The Silverlake house (apartment?) was really a basement they had cemented in. There were no windows, heat or electricity, though I was able to run a chord through from the house. There was an array of new tenants down the "hall" (particle board make-shift accidental funhouse inspired hallway) who were always male and would always ask to bum cigarettes. A multitude of people that would live there were homeless and I did sleep with mace. I had to walk down on the side of the mountain on cobble stone rocks that broke their path as they neared my “quarters” at the bottom corner of the house. There were no path lights to illuminate my way down to my cave. When I met the owner, I could see that this was a foul situation, but manageable. He was weak with a meth addiction combined with acute psyrosys of the liver. His body stood tall at 6’ and his arms and legs looked like fried chicken wings, yet his stomach was extended at 7 months pregnant. This man wouldn’t win a fight with me. We both knew it. And all he wanted was my money every month for party. Sooner than later I learned that John was an ex male prostitute from New York City. His last lover had passed from AIDs and he inherited the house. It was originally a very lovely home tucked on the hillside of SilverLake, a lovely nook of LA that the “fags founded, before the faggots came in and ruined it…” as John would put it. He was right in some regard. It became ridiculously gentrified and unaffordable, as what commonly follows the gentrification neutering process. He had sectioned off the house piece by piece over the years to pay for the S&M parties that came with favors. I had to walk through his “bedroom” to get to the bathroom and the kitchen. Some times, I would come home from work and interrupt a party. They had leather fuck swings with chains hanging from the ceiling and the usual yellow dust lined out on plates. They would politely cup their balls as I walked through, and very politely try to discuss politics, in a friendly humor. When I would shower, the shower curtain would blow in and I would squeeze to the wall so it wouldn’t touch me, especially the blood stained bits…but toiled!…was the wall better? Constant internal rationalizing, “lather…ooo…don’t touch…tippy toes…Shaving was an act of ballerina acrobatics and I still today owe my flexibility to it. In fact, there were nights I would pee (okay, number two too…just sometimes!!!) outside like a dog, rather that meet the company lurking behind the door. Johns mouth whistled when he spoke and really only had one bottom tooth showing in his rotten disfigured mouth. He would slur his politics and disorganized thought process. Going from topics that jumped from stone to stark lacking cognizable relevance. Though, just to keep you hangared in, sprinkles of logic would dust in just enough to give you hope and solidify that he wasn't a complete moron. You can see in his eyes, kindness that wriggles restlessly and truthfully. Not only does he mean well, but he does his best to do well...in his own way.
Occasionally heroine Casey who lived upstairs in the same sectioned off house, would invite me up to his apartment for wine. He had the whole house packed so tight with musical instruments that the furniture was now compromised. You just had to laugh. It was just one big circus. What was I going to do? Just laugh. He was a musician and an audio engineer for a major production company, we will not mention. His last day on the job he admitted to his boss, with a grin on his face, “I’m a heroine addict!” And they regretfully let him go, but they would have kept him on if it weren’t illegal. They loved him there so much, truly, he was such a charming, brilliant man. Don’t let the addiction fool you. He knew what he was doing was wrong. Didn’t care. That was his journey at the time. He also was one of the few men I knew personally that could play every instrument well.
We would sit side ways on couches and passing ciggy’s from behind. We had to get up to ash in the ash tray, which was on a side table across the room caddy corner from behind the couches and one of the piano's. Madness. It was all madness. If you question my last name doesn’t ever so suit my journey I’ll claim you equally as mad. (Madden, indeed).
In living here, I almost regret my obsession with The Labrynth as a child (and teenager…lets be honest, now) because it appeared I had conjured the whole movie into my existence. I was living in the goblin city, with goblins and ghouls warn by the wreck of the world. I was conversing with whack-heads who were trying to “always have a good time” and requisitioning to remove your head. Bag ladies trying to convince you to collect junk to fill your loss of spirit and childhood wonderment, little worms meaning well but giving you bad directions while waisting your time and heroine David Bowie’s living up stairs in his rock and roll world dream, trying to convince me that..”If you just let me rule you, I’ll be your slave..”
I found myself reaching out to others, hoping someone, at some point would give me relief. But as always and it is true for all (most anyway) we are really the only ones who can help ourselves, in the end.
What was I doing here? My best friend had just graduated from law school and is now running her own firm. My cousin was in law school and most of my friends were buying property.
I kept hearing the beckoning of a song by a punk band, ECP that begins with the sentence: “Fuck off and die”. Precisely.
"Whatever", I would tell myself, "I’m going to wash everything off after I leave." Ha. Right?