Picks and shovels and wheelbarrows.

The had access to heavy equipment, but they had to keep the construction secret. So they dug by hand.

The tunnel was beneath…

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I’ll be at The Lazy Cowboy Salon in Austin TX this Friday the 16th. I would love to meet you in person, so please stop by.

Please get your tickets here but make sure you DM me for the s…

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I was 23. Not quite 24, but on my 24th year.

It was almost half my life ago.

I woke up.

Tubes in my arms—in both arms. And a tube in my nose. The oxygen burned my nostrils.

Sensors taped to my fingers.

A tangle of wires coming from my chest.

And yes, there was a large catheter in my hole of my little dick.

I didn’t know where I was or how I’d gotten there.

It was either the end of the story or the beginning of a new one. And I’m still not sure which one it was. I didn’t now what was happening but I knew things would never be the same.

And I was right. Things were never the same again.

***

I’m not old, but lord knows I’m getting there. I’ve seen a lot of life. At times I’ve lived hard. And mostly I haven’t lived that well.

I jokingly call my social media feed “A Ledger of My Personal Failures”.

I’m only half-joking. Maybe even less than half.

Because I’ve fucked up in more ways than I can remember.

But I tried. I tried to do something. I got tired of being afraid and I got tired of hiding and I went out and did something in the world.

I got my ass kicked, but I tried. And I’ll always have that.

One afternoon, sometime in the late 1980s, while sitting in a hotel bar in Beverly Hills chain smoking Camel studs and slamming Absolute vodka (as was his custom), my dad gave me some advice. He told me that to make it in the world you have to get kicked in the balls every day.

Now, he died before my balls really dropped. And as I got into my teens and twenties I thought, that’s some really fucked up dark advice—why would you say that to your child?

Well, he told me that because I was a boy. And he knew I’d be a man. And he knew, that if I was anything like him, I’d go out in the world and try to make something of myself and that I’d be on my own.

He knew I’d have to do this.

Because he was dying.

And that he was almost broke.

And that nobody would take care of me. And that I wouldn’t have a choice in the matter.

My father was a flawed man. But there’s a wisdom that’s unique to flawed men. There’s a shrewdness and savvy that comes from a lifetime of getting kicked in the nuts.

And he knew.

He knew I’d have to go out on my own. And he knew what would happen to me.

My father was a Jewish man. He studied the Torah. He knew the story of Abraham, who set out into the strange land and took some very hard knocks. And the same story happened to my father.

It happens to all men who set out into the world. It’s woven into the fabric of reality. It’s part of our journey.

He knew I wouldn’t have the benefit of family money and connections, and I wouldn’t have a parent to guide me. Because my mother was fucking worthless, and he knew that too.

So yeah, I went out in the world. And I got kicked in the balls. Just like Abraham, just like my dad.

Maybe not daily, but it happened often enough that I eventually stopped caring.

It wasn’t pleasant. But at least I was warned.

***

Set in a near-future New York City, Cairo Smith’s Current Affairs follows recent college grad and commercial artist Calvin Munn.

In New York Calvin finds opportunity, both financial and romantic. Because this is why men go to the cities. At least that’s why I went.

I didn’t know this at the time. I was young and I was ambitious so I went.

My first big city was San Francisco at the turn of the millennium. But it felt a lot like Cairo Smith’s future New York. A place that was astonishingly large and impenetrable and chaotic.

And it was vibrant.

And it was rich. Not just in culture and food and art but in money.

I’d never seen money like the money I saw in Dot-Com Era SF. It was stupid money.

They called it “The City”. And it was my city. It was like a shimmering brothel.

It’s an odd thing, this city.

Built by the hands of men.

Who made ornate lattices of rebar, tied neatly together with wire, then sheathed the lattice in wood and filled the void with concrete.

This is how cities are made.

So other men can wander it’s streets. And find employment. And fall in love with a woman. And marry that woman.

And then we leave. Because this is no place to raise children.

I came from a place that was made for having children. But San Francisco was an upside down world. A chaos world. A world of the unknown. I needed mentors.

Every hero needs mentors and benefactors. The journey is impossible without them.

I found my mentors. (But looking back, perhaps they found me…)

And Calvin Munn found his mentors and benefactors too. First in the form of his female design store boss who protects him from the “mean gays”. Then real estate developers, a corrupt politician, and a cigar chomping intelligence operative.

The matronly design store boss mothers him. She shows him the ropes. And like a good mother she sends him out into the world.

Cairo Smith’s genius is in the characters. Not only are they memorable, they’re all vivid and familiar. Like Calvin’s Sahidic in-laws, or his college buddy turned roommate, or the Dutch documentary director, or the mortally wounded sailor from Astoria Oregon (“The Goonies town”).

Cairo has a gift for rapid and efficient character exposition. It’s like you’ve met these people before but you can’t place them. But Cairo Smith, ever the gracious host, sees your confusion and makes the introduction. Soon you’re old friends, and enjoying the party together.

Another notable thing about Cairo Smith is that he writes about men. His men don’t cower. But they’re not fake “based” types either. They’re just men. Just ordinary men moving through the world.

They follow opportunity and they fall in love. They try to the best they can, then the next best thing, and they don’t give up. They don’t waiver in the face of adversity. No matter how many knocks they take—no matter how many kicks to the balls—they pick themselves up and keep going.

They go quietly yet firmly.

They travel through the world like men.

Unlike many young male Alt Lit authors, Cairo doesn’t express anger or hate or resentment. This is also notable. Because I see it in my own writing. And it embarrasses me. Just like I’m embarrassed when I see it in the writing of others.

Cairo’s protagonists don’t blame others for their setbacks. Again, they pick themselves up and keep moving. Just as men are supposed to do—and just as they’ve always done.

There’s a love story in the lives of most men, and there’s a love story at the heart of Current Affairs. It’s a romance. But it’s a romance with a masculine perspective.

We’re leaving an era where any positive discussion of male sexuality was verboten. Why do men fall in love? How do they end up with the wrong girl? Why do they carry flames for women they once knew? Why do they cheat?

Well, Cairo covers all of this. And he does in a way that, just like his characters, feels familiar and authentic.

Towards the end of every Hero’s Journey there’s a point where the hero loses something. They have to lose this. They have to give something up to leave the chaos and get back to the right side up world.

Calvin Munn loses something.

I lost something too.

And yeah, if you go out and fight the world you’ll lose something as well.

All men lose something. All men give something up. But life goes on.

And we keep going.

And we keep taking hard knocks.

So when you wake up in the ICU, and you don’t know where you are or how you got there, and there’s a plastic tube in your dick, OR maybe you can’t even FEEL the tube in your dick, and you have no idea what’s happening yet you have the sinking suspicion that things will never be the same, then please remember this:

Life goes on.

Because the journey of the hero never stops.

And, for what it’s worth, you don’t really get a choice in the matter.

Current Affairs by Cairo Smith is available on paperback and ebook from Amazon.com. Please give it a read.

It’s an amazing thing when you think about it. An entire industry with hundreds of thousands of workers based solely on the power of storytelling—something people used to just sit around and do for free.

At its peak in 2019, box office totals for the United States and Canada were more than $11 billion dollars. And that doesn’t include television advertising revenue, streaming service subscriptions, and all other types of visual media.

This is big business. It’s certainly real money to me.

And even though I was (and still am) a cog in this giant machine called the Entertainment Industry—an industry based on the power of story—the thing I have the most trouble with is telling my story to myself.

* * *

Many film workers—that is, the people who create movies, TV shows, and commercials—are afflicted by addiction and alcoholism. You can include me in that cohort. I’ve come to believe it’s an occupational hazard. The reasons why aren’t important for now (we’ll get to that later), but the solution is.

Every alcoholic and addict gets to a point where he can no longer continue. So how could I? Once the drinking started, it became compulsive, and I would not stop until I was so drunk that I was physically incapable of getting the glass to my mouth.

Of course everyone around you knows your secret. They know even before you do. You’re always the last one to know. That’s just how addiction works.

But when you finally realize you have a problem, and you’re free-falling at terminal velocity barreling straight for the ground, you run into a paradox: you realize you can’t go on living your life under the influence, but you can’t imagine a life of sobriety.

At this point you either find a way to get sober, or you end your life. Many do end their lives—usually by unintentional overdose or drinking themselves to death.

But fortunately for me I chose the other path and got sober. As of this writing I haven’t had a drink in more than ten years.

I did it with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). This is the seminal twelve step program. The point of the twelve steps is to allow you to lead your life in such a way that you don’t need to get drunk or get high. It’s a way to “deal with life on life’s terms,” as they say in AA.

Because life is hard.

And this world can be a shitty place.

Maybe you were raised by a neurotic actress. Or your father (that you never really knew) died when you were young. And then you came down with a crippling illness at what should have been the prime of your life. And then you ended up in a so-called glamorous line of work where you’re easily replaceable and people would do anything and everything short of murder to get ahead of you and everybody else. And you have to go to work every day and deal with these people. And they’re disagreeable and dishonest and abusive and sometimes straight-up insane. But you still have to deal. You can’t walk away, because you love it. Or at least, you tell yourself that you love it, in part because you don’t have anything better to walk away to ...

So you’re stuck. And wouldn’t a drink help right about now? Wouldn’t it make you feel better? Wouldn’t it help you deal with the stress and the anger and the resentment? Everyone needs a time-out once in a while. Everyone needs a little break.

Actually, I do think I deserve a little break. I do think I deserve to feel good—right?

(Right?)

So I take a drink. Suddenly I’m drunk again. And I can’t stop. Then I’m right back where I started. It’s a nightmarish cycle, and it leads only one way.

But thanks to a twelve-step program, I killed the cycle before it killed me. Aside from finding a higher power, the most important part of it for me was this: the need to be honest. The need to be honest with myself and with everyone in my life.

In the program they call it “rigorous” honesty.

The thing I struggle with is telling my story to myself. Because sometimes I don’t know the truth of what happened. Part of that is because of time, but another part of it is because of the booze and the pills. Some things are hazy and some things are just missing.

And no, this isn’t a book about addiction and recovery. It’s a book about me. It’s a book about me telling my story to myself.

* * *

In fact, there are many stories that I want to tell. Though it’s not a “want” as much as a “need.” The Business is such a weird fucking place. Anyone who doesn’t have firsthand experience of it can’t really comprehend what goes on there. It’s too strange. Too foreign. Too out of the bounds of normal life.

Maybe it’s an experience akin to war. War is so outside the bounds of normal human experience that most people have no clue what it really entails. Only veterans can discuss it with each other in a truly meaningful way.

Ever overhear two vets talk about their deployments? I understand the words, but I don’t get the meaning. Then again, I’ve never been to war.

I had a Marine buddy. He started working for me as my assistant, but we became friends. This was Iraq War. Peak Global War on Terror.

My assistants kept burning out due to the stress of the job, so I started recruiting combat vets thinking they’d be able to handle it. A film set is nothing like combat, right? It turned out they burned out faster than the run-of-the-mill PA.

So my Marine buddy was at Fallujah. He had demons. He needed to tell his stories.

We’d be driving and he’d just gush. But the stories didn’t make any sense. It was just random disjointed vignettes of fucked-up bizarre shit. And there was no moral or meaning to any of it.

I didn’t understand this until I read Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. He was telling TRUE war stories, not the fake ones that have a moral and make sense. My Marine’s stories made no sense, but they were true. And they were true because they made no sense.

You can see this in the 1980 film The Big Red One, starring Mark Hamill and Lee Marvin. Veterans, including my grandfather who served in the Second World War, have told me it’s the most realistic war movie ever made. It’s based on director Samuel Fuller’s experiences in the war. But it made no sense to me. It’s just a collection of bizarre vignettes.

My Marine buddy needed to talk. And talk he did. About how the feral dogs of Fallujah would eat the dead mujahideen while he and his platoon lay prone in the sun for hours. They couldn’t move so they stayed behind cover and watched the dogs eat the dead.

There were other stories but that one sticks out.

He was transitioning into the “normal” world and he had to leave the baggage of the war behind. And to do this he had to tell his story. Not for me but for himself. He had to tell the story to make sense of what he had been through.

* * *

My grandfather never really talked about the war until he was over one hundred and going senile. He was pretty sharp for an old dude, but he started to slip after his ninety-ninth birthday.

Maybe my grandfather didn’t need to talk like my Marine buddy. The war ended and he went from the military into a world populated by men with similar experiences. Men who understood each other. Men who went on to sculpt and mold the world.

He served as a pilot in the Indo-China theater during the Second World War. He flew cargo over the Himalayas, and back again with Chinese workers heading for the Burma Road.

The stories he told were funny. Like how he and his fellow pilots somehow got a supply of fresh beef in INDIA and opened a hamburger stand at the airfield.

Then there was the time he had too much wine at Thanksgiving dinner and told the table about the night he lost his virginity at a brothel in Calcutta. He said it was a classy place for officers only and insisted the girl was half Anglo.

According to Grandpa, the most dangerous part of the trip to China was having to spend the night in the barracks with the Flying Tigers. They were a group of rough mercenaries who were pressed into the American command structure when the US entered the war. At night they’d drink and play poker, but the games would inevitably lead to brawls and actual shootouts—in the barracks.

Later, in his advanced age, my grandfather would tell me terrifying stories about being attacked by Jap Zeros over the Himalayan foothills. After he died, I read his letters home and they were disturbingly sad: “Dear Dad, Today we were bombed and strafed. Many were injured. Jimmy got hit …”

I became his caretaker just before his one hundredth birthday. At that time, my stepdad was about to leave on a trip to Myanmar. Grandpa kept asking, “Where’s he going?” and I’d say, “Myanmar.” He didn’t get it and kept asking the question, like old people do.

Finally I realized my mistake and said, “They used to call it Bur-Mah.”

His eyes lit up and he said, “Oh! I’ve been to Burma!”

Senility is a funny thing. The elderly can be completely confused about where they are and who’s who and no, we’re not in tornado country, Grandpa, we’re perfectly safe, please turn off CNN. And then they can have moments of crystal clarity.

And so, with impressive recall, down to the call sign on his plane, he told me the story.

They got an emergency call from a British airfield in Burma. They were under attack by a large Japanese force and were requesting evacuation.

Grandpa and copilot scramble and jump into their C-47 cargo plane. By the time they got to the airfield it had been overrun. The runway was cut into thick jungle and it was covered with Jap soldiers. The Brit survivors were holding out at one end of the runway.

Without hesitation, Grandpa landed the plane. Just landed right on top of the Japs. They didn’t circle and think about it. They just landed.

The plane bowled the Japs out of the way. Dead and dying Japs and associated body parts were everywhere.

They stopped at the end of the runway, turned the plane around, and the surviving Brits piled in. By this point the Japs had regrouped and were running down the runway shooting as they went. Grandpa gunned the engines and they took off right through the Japs.

They made it back to the base in Assam. The plane was full of bullet holes, and they had to clean blood and body parts out of the engines and landing gear.

I’d read Tim O’Brien by this point, and I sensed the trueness of the story from the matter-of-fact telling and lack of embellishment. And from the utter lack of a moral or meaning.

But still I pressed him to give me some sort of meaning—some sort of neat little ending.

“Did you shoot at the Japs?”

“We didn’t have guns.”

“Not even a pistol?”

“They didn’t issue pistols to pilots.”

“Did the Brits shoot out through the doors?”

“No.”

“Did they cheer when you took off?”

“No.”

“Did the Brits thank you?”

“I can’t remember.”

Then senility came roaring back and he asked, “Where’s your stepfather going again?”

He had his military records in a filing cabinet in our basement. I found the commendation. He was awarded a Silver Star for his actions that day.

Later, after he passed, I related the story to my uncle. He had no idea that his dad had a Silver Star. But he understood why he never told the story. My uncle is a Vietnam vet. He has his own stories he’s never told.

I don’t know why Grandpa told me that story. I guess it was something he needed to say before he died. Before he moved on to the next phase.

I’ll never be a war hero. I’ll never use a cargo plane as a weapon and save the good guys. I’m too old. I’m too sick.

Lee Sandlin, in his essay “Losing the War” writes, “I’m old enough now that the only way I could figure in a future war is as a victim.”

That’s me. The best I can hope for is to be a future war victim, which isn’t a pleasant thought.

However, I did try once. I tried to enlist a few days after 9/11. I had almost died from undiagnosed juvenile diabetes a few days prior. The recruiters literally laughed me out the door. So I missed out on the Global War on Terror.

In retrospect, I was damn lucky. The timing of my diagnosis was a little too perfect. The older I get, and the more I live this life, the less I believe in coincidence. And this particular coincidence is a reminder that things happen for a reason and my life isn’t my own.

* * *

Instead of going off to Iraq or Afghanistan I fell into the entertainment industry. By the end of 2001, I was working in broadcast sports. By September of 2002, I was working as a PA on feature film sets.

I knew nothing, but I was a hard worker and a quick learner, so they taught me The Business. And slowly I moved up.

I never saw a dead Arab get eaten by a feral dog, and I really don’t want to

compare my experience to going to war. But I too have stories to tell. Stories I need to tell. So I can work out the meaning for myself. So I can transition into the “normal” world. Because I want out of The Business. It’s been more than twenty years and it’s time for me to move on.

Often I tell these stories on Twitter (now called X).

Social media is much maligned, and maybe rightly so, but it’s been good for me. It can turn into a time-suck if I let it, but overall, it’s been positive. I don’t get into beefs and I’m quick to block idiots. And it’s nice to engage with people who share my skepticism about the people and institutions that run our world.

I’ve been on Twitter for a long time. Initially I used it as a news feed. I’d lurk but never engage. Every few months I’d delete the account and start over.

Then I did a funny thing. I started writing about work. And apparently people liked what I wrote because they started following me.

And the writing has been helpful as I’m trying to make sense of things. Trying to process. Trying to sort things out. I can think about something all I want, but it’s not real as long as it’s in my head. And even if I write it down it’s not truly real unless someone else sees it.

So I get touched by the muse, write, post, repeat. If just one person likes it, I’m a) flattered, and b) know it’s real. And when it’s real I can file it away and move on.

Once it’s out there, once it’s real, I don’t want to look at it again. I don’t want to deal with it. Like I say, I just want to move on.

* * *

So many strange things have happened to me over the years. But then again, I’m in a bizarre business, and weird shit happens at my workplace that would never happen in any other professional environment.

One of the weirder work experiences I’ve had involved a famous lead actress getting ass fucked by a famous lead actor in her trailer while the whole crew was within earshot. We knew she was getting ass fucked because she kept screaming, “FUCK MY ASS!”

And that’s it. That’s the story.

At least, that’s the gist of it. But there’s a longer version. I could make that story as long as I want to make it. I could draw it out for thousands of words, like Karl Ove Knausgård telling the story of his teenage self trying to score beer in a frozen dumpy Norwegian village in My Struggle.

There’s an infinite number of ways to tell a story, and that’s true of this story.

I could talk about how hot it was that day. Or how the production was behind because the lead actor was a giant prick who would get fall-down drunk in his trailer. When he finally decided to do a scene the only way he could get out of his trailer was to sober up by snorting coke and huffing straight oxygen.

The movie was a period piece set in the 1970s. As such, all the props and set dressing were vintage. Things like the telephone on the kitchen wall. Props like that are one of a kind—you can’t just find props like that anywhere.

We were filming in a house on a suburban street. The scene was the lead actor standing in the kitchen pleading with his wife over the phone—the vintage one-of-a-kind phone.

The actor flubbed a line and blew the take—he flubbed it because he’d been spending too much time partying and not enough time memorizing his lines.

He knew he had fucked up. A normal person would have apologized to his coworkers and promised to remedy the situation. He would have promised to do better in the future. Because that’s what normal people do when they fuck up at work.

But this guy wasn’t normal. This guy was a celebrity. This guy had Oscars. This guy was treated like a god. And now he was angry. He was angry at himself for blowing the take. But instead of pausing and having a moment of self-reflection, he decided to take his anger out on the world.

Ancient gods would throw lightning bolts to express displeasure. All this guy had was a vintage corded house phone.

So he took the handset of the vintage phone prop and smashed it into the receiver. He smashed it over and over again. Vintage plastic was flying all over the set. When the handset finally fell apart he ripped the receiver off the wall and smashed it on the floor. Then he picked up the pieces, stormed off set, found the prop guy, and demanded he fix the phone or be fired.

The prop guy, stoically and dutifully, took the broken phone to the prop truck where he urgently glued it back together. The phone looked perfect—like nothing ever happened. Like it never had a run-in with an angry Oscar winner. We were shooting again within an hour.

Anyway, it was hot that day. We were shooting at the same house. I can’t remember if this was before or after the phone incident, but it was the same week. I was a PA. My job was to do whatever random tasks the assistant directors needed me to do. On this particular day, my job was to stand on a suburban street next to the lead actor’s Star Waggon. I was supposed to radio the assistant directors when the drunk and/or high lead actor stepped out of his trailer to come to set.

But the lead actress was there that day too. They were having an affair. A very public affair. And judging by the noise it was quite passionate.

I, and everyone else standing near the trailer, could hear it. Eyebrows were raised. Glances were exchanged. Then we all drifted away from the trailer. Some epic fucking was going down.

He was absolutely wrecking her. The trailer was rocking, visually and audibly.

She was screaming in approval and shouting for more.

The first assistant director (1st AD) came on the walkie and demanded to know what was taking so long. I didn’t know what to say. I think I replied with, “Uhh, he’s busy.”

The response on the radio was, “Busy with what?”

The director was antsy. He wanted to shoot. The director of photography (the camera guy, known as a DP) was antsy too. The light was perfect, but the sun was moving. They needed to shoot the scene now.

Again I heard the same question, only this time with anger, “Busy with WHAT?”

The 1st AD was screaming at me over the radio. He was doing this to appease the director and the DP. It was a signal to them that he sensed their urgency and was doing his best to move things along even if it meant screaming at a lowly PA.

Still, I was speechless. I didn’t want to say that our principal talent were fucking on a suburban street over an open radio channel. I’m no prude, but this was uncomfortable.

Also, there were the paparazzi. Our radios weren’t encrypted and the paparazzi had scanners. They were listening to all of this. They always do. So you never use an actor’s real name on the radio. You refer to him by his number on that day’s call sheet.

For example, you’d say, “Number One is walking to set.”

Or you’d say, “Number Two is asking Number One to put his cock in her anus.”

Fed up by my lack of communication, the 1st AD stormed off the backyard set and came onto the street to find out what was happening. And then he saw me down the block, and not standing by the trailer as I had been told.

My insubordination set him off and now the screaming really started. There were a lot of what-the-fucks? and fuck-yous! Some of it was over the radio, some of it was just shouted down the street. As a general rule, when someone starts melting down and screaming, the rest of the crew gets out of the way and makes themselves scarce, so it was just the two of us on the street.

I started walking toward him, motioning for him to keep it down. I wanted to explain the situation in person so I could keep it off the walkie. But the closer I got the more he was screaming at me to get back to my post at the trailer.

Right when I got to him, right when we met in the middle of that street at the halfway point between set and the fuck-shack, is when it ended. Maybe the screaming AD killed the mood, or maybe they were just done, but right when I was about to explain what was happening and why I really really didn’t want to stand by that trailer, the happy couple emerged from the Star Waggon.

They did the scene, it was great, and that was that.

Except, that wasn’t that. At least not for me.

I had got trapped in an impossible situation and ended up taking the blame. In the end, the lead actress wasn’t the only person to get fucked that day. I didn’t get fired, but it was close.

But at least I knew what happened. At least I had a grasp of the situation. And at least I could explain it to myself. That’s a story I can process.

And yet, it still bothers me all these years later. I haven’t let it go.

* * *

There are other stories I have trouble with. Mainly because I can’t remember exactly what happened. Because of time and the booze and the drugs.

My first crush was a girl on a wildly popular TV show. I was in grade school, she was on TV. It was a prime-time sitcom. I watched the show every week just to see her. I fantasized about her, but I never thought I’d actually meet her.

But I did meet her. This was many years after the on-set ass-fuck incident. I’d worked my way up to producer by this point.

My wife, who also worked in The Business, had just completed some shitty indie movie, and we were at a wrap party in a scuzzy restaurant off Melrose. Me and my grade-school crush were both stupid drunk and made out in a corner.

Or did we? I’m really not sure what happened.

Did I make out with the actress—or did I make out with my wife, or somebody else? I really don’t know.

I was drunk and high on painkillers, and she was hitting on me, touching me, had her hand inside my suit jacket. And she was slutty and nasty and had gone way beyond The Wall (past the point where a woman is no longer sexually desirable).

At one time she’d been an international sex symbol. At one time she’d had a great body. She had made a career out of it.

That was over, but she was still trying. She hadn’t given up.

My wife was there and she was pregnant. And I was on the verge of overdosing on Johnnie Walker and painkillers like I was most nights. I also was wearing a black suit. But other than that, I’m not sure. It’s like a dream.

Am I the type of guy who would get drunk and make out with a slutty aging actress when his pregnant wife is in the next room?

I probably am that guy. But that doesn’t help me establish what happened.

Maybe I need to elaborate on this story too. I could talk about the bad music, and the cold appetizers, and how wrap parties always have cold appetizers, or how the crush of my youth locked eyes with me from across the room.

She looked at me hungrily, like I was dinner. Maybe I looked good in that suit. Maybe it was because I was there with my wife, because there’s a large subset of women who are into married guys.

Or maybe I just looked vulnerable—like easy pickings. Some doable drunk guy who would make her feel good. Who would make her forget about her aging face and expanding body and vanishing career. Because she wasn’t aging gracefully, and she no longer had a future in this business.

The danger of not remembering is that my mind tends to fill in the blanks in such a way that the story makes sense. For example, I’d like to say I fucked her. Because that story would make sense. Grade-school crush to drunken hookup twenty-five years later after her star had seriously faded. Now that’s a story.

But that’s also the Sunset Boulevard story, which has been remade several times over. There’s a moral in that story. And it would make perfect sense if I told it.

You’d understand that story. I could connect with you over that story.

But it’s not true. It couldn’t be. I went home with my wife that night.

Of course the way to tell this type of story is to start with some throat-clearing about how much I love my wife and how beautiful she is and how lucky I am to have her as the mother of my children. That’s all true, by the way, but it’s not the honest way to tell the story.

Because the story is about me and my philandering tendencies. That’s the core of the story. Everything else is just fluff. The fluff is there to keep you occupied while I slowly stab you with the real meaning.

It’s sleight of hand. The best stories are told this way. The storyteller creates a diversion, and you don’t even notice the knife entering your back.

For now I have to ask myself, Why do I even need to tell this story? Tact and common decency would dictate that I keep it to myself. I don’t need to spread it around in a book.

Why do I feel the need to get the story out and why do I have to make it real?

I used to numb the pain with booze and pills. Now I write.

I get touched by the muse and I write.

I write to tell my story to myself. Because I need to be honest with myself.

So I’ll get the stories out. I’ll tell them to myself, and I’ll tell them to you.

Then I’ll move on.

My book Hollywood Samizdat: Notes From Below the Line is available to purchase on paperback from Passage Press or on eBook via Amazon. Audio book coming soon.

We’d just moved in together. Had a sublet in Los Feliz. Old art deco building on Loz Feliz Boulevard. We could walk to the bars and the restaurants and that theater on Vermont.

We could walk to The Greek.

We could go see Marty and Elayne at the Dresden.

We could dance at The Derby.

I didn’t dance. But she loved to dance. But she could go with her friends.

I’d had girls who were effectively living with me. But this was the first time it was official. The first actual “living together” situation.

On the day we moved in she told me (embarrassed and timidly) “I don’t know how I feel about you peeing with the door open.”

I thought, gee I guess I’m sharing this place with her now. And this is her place too. And yeah, I can’t pee with the bathroom door open anymore. And that’s when it was real.

That’s when I realized I was sharing my life with another person--and I was doing it under my own volition. And that this was real.

We listened to the Louis the XIV CD on the way up I-15.

Then in every restaurant and bar and by the pool and everywhere they were playing “Finding Out True Love Is Blind”.

It’s a great song. A little raunchy maybe. But that’s what makes it great.

I joked that it was “our” song.

“Hey they’re playing our song.” Like they put it on for just our arrival. Like they played it just for us.

I taught her to gamble for the first time. It was at the pool at the Hard Rock. They had a swim up bar. Maybe they still do. But they had blackjack by the pool too.

And they were playing “our” song.

The dealer was great--really cool guy. He found out it was her first time and walked her through it. And she won. Won big enough that it paid for the entire weekend.

We celebrated with dinner at... can’t remember which casino. Maybe it was the Belagio?

I had a nice suit. It wasn’t nice actually--it was a Calvin Klien separate I’d bought at Macy’s. I got it for my grandmother’s funeral. The pants were a little short. I looked a bit Wes Anderson. But it was black and slim and had narrow lapels and with my tan face and a white shirt I looked good

I looked especially good with her. I can’t remember the dress but it was black and slinky and her short blonde hair and makeup were perfect.

We walked through the casino floor on the way to the the restaurant and people were stopping to stare at us.

Like the prom king and queen had arrived.

Like we were movie stars.

It was an odd feeling. I was just out to dinner with my new live-in girlfriend. Why were they staring? Maybe they thought we’d just gotten married?

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Walking to my car and I could see my shadow stretch. I looked like some long legged alien animal striding across the freshly resurfaced and freshly painted blacktop.

So stopped to take a picture.

But as soon as I got the camera out a cloud passed in front of the sun and my shadow disappeared.

It was a little cloud. Passing slowly. So I waited. I leaned against my truck and gave it a few minutes. I watched people come and go from the Big Box Store.

Lots of people out today. The season is changing. And it’s a holiday. That brings the people out into the world.

It took about 5 minutes, but the cloud passed and the long shadows returned. And I got the picture of my shadow in the low winter sun.

Low winter sun does that. It’s not winter yet, but the long shadows and low sun tell me winter is coming—just like it does every year (every year around here anyway…)

It seems like time is moving faster. Just speeding along.

When I lived in LA time seemed to stop. There are no seasons to remind you of the passage of time. I mean, there are seasons, but it’s subtle.

There’s always that one day of the year when it gets cold enough to wear a coat. It usually happens around Christmas.

One year we were driving back to Santa Monica from a Christmas party in The Valley. Wife’s coworker. Nice house. She’d just gotten married. They invited us to their new place in Woodland Hills.

Lovely little house. Lovely people.

I remember it was cold. It was that one day of the year when it gets cold in LA.

I remember it was cold because that night I’d worn my peacoat I’d gotten at an army surplus store in Berkeley. It was a good coat for the Bay Area, but I rarely wore it in LA. Rarely had the need.

I remember wearing that coat because I remember the hostess complimenting me about it. She was a costume designer, so her fashion compliments carried extra weight. She was also remarkably beautiful—tall and thin and graceful with long blonde hair—and that carried extra weight too.

After the party we drove home through Topanga. I’d been drinking—just like I was always drinking. Or maybe I wasn’t drinking so much then. Maybe it was when I had the drinking under control. Or maybe I was under the illusion I had it under control.

It must have been after midnight. We were coming down the hill on the ocean side of Topanga. I could see the black calm Pacific ahead. No reflection on the waves. No shimmer. Just blackness out to the horizon.

And then I saw it. I saw it reflecting in the headlights.

I saw snow.

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There was this guy called The Wizard. He was one of those amazing characters you only find in Hollywood.

He could, and did, …

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I’m a freelancer. So there’s no HR where I work. So there’s no one to tell me “Best of luck with your future endeavors” before security esco…

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The goal: no goal. Just wanted to drive and take pictures.

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Credits:

Starring Rambo Van Halen

Written by Rambo Van Halen (the word “written” is doing a lot of work here…)

Directed by Rambo Van Halen and Gabriel Mann

Cinematography and Editing by Gabriel Mann

Graphics by Wide Dog

Produced by Jack Connor, Daniel Lisi, and Hitler the Passage Press intern.

Big thanks to and the team from Passage Press for making this happen🙏

Hollywood Samizdat THE BOOK is available now on paper at PassageDOTPress or eBook at Amazon/Kindle.

Tell her you're broken and she can't fix you.

But you can't lie. You have to be certain.

And if she doesn't care then maybe you've got a shot.

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We went out to some hippy brew pub type place. It feels very Oregon. Something some hippies from Eugene would open on the coast. A place for dark beer and thick burgers.

I think all sons are somewhat afraid of their fathers. And my son isn’t different in this regard. But it’s just the two of us here. He doesn’t have his mom or brother to lean on, so he’s forced to engage with me.

As such, he tried an icebreaker to start the conversation.

He said, “Dad, if you could live anyplace in the world where would it be?”

I laughed.

I told him, Buddy I already made that choice. And I chose to be here. In this state, and in this town. And I never want to leave.

We live in a small city in the Mountain West. I’d peg the population at 80k or so. It reminded me of the place I grew up (in a neighboring mountain state), but it was somehow better. The people were nicer than where I was raised.

And this is where we settled. Been here almost a decade and a half.

I love this town.

Truly love it.

I love the people, and the climate, and the rumble of the freight trains moving through town at night. Even when they don’t blast the horn, on a quiet night you can hear the rumble of the wheels. Especially on summer nights, when after the evening thundershowers I open the windows to cool the house and it lets in the sounds of the trains.

———

Today I was on Main Street. I went to my usual coffee shop to write and ogle the Art Hoes. Then I ate a slice of pizza at the best pizza place west of the Mississippi. After lunch I went on a mission to find a Sony Sport Walkman and some cassettes.

I stopped at one of the many pawn shops. After browsing the guns (nothing interesting) I told the clerk I was looking for some ancient technology. I told them what it was and the store erupted in laughter.

They hadn’t seen a Walkman in years. Because 1) nobody listens to music on a Sony Walkman, and 2) they’re not worth enough to pawn. But they suggested I go to the new used record store down the street, as the owner also sells vintage stereo equipment.

So I took a stroll. Past taquerias and vape shops and more pawn shops. And past the barbershop that’s been there since 1800 something. it’s the oldest business in town. It still has the original barber chairs. In fact it still has brass spittoons—but nobody has used those for many decades. Perhaps since before the 2nd World War?

Every boy who grew up in this town has had his hair cut here—including my sons. I used to go in for haircuts. I like a tight/clean shorn head and these guys delivered.

But you didn’t get to pick your barber. There are 3 chairs and you have to wait your turn and who you get is the luck of the draw.

The old guy was excellent. He was in his 80s at the time. Loved to give shaves. Loved to chat. And he really liked to talk fishing—and i’m always happy to join in a conversation about angling.

It was his shop. Before that it was his dad’s. And his grandfather’s before that. They cut the men’s hair of this town for over a century.

But there were two other barbers. One was okay. Good barber but not much for conversation

Then there was the idiot. Just a bog-standard idiot barber. He gave the same haircut to everyone regardless of what they asked for. While waiting I’d see guy after guy get cut by the idiot and walk away with the wrong haircut. It happened to me a few times.

With 1 in 3 odds of getting a bad haircut, I decided to find a new barber. And I did—down the road in the Big City.

I found a tattooed bearded biker who might very well be the world’s best barber—and after seeing him every 3 weeks for the past decade I consider him to be a good friend. And so what if I burn a half tank of gas to get there and back.

Friends are worth a half tank of gas. And I don’t have many friends left.

Continuing down the street, as i neared the record shop, I noticed a pair of legs sticking out of a doorway. But I didn’t pay attention. It looked like one of the Hobos had passed out—or maybe he was just resting.

I call them Hobos, but I have a buddy who calls them Wizards. It’s apt, and it might become my new euphemism for the derelicts cast adrift on the streets of our town.

I was opening the door to the record store when a woman ran up to me.

She said, Sir can you help?

I followed her down the block to the legs sticking out of the doorway. The legs didn’t belong to a Wizard. They belonged to an elderly gentleman. He wore a short sleeve shirt and tie. His walker was tipped over and he was on the ground bleeding.

He was on his way to the cobbler, and had fallen right in front of the door. The people in the cobbler shop were trying to help him, but his body blocked the door from opening.

His arm was shredded. Flesh hanging off. I think he ripped it on the corner of the brick doorway on his way down.

He wanted to get up, and asked for help.

I said Sir, I think we need to call an ambulance.

I took a first aid class a long time ago. I remembered what I was taught about elder falls. Sometimes they go down and crack their hip—but it doesn’t break until the try to stand and put weight on it.

Then they go down again.

And that’s the last time they ever walk.

The gentleman wouldn’t allow it. Said he just needed to get to his feet and he’ll be fine. Said he just needed to get to the boot shop.

Who was I to argue? He was a man. A man’s man at that.

He was my elder, and since I was raised a certain way I complied.

Then, like men of his generation do, he started giving orders. He was an expert at getting off the ground and gave me step by step instructions.

First I rolled him on his back, then I helped him to a sitting position.

At this point the door to the cobbler shop was unblocked and two men came out to help. Which was perfect, because he said it was going to take 3 of us.

One of the new helper men didn’t speak English, but the lady who flagged me down was able to translate.

I put down my messenger bag and got behind the elder. He was a big guy. Gravity wasn’t his friend. This WAS going to take 3 of us.

I got behind him and put my arms under his armpits—just like I’d learned while caretaking for my grandfather—and my mother. I was there to arrest another fall—but I was worried about my back so I made sure to keep my spine straight. I’m still recovering from a car crash and tweaking my back is the last thing I need today.

The other men each took an arm while I squatted behind him.

The elder informed us that we’re going on 3. Not 1-2-3 go, but on 3. He was clear about that.

Yes Sir I said. We go on three.

The lady counted off uno, dos, and on tres we lifted.

He got to his feet and the helpful woman gave him his walker.

I offered to walk him to his car but he said, “No thank you sir, I need to get my boots from the boot shop.”

So I held the door while he walked into the boot shop to retrieve his boots.

This cobbler specializes in western boot repair. And he’s not the first bleeding limping old cowboy that’s walked through that door.

And he probably won’t be the last.

———

People come to me for help. There were other people on the street, but the woman came to me.

It’s a constant thing, and it’s always puzzled me.

Maybe I look kind. Maybe I look like a sucker.

People do this at work. My fellow crew members come to me with things that are out of my department or way above my pay grade. Or to solve problems that I have no idea how to solve.

My almost-business parter, a tough (but smoking hot) Long Island blonde I call The Fury, has noticed this.

She says, It’s because you’re capable.

Every time she says this I protest that, no—I’m not. I’m not capable.

It’s because I wear glasses. It’s because I’m a dad. And I look like a dad.

“No,” she says in her harsh Long Island accent “you’re capable.”

You can’t argue with a woman like The Fury. She’s a force of nature. You’re just not going to win that one.

Even tho I don’t argue, it doesn’t mean she’s right. It doesn’t mean there aren’t other reasons people come to me.

Then again, I don’t have a better explanation.

But I’m someone you can come to for help. A public man, with a place in the polis.

But I want to be private. I want to be the idiot. Like the terrible barber who you know everyone knows is worthless.

People don’t trouble him with their problems. He’s left alone—to craft the same haircut over and over again. To always square the neck, even when the customer wants it natural.

Must be nice.

———

In many ways, this town has improved in the years we’ve been here. When we arrived it was a solid working and middle class town.

But since our arrival people with email jobs have moved in. Some of them came from the coasts, but most of them were priced out of the neighboring wealthy community. They started buying up and refurbishing the old craftsmens and victorians. And built new mcmansions on the edge of town.

With their disposable income, they attracted shops and restaurants and even a Whole Foods.

And I like these things. I like good food. And I like to shop.

But I’ve also seen people in my community become downwardly mobile. And I’ve seen my neighborhood deteriorate.

Partly it’s the new Section 8 housing. The wealthier community have been exporting their poor to cities like ours. And our city doesn’t have the money or the will to fight it.

There’s also the influx of immigrants. There was a steady stream, but it turned into a flood during the Biden years. It’s taxed the hospital and the schools. The roads are dangerous (I was hit a few years ago) and the police are overwhelmed.

But it’s the renters that were hit the hardest. The rents here are astounding. Almost San Francisco prices now.

And the wages, especially for those not tied to the global managerial economy, have remained stagnant—suppressed by the abundance of cheap immigrant labor.

There used to be factories here. High tech stuff. But most of those jobs are gone now. What’s left are service job—servicing the people who got to work from home during Covid.

A lot of people in my neighborhood owned small businesses. At least they did before Spring of 2020. But most of those businesses went under. And now they work service jobs—or for the government—or they don’t work at all.

And then there’s the drugs.

When we moved from Los Angeles, I thought I’d seen the last of street level drug dealing.

Nope, not here I thought.

But I saw it here for the first time during Covid. Everything was closed, and I needed something for the kids to do. I thought model rocketry would be a fun (and outdoor) hobby for the boys.

We donned masks and I took them to the model shop. Stocked up on Estes Rockets and launchers and engines and model paint.

And when we were leaving, with my kids in tow, a man approached me in the parking lot. He took a balloon (or condom?) of heroin out of his mouth and held it up to show off the goods.

I told him to get the fuck away from my kids.

And he did. He complied.

But as I was pulling out of the parking lot I saw him exchange the balloon with another guy. A guy who didn’t look that different from me.

There’s a force at work here.

Some THING that’s eating this town.

Maybe it’s eating the world.

And the drugs and the loss of jobs and the new wealthy Whole Foods shoppers are only a tiny part of it.

As much as I’d like to blame The Libs or The Democrats or Big Business or Communism or the Illegals, I know it’s just a small piece of whatever this thing is.

I don’t think we know what this thing is yet. And I don’t think we really know what to call it. Maybe The Machine is a good term—because whatever The Thing is, it’s not human.

———

The other day I slept late. Kept hitting snooze on my phone.

But my wife had to leave for work early—so as soon as I woke up I found myself scrambling to get dressed and slam coffee and brush my teeth and dig my pistol out of the safe and find my car keys so I could take my kids to school.

And then the doorbell rang.

It usually doesn’t ring at 7 in the morning.

The dogs went fucking nuts. They knew something was wrong.

My son looked out the window and told me who it was.

It was his best friend—a 12 year old girl who lives down the block. She had her 4 year old brother with her.

I knew it had happened again.

Because they come to me for help. Because I’m capable, says The Fury.

I put the dogs in the kennel and opened the door.

The kids were scared. The girl told me her mom had a “fever” and was having a “seizure”. She asked if they could wait while the paramedics helped her mom.

And of course I let them in. I needed to take my kids to school, but I didn’t have a car seat for the 4 year old.

So my kids didn’t go to school.

Instead I made the kids french toast. And gave them orange juice. And all 4 kids enjoyed breakfast together. The 4 year old is hoot. He’s a funny kid. It’s been years since we had a 4 year old in the house.

But that’s not exactly true. The 4 year old was in our house a few months ago. When his dad had a “heart attack”.

He came with his sister late at night. Came running. I made them French Toast that time too.

That night I told the girl that she could come ANY time.

I said come here if there’s a problem. Any time of the day or night. I repeated myself—ANY TIME. I said is slowly. So she understood. And she did. She knew what I was really telling her.

I don’t think my son—her best friend—understood what I was saying. But she got it. Girls mature faster than boys.

I know she understood, because this time—when she found her mom overdosing in the shower—she came running to us.

She’s a cool kid. Says she wants to be rich. Listens to podcasts about business. Loves the All-In podcast. I’m not sure how much of she understands, but she knows that the key to getting out of this place. Of getting away from here. To escaping to a place where white kids have a future.

My wife came rushing home. I took the boys to school while my wife waited with the neighbor kids.

After a few hours a family member came to pick them up. My wife went back to work and I got in the shower.

I was shampooing my head—my freshly cut short hair—when I broke down crying. I collapsed on the shower floor and cried. I stayed there until the hot water tank was depleted and the shower ran cold.

There’s nothing I can do for these kids—nothing permanent anyway. The parents are good people. I consider them friends.

But there’s nothing I can do to make this better. That’s up to them.

And yeah, I know how addiction goes. There’s no rationality at work. You can’t talk someone into stopping. The substance is too powerful. Nothing—not even love of your own children is enough. Because they’ll talk themselves out of it. Say it’s going to be different this time. And do it again.

That’s how I was. But I came to. And I got out.

In The Program they say it was God that saved me. But I’m not so sure any more. Because I think about all my friends who didn’t make it—who didn’t get God’s Grace.

Why did I live when they didn’t?

Why did I make it out?

What makes me special?

I don’t like asking those questions, because I don’t like the answer.

Earlier this year a mom on the block drank herself to death. Her husband had left months prior—or maybe he had a restraining order (I’m not exactly sure). She lived with her young daughter who was maybe 4 years old. And she drank.

I guess one day her liver gave out or maybe her heart stopped or maybe she mixed some shit with the booze. Either way she died. In her house. And her little daughter was alone with her dead mother for 48 hours before the grandparents found her.

A few days later her father was at the house. He was cleaning out the empty vodka bottles and other trash. And he told me that the daughter, who I thought was no older than 5, was actually 8 years old. She was so neglected that she looked like a big toddler.

God’s Grace didn’t come for the mom. Maybe the girl has a shot now. She’s living with her grandparents.

The grandfather, the one cleaning out the vodka bottles from his dead daughters house, he’s a recovering alcoholic just like me.

He told me this.

In case you’re wondering, these are white people. They live in the United States of America in the year 2025. And this happened right down the street.

And I either didn’t notice or I willfully chose not to see. Like I chose not to see the legs of an old man sticking out from a doorway.

By the way, the mom of my son’s friend—the little girl who listens to the All-In podcast—is alive. The paramedics got to her in time. She’s out of the hospital and back at home now.

Narcan is a miracle. I’m going to the pharmacy tomorrow. Along with my monthly insulin pickup, I have some Narcan on order. I’ll keep it around just in case.

Hopefully they’ll give me an extra bottle that I can keep in my truck.

I’ll keep it for the next time someone comes to me for help.

I don’t know how capable I am, but sometimes I’m helpful.

I need to be helpful.

I don’t have a choice.

Going back to LA feels like putting on your dirty clothes after you take a shower.

Returning to LA is like sleeping with an ex—Maybe you loved her at some point but you’ve moved on and don’t love her anymore. And hooking up with her makes you remember that.

I was supposed to go LA a few weeks ago.

But I didn’t.

I skipped it.

An older cousin died.

There was a funeral I should have attended. She was a favorite of the family, but I never really liked her.

I remember how she treated my mother and it’s never sat well.

The only time I saw my mother and cousin in a room together was when I was 12. My father way dying.

My mother took me to LA for one last visit. He was living in Westwood. In a high rise condo on Wilshire with some ex girlfriend who took him in at the end of his life.

The French have a word for a mistress that’s shared between two men. He had shared her with a legendary actor. I guess my mom was around then too.

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It’s red lava rock. The same stuff my grandparents put around their patio. And in Wyoming they use it in the roads.

It doesn’t show on a freshly paved road surface. But after a few years the iron in the scoria bleeds through to the surface giving the highway a reddish hue.

So when I drove down Highway US 14 south of Dayton WY—heading straight for a canyon cut through that seemingly impenetrable wall that is the east face of the Big Horn Mountains—the road looks like a long serpent tongue leading into the mouth of some great beast.

Dark clouds are building over the range. Gary Numan comes on the Spotify. Dark synths to match the dark clouds.

Gary sings to me,

And me, I eat dust We're all so run down I'd call it my death But I'll only fade away And I hate to fade alone Now there's only me

Now there’s only me. A guy fading away. And I’m fading alone. Driving into the Bighorns.

But am I fading alone? It seems like we’re all fading together.

The mountainous wall, and the clouds and the music give me a strong sense of foreboding.

I’m apprehensive. But not about what I’m driving towards. I’m more worried about the thing I’m driving away from.

But fuck it. I’m going fishing.

———

Men need an escape. Something that’s more than a hobby. Something to obsess about that’s not women or money or prestige.

Many turn to golf. But I turned to fly fishing. And I’m damn lucky to have it.

The Writer told me where to go. He posted a pic of a healthy Cutthroat Trout. I sent a DM and asked where he got it. He told me where to go, so I went.

He told me where to park, where to walk, and what to use. And then he apologized for giving me “TMI”.

I told him, there’s no such thing as TMI when it comes to fishing advice. Fly Fishing is a knowledge based sport, and it helps to have as much information as possible.

I hadn’t fished the Bighorns before. It’s far. Wyoming is a big place. Feels bigger than Montana. And it’s empty. Emptier than the great basin. And the Bighorns are far even by Wyoming standards.

I’ve been curious about the Bighorns for years—decades actually. But there was always something closer to explore. The Unitas, the Wind Rivers, the Rubys, the Never Summers, the Snowys, or the San Juans, the Sawtooths, and the Beaverheads.

There’s no shortage of mountains in the Mountain West, and as a Bighorn virgin The Writer’s intel was welcome.

My dad was an Angler. He loved to fish. I found an old pic of him from the 1960s.

Someone—I don’t know who—had posted it online.

It was him and some of his rockstar clients fishing in the Bahamas. The catch is spread out before them on the dock. Looks like Yellowtail to me, but I’m not that familiar with saltwater species. There’s a group of the men on the boat, Most are shirtless bearded rockstars. But my dad is dressed like the businessman he was.

All are enjoying themselves.

All are happy.

I didn’t know my father as a fisherman—as an Angler. I only knew him as an old man.

I can’t imagine him striding across a mountain meadow on his way to catch wild trout. I only imagine him as I knew him—old, and sick, and nearing the end. He didn’t have the energy to take me fishing.

It was my grandfather who taught me how to fish. While I’d consider him a generally principled man, his strong ethics didn’t extend to fishing.

I remember a trip with him and my uncle. They were so far over the legal catch limit that Fish and Game confiscated the boat and the rods. He had to buy it all back at auction.

My grandfather would use a fly rod, but to him it was just another tool in the toolbox. He’d fish bait on the fly rod. His favorite was live grasshoppers—just like Nick Adams in Hemingway’s short story Big Two-Hearted River.

I’ve never read Big Two-Hearted River, but I’ve heard about it. It makes the rounds in fly fishing circles. I don’t like reading about fly fishing. And I haven’t read much Hemingway—although people tell me I write like him. I read The Old Man and the Sea in school, and For Whom the Bell Tolls at some point. But I don’t care to read more.

When I was 16 my mother saw Robert Redford’s A River Runs Through It and decided her loser high school dropout son will become a Fly Fisherman.

She took me down to the fly shop and bought me a fly rod. It was a Cortland “Just Add Water” kit. It came with a rod, a reel, fly line and a VHS instructional video.

And thank god she did that for me. Fishing has always been there for me. Through illness and financial catastrophe and births and deaths and everything—it’s always been there. Even in when I was in the depths of addiction it was the one thing I could stay sober for.

I’m an Angler. My children know me as such.

Thank you Mom.

———

Leaving the high plains, the red surface of US 14 climbs thru a series of hairpins and steep grades before arriving at the verdant high meadows of the northern Bighorns. It’s early and there’s very little traffic. It’s Wyoming, and everyone is in a truck—save for the tourists from the newly well to do parts of Montana and the ever expanding Denver megalopolis. They drive Subarus and 4Runners.

I see a woman on the side of the road standing next to her Subaru. I wonder what she’s looking at, and crane my neck to see a cow moose and calf grazing in a meadow.

There’s lots of moose here. I saw many the previous day, in another part of the Bighorns. They make me uneasy. To a hiker (or Angler), they’re more dangerous than bear.

I’ve been charged before. A cow moose went after my dog. Moose hate dogs and will go out of their way to attack and kill them.

We were hiking up a trail in the mountains near my home. The dog was in her usual spot—walking 20 feet in front of me. Sniffing. Happy. I was carrying my rod. We were looking for a good place to fish the creek.

The trail dipped into a marshy area—full of willows. It was perfect moose habitat. I should have put the dog on a leash, but I’m not sure it would have helped.

As we walked, the dog paused. Then she turned her head and growled. And then a CRASH CRASH CRASH as a cow moose burst from the willows. Her head was down and she was aiming right for the dog.

The dog scooted out of the way with a YIPE YIPE YIPE. My dog emptied her bowels as she bolted up the trail. The moose had missed her by inches, and she got away unharmed, but that left me alone with an displeased moose.

The cow turned towards me. Her head was down. She was ready to charge. She was so close I could reach out and touch her. Once she had me on the ground she’d stomp me to death with her entire 1300 pound weight.

I had a pistol. But it was only a 9mm—not of much use against a moose. Besides, it was in my backpack and not easily accessible.

I should have run. But it was too late. The moose was too close.

So I backed away slowly. All the while shouting “HEY MOOSE! HEY MOOSE!” to try to scare her away.

The cow followed at the same arms length distance. She followed me until the trail ascended out of the marsh and back to the rocky forested area, and then she turned around and went back to the willows. She had a calf out there in the marsh and was merely escorting me away.

The Subaru driver only saw beauty. Enough to stop her car and take a picture.

I’m not immune to beauty. I love beauty. I seek beauty. Seek it where ever I can find it. I seek it in places others don’t look. It’s part of my job. I get paid to do it.

But I also see the danger.

Because I’m clear eyed about nature.

Because I’ve spent a lifetime outdoors.

I read this in Field and Stream Magazine at a dentists office, so take this with a grain of salt, but an outdoorsman goes through 3 stages:

The first stage is awe. When faced with something like the Bighorn Mountains you’re overwhelmed by the grandeur and the beauty.

Then comes respect—that’s the second stage. You realize you can get killed out here. That you can die here. That there’s a reason nobody lives out here. So you adopt the Boy Scout motto: be prepared. You have to know what you’re doing. You keep the gun on your hip, not in your backpack. Charge your phone, use your OnX app, carry a compass and shoot an azimuth back to the truck if the weather is closing in. Have the tools to start a fire. And so on and so forth.

The third stage is fear. Straight up fear. You’re afraid of getting attacked by a moose or a bear. Or getting lost. Or dying in a rockfall. Or buried in an avalanche. Or struck by lighting.

Yet you keep coming.

Why is that?

You keep coming back because there’s another stage. This wasn’t in the magazine article—because nobody would print this in Field and Stream or any other respectable publication.

Because it’s something we don’t talk about in the modern world. Something we don’t have language for. And because we don’t have the language it’s impossible to describe with precision.

The stage I find myself in is this: there’s something out here.

Something lives here. Something is present here. Here in the places least touched by human hands—unmolested by the will of men. Something that science can’t explain, and will never explain. Something my Jewish background, and the Christian society I’m immersed in couldn’t prepare me for.

And maybe the beauty and the awe and the respect and the fear is That Thing trying to communicate with me.

And I’m driven to find it.

I’m driven to learn its secrets.

This is what That Thing wants. And I’m determined to converse with it. I’m determined to commune with it.

The scene in front of the Subaru lady is very beautiful. There’s a cow with her calf. They’re backlit in the willows next to a steaming stream. I have my nice camera with me. I should pull over and join her, I think. I should take a picture, I think.

But I’m driven to do something else.

I need to have a conversation with That Thing.

I need to go fishing.

So I keep driving.

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Q: Why is Saigon the sister city of Los Angeles?

A: Because they're both foreign cities formerly occupied by Americans.

It's funny because it's true. There's very little America left in LA. One of it’s more apt nicknames is the “Capital of the Third World”, because of it’s “2nd largest populations”.

Los Angeles has the 2nd largest population of Ethiopians outside of Ethiopia, and the 2nd largest population of Persians outside of Iran, and Koreans, and Armenians, and Thais, and so on and so forth. Every ethnicity and nationality is represented, and every language in spoken.

An immigrant can spend their entire life in LA and never have to learn English—and many never do.

My favorite place in Los Angeles is Olvera Street. It’s also the oldest place. To be precise, it’s the oldest place LEFT. There were older parts of LA, but the buildings were destroyed by fire and floods.

What’s left feels like a Mexican village.

The buildings of Olvera Street date to the late 1700s. And if you get there in the morning, before the arrival of the tourist hordes, you can feel the ghosts of the Spanish Empire.

I used to walk there from my downtown loft. It was a good place to nurse a hangover. After a bowl of menudo and a few Micheladas the alcohol withdrawals would subside and I’d start to wonder, who walked this street?

In my imagination I’d picture campesinos, and merchants, and Indians, and vaqueros. Maybe a soldier on his way to claim a land grant awarded to him by the Spanish crown. They all walked here. And they all left a mark.

Every part of Los Angeles has been immortalized in film, and Olvera Street isn’t different in that regard. Many movies, needing a Mexican village location, filmed here. Charlie Chaplain filmed The Kid here.

Walking south towards home, I’d leave the narrow confines of Olvera Street and enter the old town square.

This feels more like 19th Century America. More like the remnants of a frontier town--when California was acquired at the conclusion of the Mexican American War. (And if you don't believe it was rightfully acquired please read the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.)

There are ghosts here too. Union Station, with it’s combination of Mission Revival, Art Deco, and Streamline Modern is still there in all it’s glory.

It was built on top of what was once the LA Chinatown. Chinatown moved north when the station was built, displacing French Town—a community of French and Swiss immigrants.

There’s not much left of French Town. The last thread is the restaurant Taix. It started in French town, but the Taix family abandoned downtown and move their restaurant to Echo Park in the 1960s.

But just ahead of the square and it’s ghosts is the 20th century. The Downtown Los Angeles skyline looms over the Pueblo de Los Angeles. Beyond the skyline lies the endless sprawl of the Southern California megalopolis—built when car culture and freeways made endless sprawl possible.

This modern Los Angeles was built by Anglos—by Americans. They were attracted by oil, endless amounts of land, and that perfect perfect California weather. New industries, like aircraft/defense and the recently industrialized entertainment complex provided jobs that paid well enough to provide a middle class lifestyle.

Home and car ownership became the norm. What emerged was a different type of city.

It was a city without a center. Because of the automobile and (at the time) excellent freeway system, people no longer had to live close to where they worked. Angelenos were free to go anywhere—and live anywhere—and work anywhere.

It was an individualistic city. The center was where ever you happened to be. You were the center.

And people came. They flooded in. And not just white Americans. Blacks from the south came too. So did hispanics from Mexico and Central America.

But the whites who built modern 20th Century Los Angeles began to get displaced.

For example, the notorious City of Compton used to be a white city. Then it became black. Now it’s Hispanic.

The floodgates opened in the 1990s, and the city was filled with the former denizens of the East Block, The Middle East,Asia, and Africa.

The entire world came. They all wanted a piece of the dream.

Today the working and middle class whites are gone. The whites that are left cling to the hills. It’s almost all white above Sunset Blvd, but as you move down into the flats the city becomes increasingly “diverse”.

There’s an underlying feeling of dread in Los Angeles. It’s an inkling of impending doom.

There’s a phenomenon Angelenos call “Earthquake Weather”. The earthquakes tend to come on warm gloomy overcast days. And the dread is extra palpable on Earthquake Weather days. You can see it on peoples faces. You can see it in how they move and walk and talk.

Because everyone knows the place is unsustainable. Not just environmentally—but socially. The entire place could go up in flames at any minuted. Just one perceived outrage could set it off.

Los Angeles is a big place, but how many people can it hold before it sinks into the ocean and becomes forever known as Arizona Bay?

I left LA over a decade ago.

We decided it wasn’t the place we wanted to raise our kids, so we got out. But what drove us away was that sense that it’s all temporary. That it’s all going to collapse someday.

And maybe it already has.

Even in the early 2000s I felt like I was living in the ruins of a grander and better civilization. Like a primitive tribesman looking at walls erected by some ancient king, I’d walk the streets and wonder, who built this, and where did they go, and why did they leave?

It was a silly question—because I know the answer. It was people like me and my ancestors who built this place. And we left because other people wanted it and we weren’t willing to fight for it.

Watching these riots from my quiet mountain state home, I can’t help but think that maybe it’s time to go back.

Maybe it’s time to evict the squatters from the ruins and fight for what’s ours.

If you liked this, my book Hollywood Samizdat: Notes From Below the Line is now available to preorder from Passage Press. Please reserve your copy today.