The burden of the bartender

Everyone in the industry keeps saying the same thing. LA is dead. No one is working, no one is drinking, and the coke has gone bad. I suppose when everyone is busy being a nobody while somehow moonlighting as a somebody, things may take a bleak turn. But the idea that the industry is dead means nothing to those who moved to LA chasing the idea of a different life. 

People ask why I came to LA, like I had some big dream. Truth is, I'd already fucked everyone worth fucking in my hometown. The thrill was gone. I didn't come to LA looking for meaning. I came looking for something human-shaped I could mistake for salvation. You see, I never felt kinship with the kind who see glory in birthing through the pussyhole. And that's all there was for a girl back home. At some point, it just made sense to drift toward the place where I could stay the baby not have one.

I listen to people for a living. I bat my lashes, pour them beers, and they hand me a 20. It's simple work, carrying on a conversation with no words. Ain't no different than lassoing clouds from the sky. I suppose having a pretty face helps. But here in LA, everyone gots a pretty face, so I like to think of the drunks just like my redwood-raised spirit.

I figured out early on that there's no such thing as a sad story if you leave pity at the door. It's just a flower that got over life before it could fully bloom. A rose is a rose is a rose is a cliché. With that self-prescribed wisdom, I realized that people use those who talk about life to talk about their problems cuz they think their problems are their life.

Through gossip, I've learned that humans have the cruelty of glass. Clear as day, shatter at a sneeze, and when broken, they turn into weapons. Of which they'll impale themselves and point fingers like you're the one holding the murder weapon. It's fascinating to me how easily people can make themselves the victim.

I'm in this period where I think what's it all about. You do this and you do that. And what does it mean? Really. I got this feeling that nothing means anything. Your own life dont got no meaning until it's a memory and you apply some kind of lesson learned. You gotta be pretty stupid if you make all your lessons learn tragic ones. Lately, I find myself asking What's the point of learning if the answers come too late to matter?

I never know what I am. Whenever I'm with a liberal, I think, "Oh fuck, I'm a Republican." And when I'm with a Republican, I think, "Oh for Christ's sake, I'm a Lib." The thing is, I don't trust anyone who talks precisely like a popular image of the professional revolutionary. Kooks and commies, zealots and suits. It's all the same show. Fascism yelling at fascism, insisting they're the real hero of this mess. At the end of the day, we're all just crawling around in the dark, looking for our car keys. Who knows, maybe someone will find theirs and hold it up like a flashlight so the rest of us can finally stop tripping over our own feet. I don’t know why I hold out hope for a savior though. They'd shoot that fucker dead and plaster the headline like, Breaking news: Local 'lunatic' takes a vacation from their Lamictal. Chaos and existential dread ensue.

I used to believe people carried some unshakable sense of right and wrong, that something deep inside them always pointed north. LA forced me to see who humans really are, when faced with a world that does not care for our softness. It taught me that if you do not know who you are, if you do not know what you stand for, this place will devour you whole. Which has lead me to wonder if the real God has no voice at all.

What is morality, anyway? How could anyone claim an internal compass when we've had righteousness shoved down our throats like bitter medicine? I thought reading the so-called holy books would bring me closer to understanding faith, but instead, I found myself sifting through ancient scandals, wars wrapped in poetry, betrayals dressed as prophecy. If there was truth in those pages, it was buried beneath centuries of human desperation, passed down like folklore, reshaped to serve whoever held the pen.

Here’s the thing, whenever I'm on acid, I always see the Devil. He's never some monstrous force. Most of the time he just sits there and watches in silence. Amused as those who claim holiness glut themselves on their indulgences. And then our eyes meet. I always smile. We have the same conversation every time, a quiet understanding. I see you, and you see me. I know you shaped this world, and for that, I offer both gratitude and defiance. But you cannot have me. For a fleeting moment, something almost tender passes between us, so brief I might mistake it for a trick of the light. With the slightest turn of my head, it's gone, slipping back into the shadows as if it never was. And yet, the feeling lingers, settling into my bones, waiting until I see him again. But I have never seen this holy idea of God. Not once. And the more I think about it, the more I wonder if those who claim they have seen God, those who fall to their knees in rapture, eyes lifted, lips trembling in reverence, have only ever seen the Devil, smiling back at them. Worshipping him without knowing, mistaking his presence for divinity while he laughs, low and endless, at the foolishness of humankind.

I have felt something else, though. Something truer. The earth beneath me, soft and steady, quiet in a way that speaks louder than any sermon. She asks for nothing, never demands, never punishes. She only holds and only endures. And yet, I find myself wanting to give her everything. My hands, my breath, my body, my devotion. If divinity exists, it is not in the heavens, not in the mouths of preachers or the pages of old books. It is here, in the warmth of soil and the hush of trees, in the way she simply is. And there, maybe, I find the closest thing to peace.

Anyway, LA. The city, once pulsing with a wild energy, now hums with a quieter, more contemplative rhythm. The people who came here, hearts full of ambition and dreams wrapped in gold, have begun to realize they've mistaken movement for meaning and hunger for passion. But that's the thing, isn't it? In this city, you're always either reaching for something more or running away from something less. And either way, the desperation is so thick, you can hardly stand to breathe it in.

LA isn't dead. It will never die because that LA golden hour won't let it. It turns literal human shit on the street into a pile of gold if one is able to take a photo of it from the right angel. It's all a trick. A cosmic satire where the ordinary gets draped in the illusion of significance, and we're all too eager to believe it. But no party lasts forever. And now, here the people are older, realizing that they've been dancing on shit, pretending it was the life when all it was was Hollywood magic.

The people who once filled these streets spoke with fire, a conviction in their eyes that they could change the world, only to find out they were just changing their minds, constantly. Now, they sit quietly. Those who ran from themselves ran from the real work, seeking validation and excitement, but never for the answers that truly matter. And that's why they find themselves now, empty-handed, sitting in the wreckage of everything they thought they wanted. Everyone's too busy waiting for something to happen when really, it already did.

The city doesn't care about your search for meaning. It doesn't care about the chase, the dreams, or the illusions you hold so dear. I believe someone has to write LA’s shit stories into something that lasts forever. Maybe that's how I ended up in Los Angeles. A city like this? She is always gonna call someone like me. Built on delusion, waiting for a good ear to chew up. She didn't shout, just sang low and dirty, like a siren in the smog. And I listened. Just like I always do. 

Once you've heard the whispered regrets tangled between sips of whiskey and half-hearted toasts you can't unhear them. That's the burden of the bartender. You don't pour drinks. You collect ghosts. And the city knows it. LA doesn't need more dreamers. It needs vessels. Chained to the rail by some cosmic draft, pressed into service aboard this floating slave ship of the broken and almost-famous. 

The secret to survival is simple. Stay behind the bar. Be the one watching, not chasing. Pouring, not drinking. Because the moment you reach, the city slips through your fingers like spilled gin.

I’m no different from anyone else dwelling here. I pray the Santa Ana winds will drift sideways and cough the have-beens back up, their bodies bowed and breaking beneath the pressure of lives that almost were. They hand over their stories like offerings, not knowing they're giving me their souls. I take them all. I listen, kindly. Without judgment. There’s a part of me that believes if I hold still long enough and keep saying yes with a quiet hand, the Devil will come through the smoke, sit down like an old agreement being honored, and tell me I was right about everything. This is the City of Angels, after all. I never see God because I’m already here, making the Devil waits his turn.