A decade of decadance

Dealville wasn't a life-long goal, but it was the whole reason I was in college: to get here and begin to make it happen. In terms of timing, I was lucky in one respect: it was 2000, not 2010. Good fucking luck making it a-fresh in this shitstorm. But this was the glorious beginning of another decade, where millionaires were made "instantly" and problems were minimal.

Upon arrival, I drove a rental car (pacing up and down the street of the apartment) to let off steam from the flights. I turned on the radio and "Hotel California" began. Was this some sort of deal from Enterprise? Do all the cars do this? No, they don't...I just figured this coincidence was actually the ground rules of what would become my life.

For the first months, I stayed at an apartment complex with 26 buildings. It was quite the spread, and I'd lie if I said I had a care in the world. I was an intern while I took "classes" but that was merely the daytime life. At night, there was a new swanky world and hot tubs. By the end of this "semester" I was in a tent at a campground just miles from Mexico with a girl I'd recently met. That's insanity! How would I ever end up in that kind of situation? Was I changing, or was LA changing me?

Returning from graduation, I saved enough cash for a few months, including rent. Deals were approached left and right. Again, this was in a deal-friendly time, one where websites were the future...television, film studios, these were all the past. I felt like Homer Simpson just showing up when the plant opens. I knew I was lucky, but I was also prepared. And as Robert Evans says, luck is when opportunity meets preparation.

The majority of my initial friends out here were left-over from college. I should say "acquaintances" since in most cases, all we had in common was our alma matter. The fact that I found work so quickly was met with some distance. I received the usual inquires (simply about a job - who cared what I did?) along with the passive aggressive nature that keeps so many people alone.

In time I moved to Hollywood. It sounds nice, doesn't it? But every neighborhood, even dripping with gold, has a realistic level. The address was just as much to be within the tricks as it was likely feeding something inside to show off. Maybe not as much as Maurice "T.T." Rodriguez and his want to show off for his Puerto Rican family, but there. Naturally, no one gives a shit about that in town. It's all about price. You could live in the best house in the best neighborhood but if you're paying through the nose (sometimes literally) you're treated as the moron you are.

I found this out when I moved toward the westside. I was actually in a very nice area in a nice place not paying too much (relative for the area). When I'd tell someone where I'd live they'd say "Oh - Beverly Hills adjacent." What the fuck is that? More than real estate jingo, it's the band-aid of battered pride. Sure, I guess I live adjacent to it, but I live in Los Angeles. That's what my mail says.

Work sent me to Burbank...that "beautiful" zone just over the hill, and it usually brings shame from others living in a castle. Oh I understand - but commutes can kill you out here. When I had my most traffic-filled drive, I twice bumped people at a stoplight. (One of which, the girl in front of me looked out of her car pissed...frantically looking for something wrong while I apologized she said "Are you fucking kidding me?" and drove off) I got rear-ended with large damage to ol' Bess while the guy behind me hit the bricks. This is madness. Living close to work is a necessity if you can hack it, so I pulled the plug.

Since this occurred, I've grown to love the quiet of the 50's style suburban feel of this nook of Dealville. The calm (especially late at night) has been my best friend, and I average 12 hours of sleep in odd shifts. There was a time where I would give a fuck about something like that. Now, I cherish it and tell others of my bunker. Hmmm...has this decade in Dealville made me better or worse?

Life is a natural process in this town, no matter what the outsiders say. And the outsiders LOVE to talk about Dealville and point out its faults. (Or fault-lines) They are a jealous and angry bunch, and you are best to ignore them. But when I wrote "flight home" in my calendar back in 2000, I wasn't foreshadowing. I wasn't projecting a false vision of my future. I was stating the facts: that my life was as I wanted it.

And what have I wanted and seen in my life in this decade? It's been the whiskey-aided thoughts clouding my surroundings in good and bad times. It's drug-fueled ramblings when I speak of good fortune. It is an ambling attitude that the good life, if not here, is right around the corner. It takes work, and no one said it would be easy, but it's life. It's home. It's Pacific Gold.

Saltwater into Wine

Things are becoming hazier in the Pacific, as swells rise and blood oxygen levels drop, we see a fluctuation in brain waves not unlike housing prices. Forever up, on the rise, only when it's not.

A smart man once told me that everything works if you let it.

We're back in that place now, the ancient Zone, free from clutter and window dressing, just out, doing, going. It's not passive, nor active. We are fabric now, stretched and contracted, moving in unison with all other fibers. Deals are made with ease, everything tinted with gold, the future spreads out before us like an endless fruit plate.

The call this place the "country", but if you get beyond the roosters and stray cats, it's really more of a thought pattern than a geographical area. Are we far away from the city? Well sure, as far away as Maple Grove is from Anytown USA. But aren't we far from everything out here? The sun, moon, stars... all at impossible distances. Our remoteness gives birth not to loneliness, but to perspective. Ah, that word again. You heard it here about the Land of the Long White Cloud, and here it is again. Up the mountain, flatten it out, get underneath it... whatever you've got to do, just give it some perspective. So when you're there, you can't really talk about "there". You can only go elsewhere and look back. That's what makes climbing cliffs so fun... you get to go, and come back. But at least you get to Think. Something that is often missing back in Ye Olde Nort.

Adventures here are a way of life, you take your life into your hands every day, and you can't help but move and explore. That's the reason for all this green... a constant churning of life and water, land and tide, produces a fantastic realm of imagination. But you don't have to imagine shit - it's all right here. Every 30 yards there is another beach entrance, another hidden cave, a secluded walk. They don't write about these things. You drive up to the edge with your car and then you drive further. If land gets boring, as it is immovable, into the surf we go, breakers be damned.

I suppose it is like a prayer, or at least a mantra. Only when it becomes a way of life does it truly start to matter. I can dip my toes in, I can stick my whole foot in, but until I feel it wash over me and fight like all hell to keep it from pulling me to the brink of death, I will not understand it. To sit on a board out here in the rising swell is to commit to this Way. I'm an outsider, sure. But you can't tell me this isn't living.

If you could pray to yourself, what would you ask for?