diary of a hollywood mixtress

I'm so full right now. full of homemade vegetable puree. full of south australian layer cake shiraz spiked soliloquies. immured by my best friend/worst enemy, my own mind. I must empty now before I explode! I must purge the pother of ebullient mentations. I must type NOW! I conjure the voice of the lychnobite mixtress:

if comfort food was hard grape juice it would be layer cake shiraz. this wine is my current idee fixe. I jones for it! I'm quaffing the last quarter bottle of it as I stare into the laser laptop glare...

henry miller is known to have said "write drunk, revise sober". most would attest to millers genius. the problem with this transcriptive practice is it's a bit antediluvian, having been stated before the advent of the internet. I often write drunk in the middle of the night and wake to find it all posted up on social networking sites and e-mailed to members of my coterie before I've soberly revised it. 

I'm sore today after having worked a pretty wild shift last night. three bands played, but I thought the opening two  were way better than the headliner. one of the members of the first band, drew, I happen to know from back in the day when I was actively into "electroclash". he has always swung more on the "mod" side of style, but superficial differences aside: we all frequented many of the same hollywood hotspots catering to "counter-culture". my friend danielle was casually hooking up with his mate max. max, drew and I all had honda metropolitans (a petite two tone 50 cc scooter modeled after the vintage vespas). they both had matching sky (light blue/white) colored models, while mine was in salsa (candy red/white). I saw drews scoot parked out in front of the club when I pulled up. as much as I loved my metro, I'm glad to say I've upgraded to the buddy black jack, a matt black 150 cc hellion. it's faster. ha ha! beep beep! vroom vroom! buh bye! but in all this reminiscing I digress... so I have this nasty discoloration all up and down my legs. physically measuring in full grown at a modest 4'11 and existing in a land of giants, I learned young  to adapt. when unable to fly, climb. so without hesitation I use my arms to catapult me all over the counters and shelves to reach for the top-shelf liquors. with nimble and catlike reflexes I pounce and purple my knees. luckily break-dancing in high school conditioned me well for just this (the bruising and the odd contortions I'll contrive to make a cocktail). sometimes, while out and off  the clock, when the  flooring be permitting and coupled with a proper buzz (so my inhibitions are happily at bay) I'll shock fellow party-goers with a head-spin. yes a head-spin. singular. it's a disgrace to the consecutive three circumnavigations I could bust in my heyday, but even one head-spin is more than the average drunkard can pull off. although, any dancer who knows they're stuff wouldn't be impressed. if I could see myself through the eyes of my own previous teen incarnation, even I would scoff at the sad display and mourn the death of my forgone talent. which brings me to the another recent theme of  fixation: what the hell am I doing with my life? will I remember this moment ten years from now with pain stricken nostalgia, asking myself the very same question as I compete with the rotting architecture of some old bar in LA for recognition as a historic landmark?

I'm almost twenty eight, I'm sitting up late at night drinking wine by myself boasting on this damned blog site about the fact that I can spin on my head. like, that's a major accomplishment and I'm not even that great at it. I spend many a-night assisting the willfully myopic in escapist habits. I spend my days obsessing over how I'm gonna make my way in the world. this is why most people opt out of the whole "create your own path" thing and just get a BA in business and sign on to a life of wage slavery. that's why on the eighth day god created firewater. after he was all rested up, bored with the duties of cosmic paternity and grafting ribs from adam, he distilled his fermented manna mash and put it in a snifter. then he just sat around in a dimly lit outhouse behind an ashram, sippin' n' shootin' the shit with shiva...until he blacked out. aside from genesis and excerpts here and there, I haven't read much of our mighty fathers holy scripture. but from what I gather, the old testament doesn't tell you much about the eighth day. and neither does the new testament for that matter. because both of them are antiquated, chauvinistic and censored. this is the contemporary testament, the continuation, the new story! the post-industrial/post-civil rights/post-post modern version...

ah fuck it! I'll settle for the rest of this layer cake and leave doctrine to the straight laced and those who have masters degrees. that's why god created me, to get all of them drunk. but I'm the one who's drunk now. henry miller would be proud.

seis de mayo

I'm hungover. it really sucks. this is a rare bi-annual event, happening on average (at most) maybe twice a year. I'm a pro. I know all the tricks of avoiding this distasteful state of being. I know better. aside from the obvious "drink in moderation", there is one basic guideline to drink by that will save you a lot of the hangover hassle: don't use mixers and don't mix liquors. unless it's water, soda water, or a fresh squeeze of citrus: you don't want it in your drink. the sugar is what effs you up. the schnapps, the froo froo shee shee stuff. nix that ish. I don't have scientific data backing my theory and can't tell you exaltly what it is in the process of metabolizing multiple fermented potations that is directly responsible for the ensuing misery, I'm simply speaking from experience.  

I'm half mexican, but am not a big cinco celebrator. I had the night off so I rode out on my scooter to a bar in west hollywood where my friend was working. another friend, who lives a hop skip and stumble away, met me there. I started with a makers on the rocks.  my cute bartender friend came over and innocently proposed "shots". right then I realized the power we bartenders have and how hard it is to turn an offer made by one down. especially when they're good looking. I still had eight tenths of my makers left and was in no dire need to speed up the process. I'm not a young buck anymore.  I was well over the shot phase by the time my frontal lobe was fully developed. I'm not a frat boy or a masochist. I enjoy drinking, I don't do it to get wasted. as a rule: I usually don't shoot shots, I sip them. I don't think anything is worth being drunk if it's not pleasurable to the palate. a common cannon of the animal kingdom: what tastes bad to you is bad for you. bright colors can also indicate danger; like the crazy colored cordial that's the same hue of a killer frog suggests it's poisonous and will kill you! ay dios mio people, it's just common sense. anyway, if you can't comfortably sip it, you probably shouldn't be drinking it. 

the argument has oft been made that a shot is no longer a shot if consumed conservatively. I always parry with something to the effect of: a shot is still a shot when made as a shot regardless, and it's true essence is not denatured by the drinking process. a drink can be a shot if you shoot it. but what usually qualifies as a shot is: anything served in a shot glass, anything made with the intention of shooting, or anything less than four ounces being either shaken and/or served without ice.  I get teased a lot for this, but tolerating the taunting is preferable to the debauchery and agony the alternative course of action invariably leads to. shots are bullets blasted from a gun with only one intention my friends, and its aimed for the bulls eye on a slippery slope. ooh that was fun, how many idioms can I fit into one sentence to create this analogy? I don't think it even really made sense. whatever, I'm hungover. according to vigilante law: I'm acquitted of all duties to cogency. nothing more than laying on my ass in a dark room with an ice pack on my head for the next twenty-four hours is required of me. anything else is extra credit.

so in the spirit of  hollow holidays and inappropriate expression of independence, a shot of shaken don julio it was. I still sipped it though. but mixing the whiskey and tequila  is where I went wrong. and for breaching this elementary precept of pain-free partying, today I suffer greatly.

fast forward: I ended up at an after hours thai joint by my house that covertly serves alcohol past the legal drinking hours. I can't vouch for the food, but I love this place. not only are they open all night and ostensibly discredit one of californias dumbest liquor laws, but on the weekends the young voluptuous servers get on the bar in their ugg boots and freak each other. it's awesome. the downside is they only carry one kind of shitty vodka, one shitty whiskey, and one shitty beer. which they underpour and overcharge for. the scene is a circus. there are always dubious characters lurking in the wherabouts, aiding and abetting little white powdery felons, which dangle proudly from the their nasal cavities.

I tried to revert back to the one liquor trick, although, at this point it was already too late. jim beam it was. and I never drink beam either, unless I'm in a desperate and lowly place. well desperate and lowly I was. the nightcap was totally unnecessary. I was already feelin it pretty hard, but I got caught up in the fiesta fervor. I broke all of my own rules. this coming from a staunch advocate of dissonance; some rules are made for a good reason. today is a lesson lived, reinforcing that which I already know. ay!