little wounds
october 16

Los Angeles

It's been over a month since the attacks here, and the bombing in Afghanistan has become 'accepted' in the media, meaning it's well on its way to becoming old hat. Again, news agencies act as cheerleaders and spin doctors. As if those questioning our government's actions are some lunatic fringe, peace demonstrators are painted in the hues ranging from counterproductive to unpatriotic, because this is not the time to debate issues. Besides, debate was only something Key Club losers did in high school. Nor is it the time to put our president under the microscope, that kind of scrutiny must be reserved for important issues like interns who wear berets.

I am pretty sure I know no one who died or was injured that day, but when I heard someone ask why is the country so quick to bail out the airlines when there are other spectacular disasters rampaging through this country in slow motion, I remember the many friends I lost to AIDS, the people sleeping downtown in cardboard boxes, the mentally ill homeless woman shot in LA for wielding a screwdriver, and I gotta say our country's priorities are economic.

Enough soap box for you? Ok, personally I am feeling better, but like a forgotten splinter, sometimes I am reminded that the pain caused on that day has reverberated into places I didn't expect.

I finally made an active choice in music, up until a few days ago I'd listen to whatever was on the radio, but didn't feel it was right to pop in a cd, as if doing so disconnected me from my duties and was disrespectful. I chose Madonna's 'Ray of Light'. I also played my keyboard for the first time and started to write some new songs. I have a meeting with a producer Sunday to make a demo on some new equipment he's learning. But not all is harmonious in my own personal Musicland.

This I attribute to an after effect of September 11. I may have lost someone in the music scene I had hoped would become a good friend, due to something I wrote about my feelings after the attacks. On the other hand, like many of us did, he may just as well have taken inventory of his life and decided to let go of what was no longer important to him, me included. Shit list or apathy, either way it hurts.

But this seems to be part of a trend. I pissed off two clients two weekends ago in San Francisco, one hopefully will not call me again, he's always been trouble, someone I took on for the first time when I thought I was so hard up for money I even agreed to his payment in 'valuable old coins'. The other got miffed when I didn't thank him specifically for the tip he gave me, and rightly so, I just felt awkward because I don't like to talk about transactions.

But the piss-off-a-client trend began over a month earlier when one of my long standing regulars started getting hostile in e-mail messages to me. He was upset that I was requesting to change the day to see him on such short notice, though in my book three weeks is hardly short notice. Other hidden resentments popped to life in my inbox, so I told him I felt he would be happier not seeing me and wished him well.

The street had come back to me in two separate episodes. First, if you had driven down Santa Monica Blvd. two Wednesdays ago, you would have seen an unwashed, homeless skinhead hustler loitering at the bus shelter at Highland in filthy, stained clothes, chomping on something from a paper bag. That's what I saw when I looked at my reflection. But how could anyone know I was filthy from working in a garden all day, waiting for the bus because my truck didn't come back from the shop, and hungry because I had just sat through two films at The Village?

Second, if you had rode your bike up Santa Monica near Poinsettia last Friday, you would have seen a shirtless man trying to score tricks. That's what three bike cops intimiated to me when I was walking back to work after lunch. I must have been too absorbed in post-terrorist self reflection to know that West Hollywood made it a crime for guys to walk on the sidewalk without a shirt. Either that or professionals from the same department that shot the homeless woman with the menacing screwdriver made another mistake.

"Are you hot?", what an opening line, "do you live around here?"
"No, I work here", that got a chuckle.
"Where?"
"On Formosa street."
"Oh yeah?", why didn't I remember to ask for badge numbers?
"Yeah, I'm a gardner. At a private residence."
"Are you on parole or on probation?" I had stopped for the traffic signal, the cops turned on Formosa, but in the wrong direction.
"No." I'm sure I looked angry. I started to cross the street.
"He's working on his tan." Wow, in WeHo, even the bike cops are entertainers.

That was the third time I've been stopped and questioned by police since moving to LA, and each time it gets harder to hold my tongue, but I realize it's a no win situation to get all Oscar Wilde on someone in law enforcement. San Francisco had a law against 'loitering with intent to commit prostitution', it may even be a state law, yet where were the defenders of civil liberties when it was passed into law? Oops, sorry, I'm stepping off the soadbox.

And sex? Business has not picked up, but I am thankful for what I get. Recreational stuff, I haven't been pursuing it, been busy getting the rugby team together and acting as surrogate coach. Before I started the team I thought I might get some studly jock action on the side, but now I realize it is important for me not to get incestuous with my new brothers, as much as I'd like to. Plus, I'm finding myself more picky. Maybe I'm preparing myself for something ahead.

What I'm reading: Rage to Survive, the biography of Etta James
What songs I can't get out of my head: 'No Substitute for Love' by Madonna, 'I Fucked Your Boyfriend' by Nick Name and the Normals, 'I'd Rather Go Blind' by Etta James, and two of my own tunes, 'Recalcitrant' and 'One Day For Me'.

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