I met you in San Diego to the sound of Arcade Fire and Shakespeare under the eucalyptus trees. 

Part of me still believes our first days together will be the best I will ever have: Writing by day and performing at night; a 30 waist with an iPod shuffle clipped to the belt loop; my ten-speed Peugeot splitting lanes up University Avenue as dusk gathered its pink tinder in the west an hour before curtain. 

I think of those early years now as I write this in the small one-room East Hollywood apartment that I promised would be merely our temporary lodging but somehow became the ten-year home we shared and from whose threshold I now bid you farewell to welcome another decade. I would not have designed it this way, but here we are. Life does not shy away from surprises. Nor did you.

I count my inventory on the carpet stains…

We drove North out of San Diego expecting to move back east. But over a drink in my old midtown haunt that now no longer exists you urged me to remain in California. The day we arrived back in my Los Angeles hometown for good an idea that would change my life broke open onto loose leaf the way nothing else ever has, still to this day.

I put on an apron and we worked overnight shifts at a diner in Hollywood slinging hash to drunks and chasing them up Cahuenga at 4am when they tried to run out on the bill. We took the studio apartment in East Hollywood with the popcorn ceilings for a song and within two months we got a nice phone call which invited us to a rehearsal room in Cleveland where I could take my turn at the wheel as Romeo. We did the show again in Boise where the sun would set just as I stepped out from stage left to find Juliet on her balcony. 

When we got back to Los Angeles the play we’d written earned us the ego-raising hazing ritual of the couch-and-water tour. Our play opened in West Hollywood at a 50 seat theatre. The Hollywood Reporter said some nice things, but we were back to that small room with the bad carpet looking at the popcorn ceilings for ways to keep the lights on and the wolf from the door.

You took a gig writing poems on a 1936 Remington typewriter in a tent at the Coachella Music Festival. You took a job at a bar in Hollywood that didn’t cater to drunks. We always walked the mile and a half to work even though we had a car. On the slow nights, we’d scribble on napkins. They were mostly slow nights and we preferred it that way. More Shakespeare called and you left the bar again and lived for a summer in a cabin with a lake view.

You booked your first TV pitch that year. But it would take another year before anything would start and then another year before it would fail. Then you landed your first feature pitch. Again, it would take another year for anything to begin. 

That’s what they never told you: harder than the writing, harder than the hustle, was how difficult it would be to summon patience in the face of slow, brutal uncertainty. 

(Were you trying to teach me something there?)

In between the waiting, we gathered stains on the carpet. We wore our apron and cleared tables at weddings and taught Shakespeare under industrial lighting. We took our coffee cans to the CoinStar to buy Christmas gifts and we tried to love the people we were lucky enough to meet, mostly stumbling, mostly flailing. 

One time I’d paid off my credit card balance in expectation of a paycheck that a day later I learned would never arrive. I didn’t sleep and by dawn I was dry heaving into my girlfriend’s toilet. 

Some of the shit we had to swallow. 

In the between, we doubled the size of our theater. We tore down sets and built new ones. My plays would visit big cities and little towns. I would try to go to all the openings if I could, once landing in Prague just before curtain, bleary-eyed and wild. There was no real money and there was no promise of more forthcoming. But the love in all those rooms was exactly what I’d bargained for when I signed up for this strange strange way.

When it was gracious enough to come, the work took me from taking notes at a Chabad Shabbat in a Crown Heights synagogue to Sunrise at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. To do the work I stayed in motels with wasps in the shower and suites at the St. Regis. I got used to seeing sunrise over descent into Hong Kong and my friend’s couch in Brooklyn and the post office on Congress Avenue in Austin. I rode a motorbike all over an island in the Gulf of Thailand, and I sweated up I-5 in August with a busted AC to make an evening rehearsal in San Francisco. 

But we always went back to the little room in East Hollywood that we once got for a song. Never quite earning enough for long enough to justify an upgrade. The coins clinked in the coffee jars. The popcorn ceilings spun silken webs in the corners. My furniture, all second hand, wove a story of friends who offered me their pieces when they moved up or moved on: The desk, from a musician; the couch from an actress and mother; a hutch my father built in the 70s. The carpet got older and there was always another method of brewing coffee to learn that would contribute to the stains. The keyboard would click and the songs would go out into the world, occasionally surviving atmospheric incineration. 

In the betweens we pitched tents in Joshua Tree. We rediscovered yoga and the Dodgers. We ran a streak of 950 days in a row of daily meditation before finally forgetting once during the pandemic. We turned the whiskey tumbler upside down on the bar top one day when we recognized the hurt we were trying to inflict and the erosion of spirit behind the numbness and hangovers. That particular glass remains dry today. 

We grew our hair like a merman in hopes that it might take a piece of the sea with us whenever we came up for air.

And in the betweens…

I stood best man for a best friend. 

Officiated the wedding of my oldest friend. 

Greeted my niece with a poem.

Read for my grandfather at his memorial. 

Became a crisis counselor. One night per week I’d pour a pot of tea and try to be a beacon of empathy for anyone calling from the ledge. 

All the writing, all the shit and glory… it was practice for these moments.

In the last month of my thirties I kept a notebook next to my bed to recover my dreams. I run a planchette over the half-waking scrawl…

In one, I retrieved a dog I’d lost. 

In another, I stood on a Chicago dock as a massive steam ship took off at a hundred miles per hour across Lake Michigan. The ropes from the ship sifted through my hands and fell into the water as it sped away. 

The next. A box in the corner. Inside: a build-it-yourself piano.

And then, with no context, “To her left sleeps her husband, to her right, a gun.”

In another, I played a demented game of hide-and-seek with a cast from a play where the game was to try to kill each other. 

In one of the most recent entries I was leaving my childhood home for the last time, but I was an adult. I fell into the fetal position by the rear tire of our Chevrolet Suburban because I didn’t want to have to go.

My dentist tells me I clench my teeth at night.

My regrets of the past ten years are that for the big things, I thought I was never ready, or didn’t deserve them. Usually, I was wrong. I could’ve done with a little less self-doubt, and a lot less self-punishment. The disappointments I blamed myself for dominoed onto too many who I wish I was kinder towards. I’m grateful to those who still helped walk me home anyway. 

Just as when I took my little place in East Hollywood for a song, when you cross a threshold you do not yet know what it will ask of you. I’ve learned that you can expect the road to appear and disappear as seasons wash and then mar and then reveal the way again. But above all, if you do not carry love with you, you will not find it when you arrive. 

Perhaps I would not have designed it this way with the small room with the stains in the carpet, but what the hell do I know? As far as I can tell this is my first time doing this thing. 

So as I wake up on the dawn of my forty-first year, a new moon in the sky, the year of the mighty metal ox rearing its head, with half an idea plucked out somewhere in the cloud, and a ukulele in my trunk waiting to meet the sting of salt air on the central coast, I am grateful for my popcorn ceilings. 

They always held me, as they always held the rain. 

Writing is another kind of marriage. It is a relationship. 

Say to your writing on the day of your vows, “I will love you in sickness and in health,” and it will say the same to you, sickness and health. And it will say to you, “I don’t ask for much. A few hours in the mornings or evenings. A rested and sober mind. Healthful foods and a little exercise to stay clear. A stack of books that I may never finish. And dash of faith and a little elbow room to surprise us both from time to time.”

And like any marriage, some days the other will earn a little more to support the other, and some days the other will have to do their part a little more. Just as I supported my writing early on, saying, “I will work this bar job for a few years, I will cater this or that event to bring in some money for a little food, for a room where you can find quiet hours to do whatever you want to do,” she will sometimes say to me (my writing is definitely a she) “buckle up, my love, I’m going to take you to see the world, and if you want you can finally buy those headphones you’ve been eyeing for the last year.”

And then on the other end of that season, she’ll come to me and say, “Well, it looks like there won’t be a renewal on my project, so I’m not sure what’s next. We saved a little though, and I will try to make something else in the meantime.” 

And I say, “okay, my love, I will return to teaching as much as I can, and I’ll do my best to provide those few hours a day for you in the mornings or the evenings so you can do whatever it is you want to do. And now that I’m teaching, maybe you can sit in from time to time and learn from my students, or share what you know with them, too.”

And then one day she comes to me and says, “my love, I found something, but it isn’t going to make much money. Are you mad?”

And I say, “No. What is it?”

And then she tells me, “Actually, this one might end up costing us money.”

And I say, “Are you sure this is the next one?”

And she nods, yes. 

And I smile and tell her that I trust her, and that I’ll make sure she has her time and hours to do it. 

“All I need,” she says, “is a few hours in the morning or the evening, a rested and sober head, a downed internet connection, healthful foods and a little exercise for clarity, books… and maybe this time? A few hundred dollars, maybe more, for a stack of paper, envelopes, postage stamps, a website. Is that okay?”

How can I say no? So I say yes.

Come what come will. Let’s have an adventure and be wrong as often as we are right.

https://www.boardaghost.com/

here we are now, entertain us

Perhaps now is as good of a time as any to reflect on what it is like to feel stupid and contagious. 

This week was the twenty-sixth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death. On April 8, 1994 A VECA employee found Cobain’s body when he arrived to install security lighting. The coroner concluded that Cobain died on April 5 from a gunshot wound. On April 10 fans held a memorial at Seattle Center vigil where a recording played of Courtney Love reading a portion of the suicide note aloud. Kurt opened the letter with a salutation to Boddah, his childhood imaginary friend. He closed it with a Neil Young lyric, “it’s better to burn out than fade away” which Love resolutely warned her listeners to not adhere to because , as she put it, “it’s a fucking lie.”

What is there to say about Kurt Cobain's death that 26 years of revision has not already uttered? Well, last week Pearl Jam released their newest album Gigaton. And when Cobain’s contemporaries are still making work it's hard not to wonder what he'd be making today. Eddie Vedder's voice always draws me back to my adolescence. 

Joan Didion recommends that we stay on nodding terms with our former selves, lest they show up unannounced one day strapped with a bomb on their vest and a list of demands. I can picture my former self, maybe 13, holding in my hands finally the album TEN. There's a slight crack on the jewel case. I nod to him often. 

In those days the luxury of a Compact Disc was in the ease of skipping songs. And though we didn’t know it, the CD was the last audio medium to truly give meaning to the term album and the pairing of artwork and music like a cut of medium-rare Kobe with a young Tempranillo. The concept of album is now only a concept. Listening to an album from start to finish is not just a pastime of our youth, it is a pastime entirely foreign to newer generations. We once only listened to the music we could buy or else borrow. We’d listen to even the forgettable songs that we have not thought of in years. I think back to that boy in his wallpapered room— he hasn't thrown out his Legos yet, nor developed a taste for coffee, but here he was listening to “Jeremy” the album’s sixth track, about a young boy who shows up at school with a gun and shoots himself in front of the class as a response to being bullied. It's morbid nostalgia to think that a school shooting once only involved a suicide and not a murderous rampage first. Today Eddie Vedder would have to pen a different song about Jeremy where the business end of the gun was first turned on the world. 

And this brings me to TikTok—Generation Z's answer to escaping existential malaise. In this quarantine- and yes “this” because I fear there will be several more installments of quarantine— I decided out of two-parts curiosity, one-part boredom, and one heaping dose of procrastination, to download the latest sensation application. I expected to be befuddled and confused as I was when I ran a similar experiment with Snapchat a year ago. Instead, on my first tour through the app, I found no barriers to entry as long as I knew how to swipe my thumb. I passed enough time for a full PT Anderson film to barrel through one wall of my apartment and out the other.

TikTok is an impossible conflagration of sex and cleverness driven mainly by Generation Z and I found myself unable to look away. Upon arrival I was summarily served to a thirty second video of a teenage girl sitting shotgun in a parked car while her mother was in the driver’s seat, aloof to the prank about to be pulled: The girl began lip syncing to Mulatto’s verse on the song Nasty Nasty— “I like em nasty, suck on that di%k without asking…” The mother in the video reacts, horrified, and tries to grab the phone to shut it off, the teenage girl laughs and continues the lyrics, “He put his thumb in…” and then the video starts over. It’s possible that the video was staged, but it is tempting to believe it is real. I find myself in the mother’s shoes, watching her daughter make innuendo for a broad audience of strangers on the internet, trying to stop her from doing it. But staged or not, the teenage girl was doing something right, at least in the currency of social media, if such a thing exists. The video has over one million likes. To issue a like all you have to do is touch the heart with your thumb. To move on, you merely have to swipe up.

I spent half the length of Boogie Nights swiping up.

As I scrolled, I began to understand the pattern at work: See Something, Do Something. I found a series of 15 second videos which promised to teach me four simple moves in order to learn an optical illusion shuffle dance to a mesmerizing beat. It looked simple enough, even my two left feet could handle it. Of course, what the fifteen second tutorial omits is that it is really helpful to have years of dance experience to execute the steps. 

Then I found another popular series where a girl smiles at the camera for about ten seconds as a rave song plays in the background, and at the ninth second the lyrics moan an ecstatic “mmmyeah” which the girl lip syncs to while grabbing her hair and rolling her eyes in the back of her head, feigning orgasmic pleasure. The video ends and instantly begins again. 

The videos were not all sexual, many were impossibly clever. A teen would tape their iPhone to a drill to create a spinning effect, or else tape their iPhone to the inside of a dryer, or they might pull a prank on their parents. The video that recurs the most is of a girl walking into the frame wearing a robe or sweatpants, hair in a bun, and when the beat of the music drops, she jumps. When she lands she is now fully dressed, hair done, and make-up applied. It’s a clever way of showing the costumes we put on to express ourselves. 

TikTok quickly learned that I spend a lot of time on the dog videos, and so gave me more of what I craved. A dog staring at the camera, jowls all adroop, with the FaceTime tone ringing and a caption explaining to whom and for what purpose the pup is making the call— “calling dad because my tennis ball is under the couch” or “calling mom because dad flipped my ears back and won’t put them back.” These, I could watch all day. And if not careful, I might.

Finally I found videos of a ping-pong ball traveling through a maze of dominoes and hairdryers traversing a two story house and ending up miraculously on the billiard table sinking an eight ball. 

It is all pornography. No, not pornography. It’s a pornography compilation with the burdensome foreplay and pillow talk trimmed on the cutting room floor. Videos that take David Mamet’s maxim taken to the last possible degree: get in at the last possible moment, get out faster.

I’m still amazed how quickly time passes on these applications. Undeniably, it is a drug, and one that is quite powerful. And like any powerful drug, while under its spell I feel a temporary lift on the ban of immortality. In those moments I cease to age. I can pretend I still have time ahead of me and anything is possible. I can become beautiful in a single leap. Somewhere in the dim recesses of mind, I know I cannot, but that “cannot” is not so loud anymore, not so present.

Visiting Instagram an hour later felt like visiting MySpace in 2010. The images did not move, nor tantalize, nor reveal or impress. It felt like AM radio after a concert. A cup of decaf at seven in the morning. It felt much like what it feels to hold a cracked jewel case of Pearl Jam’s TEN and think, “without a CD player, do I still have use for this?” The answer might be yes, but why then does the compact disc remain in a plastic bin in my closet?

The easiest thing in the world for me to do would be to pass critical judgment on this new phenomenon. I can toss a stone and hit a dozen studies that show that social media use is crippling the mental health of young people. I imagine TikTok, which is Instagram on amphetamines, will only increase or amplify these findings. The harder thing for me to do would to become curious, to ask why this application is taking off with the new generation.

When authorities first announced the quarantines, they advised us using the terminology, “Shelter In Place.” This, understandably, caused some trauma for Generation Z who has been practicing “Shelter In Place” exercises for years in the event of a “Jeremy” at their school. This was quickly re-branded to“Shelter-At-Home.” And for a Generation to be told they are no longer safe at school and now no longer safe outside their homes, I understand their resistance to foreplay. Time is short. Get to the point.

Or maybe things haven’t changed as much as we think. The 13 year old in the wallpapered room also holds a tape cassette purchased at a Walmart outside of Little Rock. No crack in the plastic. On the cover is a smiling baby floating in a pool, unaware that he will drown in the coming minutes if not for help from without. Cobain paints the picture on Side A in the opening stanza of the anthem of my generation:

Load up on guns, bring your friends

It's fun to lose and to pretend

She's over-bored and self-assured

Oh no, I know a dirty word.

I should be on a silent meditation retreat right now, and yet here we are...

I should be on Day 4 of a Ten Day Vipassana Retreat in the desert. Instead I’m on Day 25 of Self-Isolation. Breath in… and breath… oh god, oh god… choking… oh god…

I’m trying to map my level of alarm onto my 2020 calendar.

When exactly did I start taking the virus seriously as it pertains to my day to day? And when— perhaps we are all asking ourselves this— should I have taken it seriously?

On a scale from 1 to 10. 1 being mostly consumed with day to day bullshit, making sure I’m up to date on my stupid podcasts, the primary election, washing my hands— “meh— when I get around to it.” And 10 being where the majority of your day is driven or challenged by the virus. Level 10 also includes perks such as navigating anxiety attacks, terrible sleep patterns, Lady M level hand washing, and panic-binge-reading commentary on the Imperial College report, running the long distance social distance marathon. I’ve been at a 10 for a little over three weeks.

I pin point 3/11 as the day the shit really hit the fan— at least in my corner of the world. I remember it well because it was the night of my theatre company’s Gala at the Formosa Cafe. We’d been planning it for almost a year and we had a very exciting cabaret night in store for donors and friends. We rolled out the piano and imported the Marie’s Crisis/Don’t Tell Mama’s vibe directly from the West Village into West Hollywood.

When I arrived that night I was already trembling at a level 6.8 slash 7. We got there early to set up and learn the sign-in system and the app to buy raffle tickets and go over the agenda for the evening. Everyone had different thoughts on how serious we should take the virus. Some weren’t worried at all, others were already practicing elbow bumping in place of hugs, some folks straight up declined to show. But before orientation was over our phones vibrated with the news that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson were infected by COVID-19. And then just a few minutes after that we learned that the NBA cancelled its season, which was awkward because one of our hot ticket auction items was season tickets to the Clippers. As our first patrons arrived Trump was giving his first flame-out address to the nation about the pandemic.

I washed my hands and put on a pair of surgical gloves for the rest of the night. It was a fun night. We sang Broadway songs over a piano. The open bar kept everyone properly sauced and dancing. A photo booth shined in the corner, documenting what would end up feeling like the last night of the world.

The next morning I would take out the N95 mask I bought a year ago in Thailand. I would search for the mini-bottles of hand sanitizer my sister puts in my Christmas stocking each year as a joke. I’m unbelievably impressed that I didn’t throw them out. (Thank you, Courtney).

That was when level 10 began. That was when I started counting Clorox wipes, not sheep, to find sleep. That was Day 1.

I rewind the tape from there…

The latter part of the prior week I was at a level 6. I normally go to yoga 3-4 times a week, but in the lead-up week to the shit hitting the fan I only went once because I was concerned that yogis might be shedding virus all over the locker rooms and studio. The one time I did go I brought hand sanitizer and tried not to touch my face during class (which is really hard for me because it’s hot yoga and I sweat like a fountain). That night I went to CVS and saw a whole row of Clorox Wipes for sale. I thought, hmm, yeah, I should think about getting more of those.

Dear reader, I did not get more of those.

I was also scheduled to do a reading of my new play at SF Playhouse in the mid-March. I wrote to them asking if they were concerned over the virus and they assured me that things were going ahead as planned. I also wrote the Vipassana Center in Joshua Tree to ask about precautions against the virus. They wrote that they were planning ahead, and sick participants would be asked to leave.

That was the second half of the first week of March. I continue the rewind…

Super Tuesday (3/3) stands out in my memory when my alarm hovered around a cool Level 5. I had the opportunity to vote by mail but I opted to vote in person even though I was starting to worry about group gatherings. I prefer the experience of voting in person, I like thinking that my vote instantly counts. But I figured I’d be in and out. I’ve been voting in my neighborhood for almost a decade and Super Tuesday was the first time I had to wait in line for more than three minutes.

I waited an hour forty-five.

And the guy in front of me in line was coughing every ten minutes or so. I was wary. I knew the virus was on our shores. I tried to keep my distance. I voted on the touch screen, which I felt nervous about. I sanitized my hands right after voting. I turned down an invite to a Super Tuesday watch party.

The weekend before Super Tuesday I registered at about a Level 4. I considered attending the Public Enemy concert downtown at the Bernie Sanders rally. But I decided that a group that large would be a bad idea. But I did attend a small rally where Marianne Williamson spoke on Monday night. For several reasons which I won’t go into right now, I wish I’d done something else that night. I was washing my hands every chance I could already.

Rewinding further…

In the last week of February I had a good, if peripheral, understanding of the toll the virus was taking in the world but I did little to alter my own behavior. As far as I knew it wasn’t in California just yet. More pressing concerns were if Elizabeth Warren would knock Mike Bloomberg on his ass a second time, or if Biden would win South Carolina, and by how much. On February 21st, I went and saw Maria Dizzia’s brilliant turn in What The Constitution Means To Me at the Mark Taper. I even rode the Red Line Subway downtown to see it. Not a single thought to hand sanitizer.

It’s safe to conclude that when I took that subway ride, I was at a level 1.

But when should I have taken it seriously? Instead of Day 25 of self-isolation should I be on Day 50? Which conditions would be necessary for my imagination to sell the immediate adoption of significant daily life changes upstairs to my prefrontal cortex? It appears that the absolutely bonkers death toll in China and Italy were not enough which… um… concerns me about me.

Failure Of Imagination is possibly responsible here. And by that I do mean the collective imagination. I have a lot more to write on the subject, particularly as it concerns Global Warming, but here’s a primer: if we were at all late to act on instituting significant lifestyle changes that carried serious economic downsides not to mention downright pain-in-the ass lack of accustomed conveniences when the wave of death was already rearing its head… then we do not stand a chance against global warming. Full stop. For COVID-19, we should’ve been thinking 2 weeks or a month ahead. We lacked collective imagination to do so. For Global Warming, we need to be thinking a decade ahead. For Global Warming, we are riding the subway on February 21st thinking, yeah, it’s happening, but it’s not here, it’s not worth shutting down the theatre over. Actually, February 21st is probably too charitable. We’re closer to the beginning of March.

What do we do when the time to act is behind us? We hang on. And hope to ride it out. And hope to learn.

But one of the things I cannot do right now is devote substantial energy to following the news. It’s all bad. It’s all bad all the time. And the news pours into every screen every moment of the day. I think about how lucky previous generations were to get their news twice a day— once in the morning, once in the evening. How much healthier it might’ve been.

And health is on the forefront of my mind.

So. While I’m not exactly experiencing higher states of consciousness (most days I’m lucky if I can keep a string of four thoughts together at once) I am trying to do some things to keep me sane.

In lieu of a Vipassana retreat, here are some of the things I’m doing outside of writing and teaching.

What I’m Reading: A Sport And A Pastime by James Salter. This book might be a little too sexy for those currently stranded without a partner. The Guardian praised it as a book where the “sex is as good as the prose.” And yes, you’ll want to spend a lot of time with both.

What I’m listening to: Lo-Fi Hip Hop. Spotify Playlist. This has been an excellent new addition to my writing music. I accidentally clicked on it when it showed up in my IG ads and I kinda just went with it. I’m glad I did.

Podcast Episode: Making Sense. #194 The New Future Of Work. Fascinating conversation with Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress, about remote work (as he calls it “Distributed Work”). As those of us who are still lucky enough to have work we are all scrambling to make remote work work, Mullenweg has been running his companies on a fairly exclusive Remote Work Only for years. He walks you through the 5 levels, and sells the significant upsides of a more autonomous workforce.

Game I’m playing: Inside — excellent horror puzzler. If you haven’t tried the og LIMBO yet, start there. The ending is just WEIRD.

What I’m Watching: One Man, Two Guvnors. If you missed this hilarious play on the big stages, the National Theatre has put out its full production for streaming on YouTube. An excellent laugh.

Hang in there lovelies.

I can’t believe I have to even write these words.

Let me perfectly fucking clear: I voted for and supported Bernie Sanders. But I’m getting my elbows into this pit right now. Stop with the shit against the Warren supporters.

The online cruelty needs to stop right the fuck now.

First of all, NO ONE in Elizabeth Warren’s position would’ve dropped out of the race. Not Bernie, not Biden, not Obama, not JESUS — Politicians drop out for TWO reasons: they are out of cash or their best days are behind them. Those were abso-fucking-lutely the case for Pete and Amy. NEITHER were true for her.

Some polls had her winning Massachusetts, and other polls had her in second place in California and Colorado. She was in play in Texas. In a best case scenario she was poised to take 200 delegates on Super Tuesday. You don’t scrap for 10 months on the hardest stage in the world to get to that point, see those odds, and understand the leverage those odds bring when you are fighting tooth and nail for things you believe in with your whole heart and then just throw in the towel. She wasn’t a Bernie surrogate, she was Elizabeth fucking Warren.

And she had 29 million CASH on hand from (among other things) her SPECTACULAR MORTAL KOMBAT take down of Mike Bloomberg (which, btw, Joe Biden — and the rest of us — owes her a big fat THANK YOU for). Even without her Super PAC, she took in a gargantuan February haul. She was PAID.

And yes, her “path” likely involved a contested convention, and she said she’d take it there, but if you’ve ever been in a negotiation once in your life you don’t hedge your own opening. Of course she said it, she had to say it. Bernie said it once upon a moon! It wasn’t the convention she needed to get to, it was the next election, and the next debate when she could shine again— when it would be just her and two men on the stage. And she would’ve brought a tarp, a bucket, and a hammer. Actually, spite her enough and she just might stay in until that debate, just for the show.

With polls and cash like that NO ONE DROPS OUT.

Second of all — if you think ALL OF HER SUPPORTERS would’ve jumped ship to Bernie, then YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND WARREN’S SUPPORT. Her whole point was that she was able to present a progressive platform for progressives and progressive-curious. And she was DOING IT. Supporters like her not because she is “female Bernie” or some nonsense, they like her because she is an extraordinary politician, and fucking sharp, they like that she follows up talk with plans, and she’s a pragmatic progressive, and unifying, and could crack heads. Not all of her supporters were warm on the idea of political revolution, if you can believe it. If you have serious doubts that a bunch of her support would've gone straight to Biden, given the options a day before Super Tuesday, then you don’t really understand her supporters.

In fact, on Monday, some of her support probably DID slip to Biden.

And can we talk for a fucking minute about BIDEN? This dude out-performed every single expectation he had. This should give any progressive a gracious moment of pause. Without spending a single dime, without a single campaign office in some states, with precisely ZERO ground game, Biden crushed BOTH Bernie and Warren.

Can we talk for a minute about how Biden is actually winning? And that he did something really spectacular? Biden’s outsized performance has nothing to do with the wonderful and smart voters who backed a once in a life-time candidate.

For all the progressive talk about how the 1% pits the 99% at war with each other to take our eye off the ball, we sure seem to forget what color our fucking jersey is right now.

Stop the shit.

Lest we prove the world right that the real goal here is not to win but only to divide.

Eve Ensler said at the Sanders rally in San Jose this week — perhaps a little too charitably — that we should break the myth of the Bernie Bro. She said — with roaring passion — that the men she’s met in this movement are kind, and gracious, and open, and wonderful.

Can we please act like it?

My “Sober January” experiment of 2018 has officially rolled over into yet another year.  

When asked why I am not drinking I now demure some version of,  “I’ll probably have a beer again someday, but just not now.”  Most of the time I feel that I am serious about this claim. But now that two years have passed I suspect I might not be telling the whole truth.

A year ago I posted that my 2018 sobriety had surprised me.  I hadn’t planned it.  I just rolled over one month into ninety days, into six months, into a year.  I didn’t have a lot of *reasons* on hand to run this experiment.  Instead, the reasons gathered *as* I ran it.

In 2019 I was a little more conscious of how nicely another year would stack atop the former.  Part of my reason to  abstain from alcohol was to square this personal game of jenga.  

But as I waded through my second year without a single hangover other reasons gathered around me.   I did some math on the difference between a year with a couple mild hangovers here and there and a year without them at all. 

I found that Thirty Calendar Days went back in my pocket. 

I'll explain. 

Here’s the thing: I still believe I’m a “Grey Area Drinker.”  I wrote last year that I didn't necessarily identify as an alcoholic.  The line isn’t terribly bright for me.  I’ve attended AA meetings in the past, and though I find them extremely powerful, I wasn’t sure they were for me.    

What is a Grey Area drinker?  Well, some might call this high functioning alcoholism. Another definition might hear this refrain a few times: “Yeah, I should probably cut back.”  For me?  I don’t like having just one drink but I also don’t like having ten drinks.   I like having three to five drinks.  That’s my sweet spot.  

And I really prefer five.  

I didn’t often wake up in a ditch or going 65 on the freeway, but I did often wake up feeling not my best, and occasionally with my clothes and lights still on.

The “Grey Area” of an appetite for three to five drinks usually puts me into some hangover the next morning, however light, however gone-by-noon-ish-funk, however just-a-little-hungry, blah, no-big-deal, fine-by-afternoon, I-got-this.

These mild, light, “barely noticeable” hangovers really don’t feel like a big deal.  And taken singularly, they probably aren’t a big deal.

Here’s the but.

Even if I only do this twice a week, this means in one year I will have (52 weeks x 2) 104 mornings that are low energy, low emotional intelligence, higher irritability, which usually means slightly higher stress.

Again, taken alone, each of these is probably not a big deal.

But morning til a little after noon is about one-third of my day.  And when I add up all the twice a week small hangovers as a third of my day, by the end of the year I have spent (104 x .33) one calendar month in mild hangover.

And this equation does not account for the large hangovers that invariably come throughout the year.  Nor the hours spent numb or buzzed.

That is thirty-some days blown in blah.  One month out of the year where potential is blunted.

I keep saying “I’ll have a drink again one day.”  And part of me believes it.  I’m kinda waiting for the right event.   The right time.   The right reason.

But also, in 2019, I flew to Bangkok for my first ever Red Carpet Premiere of a TV Series I wrote for Netflix.  At the after party,  surrounded by a warm and supportive team that came together to celebrate a show a year and a half in the making, they were handing out champagne.  There was an open bar.   I passed.  I enjoyed soda water and looked forward to a clear-headed and long bubble bath in the beautiful tub in my room upstairs later.  

I’m finding almost everything is better with a clear head.

If I didn’t drink a glass of champagne at my first premiere then I honestly am not sure what the right occasion— what the appropriate reason— will be for me to crack open a drink again.  Perhaps my own wedding?  But also, why then?  Why that moment?

And it got me thinking that the drink itself is the event.  Recall Paul Giamatti at the end of Sideways drinking his 1961 Château Cheval Blanc in the styrofoam cup while shoveling fast food in his mouth.

There are really no reasons to drink, except to drink.  No event is intrinsically linked with alcohol.   We can just be damn clever with our associative brain power to make sure we can revisit that event often if we happen to like the event of drinking.   And the residue of doing this (if you, like me, happen to enjoy three to five) is the next morning when the direct result of that event is that we feel ”I’ll be fine” or ”just a little out of it” or ”just didn’t sleep well but I took a tylenol.”  

I’m finding I quite like doing things sober.  It’s nice to walk into a bar to meet friends and not worry about lugging a fifty-dollar-including-tip tab with me on my way out.  (The price of a gd IPA these days, sheesh!)   Eating out also becomes slightly more affordable again.  I drive whenever I damn well please.  Coffee is fantastic.  I was lucky enough to have a lot of set days this year next to beautiful beaches.  I got up every single morning to watch the sunrise when I normally would’ve been sleeping off a couple beers.  At my physical this year my cholesterol was lower than it has ever been— and alcohol is the only thing I’ve adjusted in my diet.  

My recommendation is the same as last year: if you’ve ever thought about giving the sauce a rest, you really only stand to gain.   

Run the experiment.  Roll a Dry January into a dry 90 days. There are a lot of companies that take a lot of your money by keeping you in a month of hangovers each year. Take some of it back.  

Run the experiment.  If you have no problem abstaining, that will tell you something.   And if it ends up being harder than you thought, well that's good intel also. And along the way you might enjoy the extra days you pick up in your pocket.

According to this app tracker I keep, I have saved about $6,000 and over 1400 hours over the two years.   The six grand is great.  But I really look at the 1400 hours.  That’s two months.  Time is our only non-renewable resource.  Consider where it goes.

In April, just before the Cambodian New Year, I found myself approaching Angkor Wat before dawn.  The starlit sky gave way to indigo and then over to sunrise as the ancient ruins emerged out of darkness in a golden wash. 

In July, I met my niece.

For both of these moments I was fully, completely there.  And those are just a couple good reasons to wait on that next drink.

Happy New Year.

Autumn is always a difficult season for me to write. I’m not exactly sure why— it is my favorite season. But I do have a few ideas. It could be a combination between the baseball playoffs and political elections that cause such distraction. It could be that the days get shorter and anxiety grows over how to spend your waking hours. Or— and I’m not at all against this possibility— the daemon which occasionally visits my desk checks out for the month of Halloween, and doesn’t bother to come back for the holidays. 

Even as long as I’ve been doing this, it still feels like every now and then I have to relearn the lesson of going slowly, writing poorly and being okay with it, that a day spent writing things that aren’t ever going to make the draft is so much better spent than a day banging my head against the wall over an idea until I’m exhausted and drawing sweeping and faulty conclusions about myself— not just the quality of the work— but of my actual self. 

Last week, The Scriptnotes podcast had an excellent segment on how to decide whether you need to drill down and keep your back to the wheel, or if you really need to step away from work. Both, as John and Craig explain, can be traps. “Tough Love” can masquerade as self-loathing and punishment. “Self-Care” can masquerade as excuses to never actually work. 

Most of the time, most of us are probably pretty good at telling the difference of what we need and when. But if you’re like me, and these autumn leaves bring uncertainty, I found this list of questions to be a wonderful guidepost. 

And it sent me back into one of my most productive weeks I’ve had since summer ended. 

Thanks, John and Craig. 

In time for Halloween.

It's up on your Netflix.  Add to your list!

This is the series I spent the last year working on in Thailand.  It's officially announced!  NOVEMBER 15!

(An Ode To Grandpa Jack Key, for his memorial)

The first thing you need to do is find a piece of wood shaped like wishbone. It might be out there in the backyard of your grandson’s home. You go out there for a while beneath the redwood tree and search the sticks in the yard and sift through the tree droppings on the ground. If you come up short, you lean against the cinderblock wall, and take out your pocketknife, and put the long blade against whatever piece of wood you did find and peel back the layers of bark, letting ribbons of redwood curl at your feet, as the smooth and pale bone below unsheathes itself. Sometimes you don't find that perfect wishbone right away. You have to sit and wait for a while. It'll show up eventually. That's the first thing about making a slingshot. Patience. And pocket knife comes in handy.

You might walk along Route 66 in Oklahoma to find the wishbone, or else drive drive a Ford Pickup Truck issued by the Oil Company in an all-night blitz across the Texas Panhandle to arrive the oil fields outside of San Antonio. You check into your motel at night after a day’s work. If you didn’t find the wishbone atop the oil rigs that day, maybe you'll find it hanging from the stars as you step outside and light the good end of a Viceroy cigarette and take a pull, still smelling of sweat, and oil, your name on the day’s work.

If you're going to make a perfect slingshot it's a good idea to enlist in the Army at 17. You’ll want to learn how to clean and fire an M1 rifle. You’ll board a ship bound across the Atlantic and you'll fall asleep listening to the boom of the bough against the water. As you dream, you hear the ship carving a straight line through the Atlantic. The motion will teach you how to work a blade. 

And you can sometimes find the wishbone buried in your backbone. And maybe you’ll toe the Morgan Line outside of Trieste where your backbone will cut its teeth. You turn into the army barracks one night and hear Bing Crosby on the radio singing I’ll Be Home For Christmas. And maybe that’s when you feel lonely, and you know, all the way across the world, that the wishbone might be back in Oklahoma somewhere. You turn down an offer for a promotion so you can head back to familiar Route 66. 

And on the way back, with little rank, you join the stage manager in the theater troupe on the ship in order to get out of KP and latrine duty. Bargain for meal tickets on the deck. You carve that redwood bark from end to end arriving back in Oklahoma and going to a high school basketball game. That's when you see a blond girl on the bleachers and you say “Sally is that you?”

And the next time you drive the Ford Pick Up Truck back from Texas you drive up and down main street trying to get the attention of that blond girl selling movie tickets. Show up at the high school dance dressed in a suit, a war behind you. Hold hands with the blond girl as her date sulks in the corner. You work for her mother as a typist and one night you take her mother on a drive and ask for her daughter’s hand in marriage. Her mother tells you that she'll have to fire you as the typist if she's to gain you as a son-in-law. Accept.

If you plan to get married in the afternoon, show up to work the oil fields anyway. Climb the oil tower and let your boss walk down and yell at you “to go home and shower because, son, isn't this your wedding day?” After you walk down the aisle, hop into a car and get out of dodge as soon as you can to avoid the good ol’ boys from tying you to a tree on your wedding night. You Honeymoon for only one night in a motel with no air conditioning. 

Have twin boys and a little girl and a dog named Tippy Boots. Pack your family in a 57 Chevy pulling a trailer and set out for California just like the Joad's in The Grapes Of Wrath. The road to California carves like the Atlantic, only the Chevy drives a little more steady.

The other part about making a slingshot is that you need a good rubber band. You need elasticity, and the willingness to stretch yourself. You get laid off Christmas Eve and come home to your family with a bottle of champagne in lieu of severance. Listen to Bing Crosby again. But this time it’s not so lonely.

Wait for the new year and then get a job at the post office where they have plenty of rubber bands to work that elasticity. Walk your route for 26 years. Take a few dog bites in the leg. This is the hard part— walking that route. Carrying, daily, that bag of love letters, bills, junk, invoices— be the conduit for mass communication of the world. Notch your knees into that great wheel, and with each turn grind them a little more to dust. Give up smoking while you're at it. Put safety pins in your breast pocket instead of The Viceroys. 

Lean on the backbone. Rest your knees when you can. Retire one day, by the ocean, a proud a union man.

Give your grandson a pocketknife and walk the backyard with him. Wait for the redwood to drop the wishbone. Don’t tell him of patience. Show him. And while you wait teach him how to open the knife, where the sharp end of the blade is, where the thumb should go, teach him to whittle. How to peel back a shield, little at a time, how it turns into curled ribbons at your feet. 

And when the redwood finally drops the wishbone pick it up, and admire it. And you’re ready. You put your blade to it. 

Wait for the post man to arrive with a pack of rubber bands.

Replace one knee. Then the next. With every visit to the hospital, inform the doctor that you plan to be around for a long time. Prove yourself right. 

And in your last days, as your grandson helps you from your easy chair into your bed on the night of your 90th birthday, tell him you hate to be a burden. Listen closely as he tells you that a man who gave so much to so many people could never be a burden. That his presence has only ever been relief. Smile with gums and teeth, and tell him goodnight.

And as you close your eyes know that you have tied well the bands of rubber onto the ends of the wishbone. That you have told him to be Careful. To Keep his hands steady and to never aim at people or animals. When your grandson asks what a slingshot is for, you close one eye, and pull back your good hand, and you let go… you release… fire into the air, and watch… as it keeps going higher and higher… out of sight… another star joining the firmament twinkling down on us… always… and with light.

A disgraced king walks off the mound, one hand hiding his soiled seat, the other shielding his eyes from the stadium lights searching for tears which threaten to fall. Two batters, 2 home runs. A crown left shimming in the dirt.

The former king, shut out from shelter by his daughters in the eighth, rides with deserting knights into the storm. The longest off-season he will ever know. He will spend winter in the hovel, holding a mock-trial for two pitches which exposed him beyond his days. The mighty redwood has fallen, chopped by Father Time and an underdog wildcard team who barely broke 90 games. He takes the bench and does not move. He knows his arm wanes like a moon, the crescent falling below the western foothills. 

The fans file out. A traffic jam won't be worth watching the bloodbath. His jersey is flattened on the pavement for cars to roll their tires over. The 31 million a year witch, burned not only on the mound, but at at the mound at The Ravine, his home.

The wildcard underdogs snap their photo on the same mound where he lost it all. A technician reaches for the light switch and darkness falls over the field. A quiet car drives him out from under the bowels of the stadium. The mansion the king walks into is held together by other giants, once felled, slaughtered, and repurposed to serve other kings, to await a brush fire or the cold and sickly rot of insects and bacteria, and time.

The Ravine will make a man and unman him in the same walls. Some say that it is just a game, but The Ravine knows better, the game is a test, and it is brutal, and everyone loses.

The Ravine is ground carved by meteors, and an unearthly energy flows from its soil. A disgruntled fan might dig below the stadium and find burial grounds, unsettled vendettas, ancient wrongs that control the destinies of men who've dared to tread the field; ghosts rise up and move the infinitesimal finger mechanics on the leather, and a low and inside goes high and in the zone for a meatball struck like lightning over the gate, a shooting star which deposes thrones, which shows clear the limits of mortal bone, and how Time always goes undefeated in the game.

The Ravine is full to the brim of secrets. Soaked into the green are the many misplacements of lost fathers, of settled-for lives, abandoned hopes, failed love, emotions too terrible to shake outside the walls of The Ravine. And here they are emptied onto the shoulders of men whom we beg to perform inhuman acrobatics, navigate chess at 100 miles per hour, and master the grip of a sphere— that is to say the whole world— stitched with a crooked equator, fingers nestled at each of the tropics. And when they fail, they shake these fetters from their shoulders, the soil of The Ravine swallows them whole, pitchforks are lit, and effigies rolled over tire by tire in the parking lot, like tanks desecrating a statue of a despot.

The Ravine knows that evil comes here to be tried. And some men, cursed by ghosts below, personify the unspoken words meant for a father gone, for the once-promised life destroyed by a few bad genes, for potential ruined by circumstance, for the darkness searching for light, these men are a repository for the shattered emptiness of existence; they are the chip rails for an emotional investment in chaos— the infinite unseen variables that outcome are heir to—the tightened fists on an armrest which try to land safely a plane rocked by turbulence; the anguished mind leaping out into nothingness shouting “God Save The King!” for they know nothing else will.

And when chaos roars, we leave The Ravine feeling empty, robbed, broken, racked by gnashing. And yet we also feel righteous in what we knew all along, that the prophets and sages were right, that life is empty, stolen, imperfect, and full of suffering. God did not save the King, God has forsaken us and now someone must be sent to the guillotine that we may feel some nudge of control over the wilderness.

The Ravine holds blood, not emptied since 1988, and it holds grudges, and fears. This is what is meant by a pitcher “on the mound.” A mass grave ready to blow the sorrows of the world over the fence; the hill which raises kings and severs them, publicly, in two pitches, two stars shot into the yard, two bolts of lightning high in the zone, hanging fruit plucked out of thin air to be swallowed whole, the seeds spat out by your rival onto your headstone.

The Ravine rests for the winter. The great beast without reverence or hope turns its belly over to digest the charnel and carrion, knowing its place and service to the world.

The coldest October 

They could remember,

And shortest.

What a thing 

To catch lightning

And miss.

In the seventh

You’re loved

And in the eighth,

Loathed.

A fight breaks out,

An ace pitcher weeps.

We skulk away

And talk of curses,

What we must do next season,

As if we ever had a say.

The gods must love 

The game. 

@ Dodger Stadium

Today marks 10 years of my daily practice of morning pages. If I have missed a day, I’m unaware of it. On days when the alarm clock broke, I did it later. On days when that became impossible I made it up the next day by doing double. Three pages or a half hour. Non-stop writing, non negotiable. It has become my little church, my tiny temple. More and more I’m a convert to the extraordinary power of small and constant acts.

I came across The Artist’s Way in the Brooklyn Library. I was dubious but it stayed in my bag for a week. I was seeing dead ends, half starts, bad jobs, and on one particularly devastating night on my Brooklyn rooftop I took inventory. Something needed to change. I went downstairs and read the first few chapters of the book, eyes rolling. ”Some of my students have done morning pages for a decade...” yeah right. But I set out a new journal and decided to try it first thing the next morning anyway. I had nothing to lose.

My heroes never needed a self help book on creativity. What failing did I possess that I needed one? These made up the laments of my first entry. I opened the journal the next day and did it again. I played along with the ruse, doing the book’s exercises, the check ins. “Get ready for radical shifts...” it warned. More eye rolling.

Within two weeks I was let go from my dead end golden handcuff job. I’d take side jobs landscaping rooftop gardens in Manhattan instead. I met a therapist on the upper west side I still see to this day. I pulled a lousy one-act out of the trash and would spend the next six months reworking it until it found a theatre, which today is my artistic home. By the autumn I’d left New York and was enrolled in a graduate school that would change my life.

I've come to these pages under-slept, hung over, sick, I wrote when the wind was fucking with the paper, on international flights where the hour of “morning” was unclear, in a tent deep in the Sierras, I wrote riding shotgun. They taught me to find rest while making something. .

Here is approximately 3 million words (Ten large novels). 1800 hours. 55 pounds of paper, filled front and back.

But this is not writing. No. It’s the patter of track shoes at dawn.  These are the folds in a bullpen catcher’s mitt. Here is the slide of petty detritus from which the occasional song arises. Here is where the apology, the business plan, and Act Two come to work themselves out. Here is the celluloid on the editing floor. The sawdust and scrap below the table. Here is indulgence in judgements and crank, bad moods, complaints, and my worst, so I can get onto my best. I often wrote while my coffee cooled, always to my left.

Julia Cameron taught me to rest at the page. Along the way I learned what a great poet once said of making— to trust that there is still time. And if there isn't time, that's okay too.

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As the sun passes from Pieces into Aries, so the new solar year begins, and so does the celebration of the New Year in Thailand. Songkran derives from a Sanskrit word meaning “to pass or move into.” The ritual of sprinkling water on statues of Buddha during this holiday as well as pouring water on the elderly and young to wash away the bad luck of the year is what gave way to the largest water fight on planet earth— the Songkran Festival in Chiang Mai. For three days (April 13-15) from noon til dusk restaurants set out large tubs and coolers full of water and city dwellers and tourists arm themselves with buckets and water guns. Others climb into the bed of a truck with a tub of water and splash anyone passing by. Woe to those who do not have their phones and wallets wrapped in watertight containers. There is little chance of not getting drenched, even in the back of a passing Tuk Tuk (poor souls, they were utterly defenseless). And why not? It’s also the hottest time of year. A splash or ten on your back is more than welcome. The tradition is not without controversy. Traffic fatalities double during this holiday. Public drunkenness is rampant. And I’m not sure where all these thousands of newly bought plastic water guns will end up in several days. But it was hard to not feel a joyous shout from the echoes of my twelve year old self as I stood my post on Rajvithi Road with new friends who greeted me with an ice cold hosing and as I sprayed my water gun and threw buckets of water at hundreds of passing strangers. And when dusk fell and the last drops dripped from my hair, you could see all the bad luck on the stones of Old City Chiang Mai streets, newly clean, glistening.

A post shared by christiandurso (@christiandurso) on Apr 16, 2019 at 1:28am PDT

Songkran had started (although technically the Laos new year starts on the 14th. Songkran is Thai, in Laos they call it Bun Pi Mai)

I decided to skip the monks this morning and sleep in until 7. But I made sure to walk to the morning market again and order an espresso from my coffee place which poured a mean Laotian Espresso.

At 9am the town was hosting a ceremony where they had elephants walk through town to the temple. A little before 9am five elephants walked through town with hundreds of tourists trying for good photos. It was very cool to watch. 

After that I checked out of my hotel and arranged a tuk tuk to pick me up at 4:30pm. I watched the first rough cut of The Stranded Pilot in the lobby. And then I went for lunch. As I started out I noticed people walking around with water guns. So I returned and made sure I had the plastic casing for my phone. I’m REALLY glad I did this.

On my way to lunch I crossed this main intersection and a little girl came up to me and dumped a bucket of water in my shoes. Her mother poured water down my neck. I had to laugh, they laughed too. I ordered lunch at a cafe and watched the water wars begin. This was only a small taste of what I’d see the next two days in Chiang Mai.

I went back to the hotel, changed into dry clothes and got in the back of a tuk tuk. 

BUT THE TUK TUK DRIVER HEADED FOR THE WATER FIGHT INTERSECTION!

I thought I’d be okay since I was in a kind of covered tuk tuk like yesterday. Harder to get me.

But nope… since the back was completely open, someone came up behind the truck as we went through the intersection and threw a whole bucket of water onto me in my new clothes and yelled “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” My backpack was soaked too… luckily my laptop was not.

So… THAT’S HOW YOU WANNA PLAY IT???

I arrived to the airport a little wet, but feeling very good. Oh, and even if you fly Economy on Bangkok Airways, you get a lounge!

I wouldn’t call it the Star Alliance lounge, but they had coffee and brownies!

I wrote an ode to Luang Prabang as we took off. I will surely miss this place. 

You can see the main part of town below, 

where the two rivers meet.

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Luang Prabang— Once the capital of Laos, the French withdrew in 1953 but they left behind their cafes, window shutters, and balconies. And though the United States dropped more bombs — many of which have yet to detonate— on Laos in the 60’s and 70’s than in all of Europe in WWII, I hear only peace: Where the Nam Khan river pays tribute to the Mekong, each morning before dawn the city rises to make offerings to the monks in silence. When you start your day like this, and continue to the morning market for mangos and coffee and coconut rice cakes, it’s not a wonder why your narrow streets—which murmur and do not bustle— beckon the heart to meander before settling into its bedrock. The air is hazy as farmers burn their land in preparation for the monsoon season, weeks away, to renew their crop. “The land of a million elephants” now has less than 800. I walked with five of them on the morn of the Lao new year. In the afternoon a little girl comes up to me and pours a bucket full of water into my shoes and says, “Happy New Year.” I count my resolutions carefully. At night, the murmur dims to make room for thoughts, the cafes close early— there is another offering to be made again tomorrow— and strings of light shimmer off the river. The stones in the temple sidewalks also absorb the faint glow in the night silence, and I try to do the same when I close my eyes as the plane sweeps me away into the air.

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Or, DO go chasing Waterfalls.

David and Lynn and I hired a Tuk Tuk driver for the day to take us up to see Kuang Si Falls.  Along the way we stopped at a Buffalo Farm where I got to milk my first water buffalo.  Then we stopped at the Elephant Camp, which did not seem to be a sanctuary, so I only opted to feed the elephant (though the place offered Elephant Rides, which I declined to take).

After that we headed up to the falls right as the day was getting hot.

The entrance to the trail was at the top of this small hill with vendors on either side. Lynn kindly paid for our entrance tickets and we walked in. The driver had given us towels to take with us from the hotel. Very nice service.

The first stop after you enter the trail is a BEAR SANCTUARY. Now this is a proper Bear Sanctuary, mostly for Black Bears who were part of Bear baiting or else injured or tortured. They get to live out their days in the cool jungle by a beautiful waterfall.

I also ran into Joe and Jodi for yet a third time. Small tourist town, you keep running into people. He was still wearing the Nevada Wolf Pack shirt. He said he wore it again the next day after meeting me and ran into someone else who knew about the team. So he said he was going to keep wearing it.

Jodi rolled her eyes, “I keep telling him he can’t wear the same shirt every day.”

It’s a short hike to the waterfalls. The water is blue and beautiful. You’re allowed to jump in and swim. I let David and Lynn go first while I watched our things, then I took my turn. It was by far the coldest water I’d been in in SE Asia, brisk, cool, but not quite chilly like Lake Tahoe. Just enough to give you a thrill, but not enough to give you the shivers.

I have a video of me diving in, might be worth checking my IG account…

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Legend goes, a wise old man was digging into the earth when he uncovered the waters of Nam Si. This revelation created a waterfall and a golden deer made his home under a large rock under the falls. The sound of the water falling on the deer’s home made an enchanting echo which drew people as far away as China to its cool blue pools. “Kuang” means deer. “Si” means dig. And now the sound calls people at least as far away as California.

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It felt so good to dive in and be by the falls. The water was deep, so you could really swim in it. I went up the base of the falls and sat below it and let the water thunder on my skull. Just an incredible moment. 

After that we walked up a little higher to the Upper Falls, which were much more dramatic and picturesque but you couldn’t swim there.

There was a trail which led to the top of the falls. David decided he’d wait for Lynn and I to explore it. Had we known how long it would take we probably wouldn’t have gone all the way to the top. 

But I’m glad that Lynn and I went because we made it all the way to the top. It was a hell of a hike, and switchback after switchback. The whole loop to the top and back took about an hour. Here are some steps along the way that have water running down them. Very slick, must hold the hand rails.

The top of the falls are really just a big quarry. But there was a small cafe up there (man I’d hate to be to poor son of a bitch who has to carry up a case of beer for tourists). 

Lynn and I stopped and chatted with some young folks from Spain. Lynn would be lecturing in Madrid this summer and asked for recommendations of where to go. They were all very nice and one of the gals was from Mexico City, she worked in production, her name was Lisette and she gave me her info— “in case you ever do a film in Mexico!”

Lynn and I took the long, steep steps back to the base of the Upper Falls. We met David who had several Chinese tourists lining up to take photos of him. “Must be my grey hair and my Hawaiian shirt?”

We took the truck back, feeling cool from the falls. As we were passing a small town two sets of children were lined up alongside the road. Less than three seconds after I saw them I was DRENCHED from a bucket of water. Lynn screamed. She was facing me and didn’t even see it coming. In the next second we were NAILED AGAIN from the other side of the road. This time David got soaked. 

We looked out the back of the truck as we sped off. The children were laughing and yelled “Happy New Year!”

Songkran had come a day early, I suppose.

I retired to my room and sat on my porch. And CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT MY PORCH FOR A MOMENT???

I mean… swoon city. A rocking chair? River view? 

That night I went to a Storytelling Theatre where one actor talked about the myths and legends of Laos while a musician played Laotian music. It was wonderful.

I ate at The Elephant again, and took a walk across a Bamboo Bridge, that is only set up during the dry season. When the rains come they have to pack up the bridge as the water gets too high. For their pains they ask 5,000 kip to cross, which is about seventy five cents. 

My last night in my room… and CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT THIS ROOM???

I sat on the porch until quite late sipping tea. I didn’t want it to end. Laos was becoming my favorite place I’d been this whole time in Asia. 

I ran into Joe and Jodi again at the alms walk and their guide took us through the Morning Market which was alive and bustling. The residents of Luang Prabang come here in the morning to collect what they intend to eat that day or evening, it was absolutely bursting with color—

I bought a couple coconut rice pancakes and found a little coffee shop in the middle of the market to sit and do some writing. The Lao coffee is surprisingly amazing.

After walking through town I had breakfast at the hotel and met up with Lan, the hotel manager, who arranged my cooking class for the day. There was a couple who would take the class with me. They were from the Bay Area, David and Lynn. Lan drove us to another market outside of town to talk about the Lao food and the ingredients we were going to use in the class.

This market was much bigger than the Morning Market and it had some gruesome bits in there which are not photographed— namely Buffalo parts, hacked to pieces on a table. 

We returned to the hotel where they’d set up a kind of kitchen along the Nam Khan river.

Lan translated and Noy did the teaching. 

Our menu included:

1. Tom Kha Gai (tofu coconut soup)
2. Som Tam (papaya salad)
3. Gang Pa Nuea (jungle style tofu curry)
4. Gang Buad Fakthong (Pumpkin Coconut Milk dessert)

And they gave us a printout so we can make it on our own when we leave.

And when we were finished they set a table by the river where we enjoyed all four courses. 

The French left Laos in 1953, but they did not take their window shutters, architecture, nor cafe culture with them. At night the streets are lit with glowing stings of bulbs. Modest pubs, French and Laotian restaurants murmur but don’t bustle— at least not now, during the hot, hazy season. In the morning, at first light, drums sound and monks take their morning walk to collect alms. Cafes open and whir, the morning market bustles for a few hours, but then goes away before afternoon. Two rivers converge— the Nan Khan and the Mekong. It’s cooler than Cambodia, cooler than Bangkok. Traffic is light, the food is excellent.

I could stay here for much longer than I have time for at the moment. 

My first morning I woke before dawn to see the monks take their alms walk around the block. This is a ritual called Tak Bat. They leave the temples, and come out by the hundreds in a single, silent line. Buddhists sit along the path and offer alms— usually in the form of sticky rice. The monks take the rice and every block or so there is a basket where the monks deposit anything extra, to return what they’ve been given.

It is quite a beautiful site. 

As I understand it, ill-informed tourists are starting to disrupt this ceremony. You are supposed to dress appropriately, keep a distance, stay silent, if you photograph you cannot use a flash. And if you are not Buddhist you really aren’t supposed to participate in giving of the alms.

But some townspeople have turned this into a cash opportunity. They sell baskets of sticky rice to tourists so they can sit and give alms. Apparently sometimes the sellers are giving away rotten food and monks have been reported sick. To do this appropriately you really are supposed to ask your hotel to prepare sticky rice the night before or else make it yourself. As for myself, I just observed,

The next morning, April 10, I decided to take it easy. I did my routine, had breakfast, packed, took a dip in the pool and said goodbye to my hotel.

I arranged a ride to the airport with the hotel for $8. When I arrived there was some kind of dance performance in full swing IN THE TERMINAL. They sang and played instruments and danced. I watched for a while. It must have something to do with the Khmer New Year. It seemed to tell a story about archers shooting down a horse. The footwork of the dancers was great.

While waiting to board I saw a man wearing a Nevada Wolf Pack shirt. I struck up a conversation about it and it turns out he is from Reno and the woman he was traveling with was from Tahoe City. Joe and Jodi. We got to talking and we boarded a very empty flight.

Joe eventually came up and sat next to me and we talked for a while. He is retired, a former engineer turned into a dentistry practice. Lived in Reno for 20 years. We talked about Tahoe, Reno, Gardnerville, Asia. I ended up losing track of them after we arrived but I’d find them the next day on the street in Luang Prabang. I kind of figured I would.

When we touched down in Laos, the haze was so thick you could cut it with a knife. I could already smell it through the plane. I advised Joe and Jodi to get a mask if they didn’t have one already. I started to regret my plan to go somewhere with awful air. 

As I stood in line to get my Visa on arrival the sky outside grew darker and inside moths gathered around the lights until they formed a cylindrical swirling of chaos. Eventually they reached my neck, my back. I swatted at them. The guards laughed.

“What you call this?”

M-O-T-H. I told them. He looked it up on his phone. “This?” Yes, that. In Lao we call them “Mao.”

I got my passport back— and now my passport has more filled pages than blank pages, not a bad achievement! I tried to wait for Joe and Jodi, but the moths were getting really bothersome, so I found my driver and got out of there.

It was a short drive to my hotel. We crossed the Mekong River and he dropped me off at my hotel— The Burasai Heritage. Right on the river. The hotel has more of a guesthouse feel to it, but my room looks right over the river on the patio. 

I went for a walk to get a vegetarian meal. As I walked I found the little river village town to be decorated in little lights. The streets were narrow, and quiet, and well lit. I passed two temples in two blocks. I felt like I was in Carmel-by-the-sea, without the luxury stores and malls, and any regret I had about coming here vanished. 

The meal was excellent and I stayed on my balcony sipping tea until entirely too late. I have to wear a mask when the haze gets bad, but the lights on the river were worth it.

Tomorrow morning I had to get up early. Hundreds of monks in bright orange robes begin their alms walk at dawn. And I’m going to see it. 

April 9 (cont’d)

At 10am we went back out to the two other main temples around the Angkor Wat area. My guide was worried that “all the Chinese are here now.” And they were. The tour busses were here en masse. My guide re-routed our plan to adjust to the mess.

“First we go to Ta Prohm because all the Chinese are right now at Angkor Thom.”

Ta Prohm is the site of the first university in Asia. The king, Jayavarman VII, was the “greatest king” of the Khmer Empire. He built the most temples of any king — and a king’s greatness was measured by how many temples he could erect. During his reign he built over 100 temples and over one hundred hospitals, and perhaps most significantly-- he built the site of Ta Prohm to include the first university in Asia. They taught and studied everything— math, science, religion, language, astronomy. 

But today Ta Prohm is known for the mysterious trees that have intertwined themselves in the walls. If anyone saw Laura Croft: Tomb Raider, then they’ve seen these strange sights. (Incidentally, Gary was a producer on that film and he came to Cambodia with Angelina Jolie when there was little more than a dirt path. They slept in sleeping bags. And this was about the time when Angelina first adopted a Maddox from an orphanage— in Cambodia. 

But back to the trees. 

The way these trees grow is that birds and the wind drop and deposit seeds on the roofs and walls of the temple. Within the moss of the stones, the seed grows into a sapling. As the roots of the trees grew, they searched, as roots do, for water. They wound down the walls, around the stones, through the walls and roofs. And now they are every bit a part of the temple as the stones and engravings themselves. 

Still today people are lining up massive chunks of stone and marking them by number to figure out where the pieces went. It might be the longest and hardest three dimensional jigsaw puzzle in history— partly because it requires knowledge of history to assemble.

My guide then showed me this small tower: 

He took me inside, and had me stand in the middle. He clapped his hands he made noises with his mouth— nothing. Then he thumped on his chest and the whole tower vibrated in echo. I tried it and it happened again. He told me the idea was that your hands and lips will not reach the gods but they can hear the beating of your heart.

Very cool.

Before we left he showed me this hidden gem—

Peek-a-boo. The tree did this naturally.

ANGKOR THOM

We got back in the car, he handed me a cool rolled towel scented with Lemongrass and a bottle of water (he did this each time we got back to the car). And we headed to our last stop— Angkor Thom.

The above is the entrance to the temple. Four faces, facing each direction. Each face different than the other.

In this photo you can get a sense of all the crumbled stones to the left. Pieces that don’t yet have a place yet. But hopefully they will someday. Also, I waited quite a while to snap this photo. This was the fewest amount of people I could get in it.

I mean, can you believe the amount of time it took to carve these faces into stone, by hand?!

This last photo, my guide said, “Why is that fat woman in the way?” Then she walked in the temple. And he whistled to his guide friend to get out of the shot. I snapped this next one with no one in it— which is pretty incredible.

Shortly after this my guide drove me back to the hotel. I tipped him 100,000 Riel, which is probably like two bucks, and took a photo with him. Thank you Mr. Sopheap! 

I can’t say enough about his services. He really knows his stuff, but more than that he loves this stuff. He knew each moment during sunrise when it counted most, and how to get around the rules, and where to stand. I’m very grateful for him and for Gary for arranging this incredible experience. I’m definitely recommending him.

I took the rest of the afternoon to cool off. I took a nap, I hydrated. After a while I walked into town to see if I could find a market to poke around. I walked for a while, but if I’d gone just a couple more blocks I would’ve come across the big market that I’d end up going to later that night anyway.

I stopped into a Starbucks and ran into the guy who was our Stunt Coordinator, Charlie, on THE STRANDED. Total coincidence. He’s also an actor and since his work with Stranded is over he took a job acting in a film in Siem Reap. It was fun to bump into him and catch up a little.

That evening I hired a Tuk Tuk to take me into town. I found a Vegetarian Restaurant that had great reviews. It was also in a part of town I wanted to go to. So for $2/USD I had a driver take me into town.

Pub Street is what it is called, and it is turning Siem Reap into something of a party town. It was just a few downtown blocks next to a Night Market, but it was very vibrant. Oh, if I were ten years younger, I’d find all kinds of trouble here.

My restaurant was down this little alley.

I had Khmer Vegetable Curry and it was out of this world, and about a quarter of the price they charged at the hotel. 

And look, even the dogs get a kick out of Pub Street. Here’s this stray pup just trying to figure out what everyone is doing.

And… Fried Ice Cream Rolls, because I'm on my time.  

I'm still processing the profundity of this experience. Bear with me.

I woke at 3:30 so I could meditate and write my morning pages and properly caffeinate myself before the guide pickup at 4:45am. Mr. Sopheap was his name and he met me promptly in the lobby with a pressed official collared guide shirt. I assumed we were going in a Tuk Tuk, he showed me the way to the Lexus where a driver was waiting.

Mr. Sopheap began talking as we drove through the dark streets of Siem Reap, turning from the main drag onto the darker road leading to the temple. He told me that this was the best tour they offered. (Gary had taken this same tour two weeks earlier and loved it). We were going to visit Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, and Ta Prohm. 

As we drove in the dark he told me that great astronomers and architects chose this site because not only does the sun rise directly over the highest steeple on the equinox, but it directly corresponds to a Naga (mythological serpent in Hindu and Buddhism) constellation. Some 70 temples are situated along this constellation. But the very head of the Naga rises in exactly this point— Angkor Wat.

We drove to the East Gate, which is the back of the temple. I’d read that this was the best way to enter as all the tourists enter through the west gate. We got out of the car and were alone save one small tour group. My guide walked fast and held a flashlight. We turned onto a dirt road and walked faster, presumably to put the small tour group well behind us.

“We do not come to see the sun rise at Angkor, we come to see the sky change color, the clouds change color, and to see the way the light touches the temple. Look up at the stars. Beautiful.”

They were.

“I’m going to turn off the flashlight now so that our eyes can adjust and we can see the temple.”

He turned off the light and very soon my eyes did adjust, and the first thing it made out was the shadow of a steeple against a shadow of a sky.

“Beautiful.”

He’d repeat this refrain for the rest of our morning and afternoon together. 

We paused when we got to the rear of the temple. We were all alone, though the tour group did gain on us.

“Why they have their flashlights on?” He asked. 

He let the tour group pass us and go around the perimeter. Once they were out of site he said, “Come on.” And we went into the first perimeter of the temple, which I understand now is something you’re not supposed to do. But it was all us and we were all alone walking along the walls of this temple. 

He stopped me when we got to the west side of the perimeter and told me to turn around. The first etches of light were coming into the sky. “Beautiful.”

I would soon understand that my guide had the tour timed down to the minute. He knew the best places, the best views, and at exactly the window in which to stand in those areas. He’d show me them all over the next hour.

Read more

We’re off on Hiatus for Songkran and I’m taking advantage of this time to do some personal travel before meeting with Jim in Chiang Mai to look at the first episode edits.   

I had a 10:10am Air Asia flight out of DMK bound for the Kingdom of Cambodia. As I went through immigration they asked if I would like to extend my Visa. I hadn’t planned on this being an option, but I knew it would come in useful as I planned to be back on set for another week after I return. I agreed.

I waited in a small room and took a number— 11. While there I scanned the signs. It appears you are welcome to overstay your visa (with a fine) up to 90 days. If you stay longer than 90 days then you are not welcome to return for another year. If you stay longer than 180 days, 3 years, and so on.

While waiting I met a man named Bobby from Indonesia who asked if I was an English teacher. I told him I wasn’t but I understood why he asked. He told me that he was an English teacher and had been teaching in Thailand for 8 years. We had a nice talk and then they called my name, I requested an extension, I stupidly requested multi-entry, which I won’t use. It was the Visa I was supposed to get in SG, instead they only issued me single entry. Now I have multi-entry, which cost 4k baht as opposed to 1200, for less than a month left on the Visa itself, and with my next flight leaving the country being a one-way ticket to Los Angeles on April 25.

Well, at least it’ll look cool in my passport. 

The flight was crowded, but otherwise a breeze. I barely had time to fill out my immigration card, they did not offer drink service, that’s how quick the flight was. 

The Siem Reap airport makes Burbank feel like Charles De Galle. Tiny. And it requires Visa on Arrival, which is different from a normal Tourist Visa. (I learned all this only the day before). You need a small passport sized photo and about $30 USD.

I didn't have USD but luckily I had two photos of me that production had printed for my Thai Visa (I didn't end up using them). Gary had given me some Cambodian Riel (4000 Riel = $1 back in Bangkok). I tried to pay with Riel but the guards insisted on cash. I was not in Thailand anymore, no sweet apologetic faces. Just a finger pointed toward the ATM machine.

Look, I get it, the Khmer Rouge was a pretty awful government— and these guards definitely lived through that mess. I'd be on edge too. 

Strangely the ATM machine dispensed American Dollars— the first I'd held in months. I found out later that American currency is not only widely accepted it's actually preferred in certain places (now I get why Gary pawned off all that Riel on me!)

My driver picked me up and it was a short ride through town— a much smaller city than I'd expected. I learned that no building can be higher than the temple— a good thing because Siem Reap is going through tremendous growth at the moment (my guide would tell me EIGHTEEN PERCENT growth every year). Last year they put in a Hard Rock Cafe. Point being: buy in Siem Reap now.

The hotel greeted me kindly and warmly. Showed me to my pool view room. I cooled off, drank some water, unpacked and ate lunch at the hotel restaurant. The guide service called me in my room to confirm the pick up tomorrow morning at 4:45am.

I didn't want to fuss with getting a temple ticket at that early hour so I had the hotel call me a Tuk Tuk to take me to the ticket office. His name was “Rah” though I'm sure that isn't how it's spelled. “$10” he quoted me. I'm sure I was being ripped off but since the hotel called him I felt obliged to accept.

I got to the office a little early (they start selling next day tix at 5pm) and so I bought a wide brimmed hat like a good tourist who was wary of tomorrow's excessive sun exposure. “Do you want to go see Sunset today? A little extra. $7” quoth Rah.

Well, here I was stuck at the ticket office (which is nowhere near the temple) and wanting to see Sunset. (If you hold a next day pass they let you see Sunset) So I accepted again and let him hose me all the way to the west gate. He dropped me off and told me he'd wait for me (btw I hadn't paid him yet, no credit card either, this is all on trust, I could've taken any number of Tuk Tuk’s back).

And so... Angkor Wat at Sunset. Eclipsed only by what I'd see in less than 12 hours. 

And of course… Angkor Pup

Tourist central. Too crowded. In fact. I walked a dusty street which led to the west gate. I'd later learn that this was once a highway which connected a hundred temples all the way to Thailand. Merchants were selling their goods— all tourist trappings, some food, all were very assertive sales people. Children running up to you to sell postcards “10 for $1, very handsome!”

After I watched the sun set I found Rah napping in the Tuk Tuk. He woke up and drove me back down the main road to town. He tried to upsell me his other services— restaurant? Drinks? Need a lady?

I had him drop me off at the hotel. I ate at the hotel, which was overpriced but delicious. A Khmer Vegetable Curry. 

After that I went upstairs and got under the covers by 8:45. I had a very early morning to catch a once in a lifetime experience. I laid out my clothes, prepared the water boiler and coffee, my notebook and headphones.

When next I’d see daylight, it would be against one of the most incredible feats of architecture still standing on this earth. 

It felt so nice to come back to a controlled environment this week, with reliable Air Con, steady Wifi, and no sun nor bugs. I once encouraged younger writers to write the words “EXT. EXOTIC BEACH” often as they will get to scout and spend time on lovely beaches. I rescind that advice. Please write something like “INT. MALL” more often. It’ll be much easier on everyone. And you’ll be happier.

Our Director’s daily prayer at the spirit house near set, asking for permission to work on their land, for a safe shoot, and yesterday, specifically, to hold off the rain. Yesterday’s constant threat of thunderstorms yielded only two downpours: once at sunrise, once at lunch break, never when rolling.  What do you do to connect with a higher purpose before you commit to a day’s work?

It’s been a very long and hot three weeks, and an even longer month on the beaches and in the jungles. Though I will miss the ocean and the daily chance to dunk myself into it, Bangkok sounds extraordinary. I have more than a little bit of laundry to attend to. 

Thanks Chumphon. 

Rest, poor girl (not pictured) by marker 389 / 300 along Scenic Route 4004 in Chumphon. You couldn’t have been there long, still, by the side of the road. Your pack howled and I kneeled. I tried to flag someone for help but I speak even less of their language than I do yours. When I knew we’d have to do this alone I howled with your pack. I prayed at the Spirit House near the shuttered Palm farm where you lay. I’m not even sure that this is proper way to use a Spirit House. I don’t know what I’m doing other than my best. Tell me what the rain felt like this morning, tell me what morsels you had for breakfast. And maybe I can tell you that I haven’t seen so beautiful a sky tonight in a very long time, and the crickets are playing for you now. You are loved, you are loved, you are loved, even if you never had a name, you are loved. May your pack make you feel not alone tonight, may my prayers reach to rub the soft of your belly, and the wind, may it tickle the hairs on your feet, wherever they have traveled. 