Arrival in 'Murica

People say personal relationships deteriorate rapidly in the City of Angels. It’s no lie. After over a year of texting and a visit to NZ, mine was over in a day! Well shit, but as they say in this great country, “FREEDOM!”

Coffee in this city also lives up to expectations...like coffee, I suppose it’s still possible to get a “fix” from relationships in this city. It’s just difficult to find meaning while drawling on it all day and staring into the abyss of treacle in a cup.

Camus said “Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?” I’ll go with the latter, thanks Bert.

After being kicked out of her Silverlake home, I happily retreated to coastal L.A. to Surf City Hostel in Hermosa Beach to surf and think, but mostly surf. Cheap, dirty, loud, but very safe and a beautiful beachfront view from your plastic-coated continental duvet. The weather is also way to good here. So much so that a gay Chinese kid wearing full pink came all the way from Seattle for all of 12 hours to get his monthly shot of vitamin D, and other medications. Can’t complain, although he did steal my freshly made bed.

Just as I was reflecting on the joys of life while returning from my morning surf, feeling energised from the ocean and the imbibement of six cups of the holy treacle earlier, I dodged a pick-up truck in the carpark and stepped straight in a massive puddle of tar on the road. It was as if the late 80’s pick-up parked outside Surf City Hostel had finally given up on life and sneezed a final spit of black waste in protest at its life of abuse.

The tar on the bottom of my left foot might have been enough to put me off cigarettes for a while, but never the similar looking ‘black caawwfee’ that I’ve become so fastidiously addicted to in my short life. Life is definitely too short to smoke menthols, even if you get them for free, but I truly couldn’t live without my morning shot of mojo.

Following the remodelling of the sole of my foot with a brand new black tattoo of tar, I ran upstairs to fetch a seventh cup of coffee and headed straight back to the ocean to wash off the tar, along with all my other worldly sins. ''Well now," you say, "that would take you a while George!" To which I humbly rebut, "haha" good sirs and madams.

My thoughts at the time, out the back of the swell with the tar freshly washed off my feet, were something along the lines of, “I’m so glad I’ve made it to the Pacific Coast and I can’t wait to get stuck in to life here.”

So far, so good. California fuck yeah!