indi.ca

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Wake up into the bright-ass sunlight of no curtains in this motherfucking house. I try to melt my troubles into darkness and noise, but Ra gives me a good bitch-slap every day. Dear G-d, just let me burn the scary hours into sleep. Last night I found the spirit of L.A. Rose on the street. Trying to find some eat, not planning to meet, just stepping past the buskers in my way. A stereo somewhere is playing Pennyroyal Tea. One of the buskers grabs my linen shirt and I hear a familiar voice. Smiling and life itself, it’s scruffy Hollywood in the flesh. The buskers aren’t buskers at all, just hipster friends drinking beer on the sidewalk. Los Angeles is crashing on the couch. In the summer students move and rents disintegrate. If your networks are good you can surf the seas of beer and gage until the leaves fall. Some kid went to the Arctic, so L.A. even has a bed. A skinny girl is wrapped around his ankle, a hitchhiker from Halifax. J-La gives me a tired and knowing smile.

Nice to meet you, nice to meet you, to the poseur buskers that I meet. There’s one cute Spanish girl, thick thighs barely crossed in an aquamarine dress. J-Lo gives me a pleasant intro. I try to explain my dress shoes and what I do’s. Shoot the shit with J for a while. I had forgotten how much I loved the particular chemistry of the boy, and how he could make even Toronto come alive. His girl has a pierced tongue and doesn’t talk much. They are sitting on the sidewalk and the effervescent flow of pedestrians has to go round. Rue Mont Royal is closed to traffic up ahead. From Berri to the horizon is a motherfucking antfarm of asses and elbows. I see people graffiti’ing the streets bright orange, like the Metro line.

One brown brother on the stoop is Darrell. There’s also Lord Tariq. Him and Jeremy Guns rode the freight trains from Virginia to Montreal. He’s sleeping in a tent on the mountain and puffing a joint at this particular moment in time. I sit down to chat and someone kicks me in the ribs. It’s Kasper – the boyfriend, by way of introduction. Coincidentally, a human in his own right. I almost get him to sit down for a while, but he goes home to check on the roomies. J-Lo and I go across the street to get beer. The walk-in freezer is blissfully cool. He starts telling me about the tongue piercing and I laugh and close the door. Just then Kasper pops his head in and I laugh some more.

A machinist from El Salvador drops by on his way home from work. Kasper starts talking about the goddam revolution and down with the rich and El Salvador sits down and takes out his 40 ounce. El Salvador says something about the Jews I think, which is the end of it for me. As we meander towards St. Laurent he says that his girlfriend is waiting for him at home, but ‘when I’m drunk, I want to drink’. St Laurent is closed to cars as well, the street is packed with summer breasts. It’s past 11 and the depanneurs shouldn’t sell no more, but Joel the Alpha Male gets them to sell him some tall-boys of Stella Artois. It’s so bloody hot that I drink some. We get a table at Bifteck and swelter in the heat.

Joel wants to get laid, but there’ll be none of that at this testicle festival. The table is all boys and Lord Tariq is fast asleep. Someone has some funny funny stories of pr0n star sex and the discomfort of trying to spend the rest of the day with a bukkake princess. Drink enough beer to make the hurt parts numb and try to push out onto the street. It takes like 20 good shakes to get Tariq awake. I do not envy him his tent on the mountain.

Anyways, I woke up and did normal stuff today. Will try to make it to Rory’s birthday party. A girl on the bus smiled at me, and smiled more when I said hello. Sometimes I feel so bad that it feels great. Here’s a Leonard Cohen verse,

My friends are gone and my hair is grey.
I ache in the places where I used to play.
And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on.
I’m just paying my rent every day in the tower of song.