At Last

A Day Off

It’s debilitating, to be on the phone all day. Why haven’t I bought a hands free headset yet? I am in denial that my number is metaphorically written on every bathroom wall. Plus, headsets still aren’t cool yet. Probably this time next year things will be different. It won’t reek of drive through window to have an ear bud.

I sat in the front seat of the RV, parked at the curb in downtown Santa Monica. It was about 9:30 at night, and it was raining. Across the street I noticed a woman and her friend struggling to close a big white umbrella the wind had blown inside out. She tried to run into the wind to blow it back, holding it out like a lance in a calvery charge. No dice. She held it above her head and jumped up, hoping the gravity would add more leverage. Still nothing. When her friend tried to push it back, it seemed to wrap around her body and clutch her. I noticed the helping friend was buckled with laughter at this point. Even though it was dark and rainy and things were broken.

We stayed at my college friend’s house last nigh, Hak Lonh’s. We have two nights to stay with friends and not film, get caught up on internet stuff, emails, phone calls. One forgets how much energy it takes to make friends. There is a physical and mental effort exerted as one reads body language, tries to learn new personalities, look for reasons to trust or not trust someone. I have been meeting strangers and needing to gain their trust, and trust them, for almost two weeks. Like a muscle rarely used, it is hurts to do this.

With Hak, I crashed on his floor, opened the fridge, and took a shower without feeling any freeloader guilt. We talked about current projects, saw some film he is editing, and just hung out. It is nice to meet new people, but it is also important to stay connected to old friends. That can be just as much work. Ever wonder what the limit of possible friendships can be? In a physical number? How long before you wouldn’t have time to see them all?

Over breakfast in a Silverlake diner Hak and I talked about how much things costs, especially pure art projects.

“The Winchester Mystery House is a crazy place. The wife of the guy who invented Winchester rifles believed she needed to build a room for every soul killed by one of her husbands guns. It’s two miles of walking inside, dead ends, secret rooms, it’s bizarre. She spent so much money.”

“I wish I had invented something. Like the question mark.” Hak said.

“Did someone invent punctuation?” I asked him. What an amazing thought.

“I am the man who excites verbs. I call it exclamation.”

We paid our bill and left, headed back up into the hills. I don’t want to end this like a Bukowski story, but the Hollywood sign was hidden by a rain storm.

The next night was at a Naomie’s apartment off Fairfax in L.A. I met her on the original Dinner Tour. She invited a group of friends over for this evening and we went to a bar and sat at long tables and talked and had delicious Margaritas. Naomi’s friend Lilla is a professional free-lance writer who does food reviews. I would like her to come to our dinner tomorrow here in L.A. and write a critique of the meal. I think the more people involved in this project, the more it comes to mean. I don’t want to spoon feed people one answer to the question “What’s a National Dinner Tour?” I want to make a community around the project itself, and I have. From the friends of friends who helped me install a new water pump in the RV, and the guy who lent me a heavy duty floor jack so I could fix the leaky gas tank, lots of people have made it possible to simply get on the road. It would be fun to have Lilla give her professional opinion on this whole project.

People ask me all the time what the best meal is. I think any meal I don’t have to cook is delicious. The bigger point is what goes on during the meal. Eating dinner alone is one of the saddest things I have to do. I usually go out to eat instead. But standing in a kitchen with friends, washing carrots while someone stirs pasta sauce, that is one of the happiest things I have to do. Perhaps part of the appeal of the Dinner Tour is this same instinct in others. The need to share a meal, rather than eat alone