World Painted Blood

Recently I decided to go and rummage through the iTunes store for Slayer albums. I have a few, including the classics, but not all. I discovered that they released an album in 2009, before their guitarist died, called World Painted Blood, an interesting title, so I purchased it. It is very good. And appropriate in a world painted blood red by politicians and greed. 

At 06:30 I walk to the office. The temperature is already 28 degrees Celsius and I start to wonder if I should leave this city, this State. However, I feel connected to, almost enslaved by, the poor homeless cat that waits for me each morning on the ledge outside the door of the building. She refuses to come inside, but I can tell that she enjoys this process of waiting, seeing me appear with a bowl of food, waiting for me to place it on the floor nearby, leaping down and eating before retiring to the bed of her favourite truck where she remains until the temperature is too high and she retreats to cooler areas. 

For some reason, amidst this heat and thought of escape, my mind turned to a trip that I took to Hollywood a couple of years ago, and how incredible it felt to be calm, in isolation, with a book, beside the swimming pool, overlooking Los Angeles on one side and the Hollywood sign on the other. I felt like I had somehow stepped into the shoes of Morrissey, twenty-something years before, as he moved to LA and bought a house on Sunset Boulevard… so close to everything and yet so hidden. 



Kimpton Everly Hotel, Los Angeles



Hollywood sign on the horizon, behind Hollywood Tower apartments. 

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