Garret Night/warehouse party

   Despite all my ministrations to myself about not drinking anymore, I go to an after party with some of the guys I work with. We miss the actual show because of work - a UKF dubstep artist playing at one of the "Corporate EDM" venues on Hollywood Boulevard - but we make it to the afters. It's held at a pseudo-underground club that became popular after the pandemic despite it being nothing more that a narrow dance floor with a shitty bar attached. "Rep. Uh. Sah. Doe." I enunciate to the bartender who looks at me with buggy, but somehow sexy, blue eyes. She cocks her head at me. It is loud enough in here that I can give her the benefit of the doubt, but I wonder at the same time if she is dumb enough to go home with one of my coworkers later. I point at the bottle. "The Casamigos Repasado," I say in a loud voice, and then, to help her out, I say, "Tequila?" "Ohhhh, the brown one!" She laughs and grabs the bottle. She gives me a healthy pour. "It's aged," I say, hoping to enlighten her somehow, and she looks at me flabbergasted. Who'd've thunk? I tip her thirty percent anyway, not because she's hot, but because I'm a bartender and it's a tough job. She, however, thinks I want her, and I can feel her eyes along my neck and jawline as I turn away. 

  I lean against the bar and scan the dance floor. My coworkers are talking to a chubby girl wearing too much eye makeup. She looks like the type that would Facetune herself into your Dream Goth Girl (tm) on Instagram but in person, in her too-new fishnets and poorly pushed-up cleavage, tops out as maybe a six. I'm critical of others in the same way that I am critical of myself. I'll be nicer to Goth Girl, too, because she'll never know what I think of her but I have no qualms about sharing to myself what I really think every night. I'll rip myself to shreds. Besides, it's not like I can't think good thoughts about her. I could imagine her being a good, reliable friend. Maybe she paints her baby sister's nails or does her hair before school. Fuck, maybe she's into volunteering. I don't know. I also do know these things about myself: I know that I don't have friends to care about, or family, or the energy to do something other than things for myself. I'm frustrated. I walk over to them and ask my coworker for a cigarette. He is reluctant, even though I drove and I paid for parking, and I remember why I hate people in the first place. 

  The stage is separated by thin metal railing, a rope, or a lime colored wristband depending on who you are or who you know. I see a commotion backstage and from the alley behind the club enters the UKF Dubstep artist who was supposed to play earlier. He was already older when he got famous around 2012, but he's aged poorly in the last few years. I'd met him a few years ago in Florida. I'd been dating a girl who'd booked artists for a club in Ft. Lauderdale. She had been much more connected than me, but I was good-enough-looking, had a Mustang that looked expensive, and wrote enough coverage of random events to seem like a catch. I wasn't myself at the time, but I didn't know enough about myself to know I was pretending to be something I wasn't anyway. In the end, she cheated on me with a DJ who had gauges and face tattoos. I got myself checked for Herpes and moved on with my life. Thanks to her, though, my name and face became connected to that club and I knew and met a lot of people from that scene. I recognize one of the guys in the DJ's entourage. Last I heard, he'd been managing a few artists back in Orlando. One of his artists took off after ghost-producing half of Leon Herrara's latest album. I've never heard anyone talk shit about him and I'm not surprised to see him in LA. His name is Damien. 

  I say nothing and turn back to my coworkers. Goth Girl is telling them about lucid dreaming which she says takes lots and lots of practice. "Or sleep paralysis." I butt in, "I've managed to do it after I've had sleep paralysis. I always try to go to space." She looks impressed and I continue in an animated manner in case anyone is watching. I turn my three-quarters profile towards the stage. "Sometimes it would work and I'd float up into the cosmos," I say, "But half the time I'd just get stuck on my ceiling like a balloon." They laugh and think I'm kidding, although I'm not, that really used to happen. I laugh along with them and glance at the stage. I catch Damien's eye and he sees me. Recognition flashes across his face. I pretend to listen to my friends conversation until I hear Damien say "Get the fuck out of here!" We look at each other and make the same throat-y "Yoooo!" at each other. We clasp hands and pull each other into a bro-hug and slap each others backs. "Damien," I point at him, and then gesture to everyone else who say their names. He won't remember. "Hey, are you covering this?" He asks. "What are you doing? Come back stage." I excuse myself by holding up a finger to my coworkers who don't care what I do, and follow him backstage. He isn't made to show a wristband and, since I'm with him, neither am I. 

  "Are you managing Flux?" I ask him. "Nah, he's just the homie. I'm supposed to be at Ubbi Dubbi right now." He doesn't expand on why. He probably assumes everyone has been keeping up with his career. "Are you still doing the writing thing?" He asks, not ashamed he hasn't been keeping up with mine. "Not for music," I say and think to myself, not for anything. But for a while I've had an idea for a TV show and just to make it seem like I didn't come to LA just to wait tables, I lie. "No money in it," I say, knowing he'd understand that, "I'm working on a project for myself right now. I want to write a sitcom about the behind-the-scenes of the music industry. Kind of like Entourage- meets- Bojack Horseman -meets- It's Always Sunny." I expand on how I want it to be irreverent but dark. I think it should explore the addiction and mental illness in the industry that people don't really see until it's too late. Damien is giving me his full attention. "That sounds sick. People can totally connect with that. I actually know some people in production who might want to hear about it." He name drops some people from a famous studio that I haven't heard of, but I nod along like I have. He gets serious. "I've always respected you for writing dude, your shit was pretty funny. We should get together some time. I've got a ton of stories from working in the industry." I can tell he means it. Maybe he wants another avenue to increase his chances of getting famous. Maybe he wants to attach himself to something that might make him more money. But he believes it can happen, I can see that, too. That's the thing about LA. People will tell you all the time about projects their working on and there's no point in being cynical about it because it's just as likely they'll make it as you. Trying, out here, is at least respected. You might think something sounds dumb, you might think someone is a full-of-shit talentless hack, but it's way cooler to try than to not try. That's why people come to LA. I spend the rest of the night mingling and listening to Damien tell me stories he thinks will work for the show. I jot down random bits on my phone. I drink way more tequila than is healthy. I wake up on my couch the next morning with annoyed texts from my coworkers saying "they'll just Uber" and for me to "have fun". I scroll through my notes section which is full of cryptic phrases. One of them reads "go to AA for more content?" Despite my hangover, it makes me laugh.