4-2-99 F 7:26 PM
I'm at Jack's Sugar Shack on Hollywood and Vine, a goofy place with a South Seas Paradise theme, bamboo, and faux waterfall.  The Lakers just beat the Suns on the TV over the bar.  I tried to get the Dodgers and Angels, but they don't have it on their satellite system.  I'm supposed to meet Goldcastle and Shawn Manson, ostensibly to talk about Shawn's novel, but hopefully we won't force ourselves to talk about it.  I really have nothing to say about it, but might if it comes up naturally in the course of our conversation.  Shirelle loaned me her car, so I'll have to look out for how much I drink.   I dropped her at Dina's where I'm supposed to return in a few hours.  I wonder if the Frolic Room has cable.  Maybe I can see the game there.  What else?  Maybe I'll go out front and smoke my roach.  I had a double Kahlua and coffee on the rocks and now I'm having a Harp.  I see a Trivial Pursuit game up behind the bar.  Two other guys a drinking in here.  One questions the bartender as to whether his Jameson's is really Jameson's.  Tom Jones comes on.  It's Not Unusual.  Three girls walk in and immediately walk out.  Too dead in here for them, I guess.  There's a thing on the TV about Sandy Koufax, the sound is down on it, though.  I made and ate three pork chops for dinner.  There's a reality cop show on the other TV.  Thing mentioned he might be here.  He went to see the movie "The Matrix" and to look for a new apartment.  There's nothing to draw in here but the bottles behind the bar.  I've already done that though at Molly Malone's and El Cholo and don't feel like repeating it again here.  Sheryl Crow is at the Pantages around the corner.  Maybe I'll shoot some pool, but I don't feel like I have much of a game.  So what else?  I guess this will just have to do me 'til tomorrow.

4-1-99 Th 3:59 PM
Van Gogh painted a skeleton with a cigarette in its jaws.  I'm at Molly Malone's for a pint and to finish this.  Had April showers on cue; they came in time for me to walk up to the museum under my umbrella.  I had a wee puff before leaving.  The rain and the walk made me feel like a tourist.  I felt healthy and remarkable and striking, striding along the sidewalk.  The line to get into the exhibit was so full of people, it was cheap and humiliating.  My presence became less artistic than the object of commercial forces.  When you do finally get in, though, it is, I have to admit, the same experience of wanting to linger before greatness as at the Grand Canyon.  There's something psychedelic about Vincent's imagery; he let's you see through his teary eyes; he shows the stitches in vision...I prattle, but that's what I do.  Whatever.  My ass itches intensely.  The back tire on my bike finally gave out.  The spokes started popping out of the rim and derailed the chain.  I had to walk it home from Johnny's where I had gone after H&R Block this morning.  I can't believe I paid $58 to have a monkey file my return on a machine.  I owe the state $700 thanks to some clerical error in the belly of the bureaucratic beast.  I'll have to bring it to the attention of payroll.  I had to ask a waitress at Johnny's about toilet paper for the bathroom.  I'm thinking about walking to Numero Uno for a small pizza on the way home.  I'll stop at Blockbuster, too.  I have got to, got to, got to work on Jim tonight.  Pray for a page.  Move them along.  The endless possibility of detail to show boggles me.  My Harp is delicious.  I watched "Dog Day Afternoon" today.  Comedy.  I bought four postcards and a magnet with Van Gogh images. 

3-31-99W 3:32 PM
With Getoff Walters at Diedrich's Coffee of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.  This is the first I've written today.  I went to Bandera after Q's yesterday.  Lauren wasn't working.  I called Shirelle.  She came out to meet me.  We split an apple pork dinner and drove back to her place.  She was stressing because her roommate's vacuum cleaner vanished, and she accused Shirelle of stealing it.  Kristina wasn't there when we got there, but there was a message on the machine apologizing.  We watched the beginning of "Dog Day Afternoon."  Turned it off before we fell asleep.  This morning we went to Bob's Big Boy for breakfast.  I read the newspaper and started watching "Red River" with John Wayne and Montgomery Clift.  That's when Getoff called.  We went out to a deli he knows in Agoura Hills and got sandwiches and a bottle of chianti and drove the canyon through the Santa Monica Mountains along Kanan Dume Road.  We came upon the sea as if in a dream, the colors and lighting so remarkable and yet unremarkable.  We parked at Zuma and hiked up the cliffs to the rocky point there and drank our wine a sheer hundred feet above the roiling sea.  The wind steadily whipping, we hunkered against a boulder and talked about our dreams and regrets.  Whatever.  We hiked back down to the car and here we are now, a Malibu strip mall.  My vacation seems nearly over.  What next?  Maybe we'll stop at Patrick's Roadhouse.  Maybe we'll go to Mamagay's tonight.  I want to finish watching "Red River."  I've got to lower my standards and further Jim.  Summary summary summary.  What about the details?  What about the lawyer, the stockbroker, and the human resources manager at Bandera?  [pencil sketch of a man's profile]  "Teaching is such a noble profession," the stockbroker said, and may actually have believed it, but still and all, she had chosen to make millions instead, which trumps nobility, I think.

1:54 PM 3-30-99 Tu
I had another round of strange dreams I can barely remember except that there was some happy wonderful.  A couple girls from high school, Stacy Vole and Felicia Cotomal implied that they might enjoy sex with me.  I don't remember much more than that, but the fact that this old technicolor fifties adventure I'm watching with Burt Lancaster sailing from one exotic tropical place to another reminded me of it.  Boys' dreams of love and danger. 6:52 PM I'm at Q's in Brentwood.  I rode my wobbly-tired bike seven miles to get here.  You don't notice all the hills when you're driving.  It took about an hour.  I don't know if I'll ride it back.  The back tire is all fucked up now, worse than when I left the house, from going off curbs, I guess.  There are about a dozen unescorted sweeties in here.  When I first came in at five there was only the bartender, an old woman trying out her facelift on him, and a fat guy wearing a tie and suspenders.  Now the place is hopping.  I haven't talked to anyone, though.  I played three trivia games and won all three, but the competition wasn't exactly stiff.  Now what?  I may check out that Bandera place to see if Lauren is working.  I wish I could call Thing at Lightstorm and see if he could swing by and let me throw my bike in the back of his truck.  Maybe Shirelle will come get me.  We can go to her house and watch "Dog Day Afternoon."  My national rankings have not been so good.  Here's another little hottie.  Whatever.  What else?  After I finish this, I'll have finished all my writing for the day, but for, of course, Jim.  Kind of stuck there.  I read chapter three of Player Piano.  Genius.