Lonely London Lad: Six Hours In The Life of LLL
One of the most frequently-asked questions that I get asked frequently is: "What is your typical day like?" Well, my typical day is too long and full of interesting tidbits and gossip to detail here, but what I have done is give a minute-by-minute account of a typical night (last night), from midnight to 6 A.M. Here 'tis, in Dada style:
12:00 AM
My pet rooster, Dylan, starts cock-a-diddle-dow'ing five hours too early. I go down to the pen to see what's wrong. He's wide awake. I tell him to go back to roost, tell him that his internal clock is way off. I catch myself speaking to a rooster, and scan the perimeter for paparazzi. If they had caught that on film, my "career" would be over. Headline: "Lonely London Lad Converses With Chicken". Of course it was a rooster, not a chicken, but the press always gets the details wrong. And I wasn't conversing, that would have been two-way; I was merely speaking to the cock unilaterally.
12:15
A groupie rings my doorbell. I open the door and she says, "I'm a groupie." I said, "I know, I started this paragraph with that fact. Are you looking for Lonely London Lad?" It turns out she was a groupie for another indie band (who aren't indie at all since they are signed to a major label), but the Indie Groupie Guidebook has factual inaccuracies -- again. I found out last month that some of my groupies had been showing up on other band's doorsteps. I won't even go into the groupie confusion for the indie groups "Deer Tick", "Deer Hoof", and "Antlers". Word on the street is that they do a lot of groupie swapping, and nobody seems to notice, as the band members all have beards. After suddenly realizing the point of a beard, I invite her in, call a friend, and get the right address for her. She was very polite, and says she'll check us out on MySpace and will consider being a groupie for me, too, if she likes the music enough. She didn't say she would buy a CD, but she said she would definitely sleep with the entire band if she dug the music.
12:17
It dawns upon me why CD sales are declining in the music industry, while incidence of venereal disease is on the rise.
12:35
A song idea pops into my head. I take a hammer and chisel and engrave it into my stone floor, so I won't forget it in the morning.
12:42
The organic unsweetened sun-dried mango I ate 4 hours ago is coming up. I taste sulphur. Either the chap in the food coop bagged it after a hasty visit to the restroom (Scribbled under the warning "Employees must wash hands" is the question, "Whose hands?"); or the mango was sun-dried under a nest of cormorants.
12:55
A jet flies too low over my house, nearly clipping its wings on my palm tree.
12:57
The phone rings. It's John Travolta, laughing like Jack Nicholson doing an impression of James Cameron doing an impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was his jet, and he was just buzzing me for fun. Note that I never met John Travolta, and don't understand why he was doing this to a complete stranger. Maybe he is a fan.
1:15
I get off the phone with my agent, who is in bed with a woman who was not his wife. But he wasn't married, so that was okay. He thought we should leverage the Travolta thing to my advantage. Maybe get a restraining order against him, that he couldn't fly within 1000 vertical feet over my house. The press would love that. Though they would probably get it wrong, and say I was Hugh Grant (another supposedly "Lonely London Lad"). I tell him we can speak more about it in the morning, and that he could resume cheating on the wife he didn't have.
1:30
My grandfather clock rings 10 times. I call my agent back to ask him to remind me in the morning to call the grandfather clock repair service. He hangs up on me without saying a word; all I hear is heavy breathing in the background. I decide to get another agent, and call Billy in England to ask him to remind me to get another agent. I figured that he would be awake, but he wasn't, and hangs up on me as well. I resolve to get another band mate, but can't think of who to call to remind me to do that.
1:32
I have forgotten what it was I needed to remember to do. I decide to sleep. I take off all my clothes, and don a pair of wellies, which I always sleep with. It started as an affectation, but I've grown accustomed to them, and it's a great way to feel lonely and English at the same time.
3:10
Billy calls me back. He asks me what it was I wanted him to remind me to do. But I've forgotten. We hang up on good terms.
3:12
I can't sleep because I'm angry that he woke me; and I'm angrier because I didn't realize he had woken me until after I had hung up, so didn't have the satisfaction of being angry on the phone. The mango is still bothering me, but it won't be coming up.
3:50
I "fall" asleep. I didn't fall at all, actually, as I was lying down already. I simply resumed sleeping.
4:38
The phone rings. A crazed female fan. She wants to braid flowers in my hair while I sing "Buffalo Jump" to her, in the Mojave desert. I ask where she got my number, and she says "John Travolta". I tell her I'm sleeping. "No you're not," she says, "you're talking to me." I ask her if she has bought my album. She says she is broke, but plans to when she is able to scrape some money together. I ask her if she has bought an art shirt, and she says no but would love to get one for free LOL (she actually said "LOL", she didn't laugh out loud at all). I ask to be taken off her celebrity call list, and hang up on her.
4:58
I fall back to sleep. This time I did actually "fall", as I was standing by the bed when I succumbed to sleep's infinitely sweet heaviness.
5:00
My pet rooster, Dylan, obviously heeding my earlier advice, begins crowing again. Resigned to a white night, I get up and dress for a run.
5:25
As I'm jogging down the beach, I see John Travolta jogging toward me.
5:26
He runs past me without recognizing me. I stop and call after him, "Did you buzz my house last night with your jet?" He just keeps on running. I run after him. From behind, I say, "Did you give a crazed female fan my phone number?" Still running, he gestures with his hand and two bodyguards suddenly appear out of the morning mist. One of them tackles me.
5:28
The three gentlemen apologize profusely. They didn't recognize me without my fancy English jackets. Annoyed and sore, I ask them who jogs in fancy English jackets. "Hugh Grant", Travolta says. I then ask him again if he had buzzed my house with his jet. He admits that he did buzz a house, but he was sure it was Hugh Grant's, not mine. He then admits that, to him, all Englishmen look alike. I tell him I'm American. He says he's American too. We don't know what else to say. One of the bodyguards suddenly remembers that I sent him a friend request on MySpace. "Thanks for the add," he says. "You're welcome," I said. He continues: "I checked out your music, by the way. It's interesting and different, but I like it." I ask, "Isn't interesting and different better than uninteresting and generic?" We have an awkward silence, and all four of us stare out to sea.
5:36
After several minutes of this, Travolta mutters, "The sea has no clock. It's like timeless. In the sea, there is no sound." That reminds me about my grandfather clock, and I ask them if they know any good grandfather clock repairmen. Travolta smiles and gives me a number, says this is the only guy he would ever trust with his clocks. We say goodbye, and each run off in a separate direction. It was like something in a Fellini movie, and I felt like Marcello Mastrantonioni.
5:57
I phone the number Travolta gave me for the clock repairman. A groggy voice answers with a distinct English accent. "Grandfather clock repair person?" I ask. He replies, "No, this is Hugh Grant, who the hell is this?" I thought a moment, said "John Travolta," and hung up.
6:00
I realize that Hugh Grant probably has caller ID. Shortly thereafter, I vomit.
