Once Upon a Time

I have been wandering the state in the past week or so for one reason or another and have discovered a preoccupation more compelling than sex or sushi. About every third person I spoke with is writing a book about L.A.

As a member of America’s cultural elite I only talked books with other cultural elitists, which is why the percentage is so modest. It could be that many non-elitists are also plotting out books, but we didn’t discuss them.

The Rodney King beating, the riots and the Murphy Brown attack on married love and family values have renewed a dormant interest in what street corner evangelist Bobby Bible calls “the Mother of All Whores,” meaning L.A.

I first became aware of the outside literary interest while attending a funeral in Oakland for my friend Mad Dog Johnson, one of the world’s two or three great bartenders.

Mad Dog worked at a place called the King’s X, which attracted a mixed crowd of yuppie jocks, pretty girls with empty eyes and those who presumed upon naivete to be writers.

When the memorial service was over, we adjourned to the X and remembered Mad Dog while sipping the drink of our choice. It was there I met A Writer From Berkeley named Roger.

He had heard I was from L.A. and wanted to know what I had written. His sneer suggested it probably wasn’t anything important. I gave him my standard reply: “Death of a Salesman,” “Candide” and “The Brothers Karamazov.”

My response fluttered unnoticed over the man’s head like white moths in a bright sunlight. Without even waiting for the moths to pass, he said, “I’m writing a book about the death of L.A.”

I have a shelf full of books about L.A. at home, but nothing about its demise. He undertook the subject, Roger said, because L.A. is dying a transcendental, Neoplatonic death.

Before he could elaborate we were joined by a woman named Elaine who had overheard the term transcendental. She was into transcendental meditation and numerological cybernetics, both of which she was attempting to integrate into her book on L.A.

Both agreed that Los Angeles needed vibrational therapy to reawaken its psychic potential or it would indeed die the death Roger was talking about, whatever that was.

They were moving into cosmic clarity and non-structural satsang when I excused myself to get in touch with my own inner light, which was kept in a bottle behind the bar.

Later, I met a person who actually had a commitment from a publisher to write a book about L.A. even though he was doing all the research in San Francisco.

“How can you write a book about L.A. without going there?” I asked.

“You write about murder, don’t you?” he demanded, obviously annoyed at my Southern California pedantry.

“Well, yes, I guess,” I said, trying to remember.

“Have you ever murdered anyone?”

I thought about it for a moment, then said, “Not yet.”

“Well then!” he replied triumphantly.

If I could write about murder without ever having murdered anyone, he could write about L.A. without ever having been there.

“You know,” I said, “you’re right.” Then, as he was beginning to smile, I added, “I really ought to murder someone.”

A few days later I was on a California Writers Club panel in Apple Valley discussing “The Meltdown of Moral Fiber.” The club has been around since 1909. Its logo features a sailing ship and the words, “Sail on!”

I was invited to appear because I write a column in L.A., where moral fiber is melting down faster than anywhere else in the country, including, I guess, Apple Valley.

A woman in her late 80s said she had borne witness to a lot of moral degradation in her lifetime and it was worse now than it had ever been. She blamed the movies and was writing a book to that effect.

“If you could control Hollywood filth,” she said, “we wouldn’t have crime. That’s the theme of my book. It’s what people do in bed that causes violence.”

“What do they do in bed that causes violence?” I asked, hoping to learn something new. What I do in bed makes me sleepy.

She reeled off descriptions of sexual practices I’d never heard of before and ended by saying anyone caught even discussing the hummingbird position ought to be put to death.

I’m writing a book about L.A. too, which will further clutter the market, but it won’t be about cosmic clarity or the hummingbird position. I don’t understand Neoplatonism and have no idea what the hell the hummingbird position is.

If I did know, I probably wouldn’t try it. I’m sure it’s very tiring.