Fifty Shades Of Grey Movie Discussion And Dinner

“The problem is, both actors are blonde. In the book they're brunettes. This movie's gonna flop big time.” she said. I nod nonchalantly. She continues; “And another thing, Charlie Hunnam just isn't Christian Grey, the guy looks like a total cretin. I mean hello, he's in that awful Sons of Anarchy show, always has cuts and bruises on him. It should have been Robert Pattinson or Ian Somerhalder.”
“And Anastasia Steele?”
“Kristen Stewart.”
“Of course. Hold on a second.” I say, taking off my sock and shoe.
“What are you doing?”
“I'm taking a picture of my foot. I've noticed it's been changing shape recently, I need to make a proper record of it.” I say, snapping a foot picture with my instagram. I am sat in a restaurant across from Sabby, the main blogger on ohfifty.com, the #1 Fifty Shades Of Grey fan-site. We are discussing the upcoming Fifty Shades Of Grey film to be released in August next year. I put my sock back on, though the heel section is now at my instep. I swear under my breath, angry at myself for misaligning the sock.
“Is everything alright?”
“Yes, yes. Everything's fine. It's just...I put my sock on wrong.” I say. Our gaze meets across the table, there is a certain electricity in the air I can't help but feel amidst the aroma of the two huge portions of white veal I have ordered. The waiter arrives with another bottle of champagne and pours out two glasses.
“Merci, garcon.” I say to him as he walks away.
“Do you speak French?” she says.
“Oui. Est-ce que ca vous plait? Tes yeux sont comme des fosses." I murmur. She giggles.
"What does that mean?"
"I'll tell you later. First, I want to hear more about the movie."

The Fifty Shades Of Grey trilogy written by E.L James has been one of the best selling books of the century. The plot involves a billionaire seducing his secretary, having sex with her and eventually they both fall in love and get married. As one flicked through the pages of this grumble book you could almost hear movie execs in Los Angeles scramble to secure the film rights. But what would this film look like? On almost every page there is a lewd sex act taking place, whether it's Anastasia being tied down and whipped across the chest or Christian ejaculating into a cup and drinking it, the sex isn't just a straight forward bit of how's your father but intricately designed BDSM conquests that spiral into abstraction as the books progress.
"How do you think they'll handle the sex element in the films? I can't remember when I last saw a dick or a bit of vag in mainstream cinema since maybe...Basic Instinct."
"Exactly. Any moment Anastasia's Inner Goddess is revealed the camera isn't going to show it. The blowjobs, the dildos, the fisting."
"I'm curious to see how they're going to show that bit where Christian presses his cock and balls between those two panes of glass. Or the infamous shit eating scene."
"A significant section of the fans were hoping that the film would be picked up by a porn studio, but do it tastefully, you know? Stay true to the source material."
"I don't see any problem with a porn film being released in mainstream theaters. Have they forgotten how successful Deep Throat was? Behind the Green Door?" I say. I can feel my foot changing shape inside my shoe.
"Don't get me wrong, it's not just the naughty bits that I like in the books. I like the romance too." she says.
"Of course." I say.
"Like the part where Christian announces his love for Anastasia? After they have sex in that public toilet?"
"Or that bit where he hires a new secretary and she's like, a total bitch. But he still loves Anastasia...right?" I say.
"Yeah...I think so." she says.

The meal continues, course after course is brought out. Braised beef, deep fried prawns, sweet breads with tomato chutney, tandoori chicken and pilau rice. The conversation switches from film adaptations to other kinds of adaptations.
"Do you think if they gave a dolphin legs it would be better than a horse?" I ask.
"You mean to ride or just...better?"
"Mostly better, but also to ride."
"Well dolphins are quite noble creatures. How would they breathe though?"
"Just stick some water bottles over it's gills." I say.
"Dolphins don't have gills, they breathe through that blow hole at the top."
"Really? Even better then. A tube filled with water can be fitted more easily." I suggest. The desserts are brought out, savoury ice cream served on a bed of cake crumbs.
"What about the legs?" she asks me, playing with her spoon.
"Robots." I reply angrily. We eat the rest of the dessert in silence.

"Well it was lovely to meet you." says Sabby. We are standing outside the restaurant.
"It was good to meet you to. Maybe we should go for drinks sometime...maybe brainstorm a petition to get the film cast right."
"Yeah, yeah, that'd be good. The studios will have to listen to the fans." she says. I stand there with my hands in my pockets, unsure of what to do. Do we embrace? Kiss? Or do I just walk away? "Well, I'm going now."
"Goodbye." I say, watching her flag down a taxi and step in. She waves at me through the glass and I am left alone outside the restaurant, wondering what to do next. Then all of a sudden I get an idea.

A few hours later I am sat between two computer monitors, editing together my own version of Fifty Shades Of Grey. I'm using footage from Twilight, Secretary, Water For Elephants, Cosmopolis and six or so different hardcore porn films. The Fifty Shades books are scattered around me, I read out the dialogue and dub it over the newly edited film.
"Because I’m fifty shades of fucked-up, Anastasia." I read in my best Robert Pattinson impression. I relight a cigarette from the overflowing ashtray.
"Because I’m fifty shades of fucked-up, Anastasia." I repeat. I cut out a section of Leather Teen Angels 2 in which an actress has a speculum inserted, splicing it between the baseball scene from Twilight. Over the actresses head I've placed Kristen Stewart. It doesn't look too realistic but I'm hoping to enhance it with CGI later. I check my foot again. It is now swollen to almost twice it's usual size.
“I want your world to begin and end with me." I say in my Pattinson voice. I cough as both monitors show huge stretched out versions of Robert Pattinson's head.

Fun Day Out At La Brea Tar Pits

The La Brea tar pits have been excavated for the last one hundred years, the black bones of animals are dredged from the deep using a series of chains attached to a crane. Tar divers doggy paddle in the molten blackness, helping ease out the skulls of giant wolves onto the shore for visitors to see. The pits reside in Hancock Park, halfway down the Miracle Mile, next door to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The odour of the tar pits hangs in the air like an ancient death, the ever grave churns beneath the boiling sun. I finish my coke and hurl the can onto the heavy oil before walking towards the Page Museum. It's quite busy, families run backwards and forwards between the exhibits, the children point excitedly at the hundreds of bones scattered around. Teenagers chill out radically around an enormous woolly mammoth, repeating internet catchphrases to each other or swapping e-mail addresses. Retired people are ushered around and they look thoughtfully at the great condor, magnificent in it's quiet existence. Museum attendants are constantly smiling, eyelids as far back as they will go, hundreds of teeth shown, well moisturised hands ready to touch people on the shoulder as they are pointed in the right direction. I see my contact, Vernon Chavéz, gazing at the ribcage of a camel.
“Vernon?” I say. He turns around, face sweating and chemically thin. We shake hands and begin walking through the museum, passing an animatronic sabre tooth cat that jerkily nudges a sort of bear.

We enter the restroom. Vernon checks beneath the stalls and once sure nobody else is there he puts his briefcase on the side of the sink.
“You got the money?” he asks. I put my own briefcase on the side. “Let me check.” I pop open the lid and show him sixty thousand dollars in unmarked bills.
“Now you show me.” I say. He checks the door before opening the clasps on his case. Inside the aubergine coloured interior are three jars of wasps.
“Impressive. Most impressive.” I say. He takes my briefcase and I stand in the bathroom, watching the wasps waiting in each jar. I take out a pair of ear defenders from my pocket and put them on.

I pass an enormous puppet built by the Jim Henson's creature workshop, Smilodon Fatalis, It is accompanied by a smaller puppet, Nibbles. An old man plays a harmonica. A girl lets go of a balloon. A young couple kiss each other. Faces flash by. I crouch down onto the cold floor and open up the suitcase, taking out each jar carefully. Some movement catches my eye, I look up to see a security guard wearing a khaki shirt running towards me, although I am unable to hear his shouts. People are beginning to move away. I take one of the large jars and open the lid, pouring the wasps out. They begin to fly away before hitting the floor. I do the same with the other two jars and then begin to make my way through the crowd of people around me. The wasps meanwhile begin to search for food genetically installed into insect brains. For those wasps each ear is like a flower for a bee, a fruitful canal for them was a valuable source of protein. They flew from ear to ear, their thumb-sized bodies clinging onto the earlobe as they carefully fed on the people around them. Panic gripped the entire museum, people clutching at their heads as they ran full pelt through the corridors, others were caught in the swarm of wasps and crouched close to the ground, faces contorted into strange grimaces. In the confusion I made my way towards the Research and Collections area.

There are thousands of boxes, each containing a fossil pulled from the tar pit. I make my way quickly past the bones of rodents, dogs, giant birds and lizards, the preserved shells of the invertebrates and into the flora section. It takes me a few minutes but I have quickly filled my pockets with the preserved seeds of almost fifty species of prehistoric plants. I would need to send them to Korea to be processed properly. I make my way back into the museum, it's corridors empty now save for the constant flight of wasps.

Anxiety

I walk down the long concrete corridor, all gray and lit yellow from fluorescent lights contained inside cages. A guard is walking a few steps ahead of me, unlocking heavy security doors as we make our way deeper into the prison. He stops at a cell door and looks through the window before turning to me.
“I'll be waiting outside if there's any problems.” he said.
“I'll be fine.” I say, my voice a high falsetto. I am dressed as a woman. Two inch black Gucci heels bend awkwardly around my large feet, my unshaven legs hidden inside a pair of trousers that cling tight to my waist with the aid of a crocodile skin belt. My Yves blazer has large shoulders that jut out slightly awkwardly, it's slightly too small against my frame and is particularly tight on my scapula, though beneath this I'm wearing a two-tone silk shirt that is quite cool in the Los Angeles heat. I debated waxing my top lip for the occasion but decided to shave instead, though the perfume slightly stings my face now and then. With a well manicured hand I push open the cell door.

A woman is sat behind a steel table bolted to the floor. She looks up as I enter, her wide head supported by a long neck. Her mannerisms are somewhat birdlike. I sit down and clear my throat.
“Hello Ms. Lowfield.”
“Who are you?”
“I'm your lawyer, appointed by the court to-”
“You're not my lawyer.” she says coldly. She had me. It was a longshot, hoping that she had forgotten who her lawyer was, but I'd come this far.
“My name's Melissa Clark, I'm doing my PhD and I was wondering if I could ask you some questions for my thesis?” I said.
“What's it about?”
“The impact of gender roles and the progress of human civilization. I am trying to see what impact sexism has had in the development of the sciences with a focus on technological advancement.”
“How can you measure that?” she asked.
“I am comparing data of patents, number of scientists, doctors, lawyers and so on with gender, then postulating backward over the last one thousand years. It is my belief that humanity has more or less halved it's potential through centuries of sexism.”
“So you're studying economics?”
“Anthropology.”
“I see. And what kind of answers would I be able to tell you based on the sorts of questions needed for your thesis?”
“Your role as a member of The Fifth Wave is intriguing, what your...group is active in is particularly interesting.” I said, taking out a tape recorder. This was just for effect, I couldn't find any tapes, but it added a sense of atmosphere.
“What would you like to know?” she said, leaning towards the tape recorder.

The Fifth Wave, who the press have taken to calling 'The Pink Panthers', are a contemporary terrorist group operating out of America. Their members are all women who believe that an oncoming civil war is about to occur and they are taking preventative measures beforehand.
“Do you really think that there will be a war of woman versus man?”
“Of course. It's been happening for thousands of years. It's a cold war, though the casualties are in the millions. Mothers beaten, daughters raped, the violence continues today all across the world. We are fighting back, striking back at our enemy.”
“By cutting off men's dicks?”
“Yes. Some men would rather die than lose their penis. Most beg as we begin to flay the skin.”
“So it's true you skin the penises?”
“We start by fastening the penis into a sort of vice with a blade on each side. As we screw the vice shut, it shears off the skin and muscle leaving us with the bare urethra. We then use a pair of bolt cutters to remove the glans and each testicle one by one.”
“That sounds painful.”
“We use anesthetic. It is more shocking for the man to watch as we leave him with his urethra dangling between his legs and a bottle of painkillers.” she says.
“What happens after that?”
“It's up to them.”
“Why this form of assault?”
“In the early days we attacked them in a less organized manner. I feel the castration method is more effective as it breeds an element of fear, though I've experimented with different surgeries, such as just removing the penis or testicles, peeling back the corpus cavernosum so that it resembles a lily, subincision as par for course and a wide variety of other urological transfigurations. Atrocity is best realized through the voice of a victim.”
“Surely this fear also breeds anger? Some would say you're inciting more violence through your actions.”
“A civil war is going to happen Melissa. And we will win.”
“Gynarchy!”
“Like the Iroquois or Hopi. Did you know the Hopi often retreated to a kiva, a type of underground chamber, in order to be close to their ancestors? I suppose this prison is my kiva.” she said, her dark eyes reflecting the light wetly.
“Are you recruiting prisoners?”
“Of course. Our numbers will swell into the thousands. Every man will go to bed wondering if he'll be attacked in the night and stripped of what he thinks makes him a man.” she says, smiling to herself. I nod. It sounds reasonable enough to me. I thank her for answering my questions and make my way back through the corridors of the Central California Women's facility. In the distance I can hear shouting and the stamping of feet.

Extracting The Verge: Lessons In Urban Biwheeled Transport

I entered the shopping complex with my wallet brimming with counterfeit money. I had George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant and Benjamin Franklin in my pocket, multiple times, faces pressed against faces, moolah, cheddar, scrilla, dosh, cash, greenbacks, sawbucks, dollars, pockets full of that cheese. Eager to enter some of the world's most cheapest shops I duck into the first one I pass, it turns out to be a knife store. A store that only dealt in knives or knife related paraphenalia. I grab two hundred dollars worth of gear off the walls and place it in front of the clerk before taking my wallet out of my pocket and pluck bills from it, letting them drop down onto the register whilst I shake my head from side to side.
“That's how we do it though.” I say slowly.
I take the knives down to a fountain with me and begin to drop them in the water amongst the coins and milk teeth.
“Say mister, why you throwing knives in the fountain?” said a smart ass kid. I turn over my shoulder and flashed my eyebrows.
“What's it look like I'm doing kid? Cooking a pot roast?” I say.

I am in the car with Bill. We are searching for a parking space.
“How's your family Bill?”
“Not bad. Eldest just got a job in a Subway.”
“You know, I always wanted to know why Subway is such a big franchise. Like, they only make sandwiches. Why not other breads...other spreads?”
“I can't find a place to park.”
“Just park there. Over there by that palm tree.” I say. The car is parked and I look around. It was strange to think that I was there at that moment in time, unknown to anyone outside of that space, as if my existence at that point was neither here, nor there, yet in a state of flux, as is the shape, of space and time. I measure my pulse. Ninety seven. I take out my cell phone and access it's apps (programmes), viewing a three dimensional rotating image of myself. I upload data.
“What you doing over there?”
“I'm using apps. Want to look?” I say. Bill looks over my shoulder and whistles.
“That's a killer app you got there.”
“Take a look at this, I designed this one myself. It tells you if a celebrity is dead or alive.”
“Cool!” says Bill. We turn to each other and smile.

The nightclub was hot enough to make me sweat, dancing to minimalist house in the dark. Green lights rotate inside mirrors, flashing the faces of drugged Americans. A woman reaches out to me and starts shouting in my ear. I shout something back and we dance. I signalled I was going to the bar to get a drink, my feet sticking to the dance floor. Pushing my way through I bump into people, leaning on them for comfort. The teenager behind the bar is wearing yellow framed sunglasses and a leopard skin Sumo suit. By the time she reaches me I have forgotten what I wanted to drink.
“You wanna beer?”
“No...no...water. I need water.” I said, eyes rolling in my head. She passed me a warm plastic bottle and I stagger away, pouring the water over my head, down my back. There's no vomit left once I heave. For a moment the entire world seems to tip upwards and I realised that I had perhaps had enough. I nearly collapse into someone, pushed away as I stumble towards the exit. I need to be outside. I feel like I can't breathe.

I was running down a road in the night. Fat insects flew around the glow from street lights and parked cars, sometimes smacking against the floor. I climbed over a low wall and begin to try and cross the interstate, eyeing up the traffic for too long. A fog had rolled in off the Pacific, making everything a fuzzy blur, the gaps seemed impossible to judge. I ran.

“How's your search going? For the edge of L.A?” said Bill.
“I don't think I found it yet.”
“Want me to drive round the outskirts, see what you can find?”
“Yeah, why not? I doubt I'll find the edge at the actual edge, but you never know. Maybe it's there all along.” I said. We took the 405 north, the slightly elevated interstate a constant artery of tarmac and metal. The evening was drawing in just as we drove onto the Antelope Valley Freeway.
“We just left Los Angeles a moment ago.” said Bill. I tell him to circle back around so I can get out. The air smells warm, there is the faint aroma of cannabis somewhere nearby. Besides the road everything is bumpy, the rock raising up covered in dirt and scrub. Bill is lit in the soft blue from his new iphone, yammering about how this spot was in Los Angeles and this spot was Santa Clarita.
“This is what I mean though. Does this feel like the edge of Los Angeles? Does this feel like the edge of anywhere?”
“Well, there ain't nothing else here.”
“Exactly. Where's the tipping point? There's no lines in the ground, no sense of the binary. This is just a little road that could be anywhere.”
“I guess. Want to drive back?”
“Not yet. Let's follow the border for a little while, see where we end up.”

We spend the next few hours carefully driving as close as we can to the Los Angeles city limits, I occasionally get out to get a sense of whether or not I have found the certain edge. The city of Los Angeles. The county of Los Angeles. The state of California. The state of America. It seemed anytime I tried to find the edge of civilization it split, forming more bubbles of civilization, more motes of L.A. Floating in the agar-like continuum of reality. Motels, bars, strip clubs, diners, car parks, industrial units, houses, forests, mountains, highways, freeways, interstates, parks, hospitals, abandoned buildings, factories, beaches. I could tell for certain when I wasn't in Los Angeles and when I was, but never exactly where these two points met. I didn't believe that there was a gradient as such, that Los Angeles would simply fade into not-Los Angeles. We'd been driving for hours, fueled by roadside meats and gatorade. Bill watched as I stumbled around in the dark, kicking the detritus of people around; food packaging, used needles, dirty nappies, cigarette butts, discarded clothing, rotten plastic, clumps of human hair. Would I even know when I had found the edge? I questioned my practice as I looked into the shadows, pupils fully dilated, spit drying on both sides of my mouth. Now and then Bill would ask if we'd found it yet.
“No, no. Not yet. We need to go further.” I would say, beginning to suspect that Bill may be leading me on a wild goose chase. Nevertheless we traversed the outer orbit of the city, San Fernando, Verdugos, San Gabriel, Pomona, down to the Harbour and up along the coast. As dawn started to break I sat in the rolling surf on Santa Monica beach, watching my shoes fill with sand.
“Want to go home?” said Bill.
“Yeah.” I said, dragging myself up. It appeared as though I wouldn't find the edge of Los Angeles by going around it. I would need to employ some other methods.

The next day I went to a motorbike rental place and loaned a Suzuki SFV650 Gladius. I hadn't much experience riding motorbikes but after half an hour at a nearby parking lot I decided I was ready. I'd had an idea sitting on Santa Monica beach. Perhaps I wouldn't find the edge in such a careful, controlled manner, but experience it amongst the uncontrollable chaos life occasionally threw at you. I huffed a significant amount of nitrous oxide and set up my bike partway along Venice Boulevard.
“De fumo in flammam.” I mutter to myself before engaging the clutch. The bike lurches forward at first, but I quickly work out the gears. Before I know it I am already hurtling down the boulevard at sixty miles an hour. I feel the wind in my hair as I keep spinning the throttle, laughing madly to myself, lost in the wind. Cars and trucks speed by at a blur. Eighty miles an hour. I fly through an intersection, narrowly avoiding a BMW. The engine is screaming in protest between my legs as I quickly flick through the gears. Once I can see the beach I'm doing a good hundred and ten miles an hour. People, cars, road signs all become a violent rainbow streak as I propel myself closer and closer towards the sea. All around me are the honking of horns and the screams of people as the Gladius reaches its top speed, propelling me ever-quicker towards the coast, I'm unable to breathe. My head is thrown backwards so much so I struggle to see what's in front of me. With a spine twisting bump I feel I've hit the sand, the bike hurtling at one hundred and fifty miles an hour down the beach. Just before I hit the water I feel something.

Time seems to have stopped. I look around at my surroundings and see a whole crowd is on the beach behind me, faces locked in a slow motion scream of horror at the biker that has passed them all at such ludicrous speed. In the distance I think I can hear some kind of choir, the holy sounds of seraphim. The water beneath me is such a beautiful blue, I'm aware of the constantly shifting currents underwater of oxygen and hydrogen reflecting the pure, brilliant sky above me. Seams of gold appear on every corner, as if the world is just a door to heaven. Had I been successful? Was this indeed the edge of Los Angeles? The true edge of civilization? Before I can truly answer the question time seems to speed up again. The bike appears to bounce on the waves once or twice before it shoots out from beneath me like some kind of strange insect steed, it begins to flip and somersault itself apart until sinking below the surface of the water. I myself am miraculously unhurt, though for the second time in less than six hours my shoes are full of sand. I turn back to the beach and wave.
“Don't worry everyone. I'm fine. I think I experienced the true edge of Los Angeles, but you'll have to read my blog for a more detailed description.” I say. In the distance I can hear sirens, the type on top of police cars rather than the mythological kind. I consider my experience as I swim away, wondering if that was indeed the edge, or if it was instead what one experienced when driving at high speeds on a motorbike heading towards the ocean. Could it be replicated somehow? Was there more than one edge, or more than one way of experiencing it? I'd have to continue my search regardless. Yet after the night of disappointment the high speed seaside crash had exhilarated me more so than any simple tour of the city. As I floundered onto the shore just beneath the pier I decided I would try harder to substantiate that which was and not was Los Angeles.

Jim Bischotti And The Case Of The Missing Cat

San Dimas, San Gabriel County. You can hear the 210 roaring away to the north, the acoustics of the mountains reflecting everything back as it had done since the landmass was formed. Maybe on a quiet day you could still hear the echo of sound waves repeating themselves for the last one hundred years. Bill had dropped me off in the middle of the suburbs before going to visit his family, leaving my afternoon free to meet with one of San Dimas' more notable people; Jim Bischotti. I stroll along the white sidewalk, admiring the pre-WW2 era suburb. San Dimas felt like a small town somewhere else in America, though off towards the East I could make out the twitching reflection of Central Los Angeles. Two women went past me, power walking and lifting one kilo weights. We exchanged smiles and I walked a little further up the street, my bowels requiring me that I drop my trousers and evacuate into a drain. As I did so I couldn't help but be reminded of the film 'Bill And Ted's Bogus Journey' that was set in the quaint little town. Perhaps there would be a themed restaurant somewhere, where I could play air guitar and say 'Excellent!', guaranteed for some big laughs. I myself began to giggle at the thought.
“Excellent!” I said. But nobody had heard me. I continued walking.

Jim Bischotti lived on East Juanita Avenue in a beige bungalow. There was a well kept garden outside in which a Black Willow grew in it's centre, shading his house in the midday sun. I knocked on the door and it was answered quickly, almost as if he had been waiting behind the door for me.
“Come in, come in.” he said. We shook hands and I entered. His home was impeccably tidy yet there was the odour of dog hair faintly, catching the back of my throat when I took a deep breath.
“Can I get you a soda?” he said. I accept and make myself comfortable on the sofa, looking at my blurred reflection in the fifty inch television across from me. Jim returns with a large bottle of Dr. Pepper and two glasses, pouring out the two drinks then sitting in a leather recliner facing the window. The shadow of the Black Willow branches cut across his face like camouflage.
“So tell me about your detective agency.” I ask after sipping the over-carbonated beverage. Jim laughs, waggling his eyebrows about.
“It all started off when I was out of high school, looking for work. I was desperate for money, couldn't even get a job delivering pizza. But as I was walking round I noticed all these lost pet posters. Cats, dogs, a parrot or two. Some of these had big money rewards, especially towards Hollywood, you know? And I was walking round so much I ended up seeing half these pets, so I started returning them to their owners. In a month I'd claimed nearly two thousand dollars in pet bounty.” he said.
“So that's when you started to do it full time?”
“Sure. My papa was in the rangers, he taught me how to track animals and that kind of thing. I combined that knowledge with a good work ethic and found I had a knack for it.”
“How many pets would you say you've found since you started?”
“Oh, I'd say...maybe...five hundred or so? Mostly cats, but plenty of dogs and then there's the exotic animals. Snakes, ferrets, even a few turtles.”
“Could I come along with you, see how you work?”
“Sure.”

We are driving in Jim Bischotti's van as he explains to me his most recent case.
“American shorthair, two years old, owner lives on West 2nd Street. Cats are natural explorers, sometimes they get lost by accident, especially the young ones. But I take the time to go round the owner's house, see if there's any evidence that might lead me to wonder if the cat's lost or if it left home, you know what I mean?”
“Sure. Cat's are dicks.”
“Well, no, not really. Out of all the animals cats are the least domesticated. They have a lot of pride. Sometimes they don't like the cleanliness of their home or if the owner got a baby, a new pet, that kinda thing.”
“Don't a lot just get run over?”
“That's sad, but true. I only charge half my fee if I find a pet has been R.K'ed...that's roadkill.”
“Got it.”
“I'm in touch with the police and sanitation guys, they let me know if they find something. I even go and collect unidentified animals, keep them in a freezer at home in case anyone calls up. Anyway, here we are.” he says, pulling up outside a house. I follow him as he walks around the side of the house and stands in the yard.
“Aren't we going in?”
“No, I already went in. I'm scrying at the moment.” he says, breathing in heavily and closing his eyes. He murmurs to himself. “Overflowing trash can...barbecue...road nearby, busy...fifteen cats on this street...”
“What are you doing?”
“I'm scrying...I'm accessing my memory for pet information and comparing it to present variables, like maybe it's hot so the kitty can smell someone cooking barbecue down the street.”
“Yeah, or maybe because it's September the cat is lonely.”
“Exactly. Anyway, I got a feel, now to do the leg work.” says Jim. He walks to the end of the yard and climbs the fence. I follow.

For the next two hours I follow Jim Bischotti as he climbs over fences, walls, crawls under bushes, sniffs at the soil, asks people questions. It's quite exhausting work, not to mention embarassing. All the while Jim keeps giving me titbits of information about his work:
“Sometimes pet's are kidnapped. We had a gang operating in this area last year, taking dogs and holding them ransom. I worked with the sheriff's department on that one.”
“You know, missing pet posters are so outdated? I encourage people to e-mail their neighbours nowadays, everyone has smart phones so...”
“I once went down in the sewers to look for a puppy. All I found was human shit.”
“Now and then the pets don't want to go home. They attack me, they run away again. It's so sad when that happens.”
“I'm a virgin. I'm not ashamed of it either, too many people are having sex nowadays.”
“It's amazing some of the stuff I've found whilst searching around. I thought about setting up a side business of just finding anything, but that's too big a piece of pie for me too chew on. I'll show you my treasures when we get back to my house if you want.”
“At midnight after crawling around in the dirt for fifteen hours I call it a day. Sometimes a pet just doesn't want to be found.”
“I usually carry round a bit of raw meat in my pockets to attract all sorts of animals. I'm lucky now and then.”
"I love cats."

Surprisingly we come across the missing cat, having only taken us the better portion of the afternoon. Jim holds out a hand to stop me.
“Wait here partner. This is where it can get messy.” he says. I nod, leaning against a chain-link fence and tapping a cigarette out of the packet. I watch as he slowly crouches down and begins to talk in a high pitch voice as he moves towards the cat.
“Hey Atticus, come here boy. Come here. Come here Atticus, that's a good boy. Come here. Come here. Come on, hey there, hey, come on, come on. That's a good boy. Good boy Atticus. Come here. Come here. Come here. Good boy. Oh, who's a good boy? Come here, come on.” he says. The cat stared at him. It begins to walk away but the teenager pounces on the cat, immediately it shrieks and hisses, clawing at him. Jim tucks his chin into his neck and the sides of his mouth right down as he struggles clutching the mammal close to his chest as he runs back towards his van. The cat is now howling and moaning as Jim clutches it by the scruff of the neck, opens a side panel on the van and tries to push the cat in, all the while it hissing and scratching him. Eventually it's in.
“Wow...that looks to be quite stressful.” I say.
“Yeah, sometimes they come easy, sometimes not. But I found him, and that's the main thing.” says Jim, checking the cuts all over his arms. He lifts up his shirt to reveal even more cuts all over his torso, some look to be quite deep.
“Are you okay?”
“This? This is nothing. If you think this is bad, you should see it when I try to catch a dog.” says Jim. There are tears in the corner of his eyes.
“Don't vets usually have like...a stick with a rope on the end?”
“Oh those aren't humane. I think this way is the best.” says Jim. The cat is still howling in the back of the van as we get in and drive back to it's home, I wait in the cab whilst he manoeuvres the cat into a cardboard box. After giving it back to the owner he returns with twenty dollars clutched between his thumb and forefinger.
“Cha-ching! Come on, let's go to Taco Bell and celebrate.” he says.

As we sit in Taco Bell I ask Jim a question that's been on my mind since I met him.
“Why don't you just get a normal job? It seems like this is quite stressful and you don't get paid much.”
“That one didn't pay too much, no. But some of them do. And it's not just the money, I'm reuniting pets with their owners. The look on that woman's face as I brought her cat back well...nothing quite comes close to it.” says Jim. I look at him to see if he's bullshitting, but he seems to believe himself. Covered from head to toe in dirt, the cuts all over his body occasionally bleeding still, the slightly vacant expression on his face as he stares out of the window whilst eating a burrito. He was an idiot. But perhaps we needed more idiots in this world. I wished Jim Bischotti good luck as I left, hoping that he would continue to search for missing pets for the rest of his life.

Anniversary

9/11. Never forget. How could we, it happens every year? Yet the incident in question, the terrorist attack on the world trade centre and the pentagon almost 12 years ago to this day, still haunts the cultural mindscape of America, their very own Dia de Muertos. As traumatic as going on a family day out and watching your father be savagely beaten by a vagrant, the West was shocked to a standstill all those years ago. Can we help but feel anything other than guilt as we wake up each morning wondering if there would be any news as big as a terrorist attack on symbolic buildings in America? And for all those people that died in the towers, and all the people that received fatal doses of carcinogenic dust, and all the people that died in the ongoing wars, I can't help but feel as if somehow I cannot fully comprehend the nature of the attack and it's butterfly effect into the new century. Every generation has a defining moment on which morals can be projected in some way. From the Axis and Ally war from 39-44 to the counter-culture movement and Vietnam battles of the sixties, the World Trade Centre attack is the monolith of destruction needed for this generations anguish. Yet what is it's opposite? Good and evil, peace and war, terrorism and? I hit the streets to find out.

It is a patriotic day in Los Angeles. Everywhere you go the president delivers memorial speeches through high definition televisions, trucks drive past honking the star spangled banner. I see an entire family decked out in stars and stripes, marching down the road with dour grins on their faces as they wave miniature flags in pudgy white fists. A fat drunk sits outside a bar constantly shouting 'America! America!' until he is hoarse. Attractive girls look up to the sky with tears in their eyes, the touching moment caught by amateur photographers eager to document their questionable sadness. Others act normally as if the memorial day somehow doesn't affect them, yet I can read in the minuscule movements of their bodies that they will go home later and ask each other 'Where were you twelve years ago?'. I take a taxi to Longbeach.

My driver's a heavy set ex-pugilist with a baseball cap on back to front, his white t-shirt sticks to his back with a mixture of sweat and cheap aftershave.
“We will not negotiate with terrorists.” I say, doing an impression of George W. Bush.
“What was that pal?”
“We can not misunderestimate the entire power of the Iraqi people.” I continue my shpiel.
“Oh yeah, Bush.” he says.
“What do you think about the murder of Osama Bin Laden?” I ask, breaking character for a moment.
“Murder? I'm glad they killed the towel head.”
“Yeah, they should just nuke the entire middle east, right? I mean, why not?”
“Exactly pal. America is number one.” he says. I start to laugh and set fire to the seat next to me before clambering out of the window. I'm unsure where I am exactly, but can see the Pacific isn't too far away so begin to walk, admiring the pageantry all around me. Stars and stripes, eagles, the world trade centre, even a few religious icons all flutter in the wind. Car horns continue to honk away now and then, a citywide brass band to play the dirge for the deaths which occurred last decade. The sun is too warm, the noises too loud, the toxic street smells too pungent. I swallow vomit and duck into a bar, hoping for some semblance of peace.

The mood in the bar is jovial, people making toasts regularly whilst the news plays on television screens dotted around. John Kerry continues to make his plea for an invasion of Syria. I hand the barman a ten dollar bill and buy a drink for the woman standing next to me.
“What is the opposite of terrorism?” I ask her.
“Freedom?”
“Freedom includes the freedom to commit terror.”
“But terror like, squashes freedom.”
“You know they treat arachnophobics by showing them spiders? Through becoming desensitised to their own feelings of dread, they become free.”
“What?”
“Have you seen Monkey Shines: An Experiment In Fear?”
“No.”
“Well it doesn't matter then.” I say, raising my drink. “Oh say can you see, by the dawn's early light...” I begin to sing. Gradually more and more people join me in singing the anthem. People out on the street stop what they're doing and all face some unseen point, singing. Workers stop what they're doing and put a hand over their heart. An old man stands by his grandson and both sing. A soldier in a distant country sings quietly to himself. The song finally finishes and I leave, the bitter taste of other people's tears sting my mouth like bile.

I am stood at the beach, gazing at the waves. I am wearing more clothes than anyone else on the beach, the sweat drips off me in rivers and stains the sand black around my feet. What was it about America, particularly Los Angeles and New York, that people got so emotional about? I expected it from Americans, yet the terrorist attacks themselves were quite American in scope. When fighting Americans one should be careful not to become American themselves. I wondered what the Truthers were doing today. Probably sifting through imagined rubble, rewatching youtube videos, jacking off into each other's faces. It was funny how much they believed in the power of their country.
“9/11 was faked!” I shout at a man flying a kite. “And the government was responsible for everything that has ever happened to this country. The world trade centre was rigged with twenty parcels of C4. The pentagon was attacked by an experimental rocket launched from the pentagon. The government are recording everything I am thinking and broadcasting it through commercials.” I babble. Nobody turned around. Nobody cared. I built two towers out of sand and threw paper aeroplanes at them until they collapsed.
“Hey buddy, show a little respect.” says a passer-by.
“Chillax bro. Is this any less respectful than war?” I say, spitting a blob of phlegm down at my feet. It is marbled with blood. A shivering wisp of a man emerges from the sand.
“I'm not disputing that, but you are just as bad as those people. The victims of any violence are still victims regardless of any action that takes place afterwards, it doesn't matter if you view those actions as justified, tasteless, cruel or necessary. Why not treat them with the respect they deserve?”
“I'm not making fun of the victims, rather the reaction.” I say, making another paper aeroplane.
“But who are you to say if a reaction is good or bad? Who are you to-” he begins. I throw the paper aeroplane as hard as I can at his head, puncturing his eyeball.
“All there is is blackness.” I say, before walking back towards the city.

All The World's A Brain

In the operating theatre two gurneys are pulled through plastic doors, on each rests a chimp covered mostly with a white paper smock. The surgeons move about below like an orchestra preparing for a performance, checking the levels for the anaesthetic, that the surgical tools are in the correct order. Two surgeons dressed in red talk to each other before one goes over to a microphone that has been lowered into the theatre.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for coming today. My name is Dr. Aaron Blaisdell and I will be providing commentary throughout today's surgery which will be a partial brain transplant between two adult chimps. The head surgeon today is Dr. Ellen Carpenter and if anybody has any questions throughout the surgery please send us a tweet and I'll try to read out the best ones. So without further ado, doctor.” he said, gesturing towards Dr. Carpenter. The dozen doctors and nurses are in place, waiting to begin. Bill and I are sat in the observation mezzanine circling the theatre, trying to eat popcorn quietly.

The surgeons begin by standing at the top of each chimpanzee's shaved head and fastening them both into a 3-pin skull fixation device. This has a series of rings around it with measurements on, co-ordinates similar to what you'd see on globe of the Earth so that the surgeons know where they are poking around. Dr. Blaisdell begins to talk.
“Craniotomy is one of the more complex subjects in surgery. We can make guesses as to what certain areas of the brain do, though it's similar to guessing the purpose and structure of internal organs of something you haven't seen the inside of. Still, we know more now than we did last week, and this particular surgery could be very valuable in the future.
The patients chosen are a pair of identical twins, the ideal candidates for any kind of organ transplant. Today we will be excising the left hemisphere of each chimpanzee and fitting in it's twins. We'll be leaving the brain stem intact, just as you would when grafting a plant cutting onto a larger plant, though everything else will be moved.” he said. We continue to watch as the surgeons begin to make the first skin incision around each chimp's head.
“I dunno if I can watch this.” says Bill. He's looking a little pale.
“Relax, you've seen the Saw films, right?”
“But...but this is for real.”
“Exactly. Relax.”

Next comes the drilling of small burrs all the way around the skull, followed by the craniotome sawing neatly the precise line needed to lift off the cranium lid.
“Just as identical twins have nonidentical fingerprints, they also don't share the patterns of sulci and gyrus.” said Dr. Blaisdell. High above the operating theatre a screen is turned on, showing the view from a head-mounted camera Dr. Carpenter was wearing. She cut open the dura matter with a pair of surgical scissors to reveal surface of the neocortex, labyrinth-like in it's many folds of grey matter. I begin to sketch, partly what is going on beneath me, partly some political cartoons satirizing the response to the Syrian gas attack.
“In the 1940s a procedure was invented that cut the corpus callosum in order to treat epileptic patients. It improved their epilepsy but patients were otherwise mentally stable, which is surprising to say they severed some 300 million nerve fibres. We've had to manufacture an artificial corpus callosum for this procedure in order to link both hemispheres once the transplant is done. Though the patients can survive with a split brain, we think it's best to get the procedure as accurate as possible.” he said, holding up what looked like two CD's. On the operating table meanwhile the left hemisphere of one of the chimpanzee's was removed and quickly placed into a chemical bath whilst Dr. Carpenter quickly used an ultrasonic aspirator on the brain of it's twin.

“We just got a tweet asking us why only transplant one hemisphere. Perhaps you'd like to answer that Dr. Carpenter?” said Blaisdell as he moved towards the surgeon and held a microphone close to her face. Her voice was slightly muffled through the surgical mask.
“To start with we are attempting one hemisphere, if successful, we'll transplant the right hemisphere in a few weeks time. I hypothesise that a brain transplant is extensively traumatic to both the nervous system and the psychology of the patient. This way the brain has a way of synchronizing itself in it's new environment, getting used to it's endocrine system, body image and so on.”
“Thank you. Dr. Carpenter just mentioned the psychology of undergoing a brain transplant, which in itself will be an entirely new field of study. Through this operation we are splitting the mind, inducing schizophrenia literally.” he said. There were a few laughs from the psychologists in the mezzanine.
“The patients have both been given a course of immunosuppressants in order to combat graft-versus-host, whilst also being administered a series of psychoactive drugs to encourage a state of temporary dissociation, mainly ketamine. Think of it similar to how you might change the furniture around in somebodies house. If you simply did it whilst they slept, they would quickly notice upon waking up. Whilst if you had been giving them a course of drugs in the previous and following weeks, they may be less inclined to either notice or become anxious about it.”
I watch as they attach the artificial corpus callosum onto the right hemisphere before sliding the rest of the brain into the empty half of the skull. The dura matter is fastened back into place followed by the top of the skull.
“And there you have it. They'll be a short intermission but we encourage viewers to stay behind to watch the patients wake up.” said Dr. Blaisdell. There is an applause and we make our way out of the operating theatre.

Bill and I are eating small triangles of toast with prawns on them, looking at the throng of people standing in the atrium.
“So the monkey's gonna think they're each other?”
“Yep. And also themselves. I wonder what it must feel like, part of yourself in one body, part of yourself in the other.”
“Must be fucked up.”
“Would you have your brain transplanted into another body?”
“Nope.”
“What about if you were really old, would you put your brain in the body of a teenager?” I ask. Bill thinks for a moment, munching thoughtfully on the appetizer.
“Well, maybe I'd do that. Wouldn't I be an old guy in my head though? What if my body starts growing old, like that Robin Williams film?”
“Benjamin Button?”
“No, he wasn't in that. The other one.”
“Hook? He was Peter Pan in that, that's an old man acting like a kid. He wore tights.”
“Whatever. I dunno about letting Frankenstein poke round in my head is all.” said Bill. I nod. Dr. Blaisdell comes up to us.
“Did you enjoy observing the operation?”
“Yeah, thanks. Ground breaking stuff.” I say.
“It is. Next week we're grafting a nose onto a chimp to see if it would look more human.”
“Chimp with a nose?” said Bill.
“Yeah. We use quite a lot of chimpanzee's for our experiments. All ethical of course.”
“Would you put your brain in a chimp's body?” I ask. Dr. Blaisdell laughs, showing row after row of pearly white teeth.
“Maybe one day. Anyway, I'll see you later. Take care.” he said, walking off. I doubted he would volunteer himself for a human/chimpanzee brain transplant, though maybe he would under the right circumstances. I make a note to pay Dr. Blaisdell a visit later on in the week.

A few hours later we watch the twins slowly wake up.
“Well, they're alive at least.” said Bill.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the second part of the afternoon. We will do some basic motor tests and check both hemispheres.” announced Dr. Blaisdell. Assistants helped the chimpanzee's out of their cots and they held hands. A couple of people went 'aww'. Over the next hour we watched the chimpanzee's watch lights flick on or off on either side of their heads.
“They were trained beforehand to press a button when they see a light. This test was first designed by Roger Sperry, though is particularly useful for seeing if the operation was a success with these non-verbal patients.” he said. Up until that point both primates had been separated, though after it was shown both hemispheres appeared to be working correctly they were reintroduced to each other. Or themselves. Everyone was silent as they slowly walked up to each other, making quiet hooting noises.
“Another positive point about using identical twins is that you're used to seeing yourself. They are unaware that their twin is now sharing their skull with them.” said Dr. Blaisdell. The two chimps held each other, making little cooing noises. More people began to fawn and smile. I awaited the point where they would snap, perhaps attacking each other and everyone else. But it didn't come. I signalled to Bill that we should leave and we made our way back onto the Los Angeles street.
“That was nice wasn't it.”
“Yeah, it was alright.” said Bill, getting into the car. I examine his head as we drive back towards my motel, wondering if I would swap brains for a time.

Helping Hands

I walked around North Hollywood looking for an assistant. I needed someone strong, agile, with street smarts and not afraid to do some dirty work on the side should I need it. A renegade if you will. I was going to post an ad on craigslist but thought that such a person would be readily available on the streets. I stepped over parts of a wig lying on the walk of fame, it was like a nylon jellyfish that had washed up onto a black shore. I kicked it around for a while as I watched the traffic go up and down, lit in dusk. Most of the people I'd seen so far were totally unsuitable, a little too raw for my needs. Schizophrenics, drug addicts, the sick. I threw nickels and dimes at them but no job offers, I needed to make sure I had a free range being. My eyes locked with another. He was the one. I extended a hand out and introduced myself.

Standing at about five foot one and weighing maybe one hundred and sixty pounds, Bill Williamson wasn't the most physically impressive person I'd met, but was pleasant to be around. He told me of his recent troubles, especially with drinking, though I dismissed these as his own particulars. He had hands like lump hammers, the knuckles criss-crossed with scars from street brawls. His head was slightly large and appeared to be of a decent weight, his forehead and jowls were especially prominent. He had a vertical scar just beneath his lip that went halfway around his head.
“I'm glad you're giving me a job. I gotta wife and kids to feed.”
“Don't mention it.”
“You want me to do anything for you?”
“Relax Bill. We'll get some food, clean you up, start tomorrow refreshed. How about it?”
“Sounds good to me.” he said, drinking the malt liquor I'd bought and lighting up a cigarette.

Later I cut his hair and gave him a shave, picking out some clothes on a catalogue online.
“We'll go to Rodeo Drive tomorrow, get you a suit, some shoes. You play squash?”
“Nope.”
“Any sports?”
“I used to play football back at school.”
“How about golf? Maybe we should get you some golf clothes. I saw this cute waist coat that I think you'd look good in, it'd be a shame for you not to wear it.”
“I ain't never played no golf before.”
“Relax, we aren't going to play. We'll go to the members lodge, shoot the shit with celebrities, do some shots. It'll be fun.”
“You're the boss.” said Bill. I nod.
“And your first duty to me can be to stand watch overnight, in case of trouble.”
“What you want me to do?”
“Sit at the end of my bed and keep watch.”
“Is someone out to get you?”
“Maybe. Maybe someone's out to get you? It's hard to say, but we'll see by morning.”
“Whatever you want.” he said. I nod and change into my pyjamas as he washes. I have a feeling that this assistant will be just what I need on the streets of L.A.

The next day Bill drives me towards Beverly Hills and we do a few hours of window shopping. I explain to him my philosophy on fashion. Work what you have. I demonstrate it by buying Bill a green blazer with flared sleeves in order to emphasize the size of his hands. I take them into mine and talk to him directly.
“Bill. I know you may not be used to this high standard of living. Fashion, art, fine dining, you know, but neither am I. But once you get a taste for the finer things in life, you can't help but expect a certain...je ne sais quoi. You feel me?”
“Yeah.” he says. I release his hands and turn back to the rail of clothes.
“What do you think of this?” I say, taking out a vintage eighties leather jacket. He shrugs. I spend seven hundred dollars on various outfits and we leave. I can't help but feel somewhat giddy, wanting to pirouette out of the store and sing. Once we're in the car I hum the The Rite Of Spring to myself, wondering what I would need assistance with.

A few hours later Bill and I are drinking white wine on a terrace overlooking the Pacific. It is quiet yet I feel as though both are content with that.
“What is it you're doing here anyway?”
“I am trying to find the edge. The edge of Los Angeles.”
“Hell, I can drive you out of the city tonight if that's all you want.”
“Can you?”
“Sure, we can take the interstate north, go through the mountains. I ain't been there for...say, coming on fifteen year.” he says. I shake my head.
“I'm from England, you know. And there's a funny thing about the coastline. You measure it in miles it's such a number. Let's say six hundred. But then you measure it in feet it's going to be....thousands of feet. You measure it in centimetres, it's going to be even higher.” I say.
“What now?”
“It's a paradox. The more fine the measurement, the higher it'll be. But the same applies to the city. Who's to say where Los Angeles ends exactly? Sure, it's on a map. But if I was to stand where the map said Los Angeles ended, would that necessarily mean that if I took a step forward I would no longer be in L.A?”
“Yeah.”
“No Bill. It's nebulous. It's a constantly shifting, the border between the city and the not city. Is a building or road what makes Los Angeles Los Angeles? Or do cars, trees, people, do they make up the city? If I was to get a microscope and examine a proton, am I looking at an individual proton or just a minutely small part of Los Angeles?” I said, gesturing in the air with my wine glass at the ocean view.
“I dunno man, I ain't never been to college.”
“Being academically inclined doesn't help answer these questions. Where is the edge? If the boundary of Los Angeles is so malleable, we could hypothesize that the length of the city limits is theoretically infinite. Which makes any part of Los Angeles a potential centre or edge. The only way we'll know is by investigating which areas are and aren't Los Angeles, and in through doing so I hope for a better understanding of not just this city, but all cities.”
“Well, that sounds good to me. So we could be at the edge right now?” says Bill, refilling his glass. I laugh heartily.
“This doesn't feel like the edge of civilization just yet. I'm sure we'll find it sooner or later though.” I said. We are quiet once again as I look out onto the constantly folding waves coming from the East.

I give Bill the rest of the night off to go and see his family whilst I go for my evening perambulations. My phone rang. Again, it was the distant sounds of animals breathing and the low talking. I sat on a bench and listened for a few minutes, wondering if it was even English, before the line went dead again. The Los Angeles night was drawing in, all lit bright orange all around me. I watch a coyote slink from out behind a diner and run across the road clutching something in it's mouth. In a trash can I find a shoebox full of love letters and take them up to my room to read whilst I sit in bed. Once I have finished I throw them around the room, ripping some in half, eating a few others. I had a busy week ahead of me.

VRLA

The sun was high in the sky over Los Angeles, casting harsh shadows onto the pavewalk. I looked around, marveling at the little details around me. Each brick was individual in each of it's grooves, like a thumbprint. Yet all bricks were the same. I pushed my way past the people walking aimlessly down the street, got to a crossing and waited. The traffic went by silently. What was there to do in L.A? I had no idea. Feeling a funk coming on I made my way back to my car and started to drive down the middle of the road. I stopped for a while and watched as the shadows slowly tipped before blending into everything else as clouds rolled over. I continued to drive, making my way out of city and onto the highway. There weren't any cars around but I still drove at a steady pace. Off in the distance I could make out distant hills, solid green and standing in stark contrast to the baby blue sky behind them. I drove off road onto the muddy landscape. Back towards L.A. I could make out the glint of windscreen but out here there was nothing. Just a featureless plain that rolled on as far as the eye could see. I'd lost my concentration on my driving and didn't see the hole in the floor ahead of me. My car fell into it silently, my vision below spiralled fractal-like into a whirlpool of infinite dashboards. I looked around and could make out the underside of the city, off in the distance there were even one or two people trapped beneath buildings.
“Some parts aren't finished.”
“I know.” I said, turning away from the screen. “I like those parts best.”

Rich Favelle squinted at the screen around me. It had been custom-built for this project, curving around my entire body like a huge electric pringle. He pressed a few buttons on his tablet and the simulation reset to the starting point.
“What do you think?”
“It's good...quite realistic.” I said.
“Everything you see is taken from hd cameras we mounted on a few assistants. Think google street view, but with people rather than cars.”
“It reminded me a lot of street view.”
“Well, it's sort of based on that whilst being an evolution of that. This is google maps, grand theft auto, facebook, all rolled into one. We're hoping when we finished we have an entire simulation of America that looks and feels like real life. The sun in our game is actually 150 million km from the surface, so the lighting looks real. We import weather data, traffic data, wildlife data, all sorts of data into one colossal engine.”
“What kind of computer runs this?” I ask, turning back to the game. I walk down the street and go into an empty building.
“Well, at the moment it pretty much needs a super computer. But maybe...two playstation 3's? Probably by the time this is ready the playstation 4 will be out anyway, so whatever.”
“What's the point in making something that nobody can use?”
“Listen, this is a next-next-gen experience. What do old people do at the moment? Watch tv. By the time this game comes out, we'll have the first generation that might have played computer games. So I'm making a massively multiplayer online social reality simulator for them. They'll be the ones with the money and the time to get really involved in this virtual digixperience.” he said, running a hand through his soft beard. I turn back to the game, shrugging. Who cares if grandma wants to play on the Atari? This game was very boring. You couldn't interact with any of the people walking around, steal cars or even jump off buildings. What was the point.
“Since you're saying this is a simulation game and only total nerds play simulator's, why do you think people would play this over say...Operation: Flashpoint?”
“The social element. You can upload a character with your face and go out into the world, meeting other people you know or people you don't. It's another platform to interact with people.”
“Why don't people just do that in real life?”
“Danger. Our new sim will allow people to be safe and explore a version of America without risking car accidents, global warming, terrorist attacks and so on. Not only that, but why does anyone use technology to talk to others? This is the ultimate in communications tech, the ultimate in games tech, social media-”
“Yeah, you said. Well, it looks good at least.”
“Thanks. Users can upload-”
“Yeah. Will there be guns in the game?”
“Real life has guns.”
“So if this is such an accurate simulation of real life, why don't I buy a gun and go around shooting people's tweets from out of their hands? Or set fire to myself on a bus?”
“Well, you could, but we think by allowing users only one account in which they have to tie their cell phones to, this would create a pro-social community. Of course there's going to be jerks, but there's also jerks in real life so you know...” says Rich, looking at the floor for the end of his sentence.
“But this is a game, it's not real. So of course people are going to be doing stuff on here that they wouldn't do in reality. That's the point, right?” I demand. He pauses for a moment.
“I don't think you understand the social media aspect of the simulation.” he said.

I turn back to the game and go to the building I arrived at earlier. This is one of the few buildings that has been modeled accurately and I admit, it looks amazing. I make my way through the main lobby, up a lift and along the corridor. I stand outside a doorway and then look behind me at the other side of the door, wondering for a moment if I were to open it would that door also open? It didn't of course. The room is empty and I walk over to the curved screen and try to start the game up. To my surprise I find another version of the game starting up just as it had done when I arrived twenty minutes ago.
“It's a little easter egg we put in there.” said Rich happily.
“You mean putting the game inside the game?”
“It's simple enough. You're still playing the game, just on a minutely smaller scale.”
“But if there is such this...nice version of the game you're hoping for, can't people then use this version of the game to fuck about in?”
“I hadn't thought of that.” he says, laughing. “Maybe we'll take it out.”
“But if it's a perfect copy of America, won't it have the game inside itself?” I said.
“Sounds like a bit like Inception to me.”
“Well it's more like an onion actually.” I said back to him. Who did this guy think he was? God? Maybe. But if he was God then I was a man, and what is a God if nobody acknowledges it's existence. Nobody would buy this piece of shit game. And if they did they probably spent all their spare time locked away in their basements, eating tinned meat and wanking. Who needed a game when there was real life waiting outside the front door? I burst into song.
“Hello little computer man.
Welcome to the real world.
There's no gigabytes or high scores.
Can you handle life?
And all of it's blackness?” I sang as loudly as I could.

When I went outside I felt more alive than I had felt for weeks. By glimpsing the potential nerd future that awaited us all it had ignited a fire in my brain. I craved rare meat. And fun. I sprinted down the road and went to buy a bottle of cheap bourbon. I cracked open the lid as soon as I stood back outside and let the sweet liquid pour in and around my mouth before wiping with a hankie. Stuffing the handkerchief into the lid of the bottle I walked back to the computer lab where the foul game was being worked on and scowled.
“Long live the old flesh!” I cried, setting fire to the top of my molotov cocktail and throwing it at a window. The hankie flopped out in midair and was left smoldering on the ground, whilst the bottle of whiskey smashed through the glass. I heard a shout from inside and ran away. This was what real life was about, the potential risk of failure.

I spent the rest of the afternoon examining L.A. by helicopter. Long Beach rested at it's lower most point, with the beach running in a shape similar to Africa all the way up to Ventura County. Santa Monica, Anaheim, Whittier, Glendale, Bel Air, Sun Valley, Hollywood, Compton. From the air you couldn't tell where places started or ended, the whole city blurring into a general zone of activity. Where were it's edges? If a section of the city was removed and placed elsewhere, how large would it have to be to still be considered Los Angeles? I yelled at the helicopter pilot to swoop down and land outside the Capitol Records Building. The building resembled a stack of dirty dishes and smelt twice as bad. I ran down the road, shouting and shouting. "Is this Los Angeles? Am I a part of Los Angeles?" but nobody replied. Maybe Rich Favelle was right. Maybe all of life should just be like a video game. I began to hop up and down and strafe people as they walked towards me. Yes, that was it. Yes! I laughed as I walked into a bar and ordered a bottle of wine fresh from the Californian vineyards and made a toast.
"Here's to the finest experience be it real, imaginary or otherwise." I cried, slamming the glass into my mouth.

The City Of Angles

A dim bulb lights everything yellow in the small room I am in. A desk, a chair, a bed, a sink. A toilet is down the corridor and buzzes with moths. Through the wall I can hear a radio play. The street is lit with street lights, shop windows, car headlights and pollution, making the time appear not to matter, an endless day in Los Angeles. I'd landed at LAX, ate some breakfast at Denny's, then went to a car rental place. I picked a mid-range engine car that appeared stocky, yet did well with fuel consumption. It was white. I drove down a few streets and onto the highway, a Holiday Inn before settling down with some wine and aspirin. The Earth is turning, revealing the sun to appear towards the rest of America. I was as far as I could go West before Asia, barring Hawaii and parts of South America, maybe Alaska.

Los Angeles is often referred to in dance songs where the names of large cities are shouted out before a funny sound is played. Being one of the biggest cities in the world, Los Angeles is one of America's interesting developments perhaps only opposing New York in wow factor. The thirty thousand square foot urban zone rests on the coast of California and is home to roughly sixty million people, including some of the most valuable celebrities that we know of. Los Angeles is often called Hollywood (or the Sparkle City) in which a good proportion of films have been made over the last century, pretty much anything you can name was released through Hollywood. Steven Spielberg shops at the local Wal-Mart rubbing shoulders with Brad Pitt, Jennifer Lopez, Kanye West and Channing Tatum. Films themselves are shot throughout the city, with large portions cordoned off as they create action set-pieces to be enhanced with computers at a later date. Car bombs, terrorist attacks, serial killers, police brutality, evil gangs and school shootings all take place amidst day-to-day life. Camera crews chase people into restaurants and nightclubs, crime scenes and production studios. Everyone you meet can't help but be in the film industry, sixty million of them constantly wear HD makeup and wear costumes daily, sometimes carrying props to and fro in the hopes that they may stumble upon the chance to be in a film! As well as being known as a city of fun it is also been known to be a city of danger. But politicians and police are working with communities to make Los Angeles a safer place for everyone.

A thick fog rolls in, making everything inky and seem unreal. I decide to walk as morning comes, everything 4:3 at 16:9. I hear cars but the road is quiet. I gratefully get into my own car and stare at the dashboard before pulling out. As I begin to get used to the pedals I am reminded of recurring dreams I have where I drive a car that often separates into several components before being reformed as a skateboard. What did this mean. Was I born to skate? I decided to check out a local skate park to find out. It was shut at first but I managed to get in before beginning to run up and down the ramps as fast as I dared. It was coming up to six and it started to get busy. Before I knew what was happening I was stuck on the freeway, honking my horn constantly. A man driving a bulldozer leaned out of his cab and shouted “Move it, jackass.” I was about to do the same before I saw they were shooting a film ahead. Tom Hanks was stumbling down the road with heavy wound makeup applied all over his body, including a missing arm. I then realised it wasn't a film, but a man who resembled the actor had been in a serious collision. The traffic eventually started moving again and I drove past the injured man, hearing the ambulances behind me. He looked at me as if to say 'Yes, I am a clone of Tom Hanks'.

Later on I sat outside a diner, drinking a coffee. I thought about why I was there. What was I doing. How did I feel and more importantly, who knew about it? I puffed out a tweet into the internet cosmos then began to sulk. Of course, I remembered why I was there. To write a ground breaking expose on Western society in the 21st century interlinked with finding myself whilst on a holiday abroad. I had an e-book planned and everything. I drank the coffee. I had some interviews planned, whacky places to visit and even a day in which I would go into the desert and pose for photographs. It seemed like a good idea. But now I was there, I hated it. I nearly cancelled the photoshoot when I received a phonecall. I answered it and listened to the silence.
“Hello?” I said. On the other end of the line I could hear animals breathing and a low buzzing sound. A door slammed shut. If I listened closely I could just make out some talking, but couldn't discern what any of the words were. The call ended. I held the phone in my hand and watched it intently, wondering if it would ring again, but it didn't. My coffee was cold. I decided to go back to my room and try to get some sleep, driving through the city, lost in it's busyness.