I was awakened by my friend's girl giving me the keys to their place. He had picked me up in Vernon and we drove out to his parent's home. We had some dinner and a couple of beers, drove his dad's new Mustang convertible around and then, after a margarita and some guitar playing at his brother's house, drove back to his apartment in Koreatown... my old L.A. neighborhood. I called another friend I hadn't seen since my last visit and ran over to his place for a bit. We got some beers and cigarettes, smoked some grass and sat out on the fire escape for a couple of hours, talking shit and looking across the horizon towards Century City. I left his place a little before 2 a.m. and passed a couple of hoods keeping vigil over some candles where their homie had died the night before. The streets felt cold and evil. I didn't have enough money or plastic on me, so I had to run back to my buddies place and grab some to make it to the stores before they stopped selling alcohol. I made it and got a 12-pack, a bottle of Clos du Bois and 2 lotto tickets. His girl was still up, so I sat on the couch having a beer and then he came in. We stayed up most of the night talking. August 29: Charlie Parker's birthday and Katrina has hit New Orleans. I'm supposed to meet some friends for drinks in Beverly Hills. The apartment is hot and I haven't had a binge in a while, so I crack open a beer... then another. After a few, it's time to shower and hit the street to meet my pickup. I've finished about half of the wine already and it dawns on me that I'm drunk. My cell phone hasn't been working and it turns out I've been missing text messages for the last hour. I almost missed my ride, falling down drunk and trying to get across Wilshire to meet him. Ugh. My tolerance no longer exists. I hook-up with him and he seems semi-pissed, though he's usually capable of hiding such things from me. I'm a bit too drunk to care and he's been meditating, so it's incidental. He has to run some errands and I'm at his mercy. We go to one of the big electronic stores for him to get a new computer. I'm doing my best to be present, but end up going on a quest to find a Charlie Parker CD to listen to in honor. I'm wearing my Bird T-shirt and am way beyond celebrating. I finally find it with some store help and make my way to a counter. There are all these ladies standing around and I ask them if they've been helped. They tell me they've been waiting and I start to instigate them... they start to get mad and talk shit to the counter people, so I run off in search of my friend. It's a big store and I find myself at the front counter, asking about him... suddenly he comes up to me with all the stuff he's purchased on a dolly. The guy at the counter I was talking to is all saying: "I hope you found everything and hope you don't have to come back." I had been telling the guy how much money my friend had spent and how lousy the service has been... I get over to the bar in Beverly Hills and someone is waiting there for me. He's only been there for about 15 minutes and I stumble in and order a beer. He has brought me some cd's as gifts... some live Metallica, Marley and the new Willie Nelson. I'm having an impossible time talking... my voice ravaged from the recording and my mind wasted from the drink. My L.A. saviouress comes in and the 3 of us sit there, while I get worse off. The early evening quickly digresses and I end up being a burden... he has to go and she's stuck with me, trying to find me a way out of her hair... after too long and making her angry, my ride shows up and I pass out in the passenger seat... until later and it's dark and I'm sitting in a parked car with his dog. I have to pee and can't figure out how to open the car door, so I crawl out the window, fall onto the sidewalk and stumble behind some bushes to relieve myself. I wake up several hours later in a dark apartment on the floor, with the dog...