Bill DeMarco’s missing but his archives aren’t.

Each week (Come on.–Ed.) Losanjealous will present works formerly in progress from the coffee maven unpadded and unbowdlerized. Presented in an easy-to-read format and accompanied by Bill’s own comments (grey script).

Join us won’t you as we look inside the mind behind the man.

“Hey, Phil” says an unearthily familiar voice.

I’m stuck facing the pavement so all I can see is a brushed suede stilletto heel spike the mud in front of me. Chantal! She got my name wrong again but she was closer this time. I twiddle a couple of dials and raise the suit to its knees. She looks sensational as always in a shrink-wrapped neoprene catsuit with what I will call a keyhole boob-window cut in functionally on her cleavage. Am I glad to see her. Am I glad to see her? And isn’t suede a poor choice for this kind of weather?

“Am I glad to see you!” I say through a speaker. “How did you—“

She puts a raised finger to my hood.

“I thought you might need this.”

She unclasps an anvil case and reveals a pristine five-string fretless bass. Good Christ. The workmanship is exquisite. Lathed. Artisanal. If you could carve a cup of coffee, or froth aged cherrywood, this is what it would look like.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” I ask genuinely.
»continue reading Bill DeMarco Rates the Top 50 Starbucks in LA: This Week: #1 (concluded)

. . .then the ground rumbles. That’s L.A. for you. Then it rumbles again. Shit. Flotillas of pigeons fly off the rooftops. Even the attorneys are looking around. More rumbling. The jets in the fountain shut off. There are bad signs and there are bad signs. And I don’t mean bad as in, you’ll show me how to pick up girls if I help you pass the SAT. This feels in the lowest parts of my intestinal system just short of the sphincter, quite bad. There’s a bubbling in the middle of the fountain, seemingly independent of technological explanation. Shit shit. The bubbling spreads to the entire pool. Three shits. Most of the lawyers are rolling their boxes away.

Instantaneously, the surface of the water bows outward like a house-sized balloon. Two concentric crowns of spume puncture it from within. Layers of chlorinated water slap me to the ground. White-collar types flee in complete panic mode. A figure takes shape through all the commotion. Something colossal. It rises far above the surrounding buildings, higher than the Ahmanson across the street. I think people are screaming but it’s a notion. My eyes are blurry windshields. There’s something spreading away from the hulking mass. Arms? Oh damn. And tails. Tails? And a canopy of hair. And boobs, what???
»continue reading Bill DeMarco Rates the Top 50 Starbucks in LA: This Week: #1 (cont’d.)

#1:???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

The Fairmont coasts to a stop. I set the brake. After all these months (years—ed.) my journey has come to an end. I put seven quarters in the meter and walk solemnly up the steps to the courtyard of the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, there to meet with the #1 Starbucks in Los Angeles.

Yes. It’s a kiosk. Mea culpa. Can we get past this? Coffee isn’t about site. It isn’t about locale. Coffee is about spirit. And another thing: I don’t rate the Starbucks’s, I rank them. If I gotta explain it you then maybe you’re reading the wrong blog. Maybe I’m writing the wrong blog. Maybe all blogs are wrong. Wrong blog along, say that ten times fast. And as to the nattering question of why: I don’t choose them. They choose me. ‘Nuff said. Wrong blog along.

Positioned in the center of as cool and peaceful a cement-paved municipal plaza as you’ll find, this little shack recalls the pueblos that dotted the untamed thickets of what was to become downtown. The poblaneros might have felt not out of place here ordering a frothy macchiato after a hard day of grinding masa and bundling fajinas (”faggots”–ed.) I smile fondly to myself thinking such thoughts as I order a soy Americano and hand the cashier my credit card.
»continue reading Bill DeMarco Rates the Top 50 Starbucks in LA: This Week: #1

Casagrande’s putt went so far right of the Executive Putting Green that he might as well have kicked it.

“I think you’re getting too much cross-breeze from your Ionic Air Purifier,” I quipped.

He spoke into his wireless headset ignoring me. “I don’t know Cowboy, I’d say put a raw steak on it, see if that does anything—hold on, DeMarco’s here. I’ll call you back.” Casagrande collapsed his golf club like a telescope and dropped a few balls in a wicker basket. He sat down in his Executive Massage Chair, turned on a pair of contrasting modes, put his hands behind his head and with a self-satisfied sigh finally made eye contact.

“Before you write up the #1 Starbucks I want you to do some kind of review. To get people up to speed,” he said.

I flung my valise of notes on the ground, my passions getting the better of me.

“Okay I was out of control for a second. I’m cool. What did you have in mind?”

“I don’t know. Something original and different, but not new per se.”

“Okay,” I said attempting to redirect the locomotive heading down the cliff-face. “How about. . .’Bill DeMarco’s Haiku Review?’ I revisit each Starbucks and summarize the review in the form of a haiku.”

He was lost in thought for a second.

“But what if—“
»continue reading Bill DeMarco’s Haiku Review

#2: the Starbucks at Sunset and La Brea

Your Ladyships, make way for His Royal Twojesty, Thee Second Most Reverend Starbucks in All Yee Los Anjealous Dominion, Thee Shoppe in Thine Strippe Maull at Yee Olde Sonsett Y La Brea Blvrds, Starbucks the Penultimate, Arch-Ducke of Holywoode and Other Thynges &c.

We’re getting close. We’re getting damn close. Damn damn damn close. To the number one Starbucks in LosAnjealous. Am I on the edge? Why don’t you ask the edge, which is sweating and turning blue in the face because I’m on it. Yes I’m on the edge. Come from the edge from way back. My coat-of-arms is a coffee bean balanced on an axe. Against a Field Argent, with a Coronet Gules. Bordered by two Ducks Rampant—yes in fact it is quite an interesting coat-of-arms, see the story goes one of my ancestors had fallen in battle when Louis IX—

“I know you.”
»continue reading Bill DeMarco Rates the Top 50 Starbucks in LA: This Week: #2

#3: the Starbucks at the corner of Hawthorne and Palos Verdes Blvd.

I’m getting my bass fixed. Okay, re-fretted. I didn’t want to sound pompous. Sometime in the afternoon. The son hangs in mid lurch. I scoop the last few drizzles of salsa verde out of a corrugated pie pan. This was supposed to be ‘for here.’ A girl busses dishes. She’s 17 maybe. I think she’s trying not to look at me. But she might be just not looking at me. If her pants hung any lower you could see New Jersey. Why do they do that?

Phone rings. It’s Ken from Ken’s Basses. He’s gonna need another two hours. Something about “not quite ultimate tone”.

“Hey Bill,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“The tone is pretty good but not quite ultimate.”

I shake my head but not like an asshole.

“Make it ultimate.”

This time I do sound like an asshole. I clap shut my phone and sigh passive-aggressively. The deal is I don’t like to be away from my bass. Now what. The girl is still bussing dishes. Hunh. All I’m saying is there weren’t that many dishes in the restaurant. Definite vibes.

“Hey waitress,” I interject. “Do you know if there’s a Starbucks around here?”
»continue reading Bill DeMarco Rates the Top 50 Starbucks in LA: This Week: #3

#4: the Starbucks at the corner of San Vicente and La Brea

It’s 153°. Lightning flickers like frames of a silent movie. Elevators of thunder ascend cloud apartments.

How I missed this Starbucks baffles me. And I’m not easily baffled. Bamboozled, sure, but I’ve been to every single one around it. This Starbucks is the house on the police map that doesn’t have a thumbtack. The one equidistant from all the chalk silhouettes. The one where the murderer arranges his syringes.

Then I think, of course I missed it. It’s at the freakin’ corner of La Brea and San Vick (San Vicente for you tourists.) If this city’s streets are a game of Chutes and Ladders then you’ve just been dropped down two slides where the birthday cake got burnt and the orange cat gouged your eyes out. Spin another 3 and you’ll be raking leaves in Inglewood. I think it used to be an outpost where the pony express didn’t feel like picking up mail.

I’m working on my latest screenplay, Mexican Cheerleader (”She doesn’t belong”). I’ve written three pages. A picket fence of lightning skirts the city. This heat. My mind woozes. Am I in Miracle Mile east. . .or south Mid-City? I couldn’t even tell you. Shit’s gettin’ twisty. My mind’s is playin’ tricks on me. Then this guy walks in. Wears a cowboy hat and a combat boot, with some crazy stuff in between. Man there are homeless dudes and there are homeless dudes. And this dude is homeless. But he’s also cool. But he’s also homeless. But he’s also cool. Which is it, DeMarco, cool or homeless?

“Hey man, are you cool or are you homeless?”
»continue reading Bill DeMarco Rates the Top 50 Starbucks in LA: This Week: #4

#5: the Starbucks in the Commerce Citadel Shopping Center and Casino.

Gotta get my head straight. It’s one of those things where. . .I ordered this hat and these garage door clickers. I ordered them in March. They got here yesterday. So I’m not cheerfully disposed. I put on the hat. It says Ottawa Rough Riders so that turned out ok. But the clickers were fucked. They only had four dipswitches. I need sixteen. Not good. What am I supposed to do, use four clickers at once? Time my jumps? Break into my own parking garage? Those days are over thank you very much.

Gotta get my head straight. And find the fifth best Starbucks in LA. I get in the Fairmont and head out on the. . .5? . . .10? . . .210? What about the 56,000? Can we get a freeway with five decimal places? I think this would put California on a level no one could reach. “Yeah you wanna take the 56,000 to Santa Ana and get off at the Slauson exit.” There would be those kinds of exchanges in our salons and civic meeting places.

I’m feeling pretty positive this can happen and have basically forgotten about the clickers when this weird feeling/weather passes through where I’m driving. All of a sudden everything wasn’t quite as stucco-looking but more adobe. I think also the temperature dropped from 86 to 83. There was a definite weirdness passing through/by me/Commerce. And then I look up and see these. . .man-bulls. They have wings and beards. They top the walls of the Commerce Citadel. If Franco Harris had grown his beard out he would have looked like them. They look ominous and portentous and looming, gazing out across the horizon toward—what?

I try to shake it off but can’t. That’s when the Starbucks finds me and saves me—salves me—with a drip coffee. A big one. I think they served it in an upside-down parking cone. That’s a lot of coffee. It’s barely enough. The man-bulls plague me. Why here? The citadel sure, I get it, ancient Los Angeles had a lot of enemies back then, these outlet stores commemorate that time. But bull-men with wings??? What is that? That’s. . .ancient Babylon? I drain my 256-oz coffee and head to the casino.

Gotta get my head together. Gotta take my head apart. The room hums. Tables as far as the nearsighted can see. Like putting greens without the fairway. A lot of Vietnamese dudes not that it matters. The three twenties in my wallet ache to be rid of me. My body rides an outboard motor of caffeine. Why winged man-bulls. An answer begins to reveal itself to me. . .when I see her.

»continue reading Bill DeMarco Rates the Top 50 Starbucks in LA: This Week: #5

#6: the Starbucks at Compton and Gage.

Compton. What. Compton. What. C-C-Compton. WHAT.

I went to a Starbucks in Compton and ordered a Blackberry Green Tea Latté.

What?

I did. And you know it’s um. It’s not bad. It’s. Um. It’s got its own thing going on. You know, some people would say that if paint could throw up this drink is what it would taste like. But I’m not one of them. Unless someone paid me to say it. Or I paid someone.

At which point a discordant jangling fills the room. Is that clavier music? A bolt of something snaps the cup from my hand and impales it against the wall. That could have been me, that monstrous locust shell dripping seafoam blood. I’m thirsty.

“Coo Coo! You there! You look out of place!”

I look out of place says a guy dressed in breeches lowering his crossbow.

“I was saving you from a fate worse than whist. My name’s Geoffrey, like my toy?”
He raises his crossbow and turns it back and forth. “Where are my manners–I mean do you like me? What’s your name?”

I answer him.

“Ah the warm south. But I must say Mr. DeMarco you have a wan look for a paisano. Are you from Napoli?”

Yeah. You hit it on the nose. I’m from Napoli. Who is this guy?

“You’re not from Napoli but no matter. I must look the figure: hair in ruins, buttons unpolished, something impersonating a cravat round my throat. I’m not given to excuse-making but I had a catastrophic night at the tables and this time I really am done for. Say can I make up for my feat of daring and buy you something less mithridatic? An arrack-punch frappuccino peradventure?”

I tell him he can buy me an Americano.

“The genius of the Starbucks company is that they know their audience. Hence the Americano. You are what you eat. . .and drink.”

OK. A wise guy. But how wise. Time to rev-up Professor DeMarco’s Bullshit Detector.

“If you are from England. . .” I preface.
“Kent but who am I to quibble.”
“OK, Kent for the sake of argument. Do you play soccer?”
“I’ve bludgeoned the odd bladder.
“OK, if you really are from England. . .then. . .what’s it like?”
“Not to be borne. That’s why I prefer it here.”
He took a sip of his arrack-punch frappuccino.
“Reminds me of home.”

He’s got me on the ropes. Fuckin’ shit Demarco, say something witty.

“What’s your deal? Are you from here, are you from England, what?”

“You know, when the driver said this bus goes to Compton, I expected shire churches and wistaria. This is quite different. But not any less idyllic for all that.”

“But why are you here if you’re so English?

“To see a girl of course.”

He pointed his unloaded crossbow out the window at an idling MTA bus. There was only one person on it, a girl wearing a tiara.

“Signore, it’s been memorable. But now I take my leave. And I lied. . .whist is a gas. COO COO! You’ll never know! Ha ha ha!!!”

Just like that he breezed by me and hopped on the bus. Was he English? Maybe. Am I Italian? You make the call. My drink tasted like shit, I’ll give him that. Did he need to shoot it out of my hand? History will judge. Nice clothes. Bad attitude.

And I get the last laugh, Geoff: That’s the 202 to Carson. Good luck finding a game of whist.

#7: the Starbucks at Colorado and Eagle Rock, Eagle Rock.

Sleep. Twisted sheets. Cups.

Behind my eyes, beyond my bed, a shape takes shape.

It’s Jim Two Hawks! . . .standing on the head of a giant eagle! . . .and he’s playing the greatest guitar solo in the history of the universe!!! The tones, where to begin, a profusion of the sweetest, most yearning, triumphant, articulate, cacophonous, euphonious, supernal sparks of divinity to emanate from man or dream. He plays ever faster, dizzyingly, searingly, ironically for a bar or two, then back to searingly. My astral self flaps like a banner in the soundstorm as coronas of gold and tea-rose magnify his silhouette. Something is rising behind him. The solo scorches furiously, the melodic strands flowing ineffably toward what is sure to be a sublime coda. . . .

When I wake up. 4:23. Moonlight. I’m sweating harder than Sydney Greenstreet wearing a chinchilla coat blow-drying his hair in a humidor. What was that song? I grab my bass from the closet and gingerly pick out the notes. B flat? Yes. F. No. F#. Yes. What next what next. J? Is that a note? That’s not a note. Yes it is. Question mark? Christ. Don’t fade away don’t fade away. G flat. Now we’re talking. These fireflies scatter into darkness and I chase them with salad tongs. I need a drink. Focus DeMarco. Four notes, c’mon. E? Maybe. Nah. Try it. Yes. I pluck the fat unamplified strings. What is this song? I pluck some more. So achingly close, almost there, what is it what is it???

It’s The Pink Panther. Christ.

For reasons totally arbitrary I seek out the seventh best Starbucks in Los Angeles at Colorado and something in uh. . .I forget. When I get there they’re (their? their’re?) serving this new kind of mocha drink. It looks like a cross between a coffee and a coffee shake, leaning toward a coffee. The white beret of foam has stretch marks. Not unlike Sydney Greenstreet. This means something. Two gentlemen at the next table conduct a business deal in Spanish. One hands the other a sandwich of what look like Chester Arthur $1,500 bills. Did the Treasury get my e-mail?

Somebody sneezes. It’s Jim. I’m no longer surprised.

“Jim. I had a dream about you.”
“I’m listening.”
“You were playing guitar on the head of a giant eagle.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a saxophone?”
I thought long.
“No, it was an eagle.”

Jim nodded and sipped his coffee.

“The 134. Westbound.”

And just like that he leaves. Westbound. I don’t get it. Does Jim even play guitar? He didn’t answer my question. Didn’t I see one in his apartment? What am I talking about he lives in a condo in Highland Park. Or does he? I’m contemplating mortgage payments when something lacerates my attention. Due north. It’s a rock. . .shaped like an eagle. And? That’s it! This is Jim’s inimitable talent for visual punning! Eagle + Rock=a 1979 bootleg of the Eagles live at Three Rivers Stadium that I borrowed from him a couple months ago. He must want it back. Shit, Jim, why’n't you say so? This is all kind of I mean forgive me pretty fuckin’ passive-aggressive.

I shake my head and drive on, the beaked boulder in my rearview mirror framed by a twilight of pink and gold.

#8: the Starbucks in the Brentwood Village Court

INTRO—EXT. DAY: a CRUISE MISSILE skims the earth sinisterly toward its target. CUT TO—Control Room: SOLDIERS with head sets, faces underlit by radar screens. CUT TO—lone helmeted FIGURE standing atop HOOVER DAM swathed in black neoprene. CUT TO—data, numbers, sine waves, math. Are we looking through the eyes of the FIGURE. . .or through the eyes of the CRUISE MISSILE? CUT TO—Control Room:

GENERAL leans forward, his face underlit by radar screens. CUT TO—CRUISE MISSILE, we track it from behind closing in on dam, blue iris of thrust digitally blazes in foreground.

MISSILE draws within mere yards. FIGURE leaps into the air and in swift roundhouse motion kicks MISSILE. The warhead snaps off and hurtles tumbling flaming into lake, detonates underwater. Scalding mist abounds. Fuselage flies onward and smashes explosively into mountain side. FIGURE falls back to earth. CUT TO—Control Room. SOLDIER removes headset and looks uneasily at GENERAL.

There is MUFFLED cheering in background. CUT TO—FIGURE on top of dam standing in “iron panther”. A little the worse for wear. Looks at glove. It’s burnt-off at the tips, revealing a set of long fingernails. . .painted white.

CUT TO–Bill DeMarco sitting alone in a Starbucks.

It’s a rainy night in the Brentwood Village Court. I think this strip mall used to be a brewery. Ye Olde Brentwoode Brewerye I believe. The German settlers of West LA brought their work ethic but they also brought their traditions. That’s why you can’t walk a block in this part of town without running into a bratwurst stand. Or waltz music blaring out of pickup trucks. I turn on my cell phone. A cube revolves slowly and trisects itself. No messages.

What are you going to do? What am I going to do? Nothing. A box of PerfectSmart cards are burning a hole in my trunk and no one has the “time” to write some ockcscuknig anagrams. No anagrams, no cards. No cards, no points. No points, no dice. No dice, no anagrams. And forget about the scripts. Great scripts, a tantalizing smattering of which same above reads.

A man offers something. What is it that he offers? He offers something of himself. He offers nothing whatever. He has scripts. He says, They are of a quality. Do you wish to see the scripts? Do you wish it? A man says, Rewrite something I wrote using the same letters with which I wrote it. That is all. It is the same. It is different. A man does or does not do it. He does or does not. Bill DeMarco gives the man a draft of a screenplay called “BurgerTime.” What is a thing?

I walk outside. The rain’s stopped. Brentwood Village Court, huh. And where are the courtiers? Procuring foxes for the royal hunt no doubt. Gimme a barbican, something. I’d light a cigarette but I don’t have a lighter and I don’t smoke. At that moment something not quite flickers in the corner of my eye. It is a gossamer leaf of iceberg lettuce, borne aloft by desultory gusts. It lands on my head. Well there’s news. And then something solider, spongy brushes my ear before splatting on the wet street. It’s a hamburger bun. In Brentwood?

Wait a second.

CUT TO–Bill DeMarco runs back inside Starbucks, whips out pad of legal paper and starts writing furiously.

#9: the Starbucks at Robertson and Third

Beverly Hills. Dazzling. Where the women are women and men look like prunes brought to life by necromancers. A fella could get lost in this place. There was a legend that some rednecks came out here and struck it rich. After literally striking it rich. Literally. For propriety’s sake and legal reasons I shall refer to them as “The Larchmont Mountain-Williams.” But money didn’t mend their ways and though they were rich for a while they never took showers or stopped shooting at parking cops. Doesn’t anyone raise their eyebrows at this point? Our family here doesn’t work. And they’re fictional???

That’s the story the Networks wanted you to believe.

The reality was much darker.

They were real.

And they ate each other.

I also heard the guy who played Jeb was Eichmann’s son. Another little tid-bit you didn’t hear on the Johnny Carson. But that’s our world for you, would you like a scone with that? Christ. It’s these fickle fiascos I ponder whilst gazing out the prow-shaped storefront of the ninth best Starbucks in LA at the corner of Robertson and Third. Who was this Mr. Robertson by the way? And who Mr. Third? Excuse me, Ms. Third. Don’t want to upset the lesbians, natch. But really I mean who–

I barely reach mid-“ooo” when in walks the most unbelievable piece of ass I have ever seen. She’s about 5’10”, wears these incredible goggle-like glasses that wrap completely around her eyes, cork-soled pumps, a tattered gypsy dress, and a bunch of bracelets. She reminds me of that asshole fortune teller, but there’s a difference. This girl has mind-blowing breast implants. And. . . .she’s Asian. Let me practice my Japanese: YOWZA!

It’s love. I’ve been all over the world and’ve known a lot of women. Known in the Biblical sense. As in, Thrice the cock crows thou shalt renounce me. So I have known my women. But she’s it. I gotta find out her name. I go up to the sweetmeat display case like any normal man who’s been sitting in a coffee shop for three hours. Her hotness oozes all over me. A bracelet jangles once. I can taste my teeth. She actually is looking at pastries. That’s so hot. She wants to talk. She wants to vibe. I move within the six inch perimeter of a woman that indicates I have intoxicating confidence.

“What’s your name?” I say looking at the pastries.
“Excuse me?” answers a voice steeped in whiskey and Carlton 120’s.
“What’s your name?” I say again, slowly turning my head to lock with her obscured eyes.
She laughs.
“You got pizzazz. I’m Chantal.” She extends a slender brown hand. Her fingernails look like cream stilletoes.
“Chantal,” I repeat as I hold her hand caressingly for a fifth of a second longer than the usual.

“Yeaaaaah,” she says with a rising inflection, nodding her head.

Her glasses block all qi. Her breasts look like they’re going to pop off. Is it getting hot in here? Her Sidekick rings. That J-Lo song with the snakecharmer flute. Catchy and old. The perfect ringtone. For the perfect lady. She takes her hand from mine with a fluttering motion. She says “uh huh” into the mouthpiece. Then she says “yeah yeah yeah yeah” shuffling her feet and backing out the door, recovered coffee and device in hand. I give her one last look, one last shrug, the one that says “here I am. . .for now.” She wrinkles her nose and opens her mouth in a crazy scream/smile. The one that says “You and I both rock!”

So here’s to you, Mrs. Robertson, Starbucks loves you more than De-Mar-co. Wo wo wo.

Wo wo wo.

(The above described Starbucks is actually to be found at the corner of Robertson & Beverly. Losanjealous apologizes for any confusion–ed.)
[Once again this 'editor's note' was not written by the editor--ed.]
{Neither of these notes was written by the editor. Nor this one neither–ed.}

At first everything happens slow. Angry arms uncoil like ferns in a rain-spattered forest. Mine among them. I’m in a hallway of people who are either trying to punch me or avoid being punched by someone trying to punch me. Some of the latter are unsuccessful at not being punched and retaliate–and miss. And hit somebody else. I think this is how fission works.

Then someone clicks “8x” on the options menu and things happen choppy fast. The girl bassist screeches unholy oaths but her complaint has been lost in the heat of the melee. Here’s my foot in someone’s groin. Here’s my neck on someone’s elbow. My hand clutches a tweed lapel and I find my head peering out of the back side of a headlock, as though through a submarine porthole, at an ecology of mayhem: shoves, hair-grabs, palm chops, quadruple clutches. There are yelled petitions of near-logic (”Whatareyoudoingmanwhatareyoudoing whatareyoudoing?!?!?!”) as roundhouse punches either land on nothing or someone’s shoulder blades. Everyone is as pumped as racing tires with adrenalin but that doesn’t help accuracy. It gives me a new appreciation for biathlon.

A fresh wave of mass pushing synchronized with a well-timed taint-punch frees me from my assailant. We both tumble toward the floor but I use my momentum to stay on my feet and squeeze around a guy wearing a pea coat who must be like 7′8″. I think it’s Captain Ahab. I use him as a blast shield to escape to the auditorium whence comes more violence-minded rubberneckers. A pocket opens in the onrushing maelstrom and I stand my ground for a moment, turn back to the center of the fighting and scream in a furious falsetto “You are the Dicks of Coffee! You are the Dicks of Coffee!” turn again to the doors, duck around a security guard who looks like a wrecking ball in a windbreaker, slip with my socked foot on a totebag (natch), rack my knee against a door, and make it outside.

Twelve blocks later, somewhere at the foot of the Hollywood Hills, I reach my car. Battered, sweaty, freezing, heaving, I take stock of the damage. Widespread abrasions, scratches, torn clothing, and humiliation. In other words the ushz. A voice calls out in the darkness.

“Hey man!”
This phrase never sat well with me.
“You nailed that chick.”
I can’t assess his seriousness.
“Yeah well I was trying to hit the lead singer guy,” I say between heaves, not proud of this explanation either.
“All I’m saying is nice aim man, that girl was a fuckin’ whore”
He proffers his hand in a high-five to which I meekly acquiesce, walks on into the night toward who knows what illegally parked Volkswagen. What kind of. Ah never mind. Just never never never never mind. I reach into my pocket for my car keys. Then I reach into my other pocket. They’re both empty. And my wallet’s gone too. Nothing but a ticket stub. Casagrande’s going to hit the roof.

I collapse against my cornflower Ford Fairmont and cry laughing, snot-infused, androgynous tears.

Next week: Bill reviews the ninth best Starbucks in Los Angeles.

“You guys are fucking faggots,” I say, my trapezius muscles tightening into thick knots.

The response is immediate. “Faggotsss?” answers the lead singer with an accentuated lisp. “Did you call us faggotssss?” The girl bassist laughs. “You are a faggot,” she says to him. “Yeah you’re a big fuckin’ faggot,” says the guitar player who grabs the lead singer by his hair and French kisses him. “Get a room you fucking faggots,” says the girl bassist as she roughly pushes them. They stumble backwards but continue to make out, pawing at each other’s clothes.

Scorned! My rank provocation has become a license for whimsy. I should be defiant in the face of such insolence but Casagrande’s instructions dissolve my self-respect. And I’ve got a dental bill to pay for. “Hey guys if you could just sign a tote bag, it’d be really cool.”

“Dude, fuck off,” comes the response from the lead singer who has finished kissing his guitar player.

A cold impulse freezes my nerves. Reason halts. The same Olympian faculties that had discerned with savvy countless bags of coffee and taxonomized the flavor of same finds itself powerless to resist a reptilian twitch that drives my hand downward to cradle a weathered white loafer, slip it off my foot, and fling it with all my might at the moist sneering arrogance that slouches before me.

I miss. It hits the girl bassist right literally on the nose. She yelps as tears flash-flood her face. At this moment I have a number of sensations simultaneously, among them my shittiness, my rage, my terror, and the overwhelming one that if these fuckfaces had just signed some fucking totebags we wouldn’t be in this predicament.

Actually that I wouldn’t be in this predicament.

Then people start attacking me. . . .

If you think Bill gets his ass worked, text or e-mail “Continuation A”

If you think Bill narrowly escapes getting his ass worked, text or e-mail “Continuation B”

If you think everybody comes to their senses, makes apologies all around, and goes as a group to the theater bar and buys $9 Coronas, text or e-mail “Continuation C”

So amazingly I find myself heading to the bar and ordering a Corona. Between zero and zero I had to round up and arrived at “Ending B.” I personally think my make-up looks lousy but that’s the internet for you. Not lousy, just non-committal. Nah, lousy. Not the internet, my make-up. Wait.

I’ve distracted myself dangerously from my own androgynous boredom. Gotta get back on track. Lawyers Who Use to Be In Rock Bands take the stage. They do ‘80’s covers. The Kajagoogoo sounds relevant, Dire Straits sexy. I’m waiting for my mark. I order another Corona and doodle script ideas on a napkin: eight sexy twenty-somethings plan to have the “ultimate weekend” on a party boat when they’re attacked by a genetically engineered shark that can read minds. The shark turns them against each other, they hallucinate, don’t believe the shark exists, jump into the water, shark eats them. But there’s a twist: The military wants the shark back.

Plot complications start crowding my napkin when I realize The Cups of Coffee are already playing. I sweep my hair out of my eyes and try to listen objectively. It takes about two seconds. Casagrande, Casagrande. This is your great product tie-in? They’re not even bad. They’re just. . . everybody. Everybody is them. Same clothes, same hair, same white loafers. Chapter and worse. On the periodic table of rock clichés they are hydrogen. And they look like they’re off balance. Like they’re going to trip or fall over or slip. When did that become fashionable? I don’t get it. They’re singing this song, it goes like “drop a dime drop a dime drop a dime. . .” Two-fifths of the crowd is singing along and jumping around. They start falling over, the band, exactly as if they were off balance, or say standing on bowling pins. They play like three songs and finish. I roll up my tote bags and think of what bullshit I’m going to say.

I almost intercept them on the way backstage. It’s three guys and a girl. “Hey you guys rocked” I say loudly. No one looks at me. Plus Minus Equals roadies are setting up mikes. “Hey you guys rocked” I say loudly again. In my peripheral vision I see the whites of rolling eyes. One of the guys in the band makes a “rock and roll” hand symbol over his head without turning around. I’m pretty sure he’s being an asshole. It pains me but I need their attention, in the way you need a dog to stop biting your crotch. If I don’t get Casagrande those autographed tote bags my credibility’s shot. Think DeMarco. I get an idea. “Hey, Cups of Coffee, you guys rocked”. There are half a dozen bodies between me and them. Someone either in the band or out of it says “Awesome dude buy some CDs.” A guy and a girl laugh. This doesn’t sit well with me. I’m sitting on a pair of deuces but decide now’s the time to go all in.

“You guys are fuckin’faggots,” I say, my trapezius muscles tightening into thick knots. . . .

If you think Bill gets in a fight, text or e-mail “Continuation A”

If you think The Cups of Coffee defuse the situation with a light-hearted joke and invite Bill into their dressing room to exchange pleasantries and sign tote bags, text or e-mail “Continuation B”

If you think nothing happens and Bill orders another Corona, text or e-mail “Continuation C”

My editor calls me into his office. I’m unfazed.

“Reynaldo Casagrande, as I live and breathe.”

“That’s not my name and you have a new assignment.”

“Don’t tell me, I’m getting too close again? Too personal? Too involved?”

“Wrong. You’re not getting close enough.” He hands me a post-it. “We’ve got a great product tie-in and it involves you reviewing these bands next Wednesday night:”

Plus Minus Equals

The Cups of Coffee

Lawyers Who Used to Be in Rock Bands

“OK. What’s my angle.”

“You will see these bands at the Avalon and you will give them glowing reviews and then you will go backstage and interview The Cups of Coffee. You will tell them how much you liked their set, who are their musical influences, and will they sign some shirts and tote bags.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Are you still here?”

I don’t usually cotton to impudence but chief give running brave fine sachem so I do what the man says.

AVALON THEATER
Wednesday, January 18th
9:11 pm

I’m not old enough to be getting too old for this shit. Then it hits me. The Cups of Coffee. I get it. What better guy to interview a band called The Cups of Coffee. Casagrande you jerkoff… How tantalizingly simple-minded. Okay. Okay. I’ll play your game bigshot. I go into the bathroom and rock myself out: tear off the sleeves, cut the tie in half, turn my socks into forearm gauntlets, ring my eyes with eyeliner I steal from this guy’s purse, flip my windbreaker inside out. I am rockness. I make my way to the auditorium. . . .

If you think Bill is actually able to find The Cups and interview them,
text or e-mail “Ending A”

If you think Bill is dissatisfied with his look and goes back to the bathroom to apply New Wave-style war paint, text or e-mail “Ending C“

#10: the Starbucks at 1999 Avenue of the Stars and Constellation—Century City

I know, I know. Have you ever seen anything so arrogantly futuristic? 1999 Avenue of the Stars and Constellation. Century City, no less. Why stop there? How about Millenium Village? Why not Epochtown? I mean like is this where Captain Kirk gets his phaser latté after playing twister with a detachment of Tholian spice-harvesters? The fuck it is. Paging Martin Landau, you’re wanted in the teleporter room to mindmeld with some space hamsters. I mean get real. Such an artificial use of science-fictiony numberese often leaves me clammy.

Often. Then there was the tenth best Starbucks in Los Angeles. Imagine a medieval tavern where robots could meet and discuss the day’s news. A pile of dial-up modems crackling in the fireplace. Or imagine an aircraft carrier with cellulite. These imaginings will get you closer to what this Starbucks looks like—and yet not so close. Where to begin? Ah well, begin I have, but as the proverb goes, the journey of a thousand missteps begins with a stop at Kinko’s. If you’ve ever crossed several same-looking streets, and loped through the shadows of office buildings that look from above like the evolutions of a giant pancake in flight, and you still don’t know where the new AMC theaters are and why, then you might have missed this Starbucks by a few paces. I sure did. But a junkie knows a fix when it’s round the corner. So I ask this junkie if there’s a Starbucks nearby and he says Yeah round the corner.

I give the man 62 cents and go inside. No robots or fireplaces or fat cells, but lots of corporate types. Wait no, there’s something more sophisticated about this bunch, more, dare I say it, corporate than corporate? Yes. They’re dancers. Holiday dancers. Festively dressed holiday dancers on a coffee break. And damn they look festive, with their tuxedoes and gowns and nine layers of make-up. Or maybe they’re going to sing somewhere, wish a happy holiday and raise flutes of pH 5 champagne and appear on internet greetings.

Or maybe what, DeMarco? Maybe they’re pirates. Or spies! Maybe they’re regular people who like to wear rental tuxedoes, wear nine layers of make-up and sing Christmas carols in open-air shopping malls in West LA. Who doesn’t? And here I go, what do I know? I’m wearing a Seahawks jersey. Does that make me a Seahawk? Maybe. It doesn’t make me a dancer, and it doesn’t get the taste of this fantastic hazelnut latté out of my mouth. Christ I almost forgot what I was doing here. It’s about the coffee man, pull it together! Getting off is fine folks but getting off on a tangent can be deadly. Recap: dancers, coffee, stars and more stars, round concrete table and concentric ring of stone benches next to store wherein to drink coffee/convene characters from The Dark Crystal—check,check,check,check. Enjoy impressively brewed specialty drink not to be found outside North America—double check. Name of new drink to recommend to Starbucks company—Checkuccino. OK. We’re done. Hold the phone: OKccino!

Did I give that junkie my parking validation?

I look in my coffee and what do I see, I see double-0-5 tryin’ to piss on me. Not a great year for me folks. Lots of setbacks. A lot. My landlord gives me a cease and desist. No bass playing after five. We have a few “words.” My Christmas stocking includes a fax of a dental bill. Ho ho ho. ‘005 was full of crap like this. Made me feel like a real Persona Non Grata (trans: “Person Without Cheese”)

Anyway, I bring up all this negativity because it’s by concentrating on the negative that hope brightens things that much less faintly. You, the readers of Losanjealous, gave us a very special gift. You voted us World’s Best Gay Blog. For that we thank you. I know we had stiff competition (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha). I personally try to reach out to everyone, but if in so doing some read my writing as gay, or homoerotic, or camp, or in some way expressing a discretely different wavelength, flickering in the crease of the cocktail napkin, the spring up the escalator, or in the semaphore of books stacked too neatly at the corner of the library table (Castles of Scotland, a mylar-bound People from 1998, etc.), then I say what the hell, thank you. I mean we all have something to hide right? I don’t even like coffee. So thank you. All fifteen of you. (Just kidding. I do like coffee. . .but I have been known to drink tea ;P)

And we (?????–ed.) at Losanjealous want to reward you. I Bill DeMarco do hereby establish the Bill DeMarco PerfectSmart card. What does it do? It gives you options. Perfect. Smart. The PerfectSmart card. How do you get one? Simply find your favorite Bill DeMarco’s Los Angeles column and write an anagram of it. The whole thing. And no duplication of words from original to adaptation. (i.e. none of the entries will have the word “coffee” in them, or “the” for example) One entry might start “Llib DeMacro’s Log Asneles” for example. Easy.

What can you get with the PerfectSmart card? Access. Access to a world of options. I write a lot. A lot of great stuff. Most of what I write is treatments and screenplays. Collect PerfectSmart points and you can win and read Bill DeMarco treatments and screenplays before anyone else does. . .and see what everybody’s talking about!

Here are some thumbnails of what I’m working on. Some network, some cable, some just in a frame above a urinal. I don’t discriminate. Neither should you (yeah I can see how I do sound gay, that was totally natural for me). Interested? You should be. You know where you are. You know what you’re doing. Time to live a little. Can you say hungry? Bill DeMarco can. Here’s what you can look forward to:

500 Points:

To Protect and Serve–Officer Sam Martinez must balance being a cop and a sexy lady. Episodic.

Habeas Corpus–lawyers use forensic science to win cases. Episodic.

Lips Together, Teeth Apart–picks up where characters in play left off. Episodic.

300 Points:

Packed to the McGills–Mike McGill has 138 adopted kids and one big problem: he’s single. Episodic.

Texting Stacey–teenage prodigy Stacey Martinez navigates the stormy worlds of high school and online dating. Episodic.

100 Points:

Here Goes Nothing–TBA. Episodic.

Double Dribble–retired basketball star raises twins. Episodic. (not my most inspired work–DeM.)

Present Company Excepted–five sarcastic roommates cope with each other and the suicide of a friend. Episodic.

Never Mind!–two hot music execs use forensic science to sign bands. Episodic.

50 Points:

Off The Deep End–programming for children. Instructional.

Gay Cops: Gay cops. Episodic.

These are just a few of the rare birds to be found in my zoo of hits. And there are oh so many more of those where those came from. And just as well written, with just as much buzz. Sneak a peak before. . .it’s. . .uh. . .um. . .

As you can see it pays to read Bill DeMarco. Welcome to the first year of the rest of your life.

Nappy Yew Hear Form Lonsajeulaos.cmo!!!

#11: the Starbucks at Pico and Robertson

Faithful readers. I write you from the abyss. Correct. Pico and Robertson. A sensational Starbucks with an arcing window gleams on the intersection like the smile of an oil baron. Everyone is vivid today. It looks as if scissors had cut people from the sidewalk. These machines streak the streets and strange wheels twist the arms of the people inside. I bought a magazine called Life that had an article on jazz.

I know I sound high but I assure you it’s the goldenrod aura of this coffee, found at the 11th best Starbucks in LA, found at the junction of said streets. I sip again. A quadrille of xanthines gambols in my mouth accompanied by a manic trio (Miles, Brubeck, Neil Peart). Caffeine canters in my gut as the switchboard of my nervous system lights up like Menorahs. So impressed am I by this brew, the nuancing of acid and oil, the encounter-group back-and-forth of aromatics, I master my nascent shyness and approach the barista to ask him what the secret is.

“Cedric, what accounts for the spectacular flavor of the coffee at this Starbucks?”
Cedric pushed his hat back and looked down thoughtfully, careful to choose his words. “Imagine the field of all possible coffee flavor emanating across two-dimensional space, one axis representing ‘taste’ and the other ‘satisfaction,’” he said.

“The Z-axis being coffee,” I interject in an attempt to clarify.

“Exactly. So imagine a coffee bean traversing this matrix. When the flavor achieves critical intensity, the taste-satisfaction continuum warps to such a degree that the coffee bean is sucked in. . .”

“. . .emerging on the other side as a Mocha Valencia,” I say completing his line of logic.

“Precisely. In years past this effect was thought to be due to variances in the propagation of taste-waves through a hypothetical substance called flavonium.”

“Which was proven in the early 70’s not to exist,” I interject again, helpfully, albeit pedantically, somewhat hastily, but not at all impertinently.

Cedric shaped his hand into a gun and made a ‘click’ noise in the back of his mouth.

“All right Cedric, you got it,” I say emptying another bag of Equal in my to-go cup. I looked cool on the outside but a million questions raced through my mind. Was he giving me the blow-off? The existence of flavonium has never been disproven. That was a red herring with non-fat whip. And what do you mean “the flavor”? Which flavor? Bad science. Any barista worth his smock wouldn’t try to peddle that on dexadrine addicts. He was hiding something. And I intend to find out what. Probably. Great coffee. . .but secretiveness, shitty parking and high rankings do not mix.

Next Week: Bill DeMarco sneaks into the Top 10