Imperial Bedrooms: Brett Easton Ellis

Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.  - Frank Lloyd Wright 

Imperial Bedrooms is the follow up to Brett Easton Ellis's book, Less than Zero. The book picks up with the lives of the teenagers of Los Angeles, Hollywood, and now finds these same kids in their teetering middle age. What does it mean to get old in Los Angeles a mythic space where youth is rewarded and age is not!? The book looks at how the puppeteers, the writers, the producers, the directors can at times manipulate others as if they are puppets on strings.
The city appears at one time a garden of paradise, at another time a hallway in the hell hotel. The city lives on the word "Yet!" the mirage of it all. The city lives on fear of the finality of living in a fragile place. The city knows it could fall into the pacific if there is a large enough earthquake. Imperial Bedrooms explores the conflicting pictures of Los Angeles and the Southern California Dream. The book disturbed me, because it hits on the tragic film strips that run the city, and keeps it a place of dreams. The final note from the author is: "All of the pictures are fake." Page 162

Note: for those in love with the Brett Easton Ellis books of the eighties;  it would be more rewarding to read "The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan" or Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

Kareuac on Food and San Francisco

San Francisco is a food hunter’s paradise; even the United Wing of the San Francisco Airport has a plethora of delights.    Jessica (my wife) and I had so many choices for lunch, there was Clam Chowder in San Francisco Sour Dough Bread Bowls, Japanese Bento lunches, mission style burritos, good micro-brews, and probably a lot more; I was unable to see it all because my senses were overwhelmed.    

Jack Kerouac wrote of the bounty of food in San Francisco:

From on the Road by Jack Kerouac (Part Two - Chapter Ten)

In the window I smelled all the food of San Francisco.   There were seafood places out there where the buns were hot, and the baskets were good enough to eat too; where the menus themselves were soft with foody esculence as though dipped in hot broths roasted dry and good enough to eat too.  Just show me the bluefish spangle on a seafood menu, and I'd eat it; let me smell the butter and lobster claws.  There were places where hamburgers sizzled on grills and the coffee was only a nickel.  And oh, that pan fried chow mein flavored air that blew into my room from Chinatown, vying with the spaghetti sauces of North Beach, the soft-shell crab of Fisherman's Wharf- nay, the ribs of Fillmore turning on spits! Throw in the Market street chili beans, red-hot, and french-fried potatoes of the Embarcadero wino night, and steamed clams from Sausalito across the bay, and that's ah-dream of San Francisco.  Add fog, hunger making, raw fog, and the throb of neons in the soft night, the clack of high heeled beauties, white doves in a Chinese grocery window.

Eric El Camion Hates Imperial Bedrooms by Brett Easton Ellis

Imperial Bedrooms

By Bret Easton Ellis

(Knopf, Hardcover, 9780307266101, 192pp.)

Publication Date: June 15, 2010

Categories: Literary

Eric El Camino has hated me for loving Brett Easton Ellis novels. His feelings were a flame of burning desire. His rage burned like a bonfire set by an eddy on the beach.   He would put a chock hold on me and hang me in my locker, because he was the authority on what was good literature.  He was only thirteen but he knew better than all the other kids, and he was willing to use violence to prove it.


I consider Brett Easton Ellis one of the best writers of all time. He is one of my guilty pleasures.  There was a time when his books, even American Psycho, shaped how I interpreted the times I was part of. Ellis books are always dark, but inside that dark is a flickering light that gives hope, a promise of future glory. They are a true reinterpretation of the American Dream. Something happened to the American Dream between 1997 and 2010 (tragedy at Columbine, the twin Towers, space shuttles exploding on a return flight, the dot boom fiasco, the BP Oil Spill) taking the alluring world of Ellis and twisting it into a knot. An unyielding knot holding hope and joy locked into an affair with disillusion.


Today, I listened to the album that coincides with Ellis's new novel Imperial Bedrooms and think,

"Wow, I can't wait to read his new novel!"


I also think I will download the soundtrack and raise a toast to my innocence.

Thomas Hart Benton An American Original

(Kansas City)  I recall enjoying the brisk September air, and that flap jacks were sitting heavy in my stomach.  I had just eaten at a local greasy spoon.  I was enamored with all of the big pretty white suburban houses.   Then, I chanced upon the former residence of Thomas Hart Benton.   I had no idea who he was.  I decided to go and visit and find out!   I am glad I did.  His studio was left just as if he had gone out for an errand, downtown.  Coffee cans held paintbrushes.  His studio was a  place where work had been done, not necessarily orderly and clean. A place reserved for creative expression.  Thomas Hart Benton embodied the Western Landscape just like the buffalo did long ago.

 Thomas Hart Benton
on the model for Susana: 
"that delightful hillbilly girl (a true Ozark product gone wrong) who became the model for "Susannah" - My boy- what a skin what a blood pulsing skin - just enough yellow in the belly to make the tits look pink - we don't find models like that anymore."
on his art 
"We were different in our temperaments and many of our ideas, be we were alike in that we were all in revolt against the unhappy effects which the Armory Show of 1913 had had on American painting.  We objected to the new Parisian aesthetics which was more and more turning art away from the living world of active men and women into an academic world of empty patterns."

Simpson Marc, Sally Mills and Jennifer Saville The American Canvas Paintings from the Collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1989), 218.

To the West-Side: Hole N" the Wall Utah

Driving down Highway 191 towards Moab, past Bluff, past Blanding, past Monticello lies an incredible piece of Americana.  The place is as american as Apple Pie Ala Mode and Fried Squirrel.

Your so close to Moab Utah (your final destination) that you might say, "Honey lets keep going." And saying this would be a mistake.  You would pass by an Americana Art Piece.  An art piece that shows the wit and heart of America,  the place is the former home of Albert and Gladys Christensen.

Albert and Gladys were determined to make the most of being settlers in an out-of-the-way- type of place. Albert desired to create a Sand Stone Palace for Gladys. Scrapping out the Sand stone mountainside, patiently he made a home.He painted the Sermon on the Mount above his abode and carved out a tribute to F.D.R.. He worked so patiently that before it was finished Albert died (1957).   Gladys loved Albert with a devotion, and carried the passion forward until she died in 1974.

Its off the map! But hey why not stop by and see what this Hole N the Rock really is.

Link to: Hole N" the Rock Utah

Mayfair by the Lake: Haikus

Dad and I hike up

through dewy laid state park, 

gray slug crawls on moss.

                        - Gregorio Roth

Up way too early, 

have to put up the Artwork,

I need coffee now!

                 - Jessica Baylor Rothbard 

These Haiku were written by my wife and I, the morning of Mayfair by the Lake. The influence for Gregorio Roth's poem is a recollection of a hike my dad and I took at Ecola State Park, Oregon.   It was a rainy day and we witnessed a Slug slurping up a leaf; it was amazing to see something so slow, yet progressing steadily consuming a whole leaf.    I hope you enjoyed them.
Mayfair by the Lake

Due Southwest: Acceptance of Love

It's not what we do, nor how we love, it is the acceptance of love. Lauren Smith January 17, 2010
The call of joyful love starts when the Chinook wind chips away at the glacier, flowing down into a chilling crystalline trickle.  The trickle flows down the mountain slope.  It grows in strength and become a stream.  The stream flows into a park where  ducks float atop.  A little red head little purple clad German born three year old, came to the park to the feed the ducks.  He feeds bread crumbs to the stream.  The ducks gobble the crumbs up in loving appreciation.

Zombies Attack Charlies in Denver

And they attacked Denver arising out of the dusty earth. They came into Charlies bringing their bloodied teeth to a gun fight, they laughed a laugh so mean and cruel it felt like a Zephyr blowing hard against the prairie mounded earth collected at Rocky Flats. The Cold wind was a chill I never forget.

Going Westside: Space Needle

West Coast-California Basketball

a. lakers fast break makers
kinds of the court shake and bake all takers
back to back is a bad ass fact a claim that remains in tact
m-a-g-i-c see you on the court
buck has come to play his way and his way is to thwart
m-a-g-i-c magic of the buck
other teams pray for dreams
but he don't give a [fuck]
penetrating the lane like a bullet train
comes the magic blood a telepathic brain
knucklehead suckers better duck
when the buck comes through like a truck
scott stops pops and drops it in
on his way back gets a little skin
from the hand of a man named a. c. green
slam so hard break your t.v. screen
worthy's hot with his tomahawk
take it to the hole make your mamma talk
i hate to burst your bubble but triple double trouble
is coming to your town and he's going to make rubble
l. a. lakers fast break makers
kings of the court shake and bake all takers
back to back is a bad ass fact a claim that remains in tact
lakers are the team that i watch on the telly
cause they got more moves
that a bowl full of jelly
the buck stops here - pops - then cheers
a roar through the forum
that deafens my ears
the one and only know if his kind
sits in a throne
not for the records that he holds
but for being bald and bold
kareem abdul jabbar
all time great super super star
i hate to burst your bubble but triple double trouble
is coming to your town and he's going to make rubble
does anybody want some magic johnson
l. a. lakers fast break makers
kings of the court shake and bake all takers
back to back is a bad ass fact a claim that remains in tact

To the Westside

Check out my mom's sight for pictures of Colorado. She does a wonderful job on her blog. Her watercolors are magnificent. She honors the beauty of the front range and the Colorado region. Go Mom!

Saturday: Westside

Traveling the Western Highway

Route 66

When my friend John Moon, and I were traveling one time the lyrics to this song helped us plan our route. You never know when pop culture will aide you in discovery. Sometimes you might end in a farmers field but hey that's only in Flagstaff.

Well if you ever plan to motor west
Just take my way that's the highway that's the best
Get your kicks on Route 66
Well it winds from Chicago to L.A.
More than 2000 miles all the way
Get your kicks on Route 66
Well goes from St. Louie down to Missouri
Oklahoma City looks oh so pretty
You'll see Amarillo and Gallup, New Mexico
Flagstaff, Arizona don't forget Winona
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino
Would you get hip to this kindly tip
And go take that California trip
Get your kicks on Route 66
Well goes from St. Louie down to Missouri
Oklahoma city looks oh so pretty
You'll see Amarillo and Gallup, New Mexico
Flagstaff, Arizona don't forget Winona
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino
Would you get hip to this kindly tip
And go take that California trip
Get your kicks on Route 66