Five Thousand Miles

Written in September of 2002

I hate Los Angeles.

I hate Los Angeles because it is a city not designed for humans.

It is designed for cars. Humans not required. One day it's going to be filled with nothing but robot cars, cavorting on the highways of a city where humans were never ever meant to be.

Having a cigarette after dinner elsewhere in LA tonight, I see a Crazy Homeless Guy with a megaphone. He raises it to his lips, makes to speak-to Announce, to make a Proclamation-and then thinks again, lowers it. Raises it again. But no. The time is not right. He gets on the bus, disappointed. Something was wrong. His megaphone hangs in his hand. Perhaps there wasn't an agent in earshot.

I also hate Los Angeles because it's not a city. It's six or seven cities stuck together by seventy five thousand miles of road. I write this in Burbank. Burbank appears to be one of those half-alive cities, like Canberra, that people drive to in the morning and utterly abandon at night. This hotel is like a colony on Mars. There's not another living thing in sight. And, in the distance, the cars jabber and scheme in the dark. The bastards. 

Safety Dance

I am going to Cable TV Station, housed in Big Media Corporation building. I am told that there are two levels of heavy security here, as there are at all studios here. Level One is a bored Pinkerton drone who sticks a broom under our car to see if Osama Bin Laden is clinging to the chassis. Level Two is a guy slumped over a counter who asks my name and then writes it on a lapel sticker. Presumably this sticker renders me invulnerable to bombing outrages, anthrax showers and bags of sarin.

Los Angeles is disgusted with the world. It doesn't understand why terrorists haven't targeted it. It's Important. It's Hollywood. Surely the warty Al Queda baddies want to destroy Hollywood, right? So where are they? Was the meeting postponed? LA stares at its cellphone, desperate for the validation of meaningless mass destruction.

Action

I am meeting with my friends Producers and Screenwriter.

Screenwriter arrives pale and edgy. He is into the fifteenth rewrite of an adaptation. He's been in the business a long time and is very successful. But, despite being a professional screenwriter, he is still human. He has been asked if he can make the piece's second lead green. And Welsh. And a dog. He can't take any more. He makes an awful keening sound, like a stabbed dog. There's blood in his ears. He rips his pants down and shits on the floor.

The waiter passes, looks down, and says, "Who spilled this fine American food?"

Soon, it will be rinsed under the tap and put on the hotplate. And sold to me as breakfast for $20.99 plus tax.

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July 21, 2009 Alive in LA. I has a balcony. I may give a sermon. After I sleep for 24 hours.

...Why does the minibar have a glowstick in it? Do I appear AS THE SORT OF MAN WHOD DRINK GLOWSTICK CHEMICALS?

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July 22, 2009 Good morning from Los Angeles, sinners. Off to have seven thousand meetings.

Abandoned to feral roaming producers on the WB lot. Am fashioning a spear from the bones of interns. 

The power of Hollyweird compels you. Or possibly me. 

i have fooled you all. I use Twitter to steal your souls and increase my Powers. Which Compel you. (Yesimighthavehadadrinkshutup)

Trying to work out if aged poolside guy is really that hairy or if he's wearing an animal pelt of some kind

Yeah, you keep that towel on, buddy. I have a lighter. 

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