"I Write in the Sky Every Day"

Los Angeles. First impressions were from a downtown parking garage's rooftop, which I was told by an irritated garage employee I wasn't allowed on:

(Video coming later)

Darrin's apartment was my next stop. I felt particularly touristy as I walked the two blocks from his apartment to the parking garage, which oddly enough I had to go through a Carl's Junior and KFC on the ground floor to exit; the touristy feeling was probably owing to the luggage I was laden with as I walked to Darrin's (laptop, suitcase, guitar, and walking stick). I was relieved to find the building quickly and easily, especially given the sudden heat I was unaccustomed to after being used to temperatures hovering near freezing in Oregon.

Darrin's apartment is a nice place. Making it nice that evening was the food he cooked for us, combined with the strange but comforting feeling of having Portland in alien Los Angeles in the person of Darrin. Good place, good food.





***

After sleeping in a nice amount I woke up and decided to play my guitar somewhere that wasn't Darrin's apartment. So I got directions to Pershing Park, and was on my way.

On the way there, a tall gentleman named Isaac with dreadlocks, dark sunglasses and a gold tooth wearing business-like attire saw my guitar and struck up a conversation with me. He asked how long I had played, and shared of his own musical aspirations. He told me he wanted to make a video in one of the video demo recording booths in Hollywood (I am not sure exactly where these are at or where to find more info about them, no luck yet). He said his voice was his instrument, and proceeded to demonstrate by rapping as we walked.

I am not sure exactly where he was headed before he met me, perhaps the bus or perhaps elsewhere, but he ended up following me to Pershing Park as he continued to rap. I would describe his words more like spontaneous poetry than most of the formulaic and somewhat predictably-worded hip-hop on the radio, and he is a pretty talented guy. I asked him if he practiced often, and he thought a moment before he replied, "I write in the sky every day."

In the park, he rapped while I played guitar without conception of anything in particular, other than whatever came to my mind. I liked it, and he matched me without missing a beat whether I was playing major, minor, 12-bar or more free-form stuff. It rocked.

Pershing Park, unbeknownst to me until I got there, is a level in the classic skating game Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, one of the few games I have mastered in my life. Therefore, you can imagine how excited I was to see the actual park upon arrival. Here's a video of somebody playing the level on youtube:



I had many good times with this game.

Here are some photos of the actual park I took:






Before he left for the bus, Isaac exchanged contact info with me and gave me his email. He also gave me his cousin's business card, which points to http://www.stroymoyd.com. Apparently he had just supported his cousin's comedy act at UCLA. He invited me to perform at Unurban Cafe later, but I didn't end up making it...although in retrospect I wish I would have gone and played a couple songs for the open mic. Things turned out pretty fun anyway...

Later that evening I ended up at a party with Darrin's friend, and ended up hanging out with a random assortment of people, including a couple of somewhat attractive older woman who hit on me, a gay guy that also seemed to be hitting on me, another gay guy who didn't hit on me but told me I should go for Darrin's attractive female friend and also told me I should go for Darrin, explaining I can play for both teams before bemusedly knuckle-bumping me, and a kid who was the party hostess's son, who got me to play XBOX 360 with him. Oh, Los Angeles...

I ended up playing music with some of these characters, and it turns out Darrin's attractive female friend has a good voice (if I had everybody's names this would be less confusing, but I did not write this as soon as I should have, and I have forgotten names...not sure I would really like to describe them in too much detail for their own privacy reasons). The second gay guy also has musical talent, in addition to stories about things like having a bowl of M&M's being thrown at him by Jennifer Lopez, whom he describes as a "trash."

Oh, Los Angeles...

The next day, I made lunch for Darrin to pay him back for dinner the first night, macaroni and cheese and tuna with a bunch of random stuff thrown in (sour cream, additional cheese, miracle whip for the tuna. It turned out pretty awesome. Afterwards, I went upstairs, took most of my clothes off and chilled on the deserted rooftop pool area. I felt like I was on vacation.

That evening, I drove an hour out of my way to find the place where The Legend of Zelda: Hero of Time was screened at UCLA. It took awhile, mostly because I put the wrong address in my GPS and missed the first showing.

Luckily, there were two showings, and I made it in plenty of time for the second. I was distressed to find that parking was 7 dollars on campus in the garage, and ended having to drive a mile and a half away into a neighborhood that allowed non-resident parking. I was very pleased with myself...until I got lost on the way back to my car, which was annoying.

http://www.theherooftime.com/

This website has more info about the movie, and the public release in two days (December 14th) and where the movie can be streamed from. I met an interesting girl while I waited for the movie to start, who gave me her personal website's url (http://j4yx2.com) along with sharing other random conversation with me.

I gave another girl my number without asking for her name or even starting a conversation with her, just because I felt like it. I walked up to her, said "I have to give you my number." I then told her to get a hold of me if she ever wanted to talk to a random weird guy from Portland. I then walked away without saying anything else. She saved my number in her phone. I felt strangely good about the situation.

The movie, however...not so good. Pretty terrible, actually. But I loved it. I was interviewed by a writer for the Epoch times, who quoted me as "Mr. Triplett" in this review: http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/25472/.
I struggled to not say how terrible I thought the film was, and focus on how much I loved it despite its faults. I wrote reviews on bad movies once upon a time, and loved slamming them in all their awfulness, but I don't have the heart to do that for a film shot on no budget, especially when the cast seemed to have so much fun with it.

Driving home that night was...interesting. After being relieved at finally locating my car (with the help of my GPS; would be in trouble without that) I drove around the beach for awhile as intense emotions punctuated conversations with close friends and family. More on that...never probably. I finally found a Wal-mart and slept for a few hours.

The next morning I made up my mind to return and set things right with Unicorn, without a clue as to how I was to do it. Didn't quite succeed, but that is another story I probably won't tell. After driving about 12 of the 15 hours, I found out my good friend Jeff Johnson was missing from his mother around two in the morning. Suddenly, everything changed.