The hour badly spent

At 11:42 am today, I was on my way to the barber shop. I had in fact just arrived and was tying up my bicycle (go green!) when a couple of people came out of the shop and looked around, as if making sure everything was okay.

"Day-um, that was a good one," said Tashie, the lady who puts the twists in my hair.

"It felt like this," said another girl, swerving her hips like she was hula-hooping.

This could only mean one thing: the barber shop orgy ended right before I arrived. Wait.

A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.4 jolted large parts of Southern California late this morning, shaking a wide swath from Ventura County to San Diego and causing minor damage and a few injuries.

The quake rattled buildings in downtown Los Angeles and was felt as far east as Palm Springs. It was centered near Chino Hills, about 30 miles east of Los Angeles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. [source: Los Angeles Times]

All right. Los Angeles just experienced a middle-magnitude quake and I didn’t even feel it.

KCAL-9 News was reporting a 5.8 on the Richter scale.

"That wasn’t no five point eight," said a dude checking his text messages.

Tashie’s husband walked in. "Y’all feel that? That was me." Okay, I guess it’s probably for the best I didn’t "feel that."

Seriously, this would have been the most exciting thing since every second of the Dark Knight and I completely missed it. That wouldn’t have happened if I were at the place where I usually am at 11:42am on Tuesdays: a bar, browbeating a cocktail waitress. "You call this a Manhattan? I said shaken, not stirred!" She picks it up. Earthquake happens. Then I snatch it out of her hand, mumbling that’s more like it, keep ‘em coming.

"You all remember the Northridge quake? I ain’t never seen so many people out in the street that early in the morning," said the texting dude.

I remember the Northridge quake. That winter, rain had been coming down for two weeks straight and finally ceased a few days before January 17, 1994.

At 4:30 that morning the noisy rocking of the house woke me up. My five hundred heaviest books fell off the shelf and onto my bed. At that point, I figured, the worst part’s done, and rolled over back to sleep. Then my mom woke me up and handed me a flashlight. The next day our roof caved in.

 

Back in the here and now, about 20 minutes after today’s quake, the whole thing was filed and forgotten. I was sitting there, bored, while my stylist checked her cellphone. Across the room, some chronic ass was giving a civics lecture to a captive audience — a guy whose hair he was cutting. The news was still going on and on with the camera trained on a seismograph. Someone turned up the radio. "You know one rapper I never liked? Jay-Z," said Tashie. Earthquake or no, I hate it when barbers try to make small talk.

An hour later, the Silver Bullet texted me.

You know what’s funny? When the earthquake started, I immediately went to the hallway doorframe and held on to the tv. Shows you my priorities.

I don’t understand the issue. That’s not "funny." That’s not even unusual. I’ve seen her teevee. It’s flat and it’s big and it’s brand new. She did exactly what any of us would do in the same situation. Natural disasters always bring out our best. That’s why, when I go to Best Buy, I do the exact same thing; wait for an earthquake, then hold on to a TV. In a world that no longer has any use for heroes, I am a legend.

Silver Bullet’s friend Andy is in at least one band, and last night they played at the Malibu Inn (it’s not an actual inn). We picked up Andy’s sister Greta and made the trek up Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu.

The first act was acoustic; skinny black guy — Emory Davis — and his guitar. A girl chimed in for some duets. I liked her voice — it was operatic — but when she wasn’t singing, which was most of the time, she just sort of sat there. Greta was even more annoyed than I.

Gretta’s Jetta: Didn’t he say "she sings like an angel?"
Silver Bullet:   Apparently angels only sing falsetto.
Silver Bullet:   I don’t know about guys in those low-cut V-neck shirts. It disturbs me.

Cattiness or genuine dislike? I didn’t know what to make of any of this either. The guy’s shirt did hang too loosely on him and you could almost see nipple. Oh skinny emo dude, are you trying too hard or not trying hard enough? Does any of this matter? Music is soooo confusing.

 

They finished up and a team got the stage ready for the next band. A guy who looked like Jesus fiddled with some equipment then said "check one check two" into the mic, repeating this about ten times. "All sound guys look alike," Greta said.

After that, Andy’s band — Echo Division — hit the stage.

"I saw them at the Light House a few weeks ago and they were trying to be all pop-ish," Silver Bullet said. "It wasn’t working. They’re ten times better tonight."

True to form, I wasn’t impressed. They sounded kind of dull and the lead singer had this Dylanesque wheezey thing going on.

After a while even Andy started getting bored on the stage, because near the end of their set he started flashing gang signs. Then it was another band’s turn.

"Does anyone know who John Hinckley is?"

The name sounds familiar, but the category I picked tonight was "music for $10" and not "I know something you don’t" so maybe we could get on with the music thing. Hey, just for kicks, why don’t you go ahead and tell us who he is, lead singer? Thanks! Servicey!

Apparently, he shot Ronald Reagan so that Jodie Foster would notice him! It was love! Love drives us mad! That’s what the next song is about! Thanks professor; the lecture was much better than your music. Zing!

"I think these are all church bands," Silver Bullet said.

Makes sense. They all sound like Jars of Clay. You ever hear a rock band in church? They’ve got a captive audience, so they just keep going and going and going with the same languid Guitar Solo Of The Lord until you are begging, begging for the chance to sit down and hear a sermon.

I actually liked the next band. Andy was the drummer in this one. They were loud and upbeat. Then the lead singer wanted to, like, talk to us.

"Who here knows who John Calvin is?"

What is it with these nerdy musicians and their pop quizzes tonight?

Actually, he never explained who John Calvin is; only that "I’m a geek and I write songs about theology." Wankerish, but the music wasn’t bad, although it did not succeed with the stated goal of establishing the moral authority of the church. But this was a tough crowd for that anyway. It’s Malibu! We passed a Scientology church stronghold down the street on the way here.

Everyone knows I’m pretty flakey. Still, my movie-nerd friend, Silver Bullet, made sure to remind me that I had promised to go with her to her sister Erica’s wedding in Palm Springs.

"Sure. Again, when is it?"

"June something."

June something took place last week. Wednesday night we picked up the groom’s brother Donnie and the groom’s brother’s wife Palim from the airport at 11 at night and right away headed to the little resort town.

We got there two hours later, dead tired. Silver Bullet and I checked in; the room was massive. We sat around, amazed at its sheer amazingness. Then we fucked and conked out for the night.

Her phone rang sometime Thursday morning. Erica was perkily inviting us down to the pool for drinks. And swimming, one assumes. We were still groggy and tired, so no. She hung up and we fucked again, which I was almost too sleepy to do at all, and didn’t even have the presence of mind to make her get on top. Thanks for nothing, doggiestyle.

We woke up for real much much later.

"Is it really noon?"

"It’s the curtains. Hotel rooms always make you feel like it’s twilight outside."

Silver Bullet’s phone went off again; sister still bugging us to come outdoors and socialize, so we did. The pool seemed kind of small for a pricey resort in the middle of the desert. This disappointment, however, was mitigated by the open bar and the fact that everyone was dressed to show off as much skin as possible, which I believe is the only upside to California weather.

Donnie ordered me a vodka tonic, then a screwdriver, then another one, which I noticed they made with tequila instead of vodka. Strange, but best to do as the natives do; in Russia, vodka make YOU!

When we were done swimming, Silver Bullet and I walked around in search of a place to eat. The town is really just a big strip mall and everything looks the same. We settled on a Mexican place. The food wasn’t terrific and neither were the margueritas but at least they were big. Evidently I sucked mine down too fast, because when we got back to our room I lost my lunch.

Then I slept.

I woke up hours later, groggy again, but in time to get ready for the ceremony.

"Hey, if you still feel sick you can just hang out in the room during the wedding. I’ll come back afterwards."

"No, I can do this. This is why ya brought me right?" I got dressed and we walked down and across the street to wherever the ceremony was taking place (my memory’s a little tequilic) and took our seats.

So. The wedding happened. Priest, walk down the aisle, speech, kiss, yadda yadda. I’m sure I was supposed to be feeling something — everyone else looks happy and moved or whatever — but I think the tequila was feeling it for me, leaving me to sit around and be bored. When the thing was done everyone walked further up the street, to a bar and grill where reservations had been made. Still bored, I decided the time had come to start shit.

"So, most of your sister’s friends are assholes, right? Which one is the worst?"

"Christina."

"Which one is she?"

"You see the girl back there in the blacknwhite dress? She’s blonde. Yeah, her."

Later on I sat down with the rest of the family — well, the ones who seemed drunk — and asked the same question: which one of Erica’s friends was most turdish? Christina was universally agreed upon as the most vile, smelly turd in the entourage. Awesome! Although I prefer to actually know and associate with gossip targets (it makes the feel gossip much juicier), this was exactly the kind of thing I’d been waiting for! Besides the sex, of course. Sadly, only Silver Bullet was willing to provide a concrete example of said turdism:

"Once I overheard her say something really mean. It was kind of behind my back, but the way she said it, I know she meant me to hear it."

"Well?"

"She said, ‘if I were as fat as Silver Bullet I’d probably kill myself.’"

It doesn’t get much more douchey than that, does it? Silver Bullet is about the nicest girl I know (most of the time); you’d have to be pretty mean to insult her like that — just condescension, no provocation. Maybe Christina should just kill herself anyway.

"Thing is, she used to be really fat. It took time, but I’m pretty sure she only lost that weight from snorting coke."

"Whaddya mean used to be? Also: cocaine is a helluva drug!"

"Are you still drunk?"

"Fuckin tequila. Yes."