I am a writer.

I write.

I didn’t start until today. Before today I was a thinker, a doer, an active member of my own self-fulfilling prophetic shortcomings, a psychic vampire with insatiable blood lust for that seldom seen graphic close-up of the human condition. I am out of excuses. An ankle injury precludes me from my otherwise social behaviors, lunches, yoga, surfing, and parties. A book launch here, a soft opening there, a friends and family tasting event somewhere else. All have kept me from what everyone keeps telling me I should be doing. But when your answer to the proverbial “now what do you do?” question is either “keeping my taxes low” or the often ill received “nothing” you kind of ask for it. I’m a social person, it is my nature and so I must now turn my back on nature itself. I am not the first person to do this.
Los Angeles was a special place but so were Atlantis and El Dorado. And who really is to say which of the three is most real. I naysayed the naysayers about the death of the LA dream everyday until last Saturday. But “the” dream is not “my” dream so I might as well not not live it for a bit longer.
There is a high plains drifter vigilante seeking cosmic justice somewhere in here and he wants answers. Answers not in the words or deeds of men but those answers you used to get before 9/11, the ones that inspired more questions. Scenes that played out in prerecorded harmonic turpitude like a Ferris wheel rolling off a pier or some teddy bears having a picnic.
Consistently regretting the past while dreading the future is sort of like a chill way to go about things, you know. A fun way to keep the mind busy while the body aimlessly travels well below the speed limit. Until you go so far below the speed limit that everything stops. Mind, body, spirit and car all gridlocked in perfect unison on the Pacific Coast Highway last Saturday.
No cigarette to smoke no radio to scan, no social media to refresh on the phone, just a laundry list of poor decision making that led you to this moment. King Sisyphus of 2013 about to come to some, any conclusion really at all until a meaningless distraction becomes more important than an 8pm reservation at nowhere.
There was a girl, well there is always girl, but there is a girl here, in here. She has the hundred-yard stare of a Hiroshima survivor, eyes rolled and blacker than a breaching great white and as vacant as the old Robinson’s May parking garage in Beverly Hills. She doesn’t always look like that but right now she does.
This would be the wrong person for you, the incompatible choice, a decision that will lead to needless pain and suffering and will surely end in tears if not violence. But you make it anyway. You think it will be different this time. “I’ll beat the odds, I’ll win this time.” You say to yourself again and again. The Monte Carlo fallacy run amok and in plain view, left to fritter away a Saturday afternoon unabated. You let your conscience momentarily sip a mint julep on the porch as your ego runs upstairs to see a veritable crime scene in every shade of red.

2 months ago  /  4 notes

Anonymous asked: You seem very attached to your dog. Mine recently passed away. Can you offer me any advice in dealing with the loss?

no. we all are going to deal with it in our own way. Try and accept it early and not question it too long. hold on to the parts that serve you in this life and let the others go. It is the same for family. Sometimes more so for animal companions as they personify love that is truly unconditional. I want my dog to live forever but I know that is not possible. I just enjoy the time together while it lasts. You still have all your good times stored in your memory, dont let bitterness and fear of death rob you of those.

2 months ago  /  1 note

Anonymous asked: Charlie, why don't you answer questions anymore? That was my favorite part about your page...

and boom goes the dynamite

2 months ago  /  2 notes