10 Years

That's how long I've been living in L.A. Well, the actual anniversary was probably a week or two ago. I'm not sure. It was about the same time that crazy cult committed mass suicide, the ones that all had Nikes on.



We actually started the whole process in March, maybe even late February. The first time we drove out, our friend Sandra went with us as far as Santa Fe, then went her own way. We took the scenic route, stopping in New Orleans, Austin, the UFO Museum in Roswell, The Grand Canyon, and we were gonna hit Vegas, but we were running low on money, so we decided to skip it. I recall that that was when Tiger Woods played his perfect game, or won his first masters, or whatever it was that he did that was a really big deal. I just remember seeing it in the paper in New Mexico. It was one of the best weeks of my life, just being out on the open road, seeing the country, the incredible wide-open desert landscape in New Mexico, the amazing painted rock formations in Arizona, the Rocky Mountains and the Continental Divide. Finally, we pulled into Pasadena and checked into a Days Inn, where we stayed for several weeks, trying to find a place to live that seemed affordable without being too far out in the sticks.



Again, I remember a few time markers. I'm pretty sure we were in the motel on St. Patrick's Day, and I know we watched the Oscars there (they were later in the year back then), the year that Cuba Gooding Jr. won best supporting actor (I think that was the year The English Patient won). And Cronenberg's Crash opened while we were there.



We couldn't find anything for a decent price, so we finally went to an agent who was advertised in the Pasadena Star News. We went to her office in Burbank, very close to the Bob's Big Boy, in a building that reminded me of the Brady Bunch house (exact same staircase, stone wall). I wish I could remember her name--it was a funny name, like Suzy Sparkle or something. She was an old lady with painted on eyebrows chain-smoking menthol slim cigarettes, with a voice like Tom Waits. But she did manage to find us the incredible bargain rental that we live in to this day, so I gotta give her props.



After signing with the landlady, we left our car there and flew back, took about a week to pack and make all the final arrangements, loaded up a huge U-Haul truck and the other car with stuff, and headed out again, Bobbie in the car with one dog and I in the truck with the other. We tried to go quickly this time, but the truck was difficult to get any good speed up in. It was a rough trip. I remember that Comet Halle-Bop was passing the earth (the sign that the crazy cult had taken that it was time to kill themselves), and after the sun went down (we were driving 12-hour days), I could see it faintly on the horizon, pulling me onward.



There were some things that took adjusting to in L.A. The first day we were here, a friend from back east came over, and Bobbie told her "I would offer you some sweet tea, but I just finished making a batch, and it has some kind of gross film floating on top." Which prompted the question, "You didn't use tap water, did you?" See, in Georgia, you can actually drink the water that comes out of the faucet. Imagine that!



So what followed was a few months of unemployment, working for a maid service, shitty telemarketing jobs, and general soul-destroying. But hey, we stuck it out, we're still here, and we're still rockin' in the free world!