Performance
Things change quickly in LA: cliques grow tired, youth - old, fascination declines into stultifying, sulky boredom. Infatuations fade and love crumbles and friendships dissipate and you must always ebb and flow with the tide. If you can't, you should not be in the City of Angels. In all honesty the longer I stay, the more I harbor the sneaking suspicion that no one really exists in this city where everything exists, where even the road names are a postmodern microcosm of the world. No one really exists... until they have made it. Spiralling out of that centripetal force of success are merely hopefuls caught in a rip tide, trying to swim to the center and being carried further and further away, incidental to what drives LA, their only function to make the rest of us feel better about our lives, our modicum of achievement in a city of achievers.
There are so many dreams here: not frantic and frenetic and frenzied like New York dreams, but dreams which are lost, saturated with good weather, cheap beer, dive bars and beach barbecues and someone who knows someone who knows somebody who is nearly famous, so one feels, comfortably, like they are on the outskirts of something. It's only when they hit 40 that it occurred to them they were never on the outskirts, they were always letting themselves drown, or struggling too hard for something they had no right to: the right not to be one of life's losers. Sadly, the distinction is heightened in Los Angeles, obvious from the car you drive, the salary you take home, the bars you drink in, the people you call your friends, the ones you know are your enemies.
It's a melancholy place, the City of Angels, green, trimmed lawns and stucco houses, grandiose Beverly Hills mansions, sleek, seductive glass houses in WeHo, pretty wooden Malibu cabins, shambolic, dry, papery apartments sighing emphysemically in Silverlake. It's sadly devoid of angels, Los Angeles, aside from the ones that swoop down on you in a psilocybin-induced nightmare. I love and loathe this place and yet always nurture the uncomfortable suspicion that I have been here before, and that I will be here forever. That I will never leave regardless of vocation and success and love and friendships. Oddly enough, I don't worry about 'making it' in this town. I never worry about 'making it'. I've been purged of ambition, perhaps because of incessant drug use, perhaps because I realize it doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters. Got to get moving, keep moving.
I wore a bright red dress on the Friday, and felt bad that by 6pm I had drunk so much gin I couldn't drive to the hills to see The Godfather. He sat in the hot tub and simmered assiduously alone, texted me occasionally - enough to make me feel wanted, enough to make me feel cruel. I chewed absently on a shroom stem I found at the bottom of my purse as I sat on the balcony supping cheap wine with the roomies, and was surprised by the hit an hour later. I danced in my red dress in the apartment, out of it, next door, and in J's car downtown to Bar 105, where I danced some more, giddy and light and carefree in my Silverlake life so far removed from those times at The Godfather's. I had been up since 6am, and by 1am was exhausted, but had no place to sleep having given my room to an actor friend in town for a week, and so I danced next door, danced into James' room, flopped on the bed, laughed tinnily. He looked up from his laptop wearing nothing but a comically tiny pair of white pants.
"D'you want to stay here?"
"Umm, yes."
"OK. You have to watch 'It's always sunny in Philadelphia' with me though. Deal?"
I crawled under his white fluffy duvet, and James crept into bed with me and we snuggled drunkenly together for one episode, and then he turned the light off, put his arm around me, and slept. It was a gentle, kind sleep, a sleep like an embrace, his small, brown body carelessly pressed against mine in warmth and friendship, and I loved him for it, kissed him lightly on the back between his shoulderblades, watched his beautiful face as he breathed softly. It was a sleep I didn't want to end, but when we woke up in the morning he hugged me briefly and ran off to work in the record store, and I wandered next door, still in my red dress, fragile and aching for more. I can't remember the day. I mean, I can't remember what I did that day. Maybe I slept, maybe I watched a movie, maybe I read. I remember the night though. I always remember the night.
I drove over to The Godfathers at sundown and we watched 'Performance'on psychodelics which fitted us perfectly, logged into the pattern of our lives with lazy precision, made us feel like we weren't the only ones alone living a fucked-up dream of confused identity. We were outside on the movie-theater terrace nestled into the cliff, wrapped in fluffy, cream blankets supping Champagne, groggily fascinated by Anita Pallenberg and Jagger, the film acting on us more than the Class-A's. It wasn't getting boring, not yet, despite the fact the girls had moved on, had flitted away, and showed no signs of returning. The Godfather and I grew more familiar together, more comfortable, we served as surrogates for each other's lack of... what? A boyfriend? Even if I had one, I'm sure there would still be these nights at the Godfather's, where we talked about movies and he laughed at my ignorance, the fact I am not well read in anything besides Borges and Hunter S. Thompson, the fact I was becoming the matriarch of his bachelor pad, and yet was assuming the sexlessness of the angeleno. I hadn't had sex for a while, and could barely remember what it was like, but my body was battered with drugs and overwhelmed with sensation, and while I was teetering on what might be called mild depression and neediness, a craving for touch and affection, sex was curiously absent from my mind. Not so the Godfather's.
"I was bored around 3am last night and couldn't sleep, and the Princesses were away doing their thing and you weren't here, so I got one of my girlies round."
"Which one?" I asked, rolling him a joint, perched on the kitchen stool in a white bikini as the night fell like a blanket around the house, inky, anonymous.
"The hispanic girly. Gave her some E and Cristal, sat in the hot tub, and then we fucked until 6. It was filthy. I feel much better now, although I'm pining for a beautiful man. There are so many women around me at the moment."
"Tragedy," I said dryly, and closed my eyes as a little shiver of something went through me, a wave of serotonin, a shudder of nostalgia for all the nights like this before, all the nights like this to come. J came by after midnight and we talked nonchalantly around the pool, and drove home at 7am avoiding Sunset and an inevitable DUI, and despite the banging blow headache, we sat up and drank PBR with the kid until 11am, and then I flopped on the sofa next to James. I wanted to curl up with him and feel his warmth, but before I could, I was asleep, and when I awoke the mild depression had turned into brittle, shrieking misery.
There are times, as a writer, when you doubt everything you ever did. It doesn't matter if there is one piece of writing you are proud of, that was a success, it is in the past and if you can't produce something new right now, it's all over. I felt haunted all week by my lack of productivity, the arguments with my agent back in the UK who never replied to emails and seemed disinterested in everything I wrote. The Godfather hugged me and told me it would pass, but I didn't know if it would. Money was running out and I had a (paid) treatment on the go for a project back in the UK, but even this wasn't enough to bolster my self-worth. Life as a writer is always so full of maybes and blank spaces staring fixedly at a computer, money for shit you hate, passion projects shelved in other people's filing cabinets.
"I worry about you. You're very fragile at the moment," said The Godfather, concerned, as he bustled around the kitchen making tea. "You need a boyfriend, someone older, who has their shit together, who looks after you. You're always looking after other people, it's time for your turn."
I nodded disconsolately, and noticed that it had already grown dark outside, chilly. LA was sadly declining into a graceful fall that felt like winter to those of us accustomed to its selfish heat. I liked LA for her selfishness, I got that. Warm and seductive, chilly and cold, she was like me. Goddammit I needed some work, something, some definite in all these fucking maybes.
"A friend of mine's hosting a film screening on Tuesday, for a little Indie film he's acting in. It doesn't come out until November, so I'm not sure what cut this is, but I think you should come. Meet some people. Get away from Silverlake."
I nodded.
"OK. I'll be your date, deal?"
The Godfather smiled in a sad little way, because he was missing his boyfriend and knew how I felt, and then Tuesday dawned so we drove to Laurel Canyon for the film screening in some Producer's house. The Godfather and I giggled and whispered the entire way through the movie. I was more interested in the guests than the screen. A primetime TV presenter with a gaggle of vacuous, polite American boys who claimed to be actors, and looked like actors, but seemed utterly devoid of any distinguishing characteristics that I considered them one amorphous, boring mass. A Director who was friends with the Producer hosting the screening, who was friends with the actor, who was one of those actors you've seen in everything, and who smoked incessantly, and kept darting into the house to smoke in the living room even when the Producer politely made an announcement forbidding smoking inside. I like the Director most of all. He was in post-production on his second feature at the moment, and was having problems with the financers trying to muscle in on the editing process. He had a kind face and a good sense of humor, and was neurotic and funny, and when the tall, blonde, glamorous TV presenter apologized for butting in on a conversation between us, he just laughed when I drunkenly berated her for interrupting our sexual liaison. "You were going to have sex with me?" he laughed. "Donna was too," I pointed at a pretty actress who was standing behind me, looking attractive and vacant. "But unfortunately, there was a two minute window and TV presenter chick screwed it up."
It was a pleasant night, it cheered me somewhat. I felt somehow less of a loser for being able to talk about movies and life outside Silverlake or the hot tub, and then I drove The Godfather back to his and we drank tea and ate biscuits until 1am, and I went home to Silverlake.
I woke up to impetigo. My body was blistered and sore and bruised and oozing, and frankly, even I was repulsed by me. It was The Godfather's last night in LA before he disappeared to Italy and China for a month to scout locations for two big movies. I went over to watch Fellini and eat Indian food. For over a week now, it had just been us two in the house, no small, feline naked girls, and while we noticed, sadly, the absence of this, it was pleasant, this settling into a semblance of domesticity - both of us bound by a love of drugs, booze, movies and talking.
"Everyone thought I was your girlfriend at the screening," I told him over naan and Luscious Jackson.
"Well, it's because we're very intimate and familiar with each other. People assume we're screwing."
"Remember when we first met, and you invited me to Malibu and I thought you were going to rape and murder me?"
The Godfather just laughed, and we rolled outside to watch Juliet of the Spirits. The Godfather started to snore softly before it was over, and it made me smile, and then I had to leave as I could not stay awake for much longer. I hugged him goodbye, hard, and felt sad.
"See you in a month."
I woke up the next morning and the sun had gone, and I had a fever and in my cold, confused state I did not know what to think, so I slept, and slept, and slept. I think I might just sleep until he comes back.
And then the Princesses called me.
There are so many dreams here: not frantic and frenetic and frenzied like New York dreams, but dreams which are lost, saturated with good weather, cheap beer, dive bars and beach barbecues and someone who knows someone who knows somebody who is nearly famous, so one feels, comfortably, like they are on the outskirts of something. It's only when they hit 40 that it occurred to them they were never on the outskirts, they were always letting themselves drown, or struggling too hard for something they had no right to: the right not to be one of life's losers. Sadly, the distinction is heightened in Los Angeles, obvious from the car you drive, the salary you take home, the bars you drink in, the people you call your friends, the ones you know are your enemies.
It's a melancholy place, the City of Angels, green, trimmed lawns and stucco houses, grandiose Beverly Hills mansions, sleek, seductive glass houses in WeHo, pretty wooden Malibu cabins, shambolic, dry, papery apartments sighing emphysemically in Silverlake. It's sadly devoid of angels, Los Angeles, aside from the ones that swoop down on you in a psilocybin-induced nightmare. I love and loathe this place and yet always nurture the uncomfortable suspicion that I have been here before, and that I will be here forever. That I will never leave regardless of vocation and success and love and friendships. Oddly enough, I don't worry about 'making it' in this town. I never worry about 'making it'. I've been purged of ambition, perhaps because of incessant drug use, perhaps because I realize it doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters. Got to get moving, keep moving.
I wore a bright red dress on the Friday, and felt bad that by 6pm I had drunk so much gin I couldn't drive to the hills to see The Godfather. He sat in the hot tub and simmered assiduously alone, texted me occasionally - enough to make me feel wanted, enough to make me feel cruel. I chewed absently on a shroom stem I found at the bottom of my purse as I sat on the balcony supping cheap wine with the roomies, and was surprised by the hit an hour later. I danced in my red dress in the apartment, out of it, next door, and in J's car downtown to Bar 105, where I danced some more, giddy and light and carefree in my Silverlake life so far removed from those times at The Godfather's. I had been up since 6am, and by 1am was exhausted, but had no place to sleep having given my room to an actor friend in town for a week, and so I danced next door, danced into James' room, flopped on the bed, laughed tinnily. He looked up from his laptop wearing nothing but a comically tiny pair of white pants.
"D'you want to stay here?"
"Umm, yes."
"OK. You have to watch 'It's always sunny in Philadelphia' with me though. Deal?"
I crawled under his white fluffy duvet, and James crept into bed with me and we snuggled drunkenly together for one episode, and then he turned the light off, put his arm around me, and slept. It was a gentle, kind sleep, a sleep like an embrace, his small, brown body carelessly pressed against mine in warmth and friendship, and I loved him for it, kissed him lightly on the back between his shoulderblades, watched his beautiful face as he breathed softly. It was a sleep I didn't want to end, but when we woke up in the morning he hugged me briefly and ran off to work in the record store, and I wandered next door, still in my red dress, fragile and aching for more. I can't remember the day. I mean, I can't remember what I did that day. Maybe I slept, maybe I watched a movie, maybe I read. I remember the night though. I always remember the night.
I drove over to The Godfathers at sundown and we watched 'Performance'on psychodelics which fitted us perfectly, logged into the pattern of our lives with lazy precision, made us feel like we weren't the only ones alone living a fucked-up dream of confused identity. We were outside on the movie-theater terrace nestled into the cliff, wrapped in fluffy, cream blankets supping Champagne, groggily fascinated by Anita Pallenberg and Jagger, the film acting on us more than the Class-A's. It wasn't getting boring, not yet, despite the fact the girls had moved on, had flitted away, and showed no signs of returning. The Godfather and I grew more familiar together, more comfortable, we served as surrogates for each other's lack of... what? A boyfriend? Even if I had one, I'm sure there would still be these nights at the Godfather's, where we talked about movies and he laughed at my ignorance, the fact I am not well read in anything besides Borges and Hunter S. Thompson, the fact I was becoming the matriarch of his bachelor pad, and yet was assuming the sexlessness of the angeleno. I hadn't had sex for a while, and could barely remember what it was like, but my body was battered with drugs and overwhelmed with sensation, and while I was teetering on what might be called mild depression and neediness, a craving for touch and affection, sex was curiously absent from my mind. Not so the Godfather's.
"I was bored around 3am last night and couldn't sleep, and the Princesses were away doing their thing and you weren't here, so I got one of my girlies round."
"Which one?" I asked, rolling him a joint, perched on the kitchen stool in a white bikini as the night fell like a blanket around the house, inky, anonymous.
"The hispanic girly. Gave her some E and Cristal, sat in the hot tub, and then we fucked until 6. It was filthy. I feel much better now, although I'm pining for a beautiful man. There are so many women around me at the moment."
"Tragedy," I said dryly, and closed my eyes as a little shiver of something went through me, a wave of serotonin, a shudder of nostalgia for all the nights like this before, all the nights like this to come. J came by after midnight and we talked nonchalantly around the pool, and drove home at 7am avoiding Sunset and an inevitable DUI, and despite the banging blow headache, we sat up and drank PBR with the kid until 11am, and then I flopped on the sofa next to James. I wanted to curl up with him and feel his warmth, but before I could, I was asleep, and when I awoke the mild depression had turned into brittle, shrieking misery.
There are times, as a writer, when you doubt everything you ever did. It doesn't matter if there is one piece of writing you are proud of, that was a success, it is in the past and if you can't produce something new right now, it's all over. I felt haunted all week by my lack of productivity, the arguments with my agent back in the UK who never replied to emails and seemed disinterested in everything I wrote. The Godfather hugged me and told me it would pass, but I didn't know if it would. Money was running out and I had a (paid) treatment on the go for a project back in the UK, but even this wasn't enough to bolster my self-worth. Life as a writer is always so full of maybes and blank spaces staring fixedly at a computer, money for shit you hate, passion projects shelved in other people's filing cabinets.
"I worry about you. You're very fragile at the moment," said The Godfather, concerned, as he bustled around the kitchen making tea. "You need a boyfriend, someone older, who has their shit together, who looks after you. You're always looking after other people, it's time for your turn."
I nodded disconsolately, and noticed that it had already grown dark outside, chilly. LA was sadly declining into a graceful fall that felt like winter to those of us accustomed to its selfish heat. I liked LA for her selfishness, I got that. Warm and seductive, chilly and cold, she was like me. Goddammit I needed some work, something, some definite in all these fucking maybes.
"A friend of mine's hosting a film screening on Tuesday, for a little Indie film he's acting in. It doesn't come out until November, so I'm not sure what cut this is, but I think you should come. Meet some people. Get away from Silverlake."
I nodded.
"OK. I'll be your date, deal?"
The Godfather smiled in a sad little way, because he was missing his boyfriend and knew how I felt, and then Tuesday dawned so we drove to Laurel Canyon for the film screening in some Producer's house. The Godfather and I giggled and whispered the entire way through the movie. I was more interested in the guests than the screen. A primetime TV presenter with a gaggle of vacuous, polite American boys who claimed to be actors, and looked like actors, but seemed utterly devoid of any distinguishing characteristics that I considered them one amorphous, boring mass. A Director who was friends with the Producer hosting the screening, who was friends with the actor, who was one of those actors you've seen in everything, and who smoked incessantly, and kept darting into the house to smoke in the living room even when the Producer politely made an announcement forbidding smoking inside. I like the Director most of all. He was in post-production on his second feature at the moment, and was having problems with the financers trying to muscle in on the editing process. He had a kind face and a good sense of humor, and was neurotic and funny, and when the tall, blonde, glamorous TV presenter apologized for butting in on a conversation between us, he just laughed when I drunkenly berated her for interrupting our sexual liaison. "You were going to have sex with me?" he laughed. "Donna was too," I pointed at a pretty actress who was standing behind me, looking attractive and vacant. "But unfortunately, there was a two minute window and TV presenter chick screwed it up."
It was a pleasant night, it cheered me somewhat. I felt somehow less of a loser for being able to talk about movies and life outside Silverlake or the hot tub, and then I drove The Godfather back to his and we drank tea and ate biscuits until 1am, and I went home to Silverlake.
I woke up to impetigo. My body was blistered and sore and bruised and oozing, and frankly, even I was repulsed by me. It was The Godfather's last night in LA before he disappeared to Italy and China for a month to scout locations for two big movies. I went over to watch Fellini and eat Indian food. For over a week now, it had just been us two in the house, no small, feline naked girls, and while we noticed, sadly, the absence of this, it was pleasant, this settling into a semblance of domesticity - both of us bound by a love of drugs, booze, movies and talking.
"Everyone thought I was your girlfriend at the screening," I told him over naan and Luscious Jackson.
"Well, it's because we're very intimate and familiar with each other. People assume we're screwing."
"Remember when we first met, and you invited me to Malibu and I thought you were going to rape and murder me?"
The Godfather just laughed, and we rolled outside to watch Juliet of the Spirits. The Godfather started to snore softly before it was over, and it made me smile, and then I had to leave as I could not stay awake for much longer. I hugged him goodbye, hard, and felt sad.
"See you in a month."
I woke up the next morning and the sun had gone, and I had a fever and in my cold, confused state I did not know what to think, so I slept, and slept, and slept. I think I might just sleep until he comes back.
And then the Princesses called me.
MIMI IN NY | 5:29 PM |
