Does Representation Ruin the Experience of the Original?

So, I was laying by the pool when my phone rang and my afternoon suddenly emptied.  I decided to head on over to Melrose to see this Necromance place and to look for a birthday present for the Butcher.

I love to drive, as you know, and so it’s as if this city is made just for me, with the having to drive everywhere and all of the stuff there is to look at as you drive.

So, Necromance.  It was cool, but it was not what I thought it would be.  However, they have freeze-dried mice for $40, so if you have some mice to freeze dry, perhaps you could sell them on the internet and make some money.  Just saying.

Oh my god.  I’m sorry.  Can we take a moment just to imagine the look on Mrs. Sarcastro’s face when Sarcastro announces that he’s going to support their family by making an army of freeze-dried mice in various poses to sell to freaks and goths over the internet?

 

 

 

 

Whew, good times.

Anyway, where was I?  Yes, so I bought some coyote finger bones, which look to be a better size for tossing and reading and two tiny glass skulls.  I will give one to the Butcher if he wants it and keep the other one because it’s cute and weird as hell.

I got the Butcher a nice present at a shop a couple of doors down from Necromance, which shall remain nameless and undescribed, but I’m sure you libertarians and hippies can give it a good guess.  Anyway, I got him a very useful glass turtle.  I was so delighted by the turtle that, when turned over, can be repurposed, that I’m sure the proprietor thought I was very at home in his shop, because I laughed and laughed at that.

Then I turned on to Gower and there was the Hollywood sign.

Just up there on the hill looking right how it looks.

And at that minute, I realized that Freud was wrong.  Something can be both heimlich and unheimlich at the same time.  It was both weird as hell and perfectly ordinary.  Does that make sense?  I mean, I was both seeing it for the first time and seeing it for the billionth time at the same time.  And so I felt both ways.

And so I turned on Sunset and headed west.  I saw the Whiskey a Go-Go and the Rainbow Room and all these places I used to imagine I’d someday be bad-ass enough to hang out in when I was 13 and listening to Motley Crue and Guns and Roses.  And there they were, both just like I knew they looked and not at all like I expected.

I drove Sunset clear to… I don’t know.  Some place.  I could see the entrance to Topenga something or other on my right and Highway 1 on my left.  I went to the ocean and then turned up on 10 and came back here.

I still don’t know what to think.

Driving around these unfamiliar places that are so familiar is almost like being in a dream.  Have I been here before?  

Of course I have (not).