Writer • Musician
This Girl. This girl. Who I crave and want to know more about. Share in that laughter. That laugh of hers riveting, youthful. Joyous. She is the desert highway child, Young and reckless, drives me wild. I came in on chariots of thunder when she came right out, snuck in from under, Desert nymph. Oh, …
Los Angeles, CA When the shooting happened I wanted to ask all to say a prayer for our fellow man, but instead I kept quiet and said the prayer myself. The incident speaks for itself. Been wanting to write a lot lately and this morning I cannot remember my dream. They fade away so fast …
But enough about that. Man, I am already feeling a new rush coming on. It's late in the morning and late in May. For the past two months things have been a little in the dark, but we'll see how things go from here. The greatest peak in this period of time, the moment in …
There is a feeling that I may be really in for it, if I don't stay true. And for a young artist, this is the great recurring dilemma. But first I would have to decide if I am indeed an artist; and I most certainly am not. No, I am just some young pilgrim looking …
Los Angeles, CA We friends stood beneath a cold night and uncorked the festivities in a grand toast to the bare, wood-floor house out on Melrose and Western. --- December winds roll in and it’s that most wonderful time of year as Tim Tebow wins another game for the once hopeless Denver Broncos. He’s now …
Continue reading "(With Our Back to the Sun) Turning to the Snow"
Dear Victoria, Tonight is one of those nights in which so many things seem to all come together from the far corners of the night sky. I fasted for a day and have deduced that it does indeed lead to an altered state of consciousness. And I think it may be needed in today’s world. …
Tom Waits and violet roses. Man I want it all. Satisfaction is death and I crave the gritty night sidewalks of LA. These days I want to recall the old voices and heroes. Oh Tom Waits, you are such a man. The voice for the outcast and prideful soul. The observant soul that stares from …
Continue reading "I saw Tom Waits (he might have looked at me)"
Some kind of boom has taken hold and I fear that it will not stay. But I do not fear the fear. Fear makes me human and in touch with the waves that surround the young. It is all ok and it makes me alive. I don’t know what brought it out. This must be …
It is so dangerous to go to sleep now tonight. The proof of love’s existence, if not its mere significance lies in the first recognition of daughter by a father or son by a mother. The first recognition that is born between parent and child. Otherwise there is no other way of recognizing the child …
Continue reading "Last Minute Revelations Beneath the Haze…and frightening"
Hollywood Blvd. Stepped outside and noticed that my neighbor took the one little plant I had out in front of my door and placed it among the ten or so she had. She must've thought it was hers, or just felt so bad for the thing in light of the little care it had received …
Studio City, CA I thought I saw Joan Baez in the parking garage beneath the Santa Monica supermarket, but it turned out to be nothing more than some woman who looked just like her. The air was unusually cold outside and it had rushed into the subterranean car lot via the escalator that peaked out …
Hollywood Blvd. Such a strange sadness to the night when it's spent in the quiet confines of your apartment, spent wondering whether others are in the same situation or are out enjoying the city and one another. Yet the greatest of these odd sorrows lies in the fact that the great day has indeed ended …
After searching endlessly for a spot in the ocean of a parking lot and joining the hundred or so other people who had parked illegally, I trekked over to the amphitheater. Carnival lights began to rise before the setting sun as the masses gathered before the entrance. I saw steam rising from inside, and only …
Prologue Through its access to entertainment and the general media, Hollywood has earned a reputation for setting trends, for laying the groundwork for what becomes the American consensus regarding everything from fashion to philosophy. This notion, weaved together with the old spirits of Manifest Destiny, has made the whole West coast something of a rallying …
I tried to eat tonight and as I stared into the pores of my plate I felt somehow undeserving of it. How anything I took in would be somehow gluttonous in light of what day it was. I wondered if I was alone in that regard, if there were others who perhaps weren’t guilty but …
Today I sat beside a drifter who was drinking water with sweetener (from Mentos) and lemon. I was trying to write my story but he wanted to keep talking. He spoke of how his male boss tried to seduce him, bribing him with a promotion. He spoke too of wanting to make friends in LA …
On a warm California night, I look up at the stars that reappear from the rolling clouds of violet. They continually speak to me. They watch me, wait for me, though I feel that I am not their only subject of scrutiny. Still, they whisper theories as to what I may do when the time …
Continue reading "Clouds in a Violet Sky (Rawling’s Journal 8/23/2011)"
It surprises me, the moments I might have in a cafe, comparable to those I might just as easily experience on a beach at sunset. The sound of the waves might be replaced by the radio or the chatter of patrons, unaware of the music they create for me; while the beauty of that fading …
--- When Ray called and told me that he was driving to Seattle once and for all and asked if I wanted to hitch along, I actually hesitated. I couldn't figure out what surprised me more: the idea of a cross-country road trip or the fact that I didn't jump up immediately and scream 'let's …
Ren Michael 