"I'm sure it's over here somewhere!" Amanda shouted in my ear, to hear past the rushing wind. In another two weeks, with the start of the new year, we would be required to wear helmets when riding a motorcycle in California. It was the end of an era.
 "I'll go around the block once more!" I turned and shouted back at her, my hair flipping in the wind. She nodded with approval while keeping her eyes peeled. We were looking for an eatery called The Grape Ape or The Vanilla Gorilla, or something to that effect. It's at this part that all the details begin to get a little fuzzy.
 The last thing I remember is a green signal at a traffic light and an automobile grill. The green light told me to go forward, so my fist fed gas by the throttle. Looking left-to-right, the intersection was clear as I entered. Looking left again, enter the automobile grill, and-- CRASH!
 Red Cherokee. Don't ask me why, but somehow, I think it was a red Cherokee. I really didn't have much time to view it, split seconds at best, but that's what I think it was. We got hit so hard, it knocked those few moments of memory I had before the crash into the oblivion of unconsciousness that occurs after impact.
 It's amazing that my head wasn't smashed like a melon. It was a good thing I was wearing denim and leather, it absorbed the impact better than tender flesh. I didn't know what happened, how could I, when I was the one being tossed through the air like a football. The events were later retold to me from a bystander who witnessed the aftermath.
 Unconsciousness was quick to come. I remember little of the scene, except the inside of an ambulance. My eyes opened, and I was on a stretcher. I felt no pain, but a man kneeled over me, working furiously. A part of my consciousness pulled me from the unconscious long enough to sit up. I moved the muscles in my legs, to make sure I still had control of them. Thank God I did.
 The medical technician by my side urged me to lay down. I didn't have the strength to resist. 
 "Where's Amanda? My girlfriend-- Amanda-- is she okay?"
 "She's okay, buddy, she's okay. You're both gonna be fine."
 I had no choice but to believe him. I lay my head upon the stretcher, and my eyes rolled back into my head. I next awoke inside a building, in a stark room, void of any decoration. Alien autopsy? No, but perhaps a holding area for triage. My wound was dressed only hastily, and I was still unclean and worn from the accident.
 I got up from the bed and limped around the room to the exit. I still felt no pain. I would not even have known that I had sustained a wound, had it not been for that foul clicking sound that came from my leg as I walked on it. All I could think was "Where is Amanda? Is she okay? What's that clicking sound?"
 The clicking was the sound of the broken bone in my ankle. I probably shouldn't have been walking on it, but it was too late. I wasn't really thinking in my right mind just then, all pumped up with endorphins. My walk became more of a hop, as I favored the leg that didn't click. I left the holding room they put me in, and walked out into the corridor looking for Amanda.
 I don't recall seeing her, I don't even remember seeing the corridor, but for the life of me, I will never forget that horrible clicking sound that followed me. I figured I could make it to the doorway-- and, that's about where my eyes rolled back into my head again, and I hit the floor. That's probably where they found me when they finished with Amanda and came out to dress my wound.
 When I finally awoke, I had a full cast on the lower part of my leg. I wasn't half as bad as Amanda-- she had thirty stitches in her head, and as of yet undetermined injury to her knee. It all seemed so surreal.
 The drugs took away the pain, but we weren't sure of the damages. The Triumph was wrecked, of that I was certain, but the city was glad to store it for me at astronomical daily rates until I came to consciousness, so it was okay. But for Amanda and I, it was a temporary holding pattern-- all flags were down on the play. It was a cease-fire for the moment, for all the turbulence our love-life was suffering. Now, more than ever, we needed each other.
 I didn't realize it then, in my drug-addled delirium, but it was over. I wanted it to be a second chance, because it brought us together in our disabled states. I stayed at her place at first, more for convenience than for comfort. It was bad timing for me, or so it seemed-- with Mark and Skully leaving, moving out of the house and all. It was almost like I had nowhere to go.
 Fortunately, I had been relocating my belongings to storage in anticipation of vacating, and planning to go back east for the holidays. Most of the hard work was done, now I just had to move my body-- which wasn't such a simple task anymore.
 Amanda's roomate, Camille, was a lifesaver. Her maternal instincts prevailed over us, and she had live-in babysitters. It was an all-around symbiosis, and with all the colorful characters coming and going through there, we were provided with plenty of entertainment.
 Idyllic, to say the least-- but the painkillers had much to do with that. As time wore on, our injuries became prevalent, and I felt the nudge to move on. Bless her heart, Amanda, patient about it all-- but I could feel our time had passed. And then, well, the only thing to do is move on and hope maybe someday to come back where you left off with new discoveries, and new learnings to share.
 But something told me that wasn't going to happen. Amanda had stirrings within her that I had been competing with since we first trifled. Now, I felt my passive agility was being defeated. To "lay back," in this case, meant to lose her. But I couldn't be sure I even wanted her anymore.
 So much had changed in the time that we knew each other. Where was the little love-goddess I had met and fallen in love with? How had she become this mixed-up, unsatisfied seeker? I knew the questions she was asking-- I was asking them myself. The trouble was, neither of us had the answers.
 So we went our separate ways. I went to New York for the holidays, spent Christmas with family, and reconvened with Skully for New Year's Eve. Amanda remained and had festivities with her friends here in L.A. It was the last we would see of each other for a while.
 When I got back to L.A., I made arrangements to stay in Silverlake with Buck Nottingham. Slider had taken off to San Fran in a hurry, something about marrying his old girl, so I took over his space. Buck was glad to accommodate me temporarily, as he wasn't so sure about his own plans, or where he and his lady were headed. It was a time for everyone where the future was uncertain.
 Dangling in The Tournefortia, that was where you could find us. Immersed in the radiance of the beat poet revival, hanging on the words of "visionaries" (read: addicts) like Bukowski and Burroughs. Depressing would not adequately describe it. "Sensually apathetic" would be closer to the truth.
 I miss those days, not that I would want to ever again experience that kind of emotional shipwreck a lovesick boy grappling with manhood can achieve. I don't think I could-- once in a lifetime is all it takes to change you, and thus is born the organic feat of maturation. But when a drunk like Bukowski can so vividly capture with such audacity the absurdity of life and put it on display, well, it makes you wonder about the promise of it all.
 That was how 1992 started, without a lot to look forward to. This was before Grunge was a flavor, when Generation X was just a book. The decade was beginning to take shape, finally escaping the clamor of the eighties. It started like a subculture; then within moments it was a demographic. Generation whatever, if you ask me.
 Word drifted down from Buck that he would be moving in with his girlfriend; they had decided to make the commitment. Good for him, I guess. He was good at hiding his feelings, but I knew he loved her. Now the soul-searching time of re-orientation was coming for me. I could feel the undulations; trapped in my cast, heady with despair, it was the perfect time for a change of place; I called Steve-O to see if I could borrow his couch for a while.
 Steve O'Brien and Willie MacNichol made their residence in Venice Beach. I met Willie Mac on Alexa, back in the New York low-budget daze. We got to hanging out together, he was a grip on the picture, and doomed to the same unrelenting schedule. He introduced me to Steve-O and his friends, he met Skully and my friends, and they told two friends, and so on and so forth. Eventually, we all made the decision to move westward, and soon we were dripping ourselves out of New York headed for Hollywood.
 Skully was the first to make the move; Welder and I soon followed, and together we made camp at the Skyranch. It was just a few months before Steve-O and Willie Mac showed up knocking at our door, having just got to town and needing a place to stay. When they eventually got around to getting their own place, they moved in close proximity to the ocean.
 Steve-O and Willie Mac were originally from Philadelphia, where they didn't have a beach. They had that classic California frame-of-mind; for them, it had to be surf, sand, and beach bunnies-- that was what they traveled all the way here for. That, and a career in the movie business, like so many others around us, from different localities around the globe and ever-increasing in number. Maybe that was why our friends clicked so well-- all from the east coast, bound for the west, determined to break into Hollywood.
 They got a pad in Venice, overlooking Oceanfront Walk, the crossroads for transients and stereotypes and all life forms human and alien. The beachfront boardwalk is one of those vortices to other realms, where beings from another time or place may find passage into or out of this world, and you don't have to look very far to find them. Search past the bodybuilders and in-line skaters, the hippies and tourists, the rastas and punks, you might catch a glimpse or even be touched by one of these characters I speak of.
 Ask Andy, when you buy your next bag of pot off him, from his little surf shack there on Speedway. He'll tell you, without missing a beat making left-handed circles over his stomach and internal organs, how he is reversing the effects of gravity and anti-aging.
  "Because of where we are geographically, the gravitational force of the earth is constantly pulling us down toward it's center, in right handed circles. Flush the toilet, and watch the water-- right handed circles. By making this left-handed motion over my insides, I'm disrupting the atomic flow of gravity, counteracting it. Gravity is what makes us age-- it is that constant pulling toward the earth's center which wears on our physical bodies. Negate the effects of gravity-- you halt the process of aging."
 "Really?" I didn't know how to tell him, my eyes spying his receding hairline, that I really couldn't see the effects. "So then, I guess you must feel a whole lot lighter, huh?"
 "Oh yeah. You watch-- another couple of years, I'll be jumping over telephone poles!"
 Call me up for that one, Andy. In the meantime, keep working on your machine, that giant Frankenstein contraption with the mechanical arm that looks like a phonograph needle, making circles over your body while you sleep. Just be careful you don't hit your head on the ceiling when you wake up.
 Steve-O and Willie Mac's apartment was in the Morrison Hotel, the establishment reputed to be the one-time home of the Lizard King. Jim Morrison was a resident icon in Venice, you could see his image cast upon walls and in shops like Jesus in Jerusalem. Supposedly, theirs was the same apartment he lived in, but I'm sure they said that to all the tenants. Don't be fooled though, if you are a Doors fan; the real Morrison Hotel is not the one shown on the album cover.
 The second floor apartment with the circular picture window presided over Van Gogh's Ear, the quintessential coffee shop that long endured the test of time. From an era before coffee beans were a designer thing, the Ear was home to addicts and poets and homeless alike, long before it was safe enough for college kids to do their homework in. The Ear was a place where thoughts were set on fire, just to see how they burned; where creatures would emerge, to catch a glimpse of life, or where they landed, and took to their feet, before they descended to a deeper, darker place.
 I was lucky enough to catch the last cups of Van Gogh's coffee, before it finally crumbled under the breaking wave of commercialization. The original site at Westminster and Speedway, caddy-corner to the Mojo hotel, has since been turned into a deli-superette. A new incarceration of Van Gogh's Ear appeared soon after, at a nearby location on Main. A quaint all-night coffee shop and restaurant, yes, but this heir-apparent has lost all trace of legacy to the scepter it once held.
 Venice had no shortage of film personnel mixed in with the freaks, but then this was still L.A. in the age of the film school. Fortunately, the sub-cultural attitude that exists there is contrary to all the rest of Los Angeles; not filled with your typical, shallow, "come-to-L.A. to make it big in the movies-Johnny." No, here you would find your individualists and true sixties throwbacks, people who believed the hippie revolution was still occurring, or gaining momentum, or had not stopped. And then there were other sub-cults that ran amok, besides the cholos and gang-bangers who were actually native to the area. The surfers, the skaters, the cyclists, the bodybuilders-- in Venice, anyone could be at home.
 Craig had a place at the Morrison, he lived across the hall from Steve-O and Willie Mac. We hit it off, talking about film, and film school; he had been to that notorious university in New York that I previously attended, and also had an ambitious film project left to complete. The flatbed editor and unspooling sound and film reels in his living room were a dead giveaway.
 Craig invited me to use the machine as frequently as I liked, if he wasn't busy with it. Really, I thought, and it aroused my interest. My film was back in New York in a box in the closet gathering dust. I volunteered to help him with some assistant editor type work, synching workprint and such, to get my feet wet again.
 But my feet weren't going anywhere, being in a cast and all, so I had found the perfect occupation. Before long I was phoning home to have my box of film sent out, and was collecting unemployment while I stayed at home and edited. It wasn't very profitable, and I incurred some debt, but it was rewarding to be headed for a state of completion. I thought about the bent Triumph, now in it's wrecked state, but pictured it as a bare frame in my garage.
 Walking away from something inevitably led to it's return, for better or for worse. There must be some scientific explanation for this, I thought, like inertia or gravity could be explained, but I could think of none. To return to the beginning again; circularity. Maybe Andy's anti-gravity ideas weren't so far fetched after all. Left-handed circles suddenly sounded like a good proposition-- it's all about circles, right?
  I spoke to Buck Nottingham, and he asked if he could have the broken pieces that were once the Triumph-- he was always looking for a project bike. I said yeah, if he agreed to fish the parts from Amanda's garage, since I hadn't the motivation or inclination.
 Skully and Mark were back east now, off on journeys of their own. Amanda was who knows where, and I wouldn't be seeing Rick Martinez and the boys or anyone else for a while. My world was looking like that motorcycle I loved right about now-- bent and disoriented, definitely not working.
 I admit that it was a relief to get away from set lighting, which was only recently becoming tedious. The prospect of joining the union seemed far away since I couldn't work for months to come. I felt like I had missed my window with 90210 and Rick, but that was okay with me-- I knew I could never make another film unless I finished this one, for better or for worse. So, broken leg and rekindled spirit, I damned myself to editing Hell in Venice.
 I de-escalated to budget mode; I had to, I had no other choice. I was rehabbing in Venice, hanging out at the Ear with rastas and burn-outs and kooks-- definitely the fringe of society. I had no car, no cash, no job, and no where to go but up. At that time, my world revolved around that ocean boardwalk. We all lived there-- it was a passageway for travel, a place for commerce, for socializing and activity, and for many, a place of business. I couldn't deny it-- I had become a Venice local.
 I reverted to the simple life, ate simple foods, lived very simply. I entertained inexpensive holistic pursuits, such as yoga, meditation, and the study of Buddhism. With all that free time to do as I please, I became skilled at the art of enjoying life.
 I minimized expenses I would ordinarily accrue, as now I had the time to work around rising costs. There, I developed some concrete foundations about how "time equals money," only this time outside of a studio system, and away from production concerns. It was true, time did equal money wherever you went. If you weren't making lots of money, you had lots of time, and vice-versa, or so it went, for the most part. Now I was learning to spend my time well.
 All of this to complement my trying to forget Amanda. Ironically enough, it was then that I decided to disavow eating meat. Somehow, even with her out of my life, she still influenced me. We kept in touch throughout our slow, drawn-out departure. Maybe that was the greatest mistake; knowing what she was doing and where she was, and hoping we might again collide.
 The previous collision was really our only remaining and binding tie. We saw each other infrequently throughout the rehabilitation, though she had completely different injuries. Hers were incidentally worse than mine-- she needed surgery for a torn ligament beneath her kneecap, and had a variable-motion machine that exercised it. That and a nice thirty-stitch wound to the skull-cap. Ouch.
 Amanda and I were interminably bound. I loved her and we cheated death together, but a line had been drawn between us. Now we had best both be on our ways. And on her way she would be; after all her talk of desire to travel, all her want to finish school, Amanda would now be off on an expedition in Central America, Mazatlan, or something like that to explore some ruins.Perhaps with her out of the way, I could get back to my life and dreams and desires; sadly enough, I had now acquiesced that she was not one of them.
 When I thought about it, I really didn't know what to do next. She had been such a large part of it all, and now she was gone. With newfound time on my hands, I immersed myself in the work of finishing my film.

*****

 The isolation was part obligatory, part mandatory, and certainly necessary. It was penance, for trying to get too manipulative of my future. I needed to withdraw, and allow things to happen naturally, so I could resume with a natural harmonic ebb and flow.
 Time disappeared in a bottle, crawling slowly yet swiftly fleeting from moment to moment. I adopted a passive perspective-- having little means, I was at the mercy of my surroundings. Fortunately, I found them to be quite merciful.
 There was always something colorful or funny to look at in Venice Beach, whether it's the local stereotypes, the big fag clown overlooking Main Street, or the building that looks like a giant binoculars (you can't miss it-- across from the fag clown).
 Plenty to see and do, as well, with the beach and street performers, attractions and venues. A perpetual boardwalk fair, constantly barraged by tourism, and probably one of the more visited places in the U.S. Definitely seems like it, if you sit on the stoop and watch the masses go by. It's nostalgic and historic, with prestigious past residents like the aforementioned Mojo Risin', along with that notorious teetotaler W.C. Fields, and much of early Venice was developed by funnyman and silent film maverick Charlie Chaplin.
 Venice was and still is amongst the most photographed locations for moving pictures. For one, because of the high volume of filming done in L.A. Just about every place in Los Angeles is a location waiting to be filmed, and even many of the multi-million dollar mansions could be bought. At around ten grand a day, times a couple of days, that's a hefty chunk of change even for the well to do. Stick around a bit, and listen to the owners start crying about the property taxes on a place that size.
 Venice happened to also be one of the cheapest locations in L.A. to shoot. Pay some nominal city fees for permits, and you're in. It was home to numerous TV shows which could frequently be encountered shooting on the beach; Baywatch and Pacific Blue being the most conspicuous. But as I sat there at Steve-O's one day, watching syndicated afternoon reruns on the tube, I had a vivid realization.
 Three's Company was on the TV, it was the beginning, that montage with Jack and Janet and Chrissy on a sailboat, then roller skating on the beach-- and my gaze shifted to outside the window, and that was it! Not only was the location Venice, but they were skating right outside the building we were in! There was the exact spot where Chrissy fell and Jack almost fell trying to save her!
 HA! I felt like I had solved the Kennedy assassination, and was in the window where the fatal sniper shot was fired. Never mind the Morrison Hotel-- this was Three's Company! The sitcom tom foolery I was raised on, that is supposed to be indicative of the real world it imitates. I had touched on something here, I could feel it. Come to think of it, Steve-O's landlord was kind of like Mr. Roper...
 Living with Steve-O and Willie Mac was zany fun, but I could only take so much for so long. It wasn't the same without Chrissy wedged between us, and Janet to pull us apart. I would be holed-up next-door editing my cinematic masterpiece, and there would be a full-tilt party overflowing into the halls. How, I must ask, is a genius to contend with this? Some would-be neophyte producer or director would always find his or her way into my laboratory realm, and try to strategize plans of an attack on Hollywood through coke-flared nostrils. Out!! It had bad situation written all over it.
 Eventually, I had to bail. I got a place of my own nearby, off the beaten path of the boardwalk. Yes, Virginia, there is too much of a good thing. As nice as it is to have girls in thongs skating by your window, the downside is the one-man-band hobo that decides to make a spectacle right outside your apartment at 8 A.M. every Saturday morning. Then again, to each his own. To this day, you can still find Willie Mac there in Steve-O and his old apartment, at the window with binoculars held up to his eyes, looking for the bikini-clad rollers on the boardwalk path. I can hear the theme music now-- "Come and knock on our door... We've been waiting for you... Where the kisses are hers and hers and his..."

*****