Friday: Writing

How do I describe coming home to Hollywood on a Friday night after a long day of work?

Riding the Metro home from Union Station, exhausted but satisfied after putting down some time at a job I liked and then meeting up with a friend to discuss business over a cold hoppy pint, I sat with my bicycle tucked in between the seats, drowsily moving my head to the beat in my headphones. Closing my eyes, I found myself sinking into a darkness that surrounded me like warm, velvety water. The music echoed in my brain like a heartbeat and I could feel myself inexplicably smiling. Man, I really wish I had time to drop some acid tomorrow, I thought.

But everything was in flux, and my schedule had taken on adventurous tones, always changing, never consistent, with doors of opportunity flying open left and right and I had no choice but to heed the omens.

Things had changed. I had been fired in a floundering economy and I had been scared of being forced to move back in with my parents, especially as I had just met a boy that I would later fall in love with. My dad had neither answers nor reassurance, and that brought the monsters creeping out of my childhood closet. But I managed to find the light switch in the dark, and flicked it on to discover that the monsters were only the shadows of my favorite toys. I don't know how, but I somehow waltzed right into a new job just as my unemployment check went through. A really good job too. A job that made me happy.

And suddenly everything else started to change too, as though winter were finally giving way to spring. It all started with my second century ride. And I only did the ride because my ex-boyfriend had hurt me so terribly for the last time. Brimming with rage, I decided to pedal it out. Then I lost my job (I like to think that I abandoned it in an alley), then I met a guy I liked, then I got a job, then my life began to truly blossom.

Out of the strange fog of life, I was approached to work on developing a new event night in Los Angeles. I took the chance with both hands, and on Friday I met with my event partner at the bar across the parking lot from work to discuss our upcoming night. He bought me a pint and we talked enthusiastically, and who knows? Maybe this will work out.

He kindly gave me a lift to Union Station, throwing my bicycle in the back of his car, and that's how I found myself late on the Red Line home to the heart of Hollywood at Hollywood and Highland. Inside the Metro, and even inside the station, it was one world, but as soon as I emerged from the tunnel, my bicycle under one arm, I was bombarded with the reminder that whenever you tell someone you live in Hollywood they always ask you: "Do you see movie stars?"

As I set my bicycle on the ground to suit up, I was confronted with noise, and light, and human energy. A man played guitar with an open case at his feet, a woman on rollerskates attempted to lure customers to her booth, girls loped by in herds on cloven heels, and tourists pointed their cameras toward the glittering skies, the skies of Hollywood, which are so polluted with light that you can no longer see the stars.

And there I stood, not a tourist, not a guest, not even a customer, just a drowsy traveler awakened from the flourescent dream-hum of the underground railway system that no one in Los Angeles uses as much as one should. "That's a nice bike," one of the street performers threw at me, but I don't even notice. Instead I turned, intent on heading home, but then something magical happened.

At the intersection of Hollywood and Highland - the Heart, Soul, Brain, and Belly of Hollywood - a herd of cyclists had infiltrated the traffic-locked light. Like a school of fish they circled the cars trapped within, with some rowdy few stopping to lift their bicycles over their heads in some primate-like display of territorialship. The scene delighted everyone around, with vehicular passengers standing out of sunroofs to catch a glimpse. I had no choice but to join the "Circle of Death" (As it is called in some regions), and as we took off west on Hollywood, I could not help the surge of naughty glee that comes with participating in such a form of public protest...drunkeness...societal rejection...tomfoolery...whatever you want to call it (would be entirely accurate). Some girls jumped out of a stopped car and began wailing at each other, to no one's surprise, and the boyfriend got out to lamely attempt to stop the fight, but we were already on our way out. As I wizzed by the be-Teva-ed Europeans frantically snapping photos of us, I thought, This ain't nothing. I do this every night. Welcome to my City of Angels.

A city transformed, its people were only just beginning their migrations to the clubs, to the bars, to the restaurants, to the sloppy one-night stands waiting at the end of it all, and as we rode by them, they called at us and we called back. "Look at all those bikes!" "Hey, why are you riding bikes?" "For swine flu!" " That's a red light!" "I don't care!" "Fuck you!" "Fuck me!" "Where are you going?" "To the moon!" "Get a car!" "Get a bike!"

But after a few aimless left turns, the lure of bed and tungsten light was too strong to ignore. So at Cahuenga, I said aloud to no one in particular, "Well folks, it's been real, it's been good, it's been real good. But I am out to go smoke pot at home." It tickled the girl next to me, who was riding a pink fixed gear in a way I could respect, and she laughed and said, "Have a good night! Ride safely!"

"Always."

It's only in Hollywood that you walk to your front door with a soundtrack playing in your head and the voiceover that cinches your story in a nice little life lesson as you imagine your closing shots. Then it fades to black and the credits roll.

"Do you see movie stars?"

"All the time."

Writing September 25th 2009