MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

Lemon Drop Dreams, A Full Moon and Zwack Unicum

Having troubles with the bloggy lately, don't know what's up
with that shite. Took my mom out to dinner for her birthday
tonight at Citizen Smith - one of the hip, faboo new restaurants
in Hollywould. It's off H-Blvd. on Cahuenga and it's so popular
that if you're more than 15 minutes late they'll give your table
away and there's a 2 hour limit on your table. Normally I don't
like that kind of bullshit, but I've been there before and the food
is spectacularly good, and the place looks like Dracula's bedroom.
Very dark, candles all over the place, all over the walls, Gothic
ambience, cool chandeliers....they even have this bad-ass looking
sliding door that leads to the outside patio - my mom even called
it Dracula's door. Let's just say a vampire would do well to stop
in and have one of their delightful Lemon Drop martinis. Hell, we
had everything and now I'm so full I feel weird! I don't normally
eat that much. Special occasion and all. My mum, who is turning
67, is ultra-hip and cool. She looks 10 - 12 years younger than she
is, she's gorgeous and she didn't even mind the blaring music
that much. I was like a rambling DJ, announcing every song.
They surprised me by playing a really odd array of music.
But what really blew my socks off wasthat they played The Cult.
Oh mother of God. That just set me off. And what's even better
is even my mom said, "Isn't that kind of old?"

God love her. She remembers my obsession. And I mean OBSESSION.
If people think I'm obsessed with the Church, well they're right.
But I also became utterly and totally and obsessively fascinated with
Ian Astbury and the Cult not too long after I discovered The Church.

I will NEVER forget it. I was home from college - and I had a really
nasty cold. I wasn't feeling well and I was walking around the house
sniffling and sneezing. I walked into the den of my parents' house
and my brother was sitting there watching MTV. Remember when
MTV wasn't some ho-hideous pimped out crackwhore nightmare
and actually played MUSIC and VIDEOS? Well, I walked in and
the video for She Sells Sanctuary was on.

Christ on the Cross in Golgotha, that was IT. I mean, I don't THINK
I fell to my knees, but everything in my 18 year old brain stopped cold.
I took one look at Ian Astbury, so young, so cool looking, so beautiful,
all decked out in scarves and shit, and I was GONE. Gone, gone, gone.
I listened to the song and thought I'd never heard anything so fucking
amazing in my life. I was taken to a whole other place in life. I absolutely
credit The Cult with getting me even MORE obsessed with music, and
determined to work in the music industry (what music and the music
industry have to do with each other is very little actually,
but at 18, I didn't know this).

Oh sweet Mary, mother of God, I had it bad. I went back to school,
determined to find this album, and find out who this man was.
Now you have to realise, I was in my first semester at a really
conservative Christian university and while I was practically an
atheist because of that, haha, I still dressed very much like a sweet
little good girl going to a nice, Christian school. I remember going to
the record store (yeah, remember those too?) and buying the Cult's
LOVE cassette (!) and the guy behind the counter kind of looked
at me a bit oddly. I had on a long skirt, some cutesy sweater and pearls.
I got back to my dorm and listened to the cassette and my whole entire
life changed; I'm not exaggerating. Oh Billy Duffy, wheverever
you are now, you sweet guitar god, I still love your licks baby. I became
beyond fascinated with Ian. There was a small picture of him in
Vogue magazine (of all places) and I remember I cut it out and kept
it for years. In fact, I started cutting out every article, interview, picture
I could find of the band, and especially of Ian. Today, 21 years later,
I think back, I look inside myself and I wonder, what was it? What
fascinated me about him so much? It wasn't even sexual. I'd tell you
if it was sexual. Believe me, there have been a lot of musicians I just
wanted to wham bam thank you ma'am. But not Ian. Did I want to BE
Ian? Perhaps. Even though I was a woman! I loved everything
about him. I loved the way he dressed. I loved his fascination with Native
American cultures. I loved his voice. I loved his words. I thought he was
beautiful the way you might think a painting or a statue is beautiful;
you don't want to sleep with it, but you feel like you can't take your eyes
away from the beauty of it. His long black hair was amazing; his eyes
dark and penetrating. He was intense. He had an amazing presence on
stage. He was wild. He was everything I wasn't, that's for sure. I felt
like I'd stumbled onto Mount Olympus and fell in love with a God.
Ian wasn't even HUMAN to me. I elevated him to a place so high in
the stratosphere it's scary now to think about it. Hey, I did that a lot
with musicians when I was a teenager and in my early 20's.

I started collecting all the records I could (actual RECORDS people!)
Southern Death Cult, Death Cult, anything Ian had done before The
Cult. I even had a video of them. God where is that video now???
Gone. Damn. All of this stuff is gone. Don't you hate when you
want to go back and revisit shit and it's ALL GONE!

On April 19, 1986 I went down to San Diego State University and
stayed with my friend Jeanne, who was a student there. The
Cult was going to play at the SDSU amphitheatre. By this time I'd
managed to lose my pearls and started dressing in black, turning
into some strange hybrid Gothic-university chick. The opening band was
The Divinals (sp?). That chick was wild. Whatever happened to them?
I remember thinking though, I hate her! She gets to tour with The
Cult! Oh I thought touring was so fucking glamourous. Yeah yeah
yeah. I know all about it know. But come on, I wasn't even 19 yet.
That concert re-arranged every neuron and dendrite in my brain.
I stood there in total and complete rapture. I was mesmerised. It's
funny they were called The Cult; it was like I had joined one. The
music made me feel things I'd never felt before and I couldn't describe
it then, and I'm frustrated as hell now, because I still feel like I can't
properly describe it, two decades later. I felt free listening to it. I felt
freed from being the good little college girl. And I was such a good girl.
I felt free, I felt wild, I felt like I wanted to do things I'd never done
before. I felt like I owned the whole free fucking world. The universe
was mine. The stars supernova-ed and rained down their fire on me.
Duffy played the guitar so madly and it made me feel things inside and outside
and everywhere and I stood there in the dark, cigarette and clove smoke
wafting all around me, the smell of spilled beer and I remember it like
it was YESTERDAY. I wanted to die, to become totally one with the music.
I wanted to be those guitar strings, I wanted to merge into the very sound
itself. It was primal for me. I wanted to fuck, I wanted to drink, drug,
leave myself, my body. I felt like my whole consciousness was being
transformed song by song. I watched Ian like he was the last man on
earth. I wanted to become him, become his voice, I wanted our atoms
and molecules to merge; I wanted a symbiotic mind-fuck with it all.
The music had power over me like nothing else in my life ever had.

I must have listened to the LOVE album more than any other album
I've ever owned. The only other album that comes close is The Church's
Heyday album and the two albums could not be more different. Every
song, every lyric, every guitar lick, every beat of the bass and drum was
burned into my psyche. How times change. I can't even find it in my
apartment now. It must be in storage with a ton of my other CD's.
I lived and breathed that album. It was the soundtrack to an entire
period of my life. The period where music became the penultimate
obsession of my young life. My friend Heather and I became equally
obsessed. We both started hanging out at Hollywood clubs to watch
bands. One of the first things we did that involved a lot of music was
go to the L.A. street fair. This was back in '85 or '86 when they actually
had a street fair. All kinds of bands played. We saw punk bands - Agent
Orange and even the Ramones. We climbed on top of a Ryder truck
and a riot broke out right after we left and two people were stabbed.
They never had another L.A. street fair after that. Living out in Malibu
in the 80's wasn't terribly glamourous. There was essentially nothing to
do, unless you went to a beach party, or to someone's house, or hung
out at Carlos N' Pepe's, THE local Mexican restaurant where all the
students and Malibu celebs hung out. But we were too young to drink,
too naive to get fake I.D.'s and besides it wasn't about the liquor. It
was truly about the music. We started going out every weekend, then
on weeknights as well. We started hanging out at the Roxy, the Whiskey.
Local bands became more and more interesting to us. We stayed far
away from places like Gazzarri's and hair-metal bands (although sadly
I got to know Warrant much better than I ever wanted to - but that's
another story.) We hung out at the sleaziest club in town - the Cathouse.
God what a whorehouse! We saw Faster Pussycat, L.A. Guns, Guns N'Roses
(they weren't huge yet), Jane's Addiction, Electric Angels, Kill for Thrills
(Gilby Clarke and Jason Nesmith were in this band - this was our
favourite local band. And yes, Nesmith as in the Monkees! That's his
father - Michael Nesmith). Damn I thought Jason was the sex! Ha. By
this time we'd morphed into mini-skirt wearing rocker chicks. I am not
gonna lie, I had a fucking awesome body back then. I miss that body
so much. I wore thigh high black suede boots and bustiere-type tops.
I have no idea if I spelled that word correctly; but I remember the outfits.
I can't believe I ever wore any of that stuff. I'd be mortified today. But then
again, I'm not 120 pounds anymore with legs that went on forever.
Good God. We scoured Melrose for clothes and then came back to school
and morphed back into good little girls. But the weekends were really ours.

We lived at the coolest fucking club ever, Scream at the Park Plaza Hotel
in downtown L.A. Here's a funny story. Every band played Scream. Jane's
Addiction was the house band; I remember seeing so many bands -
Faith No More, Soundgarden, L.A. Guns, Social Distortion - you name it,
any band promoter Dayle Gloria liked played there. She could talk
Jesus Christ himself into headlining that place. One day, for reasons
I honestly cannot remember now, I remember Heather and I were
driving around, and we drove by Scream. I know it was the weekend
and I want to say it was a Sunday. We saw all these people mingling
outside of the club. We pulled over and asked what was going on.
What was going on? Why would people hang out in front
of the Park Plaza on a Sunday afternoon? Well, the news blew my mind.
The Cult were going to play there that night. A special, secret show. We'd
just seen The Cult at the Long Beach Arena (Guns N'Roses opened for them)
and we couldn't believe our luck. Now I was wearing a skirt for some reason.
But Heather was in shorts and tennis shoes. And Scream had a dress code.
They wouldn't let her in the way she was dressed. So we freaked out and started
walking up and down Wilshire Boulevard trying to find something for her to
wear before the show.

I remember it must've been a Sunday because nothing was open. It
wasn't like there was a special dress shop open where Heather could buy
club clothes either. It was getting late. We went into some kind of shoe
store - like a Footlocker or something. I swear to God, Heather bought
BLACK soccer cleats. Then we went across the street to some hotel, and
went in their gift shop. While I bought cigarettes, Heather looked for
something to wear - and the only thing she could find was a black T-shirt.
Well, she already had a black shirt on. So what did she do? She wore the
T-shirt as a skirt. I kid you not. Black soccer cleats and a hotel T-shirt
as a skirt. But it did the damned job! And we got into the club and went into
the main ballroom and got really close and watched The Cult play a fucking
awesome show.

A few weeks later, we were at The Palace; we'd just gone to a movie premiere
and this is where we met Steve Jones, formerly of the Sex Pistols. For some
reason rockers were everywhere at this movie-premiere after-party. We saw
Billy Duffy talking to Steve Jones and Heather just went right up to Billy and
we all started talking after that. Billy had two drinks in his hand. Ian wasn't
there. I gotta say, Billy was really nice and so was Steve Jones. I couldn't
believe I was shaking hands with a SEX PISTOL! I used to do a radio show
at our radio station at the college, and so did my friend David; in fact we ended
up doing one together called "From L.A. to London" and damn if we didn't play
the shit! LOL! Seriously we played some awesome music. So David had Heather
and I on his show to tell our story of meeting Billy and Steve. I still have the tape;
often we'd tape our shows for our bosses to listen to, or just to listen to ourselves.
I don't even know if the tape works. I'm afraid to play it to be honest. I haven't
talked to Heather in 13 years. I don't know what I'm afraid of. I feel like I might
crack in half if I listen to it. Or maybe I'll have no emotion at all and somehow
that might be even worse.

Heather and I used to see Ian all over the place but I never spoke to him.
I gotta say, after The Cult's second album came out, I was really disappointed.
Fuck that Rick Rubin! He ruined the Cult! Electric whatever my ass. They all
got obsessed with this weird arena-rock Led Zeppelin vibe and it did NOT work.
They shoud've stuck with the LOVE sound. I remember once seeing Ian on Melrose
with his then-girlfriend Renee. They were like royalty. And once he was standing
behind me at Scream while we were watching Soundgarden play. Once Heather
and I went to a club in Long Beach called Bogart's. In February of 1990 I saw
Marty Willson-Piper do a solo show there and to this day that had to be the best show of
my life. Steve Kilbey appeared from out of nowhere and ended up playing
with Marty. This was when MWP was really fucking beautiful. Not that he
doesn't have some of the charm and beauty still going on; but he was the
absolute sharpest dresser in the 80's and this was early 1990. He was in
his early 30's; he regaled us with witty remarks, stories, spoke in different
languages and I was smitten. But I digress. Back to The Cult and Ian.

In the late 80's Heather and I went to Bogart's to see a ridiculous band
called The Fuzztones play. Rudy Prodtrudi was the singer. Oh God, Rudy.
He had this crazy Prince Valiant haircut. What a kick. We were sitting in
the lobby area, killing time, and the club had pinball machines and who
was playing one? Ian Astbury. I just sat and stared. I also remember that
night I stole enough Fuzztones flyers and I pasted these flyers all over
the entire top portion of my bedroom walls. What stupidity! Can you imagine
having the desire or energy to do that? Ah youth. I had a great poster
of The Cult in my dorm room for a couple of years at Pepperdine too.
The first year I was at Pepperdine I had a roommate who was a serious hardcore
Christian. She really thought I was going to Hell for listening to The Cult. Once
she took down all my Cult pictures. I was furious, needless to say. I still
hate religious fanatics to this day. Always have, always will. If music is Hell,
let me burn baby.

I saw The Cult so many times, in so many different venues. Often my
brother went with me; Steven and I shared two bands with equal passion
then - The Church and The Cult. We still share passion for The Church.
I don't know what happened to The Cult. Every album after LOVE seemed
to suck more and more. Sonic Temple? Ick. Were they one-album wonders?
I guess for me they were. I guess in the early 1990's I lost track of them.
I'd hear about Ian doing something but I'd totally lost interest. It was hard to believe,
considering I practically built an altar to the man. All my albums are gone,
all the pictures, and interviews. I have to credit The Cult however with
igniting my passion for music - igniting a fire that to this day has not gone
out, despite my working in the music industry and hating it and finding out
it was nothing like I thought it would be.

Today, if I hear She Sells Sanctuary, I stop and remember the girl
who was mesmerized by flickering images, stunning sounds and paralyzed
by a man she never knew, never even wanted to meet. I remember the
moment I walked into the room and my life changed forever. Hmm. I
wonder where Ian is now; I know he was touring with what's left of The
Doors, which just seemed wrong to me and of course, even he has a MySpace
site. Man, that seems even more wrong. Then again I wonder about a lot of
people and places and as long as I live, I don't think I will ever, ever
really get over the love affair I have with music. There is no band that
has a hold on me, except the Church, and even with them, I have grown
up enough to know they are human and my interactions with them have
been as equals; adult, and quite normal. The little girl who built her altars
to rock stars and papered her room with flyers is gone and I'm glad.
The music though, is still a drug that I'm never going tostop using. That's
an obsession I can live with til the end of all my days.

BTW, went to get my mom some ice wine for her birthday today at
this place called BevMo. They sell every type of liquor on God's green
earth. I collect those tiny liquor bottles and I was looking to get a new
one, and I found SK's fave liquor - that crazy Zwack Unicum! So I bought
all 7 tiny bottles because they didn't have any big bottles. Now, I'm just
wondering, can I take liquor on the plane to Chicago? I'm gonna!
Hey, I'm also getting fingerprinted for the 3rd time tomorrow. Yeah, the
Department of Justice must get tired of getting my badass fingerprints.
Maybe they might want to spend some time looking for those missing
Egyptian students - yeah the ones they've reassured us, are NOT
terrorists. Well how in the hell do they know that? Psychotic, murdering,
war-mongering morons - that's our government now.

On the way home from my mom's I finally listened to Rob Dickinson's
solo CD all the way through. I crack up every time I look at the cover
because the night after the Church show at the Henry Fonda, G and I went to Canter's
to get something to eat (thanks to the starvation merch diet). It was after
2am and I was so fucking tired I was punchy as hell. On the cover of the
CD Rob is shown throwing seahorses back into the ocean. But I was so
loopy I said to Gena, "Oh look, he's putting horsefish back in the ocean."
Horsefish. I thought that was so funny I almost peed. Guess you had to be
there.

Oh sweet Rob! I hope I can finally see and hear
you in Chicago. I missed your shows before! Damn, he is one talented
mofo! I mean, you can hear that in spades with The Catherine Wheel,
but this is a sweet CD. He's cute too. I'll take another hug please! Hee.
So that's the story morning glory. BTW, I didn't know Jeff Caine was in
Remy Zero. Why am I SO SLOW? It's better not knowing these things.
Then you don't act weird around people. I just thought he was some
little friend of SK's. That hottie.

Picture: Ian Astbury, God of my past. So beautfiul.

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

The View From Within

"So it's 3am I'm out walking again
I'm just a spot on the sidewalk in the city of Sin...
Still in Hollywood...I thought I'd be out of here by now."

-Johnette Napolitano, "Still in Hollywood" - Concrete Blonde

Last October I was on an Air France flight coming back home to Los Angeles from a long, long, but very lovely and tiring European trip. The trip was glorious but at times it felt as if we were on the Bataan Death March, moving from royal residence to royal residence (even including royal kitchens!) in England, marching from museum to museum to monument to monument in Paris, flying to Italy to bury ourselves in the ancient ruins of Rome, the Eternal City, driving north to breathe in the bright blue skies of Tuscany and revel in the Renaissance miracles of Florence.

After 14 hours of flying (one flight from Florence to Paris, a trip through the airport in Paris which must have riveled one of Dante's circles of Hell and 12 1/2 hours on Air France), I was beyond tired and just wanted to go home and suddenly home was beneath me, in all its brown, flat, unremarkable glory. Where were we? Bakersfield? The only hint our French pilot gave us as to our position was when we flew over Las Vegas – Babylon revisited in a desert landscape so barren it was like looking at a toy town that some little boy had arranged in the dirt.

We flew over a high school football field; it was in Crenshaw, a somewhat seedier and dangerous city in Los Angeles, but I was so happy to see it because it meant I was getting closer to the ground, closer to this place I call home. I turned to my mother and said, “I never thought I’d be so happy to see the word Crenshaw.” I've never even been to Crenshaw.

Our plane was full of French tourists, all of whom seemingly knew each other.
I think they were on a tour. And just a note: Americans are NOT the only loud,
obnoxious tourists in the world. These French had taken
over the entire plane as if they were having a private
party. Yelling, screaming, laughing, blocking the aisles
and basically driving me nuts the entire time. But I digress.

As we flew into Los Angeles, I stared down at the spider web of freeways (the brutal crush of almost constant rush hour traffic just beginning) and wondered what these increasingly excited Frenchmen and women thought of the concrete jungle below them. There was no lush green landscape; no English countryside, no Tuscan fields of sunflowers, no Arc d’ Triumph, no Eiffel Tower. There was Inglewood and Compton and Crenshaw. There were tall, bland glass and steel buildings, hundreds of miles of freeways and sidewalks; dirty streets and the neon glow of the ever- present fast food franchises. It was ugly. I mean really ugly. I tried to imagine what these people were thinking as they looked down at their destination. I wondered where they were going to go. Disneyland? Universal Studios? Hollywood Boulevard? Would they step into Gary Cooper’s shoes at Mann’s Chinese Theatre? Would they get their picture taken with a Star Wars storm trooper? Would they marvel at the freakish and desperate nature of Hollywood Boulevard itself? Would digital cameras click click click at the Hollywood sign, nestled comfortably in the brown mountains above, one of the few large ‘ monuments’ Los Angeles can claim as its own. A monument to fame, glory, greatness, fantasy, mystery. A monument to Tinseltown. Would they go to the Pacific Ocean, walk the pier at Santa Monica? Would they ride the Ferris wheel and stare down at the boardwalk? Would they go to Rodeo Drive and have some strange sense of déjà vu as they recalled their own streets, the Rue Montaigne, and Champs d’Elysees, that held the same high-priced stores?

For a brief moment, I felt embarrassed. I felt I had just come from a continent of historical riches, back to the colonies – worse yet – back to the wild, wild west where these culture and history- rich people were going to deplane, and suddenly become horrified that they’d ever wanted to come to this barren, desolate place with such a brief, somewhat violent history, and so few great artistic achievements.

And then…and then…I had a thought….perhaps it was nostalgia, or my intense longing to just be home. Home, this place I was born and raised and loved and hated and hated and hated. And yet how I longed to be back on the terra firma of the City of Angels. It was then I realized sadly, that these tourists would indeed probably do all of the touristy things one does in Los Angeles….just as we’d marched down the Champs d’ Elysees and the Rue Montaigne.

This city is my home, and it will always be my home. There is normalcy here, normalcy these tourists will no doubt never see. I grew up in an upper-middle class beautiful suburb that seemed as regular and normal as any city in the country. We were children who played in the streets at night with other children; in the summer, water balloon fights and running throught the sprinklers....in the autumn, football, baseball. We rode our skateboards during the '70's and roller-skated on neighbours' driveways. We did cartwheels on our lawn, and somersaults and our parents called us in at night for dinner, where we all sat together and ate and talked about the day. We went to school; sometimes we walked home from school and stopped to get a soda. We were in plays and recitals, we took piano lessons and ballet and softball. I took oil painting and tap dancing and mum was our chauffer. We ate snowcones in elementary school and went to football games in high school. We had crushes on guys that never knew we existed. We went to movies and had sleepovers and I got my license at 16. Whatever normal is, we were just like any other kids I think, in any other suburb in the country. We just lived in an infamous place called Los Angeles. People here walk their dogs, pick up their newspapers in the morning, and don't spend all day lying by a David Hockey- styled pool with a fruity drink in one hand and Variety in the other.

Los Angeles. The City of Angels. A funny name that for a place that can so often feel like Hell on earth. As I wondered about those who’d never been here, I wondered what they saw. I would never be able to see this city with new eyes. I will never be able to see this place as others who've never been here do. For some reason that bothers me. I want to see it like a stranger. I've never be a stranger here, and yet still feel like I am, in so many inexplicable ways. The dichotomy of my love-hate relationship with the city began in college, when I was released from the confines of the beautiful suburb I’d grown up in. I was free then, to explore every street, every city, and every seedy and beautiful spot that caught my eye. And I did. I met Los Angeles in all its glory and all its nastiness and I fell in love - or perhaps I became addicted to it; the angels caught me, cursed me, showing me Heaven and Hell in one place, a place I would love and hate with the intensity of a mad, crazy love affair. My friends and I scoured every nook and cranny of the cities around us - Malibu, Santa Monica, Brentwood, Westwood, Beverly Hills, Venice, Marina del Rey, downtown Los Angeles.

The French tourists would probably not find much beauty here. Flying over the city I’d have to agree Los Angeles is really not beautiful; at least not from 10,000 feet. The highly talented and lauded film director Michael Mann Miami Vice, Heat, Collateral) has managed to make this city look like a glowing, radiant gem in his movies, especially Heat, and when I watch them, I marvel at the magic of cinematography. How beautiful the black velvet night looks in downtown Los Angeles. How gorgeous the twinkling lights of the valley. Is it really there? Or is it just an illusion?

Michael Mann and cinematography notwithstanding, I have sped over the 405 past midnight, cresting over the hill from the Westside to the valley, and I’ve seen the glittering lights in front of me, spread out like a million stars fallen to earth. It is no movie, no film, and no illusion. The sparkling desert lies before me, the sky the blackest blue and starless; the city itself giving off too much light to reveal any celestial objects above. It’s fine though, because it truly does look like Heaven and it seems to go on forever, even though in reality, they are just cities, one after another, Burbank, Studio City, Van Nuys, Sherman Oaks, Encino, Chatsworth, Granada Hills, Northridge, Reseda; valley cities that are mostly ugly, some rich, some middle class and some wretchedly poor, and most looking more like the other side of Hell at high noon rather than Heaven at midnight.

The beauty of Los Angeles is often found while driving; this is a city that could not exist without cars; car culture rules here, we live in our cars, for our cars and they are the vehicles that often reveal the hidden loveliness of this seemingly desolate place. The best drives here are also the most dangerous: Pacific Coast Highway. Sunset Boulevard from Hollywood straight down to the ocean. Topanga Canyon. Malibu Canyon.

I have driven down Wilshire Boulevard, leaving the drug-filled nightmare of MacArthur Park downtown, heading straight to the end of the line where the cliffs take me down to the Pacific Ocean and Pacific Coast Highway, where the ocean air is clean and cold and the water even icier. I have run the beaches of Malibu at night; I have lain on cold sand and stared at cobalt skies, half-drunk with youth, liquor, laughter. I rushed into the black, cold waters, laughing, screaming, one of the handful of times I was high on miss maryjane. I have looked up at the full moon; I have walked the empty streets of Santa Monica at 3am, the shops full of shadows and the sidewalks full of ghosts. I have walked Melrose Avenue more times than I can remember, shopping, people watching, young and dumb and convinced that velvet jacket from Retail Slut was the One, the one thing that would make me look oh so incredibly cool.

I’ve driven the asphalt maze that is downtown Los Angeles; if there is a ‘city’ anywhere in this place, this would be it, although I am convinced, after living here 39 years, that the buildings and street signs switch themselves around at night for I have never gone downtown without getting lost. Never! I used to go to the symphony almost weekly with my friend Dawn many yers ago to see my favourite conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and hear my favourite classical music, and hell if we didn't get lost every. single. time. We even lost our car in the parking structure of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (this was years before the Philharmonic moved to the hideous Gehry-styled tin can of the Walt Disney Hall). God we laughed that night. I don't know why it was so funny. I thought we'd grow old in that structure until some kind man with one of those little carts came around and drove us at high speeds around every level of the garage until we found Dawn's car. Naturally, the minute we exited the parking lot, we turned the wrong way and started going towards some really, really scary areas of downtown.

I remember my father taking me with him to work in downtown one day when I was a child; oh all those years ago, for a little girl, the buildings were like great, magical monsters leering down at me. It was a claustrophobic jungle of concrete and glass and for all I knew it was a real city – New York, Chicago, San Francisco. It was beautiful. I was small; it was huge and lovely, busy and manic and the energy inspired me, even then. It’s not New York by far, or even San Francisco, but it’s the downtown the angels gave us. It has skyscrapers and hotels and condos and artist's lofts and banks and history and businessmen and women bustling about; it has a symphony and restaurants and art museums and shops and jewelry marts where gold glitters for blocks on end. It has a fashion district and Skid Row and drunks and homeless people – more homeless people than you’d ever want to see. It has old, abandoned theatres, because truly, we are a city that does not value history, and how that breaks my heart. We tear down Hollywood’s Golden years for a parking lot or a Jack in the Box. We don’t look back; commerce and the almighty dollar rules this land. I can’t stop looking back. It has a train station that has not been abandoned; one of the few places in Los Angeles where history remains. Union Station is a magnificent piece of architecture that has been in so many movies, most notably for me, my favourite film of all time, Blade Runner.

Outside our metal cages that speed along the highways, the beauty of the city is soft, and sweet and reveals itself in small, seemingly inconsequential ways.

I used to walk the still, quiet sidewalks of Brentwood at dusk in the summer, breathing in the sweet jasmine, the warm air cooling quickly as I passed houses and apartments, glowing with golden interiors. The warm summer day dying, lights flickering on, cats sitting in windowsills to catch the dying of the day. The occasional aroma of dinner would float past me as I caught myself staring into these houses and apartments. I gazed at living rooms, and paintings and people walking from room to room and I wondered, God I wondered. Who are they? What are they thinking? What do they do? What do they wish for, in their deepest heart of hearts? What are they longing for? Are they living lives of quiet desperation? Are they content in their warm little golden palaces? The breeze shifted the leaves in the trees and the sun disappeared into a soft glowing pink and orange…until finally gunmetal grey skies took over and the day was done.

I’ve run down Hollywood Boulevard at one a.m, 20 years old and full of the grandest of all illusions; screaming with laughter, the street so beautiful as I raced past neon lights and bars and closed souvenir shops, stars literally under my feet as my youth fled over history and into a glorious, unknown future. Everything was beautiful, when I didn’t know what lay before me.

Los Angeles is dotted with palm trees swaying in lonely colonnades, night falling fast at the Hollywood Bowl as fireworks explode forever above us, 80 degrees in December, the Hollywood Christmas Parade on the Sunday after Thanksgiving…Santa Claus always appearing, no matter the odd heat wave. Winter is ours on television; we hang icicle lights in lieu of snow- the illusion of a season that will never be bestowed upon this landscape. It does not matter. We live in the land of make-believe and we do so with grandeur and glory.

Ah yes, there is great beauty here, in quiet moments on Ocean Avenue as the burnt sienna sun slides silently into the sea, in silent nights on empty streets… and even though you know those palm trees are full of rats you can’t help but marvel at their beauty; no they do not possess the grace of the Ionic column, or the elegance of a lithe Corinthian, but they are ours, they are our landmarks, they line the streets with dignity and pride and they seem magical as they sway gently back and forth.

There is no Arc d’ Triumph, but there is the Happiest Place on Earth, a few miles outside the boundaries of Los Angeles. There is no Eiffel Tower, but there is the desert and the sea and the mountains all in one place. The flora and fauna that call this place home…most are not native to this city, yet there were brought here and they flourished, they grew, they learned to put roots down in a wild and hard place, like so many of this city's residents. They are strong and fierce and like the settlers who built this place, they have made it home.

There is no Tuscan sun, but there is the Sunset Boulevard drive, long and winding through Hollywood and Beverly Hills, through Bel Air down to the Pacific where the waves crash ceaselessly against the sand. There are grand hotels, and grander homes, there is the beauty of the azure sea and the sparkling white caps that carry sailboats across a pointillist landscape.

There are memories that are not yours and yet you have them; there are lives that were lived, not yours, but you feel them, there are streets you have never been on but you know them as if you lived on them forever. This is a fantasyland, a magical mystery tour of Heaven and Hell and once you’ve lived under the city’s spell you will never be the same again.

I am defeated in the knowledge that no stranger to this place will ever feel what I feel; that they will never see this place as I do. At 10,000 feet, I stare at an ugly landscape. I once described Los Angeles as death disguised as geography. But at ground zero, I am home, and the beauty reveals itself to me in bits and pieces, here and there, perhaps only beauty I can see. But my God, it is so beautiful, this view from within.

Photo: The City of Angels

MadameBastet-Firing-Neurons

This Too Shall Pass

Oh I was so looking forward to writing a happy blog,
a blog with a story, a blog with a point (ha), a blog that
was interesting and informative, like my friend Catzy's
blogs. But today just isn't gonna be that kinda bloggy day
sorry to say.

My pain therapist wants me to write a letter to my pain.
I think today would be a good day to do that. Two or three
times a year, I have such a bad flare up that lasts for days,
I can barely function. This is one of those times, sadly. I want
to be up and out and doing things, because I cannot stand
lying around. I cannot stand this motherf***** getting me down.
I fight the good fight and I usually win. But I'm going to
Chicago in 9 days and I need to get better fast. So I'm forcing
myself to be good, rest, take vitamins, do yoga, stretching,
think good thoughts. It's hard. I had myself my Official Good
Cry earlier. Crying really hard when the pain is this bad seems
to be my only real release. I gave in and took enough pills to
try and knock down the Beast a bit. You know, after all these
years, I should be used to it, but damn, it's so hard.

My apologies to all those I owe emails to, and actual real
snail mail...I promise to get to it as soon as I feel a little
better.

I talked to my brother Steven yesterday before he went
to the Church show in Atlanta. I never, never, never said
a word to him about the Asshole who has taken to occasionally
ragging on me really hard on SK's blog (for reasons I don't know
- it could be a psycho I used to know, it could be someone
that just doesn't like me - whatever). Anyway, Steven
actually mentioned it to ME! I was stunned he'd noticed.
I feel embarrassed on SK's blog now. I shouldn't give a damn
one way or another, but I do. I admit it. I don't want SK to think
I am causing any trouble, so I'm ignoring this dick and I told
my brother to please do the same. But I guess he felt he just
had to say something - and he did. At first I was like, Steven,
you shouldn't have done that. But then I found it sweet, because
my brother and I are close, but sometimes have had some serious
differences. I see though when it counts, he'll be there for me, even
if he's just swearing on SK's blog, haha.

I bought my textbooks online (how cool is THAT!) today for
two out of my four classes (two classes had no textbook info.)
Get this peeps....one textbook for my Psychology of Teaching
class is $175. ONE BOOK. If I had the energy, I'm sure I'd
be outraged. I'm just numb. The grand total for two classes:
$342.00. I could go to Chicago twice! Waddaya gonna do? You
can't fight it. Now I know what all my poor students were going
through at the colleges I taught. I mean, I knew, but now I really
KNOW.

I went to Ilkka's graduation at Pepperdine. I thought it would
be emotional but strangely it wasn't. I felt totally detached. God
graduations are BORING. Even if you're the one graduating.
It was a GORGEOUS day in Malibu. I can't believe how much the
university has grown since I graduated there 17 years ago. I
looked around, but it was like another person went there, all those
years ago, not me. It was like I was getting flickers of someone
else's memories but they didn't affect me. I was glad I was beyond it.
Getting older isn't easy, especially with health issues, but you
know what? I don't want to be 22 again. I have no desire to go back.
They were great days, but they're gone. My job now is to create
great days for me NOW...and I plan to...especially in 11 days!
God it was beautiful though. I've can't believe I used to LIVE there,
and see the ocean everyday. The sad thing about life is, you acclimate
to everything eventually. Despite the fact I saw that gorgeous blue
Pacific everyday, I think I actually stopped seeing it afer a while.
It was good to see how amazingly beautiful this planet can be,
especially with all the sadness and ugliness going on in the world
now.

So I'm really happy for SK and the boys and the good show in
Atlanta. MWP sounds better - that must've been a freaky
experience. Eek I am soooooooooooooooooooo jealous you
get to see the band so many times, and yet I realise I am
being GREEDY! I mean, this is my all-time favourite band
in the world - for the last 23 years! And I got to eat dinner with
them, and hang out with them, and talk with them, and
help them, and see things I never would've seen....two
soundchecks, a thousand T-shirts folded...I met so many
great people...Rob D. that sexy and funny and sweet man,
and Robert Rankin Walker (my husband in another life),
and Jeff Cain (a riot, a sweetie) and Peter and Tim, who I'd
never really talked to before....and Tiare and I even saw a
side of MWP I'd never seen before...ahem...heee heee and
all the great fans I met while manning the
merch tables....it was a dream come true and it all came out
of an errand I agreed to do for SK....really all because of the Senior
Siren of Antenna! Thank you my sweet for that gift. So I
ok, I'm not jealous....YOU of all PEOPLE deserve your trip
and I hope it is all you imagined and more. I can't wait to
see you guys in the Windy City.

Zoe's doing great after having two teeth extracted. She
wants to eat all my food as usual. Fletcher's only hissing
at her about twice a day now, haha.

What is chi gong? Is that how you spell it? SK always
talks about that. I must Google it.

Well, that about sums up life in Madame's household today.
The goal is staying positive in spite of everything. These are the
times I am severely reminded that money means nothing; it
cannot give me the things I really want and need...relief from
the Beast....and I realise people mean everything. That's where my
true blessings are. Thank you to all who've brought me joy and
laughter...Eek, Catzy, Sandy, Steven, SK, RRW, Sue C, Daniel,
Thomas, Jill, Veleska, Tamar, Gena, Ilkka, Mary, Ellen, my
two furry true loves...and Bucks Burnett, who I really don't
know but who makes me laugh my ass off and that's worth
all the money in the free world. Friends who are near and friends
who are far. Doesn't matter. You guys keep me going in the darkest
days and nights. Thank you. I love you all for that.

Photo Credit: Corbis Free Royalty - Chicago....in 9 days baby, it's gonna be MY kind of town!