This is a scattershot of brain drippings from today:

I knew I reached a turning point when, getting off the plane from Salt Lake City, I thought to myself ‘Thank God I’m back in LA*.’ Sure, I was reacting to the fact that I had just left a massive blizzard that had trapped me on the interstate for two hours and that I had spent the previous 10 days knee deep in snow and cold and California was about 70 degrees, but there was something deeper happening. I finally feel like I live here, not like I’m on the world’s worst and longest vacation.

Tonight a friend came over and played Rock Band with me. Carl Cunningham, trying so very hard to be the CHUD blog resident curmudgeon, posted a comment on one of Nick’s blogs about the game, saying that people should realize it’s easier to start a real rock band. Maybe if it’s a fucking terrible band, Carl. I had downloaded three Oasis songs and Last Train to Clarksville, and my friend and I could just play them without having to learn the chords – or to read music or, for that matter, how to play instruments. I had people over on Thanksgiving and Christmas and we played Rock Band all day on both holidays; none of us are musically inclined, and if we had tried to start a real band we would have spent both days making terrible noise and attempting to make it through Oh Susanna or some other beginner doggerel. Instead, we played Boston’s Foreplay/Long Time. And we had fun. The people who are anti-Rock Band/Guitar Hero feel like anti-fun types, the kind of people who see folks having a good time and immediately get a chip on their shoulders.

Going back to LA weather, it was 77 degrees today. 77 degrees in February. I went out to the bank in a t-shirt. And I was still warm. It’s a strange thing, and I hope I never really get used to it or take it for granted.

Nobody works in California. I can go anywhere at any time of day, and it’s full of people just hanging out. You see folks lounging on their balconies at 2pm on a Tuesday. Some of these people are probably actors or writers, people who only work a couple of months out of the year if they’re lucky, but I still have a New York City state of mind and I tend to assume they’re drug dealers.

I never said it would be an interesting scattershot of brain drippings.

*even though I was actually in Long Beach. Close enough.