Friday On Friday - "Carmageddon"

Tonight, when mothers sing lullabies to babies and the children of a simpler time long for days gone by, not even a pale horse will ride the 405 over the Sepulveda Pass. Just as a prophecy foretold of a time when life as we knew it would cease, during a time that will be known as... Carmageddon.

According to the LA Weekly, this short stretch of road between the Santa Monica and Ventura freeways plays travel host to upwards of 281,000 vehicles a day. And, beginning with scheduled on-ramp closures at 7 pm, followed by off-ramp closures at 10, the heart of the busiest road in the United States will be ripped, still beating, from the chest of the West Coast’s largest city like faster than Mola Ram in the Temple of Doom.

On a wacky, coincidental note, for the Getty Museum, located right in the middle of the closure zone, and destination for 1.2 million visitors annually, July 15–17 is the busiest weekend of the year. Or at least it was... until Carmageddon.

And of course, with the freeway closure, comes the unavoidable ancillary surface street gridlock and alternate route spill-over to other freeways, expected to extend as far north and east and south as 30 miles.

But hey, this isn’t just a news article, it’s a celebration of the precursor to the next great moment on the apocalyptic calendar... 2012. It also serves as a reminder of other attempts by Hollywood (right in the heart of the newly drawn thirty-mile-zone that is Carmageddon) to scare the living crap out of the rest of the world with other lame attempts at the End of the World genre.

And as a member of the working Transportation community, I will be at work beginning precisely at the time that the first of the closures takes place. And for those of you who want to know exactly what is taking place at ground zero of Carmageddon, you can all follow my special Friday night tweets in real-time from LAX at twitter.com/FridayOnFriday. And who knows, as a public service, maybe my tweets will serve an even greater purpose than this article... at least it should.

So remember... this weekend, if you live in Los Angeles, and you’re reading this article before it’s too late, get your MREs and your Netflix Online and hunker in bunker till 5 o’clock Monday morning. Unless the city planners were wrong about all this, and the Sunset Blvd demolition takes a few months longer than previously thought.

In which case, “... a prophecy foretold of a time when life as we knew it would cease, during a time that will be known as... Carmageddon.”

[a special thank you to Broowaha columnist Shari Alyse for the idea of the video clip used in this article]

Friday On Friday - "Unlicensed... Poetic"

The bloody awful poet is back.

LOVE overcomes the changes we make

The wrongs that we do

And the chances we take

The wind and the rain and the hearts that we break

In the silence... of our voices.

HATE underscores the hits that we take

The fights that we lose

And the faith we forsake

The grey rolling fog through the souls that we take

In the silence... of our choices.

HOPE overrides the lines that we fake

The people we use

And then leave in our wake

The good that we don’t and the bad that we do

In the silence...

Copyright © 2011 Bill Friday

Friday On Friday - "Toleration Day"

“I’m a mess... a great big, contradictory pile of shit and bones. I don’t want to be loved. At best, I just want to be tolerated.”

Unnamed character in the unpublished story, “Day Sleeper”, by Bill Friday

Sarcasm: A sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain. A mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual.

Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary


I’ve gotten a lot of feedback lately on my recent progress as a writer. All positive, which is funny, because when I began this literary adventure five years ago, a few glaring differences between the me that was... and the me that is today... are obvious. And while I could waste your time and mine on all the tiny details of why reading me today is better than reading me in 2007, the most apparent difference is summed up in this,

Now... I’m cool.

Ask anyone, “Who’s cool around here?” Chances are, your answer will be, “That Friday guy. He’s cool.” So now you’re probably wondering, “How can I be considered ‘cool like Friday’?” I’m glad you asked.

Never disagree with anyone in public. In my experience, backstabbing is the way to go. On this site over the last four-and-a-half years, I have received 170 anonymous “you suck” (one-star) ratings for my 101 articles. This alone uniquely qualifies me to comment on such matters.


Never write about anything that matters. Content that matters tends to polarize... and polarization leads to hatred by at least 50 percent of potential readers. Writing about things like “feelings” (which, by the way, also works great on a first date), not controversial or trending topics, will ensure that while your readership may be suffer diminished numbers, those few who do read you regularly will love you all the more because each reader will know that every word you write is written directly to them.


Don’t write too often. People will get tired of you and marginalize you, then sick of you altogether. I wrote 40 articles in 2007 and 39 in 2008. By 2009, I was down to 6, and my popularity grew more in my unexplained absence, proving the made-up right now by me adage, “Between prolific and witness protection... lies the legend.” And when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.


Make friends with the cool people. Cool people are just that, “cool”. And cool people tell other people who the cool people really are... they move the needle. Make friends with them, and you go from writer to trending topic. Say things on the comment board that the cool people agree with, even when you have nothing to say. Nothing says cool like saying nothing.

Just ask Joaquin Phoenix.


Make friends with the un-cool people. There are more un-cool people in this world than cool people, and unlike cool people, un-cool actually read. Reading headlines is for cool people... reading whole articles is a job for the un-cool. By dropping literary cookies into your articles that resonate with the un-cool masses (like references to LARPers Weekly or the G-4 Network), not only can you guarantee pageviews up front, but also when the un-cool use nerd tools like the keyword search box, because you thought in advance to include hash tags like #baseball, or #scott boras, or #el g.


(regarding comments) Stay cryptic. Fans don’t want to be told what you mean when they already know what you mean... because you were “speaking directly to them” (see "Never write anything that matters", above). While being cryptic in the comment threads of others can get you accused of being an internet Troll, being cryptic in your own threads gets you accused of being obfuscatively original.


Never, ever, tell the truth. Even if it’s really true. If other people suck, never tell them. If you suck, well… that’s just something to keep between yourself and yourself.


Always, always, remember where you came from. The past has a funny way of reminding us of two equal, yet opposite things. We really are worse than we think we are, and… we really are better than we think we are. No, you read that right. No one is as good, or as bad, as their press clippings… except maybe Carlos Mencia. To prove that bi-polar point, read this excerpt from January 9^th, 2007.

This just in: My popularity is 0. Zeeerohh! As if I needed proof. Thanks for the update. A clean slate by any other name, etc.

Oh well.

Guess it's better than entropy. Not "Entropy", the movie that almost killed the career of Phil Joanou, but "entropy", from which we get the nursery rhyme (for the sad children of rocket scientists), "We cannot win, we cannot tie, and in the end we're all gonna die".

(Warning! This is not a movie review, a SciTech article or a children's story. It's safe to keep reading - Ed.)

I know, this intro is probably going to keep my popularity at zeeerohh for the remaining years of my writing life which in this town is more like less than zero. Not "Less Than Zero", the movie that should have killed the career of Brad Pitt (really, Google it), but...

(Warning! Bill Friday has never been popular and therefore has never known when to shut up - Ed.)

The good news in all of this is that, if I've done the math right, I can never receive a rating that isn't at least a zeeerohh. A lot like the song, "Saved By Zero" by The Fixx that really did kill the careers of...

(Warning! Bill Friday will never write on the topics of physics, poetry, movies or music ever again - Ed.)

And there you have it people. Be tolerant of the newb you read today. You never know, one day, he may be really cool.

Copyright © 2011 Bill Friday

Friday On Friday - "Coffee Mandatory"

Love is supposed to last a lifetime... until another comes along.

Just so you know, I never planned to fall in love.

It started out as nothing more than a relationship of convenience. Like sex for a green card, or the wash of a windshield for a couple of bucks at a stop light in Santa Monica. A fucking transaction. No emotion… no feelings. Just a need meeting another need. No romance, no flowers... just the glare of a naked bulb at sunrise, and the grunting of guilty pleasure heard on the other side of a thin kitchen wall.

After a while, like with any illegitimate relationship... and enough lying to yourself in the mirror... eventually you decide that maybe its okay to take next step... the public step. A coffee house. The thought was innocent enough in your head, “It’s just a cup of coffee. What could happen?”

Until you get there, and you wonder if this is how they feel in Amsterdam... ordering heroin... in a brothel.

At first, there’s that self-conscious thought that goes, "people don’t really do this in public... do they?” Followed by a second thought that you should just go finish your business in the restroom like the upstanding citizen your parents always thought you’d be. But you stay... you take your seat in the big room with all the other upstanding citizens... and you lose yourself to the overwhelming urge that brought you here in the first place. To take this private need to the next level. So you do. In front of God and everyone... if only God were watching.

I never planned to fall in love.

Years pass, and things go on like always. Public meetings, intimate rendezvous, long mornings after a bad night’s sleep. Every encounter making you sink deeper and deeper into what was such an innocent addiction. Days and nights became the same to you. Multiple jobs, endless hours... and only one thing remains the same. The need. The intense need, the unsatisfied need... the aching need.

Until another comes along.

As the glare of the naked bulb at sunrise still calls after you like a line out of a song by Mumford & Sons, the something new doesn’t call like a selfish bitch... it whispers softly in your ear, like the one that got away. It draws me to a softer place... a darker place, later and later in the night... after the glare of day, and all its distractions, goes away. And unlike the whorishly obvious coffee brothel, it is subtle and almost... caring. And the scars of years are replaced by tender strokes to a raw-rubbed ego. The only thing required in return was to think, and feel... and write. And whatever words came out were good... were accepted. I was accepted.

I never planned to fall in love. Not like this.

More years pass, and things change... drastically. The flutter and surge of my heart, gentle ego stroking, the sideways-smiles-turned-lustful... change. Flutters turn to questions. Surges to pain. The lying, sideways smiles, with their promise of fulfillment... turn to insistence. And whispers turn to ice at the harsh dawning of a new day, when I know it has become... the same.

I look up from the computer. I see the light of morning enter through the fog of early June. “When did this happen?” is all I can say, in a hushed voice, raw from not speaking. I turn my head the other way, toward the kitchen, to the glare of a naked bulb at sunrise...

...just so you know.

Copyright © 2011 Bill Friday

Friday On Friday - "Friday Turns 100"

Words to live by.

I keep a notebook.

No, not a Mac Book, a notebook. The kind you write in. The paper kind. And a pen. I’ve been told I’m an old soul… fossil old.

And since I don’t even own an iPhone...

(choking gasp of horror over morning coffee)

Let me explain… no, there is too much… let me sum up.

Okay, whenever I get a random thought in my head... something that, for the merest moment of time, I like the sound of as it floats between my ears, I write it down. In the same notebook I use for work. Sideways, in the left-hand margin... so I won’t forget where I put it. Sometimes, these random thoughts end up in a story. Most times, they end up forgotten… tossed in a drawer, or worse yet (the horror…) under the bed (another column for another time). And sometimes, like bullets from a 9 mil in a drive-by, they get used all at once. And if you think you know me… and you will think you do, the longer you read me… then you know that these are (some) of my words to live by.


“I have no desire to be friends with my past.”

While, for many, the past can be looked back on fondly... first bike, first kiss, first car... for me, my past is looked back on for some other firsts… first stolen bike, first punch in the face, first death of a loved one. And while I would not trade any of the lessons learned from it, my past and I are not now, nor will we ever be, on good terms with each other. Every now and then, we pass each other on the street… and nod. And that’s enough. Because with every passing nod, another page in the notebook is filled.


“Talent doesn’t pay the bills, working does.”

Obviously not an original thought, but since when did a teacher like the past ever claim to be 100 percent original all the time? Still, this one is for the times (many) when the thought of sitting on my bony ass waiting for something better to come along became more than just a thought... and it took some kind of tragedy to shake me enough to start something, or stop something, that shoved a wrench into the gears of my creative machine. Hell, I hate working three jobs. But it beats starving. Yeah, and I’ll sleep when I’m published.


“Sometimes drunks tell the best version of the truth.”

So, after you finish reading this, have a few cold ones, read it again, and leave a comment… preferably on my blog, to reduce the chance of having me ask the publishers to take it down. When you do comment, please let me know exactly how many shots, pops, or rips you’ve had, so that I can rate your truthfulness by the volume of your consumption.

And remember, there are no wrong answers.


“Intimacy isn’t given… it’s earned.”

And people wonder why I don’t make many friends.

In a previous article, I covered the three kinds of “friendlies” every writer ought to know. This is the other side… the dark side… of that. For lack of a better term, they are, “the un-friendlies”. Part Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, part Jim Carrey in The Cable Guy, “un-friendlies” are those Twitter followers or Facebook friends you wish you’d never clicked “okay” for. Sure you could block them, or just try to ignore them, but sooner or later they will always come back... with a bunny. As I enter into this phase of my writing life, I will try to remember to be polite to everyone, and always, always keep my head on a swivel… so it doesn’t end up somewhere else.

And finally...


“Handshakes are for people who can’t afford lawyers.”

This should be self-explanatory. It’s the California version of, “get it in writing”. California has always lead the way in defining how to put a price tag on friendship (community property, “palimony”), and on the number of lawyers per capita in the United States. I have one friend who is an attorney, and while I did not run number 5 by him before I submitted this column to the editor (something to do with “billable hours”… I really didn’t understand it all), I do know that he would have to agree with me on this one. Off the record.

Bonus thought...

I will conclude this first official effort by explaining that this article is my 100^th published article for Broowaha.com. In saying that, I want everyone who just made the effort to follow this one all the way to its conclusion to know that it is my wish that we all, as writers… as readers… get what we wish for ourselves in this creative venture comes true even wilder and better than we ever could have imagined. But be careful what you wish for, because...


“If wishes were Unicorns, they’d shit rainbows.”

Copyright © 2011 Bill Friday