2024/07/16 | Santa Monica > continuing wear we left off, writing from the 8^th floor of The Georgian, rm 802 > 5lept w/ window open but woken hour|y by car alarms, cops megaphoning ppl n0t 2 sleep on the grass or beach + unhinged unhoused ppl 5creaming + ranting n0nstop, az i write this i can hear 'em out on the manicured lawns in the picturesque promenade park, along w/ droves of squrls that R evolving in2 rats ... n0t sure we're feeling this LA vibe, it's nice + all but how can 1 enjoy thi5 atmosfear w/ so much discrepancy B-tween halves + halve-n0ts? far from angelic

> walked 2 Venice, along the canals + out on2 the peer > on the vvay back 5wam in the vvaves vvay out w/ the 5urfers, tel lifeguards vvaved a red buoy + hollered @ me 4 5wimming 2 far out > 10 miles on the day

under the bored walk

Georgian bar

far cry from Venice, iT

i said i wouldn't show ppl in fotos but what about blurry surfers?

U-gene's Fog + Car in Small World Books (just happend 2 B pub day (4 the reprint))

> Venice nvr appealed 2 me kneethere (nor Hollywood/inL& Empire, wear we already stayd a few dayz URLier thi5 trip) > part of the reason we'R hear is 2 evaLu8 weather weed want 2 live hear PT ... sure, the whether's gr8, awesome 2 have the mighty pacific @ yr fingertips, etc... just can't put my finger on iT > az weave said over + over B4, @ the end of the day the need 4 an automobile = the limiting factor + we thought mayB we cd make Santa Monica work now that they halve a 5ubway (tho the Ⓔ 2 SM is technica||y a lite rail (above ground), but iT's more than that ... th eNtire culture of L.A. just dozen't sit well w/ me, nvr did, even my time in Cali4nia was always northern > Santa Monica was K's (co-author of 'SSES" 'SSES" ^"SSEY' + Textiloma) shangri-La, La-La-L& > when he was living Ls-where in LA/Ho||ywood hooked on drugs, he looked 2 SM az a place wear he cd get clean, run on the beach, away from bad influenzes he had Ls-where > i can't find his address where he lived when i visited him in Santa Monica in the early '90s, but 5earching my computer now, th address on his resume (spring '95, after he came back from France, when we worked 2gether on Mr. Stitch) = 1045 Ocean ave #8b, witch is weird b/c i just happen 2 B writing this from 1415 Ocean ave #802

where K lived April 1995

> when u look @ his gurnels (inklooted in Textiloma, albeit in modified 4m) K was <3-broken + miserable + on zolaft in April 1995, in SM, but he wasn't using dope > but then in early May he replapsed + blamed it on his roomm8 E + went 2 stay w/ R mom in the Bay Area (where he also used w/ his loser SF friends) 4 a few dayz > a week L8er he was in Hollywood (surfing couches) > but then again in March 1996 he's back in Santa Monica, so mayB that was when he was living in the above house > here's a typical gournel entry (unedited):

3-30-96 Santa Monica
Sunday- Have spent all day inside, trying to get a hold of Diego. Just copped a half of dope and a twenty bag of blow. I go into the clinic tommorrow morning for detox, and I am to strung out to try and do without until tommorrow. I tried to go into maintenance last Monday, I went there at six am., went through all of the paperwork, the doctor decided there was not enough proof (that I had been a junkie for at least a year)so they turned me away, told me I had to wait a week to start another detox. [...]

> this continued until July 1996 > August of 1996 he was in Sierra Tucson > after that he was mostly in northern California, until he OD'd in April 1997

> K also lived in Venice, but that was in the L8 '80s, in fact he worked @ Small World Books, where we saw the above copy of Fog + Lim

K @ SWB in the L8 '80s

> 2 nites ago we watched Falling Down, a movie K always talked about ... lacks eXecution, but the premise = intresting——the protagonist (D-FENS (Michael Douglas)) goes postal + walks from downtown L.A. 2 Venice, thru all the hoods in B-tween, sort of like The Warriors > 1 of K's stories in Textiloma or 'SSES" 'SSES" ^"SSEY' is along the same odySSEYian lines

> last nite we saw Barton Fink, n0t only a good L.A. flick, but good 2 get us reddy 2 go home (not that we need encouragement, we R definite|y reddy)

Santa Monican moonrise

> The Georgian has a liebury + books in the rooms, Joan Didion's The Magical Thinking came w/ R room #802 so i 5tarted 2 read it, but much as i like Didion's writing, this 1's about grief (of her husb& John Dunne dying) > Didion was bi-coastal (mentions how Dunne uncharacteristic|y wanted 2 go back 2 NYC rite b4 he had his heart attack) ... 5ure, 5ounds glamorous 2 halve houses on both coasts, but it's also elitist + decadent, e5pecially in thi5 day + age w/ so many unhoused ppl 5uffering on the 5treets outside yr nice home that's 5huttered 4 the season > her kind of grief is very diffrent than mine, i'm n0t sure i've ever felt «grief» so much az 5hock > best weigh 2 stop grieving is 2 just 5top thinking (+ reading) about it + move on

> in the last post, i tocked a bit abt music journihilism (or Nicholas Rombes did, in the context of Ramones/punk music) ... Rombes mentions how in the '60s + '70s music journihilists 5tarted 2 inkloot them5elves in reviews + mu5ic writing ... Didion was 1 of the 1st so-called «new journalists» (tho she was far from punk), that 4sake objectiv 4 subjectiv, 5etting a dangerous precedent that perhaps help spurn th evolution in2 «fake news» > i think of Didion as «New Yorkey» in the 5ense that she was a critic darling of the The New Yorker + New York Times (or Monkey Writes, az i like 2 call iT), who i'm convinced R now @ the 4-front of advoc8ing 4 Drumpf (+ wouldn't B sourprized if they were B-hind the fake staged assination attempt, or certainly in cahoots (their photographer just happend 2 capture tho5e photos? seems way 2 convenient/perfect) ... call me a paranoid conspiracist, but there's just n0 good unbiased journihilism N-E-more + social media is helping 2 fuel this merger w/ fake news 2 the point that there's n0 telling what = real ... perhaps i shd go baↄk 2 ↄalling thi5 The Daily Noose + advoc8 4 a nu 4m of nu journihilism? Y pre-10d 2 be objectiv/non-fiction? Y n0t just live in a fictional La-La-L&? Y pre-10d 2 make 5ense? those unhoused ppl ranting out R window make more 5ense than Monkey Writes, tho the 5cene that keeps popping in2 my head is when they get 2 the Do Lung bridge in Apocalypse Now + the VC across the river keep yelling «fuck U G.i» over + over until th Amerikin soldier bazookas them silent, same guy that when asked «do u know who's in command here?» just answers «yah» + walks away > damn str8, nvr get off the boat (i.e. nvr leave NYC)

... don't get me wrong, i'm all 4 inklooting yrself in the eXperiment, the Copenhagen interpret8ion tot me this, that we can nvr be certain of N-E reality that doesn't inkloot the observer (or a measuring D-vice) > iT's just this pre-10-se of pre-10-ding 2 B factual or objective that rubs me the wrong way, i just a55ume read fiction

> also reading Post Office by Charles Bukowski ... az i started 2 read i realized i've red it (or it sounds like everything else he's writ-10), semi-autobiographical (under the guise of Hank Chinaski) novel about his time working 4 the P.O., but i re-red most of it N-E-way b/c it's EZ reading + very L.A. ... but again, dont know if it's an L.A. i'm intrested in > it's puzzling so many worship Bukowski when he's a complete misogynistic alcoholic a55hole + the fact that he's considered L.A.'s quintessential writer says it all (about LA) > compare the writing traditions of NYC vs. LA (4 the sake of Ↄalamari Arↄhive) ... yet another reason 2 stick 2 NYC

> i halve more 2 say about shangri LA LA L& + my dead brother, etc. but i'll save it 4 the next post ...