Screenwriter's Blues

by Mike Doughty

exits to freeways twisted like knots on the fingers
jewels cleaving skin between breasts
your cadillac reads 400 horses over blue lines
you are going to Reseda to make love to a model from Ohio
whose real name you don't know

you spin like the cadillac was overturning down a cliff on television
and the radio is on
and the radio man is speaking
and the radio man says women were a curse
so men built Paramount studios
and men built Columbia studios
and men built Los Angeles

it is 5 a.m. and you are listening to Los Angeles
it is 5 a.m. and you are listening to Los Angeles

and the radio man says it is a beautiful night out there
and the radio man says rock and roll lives
and the radio man says it is a beautiful night out there in Los Angeles
you live in Los Angeles and you are going to Reseda
we are all in some way or another going to Reseda some day, to die
and the radio man laughs because the radio man fucks a model too

gone savage for teenagers with automatic weapons and boundless love
gone savage for teenagers who are aesthetically pleasing,
in other words, fly

Los Angeles beckons the teenagers to come to her on buses
Los Angeles loves love

it is 5 a.m. and you are listening to Los Angeles
it is 5 a.m. and you are listening to Los Angeles

i am going to Los Angeles to build a screenplay about lovers
who murder each other
i am going to Los Angeles to see my own name on a screen
five feet long and luminous

as the radio man says it is 5 a.m. and the sun has charred
the other end of the world and come back to us
and painted the smoke over our heads an imperial violet

it is 5 a.m. and you are listening to Los Angeles
it is 5 a.m. and you are listening to Los Angeles
you are listening
you are listening
you are listening....
to Los Angeles.