Can this get any weirder, I think as I
raise my bottle of Singha and take a generous sip. The bottle is damp,
condensation flowing from the uncomfortable heat permeating throughout the city
of Los Angeles. Putting the bottle down, I take a napkin from the black Formica
table in front of me and wipe sweat from my brow; a trait I seem to share
with the beer bottle. I glance across the table at Mike, my cousin, and see
he’s no better off. This convection oven of a restaurant looks like it’ll be
the end of us!
I take another sip
and return my attention to the stage a few meters from me: a small, elevated
platform littered with low-quality strobe lights and smoke machines that look
ready to explode, it is flooded with blue stage lights from above. And, standing
in the middle… stomping his foot, is a middle aged Thai man in a business suit;
he is holding a microphone and staring up at a television monitor. Just as I
turn my attention back to this stranger, the sound of music begins radiating
from oversized speakers located throughout the restaurant’s interior: the walls
vibrate, silverware rattles, water tremors, and every other person in the room
other than my cousin and me quakes in eager anticipation. I feel the
unmistakable guitar chords resonate in my skull.
“Oh no,” I hear
Mike say. “Really? Is he really going to sing this?”
Sure enough, as
the opening instrumental to Satisfaction
comes to a close, the Thai man closes his eyes, stops his preemptive
gyration, and begins to howl.
***
The night had
started out pretty simple, especially considering the events that would unfold.
It had been just a banal, ordinary Saturday… a day completely regimented by
routine: breakfast while watching Sportscenter, writing till 2pm, much needed
exercise at the gym, a chance to read in the tub, and concluded with an evening
writing session.
I had been writing
for a couple of hours, making decent and vital progress on the new book, when I
decided it was time to take a break and make some dinner. I’d gone to the
grocery store on my way back from the gym and stocked up, anticipating a night
in to focus on work. So I cleared out the kitchen, blasted Nirvana on my
laptop, and set about cooking: I pre-heated the oven, oiled pans, diced onions,
minced garlic, julienned red and orange peppers, seasoned and spiced steak
tips. While making a red wine marinade I thought, what the hell? Why not a glass while I wait?
The problem with
wine is that a glass is never just ONE glass. As the cooking continued, my
already balmy apartment becoming a terrarium of the Mojave, I cooled myself off
with the blood of the grape. Once dinner was finished, I propped up on the
couch to calm the mind with some television before getting back to the keys. I
surfed through channels with the speed a of drug addicts
scrolling through a phonebook for their preferred dealer.
“Can you believe
this shit,” I asked the nearby picture of Walt Whitman. “How much worse can
things get? That belligerent boozehound hobbit from the ‘Jersey Shore’ has a
book deal and Russell Brand now has a TV show. Can things get any worse?” Uncle
Walt just stared back… a depraved, demented glee shining from behind that
utterly epic beard.
“Ehhh… shut up and get back to work,” I
pictured him howling while ardently shaking his fist. Good advice, I thought.
I cleared my
plates and went back to my microscopic IKEA desk. Booting up the manuscript, I
sat down in my wicker desk chair and leaned back, nearly toppling over onto my
bed. My bedroom was so damn hot that I needed to turn off the overhead light
and rely on low-wattage desk lamps around the room.
For the love of Moses, I thought, sweat
dripping down into my eyes, this is
inhuman! No one should have to live in this damn climate! Blinking
furiously, I tried to get my thoughts flowing, my ideas going, but I just
couldn’t seem to think. It was just too hot for rational thought or irrational
fiction.
Just when I was
about to pound my head against the wall, I heard my phone wring. I grabbed it
and said hello.
“What’s up, pal?”
It was Mike, my cousin.
“Hey man,” I
answered, “just writing.”
“Nice.”
“So what’s shakin’
with you?”
“I’m having dinner
right now,” Mike said,” but after Jen and I are going to Baja Cantina to meet
with Brandon and Chad. You wanna come?”
“Ahh man,” I said
as apprehensively as possible. “I dunno, buddy. I’ve got pages to work on and
I’ve been on a roll today.” The truth was I would have given my left big toe
for an excuse to get away from my computer and out of my own private sweat
lodge. After all, the words just refused to come and I was growing tired of
staring at a blank page.
“Come on, pal,”
Mike protested. “I haven’t seen you in forever. And we’re going for cocktails.
How can you say no to that?”
“Alright,” I
replied after a moment. I needed to sound as if I were reluctant to leave. Even
though I was already on my way out the door at this point. “I’ll head out in a
couple of minutes. I’ll see you guys there in a little while.”
“Well we’re about
to head home. Why don’t you meet us at our apartment and we can call roll over
together?”
“Sure,” I said, a
devious grin on my face, as I turned my key and locked my front door.
***
I listened to Tom
Waits on the way over to Mike’s. Which, admittedly, probably wasn’t a good idea
given the pending social interaction. Every time I listen to Tom Waits, I get
into a wonderfully introspective melancholy in which all I want to do is drive
around at night while taking sips of whiskey from a hip flask. So when I
arrived at Mike’s, I was anything but social.
“Hey pal,” Mike
said, a mischievous grin on his face as he opened the door, “good timing. We
just got home a few minutes ago.”
“Guess
I’m lucky that way,” I replied as I closed the front door behind me. Jen was on
the couch, her undivided attention focused on the kindle in her hands. “Hi
Jen.”
“Hey,” she replied
cheerfully yet keeping her eyes locked on the screen. Jen has the ability to
read, comprehend, and converse at the same time. This both greatly impresses
and makes me feel utterly intellectually ineffectual. “How are you?”
“Eh… same as
always.”
“Okay,” Mike said,
sounding like he was a pep-talking coach from an 80’s sports comedy, “you guys
ready to go?”
“I don’t really
feel like going out,” said Jen, putting down her literary tablet.
“What? Really? I
thought we were all going out together?”
“If we’re being
honest,” I chimed in, “I’m not too keen on driving all the way to Marina del
Rey myself.”
“Come on.” I could
see the frustration and annoyance building in Mike. He buried his hands in his
pockets and cocked his head. “Fine… we won’t go.”
“I’ll go with
you,” I replied. “I’m just sayin’ that I really don’t feel like driving a half
hour to grab drinks. It is 10:15 already, after all.”
“Forget it. I
thought we were all going to meet up with everyone. It’s not worth it now.”
“Why don’t you two
go for a drink somewhere around here,” Jen suggested. Mike and I exchanged a
look… one of those looks that speaks volumes. It was a non-verbal debate that
pondered and contemplated the possibilities. It was the look that says, ‘yes…
let’s do that. Because what’s the worst that could happen?’
“That sounds good
to me,” I said.
“I’ll drive.”
***
We were in Mike’s
car, cruising down Santa Monica Blvd… listening to the gypsy ridiculousness of
Gogol Bordello, trying to figure out our next move. Despite the intent of
hitting the town, we couldn’t manage to agree on a place to go. From our usual
haunts to the more eclectic gin joints, we ran through the list… only to be
denied by disharmony.
“Well that’s all
the places I can think of,” I said, staring out the window at the perpetual
caravan of oddities on Santa Monica. “Anywhere you want to go?”
“No, I don’t know.
I just want to do something.”
“That’s helpful.”
We had just
crossed Martel, heading east, when a thought crossed my mind. I recalled a crazy
night I’d had several months prior at a nearby bar. A staple of the Los Angeles
dive bar scene, it’s vintage walls had once been a second home to the likes of
Shannen Doherty. Before I even had a chance to say anything, the bright red
exterior with its green and white awnings came into view.
“Hey,” I said
quickly, “turn here!”
“Whatever
you say,” replied Mike as he swung the wheel quickly to the right. We parked on
Formosa, got out of the car, and walked to the corner. “What’s this place?”
“This,
cous… is the famous Formosa Café. This place has been around since the 20’s,
and has been the watering hole for countless celebrities. It’s a great landmark
of a different time in a city that is rapidly gentrifying itself.”
“Oh.
I’ve never heard of it before.”
“What,”
I nearly bellowed as we entered the dimly lit interior. Framed photos of
celebrities adorned the walls, displaying the bar’s popularity amongst the
celebrities. “You’ve lived out here for years and you’ve never been to the
Formosa? That’s just absurd. This must be resolved immediately.”
In
a mere half hour, our simple act of grabbing a beer had degraded into a savage,
unrelenting drinking contest. Unfortunately for me, while my opponent was
drinking beer… I had kept on with martinis. So it goes without saying, things
had gotten interesting.
“Can
I ask you something,” Mike said after downing another beer.
“Shoot,”
I replied, nearly gesticulating violently and spilling my martini.
“To
do what you want to do, is there any specific place you need to be?”
“You
mean writing?”
“Yeah.”
I
mean, technically no,” I said, pondering as I spoke. “New York definitely has
the largest population of publisher and agents, but I really don’t need to be
there thanks to the internet.”
“Why
did you move out here, though?”
“Honestly,
I haven’t the slightest clue.”
“What
can I say,” I said with a shrug after finishing my martini, “I like the
illogical course of action! Now you’re buying the next round.”
***
After
several hours and more than our fair share of drinks, we stumbled out into the
night. We’d laughed, bantered, pondered, schemed, and exchanged bullshit. We
were ambling back to the car, laughing over a memory, when Mike changed topics.
“I
guess you want to get back home and start writing again?”
“Ehhh…,”
I groaned, miserable at the thought of resuming work, “not necessarily. Why,
what do you have in mind?”
“Feel
like getting a couple more?”
“If
I have another martini,” I said matter-of-factly, “I’ll end up passed out on
your living room floor.”
“No
cocktails,” replied Mike, clearly trying to convince me. Little did he know, I
really didn’t need much convincing. “We’ll go for a couple of beers then head
home.”
“Correct
me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you’ve got a specific joint in mind?”
“There’s
a place I’ve always wanted to see,” Mike said with a grin that would have made
a con artist shudder. “Have you ever been to Jumbo’s?”
***
Jumbo’s
Clown Room. If one were to combine a biker bar, a drunken circus, a roller
derby, a strip club, and a former meth lab run by punk rockers… one would still
be miles away from the oddity that is Jumbo’s Clown Room. It is a bar that is
bizarre, miasmatic, and salacious while simultaneously humorous, lighthearted,
and absurd.
Mike
and I pulled up just after 1am, hoping for a couple of quick beers while being
entertained by the esoterically insane burlesque. We were quite surprised,
however, when we found a line wrapped around the building. As was to be
expected, a majority of the potential customers were middle-aged men with
serious nicotine addiction and possible drinking problems; there were a few
hipsters, clad in their flannel shirts and bringing their girlfriends for an
ironic date.
“This
sucks,” I said as Mike talked to the bouncer.
“It’s
at least a forty-five minute wait to get in,” he said bitterly.
“There
is absolutely no way I’m waiting in line with these degenerates, buddy.”
“Yeah,
me neither,” said Mike. He sighed, the sound of true disappointment. “I guess
we can just go home.”
As
we were walking back to the car, we passed by an unnamed Thai restaurant. There
was a Thai man, dressed entirely in black and wearing sunglasses, sitting on a
stool outside the restaurant.
“Hey
hey,” he said, snapping his fingers at us, “hey. We have beer. We have cold beer.
Good food, cold beer. You need nothing more!”
“Beer,”
Mike and I asked in unison, our eyebrows perching up. We looked at each other,
nodded, and walked into the place.
The
unnamed restaurant was an exercise in irregularity. It was dark, with glossy black
tables and a multitude of eclectic artwork on the walls. And, despite the late
hour, it was absolutely packed. It didn’t take Mike and me long to realize we
were the only non-Thai customers in the building. Just as we sat down the
waitress, a 17-year-old Thai girl with hot rod red fingernails, showed up at
our table and took our drink order.
“This
is… certainly different,” Mike said as we both took in our surroundings.
“Definitely
a first for me,” I replied. Our waitress was back in a moment with our beers
and, after some suggestions, took down our orders.
A
microphone crackled to life, causing us to turn to the stage. “And now ladies
and gentlemen… late night karaoke!”
***
“Can
you believe this,” I shout to Mike over the clamor and cacophony in the little
Thai restaurant. I just finished my drunken noodles and I’m polishing off my
fourth beer.
“You
can say that again,” replies Mike. He is working on some mystery soup that was
recommended by a group at the table next to us. It smells like burning tires
and the byproduct of lithium battery decay. Every time he takes a bite, Mike
looks like he just saw a pack of badgers attack a baby.
“This
might be one of the strangest places I’ve ever been too.” I have to shout,
because by this point, half of the restaurant is singing along to the Thai-Mick
Jagger on stage while the other half claps along or bangs the table with
silverware. These people are on the verge of pure, unadulterated mayhem and
ultraviolence: this is how karaoke brawls erupt.
All
of a sudden, the front door swings open and in walks two scantily clad women.
One, a feisty looking redhead, is wearing a mini-kilt and high leather boots
with a leather bikini top. The other, a voluptuous brunette, is simply wearing
red high heels, a red bikini bottom, and stripper tassels covering her nipples.
“Come
on,” the redhead shouts. “Can you guys please keep it down? We can hear this
guy singing through the walls and the girls are trying to perform!”
“You
out you out,” the cashier screams, running out from behind the register. “Go
back to your trash bar now.”
“We’re
just asking you to keep it down please,” the essentially topless brunette asks,
quite reasonably. Before the cashier answers, an actual brawl erupts outside
the restaurant between two rival biker clubs. These are not the serious types
that will draw weaponry and stain the parking lot with blood. No, these are the
more domestic bikers who just get piss drunk and punch each other to sleep. The
two burlesque dancers, the cashier, the karaoke singer, and the entire
restaurant are stunned: there is only the sound of fisticuffs outside for a few
seconds. Then without warning, the place erupts into madness.
“I
think that’s our cue,” I yell to Mike over the sound of hysteria.
“Yeah,
can’t argue with that one.” We leave cash on the table and casually stroll out
of one maelstrom and into another.
***
I’m
driving home and I just can’t seem to stop myself from laughing. Jesus and Jodi Foster, I think. That was some of the craziest shit I’ve ever
seen! I smile as my car heads north on Crescent Heights, moving in the
direction of home. And I realize something as I cross Melrose: I’ve
subconsciously been narrating this crazy evening the whole time. Despite my
frustration and irritation and inability to write earlier in the night, my mind
is right back on the page. Though I’ve learned this lesson before, it’s one
that I seem to always forget.
I
love writing. I love the idea of playing with words and weaving tales into my
own reality. As such, writing is usually my sanctuary. However, there are times
when writing is like a viper, drawing you in with hypnotic eyes… only to strike
a fatal blow. It exists as your best friend and your greatest foe, as both
heaven and hell, and as ultimate purpose and punishment. So while I always
manage to find myself distracted by writing, I realize there are times where I
need to seek haven in distraction itself.
There
is nothing like an unexpectedly crazy night to be distracted. Tonight was just
that: a litany and barrage of chaos and idiosyncratic characters, the likes of
which I’d never imagine actually existed. I’ve come full circle, crossing Santa
Monica Blvd on my way home. And I can’t help but feel amused at the absurdity
of it: in my attempt to run away from writing for a night, madness ensues and I
wind up back where I started…
