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"Lost Our Lease--Everything Must Go-Make An Offer!"

The sad news is that we're going out of business. The good news is that we're going out of business. Come Thursday, June 11th, the combined forces of necessity and interest will abandon the premises, leaving nothing but scuff marks on the uneven gray-painted wood-strip floor and the feint, familiar odor of disappointment. 

It's the market is what it is, and you've just got to deal with it. Do I have other things going on? Of course. I've been dusting off that dream in Eb minor. It feels right. It feels good. I think there's a way to move on it if I stick my neck out just a bit more. If I actually risk everything there is to risk what's the worst that could happen, hah? What, I'll lose the business? I'll fall down? They'll take my passport away?  Please. 

Oh, here's what I learned this time: don't accept fantasies from the unimaginative; it takes more than a badge to make a sheriff; and in the end the house always wins. Always.   

And if you believe that, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you!

This is for the Lakers. While I'm not such a big sports fan myself, my son is a sports-fanatic. Though he was born just a few miles north of the northern boundary of New York City (the Bronx), he's grown up way out west here in our globally iconic two-letter city. His dad, however, having been raised and educated in and around the five boroughs, considered LA as either a punch-line or, okay, a city, but certainly not a real one like New York was. What little anyone knew about LA never included a sense of "actuality" or "is-ness" if you will. What exactly is out there? Now I know. And after fifteen years I still can't pinpoint the "is-ness" of this place. LA remains elusive and opaque; I'm not able to touch it at all. Lately I find myself daydreaming of returning to New York, even though when I visit now I engage it like a tourist, staring at the tall buildings and getting in people's ways. With the economic situation here in California, though, the whole state has become a punch-line. I miss being part of something vital and grounded. Go Lakers, bring it home for me and the kid, but mainly him.

Dear Cosmos: Snapshots of My Heroic Life in the Glorious City of Angels At This Very Damn Moment As I Navigate My Wondrous Way Through Time...

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009:

3:15 am--I woke up because I had to pee. Looked at my small, black, plastic Timex alarm clock and confirmed that it was, indeed, 3:15 am. Thought to myself  "I should pee..."

6:06 am--Opened my eyes and looked at alarm clock. Recalled peeing sometime in the night. Heard vehicle's brakes screeching on Glendale Boulevard. Wondered if I'd ever get the cash to buy a 2010 Prius with the big screen on the dash. Flashed on driving across the country for four or five dollars and laughing at Big Oil the whole way. 

9:00 am-ish--Read LA Times sports page and got depressed about Lakers. Denver blows. What kind of name is "Nuggets"? Sounds like some sullen pony that gives rides to little kids in Griffith Park. It would sell out its own mother for a good-sized carrot.

Roscoe's Rant, #1

         Someday the age we live in now will be looked back upon and considered comically primitive. Consider, for example, the endless wiring we need to give life to the various electrical devices we use every day. Trillions of miles of snaking, or coiling, or tautly stretched eyesores that appear increasingly more paleolithic by the hour. Juicing your landlines, cable TVs, blenders, vacuums, feeble-battery-supplied laptops, etc.  All that wire will look as era-specific as the Roman aqueducts one day. An extensive network of an earlier solution, effective in its time, but ultimately fragile and freakish.

        And, on a more personal note, how about those dopey pickup trucks with steroid tires suddenly looming up behind you on the freeway? We need to investigate the childhoods of these people. Something went seriously wrong in the formative phase, I suspect. It appears to be a self-esteem issue. Perhaps Obama can help... I'm just saying, that's all... 

"In the Beginning..."

What could be better than this? Like an open field. Like 5 virgin lanes of unobstructed possibility in both directions--cheap gas and steering a hybrid to boot. Like a Bon Voyage party, distant horizon beneath a brilliant summer's-day sunshine, waves gently swelling, gulls swooping, land-lubbers leaving, buoys tick-tocking like cock-eyed metronomes... Everything in my universe is saying "NOW!" ...but first let me check... wallet... license... broadsword... tube socks... white-out... badger trap... penguin figurines...overstock velvet samples... 1904 Chicago Exposition Commemorative Dirty Playing Card Deck (including infamous Zoe Covington Nine of Hearts! ...Really!)... and, of course, my unopened "Clue" game (Guantanamo version).  Oh, Lord, I'm ready... I'm psyched... I'm bursting... 

STAGE DIRECTIONS: A HUGE SNAIL ENTERS STAGE RIGHT AND VISCOUSLY DEVOURS THE PROTAGONIST.