play it again sam.

yesterday i went down to buzz coffee. it's just around the corner from my house and it is my favorite. especially when the sun is just about to dip beneath the city. it rests on the corner of beverly and stanley, both of which i have an aunt and an uncle named, ha. being on this corner provides for some very interesting people watching. just across the street is a jewish temple. across from that, a natural health food store. across from that, a post office and a park. most times when i come here i bring my macbook, to write. i bring my ipod, to get my heart full of beauty. and sometimes i'll bring my sketch book, to pass the time. these things, along with a perfect cup of coffee, make my world completely perfect. but sometimes when i come here, i bring nothing but a pack of cloves and a camera. a pack of cloves, to feel like i'm doing something, but mostly just to look awesome. a camera, because everything is beautiful. yesterday i just came with a pack of cloves. i got my cup of coffee, found a great table in the sun against the wall and let the night unfold. the thing is, what happens when i do this, when i just let things unfold, is that i am forced to face what has been unfolding all along... my own thoughts. my heart. the state of my effed up life. myself. and i pay attention to every little thing around me. well, i was paying attention to all of these things when an old jewish man pulled a chair up to my table and sat down.

'well hello,' i said, and smiled. he smiled back.

i can't leave. i have nothing in front of me, its just me, my coffee, and this clove. and now this old man. this is great. i'm going to wait this one out. i'm always secretly hoping that when i come to buzz i'll meet the most interesting person alive and leave having heard the most fantastic stories ever told. tell me a story old man. your weathered face and long grey beard already are.

'are you from LA?'

here we go. from that point on, i sat with sam, his name was sam, and for the next hour listened to him tell me stories of all his travels around the world. he was born in isreal and from the age of 17 had left home, a home in which was broken and marked with sickness, and begun to travel the world. now, in his old age, he had been almost everywhere. everywhere but australia. i asked him what his favorite place he'd ever been was and he said he loved belgium. but he had also just come from south africa and said that it was beautiful. before too long, in the midst of his story telling, he reached inside of his coat pocket and pulled out a little bag. 'do you smoke?' from there, he proceeded to roll a homemade joint, right outside the coffee shop, and then began to tell me about all the places he'd been that had good weed. i suppose i was a bit surprised by this. not only that, but he'd spent three days in a foreign prison in belgium for being caught with weed. he almost got in bad with the fbi in '85. he told me about what he called 'the miracle'; a time when he was being stopped in the jfk airport and about to be busted for having weed in his suitcase, when he suddenly saw an old jewish friend from LA that he hadn't seen in years. he said they looked at each other from across the room and the airport security somehow let him pass through. i am still trying to piece that one together.. and in my inability to do so, have to agree with sam that it was indeed, nothing short of a plain miracle.

how did i get here? this man's life is so freaking interesting i could explode. and here i am, sitting with him in LA somehow becoming a part of it all. life unfolds alright. right in front of my face, if only i'd stop and watch it every once and a while. something tells me i'll never see sam again. and if i'd had my camera, i surely would have taken his photo. but there are just some things in life, some people, and some moments, that i see now are only supposed to be lived. and nothing more.

and the point is, to live everything. and my heart explodes.

on another note, and on the same note entirely, i dreamt last night that my heart was literally about to explode. i could feel it getting bigger and bigger, more and more to the point of bursting, and no one could help me. i drug myself to a hospital it hurt so bad, barely able to breathe, and when i got there the doctor said, 'well, we could put a tube through your chest to deflate your heart a bit, but it won't help. it's only a matter of time before it explodes.' thanks. i'll just walk around with this excruciating pain then, knowing that at any moment my heart will burst into a million pieces. and this is just what i did. throughout the rest of my entire dream, i continued living out the days and nights events with a heart that was about to explode. everyone around me knew this about me, and because of it, made me live in a huge rv/tour bus, away from the rest of them. why they thought this would help, i have no idea. but there was a sadness around them, knowing that i was living with such pain. i was just annoyed that i was stuck in this rv. but they also looked at me like i had something they didn't, like they were almost jealous that my heart was going to explode and that nothing could be done about it. they were all closely watching me, while keeping their distance. i spent my days alone for the most part in my rv, occasionally going out to sit with other people that had heart problems. but their problems were all being helped. one guy was hooked up to a machine that kept his heart going. another had a tube helping him breathe. they knew they would keep on living even though they couldn't do anything but sit there and be kept alive. and so there i sat, my pain hiding but i was free to keep on living. i never died in my dream. and my heart never did explode. but i woke up feeling like it had...