I went to Subway at lunch today and discovered an offshoot of the now-infamous shitbricking Play-Doh brained oblivious gleeful assholed suckers of sock (a classification now recognized by the Poynter Institute): the Cellphoned Dickear. I'm talking about those waddling creatures who use the wonder of technology to piss total strangers off, those beasts who bounce rhythmically from foot to foot while taking complicated food orders from some other asshole who couldn't be bothered to accompany Cellphoned Dickear to the physical restaurant, those ripple-breathed swine who go to strenuous lengths to make sure the overall connection is terrible and that they have to repeat everything more than six times to both caller and "sandwich specialist" before anyone knows what the fuck's going on. The conversation usually goes like this.

SANDWICH DUDE: (unconvincingly) Welcome to Subway. Can I help you?
CELLPHONED DICKEAR: Yeah, uh, lemme, uh, lemme have like a, a fuckin' footlong meatball on, uh, honey oregano, and, uh, just a minute...
(punches in phone number, oblivious to the howls of protest)
CELLPHONED DICKEAR (finally making a connection): Yeah, fool, I'm at the Subway. What you want? Uh-huh. (looks at menu) Uh-huh. (looks some more) Do they even have that? I don't see it up here. (to SANDWICH DUDE) You guys have, like, a, uh...a, uh...a, uh...you know, like, a thing of soup?
SANDWICH DUDE: Yeah, we got soup.
CELLPHONED DICKEAR: I don't see it up there.
SANDWICH DUDE: Kinda soup.
CELLPHONED DICKEAR: (back on phone) Kinda soup? (to SANDWICH DUDE) Kinda soup you got?
SANDWICH DUDE: Today it's broccoli cream or green beans and pomegranate.
CELLPHONED DICKEAR: (back on phone) Yeah, you get that? (to SANDWICH DUDE) What's the soups again?
SANDWICH DUDE: Broccoli cream...
CELLPHONED DICKEAR: (on phone) Broccoli cream...
SANDWICH DUDE: Green beans 'n' pomegranate.
CELLPHONED DICKEAR: (on phone) Green beans 'n' pomegranate.
(pause.)
CELLPHONED DICKEAR: Naw, he don't want no soup. Well, whatchoo want, fool, hurry up, I got a line behind me. (to SANDWICH DUDE) What's the special?
SANDWICH DUDE: Uh, right now we got a pastrami extract meal for $3.99.
CELLPHONED DICKEAR: (on phone) Pastrami extract meal for $3.99. (to SANDWICH DUDE) What comes with that?
SANDWICH DUDE: Uh, medium drink, chips, and a cookie.
CELLPHONED DICKEAR: What kinda chips?
SANDWICH DUDE: Uh, any kinda you want.
CELLPHONED DICKEAR: (on phone) You get that? OK. (to SANDWICH DUDE) Hey, man, you got any, like, sandwiches that taste like a Bacon Double Cheeseburger?
SANDWICH DUDE: Well, you can put bacon and cheese on... whatever.
CELLPHONED DICKEAR: Naw, I mean, like, the meat--like, can you take a whole bunch of meatballs and smash them into, like, a real long hamburger patty or some shit, you know, and just wipe off the sauce?
SANDWICH DUDE: No.
CELLPHONED DICKEAR: (back on phone) Can't do that, man. OK. (to SANDWICH DUDE) Nah, he don't want nothin'.

On Saturday I completed 20 new pages of a first draft I began in 1994; I'm in unexplored territory now, splashing in the void sans waterwings. It's an interesting experience, this attempt to jump-start vibes and emotions now 10 years gone, and make the transition like a smooth piece of film--the happy, content 31-year-old masquerading as the gloomy, pessimistic 21-year-old who thought he was doomed to an existence on the periphery. In order to pull this off, I usually have to psych myself out from within, kinda pile the world's weight on my brain, close my eyes, and let my fingers go crazy, snatching every remembered scrap of bullshit and desperation from every corner and breathing into it a sorta sad-sack glory.

The hardest part has proven to be the dialogue. I hate writing dialogue in fiction, because inevitably every character winds up sounding like the writer, speaking in a stupendously literate voice they couldn't have possibly mustered had they been real people. To me, it's always a copout when you pick up a book, and there's, like, an eight-year-old character, and he's way too wry and lucid for his age, leaning on a fanciful polysyllabicism like a wrought-iron crutch. But then, on the other hand, if you opt for realism, how do you make the conversations between characters in their early 20s interesting, when on paper they seem so banal? Stay tuned...

In other news, I was at the bookstore on Saturday and impulsively bought a copy of Vincent Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, which I hadn't read since the eighth grade. Amazing how the story has more resonance when you actually live in Southern California and are familiar with the grounds the Family once trod. "Wow, the LaBiancas lived near Griffith Park? I go through that park every day!" "Hey, I've been to a party on Cielo Drive!" "The Manson Girls squatted at the corner of Temple and Broadway, right outside the Hall of Justice? Dude, I walk over that spot every night!" It's an extra jolt of terror, to know that you blithely brush past the almost phantasmic presence of one of California's darkest chapters.

Listening to the new Modest Mouse. Great shit.