it's cinco de mayo, and i'm smoking a cigarette with a latino outside. the fireworks are blazing, showing LA's true colors, more spectacular than the 4th of july. a helicopter circles with its spotlight above the fireworks, and above them the planes blare into LAX. so many lights in the skys, it's more beautiful than the stars with all the wild colors of amber and purple and scarlet. it seems like there's more to life than the stars, the constructs of humans.
i've drank all the booze in the house, and i'm still not drunk. i'm too buzzed to walk out and get some more, my neighborhood is filled with people who are cool in the daylight and threatening in the nighttime. i'm just another piece of white trash who's gonna get mugged. i light another cigarette, and talk to my neighbor. cinco de mayo is all around us, and revolution is in the air. we talk in broken english and spanish about the shit happening in TJ right now, he has a sister that he doesn't want to visit because of it. I light another cigarette. I knew i shouldn't have tried to curb my smoking by changing from filters to lights. i can barely feel that i'm smoking anything.
the helicopter's spotlight glances over me, and i think what do i deserve to get the limelight. i came to LA with a passion for making movies. i'm just another drunk, out of work director with more ambition than talent, trying to say something that's been said before, but still thinking that it's new and unique.
Just another fuckup waiting for the hand of God to touch him and make him great. what am i saying, i stopped believing in God when i was in high school. i just keep it up so my parents don't get depressed and anxious. maybe i was all wrong when i gave him up, but it's too late now. I light another cigarette, and feel sorry for myself. Another countless fuckup in this city of fuckups. maybe if i become a drunkard and write something amazing, people will look back when i'm dead and agree that i was an artist. a shitload of good that will do me then.
i've argued on the phone with this protestant girl who i fucked, about how catholics are right, and you can't just accept Jesus and be saved. you need to strive for perfection in all that you do, and only that way can you reach salvation. it's a pity i am the way i am. buy the ticket, take the ride.
It's damn shame.
I go inside and drain my glass. I need something to fill this empty void. I need religion, real faith. I go outside and light another cigarette, thinking things will change. It's like Ghandi said, I must be the change i want in the world. I would, if I wanted everyone to be artsy drunkard fuckups like me. I don't. I wish I could change. The world changes everyday, but mostly, just stays the same. Idealists come and go, but wars are here to stay. Plato said once that only the dead have seen the end of war. I light another cigarette, and shake his hand. I don't wish I was dead, I just wish I didn't have to make the desicions. Fuck it. Fuck it all. A unexamined life is not worth living, Aristotle said. I've examined my life, and it's still not worth living. But it's worth something. Not living, but maybe it's worth something to someone else.
I walk back inside and masturbate to some pictures from a website. It takes a lot longer to come than it normally does. The buzz from the wine is wearing off. I need something more. I should have not tried to get drunk when I didn't have enough booze. I drank too much last night, now I don't have enough to finish what I started.
I go outside for a smoke, and end up smoking four. I'm almost done with the pack that I bought this afternoon. I never figured myself for a pack a day guy, but it's getting there in a awful hurry. God damn these marb lights. I should have got some fucking pall mall filters like normal. I was a fool to think i could wean myself off the strong stuff. I'm a smoker. There's no denying it now. Fuck. I was just going to be an artistic smoker, now I'm a cancer stick fiend. I thought I was just drink now and again, but now I'm a drunkard. What a fuckup.
I just can't take life in moderation. I'm scared that I'll kill myself before I can produce something noteworthy. I want to be completely adsorbed in the worlds I create. My only hope is that what I create can mean something for someone else. Otherwise, when I die, there will be nothing left. I don't understand how non-artistic people cope with the idea that when they die, nothing will be left of them. Having kids shouldn't satisfy that need. America is fucked.
I go inside. Tom Waits is playing. I don't remember putting him on, but there he is. He growls to me about how the world is not his home, he's just a-passing through. I wish I could say the same.