I'm in the delivery room. Again. Waiting on my new baby. I quess youse could call it the delivery room. It's really just my funky just-big-enough-to-swing-a-cat apartment close to the moovie studios. My new baby, my new book is on it's way and I'm like an expectant dad, pacing up and down.
Just likes when I was at San Quentin. Up and down. Up and down. Hope my little baby arrives soon. Since their ain't no Ultrasound I don't know if it's male or female. What's the diff? I'm happy that the delivery people, not the usual boring midwife or two or three will be here. I'm trusting that my new baby will arrive in one piece. So I'm having the experts, do the delivery. Fedex. Normally I wouldn't let those losers drive my car, but today's an exception. It's not about me. It's about my new baby.
I call it my baby, but it's my new book: "Confessions of an L.A. Funeral Director." It means a lot to me and that's why it ain't coming by C Section if you catch my drift. Here's how it works.
You write something. A bunch of unsavory types are paid to put it together. Words. Pictures. Photos. Then when all that crud is said and done, they make delivery of your new book.
It's like Santa Claus is coming to town, if he's clean & sober for the love of God, and is going to drop a bundle, in this case, my book on my doorstep. So now is the hard part. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.
You do a lot of waiting here in L.A. So's what's new Holmes? Same old, same old.
Still it's a new bundle of joy and I'll be eyeballing the whole enchilada when it arrives. Like when you have a real kid arrive and you count their fingers and toes, hoping their not no Zombie. Or look like the cable guy. Around here, every kid looks like the cable guy. The whole block. Anyway, here's hoping there's no typos, turned around photos and other embarrassing glitches that will make me look like a total pathetic A-hole.
Wait. I just heard a truck stop out by the alley, next to the dumpster, next to the abandoned car.
Wait. I hear the patter of feet. Little feet.
Hopefully it's not those dwarfs on my ex-wife's side of the family. Douche bags. I worship the quick sand they walk on.
KNOCK, KNOCK. Yes, my new baby is here. Thought it might be our blessed event.
My book has come a long way. A long frigging way. It was printed off shore.
Not in my control so's I'm saying the Serenity Prayer to calms myself down.
Off shore. Not like when I tell people I went overseas for the weekend, when I describe my ferry boat ride to Catalina. I mean off shore.
Third World. Probably collated in a sweat shop with underpaid and underfed little tykes that can hardly read or write. Clothes in tatters. Haven't eaten in weeks. Still, hope they dotted the i's and crossed the t's. My heart goes out to them. Little bastards.
I open the package. Here it is. My labor of love. My new book. I'm sorry. I need to be alone.
