AUGUST 27---LOS ANGELES

The only thing wrong with California, is there's nothing really wrong with it. It makes it hard for people like me to find their bearings. What exactly am I struggling against?

When I was in my twenties I always said about New York: it makes you become yourself faster than other places.

I don't know what LA does to you. Probably the same thing if you're young. I am pretty completely myself by now, so I don't need any prompting. It's interesting though to feel so alien here. I am a book person. This is not a book place. This is a physical place.

Well, I'll figure it out I suppose.


THEY CAME FROM BELOW movie?

All sorts of interesting things are popping up around THEY CAME FROM BELOW, including some movie interest from unlikely places. I'm going to get to do some travelling this fall to promote it.

It's weird though because I wrote the book like three years ago, so I've been caught off guard when people are really into it and want to talk about different scenes. I know the ending killed, that's my favorite part, where Emily is saying goodbye to the alien and she sees that he is really old, as old as the earth, and she knows that his prediction (humans are wrecking the planet) is going to come true.

The one bummer of the summer was I didn't get a chance to hang out with Ursula Le Guin who liked the book and gave me a killer blurb. She is like a national treasure, though she keeps a low profile in Portland. I would have loved to hang out with her.

Anyway, here's the book on amazon (the link thing doesn't work for some reason):

www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765314231/ref=cm_arms_pdp_dp/105-9441918-8482007


Aug 26-TOPANGA CANYON

So I just got through my first week of actually living in Topanga Canyon. It is just up the road from Malibu where we have been going at dusk to watch the surfers. I will be joining them as soon as I get used to my wetsuit.

Some talking points about Topanga Canyon:

--People on horseback ride by in front of our house (on their way to Topanga State Park).

--Somebody's dog has decided to move in with us.

--A movie director's hot wife drives by in her jaguar (Lollipop Heads is what the local bimbos are called).

--The neighbor kids built a real fully operational honest-to-god catapault and were firing water balloons over the fence of somebodies zillion dollar mansion.

--The local fauna here is known as CHAPARRAL, which is spanish for inpenetrable brambles and dried dead stickery things.

--You have to drink lots of water or you get nauseous and pass out. This happened to me.

--There are extremely rich computer nerds living down the street in a refurbished barn/pirate ship that has like rope ladders and gang planks and stuff.

Digging it though. Enjoying the weirdness.


SKY's WEDDING

This is another photo of Sky's wedding from last month. No we're not drunk we just look drunk because we're having so much fun. And no we're not bald, we just look bald because . . . well, never mind . . .

Sky is awesome. He wore pajamas to his rehearsal dinner. To my rehearsal dinner, I wore some lame Brooks Brothers blazer or whatever. Not even Brooks Brother's, Nordstrom's. That's the thing. I think I'm this wild interesting artistic guy, but the reality is all my friends are crazier than me. And funnier. And more interesting.


(This is the British Poster. It will not be out in the US until winter/spring '08)


AUGUST 12 OREGON ADVENTURES

This is my lovely wife fishing. She took to fishing pretty quick though she was horrified a couple years ago, when she caught her first fish and we had to kill it. "That's what you do with them," we had to explain. "That's how they end up in cans and in restaurants and on McFish sandwiches."

On this trip, with my nephews in tow, it was all catch and release.

(When my wife wears the foam hat we call her: "Earl the Girl")


The place we go fishing is near the John Day River. This is the area of Oregon that is high desert. It is my favorite place in the world. The new thing going on there is the Wind Power goldrush. All the ranchers are having these windmills put up on their ranches (and wheat farms). I guess this is good. Everyone in the area is flush with cash anyway. It's sort of like when everyone in Texas starting finding oil on their dirt farms.

We stopped to get a better look at one of these things. They are so much bigger than they look. They are enormous!


Whenever we go to Oregon in the summer we go fishing. Despite my urbanization I still know how to tie all the knots. Sort of. That's my dad looking for something in the background . . .


PORTLAND---Sky and Erin's Excellent Wedding

First stop in Portland was the wedding of my old and dear friends Sky and Erin. Sky is the boy. I have known these guys since third grade. BOTH OF THEM!!! We all went to West T.V. Elementary School. They got married on Sauvie's Island under a big oak tree. It was lovely.

Both Sky and I waited until we were near dead to get married. So we now have another thing in common: beautiful wives we don't deserve and don't know what to do with. YEAH SKY AND ERIN. Congratulations!


August 10, 2007 old stuff

I've been digging through some old papers and journals and stuff. Found this old poem which I always liked:

Portland

a
place
on
a
river
where
trees
grow
tall
and
rain
falls
and
quiet
men
sleep
under
bridges