I Wanna Be Sedated

I'm in a coffee shop on Venice Beach in Los Angeles, California. People have been talking about how COLD it is, but it's not. These people that are crying about the cold are soft like rotten avocados, spoiled by too much sunshine and yoga.

I flew out here last Wednesday for a meeting -- my writing partner and I are pitching an idea to a Web media company out here, and frankly, I'm thrilled. I' have no idea if they're going to go for it or not, no idea if our idea is even a good idea, but holy creeping Jesus is this ever exciting.

We spent two days locked in my friend's apartment, rehearsing and tightening, working out a story treatment and editing, revising, revising. We snuck out for coffee and a trip to the Santa Monica Trader Joe's and otherwise it's just been "Would our character do this? Why? how's that relate?" We're creating a world, or the groundwork for it, laying down riverbeds and fossils and hoping someone will pay us to populate this silly litte reality we've come up with.

I'm nervous. Really nervous. Nervous good, like before a great date or the terror I felt as a teenager in a packed nightclub right before the Ramones hit the stage. Something is about to happen one way or the other. It may knock my glasses off and grind them to dust, like that first Ramones show did, but it's going to change me forever.

We may get laughed out of this company's offices. Our jokes may spawn little more than tight smiles, or the death knell of all great projects "Hey, this sounds really great. Keep up in the loop and let us know what you develop!"

But I don't even care. I mean, I do, in that I would really prefer for this thing to fly. But I don't, because I've gotten a taste of a ew kind of writing and the life that comes with it ... and I'm here to tell you that it tastes pretty good.

I drove up to Santa Barbara yesterday, ostensibly to visit friends, but really to calm my nerves. We ate fish burritos and hiked on the beach, watching the sunset and talking about everything everywhere and nothing at all. Then it got dark and I headed home, just me in the car ripping south along the 101.

This Ramones song came on and everything in my whole life synched up. I'm doing what I wanted to do, writing, travelling, LIVING. It may not last, but what ever does? Right now I can feel the ferris wheel ticking around, and the view from up here is pretty incredible. I've got goose bumps as I type this and I can't stop jigging my leg. My stomach is a hard little nut and my tounge's playing speed-metal riffs against the back of my teeth. The meeting's in forty minutes and if I don't die beforehand, I think we're pretty well prepared.

I love this, and I can't wait.

Here's the song, if you're so inclined.

posted by Jeff Simmermon @ 12:29 PM