Before all this began, there was December of last year when I wanted to be Arthur Rimbaud and I stood in the corner of a bookshop, where I was becoming a ghostly regular reading a 'Season in Hell' and wondering what it would take as carols played soft on the radio. It was Christmastime. From …
In December of Last Year
From the First of December Farewell my friends, for tonight I embark on a journey. And so rise the crimson waves. But I've got a few parting words. I read 'A Season in Hell' this afternoon and saw that the answer, if real, cannot be found on this earth, but it may lie underground. This …
Chapter 1
The plan was to get to Frisco after things settled with the LA move, but I hand't been able to swing it since; and so it wasn't long after getting back from Coachella and hiking the desert mountains there that I began thinking about mysterious Big Sur in the north and finally making what would …
In December of Last Year II
'...It all died with Kennedy,' said I from beneath hollow ground. 'I see it all so clearly. Does it still live with Kennedy? Still...' 'What's that?' asked my neighbor, I couldn't make out his face. 'The American Dream?' 'What's that?' he asked again. 'Some kind of peace? Some prosperity?' I didn't answer him for I …
Chapter 2
Big Sur. The most elusive, and the darkest of places which now felt like a legend in my mind. The home to writers who could never truly write about it and who would always ultimately resort to telling whoever was listening that they just had to go see it for themselves. I was on my …
Chapter 3
The waves crashed violently on the coast of San Simeon. But from my view, watching the sun disappear at last and leave the sky cast in some mystical grey and blue, it all appeared very peaceful and necessary. I watched it while I stood parked on the cliffs with 'Mama You've Been on My Mind' …
Chapter 4
Big Sur is freedom. It is eternal youth smiling to you and shining above you with God's great sun gleaming high as the waves crash in a morning tempest over the sharp rocks below. On this winding road you hang over the Pacific Ocean, and you hug tightly the green cliffs and the redwoods that …
Chapter 5
I went to Frisco for the first time when I was a boy, with my mother when I was six years old. We stayed with her cousin back when she used to live in the city. Now she lived across the bay not far from Berkeley. We talked a little of that time but not …
Epilogue
Monterey, CA (written on the way back to LA from Frisco) So food is important I've learned that. Whether it is a lack of it, an abundance or some healthy and sustained intake, food or the thought of it can drive the creative mind to goddamn epic horizons. Right now I am hungry is all. …
Ren Michael 