Why was I chased?

The weirdest thing just happened to me. I had walked down to Hidden Hills to get some deep-fried artichoke hearts at S.C.T.!'s when all of a sudden this guy across the street ran through traffic and started chasing me. He was a little shorter than me and he had this huge gut spilling over his belt, but he was really fast, so before I knew what to do I had started running from him. He didn't say anything, just kept running as fast as he could after me, so I had to keep my head down and dig in. We ran for like three minutes flat-out, him always about fifteen feet behind me, just scaring the shit out of me. Whenever I stole a glance back at him he'd shake his fist and bare his teeth, so I'd put more gas on the pedal and hope that he faded.

As luck would have it Beef was out charging the Galaxie's battery, so I jumped in his passenger door at the stop sign by Happy Day Chicken and told him to floor it. The cool thing about Beef is that he'll just lay into a quick weird command from a friend, whereas some guys might look around to see what's precipitating the weirdness. He dropped the hammer and we burned all kinds of rubber for about ten seconds. By the time we were safely out of range I looked back to see my pursuer on his knees and barfing all over the sidewalk by the stop sign. What the hell?

Mr. Depressey-Pants

I was feeling morose on a lonesome walk down along the creek when Famous Blue Raincoat came on the iPod. You know the one — that moody Leonard Cohen tune that at first sounds like it might be about a woman who dies of a heroin overdose in the snow, but upon inspection of the printed lyrics it seems more like it's about a really mean older brother who had to move to New Mexico to get his head straight. Anyhow, the depressing tone gelled pretty well with the sluggish creek and moonlight, and the chilly late-summer air, and the olive drab cableknit I had on, and all of a sudden I realized I'd just overdosed on self-pity and felt myself coming out of the funk I'd been in ever since Circus Penis ditched out on me and called me a "ditherer." For like a week I'd been suffering from such deep seated self-doubt that I hadn't been able to pick up so much as a bar of soap without thinking, "I'm not going to do this right."

So, what do you do when you're coming out of a self-indulgent funk and want to get your spins on, most likely to include several games of pool, loud AC/DC, and a 4am Scotch-fueled viewing of the Braveheart director's cut? You call Ray! So, that's what I did, but as usual I didn't end up getting what I expected.

TÉODOR: [places call]

RAY: [picks up, yelling] Jesus, Gavin! Use the damned leeches already!

TÉODOR: Ray? Ray? This is Téodor.

RAY: Oh, hey, Téodor. Sorry. How you doin'.

TÉODOR: [hoping to diminish his anger with humor] What was that about Gavin and the Leeches? Did you just sign a new band?

RAY: [angry] Oh, it ain't worth mentionin'. Just havin' trouble gettin' through to someone.

TÉODOR: Yeesh. Okay, I won't ask.

RAY: Yeah, it's nothin'. Whatchu call about?

TÉODOR: Oh, I was wondering if you were up for a no-good evening, maybe some pool and Patrón.

RAY: Daaaaaamn. You know, I'm pretty spent. I got really horny this afternoon, man.

TÉODOR: [brightening, as one does for a friend who has recently scored] Oh, you're with a chick! Sorry, I'll call back tomorrow.

RAY: No, man. It ain't nothin' like that.

TÉODOR: [confused] But...what was that about having sex all afternoon?

RAY: Heh. There definitely wasn't any sex bein' had. Not that I knew about, anyway. Maybe at other peoples' houses.

TÉODOR: So...you just got so horny that you got tired?

RAY: Somethin' like that. Anyhow. Man, now I'm all worried about diabetes.

TÉODOR: Sorry. I guess I'll check you later.

RAY: Jesus. Man, how am I supposed to get to sleep now.

TÉODOR: Sorry! I'm sorry I misunderstood.

RAY: Be careful, man. Of diabetes. [yawns]

TÉODOR: Right, I will.

RAY: [yawns, hangs up]

I got the sense he wasn't being completely straight with me, but I didn't want to meet Gavin and his leeches so I minded my own business and made for home. I think I'm just going to have a little red and head to bed with some reading material. I haven't read anything in a while, other than that two year-old New Yorker that's been sitting by the toilet so long it's wrinkled from splatter, so I got some interesting books about product design off the living room shelves, and a book about the history of Levi Jeans for when I get bored of those.

Clowned by Circus Penis

Man, I should have seen that coming a mile away. That blank stare, the fact that he thought risotto was Mexican, the way the only adjectives he knew were "good" and "fun," ...that guy was so LA. If you don't know what it means to be "LA," imagine if a car salesman and a female car salesman had a baby: the baby would be from LA. I bet that guy has a goddamned white baby grand. I KNOW that guy has a white baby grand in his huge, unused living room, on a black marble-tiled level maybe two steps up from the main part of the white-carpeted living room.

SO! So. That's over. I knew I'd never fit in in his world of guys who can make breezy conversation with twitty women about favorite shoe colors. If you get two LA people in the same room, and there's a bed there, and they have so much as the same favorite sandwich filling in common, they'll be hitting it within thirty minutes. That's how LA is.

Okay, enough venting. I went back and looked at all the old rushes from the cooking show I was working on before Circus Penis showed up, and they look...stupid. I look like a big fool who could just get taken in by any old shiny fad that came along. My stupid hipster pad, my trendy shoulder-held camera style, my whole approach to food...just immature. A total flub.

On top of all that, I picked up my guitar and accidentally made up the cheesiest little three-chord riff you can imagine. I was totally into it the whole time I was working it up, but then when I took a few minutes off and came back and played the finished product it sounded like something a studio guitarist would be asked to play during a sequence on a TV show where a red race car wins a race.

I think everything I touch is just going to be bogus for a while so I'm going to sign off now, on my big whiny blog.