To be honest, Mani’s Fairfax is less for me a series of distinct memories than a smear of reflections of night windows, of driving through little Addis Ababa and its smotheringly potent coffees, dinners with classmates, walking up the road from Mani’s to the Thai restaurant with the purple glow and the iridescent paintings and warm curries, of arriving and parking on the cross street in the residential area across from the big blank convalescent home where you could see into upper rooms with hospital curtains attached to the ceilings and droning teevees running in the night playing the empty pans and scans of the city’s machinations, Thos. used to joke about comatose people being robbed as we walked by, we could almost hear their groans, or, more grimly, molested or impregnated, and those windows up high are still the closest I get to thinking regularly about Mani’s as I think about writing stories set in old folks homes with demented codgers turning back into drooling infants and dying of Viagra overdoses, of deciding not to continue my infatuation with the carrot raisin cupcakes that spackled my guts many a night in santa monica and choosing to transition into the chocolate dipped cookies so as not to dilute my habits at the other location, praying that they would soon make a vegan chocolate raspberry fortress, hearing that Danny Aiello had been spotted here but never seeing anyone of much consequence, and on my last visit, the only one in daylight, telling an acquaintance about some writing plans only to be accused of having boring ideas. I decided to stick with my plan and reveled in the fact that I might alienate those who found my writing pompous, aimless, or pointless.

It is clear that several years later I have little to transport me back into a seat at Mani’s, but, if I am ever to find myself in LA again, I would step there in a heartbeat to start over.

gray kiser has told me about a curious phenomenon he has noticed in mexico. apparently every single place of business has a single step at its front door, no ramps, no warnings, no mercy! being somewhat of an architecture buff i found it very interesting but could not recall noticing it during my brief visit but thought it fit in pretty well with the sort of chaos tempered against old-world charm. perhaps it was a remnant from the days before storm sewers or from people swabbing their stoops, or perhaps it was the little touch that gave you the feeling of ‘entry’ into the place. whatever the root, it awakens a sort of nostalgia for simpler, less litigious and more human times. these days anywhere that has been able to preserve a walkable downtown of the mayberry ilk, no matter how theatrical and spurious, gives me the license to feel a little bit comfortable walking slower than my typical restless-leg-syndrome pace.

the calm of the town radiated out into the surrounding residential streets with some strolling cats. the most evocative feature of the town was certainly its resident haunted house. its attic windows knocked out, the perfect sky was visible through the shadowy split grey boards of the sagging mansard roof. an high fence surrounded the building, presumably to pen in the tide of the sun-bleached bones of children pouring from the ground floor windows. There was a shallow grave dug in the yard, no shitting. it was brilliantly sun lit, all day magic hour, and the kind of contrast that makes the dawn scene in ‘texas chainsaw massacre’ so rich, eerie yet idyllic.

what of the coffeehouse? i didnt rush there obviously. i let the redolent town do the work for it. although a commendable bastion against a surprisingly chainfree downtown, stepping into the roastery was a bit of a shock. the place was clearly the domain of the regular. in a tourist fueled downtown the regular must flex his status to avoid the embarrassment of being lumped in with the likes of me. nearly every table was full of idle regulars at 8am on a friday and the decor could best be described as tgi friday’s for the latte set with haphazardly placed signs like ‘beware of pickpockets and loose women’ but a fairly consistent furniture palette. it was not corporately orchestrated but it was a rough transition from the quietness of the street.

and then it was my turn at the tail end of the long line. the barista was an australian man who was clearly wired and clearly could not restrain his need to let you know he was wired. as i approached he crooned “nights in white satin.” not the whole song, just those four words. then i placed my order. he might have said “oi” and punched me in the face with a can of foster’s but his mania was overwhelmingly good natured. i am not a prick-fuck, but positive can be a fault, and i found myself overwhelmed both by the insistent community of the regulars and the counter shaking enthusiasm of the barista. certainly there must be a happy middle ground between the barista who makes you feel as clueless as an american in paris (satellite in west philadelphia) and this guy doing backflips while my soy milk steamed. i guess i have encountered those pleasant folks, they just dont stand out, as i would rather not do myself. so i receded toward the back, presumably handicap accessible, door as the barista sent me off singing “that was just a dream, i saw you there” which i believe was ‘losing my religion’ with same caffeinated improvisation. i took my drink into the alley.

I am filled with preconceived notions and unfulfillable expectations. It is no place’s fault that they fall short. Certainly every place is loved by someone just like every person, no matter how objectionable I might find them, usually seems to stir themselves up a mate. I like things that many people would find uninteresting. One of my favourite parts of Mexico City was the piles of garbage and the guy selling cellophane tape on a towel by the Zocalo. Some people love Starbucks and some people love shopping for CDs. I went to the Mission district to buy records and be breezily caffeinated in a gentle coffee shop. After tearfully leaving Aquarius Records empty handed with the kind of embarrassment a kid has making an uninformed off-color boast to an older crowd and being shut down, I tasted the air in search of some blackjo and did not have to go far to hail Ritual. Although not the breezy and oddly light-filled tomb of afternoon hot beverages that is Dr Bombays or Chapterhouse, it redeemed the BART trip for me with its concept.

Lord I miss the California sunlight. The city was completely washed out. The little revolutionary flag hanging over Ritual hopped lopingly like things do in the afternoon. But lord I do not miss idle Californians. Dipping out of the crystalline sunlight I was immediately confront with the eyes of 50 Thursday mid-afternoon idlers in ironic sweatpants or head-to-toe denim get-ups. Whereas the guy in Aquarius could barely deign to look up from the counter at me after enjoying the feting of the ‘experimental music’ shopper who desperately hoped that someone in the store recalled the ‘magazine’ he used to publish, I now had 100 glazzies besotting me. I focused on the quickly moving line I was in and everything settled back into the din. Completely soured by Aquarius I prepared to treat the barista like shit to avenge what I saw as the injustice against me by the Mission district but instead found an earnest and quite enjoyable personality behind the counter. Being the last in the diminished line I bantered a bit about the size of their ‘small’ coffee and my insistence on maintaining my order even after seeing it. Satisfied for the afternoon with 15 seconds of conversation I surveilled the rest of the cavernous shop in the glow of laptop after laptop and took my little cup out to the sidewalk.

I was back in California in the sun. I saw a tortie in the window of a decrepit storefront of a ruinous shop sleeping with its back pressed against the glass and a woman chuckled at me as I took a picture of her (the cat). I drank my bitter brew and chewed more grounds than the last cowboy to the chuck wagon and plotted to ‘spitefully’ order the Daktaris record I was looking for from Aquarius when I got home to the worthless sunlight of Georgia.

it was not the time to be roving the streets of some distant city. sometimes the distance from home helps you feel alienated enough to make assumptions about who you are, who you want to be, how you want to be seen. this is not the case in a motel room, one as tiny as if it were in an upstairs veronese pensione, with one window looking into a ventilation courtyard and a bathroom that you step up into. this is not the case surrounded by associates in intermittent pockets of the city. perhaps over a boule taken in the embarcadero plaza, or poking through the metreon, one can begin to see how others are seeing you, come to terms with how everyone has been seeing you your whole life, and figure out how right they are. there are places in cities where you are so acutely aware of your contribution to the social fabric, even when you are silent and grave. the coffeehouse is one of these places. you fill the role of the silent and grave member of society no matter how accurate that is or how separate you strive to be. i tried sitting at a table on the street, i tried sitting at a table in the window, i used the restroom and drank my beverage and through no fault of the quotidian corner shop i was in flight. i wanted to lounge comfortably in cup-a-joe and address myself to the city, be that quotidian coffeeshop patron, disappear into the city as i talk about doing so much. instead i ran across the city from coffeeshop to park to coffeeshop slugging down soy lattes and loaves of bread, keeping myself in flight, and exhausting myself until the time i could go home.

no one was looking, but the idea that i had to construct myself as a human being before the city could consume me was too much. so i wouldnt let it find me, not in cup-a-joe, not in union square, because i was already gone again. i was so unsure of who i was in that city that i couldnt bear to let its inhabitants see me turning translucent, a walking diuretic with a fistful of batard.