Running Springs, Night Sledding and Othello Deathmatches

For the first time this trip, I feel the Void. I dropped off Esmé at the airport today, headed back to her art school in Chicago, and officially have lost my guide and only friend in L.A.. Obviously I expected this and knew it would come, but after living it up in LA for the last week, I've had more of a Wild Turkey, weed smoking, vacation oriented mentality than a job searching, soul sucking, adult oriented and semi realistic one. I drove back with a pit in my stomach and realized that shit just got real. Other than the $61 to my name, a garbage bag full of dirty clothes, a temporary place to stay with my aunt, and my shattered iPad, this little blog is all I've got left. But the last week has been fucking great and in my short term nostalgia I will describe it in detail, before embracing hellish reality and probable suicide.

Last Saturday Heather and Esmé made plans for us and two other friends to go to Heather's cabin in Running Springs for a few days. They dropped me off at Ava's the night before, as I was in the midst of a belligerent rant about having been slighted by some selfish Californian fuck who refused me a singe hit of his joint, which in my opinion warranted all, if not further unchecked infuriation. So the next morning I waited for them to pick me up before we headed to the mountains, where we planned to meet their friends Sunny and Andrew. They arrived, we hopped in Heathers Chevy Caprice, and despite having just parked, found that it wouldn't start. We called AAA and they pulled up approximately 10 seconds later. After determining that it wasn't the battery, they called us a tow truck and said it would be about 30 minutes. After waiting 50 minutes I called AAA back and asked what the deal was. The lady proceeded to bitch me out, saying the tow truck had been waiting by our car for 30 minutes and calling us non-stop. "We'll that's just Wrong" I replied. "We've literally been sitting on the car this entire time, you think we want to be waiting here and I'd lie just to spite you?" She huffed and puffed and I was a dick because she deserved it and she said, with enraging smugness, that another truck would come in an hour. Eventually the truck came, towed us one fucking mile to Pep Boys, we had the starter replaced and were on our way.

I was exhausted, passed out in the back, woke up at dusk to a snow covered mountainside and started to write my last post. We finally reached her cabin around 7 that night. It sat on a steep, snow covered slope, and Heather and I spent a good hour shoveling out their driveway before finally getting to sit and enjoy its idyllic glory. When we came inside, Esme had a roaring fire going and we relished in its warmth. A short time later their friends Andrew and Sunny arrived, whom I'd met the night before. Sunny was a long, blonde haired, stereotypical Californian and Andrew was a short brown haired half-Brazilian. Both were smart, likable and talented guitarists, which made for lively conversation and fun drunken singing throughout the weekend.

I could describe the next two days in explicit detail, but it wouldn't be worth it. We basically just laid around the fireplace, ate, drank, went sledding and smoked. Some highlights were a conversation about how Californians hilariously refer to all numbered roads as "the 101" or "the 405", something they didn't realize no one else does (it sounds EXACTLY like this...The Californian's), the Inglourious Bastards drinking game, dodging trees while perilously sledding through a foggy, night blizzard, homemade pizza and highly contentious games of Othello which made Esmé and I both enraged and briefly despise each other.

Actually the awesomeness of the weekend can be summed up by one event. We were standing on the deck, smoking spliffs, when the next door neighbor, an older man, came stumbling through the snow over to our deck, clearly shitfaced at 10 AM, and handed me a freshly rolled joint. He said it was from his homegrown supply, we thanked him profusely and as he stumbled away, I yelled after him "I Fucking Love California!".

Ill do one more post about the week which I'll try to get up tomorrow, so I can describe some other absurd events of the week in their absolute fullest and most hilarious detail. If its not up in a few days its because I'm probably living with the bums on Venice Boardwalk and either don't have Internet or have been shanked with an AIDs ridden needle.

Los Angeles: Saki, Merengue and Australians in the Woods

Here I am, I made it. Good god, a lot has happened. I'm writing now from the back seat of a busted up 95 Chevy Caprice, driven by a white knuckled, radiant, pale blue eyed artist, with fire in her eyes and her foot hard on the gas, winding up a mountainside. My tall, blonde cousin, Esme (ez-may), rides shotgun. She has been my guide to Los Angeles and greatest West Coast asset. Since a few days have passed since Las Vegas, and my fragile, hobo-esque life situation doesn't allow for easy Internet access, nor charge opportunities, nor much time to write, I'll try to sum everything up as briefly and hilariously as possible.

Ben and I quietly crossed into California in the dark. The first order of business was a stop at In-N-Out Burger. I made love to a Double-Double. We headed for the weird hills of Orange County, where a good friend of mine lived, Nick. What was supposed to be a four hour journey turned into six. We arrived weary and beaten. Nick, a California kid and MMA fighter, greeted us with enthusiasm and we went out for beers. Returning late that evening, Ben went to sleep, and Nick and I talked into the night about old adventures and new plans, Spartacus blared loudly in the background.

In the morning, and in his usual offbeat and wrenchy fashion, Ben was nowhere to be found. I knew he planned to leave early but expected a wake up so I could unpack my life from his car. Of course he had unloaded everything except my iPhone cord. And yes, having a bullshit, randomly sized, iPhone 5 cord is every bit as irritating as it sounds, especially when even starving, penniless African children have spares of the old iPhone cord. I had $11 left in cash, still no debit card and my only cord was doing somewhere around 70 mph on a beeline back into the desert, headed for Palm Springs. Enraged, I wrote him via Facebook to verify it was gone. He found it still plugged in to his dash, realized the severity of his mistake and officially had fucked me. He said he'd ship it, but I planned to head to an unknown place in LA that day and told him not to bother, since I'd have to find a replacement before then anyways. I called my cousin Esmé from Nicks phone, arranged for my parents to wire her some money and got the address of where she'd arranged for me to stay. Nick drove us north up "the 5" toward Venice beach, where I apparently would be staying, and dropped me off sometime late that afternoon.

I met Esme and her friend Ava, with whom I was staying, and begged them drive me to buy a cord. We made moves, Esmé took out $160 of the $300 my parents wired for me, I bought a cord, checked in with my folks and we prepared for her friends birthday that night. With my "fuck it" mindset I put on my gold jacket and argyle sweater for the occasion. No better way to meet strangers than with a pre-guarantee that you'll be the most bizarre person there. I poured a whiskey on the rocks, smoked some dope, and waited for Esmé to return with her friend Heather. They arrived primped and prim, and I struggled to make a non- awkward introduction in a haze of weed and whiskey. We piled into Heather's Chevy Caprice and hopped onto "the 101" towards Hollywood, where we were already late for sushi dinner at a Japanese place called Kabuki. I met Jessica, the birthday girl, ate sushi, drank saki, and we left soon thereafter for the bars to begin yet another night of debauchery.

Arriving at an upscale, deserted place called Broadway Bar, I immediately bought Jessica and I a shot and inquired with the bartender as to where a more exciting bar might be. It being a Thursday he guessed a place called Los Cita's might be fun and I, despite having just met everyone there, insisted with drunken excitement that we leave immediately. For some reason they trusted my methods and we left. Of course we got to the other bar and it was also dead. I was infuriated and ordered more drinks for Jessica and I. At this point the brown out began to take hold. I was still conscious but with that absurd, potentially and probably humiliating, complete disregard of self consciousness. As I continued to fiendishly order shots for myself, the girls and any stranger in sight, my self control drifted to that rock bottom level of sad hilarity that I'd recently become a little too casual in reaching. With no regard to the type of music playing, I grabbed Heathers hand and semi-impressively threw down some merengue dance skills, my last composed move of the night.

I woke up on an unfamiliar leather couch with what felt like a mouthful of tequila soaked cotton balls, a jackhammer in my skull and couldn't see a thing through my dried out contacts. My phone was missing, and I only had $20 left in my wallet. It was almost hilarious. Stumbling around in my gold blazer and argyle sweater, all while blinking furiously, I must've looked like a freshly lobotomized gypsy troublemaker. I found a door, walked into a sunlit kitchen, which I had by now ascertained was in a glass roofed house in the woods on a mountainside, and came upon a charming old Australian woman cooking breakfast. Still buzzed, I introduced myself and ended up having a lively conversation with her, who I learned was Heather's mother, and talked about her awesome house and of my adventures. Our conversation awoke Esmé and Heather, who came down and joined us for breakfast. They informed me I was a ridiculous fool, as usual, and had ranted for the entire car ride to a party in the mountainous Topanga, north of L.A., before passing out and turning into an unresponsive corpse. Fortunately I found my phone in Heather's car and chalked the night up to a complete success, minus having spent nearly half my money in one fell swoop of tequila induced idiocy.

I spent the morning recovering and Esmé made plans with Heather for us to go to her cabin in a town called Running Springs, which up in the mountains that overlook the San Bernadino valley. We are headed there now with plans to drink, smoke, relax the weekend away and hopefully dabble in some depravity.

Las Vegas Part One; Somewhere Around Barstow, On The Edge Of The Desert

Part One

Utter and complete depravity. As I sit pecking away on my still functional shattered iPad, watered down glass of bourbon in hand, I can still hardly fathom how it played out the way it did. We left Boulder yesterday, cutting through the heart of the Rockies, speeding through desolate Utah canyon lands, and leveling out in Nevada for the final dash to Sin City. Upon cresting a large hill, we drank in the bright, sprawling decadence of Las Vegas for the very first time. At the hill's bottom, we came face to face with the snarling neon beast that would certainly spell our collective dooms. Our room was at the Hard Rock, off the Strip, a home base for absurdity, and already reeked of fear and loathing.

That night after an overpriced dinner and beers, we began to drink. High shelf vodka for Nate, Juniors Midnight Moonshine for Ben and Wild Turkey for myself. We blasted music until midnight, when we left and got tricked into paying 20 bucks for the hotels garbage nightclub that was "full of girls". After Ben and I made dancing fools of ourselves a while, he again disappeared. Around 1 Nate and I meandered back up to the room to regroup and refuel. We had lazily slunk onto the beds and were on the brink of passing out when Ben came bursting into the room. "Whoooo Eeeeeee, I HIT IT BIG! Just made a cool $300 playing roulette, were going to the strip club, I'm buying!" Ben said, in a frenzy of enthusiasm. I've never been to nor cared about strip clubs. I find them exceedingly filthy and unappealing, but I wasn't going to turn down the opportunity in Las Vegas. The hotel provided a free ride in an Escalade and we made our way to Larry Flynt's Hustler's Club. The massive glowing pink building was a poorly glorified brothel and a greasy line of perverts snaked out the door. We got in line.

Inside we found our way to the stage and met up with Ben's college buddy, who was in town for a bachelor party. I sat down, wary of the unseen filth and scores of STD's that I assumed had by now permeated every inch of my body. The dancers were expectedly a mix of sad eyed, beaten down truck stop whores and those once hot girls from high school who had mysteriously disappeared after graduation when they realized the Glory days were now over. I embraced the debauchery, throwing Ben's money around and have never felt such exhilarating power with a one dollar bill in my life. It pains me to say so but it was surprisingly enjoyable. One stripper even took a keen interest in Nate, talking intimately with him even after he declined lap dance, i.e. gauging how much money she could milk out of him, literally and figuratively.

As my interest began to wane, I turned to see Ben talking to a fairly attractive, dark skinned young stripper and pointing my direction. She walked over, said he'd bought me a dance and led me over to a white couch that I do not think started out that color. She did her thing as another older stripper joined and asked if I'd pay her too. I told her I had no money. She assured me it was fine and that Ben would pay, as she made my face the meat of a gross, fake black tit sandwich. About a minute later, they stopped and after Ben informed the older one that he was out of money, she hilariously began yelling at me about getting paid. The interaction went something like this;

"Are you serious? I didn't even want the dance or your dirty tits in my face"
"You got the dance and I'm not leaving till I get paid"
Fine, I'll just leave then, I thought.
"Alright relax just let me look for my other friend"
I scanned the room for Nate and he spotted him talking with the same stripper from earlier. I told her to follow me.
"It's hard to explain but I need another 20 and its not my fault," I said, walking up to him.
"Hahaha alright" he responded, pulling out his wallet and handing me the twenty. I begrudgingly gave it to her and she walked away jubilant that her scam had again worked, probably for the 10 billionth time.

Around 5 in the morning Ben and I had had enough. We were exhausted, couldn't find Nate and left. We got back to the hotel and were half asleep when we heard Nate talking loudly in the hall. He opened the door and walked in with a strange girl, who I thought must've been the stripper from earlier.

"Looks like we're spooning tonight Benny boy," I said, as I got up to give them the bed.

"No that's ok, we can just use the bathroom" she responded in an oddly casual tone, as if it was business as usual.

"Well I can't watch and listen if you're in there," I joked. No one laughed but me and they closed the door.

30 seconds later they both walked out and Nate was apologizing. She left and he turned to us laughing hysterically.

"Dude, that girl was a fucking prostitute, HAHAHA!"

We all burst out laughing as Nate told the story.

"I'm walking through the lobby and about to get on the elevator when this girl strikes up a conversation. She seemed really into me and asked if had a room. In my drunken stupor and with 'first time in Vegas naiveté', I didn't think twice about it said yes, and she rode up with me. So we walk in the bathroom, and she suddenly starts rambling on about her 'donation.' Then in a moment of sudden, fortunate clarity I realized what she meant and what her job must've been. I apologized, told her 'no thanks' and said she should go."

We laughed hysterically before passing out, just as the first rays of the red Vegas sun peaked over the distant desert mountains.

Tonight, New Years. Good God.