Venice

They hustled me last time I was down there. The Venice boardwalk didn't have its new skatepark yet. It was a windy September night, when the crowds die down. The hostel lounge was full of European backpackers so I took a walk to the little quarter pipe shaped like a U. I called Jane as I waited. Half my mind was pouting, the other half was claustrophobic.

"Yo, you got any weed man?" a young voice called out. He had the deep voice exaggeration that teenage boys speak with. "I'm drunk, dude. Hey, lemme try your skate!"

D.D. called me on her cell as she and her brother were outside of the hostel ready to leave. We spent the evening at happy hour smoking cigarettes, catching up over a six pack. They had to catch a bus out to North Hollywood so we said bye.

The wind woke me up. My german bunkmate was heading out on a tour. Random tall dude with red shorts on, he came in after drinking beers all night. That's why I like those hostels so much. It feels like I'm on the same trail that the Europeans take: Tep Phenom, Kuta Beach, I'm there; there's weird accents everywhere, like world war II had blessed us with this strange guilt that said the world is a bigger place, please, for the sake of not killing each other can we realize that there's more in the world than guns, tanks and fighter planes? The jungle in Vietnam, green canopies, the smell of rotting vegetation, now on the hippy trail, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Bali, Byron Beach, Australia.

"It's kinda hood, but it's kinda mellow too..."

It's in the air in that small Cali town. I skated all day and ran into the same kid. We played SKATE. Same crazy eyes I'd seen before, unmoving, looking just a little bit away, life trying to burst at the seems, graffiti, skate, surf, gangs, wondering what trust is. He hustled me for pizza. An older cat on a beach cruiser came by and said someone was looking for him. I thought I heard him say to his friend, another skater kid, this guy's a sucker. Ask him if he'll buy you pizza.

When they rolled a joint, I made sure to get a few drags. I'm not a sucker. Pay it forward. It was almost time to move on.

Am I promoting drug abuse, am I messing up by taking as many trips to L.A. as I can with no money to spare? Do I have to find more responsibility in my life than questioning reality or finding the importance in art and life and laughter, high-brow pretense? Writing becomes a job, my writing has no thesis statement, said a professor, cause I don't do well with academic writing...take a breath like Jack wrote in Good Blonde, and let it out like music...I'm drowning in your world of ideas, measured out time, preconceived straight lines we live in, obsessed with the power of the idea, the next big thing, where is my power source? Drum sticks and peanuts on commuter flights, shadows and skyscrapers: I have to be electric, I have to be electronic, shake hands with strange objects--none of this makes sense, I'm lost, there's doubt, so stop.

silence

All the kids hanging out on the lawn were smoking cigarettes. The metal girl was pretty. A mom in a tie-dye sundress was letting her kids hang out with the sunbaked vagabonds. Kids in dreads skate on the street while brothers by muscle beach hustle their latest rap CDs. " Everyone is tanned, looking out to the horizon. A longboarder drops into a small mushy wave by the jetty. Smokes don't help my bronchitis. Is this real? Complacency, irresponsible.

We're back a year later. It rained when we sat outside of the market. I mentioned the birth of the Doors and skateboarding to the crew, waiting in the car bumping Lemonade, a new joint by Gucci Mane. "It's just like back home," Dom said.

"We drove 400 miles and found the same place," J.E. said.

I guess it's not surprising to have memories here. Sad porcelain, breaking easily, so I always worry and wonder. I don't know if it echoed because it was rare to be here, or if it was another place where life slows down to the present, mystical, filled with color and sound. Maybe the opening is accessible whenever we want it. We just have to be ready. Or still. Keep still and mystery reveals itself. I don't even know what it means. My nihilistic tendencies would associate mystical openings with the void: Camus, Sartre, Nietzsche.

If there's a void, something will fill it. That's how it works, even if you don't try. It only rained for a few minutes, but something felt different after.

"I just had to make sure you could find life," said the Alchemist to the shepherd boy.