JULY 13, 2025 // YOU DESERVE A REAL RELATIONSHIP

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Yesterday I woke up early and Ramona was still asleep. I thought she looked funny so I took her picture. I always have the Star Wars pillow and she gets the pillow I got from that hippy company where the sheets always look dirty. I’m serious.

While I was procrastinating a bit I had a phone call with my friend Erica who is also my producer because I was threatening her with a black mail operation if she did not watch the motion picture “Peanut Butter Falcon” by July 15. She asked me what I was going to do today and I told her. She was annoyed when I said I was going to make all the electric cords in my studio be perfectly zip tied and orderly. I could tell she was annoyed because when that came up in the list I was reciting to her she said “That’s a big day” in that voice women of a certain generation use to put certain information into a jar set aside for that which they find to be mildly disapprovable. I find this funny and curious, and it did not bother me because she told me she was going to take her child to look at a frog pond, which, admittedly, is better than making a work of art out of electricity cables due to whatever spectrum I am on.

I did have a big day. I took a little bit of Acid my friend Jaime mailed me from France a long time ago. I did a little bit of Morning Yoga and writing. I took Ramona for a long run eastward up Balboa street, and then North over to Lands End. Then we ran the trail high above the bay toward the ocean and cut across the golf course to head over the hill and back home. Ramona picked the route, including the short cut through the golf course, which she likes doing for some reason.

When we got home I made her breakfast and then I talked to Sleepy Todd on the phone for a little over an hour. First we talked about a music project he’s working on. Then I gave him some lectures about computer archiving skills. Then I asked him how to sing properly and he said to imitate the singers you like and what sounds come out when you sing is none of your business. I said when I try to sing the high notes that Paul McCartney does it ruins the whole song and would be anti-social to do in public but he said he doubted that. I also told him a good story about my friend Dan Bray because of a joke Todd made when I told him I was good at composing rag time piano music.

After talking to Todd I retrieved a box of CDs people have given me over the years that is stored in the garage. I decided to listen to one that was given to me by someone named Corrina Jones. This would have been a long time ago, so I’m not sure if this is correct but I think she was a really pretty young lady from England who had a zine. She dressed in old rock and roll clothes you buy in one of those stores that sells lamps that don’t work and ugly dishes. She was really good at picking out the clothes and taking pictures of herself in them. Again, I can’t remember how I “know” this because I’ve never met her. Did people have internet profiles that long ago? Somehow my friend Chris Arnold knew who she was and suggested I mail her a DVD of a movie project we did together which I apparently did do because she wrote me back and sent this CD.

The letter she wrote back said this:

Dear Michael,

Thank you so, so much for sending the story DVD. I haven’t been near a DVD player get with it, but I will find one soon, and delight in it. If it’s suitable, could I maybe do - little special on it in may fanzine. ‘You deserve A Real Relationship’? I hope you like the music and the book.

Best,
Corrina
xx

Now that I have transcribed this letter I wonder what that book was! I’m overly good at holding on to books but I’m not sure which one it was. There is another reason to stop watching McNulty over and over again and to read the books I have. I imagine it is a book about music but I don’t know. I listened to the CD she sent while perfectly zip tying all the electric cords underneath my recording station, and screwing down the power strips in a perfect line, so that what was once an eye sore became a work of art.

The music was what I suppose is called “Indie Rock?” Or it was called that. I think one of the songs was by a band that was a side project of someone that was in a band called Galaxy 500 or 5000, one of those bands my friend Ben Sherwyn somehow automatically knew about because it occupied the niche distanced far enough away from too many people knowing about it. There were guitars that were slightly out of tune and the singing was off hand and influenced by people who listened to old country music and also knew how to buy clothes properly from the broken lamps store. The guys were sad and talking about the false promise of love in the knowing, non sanctimonious way that is attractive to artistic young women. There was a song sung by a woman near the end that was a gothic electronica song that was good. The whole CD was good.

I hope I wrote you back Corrina and thanked you. I hope I find your book. If not, somebody send her my regards and ask her if she remembers. After I finished all the work for the day, took Ramona for a run, swam in the ocean, cleaned up, and made dinner, I did not read books. Ramona and I ate strawberries and watched McNulty again.

I did, once in bed, read a couple pages of the Hagukare. It was a good part that maybe is famous where the guy says if you are good at your job you can keep doing it after they cut off your head. After that I watched a bit more of McNulty where the annoying dock worker kid with a good hairstyle goes to jail for shooting the Greek organized crime appliance store owner who was mean to him. McNulty was trying to solve the source of a Greek text message by using GPS coordinates on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay when I turned off the program and fell soundly asleep.

JOURNAL

JOURNAL

JULY 13, 2025 // YOU DESERVE A REAL RELATIONSHIP