Category Archives: driving around in LA

Malibu Wedding.

sunset beach malibu

Once I accidentally went to a Malibu wedding. Sort of. My friends and I decided to spend a day at the beach. Living in Los Angeles, one gets spoiled and treats the beach as though it was another Starbucks; a sort of, “Oh, yeah, it’s everywhere, it will always be there.” At least my friends and I do, not being surfer types and not having beach houses of our own. So one day we thought, right, this exists, let’s hang out there. We sat on a Harry Potter blanket and discreetly drank wine coolers while we watched a fat man play volleyball with another fat man. They seemed to be having a good time.

After that, we all got stuck on the idea that we simply had to go to Moonshadows. Moonshadows is the restaurant where Mel Gibson famously got arrested and let a beautifully horrendous tirade spew forth. The infamous “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world” and “What are you looking at, Sugar Tits” the greatest hits of Gibson all happened just down the beach from us. We thought perhaps we’d get a drink from their lounge but as the responsible and decent adults that we are, because we are not Mel Gibson, and if you are around Mel Gibson and he is around alcohol, you should just save everybody time and call the police. By the time you hang up the phone he’s going to be cursing Jews and stomping on houseplants like he’s King Kong all the while panting and screaming.

We made it into Moonshadows, feeling very grown-up, which is different from feeling very adult. We didn’t feel, “Ugh I wonder how much valet is going to cost and how much these drinks are going to cost” or anything of that nature. We felt, “Man, we look so cool. Are we allowed to even be in here? This is like being in a Bret Easton Ellis novel.”

And then it really got into Bret Easton Ellis territory. We’re sitting at a small booth and to the left of me is a very cool old woman. Cool in a different cool than we were. She was an established, kooky, “Fuck it, I’m old” cool. I noticed the owl pendant hanging around her neck. I told her much I liked it. She seemed thrilled by this. I really adored her. I thought she looked familiar but maybe I just wished I knew her.

Then it started. That beautiful pop new wave sound, with bittersweet undertones, all in earnest, of “The Promise” by When In Rome. And a bride and groom were dancing. It all happened very suddenly. The song, perhaps a dimming of lights, the swelling of joy — this was their moment, they must have planned it. And they’re dancing in the middle of this lounge, mouthing the words to each other, blissed out of their minds. I stared at them, respectful, slightly confused, but quietly enthusiastic. They saw me and smiled. The groom looked into my eyes, and said, with more joy in one sentence than I’ve heard in hundreds, “I’m marrying my best friend.”

My cynicism halted. I smiled back. I promise you, I promise you I will was all I heard and all I saw. Later my cynism about marriage would return, replaced with a bitterness once I watched helplessly as divorce took another marriage away, all the while with me stubbornly refusing to ever get married, ever.

I do want to get married. I don’t know if I want to marry my best friend. I’m still unsure about that idea. That the person you marry should also be your best friend. But that’s not important right now.

Ever since that night, I’ve fallen in love with that song. I hear it and even though I’ve forgotten what the couple looks like, I see them dancing, laughing, holding onto each other, have an occasional goofy moment, lip-synching, smiling endlessly.

I was so full of joy that I asked the kooky old woman next to me if we could take a photo with her. She seemed shocked and said, “Really?!” I said definitely. “Let’s go outside,” she said. She had a friend with her. “Do you know who that is?” she asked me. I paused. Yes, I knew now. “Phyllis Diller?”

almie-phyllis-diller

And yes. She was.

“You made her night,” her friend told us. “She made  ours,” I said.

We took more photos, got into the car, and drove with the windows down back to where we once belonged. I looked at the ocean and in my head, over and over, If you need a friend don’t look to a stranger. You know in the end. I’ll always be there…I promise you. I promise you I will.

And that’s how I accidentally went to a Malibu wedding. Sort of.

 

The Promise by When in Rome on Grooveshark

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High And Dry.

Photo of PrettyBoi by Ian Asbjørnsen

Hello everyone. I’m sorry I’ve been away. Like I mentioned before, I have a lot of insane things going on in my life right now. But not good insane, more like a “Let me tell my story on Oprah” insane or, to quote this dude Max, “Season finale shit” insane. I’m still not ready to talk about it, but I want you to know that I’m sorry I haven’t updated and I’m sorry I have responded to your emails. Don’t give up on me!

It’s very tempting to give up on people sometimes. We have all been guilty of that at some point in our lives. Maybe not Julie Andrews, but everyone else. And I am telling you, as someone who knows, please do not give up on your friends when they need you. Don’t assume that they’ll want to be alone or not want to be alone — just ask them. Ask them how they’re doing but really ask. Tell them to put on a party dress and take them somewhere, and it doesn’t matter if that somewhere is a party or a Supermarket, just do it.

My friend Kimme did exactly this. Despite the fact that she lives in Beverly Hills and I live in the valley and the restaurant was in Laurel Canyon and the party after that was in Los Feliz, she picked me up at my house. Now that is friendship. If you’re from L.A., you know that what I have just described is hardcore friendship. The theme of said party was psychedelic, post-apocalypse 60’s  esque pop stars or something, so naturally Kimme and I decided to dress in serious 80s fashion. She wore a boxy business suit with hair piled over to one side, and I dressed like a dancer from Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” video. We got to the party and Kimme introduced me to her friend whose mom actually was one of the dancers in the video. I apologized for accidentally dressing like her mom but thankfully she thought it was awesome. Then later I sat down next to this dude I’m pretty sure I’ve met like six times, who was wearing a jumpsuit and talking about how Prada’s new tan leather suit collection is “too mundane.” But it was exactly what I needed.

Reach out to a friend today you haven’t spoken to in a while. Call them, say hi. They’ll probably say hi, after a long pause. Then you’ll say, “How are you?” and they’ll say “…Fine. Is everything okay?” And you say, “Yes, why?” And they’ll answer, “You haven’t spoken to me in like, eight years.” And you can say, “This internet blog told me to call a friend.” And they’ll say, “What?” And you can tell them, “Yes, Apocalypstick.com.” And they won’t be able to hear that, so you’ll have to repeat it for them. You’ll have to say, “No NO. It’s A-P-O-C! CCCC-A-L-Y-P-S-T-I-C-K! K! LIKE APOCALYPSE, BUT WITHOUT THE E. TAKE THE E OFF. ADD ‘TICK’ TO THE S. IT’S REALLY NOT THAT HARD, CHRIST.” And they’ll say, “What is your problem?” And you’ll get frustrated and say, “THIS IS WHY WE NEVER TALK.” Then a few months from this you’ll get a text from your friend Cristy or something that says, “PARTY 2NITE!” and you go to the Party 2Nite, and guess who’s there? It’s your friend you tried to call and reconnect with. You’re going to pretend like you don’t see each other for the first hour of the party but then you’ll both me a little loosened up and you’ll hear Radiohead’s “High And Dry” play in the background and you’ll reminisce about that crazy middle school/high school/college trip and together you’ll join into the chorus, “DON’T LEAVE ME DRRRRRYYYYY-EEEYYYEEE” and you don’t even like Radiohead. And you’ll say it was good to see each other.

So do that and tell me how it goes.

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I Know It Sounds Absurd.

I’m near-sighted but tonight, as I’m trying to work on my book (and I swear this isn’t an excuse), things are a little blurry. Is it possible I’m also far-sighted? Or am I going blind? I AM GOING TO BE SO FUCKING PISSED OFF IF I GO BLIND.

It’s these damn big pupils of mine. For some reason, they’re larger than most peoples’. I’m pretty sure of this. One time I went to the eye doctor and he leaned in and said, “You have beautiful pupils.” And I said something like, “Oh…heh, uh, okay, thanks.” And he said, “They’re very large.” And I couldn’t even say, “Eyes up here, buddy” because that’s exactly where they were.

Don’t people who have large pupils have a better chance of going blind or something? I will be so angry if that happens. But on the plus side, I’ll take up smoking! I’ve always said, if I ever get an incurable disease, I’m just going to say, fuck it, whatever, and start smoking. It’s Manhattan, who gives a fuck? I’m also going to drink a lot too, but like, unabashedly. The great thing about that is I’ll never have to worry about being a designated driver. For a couple of reasons.

No, seriously, I don’t know how people do it. Once I interviewed a man for my documentary on Marilyn Monroe fans (that seems like it was in another life) and he was blind and I wish I was still in touch with him but I lost his address and I stupidly asked him if he had email and he said no, because, he’s blind. I mean he didn’t say that, he was kind and said that the technology for web surfing for the vision impaired wasn’t up to snuff yet. It was like on American Idol when Secrest held up his hand for the blind dude to high five or when George W. Bush waved to Stevie Wonder. Coincidentally, Ryan Secrest and George W. Bush really defined my later high school years, in their own special ways. Anyway, I was interviewing this guy for my documentary and we started talking about his life and I didn’t want to ask him, “Why are you blind, what happened?” because he mentioned when he was a kid he could see, but I didn’t want to put him on the spot and you can’t just ask people why they’re blind. So I asked him about work, fishing around to see if maybe it was a work-related injury. I know, I’m horrible! He told us about work, it was a perfectly normal desk job. He asked, “Is there anything else?” and I stared at my friend Erika and it’s like I was saying with my mind, “Ask him when he went blind” and I could almost hear Erika saying back, “That’s so awkward, you ask him” “No, you” and there was a strange halted pause and Erika finally just asked him something else.

I’m a vain person. I like putting on make up and spending money on hair products, and essentially, you know, not being blind. I worry that no one would want me anymore. That my friends would stop calling. They would probably keep texting, though, and I’d have to ask my mom to read the texts aloud to me. Because my generation hates talking on the phone. This is the internet’s curse.

Two nights ago I was in a hurry to drive over to my bestie’s house and so I quickly smeared face moisturizer on, focusing under my eyes, because Proactiv dried out my skin and now I’m worried if I scratch my cheek I’m going to cause a DAMN FIRE, and I put on lots of mascara and other essentials and drove off. I put on the air conditioning, as I tend to do, and on the drive over I felt my eyes starting to sting. Before long they were tearing, and burning, and I had to pull over. Thankfully I decided not to take Mulholland on the way there. When I pulled over and saw my red eyes, mascara running down, I realized that my moisturizer had sun screen in it and I essentially used it like eye cream and the cool breeze blowing into my face caused it to seep into my eyes. Then I realized I’m an idiot. Then I bought eye cream at Costco. But that happened today, and it’s another story. Except it’s not really story, it’s me wanting to buy $80 Chanel eye cream at Costco and my mom convincing me to get Olay.

My point to this stupid story is, what if I’m causing my own blindness? But don’t we all, in some metaphorical way, make ourselves blind? We never want to see what might hurt us. We make ourselves deaf, too, not wanting to hear what might hurt us. We do this to ourselves. …No? Yeah, I tried.

The Logical Song — Supertramp

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I'm On The Bleachers.

Lately I can’t stop listening to pop music. I switch between KIIS FM and the new station that’s on 97.1. I just go back and forth. If KIIS has a commercial I go to the other one; if the other one is playing something I don’t recognize I switch to the one; and so on and so forth until we die.
“I like the lyrics about being a cheerleader and she’s in the bleachers!” Kanye West gushed on his blog after Swiftgate ’09. Even though he was trying (poorly) to save his own ass, I think he was being serious. Those are pretty good lyrics. The whole song is just too much fun.
I totally get what Taylor Swift is saying: “Dreamin’ ’bout the day when you wake up and find/what you’re looking for has been here the whole time…why can’t you see you belong with me?” Taylor, I get it. Except I feel like you’ve never really been there. Taylor Swift you are stunning. You’re like 90 feet tall, thin as a bone, with the most elegant neck I’ve ever seen. You look not like a girl, but not yet a woman. (Thanks Brit.)
Not that I want to look older; GOD NO. I already have lines in my forehead. What the swift?? Why do I have lines in my forehead? I’m young. I don’t smoke. I put on sunscreen. What is this bullshit. I did not authorize this.
Back to Taylor Swift. Her song that I’m talking about is about a Jonas brother or something. I don’t understand the Jonas Brothers and frankly I prefer ignorance. I know there’s 3 of them: Nick, Joe…and Frankie? Newton? Chester? Jack? Jim? Harold? Timmy? And…I know they’re a band, but I think they also have a show? Are they playing themselves on the show? What the fuck is going on? No don’t tell me, I really don’t want to know.
Last night I was in the car with my friend and her boyfriend and while he was being Mr. Stormcloud in the backseat we were belting it out to Swift. Then the greatest thing happened: when the aforementioned song ended, we flipped it to the other pop station, where the same song was just starting. It was like Christmas. Christmas in our face.
The rest of the night was honestly kind of a mess for reasons not worth going into here. Unrelated but earlier in the evening we hung out in a sleek bar in Venice where we got free drinks because my friend’s boyfriend knows everyone who works there. The bartender looked like a young Tom Hanks circa Big/Splash. I don’t know why I thought that was totally hot but I did. I guess because a young Tom Hanks looks like Tom Everett Scott and that guy is legit hot. Anyway I was totally ready to hit on him like a drunk dad at batting practice but then my friend’s boyfriend said he was a douche. And that’s being nice. He actually let loose a long list of adjectives that this guy was, none of them complementary. And for once, I decided, yeah it’s not worth it. I know enough assholes. I am one. There’s really no need to add another one to that list, even if he does look like a young Tom Hanks.
I guess Taylor Swift and I are really growing up.
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