<figure class="wp-block-image size-large is-resized"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The last known photo you and the one that got away.</figcaption></figure>



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You’ve done dumb things – more dumb things than you want to admit.

Blame it on your youth – everybody does.

But this one was particularly dumb.

Here was the guy you’ve been going with since 10th grade – you got it in your head that when time came for you to graduate you’d break up.

You were going to go to different schools – you were going to meet other people – you were going to have new experiences – you were maybe going to find that one amazing person that makes everything in life seem possible – you were going to remember each other fondly and you were going to have new lives and maybe live happily ever after, just like a movie.

Sounded good – completely plausible – reasonable – rational. At the time, very adult, very thought out – big Gold Star for genius.

Um . . .no.

None of that happened – except the school part.

You dropped out of Bennington – you liked writing but you hated other writers, especially a class full of them. Drove you nuts – all the competition – all the attitude – all the lofty and the rarified air – all the cliques. Went to work at a bookstore – dated a guy who worked at a newspaper – thought you were in love, but he couldn’t keep it in his pants. All you got was a job writing album and movie reviews – press junkets, open tabs and more one-night stands than you could shake a stick at. Love was on another planet – not the one you’re currently living on.

Finally moved back to L.A. – staked out a Studio Apartment in West Hollywood and heard rumors. He’s a Doctor – he’s married – he has three kids – they live above Sunset – she became a real estate agent – she sells large houses – they drive Teslas. You dive into a big vat of “coulda-shoulda-woulda” and hear your magazine is losing money by the metric ton. You drink like a fish and your coke dealer makes house calls and is always smiling. You come home from work and when you’re not out covering some event with people you love but wouldn’t be caught dead with, you’re thinking grandiose ideas while staring at the ceiling, none of which ever materialize when morning creeps up, which is often the afternoon and sometimes a day or two later. But you turn in your work on time – you can write in automatic and no one suspects you have half a foot in oblivion and a plan to go nowhere.

You come to your office one day and are greeted by a fleet of movers, packing boxes and pulling down posters. Seems your magazine went belly up overnight and turned into one big apology. The Publisher is sitting in his car, weeping and writing checks to distraught staff – you get yours. Enough to keep you in Ramen for six months if you only eat one meal a day – oh, but there’s that little habit, the one that has drained your bank account and most of your inheritance from your grandmother who had big hopes for you. Thankfully you still have an account at Pink Dot so that will keep the flow of Smirnoffs and Kalua going for the time being. Time to go job hunting.

They loved you in 1981 when you were all cute and turbo-charged – in 2001 it’s a different story. Magazines are going out of business and you are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Your landlord is asking when your ship is coming in and you have to do two lines just to answer the phone.

And if it wasn’t for the former cheerleader you went to high school with who ran into you at Ralph’s you would never know you look exactly like a corpse, and it’s good you stopped smoking because you would explode if you were anywhere near a match. You did stop looking in the mirror for a good year or longer so you actually have no idea just how red your eyes are or how grey your complexion really is. Lucky you. Lucky civilized world.

She says she’ll pick you up in the morning and take you someplace you’ve never been, or even ever thought about. Doing your best dashboard dachshund, you nod your head and agree. You have nowhere else to go and besides, you forgot what the world looks like in the morning.

She takes you to, you guessed it, an AA meeting – two blocks from your house and a galaxy away. It’s jammed with people you know who you used to fall down flights of stairs with. A couple people blurt out “it’s about fucking time” and you know they’re talking about you – you interviewed one of them.

And that guy – the guy standing in the doorway, shaking hands like he’s selling used cars. You get closer and he looks familiar. You’re staring at him and you realize, not only do you know him, he’s the one you were in love with since tenth grade. You – the morning and the outside world freeze the second you make eye contact. Split second and it’s like you never left. Split second and every shitty thing that happened doesn’t exist.

Seems he lost the house, the wife, the Tesla and only in the last month are his kids speaking to him again.

The war stories last for hours as you sit in his former Tesla, now a Toyota Corolla – if it wasn’t for burning your lives to the ground, it would be as if time froze – even his car CD player is stuck in time. Background to these confessionals comes from KLOS – October 1981.

Things are bound to get interesting.

Here’s an hours worth of Linda McInnes at KLOS from October 19, 1981.

The post It’s October 1981 – It’s L.A. – It’s High School – It’s Wretched Excess. appeared first on Past Daily: A Sound Archive of News, History And Music.