I’ve spent many a drunken evening drifting by Glenn Danzig’s house and peeping in his windows, hoping to get a glimpse of the aging rock demon to no avail. Danzig is the Boo Radley of my neighborhood. The Edward Scissorhands of Los Feliz. His jet black Jaguar is always in his driveway, but few people can claim to have seen the man in the flesh. People around here trade tales of Danzig-sightings the way salty old fishermen trade yarns about their biggest catch. They’ll show you blurry cell phone photos of the man lumbering across his lawn like Bigfoot. And legend has it, if you capture a Danzig outside his home, he has to grant you one wish and give you his pot of gold.

On my way to lunch today, Danzig appeared for an instant getting out of his car. I did not spontaneously combust and simultaneously soil myself as I had imagined I would so many times. My face did not melt as if I had opened the Ark of the Covenant. I was, however, inspired to get off my sorry ass and blog again (sorry for the lull). I have seen Danzig. And in case you were wondering, he saw his own shadow which means next year there will be six more weeks of winter.

Danzig might be the coolest neighbor in the universe, but he has not been my favorite. I met my favorite neighbor, Dangerzone, a few weeks after I had moved in to my L.A. apartment. I was new to the area and had very few friends. My furniture had still not arrived from New York, so I spent my evenings on the floor in my underpants, in a cloud of marijuana smoke eating chicken wings (yes ladies, he’s single…) and paranoid that the ghost of some murdered Hollywood starlet was going to materialize before me (the place was curiously cheap for the neighborhood).

So one evening, my new upstairs neighbor appeared outside my window with a ladder. “What up, brah? ” He was locked out of his apartment so he was trying to break in through the balcony window. “You smoke weed? I have a volcano bong in my apartment. You should come upstairs sometime. We can burn a few.”

He was remarkably nice, but cheesy as all hell. I’d seen him a few times in the gym. He had short cropped hair, wore muscle shirts, and was completely ripped. And, apparently, he could get me in to any club in the city I want. “I’m a bit of a celebrity around here.”

“What, are you an actor?”

“…Kinda.”

“What have you done?”

“Well, I did lot of, errr... movies." He coughed. "And I was on a show called Family Business.”

Then it dawned on me: he’s a porn star! How fucking rad!

I never did go upstairs for that bong hit, which I’ve regretted to no end. But every single day that I would start to get tired of L.A., nostalgic for my old life in Brooklyn, the song “Highway To The Dangerzone” would suddenly start BOOMING from his apartment upstairs and I would crack up. I would think of good old Dangerzone in his apartment above me, flexing in his mirror, volcano bong in hand, rocking out to Kenny Loggins and rehearsing some routine for whatever porno he was going to shoot next. It always made me smile. It’s great to know that characters like that actually exist.

Dangerzone got kicked out of the building several months ago for destroying the laundry room door in a fit of roid rage during a power outage, and it was around this time when I decided I’d had enough of L.A. My love for this town seemed to disappear with the guy. The tragedy is that the person who took over Dangerzone’s apartment has an honest to god piano up there and a singing voice that sounds exactly like Phil Hartman. Imagine trying to get some writing done with Bill McNeill from NewsRadio belting out the Flashdance soundtrack right above your head.

Just a steel town girl on a Saturday night, lookin for the fight of her life…

I don’t know who this guy is. I’ve never seen him before, and he could be the nicest fella on the face of the earth, but if I hear that fucking song one more time I’m going to lob a grenade through his window and eat his babies.

One day a week or two ago, I spent the afternoon on Craig’s List looking at apartment prices in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and feeling sad and lonely and aching to move back. I walked to 7-11, bought a Big Gulp and a lottery ticket (gotta keep dreamin) and started sulking back to my apartment when I heard someone shout.

“Hey! Old neighbor guy!"

It was Dangerzone at a stoplight. "Keep on ROCKIN!" He was leaning out his car window, shooting me a “hang loose” sign with his car stereo cranked up to 11.

The light turned green, and he sped his shitty car off into the orange sunset.

So long, Dangerzone. I will keep rockin, indeed.

New York, here I come.

At the very top of my incredibly long list of fears are flying, heights, and the Greenland Shark – which is a hideous, giant shark that lives beneath the icy tundras of Greenland and is known to gobble up reindeer and other animals that fall through the ice. For years now, I’ve had Dead Zone-like flashes of my own demise: I’ll be sucked out of a hole in the side of an airplane, plunge thousands of feet over Greenland, where I’ll crash through the ice and be gobbled up by one of those horrible sharks. I don’t need to consult the tea leaves or a bag of chicken bones, folks: I’m positive this is how it’s going to go down.

So, since I turned 34 I decided it was time to become a man and face my fears. A few months ago a client of mine who’s an avid hang-gliding enthusiast bought me a tandem lesson as a gift. It took me a while to muster up the courage to book the lesson, but I finally did for two Saturdays ago. I won’t pretend I didn’t lose a ton of sleep over it. I was mortified beyond belief.

The day before my lesson, however, I came down with strep throat and had to cancel. Now, I’ve tried my best not to drop his name on this site, but as pretty much everyone here knows that I work for Augusten Burroughs you’ll have to forgive me this one time cuz he deserves some credit. He was doing his damndest to change my mind about hang-gliding, and right after I canceled he sent me the following email:

“Hang gliding is a terrible idea. you could end up paralyzed from C2 down. able only to move your eyes and blink. the strep came because the Baby Jesus decided to spare you. today is the day you would have crashed and ended up a quad. So baby Jesus infected you with his strep sperm and saved your life. ALL HAIL THE BABY JESUS”

So, last Tuesday I rescheduled the lesson, ignoring Augusten’s warnings. A few minutes later, I got an email telling me that on Saturday – the day I had originally booked my lesson – they had their first fatality in 21 YEARS. Holy tapdancing Christ: THAT COULD HAVE BEEN ME!! Augusten is a fucking psychic. Magical Thinking, indeed.

I had to go along with my lesson – there was no way I could chicken out now. What were the odds that something could go wrong so soon after such a horrible accident?

Saturday morning finally arrived and I woke up bleary-eyed after dreaming of falling all night. I drove to Kagel Mountain [insert your own pussy joke here, kids] for my lesson, a spare change of underpants in my car, just in case. I was told my lesson was not going to begin until 12:30. Why? Because they were having a memorial service for the poor fellow who passed away, right before we were to take off. Criminy. It was just getting better and better.

Long story short, folks: I did it. And in the end, I barely broke a sweat. I purchased a video of the whole experience and edited it to the gayest hair metal music I could find.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE

I’ve gotta say, I feel a lot braver after the whole experience, and I’m dying for more. Before I leave California I’m determined to go skydiving and kick a shark in the dick. I figure once I’ve conquered those fears, I’ll work my way up to, you know, actually talking to a girl in a bar.

Carpe diem, folks.

Update: Thanks to Aaron Wilson for this photo (and no, that isn't me in it)

I was sitting in Venice’s St. Mark’s Square drinking a beer, failing to get through Celine’s Journey to the End of the Night for the fourth time in 15 years, and watching a family of North American land whales let pigeons perch on their children’s skulls (the weirdest tourist trend I’ve ever seen) when an idea popped into my noodle that could have enabled me to stay in Italy as long as I wanted.

I could become a masked mugger! Of course!

It was so clear: with all of the gondolas drifting slowly under bridges, their passengers distracted by men with poles singing about moons and pizza pies, all I would have to do is leap aboard the boats, rob the fuckers and dive overboard with the loot. All I’d need is a carnival mask, a crossbow, and a snorkel and I’d be waist deep in spaghetti, prosecco and boobs for the rest of my natural life! It would be so easy!

But, alas, here I am a week later: in bed in Los Angeles, deathly sick with a case of strep throat, and dreaming of Italy.

What a trip! I’m so sorry it has taken me so long to post, but I rolled back in to Lost Assholes sick as a dog. I’m pretty sure it was the 11-hour flight on Air India that did me in. I’m positive the only thing keeping that curried aluminum lawn dart in the air was the collective will of all of us on board. I must say, though, it was amazing how well the dance numbers in Bollywood film they were showing synced up to Iron Maiden’s “Number of the Beast”, which I was listening to on my headphones.

But enough with the negativity! I had a terrific time. One amazing week exploring Umbria and Tuscany with my family, and one week traveling through Florence, Venice, and Rome with my friend Sarah from New York.

I’ll have a follow-up post of our culinary adventures online shortly, but in the meantime you can check out a few photos from my trip here:

Flickr Gallery

I rarely choke up when a celebrity dies, but you were an absolute hero to me. You will be missed, old man. One less giant walks the earth.

In tribute:

"Ratshit, batshit, dirty ol' twat!
69 assholes tied in a knot!
Hooraaaaay...lizardshit!"

Apologies ahead of time for the hastily-written post, but in an hour I’m leaving for a two-week vacation in Italy that I can only hope will be one part European Vacation, seven parts Calligula. I will try to get some blogging done while I’m away, but my main focus over the next 16 days will be unwinding, getting fat on pasta, and fighting sobriety whenever possible.

Many thanks to all of you who’ve given me advice for my trip over the past few weeks. Because I’m the laziest cracker in crackerdom, I never even broke the plastic wrap on the Learn Italian CD-Rom I purchased months ago. A nice reader from Australia sent me a list of valuable phrases; however I have yet to learn the most important ones:

"I'm sorry what I did to your sofa."

"She didn't tell me she was married!"

and "I'll pay for the cleaning bill."

I am super-excited for this trip. I’ll be spending a week in Tuscany with my family, then traveling to Rome, Florence, and Venice with a friend. I am a huge fan of the Rome HBO show, and really eager to see where all the great limb-chopping and incest scenes all went down.

Aside from living in Little Italy for a year or two, I have no idea what to expect from the Italian people. From what I’ve read on the web, I hear they’re incredibly friendly, hospitable, they multiply when you throw water on them, and you should never ever feed them after midnight. And the lazy American in me hopes they all speak English.

Flying Air India today, which I’ve never done. You know what’s really funny? I used to be terrified of flying. Just mortified. But right now, I’m so excited that the only thing I’m really afraid of is being on a flight with 120 some odd people who’ve only eaten Indian food for ten hours. God help us all.

A few weeks ago I got an incredibly generous bonus check from my favorite clients for my trip, with a note saying “spend every penny. don't bring a DIME back. drink and whore it all away. spend the entire trip in a complete blackout. GET AN STD!” I promise to come back with the biggest, bestest STD ever. Thanks, guys.

And thanks to all of you who have visited this site over the past few months. Your comments and your emails have really meant a lot to me. I’ll get back to blogging in full-swing the moment I get back to the States.

L8r sk8rs!

Drew