Yesterday’s Troubles

(Note: Meant to post this yesterday but decided to sleep on it, due to the complexity and personal stuff. So the ‘last night’ and  ‘yesterday’ references are a day off.)

A record number of wake ups last night. Didn’t count ‘em but between a dozen and a score sounds right. Went right back to sleep each time, no problem, but my final one about ten minutes ago was more confused and more frazzled than I can recall (and I’ve had some bad ones). Could’ve gone back to sleep again but decided (re the f-ing dreams), ‘Enough of that shit. Life is less distressing back here, in the rig with Gus.’

Yesterday was the problem: several related issues piled up and likely commingled in my subconscious attempt at deciphering their meaning; my dreams were squirmy, ugly, utterly useless, with no entertainment value whatsoever (Eli Roth movies come to mind).

Yesterday ‘began’ innocently enough, with a comment that came in for moderation. It was in response to my disgust about ‘the RV women’ who tuned me out when I mentioned the ‘unnaturalness’ of the wildfires scorching the countryside all around us. I scanned it (only to see if it was obvious spam) and approved, figuring to actually read it later, on the blog itself (which makes a difference). Something nagged though, so I went right to the blog page to read it. Since it’s public and on this site already, here it is:

‘In a way I kind of get where those women are coming from. This world is a scary place if you consider how the ptb are orchestrating absolutely everything. I guess instinctively they have to survive mentally as best they can, even if they have tiny grain of suspicion, I dunno. That’s really upsetting to me that they would destroy beautiful land like that with those fires, I must admit that’s not something I considered. I lay awake at night wondering wtf I’m supposed to think or do about ANYTHING anymore.. Gosh I appreciate thinking ppl like you that open my eyes & mind.. but today I’m just shuttin off & playin in my garden. Gotta do what I gotta do..’

Quickly, to the commenter, ‘Josie’: Yours was a ‘high quality’ comment. It’s honest, illuminating, and as to-the-point as it could be. Not a word wasted. That it ‘nagged’ me is completely my problem. Please don’t hesitate to comment again, when you’re so moved.

I’ll try to explain myself… (And yes, please, ‘play in your garden’s, everyone! Get off the damn Net and go outside. Take time to forget all this crapola you read here and elsewhere!)

Without thinking I immediately replied to Josie, ‘What about tomorrow?’ Although I could have deleted it, almost did, I left it up. It’s dumbass. Josie, I strongly suspect, is a kind and generous person in real life (as opposed to blog-life) and was merely saying, ‘Those women are just trying to get through the day, like the rest of us.’ Bingo!… but… but…

My lack of patience with the RV women and even with sweet Josie is a result of my life-experiences. That much I know. (Those who’ve read CYGAWA know what I mean, maybe better than you care to know.) And yesterday a part of that life experience that I wished to forget surfaced and through its ‘revelation of the method’ bit me on the ass. A matter of minutes after writing the words ‘What about tomorrow?’ I got an email, the sender of which I never expected to hear from. Nor wanted to.

This needs some backstory but I think the tale will bring us around to the subject most of you come here for: HTWRW from one older and ‘wiser’ (sarcasm) guy’s perspective. (How The World Really Works! And yes, acronyms are out of hand, especially on the Net.) So bear with me. I do know where this is going and if I don’t fuck up…

Back in the early 1990s at Montauk I made a new friend, a surf buddy, which was unusual. I knew pretty much everyone ‘worth knowing’ on the East End. This friendship sort of slipped up on me and by the time I left on my In Search of Captain Zero journey, this guy, call him ‘J,’ and I were very close. (Close enough that he’s mentioned in the book.)

By the early 2000s Zero was a success, I had money from the movie deals (Banditos too), and had moved to Costa Rica. Meanwhile J had had a rough patch and asked to borrow $5,000. He was behind on his mortgage and I was glad to help out.

Addendum: One of my problems is that I don’t think about money in terms of ‘what it means,’ never have, maybe partly because I’ve never worked for it by the hour; plus, back in my smuggling days I’d sometimes weigh it to save time (U.S. currency weighs exactly a gram per bill); the continual sight of suitcases of the stuff tends to skew perspective. Anyway, there’s that also, as an issue in my backstory.

J’s rough patch bothered me so I suggested he come down to Pavones for a surf trip; I had a rental right on the break (Joachim’s house, come to think of it) and was building my house. I would spring for the plane ticket and expenses. (I was visiting Montauk for a couple summer months each year, but living down south.) Hey, speaking of money: What’s it for if you can’t treat a buddy who needs cheering up?

As his trip down south neared I emailed J asking that he bring down a bumper pool table for my new house. Seemed like no big thing; the box would be about 3 x 4 feet by 6 or 8 inches (the tables are way smaller than those of pool). He emailed back that he’d ‘Try.’ Given the loan and the surf trip, I replied, ‘Please just do it.’ (Why I would want a bumper pool table in the jungle is a separate issue!)

This, apparently, was my ‘mistake.’ His next email read, simply, FUCK YOU!

I now understand what was going on, although J himself might not have known, not at that time, and especially not now: For work reasons he wasn’t going to be able to make the trip anyway, so this was his first move in not repaying the loan. As I’ve since learned from my correspondences with alt media figures who have something to conceal, outrage is the best defense against the ‘grim shadow’ referred to in one of the epigraphs I use in Zero:

…for it is my belief that no man ever understands his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.’ Joseph Conrad, from Lord Jim.

Anyway, discouraged at the apparent loss of a friend, I eventually emailed, ‘What about the money?’ No reply.

Okay. The next summer I spent surfing at Ditch Plains, Montauk, everyone’s favorite surf break. J decided to surf East Hampton, where he lived, all that summer. Never once showed up at Montauk. The idea of calling him or visiting him up the Island just never occurred to me. As I say, money is not a concern of mine. (On the other hand, I carried his cashed $5,000 check in my wallet.)

A year goes by and that next August I’m back again at Montauk. J is back, too, surfing there several times a week, as he used to. The first time I run into him he’s all smiles and howareya’s and so forth. When I get around to ‘What about the money?’ the reply is, ‘What money?’

Not only did I never loan him any money or ever offer a plane ticket to Costa Rica to cheer him up, but he was genuinely outraged that I would accuse him of… of not being ‘a stand up guy’ — a personal label J was fond of. (Using even his first name doesn’t feel right, by the way, possibly because I view him as sort of an archetype, a symbol, rather than a person.)

Reminding him of the story, the details, I relay here only increased the outrage. He in fact seemed ready to duke it out. Listen: At the risk of repeating myself, if anyone ever deigns to quote my sorry ass as an epigraph or some such that sums up what I’ve learned in this life, this might work, from CYGAWA: ‘Lie about someone and they’ll get mad. Tell the truth and they’ll get outraged.’

The last words I heard from my old friend J, and up until yesterday ever expected to hear, in this life anyway, was as I drove out of the lot at Ditch Plains that day, and yes, they echo his last written words: ‘FUCK YOU!’

Imagine my surprise in getting an email from him yesterday, the drift of which was that he has some vital information about one of President Donald Trump’s associates and wants to… I dunno… be a whistleblower or something. He attached a document he’d written to some judge detailing his ‘knowledge’ of ‘the case.’

It was a chore plowing through the thing, which I did mostly out of morbid curiosity. In clear subtext, though, J was asking for my advice and counsel on the matter, given my interest in world affairs, presumably. But what caught my eye was at the end of the document when a bit of J’s ‘philosophy of life’ seeped in. It was especially illuminating to read about his ‘moral compass,’ how it is aligned, as his motive for ‘coming forth.’

I’ll now present… evidence (in legal-speak) that my old chum was ‘speaking the truth’ upon our reunion that day at the beach when he in effect accused me of making all this up. ‘Speaking the truth’ meaning his outrage was genuine (which was also obvious in facing him). He was not lying.

So: To those of you who figure J is just a sleazeball rip-off whose integrity can be had (bought or rented) for $5,000, I submit the fact that J subscribed to this blog in 2014 and has been given a ‘5 star’ rating by my provider, ChimpMail, meaning J reads virtually every post.

What’s my point?

If you were a sleazeball rip-off who’d stolen $5,000 from an old friend who was trying to help you when you were in need (let alone the surf trip), would you want to be constantly reminded of your behavior by reading his traveling memoirs?

In case you’re not getting it: The year he avoided me by surfing elsewhere is key to J’s state of mind. Likewise with the several years between the FUCK YOU! on the beach and yesterday, when he emailed me as if all was well between us. Remember my interview video with my other Montauk friend, Walter (which I linked to last time)? Remember how it took him a few days to… to what?

To reconstruct reality more to his liking.

With J it took a year, but with the same basic result. He got to keep the $5,000 and remain ‘a stand up guy.’ Read this again, please, because truer words have never been uttered:

No man ever understands his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge.

Time as the artful dodge. And again, this was why in my last post I dubbed the RV women ‘insightful.’ Why waste a few days (in Walter’s case, to doublethink 9/11) or, god forbid, the years it took J to go from FUCK YOU! to asking for my advice and counsel, one ‘stand up guy’ to another?

Do you see why I might’ve taken sweet Josie’s forbearance and forgiveness toward the RVers to heart and over-reacted? Have you seen Water Time? (While I’m thinking about it: I sure as hell hope Josie doesn’t comment ‘I can see where J is coming from…’)

My point being: How, at bottom, are the RVers different from J?

No, that is different, you might be thinking: “The RV women weren’t trying to rip you off, Allan! They were just trying to ‘get through the day’!”

My reply: Haven’t you been paying attention? J didn’t rip me off. His… ‘history’ merely differed from mine. Sound familiar?

‘But the RV women weren’t hurting anyone!’

J didn’t hurt me any more than the RV women. Do you really think someone could hurt me by stealing my money? And anyway, that I didn’t see the theft coming was my doing; my lack of insight. Did I mention that while I was gone on the Zero adventure J collected my mail and paid a few (very few) bills, then, when I returned flat broke charged me $1,000 for his time? Or did I mention that J is a lawyer? Come to think of it, he used to brag that his biggest thrill was getting off a guilty client. (I’d forgotten about that.) Or how he’d brag (rather than confess) about his successes in cheating on his wife? To the point where I had to tell him to shut up?

No, regarding my lost $5k, shame on me!

But never mind J and Walter and the RV women and the gang from Water Time (and all they represent) and even sweet Josie, for this all gets much worse: What’s really bothering me — and yes it came up yesterday — goes back, way back, to 1986, and it involves my relationship with the guy who created the TV show called ’24,’ Joel Surnow is his name, and whom I recently read is worth some $80 million.

Both coming off our writing for ‘Miami Vice,’ Joel and I huddled up for a couple days at my house in Montauk in ’86, planning our showbiz futures, and what’s really on my mind is how he became he and I became I.

My great fear, maybe deep down my greatest fear, is that with just a bit of a twist of fate, of H-wood history, I might’ve become what he is. Let me think about it for a day or two, see if I can explain…

Allan

A final note to ‘J’ (and to those who have already realized that he, as a loyal subscriber, surely will read this, may be doing so at this very moment): Having slept on the above, Joe (today I can write your name without getting the creeps), I invite you to take advantage of the comment section to tell your side of the story, your version of history. That, or apologize for the two FUCK YOU!s, plus, to prove your moral compass is in proper alignment, an offer to repay the money you still owe me. (I’ll give it to charity.)

And by the fucking way: If you’re even thinking that I have no right to blab in public about your personal crapola, keep in mind that you started this with your insulting fucking email. In other words: FUCK YOU!