The clock struck 12:33 am. No, wait. That’s not accurate. I haven’t heard a clock striking anything since the giant wall clock that hung in my grandfather’s living room. The display on the top right hand corner of my macbook screen turned over a minute. And it was now 12:34 am. A whole minute since I started writing this. Just like the rest of my life.. all the minutes add up to nothing. Some written words, a few songs and some memories. All I have to go by. Like that time the whole family was assembled for breakfast at my grandparents’ place in Jadavpur, and I put on the Rubber Soul cassette, and when In My Life came on, it was like sunshine flooding through the corridors after a long spell of rain, carried on the notes of George Martin’s electric piano solo. Or that time my girlfriend gave me a hand-job on an idyllic Tuesday afternoon, the day before I discovered Iron & Wine. But yeah, as I said, I just feel like I’m running the clock down on my life sometimes. Most of the time really. It’s 12:43 now just in case you were wondering. I’ve wasted the last ten minutes of my life on this shit. But then, hey, what’s ten more minutes and a few more inches of whitespace in a giant infinite wasteland. I’m not playing Jazz on my speakers. It’s a more urban kind of night. I’m not feeling smoky and nostalgic for places I haven’t been. I’m feeling edgy and really really in need of some sex. But that’s not gonna happen. So I write instead. It’s a better outlet than watching porn anyway. And Lord knows I’ve been doing enough of that lately. So Daniel Lanois it is.. and I’m reminded of Joshua tree.. and I want to be there under the stars.. looking up.. feeling even smaller and less significant than I usually end up feeling. Not that I can tell any of the constellations from each other, not at this time of the year anyway. Fall’s a little better when Orion’s up. The Hunter’s a mildly comforting sight in the sky. I feel like I’m inhaling the desert air for a second.. and it’s cold and bracing.. and full of life. But I’m just in polluted broken down South Central Los Angeles. Fucking South LA. Makes me angry. Just that kind of place. And I’m in my room. And it’s so very ordinary. And the desert skies are very far away. And if I look out my window, I can’t see any stars.
My Harman Kardon subwoofer looks like a space helmet, or a robotic jellyfish.. and it rests nicely somewhere near the halfway mark of my writing desk. The two speakers aren’t too terrible looking either, all silver and transparent as only Johnny Ive can. Tony Leung and Maggie Chung repose in sadness on the In The Mood For Love poster above my subwoofer. Every shot in that movie turns me on. I don’t need this now. There’s a poster of Taxi Driver, De Niro walking resolved and vigilante through the broken NYC streets..like here I guess. There’s a Pulp Fiction poster on the wall to my left, Uma Thurman (or Mrs. Wallace) staring straight at me. I’ll never get a girl that hot. Ever. And there’s Bogart too.. cool as ever on the Casablanca poster you’ll see once you get in through the door. But you won’t ‘cause you’ll never visit me. Why would you want to anyway? There’s a blue skateboard (20 bucks from Target) that I never learned to ride and there’s my guitars. The blue Granada and the sunburst (I think) Ibanez.. resting on their respective stands. There’s a bottle of red wine on the bookshelf which I bought for that hookup which never happened.. and there’s Murakami’s Norwegian Wood.. the last novel my girlfriend gave me before she fucked someone else. I broke up with her though.. scant consolation.. but I could do with anything at this point. There’s the scale model replica Tyrannosaur and velociraptor on top of my red Fender amp, looking stolidly aggressive. And the un-vacuumed carpet.. I’ve stopped doing pushups on it. Can’t be bothered to clean it up. The shelf above my writing desk has some of the hats that I started buying last year.. I wonder why. I lost my favorite hat near Skid Row on a drunken Halloween night. My queen sized bed always reminds me of that song by The Police.. and I smile grimly every time. And there’s the mirrored wardrobe.. which is a door if used in the right way. Now no Narnia bullshit trust me. We have no maned Jesus analogs in this world. Just a lot of bearded musicians. Except I can’t tell you much about it. Code of honor and all that. Hendrix plays a lot of concerts.. and yesterday he had Zappa as his guest guitar player. Cool stuff. I met Lou the other day. He introduced me to something good. I’m supposed to shoot up some stuff with him tonight. Right after I finish writing this piece of crap. It’s been nearly 40 minutes since I started writing, can you believe that? I used to see a lot of Jim before he got back together with his old pal from Venice Beach last year. I had a hard time finding the vein the first time around.. and fucking poet that I am.. I soundtracked it with The Velvet Underground, of course I did. I think I’ll get Lou to show me again. He’s pretty great at this.. and most other things he does to be honest. The wardrobe doesn’t always work very well.. I end up in different places.. but I’ve learned to manage how to end up at the right sound stages more often than not. Who wants to see a fucking Hank Williams concert right? Never could stand country. Then there’s my chin up bar .. on the bathroom door frame.. I probably won’t get my deposit back.. I’ve scuffed up the wall pretty bad. Oh and there’s a picture (replica obviously) by Van Gogh above the shelf with all the hats. Wheat Field with Crows. One of the last paintings he ever did. At Auvers. I like staring at it.. and I fancy I can see the crows move across the canvas of turbulent swirls. Sometimes I think I hear them cawing giant yawning caws in the vast expanse of these summer afternoons. And there’s an Abbey Road sign on the top frame of my bookshelf, which houses some Kerouac and Ferlinghetti and some miscellaneous books on folklore and art. I don't believe I'm missing anything. I had some Bukowski novels that I had borrowed from a friend but I gave them back. That's about it I think. As I said, a pretty ordinary room.
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