my name is venice

My name is Venice. I like to think that my parents named me after venice beach but they actually named me after the “real” venice in italy where I was concieved on their honeymoon. My mom says she had never even heard of venice beach until I was a teenager and started hanging out on the boardwalk with my friends. I find that pretty strange but then again on the boardwalk you meet some people who have yet to hear of venice, italy so I guess it all evens out.

I grew up in the shadow of the Santa Monica mountains, about eight blocks from the beach. I just moved to New York from Los Angeles for the second time in eight years. My love affair with LA burned into my soul until I had to get out. By the end I couldn’t remember if my life in Los Angeles ever really existed. Once I left, however, the memories returned in bits and pieces triggered by song fragments and old t-shirts. After a few months I began to remember more. I’d happen upon a review of an LA band’s New York show, or read a biography of a rock star strewn with references to the 90s and stories from the past would crowd my head, stories that I once would have dismissed as recurring dreams, but that started to line up with dates and outfits and friends’ accounts. Soon my LA memories became undeniably true.

Twelve years ago I met Summer. Together we ventured out into Hollywood, armed with condoms and cigarettes and flasks and barely fourteen years old. We’d hit the all ages punk clubs and dance for awhile and then go hang around outside the 21+ clubs hoping to score an invite to an afterparty.

In November 1996 we showed up at the Whisky to see a headlining gig by Republica. Thick black eyeliner contrasted against our ivory skin; steel-toed docs and fishnets balanced out our skintight black miniskirts. Summer’s hair had streaks of black and purple. My blondish curls gave way to jagged blue highlights. We looked like lost dolls that might sprout wings or claws at any minute. The bouncer let us in the all-ages venue and we kept our reactions to a minimum in an effort to look jaded. Summer clasped my hand and we wandered through the spotty crowd to the dirtiest bathroom I’d ever seen. Band stickers and grafitti covered every inch of wall space and someone had scratched FUCK into the foggy mirror. A dim light hung precariously over the sink. Summer hoisted herself up onto the sink to sit, crossed her legs, and leaned into the mirror to reapply her lip liner. “Let’s hit on the opening band.” She drawled. “The drummer is cute.”
“Deal.” I dabbed at my skin with a tissue. Summer hopped off the sink and we were out.

Los Angeles screams possibility and reinvention on every street corner. Get an agent, take new headshots, get PAID to be an extra. Sell your screen play. Hardcore band needs bassist/vocalist. Learn to DJ. Lose weight FREE! Constant reinvention leaves little time for reflection. Beneath the chaos exists a harmony that integrates 10 million souls searching for paradise or that big chance or the right bus to take home. I sensed that harmony on a subconscious level but the chaos of opportunity infiltrated my teen and twentysomething aspirations and without ever knowing it I began to take the harmony for granted.

Every city exists on some kind of harmony to balance the diverse needs of a growing, demanding population. It develops when the difficulties inhabitants face from the free-for-all chaos of unregulated growth are met with an entrepreneurial economy offering practical solutions.


and these proposed solutions fit neatly within their respective subcultures.
New York throws shadows on LA’s smoggy exultations.

My best friend’s name is Summer and when we go out people always say, Summer and Venice, what are you two, a couple of hippies? Which I find extremely hilarious because Summer has never had a hippie phase and mine lasted barely two months of 1998. I met Summer in ninth grade. She was the only girl who had purple streaks in her hair. Summer took me to see L7. We slam danced and got doused with cheap beer. We left covered in grime and sweat and bruises from the mosh pit.

City life in Los Angeles is marked by a change so continual that the concept of change becomes nonexistant

The weather is perfect every day: sunshine with a coastal layer of morning fog. One day in August the fog didn’t burn off and everyone was upset. What’s wrong with this weather? They asked, unaccustomed to any deviation from the normal pattern, however slight. On that day I looked up and thanked God that I was not in New York, where a day of moderate temperatures and zero humidity would be a rare blessing in the late summer months. I guess what they say in those old country songs is true: you can never truly love something until you leave it.

I never knew I loved the dark silhouettes of palm trees against an opal sunset sky until they all went missing from my daily view, replaced by monochrome steel and stained concrete. Hell, I never even noticed how clean the sidewalks in LA were until I spent a couple summers traipsing around the New York streets in flip flops only to find the soles of my feet as dark as asphalt at the end of each day. New York sparkles with its dirt: the glint of a skyscraper in afternoon light, the shiny puddles that refract the light of Times Square after a summer rain. LA sparkles when the Santa Ana winds splay grains of sand across car windshields, when staring too hard at the ever-present sun burns shimmering diamonds into your vision, and when a chance encounter over coffee offers the fleeting possibility of selling a screenplay or landing a reality show. LA sparkle cannot be quantified or even captured on film. Unlike the weather, it changes constantly until the only constant is change. It is the magic of a marquee that remains long after the letters have been changed, the sound of a guitar in the canyons long after the echo has faded, the slight sting that remains on your skin after the splash of a salty wave has recededed into the Pacific.

New York change buries itself into your body like dirt under your fingernails and on the worn soles of your boots that always need to go to the shoemaker. it's tangible, depressing to some, an excuse to scrub up for others, or a reminder of history. we fought that revolutionary battle here george washington came up from harlem or something and the british were hanging out up top of the hill...or maybe it was the other way around. anyway it was winter and there was shooting and people died and that damn battle was fought on what now is a couple of blocks of college campuses littered with flyers and cigarette butts and last year's textbooks. i'm glad i don't live there anymore. no sage cleansing could rid the place of that, if sage were even allowed in dorms.

the bathroom

she had a dainty teacup nose and porcelain skin that melted into laughter in the soft light of my kitchen. her smile revealed two eyes, grey-blue-green like an abysynnian cat. she listened to old rock and roll like bob dylan and the stones and watched tv for a living. we met in one of those college writing classes where the teacher makes you read everybody else's work. she wrote about her fish for our second assignment. i found out later she never had a fish.

on a tuesday in december we met in front of a Japanese restaurant on 83rd. I stood beneath her in the dirty street. The sign in the window of the sushi place read closed so we walked two blocks to a rock and roll themed diner. The restaurant glowed a slick aqua shimmer and glittery disco balls of all sizes rained down from the ceiling, each suspended in time by a metal rod. We picked a table with the Rolling Stones tongue logo tiled in the center. Our waiter wore a vintage t shirt and scruffy jeans. He handed us huge oversized menus made from old LP covers and winked at us as we exclaimed over decor. You have to see the bathroom, he said.

sydney

We had the city in our pocket, the world in our dreams, everlasting friendship, oh yeah, you and me. We had a moment over pizza. Where did it all go? We had a warm summer night but now it’s turned so cold.
It’s easier to get lost in a fantasy. I'm over that at least a little bit. The fantasy began to fade. I guess it always does. I just want it back what we had. That bestfriendship closeness, looking in each others’ eyes, reading each others’ mind, laughing in the downtown light at 3 am outside a bar, driving around in my beat up car listening to bad religion on the radio.
Trains rush through one darkened city after another while a plane gently cuts through hazy clouds. I can’t get away from this light-speed life. Outside a city rushes by and I don’t notice the slick, darkened streets, red taillights on speeding cars, sloping hills until months later.
I didn’t know I’d miss the way I felt pressed next to you, the way we laughed out with our crew while sailing between buildings, alleys and rooftops, dodging djs, tossing back cotton candy shots. What happened to the grimy stages we climbed upon to dance the nights away, the magic that made everything ok? The midnight meals and all night drugs, the everlasting hugs, they’re gone.

last year

last year I craved the rush of seduction mixed with uncertainty. then I got tired of feeling rushed. butterflies turned to knives. friends became chains. I clung tightly to the prison bars at first. I spent the summer writing in the park under trees in the hot july heat. I kept searching for elation but everything I thought I wanted melted into nothing

skin like velvet

the subway slithers underfoot and a cold wind blows dead dry leaves. night people crawl out of doorways and linger under storefronts. I sniffle in the wind and try not to turn into tears, try to consider putting down the cold hard knife I hold pressed against my skin, try to remember why I want to untangle my heart from its cool blade, try to tell myself I'm worth it. I’ve lived a thousand lifetimes and it hasn’t gotten any easier. A patio, a garden, a cigarette, a shared memory. a feeling we crave that we may never find in each other again. I must really like to punish myself. The thought faintly flickers through my head and I hurriedly push it away, bury it under soft jazz and fuzzy lights and kisses and smooth skin, soft hands, arms, legs. i want forever in this moment.

my car veers past alleys lined with victorian beach homes and turns right at El Tarasco. shakira sings estoy aqui and I hit the back button over and over again until i remember all the words. I stop in a parking lot near the boardwalk and leave the car. an orange streetlight burns into my retinas. el nino-like winds whip the palm trees and spit sand and water everywhere. i want to lose my memories in the rainy darkness and emerge baptized by the salty Pacific. i want to toss my thoughts into the frothy seas where they will tangle with trash and seaweed while i run free.

hustler

bass guitar tumbles up the rainy street from the whisky on sunset and larrabee. sirens spin into the distance. the cars make a slick slipping sound as they cruise the boulevard lined with sex shops and pizza joints. I sit on the patio and listen. another guitar pounds out a methodical rhythm occasionally punctuated by a singer's yelp. I cross the street and blend into the crowd. the venue is nearly at capacity, the patrons in their mid thirties, wearing flannel, ripped levis, and motorcycle boots, holding cups of foam and budweiser.

the song changes into a melody and I see the guitarist bent over with sweaty curls flopping in his face, framed by orange light. the drummer sits shirtless, smashing cymbals and snares. the bassist stands upright and stared up at the lights while his fingers worked their way up and down the neck of the guitar. to his left stands the singer. he cradles the mic, whispers words that echo back from the pa system. his voice sends me spinning into galaxies and exploding stars that soon won't exist. the rhythm changes and he detaches the mic, snaps its cord and howls, reaches one hand up to the fiery stage lights and begs for forgiveness. the song stops and the audience rewards his effort with one handed claps and half hearted shouts. a few enthusiastic fans jump and scream from a cluster in front of the singer, inches from the stage. i wonder if the sound engineer has flashed the five minute sign yet. the singer looks down and curves his lip into a sinister smile in the near-silence. then the drummer counts off and the band dives into one more rollicking nameless song. when the singer looks up again, a look of disbelief flickers across his rumpled face and he stretches his lips into another howl.

we teeter on the edge of closeness. and everything insane. rain falls down and covers everything below. we can't pretend we're everything. we're not each other's missing piece. I feel myself slipping away with this realization. I draw a line to keep you far behind. I know I can exist somewhere.

970

When we were young my sisters and I raced across the Colorado meadows chasing dreams and blowing dandelions. The sun shone brightly as we followed muddy streams up the hills until they trailed off underneath a forest web of leaves. We played house amidst rusted tin cans and grey boulders wedged under trees while my mother kneeled in the mud and planted columbines in the shadow of our cabin. We disappeared for hours, running up the dusty unpaved road with the corgies at our heels until we could not breath.
Sheep mountain carved a sharp, sloping silouhette against the sky. Patches of snow danced across its peaks like freckles. A dense forest stretched across the lower half of the mountain, connecting the earth to the grey purple mountaintop. Evergreens breached timberline in thinning triangles. An august thunderstorm opened up and my sneakers squished with every step. Rocks glistened in the rain. Sparse grass decorated the steep terrain. My purple poncho flapped like wings in the wind as I breathed deeply and slowly ascended the last switchback. I don’t remember exactly when a sparkling lake revealed itself silently as I climbed. Opposite the lake sat a view of the entire valley. From a perch of 12,000 feet I drank in sweeping granite hills stained with rust colored iron deposits, hidden forests so dark and black and the soft green meadows that lay below. Trout Lake lapped against the highway, reduced to a giant puddle from afar. Cabins dotted its banks like tiny fleas. The dusty dirt access road wound a satin ribbon along the foot of aspen covered hills.