Oldie but a goodie...

I haven't blogged since June...my mind has not been in that mode. The fact that blogging is self indulgent and pointless makes it something that I can only do in phases...but here is one I wrote in October of 2006, when I was living in LA. I must have been in a bad place...


Four Months and a Kick in the Teeth
Mac Leaphart and Los Angeles. Not a match made in heaven. But what did I expect? I hate traffic, pricks and bands that sound like Rick Dees Weekly Top 40. But LA has grown on me, and I have acccepted it to a certain extent. I just had to find the right spots around town, and slowly but surely I am sort of getting what the LA experience is all about. I thought maybe I could come out here and kick its teeth down its throat, you know, convince a few big shots that I was a badass and all that. I guess that was my initial goal. It didn't really happen like that, though. From my experience, LA has been more like the little kid that you baby-sat and the first thing he does is hit you right in the nuts and then it is hell for the next five hours and then his parents come home drunk and don't have any cash and precede to write you a check for jack shit. So now, my attitude has changed a bit. Now, I'd just like to pull the chair out from under LA -you know, have a little fun and try to take advantage of the opportunities that exist out here that don't exist in my beloved South.

So its been four months in LA for this 'ol boy. And I've done a lot of jogging, (at one point I was doing two-a-days out of sheer boredom) played a few shows, good ones, bad ones, bland ones-a few to completely write off the books. Specifically one at this place in North Hollywood that was a really rock bottom-ass dive causing me at times to sort of fear for my life, but not really-where this borderline crazy man kept asking me to play "Positively 4th Street" and the place was so dead that I finally told him that he could play it if he wanted to, and so I handed him my guitar-sat down at the bar and grabbed a beer while he preceded to play some Dylan and some ZZTop, and honestly, he was actually pretty good. He was still bonkers, though. I worked a job going from mailroom to mailroom around LA for a little over a month, surrounded by people that had given their lives to the mailrooms and copy rooms who were putting up with some kid with an English Degree that kept botching copy jobs and metered mail. So I did that, made a little money, and now I'm back to trying to wake up every day and start writing-songs, articles, my novel that I've been writing for the past four years. I have moments of intense inspiration-I wrote a new song-a ballad where someone dies (imagine that) but I also spend a lot of time on myspace, waiting and hoping for that new friend request or comment or message. Oh, what a great feeling, better than walking into a grade school classroom and seeing a projector-man, did I just date my old ass. So, yeah, I write, check the internet, play my guitar, write, check the internet, all the while drinking too much coffee and Earl Grey tea and usually end up drinking beers in the afternoon. So basically, my life is sort of life a Kris Kristofferson song right now (minus the myspace shit and the fact that I don't smoke cigarettes-I wish I smoked cigarettes-I'd be so much cooler if I did) , which seemed pretty cool when I was a much younger man, but isn't quite as romantic or appealing when it is actually my life. But still, it has somewhat of a nice ring to it, and I don't plan on spending the rest of my days like ths. So, as I am on the verge of returning to God's Country for a couple months, I feel like reflecting on my first stint in a LA a bit, but I guess I have already been doing that for a few hundred words, but I've never been much on chronology, anyway.

I cannot really offer much insight on LA, as I have barley experienced the so called "City of Angels." But I have learned a few things from my limited experience. One thing about LA, is it is a pretty good place to be a bum. Probably the best in America. The climate is great-never too hot-never too cold-and nobody will really mess with you. You can sleep right on the sidewalk or in the park, or wherever you please pretty much. You can sleep in, too. Sleep all day if you want to. On the other hand, if you've got tons of money-LA is still a great place to be. There's a lot of places where you can show off and run up big tabs for people you're trying to impress that could less about you. LA is wonderful in that aspect. To tell the truth, its probably best to be either a bum or a multimillionaire in LA, because either way, you don't really have to worry about money. Because trust me, when you're a regular guy like me, the money goes, and it goes fast, and you've got nothing to show for it, except for maybe a some vintage t-shirts and jeans you bought down on Melrose.


The first couple of months I was here, I was surrounded by sirens and horns and Otis Redding. Sirens and horns are sort of the soundtrack to LA, you cannot really escape them, especially when you live a block away from a fire station. Otis was always with me at "Molly Malones" this bar on Fairfax and Sixth that I would play the open mic night, drink too many beers, and try to get the cute redheaded bartender with the kind eyes and not quite American accent to notice me. So I'd play Otis. And the Allman Brothers and Sam Cooke. All the songs that I thought might spark a young lady's interest, you know, like maybe she'd think that the pensive young man with his eyes in his beer and the really good taste in music was somewhat inticing. But to her, I was probably not pensive, I was just another drunk. The thing is, I'm just not cool enough. I'm really not. Okay, if I'm onstage, with my guitar and my songs of love and despair and blah-blah-then yeah, I can manage. But at an open mic night, any asshole with three bucks and a guitar can take the stage, so it doesn't really work the way it does at a "real" gig. But, I would go to Molly Malones anyway. Hell, I went there a lot when I first got here, even if it wasn't open mic night. My girl back home and I had decided that 2000 miles was a little too far to make things work, and so I was just feeling as alone as I could feel, spending all my money on draft beer and Jack Daniels like I had some kind of endless supply. So I'd sit at the bar by my lonesome, like all those guys that used to come to the Salty Nut and talk my ears off and try to hit on the waitresses, and I'd play Otis on the jukebox, to gain the title of "dude with best taste in music at the bar" and because my heart was broken and I needed to hear some heartbreak songs. And nobody breaks my heart like Otis. Nobody. Sometimes, when you're lonely and down, the only thing you want to hear are songs that are going to tug on your goddamn emotions even more, making it hurt like a hell, taking everything out of you until you just feel empty, but somehow making you feel good, not better, but good in a way that is only relevant to lonely souls with broken hearts. I definitely fit the bill.


Open mic night at Molly Malone's was a pretty good deal. You got to play two songs, and usually there was a nice built in crowd. There did tend to be a large quantity of Justin Timberlake/Maroon 5 falsetto belting crooners, but I alwyas got up and played my songs, and sometimes somebody would dig it. Usually, I'd just head back to the bar to knock back a couple more drinks. One night, a buddy of mine and I both played after we had watched the Braves game and had too many 16 ounce Miller Highlifes. We started hanging out with these Texas sority girls and also some girls from Canada, who were somehow friends-don't ask, becuase I don..t know-but we went back to their house that was supposed to be right around the corner, but it wasn..t as we sped through some alleys in a pick up truck belonging to some dude that I didn't know. Anyway, my buddy kept saying "Goddamn" and the girl whose house it was kept telling him not to say it, but he kept saying it and we got kicked out and had to walk about two miles back to my place. It might have been even farther. These girls lived on Crescent Heights on the other side of San Vicente, and we had to walk to Cochran, which is two blocks up from La Brea. If you are familiar with LA, that paints a pretty specific picture of a long-ass walk. So anyway, on any given open mic night, I was usually pretty drunk whenever it was my turn to play a few songs. One time another friend came and watched me, and afterward he told me that I was too drunk to play. To which I replied, "I wasn't too drunk to play, I was just too drunk to play well."


More to come...



Thanks and goodnight,


Mac