Brawling David Bowie

The one thing I make sure to wear when getting on a plane is my St. Christopher necklace. No, neither superstitious nor a believer over here. Just taking certain rituals serious. Even if that damn thing gives me a slight rash every single time I put it on. I got it ten years ago at ZJ Boarding House in Santa Monica. It constantly reminds me of S. who used to comment on it all the time. I miss him. A lot. The big brother I never had. We his 'german family'. It's been more than five years since he passed away and I am still in utter disbelief somehow. LA is not the same without him, without the gang.

Glorious nights spend on the porch of his tiny bungalow, beer and cigarettes... just hanging out, getting drunk, talking the night away while counting the cars passing by Ocean Park library. Surf Liqour just across the street in case you ran out of booze. Well, usually Jaeger since, I gotta be honest here right now, too many american beers just taste like shit. Blame it on my spoiled sense of taste due to being raised in a country with a neverending variety of excellent beer.

It will never cease to amaze me how ridiculous buying beer (or any alcohol for that matter) in the US is. Brown paper bags? Really? Best idea ever, I get it. And no one will ever figure out what's inside those paper bags. Cause, you know, everyone who comes out of a liqour store carries one. And they look so completely unobtrusively, it's amazing. People will totally fall for that. Just like the black shopping bags you get at sex shops. Who would've thought? I get it, it's the law. The Law, capital L. Ridiculous? Naaaw. You musn't drink alcohol in public, but the second you get behind the railing of Rick's Tavern, which is right on the sidewalk of Main, you can enjoy one drink after the other? Law, go home, you're drunk! Maybe it's just my stubborn European point of view, but I think I can expect the freedom to have a beer wherever the hell I like in a land that calls itself the Land of the Free. On the other hand, who am I to judge?

I honestly can't remember how many of my international friends I got to meet for the first time on that old and battered couch in S. apartment. From the UK, from all over the States. Mingling on the sofa, while he was playing the grand piano that took up approximately one third of his living room, being his distracted self, only to laugh once in a while on a joke his little brother C. cracked. The dogs at our feet, even the slightly mad one. We went down to the beach around 2am, to 'chase the ocean' as C. put it. It was stupid and cold and beautiful all at the same time, lying in the sand, watching the stars, singing awful trash 80s songs for no good reason except to live up to our expectations of a perfect night. It surely was. April 27, 2004. All-night. Completely overtired. Hung over. No regrets. Nearly one year later we sorta relived that night celebrating S. 35^th birthday. For one more time we all hung out together in that tiny apartment of his. Last year I set foot on California soil for the first time since his death in 2009 and it felt so damn surreal to walk the streets, to spend Sunday morning on a blanket at Farmer's Market knowing that he wouldn't just walk around the corner sporting his out-of-bed-look (that actually was nothing more but a too-lazy-to-get-ready-out-of bed-look), being all flirty yet absolutely comfortable at the same time. 

So much has changed. 

I still got the Jaegermeister bottle we emptied during 'the infamous night'. And as much as that stupid little worn necklace it's a piece of no value for anyone but me. Something worth treasuring with my life.