Full Blue Moon Dementia

It’s a sunny warmish morning with blue skies and puffy cumulous clouds heading inland from the sea. Not exactly typical for Los Angeles in December, but after yesterday’s crazy Santa Ana winds the calm weather is a welcomed relief. As I head outside a woman walks by with her dog, pushing their way through piles...

In the city of Los Angeles there’s an apartment on North Gardner Street, just south of Sunset Blvd. In early 1990 my friend Chris lived there with a computer nerd junkie named Chuckles. Chris and I sold heroin out of the apartment. It was the old days – before cell phones. Everything was done through...

Fourteen Hills 17.2 2011 Release Party and Reading Review: SF Weekly 5/23/11 – reprinted without permission. Loud Bikers Can’t Stop Release of Fourteen Hills Literary JournalBy Evan Karp College and motorcycles. They go together. College and literary journals. Yep, those too. College literary journals and motorcycles? Not usually, although they did Friday night as SF...

In case you’ve never seen this, here is my film: The YAA Girlz and the Deadly Sparks. The YAA Girlz and the Deadly Sparks – A Patrick O’Neil Film © 2009Running time: 12.5 minutes Directed, Filmed. Edited, Scored, and Interviews Conducted by Patrick O’Neil. The YAA Girlz and the Deadly Sparks: were two all female...

The Korean missionaries storm the Hollywood Blvd. sidewalk, parting the tourists and street urchins like the Red Sea. Their leader, a short slender woman dressed in black, screams into a megaphone. “Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming today!” While the rest of them wave placards stating “Jesus is thy Lord.” A gutter-punk,...

Vermin on the Mountain Reading SeriesJanuary 9th 2011 Host: Jim RulandWriters: Anotina Crane, Chiwan Choi, Jeanne Darst, Danielle Dutton, Patrick O’Neil Camera: Stephan Salit VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve ever had at a reading? Patrick O’Neil: “At my earlier readings I was nervous about being in front of people and reading my work....

The old man is six feet away, but I can still smell him. It’s a permeating stench. A mixture of piss, dirty socks, unwashed body, and a bunch of other rancid smells I don’t want to indentify let alone drift up my nostrils. He’s digging in a trashcan with a folded coat hanger. Snagging aluminum...

The street kid on a BMX bicycle nearly runs me down. His face contorted with what looks like either anger or fear. He’s hauling ass away from the Egyptian Theater’s backdoor. Two cops stand there staring after him. A trail of unwashed stench hangs in the air as he passes. I step over the slimy...

There was a phantom on the highway. Just east of San Bernardino, a ghost shadow strolling across four lanes of I-10 at two in the morning. I saw his brief outline in my headlights. He wore a tattered blanket over his head like a shawl. He looked dirty, and was dragging a trash bag. The...

The convertible top is down, and it’s still hot as hell. There’s no wind and the sun is whacking me like a sledgehammer. When I press the pedal to floor there’s a flow of air as the car picks up speed. It’s still hot air, but at least it’s moving. I pass a Hassidic Jew...