Anticipation better not get the best of me. An hour before my partner in XXX crime arrives to pick me up to go to Sardo’s Grill & Lounge, the so-called home of the San Fernando Valley’s Tuesday night Porn Star Karaoke, expectations are flying around, having a heyday. We have both been assigned to check out where the valley’s living exhibits go after a long, hard day at work to relax and hang loose, no pun intended. I repeatedly tell myself there’s no point in all this anticipating, that thinking too much about what will be will kill it. But in all fairness to myself, fantasizing about it is half the fun. All I can think about is having to sing “Physical” or “She’ll Be Cuming ‘Round the Mountain” to a crowd of drunken adult film stars while my arm is draped around Roxanne Hall and the new Jenna Jameson. Singing our favorite songs, no one caring what an atrocious singer I am, and the 2 a.m. bar curfew becoming null and void in a world of mastacious women, swinger parties, roller skates, and pre-1980s sexual disease phobias… Damn! I’m anticipating again. Staring blankly at my open wardrobe, I’m hoping something will jump out as the obvious attire to help me blend in, but I am having no such luck and I’m running out of time like the Rabbit. Now a little panicked, I circle around my options and eventually throw on a t-shirt, purple leather vest, some 60s-ish pants and my worst enemy, a pair of heels.

Marco picks me up because he knows I’m a lightweight. Two drinks and I’ll be telling anyone who will listen stories that should be told with reservation. I’m used to talking a lot and not being heard, but I’m starting to think Marco is actually listening which both relieves and frightens me. I’m given the task of navigating, but I’m having such a good time already that I forget to pay attention to the map. Road construction detours and MapQuest hell leave us screaming to the lords of Burbank urban planning for help. Where the hell is this place? Right when we think it’s time to go home, Marco pulls into a strip mall. Next to Vons, a neon sign illuminating Sardo’s is sandwiched awkwardly between ill-fitting businesses, as is typical of strip malls. We give each other a deadpan look, laugh, sigh, and unbuckle. The air feels seedy, which sets me in the mood. I get a waft of donuts, sex and mist. Delicious.

It’s still early, so there’s no one outside with the exception of the bouncer and a man I recognize as the owner (I watched his interactive tour on Sardo’s website so he was easy to spot). He is welcoming and gestures for us to walk in. As we do, I notice a sea of red patent leather covering all the booths and the bar stools. It’s calm and collected for what I imagined. The tone-deaf have definitely arrived, but where are all the big boobs? The tanned skin, the peroxide-bleached hair? The gangly men with long, curly man-locks? Ah, yes, there’s one. You have to really look for him, but he’s there. Marco and I look around, sousing out the premises of this should-be-but-isn’t house of debauchery. There appears to be a VIP area where an older woman with a backbreakingly enormous chest sits, alongside a blonde and a brunette. This must be where the “stars” congregate. We count about four who could pass as porn stars, although we aren’t quite sure; we are in Los Angeles after all. The mic is handed over to the MC for the night, who announces the recent release of her new DVD and proceeds to call out tame dirty names to the boys in the crowd begging for a free t-shirt. She selects one up front, makes him turn around and bend over, and gives him the kind of spanking we all predict.

It’s getting more and more crowded, which feeds me with a morsel of hope. I very much want it to be a secret gold mine of a dive bar, with locals I want to chat with, music I want to sway to, outrageous live acts I want to witness. But it’s not; porn has gone limp. Actually, it feels as if it has nothing to do with porn. If I came without prior research, I would never guess that it’s a porn star karaoke night. The bar does have some redeeming qualities: it’s funky, relaxed, well lit, and serves healthy-portioned drinks. But we are here late and not one “porn star” has graced us with his or her voice as far as we can tell, so I’m left thinking the label has been put on the wrong bottle. It’s simply karaoke in Burbank, which naturally, being the porn capital of the world, has a higher than normal chance of being frequented by a few porn stars.

Bad karaoke fades into the background as Marco and I comfortably settle on bar stools in the corner, familiarizing ourselves with local regulars and self-medicating with Heineken and Diet Cokes. One such local, a man by the name of Ken who smells of Marlboro Reds from the table next to us, wears a leather cowboy hat and boots, and clanks glasses with us in celebration of his birthday. We learn he’s been coming for many, many years and thinks it’s the greatest bar around. I must add to that statement that Ken and his wife live one block away. Marco and I had committed to singing if it meant we would experience more of what Sardo’s PSK has to offer, but given the less-than-mind-blowing vibe, we decide to pass.

I never expected Sardo’s to be a live and breathing dictionary of all things pornographic, but I did expect something slightly entertaining. I can safely say that Marco, my delightful and funny partner on this PG-rated night, was 10x more engaging than what was going on in the corner of the VIP booth. So what do I think of Sardo’s? I think it’s a bar in Burbank with good drinks. Period. Do you need to venture across town for it? No. Is the allure of porn stronger than porn itself? Probably, but I’ll leave that for the experts to debate.

Anticipation turned out to be the most efficacious act relating to porn of the night, as it is quite masturbatory in itself. But if my expectation of tonight was my mental foreplay, I’m pretty sure Sardo’s gave my dear friend Marco a bad case of blue balls.

Side B: by Marco Mannone

Topanga Canyon twists before me in pitch darkness. One wrong move, and I’ll have a healthy ten-second free-fall to let my life flash by before exploding on the jagged rocks below. Keep it steady and let Nick Cave croon “Moonland”. I’m venturing into this perfect slice of darkness to pick up Forth writer/online editor Sophie Kipner. She lives in the lush heart of Topanga, and it feels thoroughly nice to be off The Grid.

When I pick Sophie up she is surprised at how punctual I am – and I must say, I am as well. It’s a long haul through the winding wilderness before we make it into the Valley and jump on the 101. Our destination: Sardo’s in Burbank to listen to Porn Star Karaoke. Why? Because it has become an L.A. tradition. In Italy, you ride in Gondolas. In Spain, you watch a bull-fight. In New York, you go to Broadway. And here in Los Angeles, you see people who get paid to have sex belt out their favorite 80’s rock ballads in a grimy little bar in a strip-mall of a Von’s parking lot. Who says L.A. doesn’t have culture?

We veer off at the Pass Ave. exit and the evening is going swimmingly until we realize that Pass Ave. doesn’t feel like cooperating and ends prematurely at Olive. We back-track, only to end up in the parking lot of a dry-cleaners and MapQuest has failed to clarify Burbank’s impossible infrastructure. Construction and poor city-planning drives us in circles, and we come to find – over much laughter – that there is no feeling quite as despairing as being lost in Burbank, CA.

Eventually, Sophie calls the bar and we get a new set of directions that circumvents the construction detours and lands us at Sardo’s. Since 2003, the establishment has been hosting Porn Star Karaoke, a novelty that has caught on as a must-see local experience. The lounge is small and modestly crowded at 9:45pm. We saddle up at a free corner of the bar and Sophie gets a Jack & Diet Coke while I get a Heineken. The clientele is typical for the Valley: a strange mix of frat-boys, middle-aged divorcees, Nascar cowboys and, oh yeah, a few porn-stars thrown in for good measure. But the image of a “Boogie Nights”-style disco scene is quickly erased as we settle in and absorb the average, blue-collar atmosphere.

An aging gentleman in a 2006 Nascar champion jacket and cowboy hat (I wasn’t kidding) introduces himself as “Ken”. It’s Ken’s birthday tomorrow and he’s out celebrating with his wife over some chicken-wings and cocktails. They’ve been coming to Sardo’s for years, much like a majority of the people here, and he swears by it as a good time. The meager collection of porn stars are sequestered into a modest “VIP” booth by the stage and they don’t appear obvious in any way – save for the giant breasts on one worn-out woman which look as if they might go down like the Hindenburg.

Waiting to be impressed – or even vaguely amused – Sophie and I turn to each other for drinks and conversation that turn out to be far more entertaining than anything the evening could present. When I catch the dark wing of a bird sticking out of Sophie’s shoulder-blade, I inquire about the tattoo and she pulls her sleeve back to reveal a magnificent crow frozen in glory. She explains that when her grandfather was dying in England, that a crow had perched itself on his hospital window-sill for an entire week without moving. Moments after he passed, the crow squawked and flew away leaving Sophie enchanted. Despite her general fear of birds – stemming from a hilarious “Emu incident” in Australia when she was nine years old – she decided to brand herself with this bird as a symbol of her grandfather and, perhaps, a reminder of fears that need to be overcome in this life.

Excusing myself to the bathroom, I am nearly molested by a crowd of people as I squeeze myself across the bar. There is a line to the men’s room, which plants me squarely between porn-star Julia-Anne singing “Rebel Yell” and a fortune-teller’s glass bowl with a plastic witch head floating inside of it, cackling obnoxiously. This could either be a decoration for Halloween, or the very spirit of pornography: a fake woman trapped in a bubble, stimulated by electricity and doomed to a bar in Burbank.

Inside the claustrophobic commode, a Mexican gentleman is busy mopping the floor with a bucket of dirty water, and I make a mental note to burn my Converse when I get home. A white yuppie uses the urinal next to mine — the kind of guy who wears a silk, burgundy button-down tucked in his jeans. Julia-Anne can be clearly heard through the wall behind us, and the Yuppie breaks my personal bathroom etiquette by engaging me in conversation.

“Oh my god, these girls sound like HORSE-SHIT!”

“Well, what did you expect?” I respond.

“I don’t know man, but of all the places we could have gone, I am regretting coming here. Vegas, New York, shit – even Tucson for Christ sake!”

He is drunk and the Illusion men across the country must have of L.A.’s porn scene has been efficiently soiled by his visit here.

“Well hell,” I tell him, “Keep your sense of humor intact, and go down laughing.”

When I make my way back to Sophie, the evening’s host – adult actress Nikki Hunter – is making a man pull a free T-shirt out of her manufactured cleavage with his teeth.

“What’s this?” I ask Sophie, who watches the scene unfold with a wry smile.

“They’re handing out free stuff to whoever makes the biggest fool of themselves,” she responds.

A free DVD is waved around and the drunk apes in the lounge roll around and beat their chests for a chance at “earning” it. One lucky hominid is singled-out and Nikki asks him, “So what will you do to get this?”

“Anything you want!” he grins.

“So I can spank your ass as hard as I want?”

“Sure!”

The man – presumably apart of the work-force, a relative to some family, a tax-payer and quite possibly a patriot – bends over with his elbows planted on his table, and endures the brutal hand of Ms. Hunter as she WHACKS his buttocks.

“So what was your introduction to porn?” Sophie asks me, a not-so-typical work-related question.

“Like most red-blooded American males of the 20th Century: the glossy pages of Playboy. My best friend’s father had boxes full of every issue dating back to the 1960’s.”

We both agreed that was innocent stuff compared to today’s brand of gonzo porn.

“In essence, you were apart of the last generation of men who had a classy introduction to the opposite sex,” Sophie tells me, “Playboy Bunnies were modest, playful and respected.”

“True,” I elaborate, “And the act of appreciating them required effort. Back in those days, you had to be covert to sneak magazines around. Not like today, where kids can say they’re doing their homework and surf the Internet. Christ, I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a kid these days. They can see and hear things that most adults can’t even comprehend at the push of a button. We’re gonna have a generation of sexual deviants on our hands soon, and a good deal of them will become teachers and politicians.”

I ask Sophie what her introduction to porn was, and she confides it was at a girlfriend’s father’s house when she was at the edge of puberty. She and her girlfriends would watch the father’s VHS collection and proceed to prank-call random boys by emulating the breathless dialogue of the women on TV.

“Shit, where were you when I was 12?” I ask her, “All the prank calls I got were insulting.”

Sophie ponders the future of pornography, “How could it possibly get any more graphic? At what point will we be unable to push the envelope any further?”

“I agree,” I tell her, switching an empty Heineken for a full one, “On one hand, it’s desensitizing us, necessitating more and more elaborate fetishes. On the other hand, and I think this is the optimist in me, but I think that at a certain point the sensory overload of the Internet will hopefully re-establish the need to have a meaningful, connected and loving relationship with the opposite sex. Because at the end of the day, an orgasm without love is as empty a physical gesture as sneezing.”

We’re just two young writers for an arts & literature magazine, philosophizing about human sexuality and relationships in the 21st century, all the while a woman with thousand-dollar breasts croons “Pour Some Sugar on Me” in a way that Def Leppard probably never imagined.

Not too long after midnight, we decide we’ve had enough and head out to my car and jump back on the 101 – where we continue to laugh all the way back into the sweet heart of darkness that is Topanga. At the end of the night, the tacky lure of drunk sex objects singing cheesy music pales in comparison with the genuine connection I end up enjoying with Sophie. Connections in L.A. are hard to come by (regardless of their platonic or romantic nature) and when two members of the opposite sex create one, it’s in the same ballpark as a tiny miracle. As much as Burbank seems designed to confuse, L.A. seems designed to alienate, and I am thankful I have gotten to know this girl with a bird on her back a little better. After all, Sophie is proof-positive that it’s not where you go in this strange city we call home, but who you go with.

Ass-spanking optional.

Once upon a time a city was erected, and when the neon lights were turned on, the people came in droves. Their dreams were advertised to them wholesale and everyone clamored over each other to buy them. When they realized these were not the dreams they wanted, the people turned to each other for meaning. But before they could embrace, fault-lines in the earth tore apart, separating them, and these chasms were filled-in with highways roaring with traffic. Alas, the people found themselves isolated on concrete islands with no way to reach each other. They now make up the permanent and wounded infrastructure of this city. They had loved and destroyed Los Angeles. . . and Los Angeles had returned the favor.

Sophie arrives at my place and looks around, peering into my room, “So this is Marco’s love-den, huh?” she asks with a smirk.

“Ha. Not exactly. More like Marco’s writing-den,” the sad truth.

Having just left work, Sophie heads straight for the bathroom to get changed. She opens the door revealing her new outfit: dark, fitted jeans and a black, short-sleeved blouse with a large heart on her back comprised of shreds that reveal her skin. She engages me in conversation while she applies her make-up in the mirror. There is something wholly comforting about watching a girl putting on her make-up, getting ready for the night. It is a gentle, charming ritual I enjoy observing for some strange reason.
Minutes later we are in my car, leaving Mar Vista in our dust. We take Venice to La Cienega and shoot up into West Hollywood.

Along the way, Sophie asks me for some male advice on her current state of social affairs, “My friends are trying to set me up with this one guy, who is really nice but not my type.”

“What’s your type?”

Deep inhale. Taking in the strange and sexy sights. Winding along the snaking path. Ride the snake. I am wearing sunglasses, still recovering from a night at a downtown pirate-bar where I listened to Jake La Botz wail the blues and drank Bacardi & Cokes like they were going out of style. Now I am trying to sweat it out, breathe in the Pacific, and soak up some vitamin D in the form of sunshine. L.A. is never shy about handing out the vitamin D. I follow my brother (whose bike necessitates a Tetanus-shot just for looking at it) and am careful to dodge overachieving roller-bladers… Tour de France snobs with their silly pants and shaved legs… wandering, naked Mexican children… and new couples hogging the route as they stare dreamily into each other’s eyes… Tricky territory, Venice. A single wrong move, and you could end up bleeding into the sand, unable to remember the last five seconds of your life.

We had jumped on the path as far south as Marina Del Rey and now shoot under the Santa Monica Pier all the way up to the south edge of Malibu. It is here, at the end of a parking lot adjacent to PCH, that the real-estate begins to take on an overtly elitist tone that prevents lowly Mar Vistians such as ourselves from going any further. No sir. For the next “27 miles of scenic beauty” (Malibu slogan) the beach is private — sliced and diced by million-dollar knives for the rich and famous. If we carried on any further, we would surely be eviscerated by these very knives.

It’s on a bathroom-break for my brother on the way back that I call Bonnie. She had made a large batch of pot-brownies recently that sounded too good to pass up, comprised of a species known as “Velvet Elvis”.

“Hound Dog Elvis, or Suspicious Minds Elvis?” I ask Bonnie over the phone.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Well, Hound Dog Elvis is young, lean and potent as hell… Suspicious Minds Elvis would be fatter and slower, and much more mellow. So which is it?”

“Suspicious Minds Elvis. How’s that sound?”

“Terrific. Meet you at the Drum Circle in 45 minutes.”

In most other cities, the Venice Beach Drum Circle would be sedated and quarantined for further study, but in Los Angeles, it has been an eclectic musical tradition since the Beat Generation of the 50’s. The premise hasn’t changed that much since then. Aging hippies, tattooed hipsters, Mexican gangsters, Rastafarian voodoo men and sexual gypsies alike congregate on the wide stretch of sand as if it were their own church. And if you are on HALF the cocktail of drugs and alcohol that some of this melting-pot tribe is on, it is still a transcendental experience — if not entirely religious. A total Shit Show set to the beat of a hundred drums, all pounding with random fury as the sun sinks into the cold Pacific and the mystery of night takes over… Yeah. This is our backyard.

Sun-burnt riff-raff lay face-down in the sand. Some of them have to be poked with a stick to make sure they still have a pulse. Their intoxication has peaked, and they are simply re-charging their batteries. Eventually, they randomly spring to life like zombies and continue to drink and stumble and smoke and scream and fall down all over again. A Mexican gangster, with the mandatory shaved head / mustache / plain white t-shirt and baggy denim shorts, asks one of these seemingly lifeless burn-outs if he is “Okay?” He gently nudges the man and repeats his question. The man stirs and lifts a red face with a sandy beard, one bloodshot eye cracks OPEN. He mumbles something exposing missing teeth and passes out again. The Mexican gangster shrugs, raises a conch and blows into it — making the shell bellow like a primal call on some strange island.

My brother is busy pounding his own animal skin with determined hands. This is a place he has come to for several years now, and he has since become a part of its mutant DNA. While waiting for Bonnie to arrive, I scribble some bad poetry into a small notebook – recalling thoughts and feelings no one will ever care about — when I find myself cast in someone’s shadow. When I look up it is not Bonnie or Elvis, but a young, blonde train-wreck of a runaway. She must be early 20’s, although age is hard to determine due to the explosive acne covering her face. She smiles, waves and mumbles hello. I take a deep breath and force a smile, knowing that she is too far gone to realize I want nothing to do with her.

“Watcha doing?” she asks me, greasy blonde locks dusted with sand covering her bloody eyes.

“Plotting world domination. You?”

Her spastic laugh would sound perfectly natural in a mental ward-hallway. She kneels – more like, collapses – next to me and has the audacity to lay her head across my lap. From this perspective, I can fully appreciate her violent acne, her yellow teeth, and whatever that green crust is painted around her eyes. If she bites me, I think to myself, I am sure to become just like her.

She shakes her head from side to side in my lap, “No you’re not! I don’t believe you!”

“Sure I am. I’m drafting up the plan as we speak in this little notebook.”

“How are you gonna take over the world? Huh?”

“Why should I tell you? You’ll find out soon enough,” I inform her with a grim tone. “Now I’d love to sit and chat all day, but I am expecting The King to show up any minute now and we have some important business to take care of.”

“The King? You mean, Michael Jackson?” she slurs.

“Not the King of Pop. The King. Elvis.”

“Ohhhh…” she thinks she understands, “Isn’t he, like, dead or something?”

“Yeah. Or something. It was nice meeting you.”

I swing my legs away, letting her head drop rudely to the sand. She abruptly stands up and teeters from the effort, swaying, unable to focus.

“Fine! Whatever. I was just trying to be nice.”

She stumbles back to a circle of tweeker runaways, a motley crew of youth that veered off the tracks in a permanent way. A cardboard sign declares, “AT LEAST WE’RE NOT YOUR KIDS”.

The Circle’s frenzy increases in pitch and rhythm. Everyone is facing me now, basked in a golden glow. I turn around and witness the sun shimmer as it melts into the horizon. A group of overweight women dressed as gypsies open their arms and scream at this vision. They belong to a roving band of hippies that seem to worship the sun. Every Sunday you can come here and watch them freak out as the sun’s last rays fade into the evening. They throw their heads back like they were having orgasms and laugh and dance around like Greek witches. I have privately dubbed them “The Sunset Junkies”.

“Shit, I missed it,” Bonnie tells me, having finally arrived.

“Yeah you did. But rumor has it, it’s going to happen again tomorrow.”

She smiles and grabs a seat next to me. I don’t know Bonnie too well, aside from the fact she is a cool chick who likes to smoke copious amounts of weed. She pulls two brownies out of her bag and hands me one.

“This is my first brownie, you know?”

“Wow, really? I’m popping your cherry!”

I eat the brownie, which is quite good — if not a little dry — since she saved me this piece from last week. We sit in the sand and admire the scenery – God dips his brush into more cobalt blue and dabs the canvas, drowning out the burnt orange. Before we know it, it’s night. We meet up with my brother and a couple of his drumming acquaintances and head to Sidewalk Café for some food and drink. It’s not until we’re seated that I feel the brownie kicking in. Pleasant vibes. Upon my insistence, Bonnie and I share the Chicken Nachos which she has never had. They are, as always, amazing. I wash them down with a cold Tecate and the simple beer seems to trigger the rest of the brownie… It means business and I go from sober to Fucking Stoned from one moment to the next. Pretty soon I’m engaging the table about the manipulation of Daylight Savings.

“Why? Why does it have to be so dark so early now? It’s just wrong!”

Someone says something about farmers, and I retort, “Great! Let their farms be in their own time-zones! Why should growing fruits and vegetables affect the rest of us? Leave us alone!”

“You know, Arizona doesn’t have any time changes,” Bonnie informs me.

“Ever?”

She shakes her head and sips her Red Stripe.

“Do you know what this means?!” I feel a revelation coming on, “Arizona has the only real time in the world!” Everyone laughs but I insist, “I bet you Arizona is actually in a different year than us. Think about it. All those hours over all those years adding up, shifting them completely. We think we’re in 2009, but it’s probably something else!”

After a brain-scrambling ten minutes trying to figure out the bill, we exit the patio – passing The Sunset Junkies who take up two long tables and are clapping their hands in a psychedelic sing-along. Outside, I hug Bonnie goodbye and thank her for the treat. She walks back to her car while my brother and I walk back to our bikes. As my brother attempts to affix his drum to his bike, and as I attach lights to mine, I am approached by a phantom of the night: a man in a tattered leather jacket with the head of a HAWK — the stoic beak, those menacing eyes. Surely this can’t be happening. Bonnie must have mixed the brownie with LSD or I am totally losing my mind…

“Heyyyy! You’re right on time!” the Hawk Man declares. He removes his head, revealing an old, bearded face with missing teeth framed by a head of grey, shaggy hair. He is ten feet away and I can already smell him: the Venice musk of urine, cigarettes, booze and insanity. He gets close and extends a gloved hand to shake. The last thing I want to do is touch this mythological creature, but I do so quickly (and discreetly wipe my hand on my jacket).

“I might be on time, but the rest of the world isn’t,” I respond.

Hawk Man grins and nods his head, “You get it! Alright! And you know that being right here, right now, is all that matters, man! All that matters! You can take your politics and taxes and news shows and wars and traffic jams and gods and shit and none of it matters, man! None of it!”

I nod my head politely, not wanting to have to deal with a crazy man who wears a hawk head in my current mental state. I desperately want to jump on my bike and ride through the peaceful Mar Vista night, but my brother is fumbling with his drum in the background, failing again and again at fixing it to his bike like some character in a silent-film.

Hawk Man steps closer, and in a conspiratorial tone tells me, “They need us, man. The rich and the poor alike. We’ve got to be here and be now and get the message out there, man. Out there!”

“I couldn’t agree more,” is all I can come up with. Maybe the more I agree with him, the faster he’ll go away? Hawk Man is speaking to me with an intimate intensity that makes me question whether or not the universe has sent him as a personal prophet, and if he is actually speaking some sort of wild truth that I should heed… Either that, or Mr. Presley could be working overtime and the joke’s on me.

Finally, my brother is good to go and I wave goodbye to my prophet. He insists on one more handshake and offers me some final, parting wisdom, “Don’t give up on them, and they won’t give up on you. Spread the message, man. This is our time!”

The boardwalk is mostly deserted at this dark hour, smooth-sailing.

“I couldn’t get away from that guy fast enough!” I express my relief.

“Hawk Man?” my brother replies, “He oversees the Drum Circle. He’s the shaman. Crazy, but harmless.”

That definition could apply to most of us: crazy but harmless. We are all sharing this epic hallucination called life. We are, in affect, all Sunset Junkies. We eventually cruise passed a condo with its front door wide open. Inside the slick, wood-floor pad: two surfer-girls who look like models dance with each other, rubbing their bodies in unison – one of them wearing only her tank-top and panties. Sensual hip-hop is blaring on the sound-system, helmed by some dude who is apparently playing host.

“Someone’s living the dream,” my brother says, chagrined.

The rest of the ride back – down Washington Blvd, through the Marina (where nocturnal sharks prowl the still, black waters around the boats) and finally into Mar Vista – is a death-defying adventure comprised of stamina and coordination. Cars and buses seem to veer around us within inches, and I nearly find myself under their tires on more than one occasion. By the time we get home, I feel like Odysseus. We are greeted by the dog — a German Short-Haired Pointer named Hans — and he stands up on his hind legs and walks around like a person to greet us. I hug him like I would a human, his giant nose sniffing my face like a wet Dust Buster.

I look deep into his brown, murky eyes and ask, “Hans, you don’t care about Daylight Savings, do you?”

Of course, Hans’ response – and the only sane one I have encountered this Sunday — is to simply wag his stubby tail as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.

In trying to accommodate this issue’s “architectural” theme, as you know I have hatched the hair-brained scheme to live at the famous Chateau Marmont hotel for a few days. The initial purpose of this endeavor was to soak up the hotel’s vintage history, its French-inspired style, and to chew on the current brand of wildlife they house with pride. But, as the fan turns, the shit makes its way to it eventually. How naïve of me to imagine a dimension in which they would comp a room for a journalist (especially an unknown one) but they were willing to provide a private tour of the entire hotel by two of its managers. Quickly, and by no fault of their PR woman who has been more than gracious with me, the Hotel has been quick to brand my behind with a white-hot list of guidelines that I am legally obliged to follow.

1.) Staff members cannot be quoted or interviewed (including the managers providing the tours)
2.) Guests/guest’s activities cannot be mentioned nor celebrities spotted to ensure their anonymity
3.) Photography or filming cannot take place
Corporate policies are one thing, but my god, are they keeping sensitive government secrets over there or what? The amount of fear reverberating among the hotel’s employees must be palpable from as far as the Viper Room. I have decided to not take this tour because I don’t think our readers will want to undergo such a morbid experience. I am saddened to realize that the Chateau Marmont that once prided itself on breaking the rules is dead. Long gone are the days when Howard Hughes could masturbate in the attic while peeping on young starlets lounging by the pool, or when Led Zeppelin could come tearing into the lobby on some chromed-out Harleys, or when Jim Morrison could jump out of a window for the hell of it. Marmont used to be a holy mecca for the counter-culture, a place where the outside rules were considered mere formalities, and in a time when creativity and debauchery went together like a horse and carriage. As recently as 2007, they let Lindsay Lohan, of all people, LIVE under that roof for months—which is the equivalent of letting a radioactive vampire into your house. But I suppose there is no corporate policy against radioactive vampires, now is there?
Clearly I am not a celebrity to cater to, but there is a little thing called “freedom of press” that obviously cannot penetrate the corporate fear-mongering going on at Hotels AB. Are they so afraid that a little arts & literature publication no one’s ever heard of is going to expose a shocking scandal of some kind that will drive business into the ground permanently? Or perhaps the fear centers around a hot-shot celebrity who will never know our magazine exists, reading about him or herself months later and then deciding they will try and sue the Hotel for… well, what exactly, would remain to be seen. All famously-known orgies, drug-binges, deaths and nervous-breakdowns aside, what could I possibly uncover that they have not already been more than proud to flaunt? Hell, if it weren’t for prolifically-inclined writers such as myself, one could argue that Chateau Marmont wouldn’t even be on the map today. These lurid tales of excess are precisely what have made the hotel such an icon the world over, and dare I say that if they were never publicly known, then the premiere destination for most of Hollywood’s elite would be the Best Western. Or is this beyond mere litigation, and are we now in the clandestine realm of a little thing called “prestige?” Does Marmont want to maintain a silent code of respect for its guests, sort of like La Cosa Nostra, in which pesky writers like myself are kept at bay?
Let’s make one thing abundantly clear, as I have already told the Hotel’s publicist: I never had any intention of exposing or incriminating any guests or staff members of any kind or in any way. But to offer a journalist a private tour, only to censor him from actually writing about anything he should see or hear or experience, is a slightly insulting contradiction of terms. If I want the basic facts, I can Google the damn place from the comfort of my own home. I guess the proper response here should have been “thanks but no thanks” instead of my irrational emotional meltdown reflected herein. When the PR woman apologized and asked me to continue the piece, I had to politely explain that: “The last things any artist wants to hear are the corporate rules of what they can and cannot do, much like if you were about to go to bed with someone and they listed the same—it robs the moment of any romance.”
At the end of the day, they don’t need the publicity, and we certainly don’t need an article about nothing. I know the PR woman doesn’t make the rules, so I will resist the temptation of burning the messenger at the stake, especially one with such a lovely British accent. We all have our jobs to do, this much is certain. The Publicist’s job is to be a corporate mid-wife between the entities who hire her and the public with whom they do business. Mine is to be Wile E. Coyote, the frequently destroyed but constantly persistent cartoon character who pursues his dreams against all odds. At any rate, I figure it’s only breaking corporate policy if I have the corporation’s permission; so in order to expedite this process and to free us all from this stifling responsibility, I should just visit and enjoy the Hotel, its guests and staff, all on my own in the coming weeks ahead. As a journalist, as an artist and last but not least, as an American.
In closing, if a healthy piece of journalism is akin to a sturdy building of sound design, then my attempt at zeroing-in on this issue’s theme is no different than the Leaning Tower of Pisa—best intentions, and all of that. Oh well. If anything we erect in this life should ever stand the cruel test of time, whether it be an article, a hotel, or love, then I suppose our precious time here will not have been entirely wasted.

Professionally,

Marco Mannone

It all started on Thursday night over a steak and wine dinner with some close friends. A barely-there cough emerged that evening and I did my best to ignore it. But it got worse overnight and come the next day I was like something out of a George Romero movie — my skeleton ached. My brain felt like it was melting. My five senses were blurred in a confusing haze of total homeostatic failure.

Holy shit, I thought. Is this it? Have I just joined the growing rank of U.S. statistics to have the Biblically-feared “Swine Flu Virus”? As all good hypochondriacs do, I had been keeping a close-but-not-obsessive eye on the pandemic. After all, paying too much attention would freak me out. But when someone like me falls ill, at the exact same time the President of the United States declares a “national emergency,” well, it has a way of scaring the SHIT out of him or her.

Yes, President Obama has signed this declaration as of Friday, October 23rd and announced it the following day. The President called this measure “an important tool in our kit going forward,” reducing the Mind Fuck to sound like a cute set of tools a kid might use to simulate his father in the garage.

My point is, this is a very bad time for us hypochondriacs. Even when the world seems like Sesame St. (at least with the aid of drugs & alcohol) we are acutely aware of possible symptoms our bodies might be experiencing. Often times, this is just in our own heads. Others, they are signs of real-but-harmless conditions. So for a health-obsessed demographic to suddenly find ourselves thrust into the middle of a “national health emergency,” needless to say we are losing some sleep.

Normal folk might lose a few zzzs themselves if they moseyed on over to the charming Center for Disease Control website (cdc.com). Here you will get a lovely spread of charts, graphs and maps to show you in color-coordinated detail just how FUCKED we may be. This is not to be alarmist, but rather, “alert.”

After all, the CDC ain’t exactly going out of their way to sugar-coat this little doozey, as depicted by this excerpt from their site: Please note that the CDC is no longer providing daily updates on case counts in the United States and that the CDC had long advised that these case counts in the United States were incomplete and are likely just the tip of the iceberg.

Right, then. So basically, we’re all passengers on the Titanic and, oh please, don’t mind that giant torn-out section missing from the hull. In the U.S. alone there have been over 30,000 hospitalized cases, and over 2,000 deaths. The American map illustrating the virus’ whereabouts is 99% brown, and it should be noted that brown equals “widespread” in addition to the “shit” we’re all in.

The inevitable has a way of not giving up, so we are all screwed in the cosmic sense, no doubt. But to someone like me, the prospect of “premature” death (the notion of which, I will admit, belongs entirely to the Ego) is a frequent one. My neurosis – and that of my ilk – is a special brand. Contrary to popular belief, hypochondriacs are not paranoid shut-ins afraid of the world at large. I’ve been white-water rafting in the turbulent rapids of Pennsylvania. I’ve been cage-diving with sharks off the coast of Hawaii. I’m not afraid of the world.

Just my body.

So by the time Saturday rolled around and my temperature was soaring at a brain-threatening 103 degrees, I will admit I considered death to be a strong possibility. I know, I know, dust off that violin and shove it up my ass. Well, let’s see how YOU feel when your brain is on the verge of becoming scrambled eggs – all the while the tan news-anchor with thousand-dollar breasts informs you that, “In Redondo Beach, a Swine Flu vaccine clinic drew so many people that it backed up traffic for miles.”

Fortunately for me, my parents just came into town for a week-long vacation (sorry mom and dad) and there is truly no better medicine than family, especially when your father happens to be a brilliant physician and your mother an excellent cook. Doctor’s orders included extra-strength Tylenol (which reduces fever), plenty of fluids, an ice-pack on my head, bed rest and “to chill the hell out, kiddo.” Good advice, all around.

With a medical professional in my midst, I thought it would be a good opportunity to pick his brain about a few things related to the Pig Fear that has gripped the nation, and to bestow upon you – loyal FORTH reader – some reassuring facts that might help keep your mind in one piece.

JUNIOR: What’s the difference between Swine Flu and regular flu? How can you tell the two apart?

DOCTOR: You can’t. They have the same symptoms. The only difference is H1N1 has a more aggressive impact on younger patients and pregnant women for some reason.

JUNIOR: So if you get flu-like symptoms, should you go to a hospital to be tested?

DOCTOR: No need. For example, New York State has given ordinance to all the hospitals and clinics not to test for H1N1. First of all, because there are very few kits available to perform the test. Secondly, it doesn’t make any difference from a treatment point-of-view.

JUNIOR: Is that not to cause panic?

DOCTOR: No, there is simply no need. The mortality-rate of the general population with the regular flu is actually higher than the H1N1 strain. H1N1 is particularly harmful to children and pregnant women, who should receive the vaccine before anyone else. But even then, once they take the vaccine, there is nothing they can do aside from taking regular anti-viral medicine such as TamiFlu.

JUNIOR: I’ve read that most people who are getting Swine Flu recover just fine without any formal medical treatment.

DOCTOR: Absolutely. Most of these people will never even know they had H1N1. As far as they know, they just had the flu, period.

JUNIOR: Do you think the media has been handling the situation responsibly?

DOCTOR: Well, the media likes to exaggerate these things to boost-up their ads and ratings and to sell newspapers. Is it worldwide? Yes. But so are other flus and viruses. Once the airplane was invented, everything you could catch was instantly “worldwide.”

JUNIOR: So there is still just a regular flu out there as we speak?

DOCTOR: Correct. And it’s probably the one most people will get.

JUNIOR: Are the vaccines doing more harm than good?

DOCTOR: It’s a personal choice. I know physicians who have never gotten vaccinated and I know physicians who get vaccinated religiously. And in either case, some of them get sick, some of them don’t. For a majority of the population, it is not crucial. But for young children, or pregnant women, or people with already-compromised immune systems from other illnesses, it is encouraged. What I resent is the way in which we have been informed to proceed. At first they panicked everyone into getting the vaccine or they might die. And now that the vaccines are in short-supply, they are telling people, “If you don’t fall in the at-risk category, don’t worry about it.” They play us like a yo-yo.

Ah yes. The great Holy Yo-Yo of life. It goes up, it comes down. And somewhere in between, we are all going insane with fear and paranoia and mind-shattering terror. One nation, under Fear. But enough with morbid dialectics. As I jam away at my Apple product sipping a steaming cup of green-tea, my fever is a hazy memory and I feel like a million bucks. 72 shitty hours later, make no mistake, this intrepid writer feels like a new man. Did I have the dreaded H1N1 virus?

Shit. Maybe.

But either way, I am living proof that if you — or anyone you love this dark and hopeless winter season — should start to have some symptoms, or even fall ill altogether: DON’T PANIC, to coin Douglas Adams. Truly. Franklin D. was on to something when he said, “There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.”

And as I’ve come to learn (the hard way), when you fear The Pig… shit, Bubba, you fear everything.