicon Valley to a snarky novel about lawyering (a legal version of Scrubs), or working on the second novel tentatively entitled "Angry Yellow." Decisions, decisions.