Glass, Concrete & Stone

I have arrived in Los Angeles. The evidence is everywhere.

Outside my window, through a thicket of palm trees, across PCH-1, and over the Santa Monica Mountains, the sun is setting.

I see the ocean, the “deep and frozen sea.”

Gary Coleman is on the TV. “Need a loan?”

Local news is reporting a freeway shooting on the 405, the eighth such incident in just ten days.

Room service is en route.

Still, I’m calculating New York time.

I settled into my CummuniCar at 5:15 this morning. I hit play on my iPod. A strange Brazilian beat began, then a cello, a xylophone, and then, as if my playlist was programmed by God Himself, these lyrics:

Now, I’m wakin’ at the crack of dawn
To send a little money home
From here to the moon
Is risin’ like a discotheque
And now my bags are down and packed for traveling

Lookin’ at happiness
Keepin’ my flavor fresh
Nobody knows I guess
How far I’ll go, I know
So I’m leavin’ at Six O’ Clock
Meet in a parkin’ lot
Harriet Hendershot
Sunglasses on, she waits by this

Glass and concrete and stone
It is just a house, not a home

So I’m puttin’ on aftershave
Nothin’ is out of place
Gonna be on my way
Try to pretend, it’s not only

Glass and concrete and stone
That it’s just, not a home
And its glass and concrete and stone

I listened to the song, David Byrne’s “Glass, Concrete & Stone” from his recent “Growing Backwards” CD, over and over again during my hazy, Xanax-fueled flight. I woke up as the captain reported that we were over the Grand Canyon. And then I was here.

Now I am here. How do I know? The air is sweet and cool. And I am tired. After all, back home it’s 1:36 in the morning.