2005-02-22 - 8:32 a.m.

Chapter 2

Novel time (I'm so novel!) if you haven't read ch. 1 yet, go here:

http://rladyofpunk.diaryland.com/050218_34.html

Otherwise, keep reading! This is Chapter 2, which I kept crapping up and as such am just posting in it's overworked but still embryonic state rather than worry about it anymore:
(Oh, and it's narrated by Simpson, and like the previous chapter it has not been spell-checked because I seem to have somehow deleted my word-processing dictionary and have been too lazy to figure out how to fix that)

Ch. 2-
Okay, lets review, shall we? Right on- I�m Simpson and I�m in California. California is cool. Yaaayy, sunshine state! Or wait, is that Florida? Eh, fuck, it doesn�t matter.
Anyway, I�m in California and I�m not going back to fucking Texas. Nope, not going back. Nah-nah-nah, screw you guys.
Okay, now imagine me saying that over and over again for 2 years. Imagine me saying that while being a janitor and playing in shitty clubs with no real band to speak of. Imagine me saying that while living with Drew and his �friend� and eating so much Ramen I develop a noodle-phobia.
Now imagine me getting really lonely.
�When are you coming back home?� August asks me over the phone.
�Will I be able to crash with you?� I reply.
�Sure.�
�What if it�s for a real long time?�
�Finally ready to leave Cali?�
I want to say �No, never!� to save face and all, but I can�t. I am ready to leave. I miss Augy and Alex. I miss my brother and I even sort of miss my alcoholic mother. I miss the way Austin feels- LA seemed so nice at first, but I feel like I�m wearing the wrong size shoes. Something just doesn�t fit.
I tell Drew I�m leaving.
�You can�t fucking just go!� he says.
�Look, I�m sick of this town. It�s turning me into more of an asshole with each passing day.�
�I second.� Sam mumbles.
�See, even Sam thinks so- I just gotta get out of this place.�
�Where are you going to live?�
�With Augy. She�s got an apartment in Austin.�
�Is it big?�
�She says real big.�
Drew nods quietly and I don�t think much of it- until the morning when I�m loading up my car. It�s the same one that broke down here 2 years ago. I pray it doesn�t die somewhere in Arizona. I check the trunk to make sure I still have a spare and... wait a second...
�Drew, why is all your fucking stuff in my car?� I shout into the house.
�Coming with,� he grins, emerging with a duffel bag and his guitar. He throws them in the backseat as I demand to know what the hell is going on.
�I�m coming with.� he repeats.
�Can you beleive I�ve never even left LA?� Sam asks as he tosses a garbage bag full of clothes into the trunk.
�Whoa, wait a second- you�re coming too? Why- wait- where are you going to stay?�
�On Augy�s couch.� Drew replies. �I got to thinking that maybe I should take a cue from you guys. You didn�t let yourselves be slaves to the past. You just took up and went to California and wound up on my couch. Well now I�m repaying the favor. It�ll be an adventure!�
�Besides, all Marco�s �fag� shit is really getting on my nerves.� Sam finishes.
�Yeah, that too.�
And that�s how I wound up on a road-trip halfway across the country with a beautiful Asian man-girl who insists upon stopping every half-hour to pee and an angsty Latino guitar player who gets car-sick way too easy.
�Ever go to a doctor about your barfing thing?� I ask him after he finishes dumping the ramains of a McDonald�s lunch on the side of the interstate.
�What do you mean?� he replies.
�Dude, it�s not normal to throw-up as much as you do.�
He shrugs. Then he gets back in the car and we have a nice radio sing-along for about 20 minutes. Then Sam needs to pee. So we pull over again. I swear, there are more of our bodily fluids on the side of I-10 than there are actually inside us at this point.
�No more coke for you.� I say as he gets back in the car.
Sam rolls his eyes.
But finally, finally, we roll into Austin. It�s about 6 and the traffic sucks. By the time I finally decipher Augusts directions to her apartment it�s 8. She busts out a celebratory box of wine and we all fall asleep on the floor.
In my universe, each day makes less sense than the last.
It should be noted however that sometimes this works to my favor.
Like how the band is at least back together now. Like how we�re playing again and everyone seems to love this song I wrote called �Turn on the Headlights.� I wrote it while I was driving from California- all the lights like little stars coming at me. It made me think of something August said one time, but I won�t tell you because if I do then I won�t have any secrets left. The point is that singing this song was like me saying one of my last secrets out loud, but no one knew. The lyrics were cryptic enough to seem to be about nothing and everything so everyone could fall in love with it, but I knew it was about something very specifiic. Something very real that I just couldn�t talk about.
But I never get too much time to worry about my secrets these days. First I�m suddenly 21. I go to 6th street on my birthday and get 21 free shots and vow to never do it again. As I lay on the pavement, looking up at Drew who�s holding up three fingers and asking how many fingers there are I reflect that Austin isn�t so great and I miss California.
Haha- too late for that now!
And what�s worse, I don�t even have time to be drunk or sick or anything. My stupid birthday is right in the middle of stupid South-by-Southwest. Has-beens are playing pubs trying to regain credibility and unknowns stay awake for 4 straight days to ensure they don�t sacrifice a split second of schmoozing to that demon sleep. I am disgusted but that�s the whole thing. This is what music is, when you get right down to it. It�s who you know, and I know nobody- that�s probably why I�m so bitter.
Stupid Austin. Stupid hipsters. Stupid drunk me and stupid girls on the sidewalk dangling their stillettos from their fingers so they don�t sprain something walking from one club to another.
So I get up and I play. I play the stupidest, drunkest set ever. I am angry and white and young, so of course a man stops me and says he wants to talk about signing me to his soon-to-be-bought-out record label.
I�m too drunk to know what�s going on so I agree.
It�s like they say- it all happens so fast. All of a sudden I have a photo shoot to go to for the album cover. All of a sudden I have a manager named Sandra and a roadie named Jim. All of a sudden �Turn on the Headlights� isn�t just a song a lot of people like but a single. First the Sunday night guy on 101X is all saying he loves it and next thing you know it�s in regular rotation. None of this makes sense to me- I�m just along for the ride. Somewhere near the back of the next spriing�s issue of Spin there are about 6 sentences heraldiing the release of �an inventive debut album by the Austin band named Chupacabra.� I buy eight copies of the magazine right then and there. I shout and dance around the room.
I am going to be famous. I am going to be loved. I am going to be beatuiful and everything will be so perfect and it already is and I can just feel it.
�Told ya so,� I tell Alex one night.
�Told me what?�
�That we�d be badasses someday.�
And he has to agree. I�m right. I�m righter than right. I am Simpson, and I am on top of the world.

The last thing I wrote before this thing. The next thing I wrote after this.