There's this problem with bein a ex-cool kid greaser guy. There were the dope rides and stylish haircuts attracting hip, wild, free spirited women...y'know the ones...shaggadelic hair, white belts, beads and stuff. And although it only started as a run out to a commune, where the hippie chicks hand out free love and peyote like its going out of style. You came for the ride and not for the debauchery. You become confused and forget where you parked your sled, you lose your pomade...but someone has to tend the fields of weed, yes? Yes, perhaps you have found your calling...Soon they have encouraged you to pull out your Hank Williams records and trade them for original Blur vinyl on Parlophone, swap the gabardine for Ben Sherman...You've gone from a starring role in a Coppolla film to a strange supporting character in a Tarantino film...And then you realize that in another five years you'll be on to Jim Jarmusch. Soon you realize it couldn't have happened. I couldn't have fried my mind. Hippie girls, free love and harvesting pot farms never seemed appealing and you could have never sold or traded any of your records. Each is a chapter of the ongoing autobiography that is your life. The pomade? it's there somewhere. The aroma of Murray's and Tres Flores hangs heavy in the air. Comforting like a favorite pillow. You know the one you can't bring yourself to wash. The mind comes tumbling down and you wake up in line at a taqueria in Silverlake wondering if any of it really happened. You pull your pockets out and empty, but then you remember there's that lucky fiver in your breast pocket. The grumbling homeless dude behind nudges your shoulder and you know you're going to have to order something before things get uglier. You blink twice which seems once more than you needed to clear your throat, point a finger at the best meat they have and order two tacos. Eight years on and that pomade and taco combo are but a distant fleeting thought. Give that lead holder one more turn in the pointer, put it to the vellum and here come those spangle earring hipster chicks dancing around your brain again holding hands throwing garlands forever or what seems like it. Pawning that leather jacket for a T-square and a set of graphite pencils was the only choice it seems. Drop your pencils. The test is done. I'm back school. Really? Really. The drafting table in your architecture studio and the kick ass lead sled in your basement were the only real things the whole time. I am studying architecture at art school. Waiting to be done in a couple semesters so I can move on to Jolly Olde England. The job is there and I am the Anglophile they just might accept as their own. I am bored and hope the Europeans can entertain me for a while before I come back and land on LA-LA-Land again. I DJ and work at an architecture firm so I can pay for the roof over my records and the garage over my '60 Oldsmobile. That's about all I have to say without breaking out a Power Point presentation and graphs to support my existence.
