4.11.2006

i am everything that bothers me about los angeles. sitting at the coffee table, wearing a wilco shirt, and writing a movie. if they only knew i hated kcrw (save for elvis mitchell). if they only knew i hated all of them. except for taye diggs. i only don't hate taye diggs because of his cool name. i'm not even going to go to imdb to correct myself on the spelling of his name. it may in fact be spelled correct.

i'm taking the cset.

i'm listening to some field recordings.

i miss the rolling golden hills of montana and the smell of campfire soaked clothes the morning after a long day off. the calm whip of the line. letting the dry fly bob in the ripples. letting the little son of a bitch float down stream past the fallen tree stumps rotting and giving home to my prey. prey that i will catch and release, being sure to wet my hands before the touch. i catch and release not out of moral conviction.

the fiddle and the smell of damp wood make me think of the south. missouri. i never did fly fish much in missouri. there was the bass in the pond that hadn't been fished for a decade. where stories of six foot long catfish fell to the bottom with the sediment. warm tobacco. the mixing smell of cigarettes and pipe, distinguished by the age of the men that sat on the back steps of the menonite church with their asses on the pavement and their feet in the gravel. gravel that used to be mud. mud that held the hollowed out faces of the men kissing bullets with blood on their lips. the men who knew jesse james and cole younger too well and fought for the wrong side. to see bull run and die at the hood of a car.

my grandpa's drunk father had his body cut in three by the steel of a train at the mercy of the jug. that's the truth. that's why i hate los angeles. not the city, rather the people and the places you have to be if you know what's good for you. long beach and ventura are not excempt. same fog. same rain and oil slicked streets.