You Look Just Like Your Pictures (1988, sound)

for I think California is going to be a lot of fun it'll be warm and sunny I'll buy a lot of stupid souvenirs and eat weird food and take a lot of interesting photographs I'll take a journal so that I can remember later what I've seen December 26th the flight is pretty routine no sudden drop out of the sky no hijacking the inflight movie is Dragnet the movie a delicious lunch it is mid-afternoon when we land in Los Angeles it looks exactly like like I hoped it would like a cartoon weird curving buildings Wide Open Sky palm trees everywhere a funky black taxi driver I hate to say funky but that's what he was takes us to where we're staying just in front of the Hollywood Hills with Harry and CLA dad and CLA grew up together in central Manitoba Fletcher cla's brother was dad's best friend Harry and Clara seemed like nice people a bit strange really laidback Harry GRE up in Hawaii although you would never guess this by looking at him he is really into UCLA football he keeps a basket of playboys in the bathroom they take us to a Mexican restaurant near their house for dinner it's called El Coyote and is really cool dark noisy deep red Claire orders for everyone we have amazing guacamole and Mexican beer in clear bottles I'm really tired but it's been a good day December 27th mostly a lot of driving today the freeways go forever the city is huge CLA takes us to Universal Studios for the tour King Kong shakes our train and we're attacked by some freaks from Battlestar Galactica the other tourists on our train look like freaks too Claire picks us up and takes us to a place called The Sportsman's Lounge where were going to have dinner with a bunch of her relatives I was disappointed at first because I wanted to go somewhere interesting and trendy but the Sportsman's Lounge turns out to be great the matred D has silver hair and a sequin bow tie and I sit across from Gary and Greg who are twins my age they keep grinning G says he works for Kodak so I'm thinking oh one of those photo booths in a parking lot but he works in Silicon Valley as an engineer coating floppy discs with Teflon and Greg is in econ at UC Santa Barbara and is on the surfing team they tell me they'll show me a good time if I ever come back to California everybody asks me how I'm doing and how I like California so far the whole thing makes me feel good like I'm family like I've been made honorary cousin December 28th Claire drives us to Venice Beach it is covered with freaks all Camp dead in tense bikers hippies drug addicts we eat lunch further down the beach in Marina del Rey at this Captain Jack place I have a seafood cob which is a huge amount of shredded crab on some lettuce on the drive back we pass about 100 Denny's signs I want to go into a Denny's we stop at a supermarket near the house and I see my first real American grotesque a fat woman with false eyelashes and a huge double chin and eye makeup and long natural fingernails the color of sour milk I am satisfied this evening I meet Suzanne clar and Harry's daughter I went upstairs to wash my hands for dinner and when I came out of the bathroom she was standing in the hall she looks really old for her age which I guess must be about 30 she has wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and lines on her forehead and her features are pinched and sharp she's wearing typical Woodby artist clothing short black boots black tights black mini skirt and a long dingy yellow sweater for some reason this sad sympathy comes over me because I have the feeling that she can't see herself she starts to brush her hair and I think I'm making her nervous because she does it really quickly I stand around awkwardly making some polite remark like uh so you're an artist she mumbles disclaiming herself and I say something about being in school we're both glad to end it there at dinner Suzanne sits beside Claire and it's obvious that she's only eating with us as a favor to her parents because she doesn't seem to want to be with other people first we have a glass of tomato juice and then Suzanne and Claire going into the kitchen to bring out the food during dinner Suzanne hunches over her plate and CLA leans over every now and then to say something quietly to her to involve her in the conversation Claire divides her time between Suzanne and laughing at the incredible stories Harry is telling first he tells a story about picking up two 14-year-old hookers in Hollywood both of them high as Kites and driving them out to the Playboy Mansion where Mr hner himself came out and got the girls and gave Harry a big tip he tells us that Jack Ritter is his good friend because he's always getting in Harry's cab and once he drove Bill Cosby in from the airport and then when Harry was in Las Vegas Bill remembered him and they played tennis together Claire is screeching with laughter and I don't know whether this means we should believe these stories or not at that end of the table dad mom and Melanie are laughing too out of the corner of my eye I see Suzanne every now and then she looks up and smiles and then looks at the table again she's pretty quiet without any of cla's attention and no one but me seems to notice her Harry's on to talking about his childhood in Hawaii now how they could walk to school Barefoot and pick fruit off the trees on the way home how they had to get out after Pearl Pearl is his name for Pearl Harbor dad makes a link from this to his growing up in Manitoba stories so I stopped listening having heard all of them 100 times CLA knows them too or different versions of the same stories so she quiets down a little I watch Suzanne eating she eats a few beans and a few slices of potato and puts the rest of her piece of chicken on cla's plate they whisper together about it when she puts her fork down and starts playing with her hair she looks like a little girl which is a funny thing to think because earlier she looked so old I watch her closely the way she plays with her hair I notice now that the color of her hair is maroon but that it looks good she gathers a handful pulls it around the back of her neck spills it onto her shoulder and combs her fingers through the Kinks she does this over and over I like watching this I watch her lips they are thin and firm she has big hazel eyes and she lets her eyelid hang half closed I stare at her the more I look at her face the more it seems precise and perfect this makes me feel koi and self-conscious I keep buding into the conversation to say witty things that I think will impress her and get her to look up when she does she smiles weakly and I feel sort of silly after dinner mom and dad go off to see Claire's relations in the neighborhood Melanie goes to her room to read and Harry goes to the bathroom so Suzanne and I are left at the table she doesn't get up and leave which surprises me I start talking about her art she says she can't decide between photography and Commercial Art that she does a little of both but not enough to call herself an artist either way I give her my opinion on it and my opinion on things that I don't know about like business and politics and culture my voice doesn't sound funny and and I'm not afraid I might say something stupid we talk about the real world about having a job working for a wage she has a job in a candy store for the first few days she says she didn't like it she kept asking herself why am I getting chocolates for people why don't they get their own but then she calmed down a little she says and now she kind of likes designing the plates of chocolates they display in the window because that's sort of artistic and she likes weighing the chocolates I know this feeling I know exactly what she means when she says is weighing the chocolates she's leaning on her elbow talking and smiling every now and then and all this time I'm looking at her face and the lines at the corner of her mouth thinking that she is actually beautiful somehow I am here with this beautiful woman and I feel older when she talks her Smiles I watch her mouth she is beautiful I ask her questions about Los Angeles she says what I'm sure I would say she likes the city in some ways but it is is too big she is lost in it I go into great depth about my feelings about the places I have lived in this seems particularly important to say now I tell her about southern Ontario that is what she wants to do now she says she wants to go somewhere where she can feel comfortable where she doesn't have to burrow away because of the pressure there is too much going on in La for her are you thinking of coming up to Canada I say jokingly but in the back of my mind hopeful stupid thoughts are running through my head she will come to Toronto or I will stay here Harry comes in and she goes back to being his daughter but I know she's just pretending for his sake just covering up what was going on she draws back from him and when she talks she just asks questions in a small voice Harry told us that his first job in La was patrolling a Navy yard and one night he and his partner found two guys in the yard so they chased them and Harry shot one guy's foot off just left it there and his partner killed the other one my head is still spinning from talking to Suzanne so I just look at Harry and Nod when I think about her later none of it will settle in my mind are you thinking of coming up to Canada I said well she said smiling that shy smile well she said as if she might I smiled too stupid thoughts run through my head she will come with me or I will stay here I will stay with her in the middle of the city or we will go away her career will get going I can't name it but that doesn't matter it seemed real and secure January 2nd still driving we've stopped talking we get to Monteray John on Steinbeck's place Total disappointment it's all touristy and dull where the hell do you have to go to find the places you read about Canary row is just restaurants all we see in the rain is a soggy beach with a Live Bait Shack of course there is a Denny's in the center of town as we Drive North the landscape is kind of relaxing out one window smooth Brown Hills and at the other green fields that stretch out forever I can't remember what Suzanne looked like I know beautiful but I can't make this word do anything in terms of a picture every now and then there was a sign sticking up indiscriminately we passed a broken down trailer park just four or five old trailers stopped together and there was a sign on a poll that said sale sale what what's on sale what kind of sale could they be having we spend the night in a motel at the of the highway January 3rd we keep driving north bypassing San Francisco to a place called Yuba City to visit Fletcher Claire's brother he was dad's best friend once the countryside around here is all cut up into lines if you catch a plow rut in your line of vision you can see all the way down it to the bottom of the Sky rows and rows of grafted trees fan out past the Windows there was even kiwi growing this landscape is absurd I can't really remember what it felt like being excited about Suzanne I go back in my journal reading the notes and seeing it all described but nothing really happens when we get to the house a fat man opens the door he has brown spots all over his head and a ring of white hair his voice is thick with cigarette tar he looks about 20 years older than Dad dad acts like nothing is wrong there was a framed map of Manitoba and Saskatchewan in the living room it is a very good map as if he uses it on the way back to San Francisco I'm in the back seat listening to melan's Walkman and I can see the green glow of the dashboard in the dark there is no feeling more like home than the dashboard dials glowing on a long dark drive and you're slumping down in the back seat starting to feel sleepy a San Francisco radio station has a lead Zeppelin show on and I get a small Rush of nostalgia about lead Zeppelin once on a holiday up north I remember it was dark it was night and I woke up having an asthma attack M and dad were up and they weren't worried about about it I thought they wouldn't help me I think we were in a rented cabin January 4th we're staying at a Holiday Inn I hate it after we get up we all yell at each other for a while which I knew was coming and then we go downtown I can't remember what I should want to see besides that funny pyramid building or is that somewhere else there are the hills of course but I never thought they'd be so high and so hard to walk up January 5th our last day in San Francisco I debate mailing some postcards but I figure what's the point we get a taxi to rush us around all the rest to the sights we go across the Golden Gate bridge this morning in the paper it said somebody had jumped yesterday and lived as we cross I try to see down to see what 228 ft looks like I feel sort of cheated that someone jumped while I was here and it didn't actually kill them maybe if they'd done it it would have been worth sending a postcard we fly home February 11th Steve and I sit around in all night donut shop and I tell them different stories of the trip I'm trying to sort it all out a metaphor occurs to me it was like watching fence posts on the highway if you just see them go by the window they're a blur because they're moving by so fast but if you fix your vision on one and turn your head with it you can freeze it isolate it but only for a moment because you can only concentrate that hard for so long before you have to let it slip back again and leave it there because you're moving forward to some destination e