|
|
Currently no members online:)
You are an anonymous user. You can register for free by clicking here |
We have 22 guests online !
|
|
|
 |
 |
| Articles: Going to California |
Posted by
Comedian on Thursday, February 20, 2003 - 05:26 PM PST
Sitting in an IHOP on the rambling day, the doubts begin to creep in. What the hell am I doing? Where am I going? What the hell am I thinking? My stomach starts to hurt a little bit, the neverending pancakes and cheap bacon resting like a timb bomb for my colon to disarm. I'm about to travel to a place I love to hate to stay with people I've never met before.
Nervousness creeps, and I drink the last of my milk, take a deep breath, and before I exhale I'm at the airport. I check my bag. All it contains in a razor for shaving and my swiss army knife. They put it through a mass chemical/metal detector before they let it get checked, oddly. The detector is like a great resting beast; painted a creamy yellow with a great maw with those rubber black teeth. It looks comical enough to be some monster out of early Heavy Metal 'zines. I fight the urge to shout "Allah be praised!" as they give it the OK, and usher it off to the bowels of an airplane.
The flight and the transfer are full flights. I sit between two military men on my first jaunt; I manage to convince the colonel I'm with the Chronic Gambling Manics group, heading to Vegas for a seminar on how to control my filthy, vile addiction. The Staff Sargeant on the other side is quiet for the entire duration of the flight, scanning an after-action report on a Colt sidearm. As they exit the plane, I find it ironic that the colonel wishes me luck.
I sit on the second flight in the front lounge, and two olderlesbians from New Orleans sit across from me. I try to be chatty, but they obviously wanted no dealings with men.
I'm an hour late, and they've just arrived when i step out of the arrivals gate. She spots me about a minute after I see her, and when she hugs me, I nearly topple. Greetings always make me smile.
A few snippets of memory come back to me, of what I did. Walking through the swap meet/flea market on a sunny Sunday Afternoon, after running my hands over the old records and through piles of sentimental things with hidden flaws that people are trying to hock. I take a poll about a movie preview just for the sport of it. Two young kids in college try to be articulate with their questioneers, but struggle with wording and trying to shortcut things. The rythm of "Under the Board Walk" comes to my ears through the shouting and crying and noise of walking, lyrics in Spanish, and I smile.
The little leaguers have a pizza party at an overpriced sports bar. Children in crimson outfits celebrate nothing in particular. They probably can't even understand the game. But the coach, in an effort that puzzles and amuses me, tries to make P.C. compliments to each of them, and tries to make each of the kinds of praise unique.
Driving fast through the sprawl suburbs in an 80's honda. Trance is playing on the speaker system, which is probably worth more than the car. A giddy girl in the front seat turns to the back to talk to her friend, and her byofriend checks himself out in the rearview mirror and adjusts the few bleached strands of hair at a stoplight. He's not here. He has the eyes of a prostitute riding a smack trip; faraway eyes. Dreaming. All that is around him contributes to the illusion. Maybe he's cruising the streets in a riced Acura with a speaker system loud enough to impart the trance to the rest of the world. The girl is bipolar, and being a teenage girl. She sits next to me, and smiles. I think I smiled. I don't know if I managed it.
Sushi. Japanese food remains the marketing executive food of choice in California; as a result, the Shogun Sushi restaurant on the street corner next to the seven eleven and the donut shop only stays open for two hours at lunch, and then three at night when the end of the day rush is. It's good. I lose track of myself and take too much poison. An hour later, pain rips through my body. But it is a good way to die. Shrimp, Crab, Chicken Teriyaki. Tempura, Abalone, Tuna, Salmon. Wasabi. Coca-Cola. But all of it is Soy. And some of us have to pay the cost to be the boss.
Even now, I can smell the ocean. When i first landed, I could smell the salt spray. They asked me how. I don't know.
I miss it now.
Crazy drivers, weather mood swings, Aztlaners and yuppies, middle-men for middle-men for secretaries, crazed liberals and elderly conservatives-- it's where I breathe. The Land of Fruits and Nuts.
|
| |
| |
|
|
Average Rating : 4.0
Total ratings : 1
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Going to California | Login/Create an account | 6 Comments |
|
| | Comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content. |
Re: Going to California
by Merry_Widow on Feb 20, 2003 - 09:17 PM
(User info | Send a Message)
|
Wow. This gave me the first bittersweet taste of real home sickness.
Way to write.
|
Re: Going to California
by Closetgothbabe on Feb 20, 2003 - 09:17 PM
(User info | Send a Message)
|
The smell of the ocean, and
sushi sounds good. Now you have me singing......
When the sun beats down and melts the tar upon the roof
And your shoes get so hot, you wish your tired feet where fire proof
Under the boardwalk, down by the sea
On a blanket with my baby thats where Ill be!
|
Re: Going to California
by IamSquid (undisclosedgettheaddressfrommeepersonally)
on Feb 21, 2003 - 05:42 PM
(User info | Send a Message)
http://
|
holy shit, California is wierd. Oi, don't get mee started...
San Francisco is just like a distorted version of Minneapolis except with better weather and alot more to do.
|
Re: Going to California
by MystryssRavynDarque (A1MANDI04@AOL.COM)
on Feb 23, 2003 - 02:40 PM
(User info | Send a Message)
|
|
Comedian, that was very well written. I give to you some well deserved props. The world seems so small in that essay though. To say, I feel like I am home, though I have only lived in Florida. How very similar both places are.
|
Re: Going to California
by Dolorosa (SixOfSwords@IU.zzn.com)
on Mar 03, 2003 - 11:50 AM
(User info | Send a Message)
|
|
Disturbingly enough, that made me proud to be a Californian...which makes just about as much sense as it needs to. Comedian, you have such a profoundly realistic way of writing...I honestly believe people don't "read" your stuff, so much as they feel it...at least I do.
|
|
|
