Nothing’s Impossible in L.A.

That song Nothing’s Impossible on the new Depeche Mode album, it depresses me. As it used to do, their albums, when I was 12. I only realized that when my valley girl at work said that her parents were freaking out because she was listening to Depeche Mode, and that was the kind of music they thought would make her commit suicide.

It is true that I have been very much inspired in writing my best work listening to Depeche Mode and The Cure, and now I understand that it is very depressing music. It is also very addictive, it brings you somewhere else altogether, perhaps what drugs would do to someone, however I don’t have much experience in that domain.

How could Martin Gore still be depressed after all these millions and success, enough to write a song like Nothing’s Impossible? Apparently he is in the middle of a divorce. His wife, as it the oldest fashion of all times, is bringing him to the cleaners, and will probably keep the money and the kids and everything. Worth making millions and getting married, just to see it all crumble to dust when it is divorce time! And that time always come.

At the beginning I listened to it while walking to work, looking at the palm trees and big mountains in the background, and it was breathtaking. I was listening to it with my own interpretation, as I did most of my life in the case of Depeche Mode, since I barely understood English all the early years I was listening to their albums. And it was much better that way. It left everything to my imagination.

Some lines were applicable to me being lost alone in L.A. with the problems with my bosses:

Just give me a reason, some kind of sign
I'll need a miracle to help me this time
I heard what you said, and I feel the same
I know in my heart that I'll have to change

That was so perfect. And this was me and Stephen lost in London while I’m in Los Angeles:

How did we get to be this far apart?
How did we get to be this far apart?
I want to be with you, something to share
I want to be near you, sometimes I care

And at some place he says “How did we get to be so far gone”, and he repeats it twice, and the second time the voice is like cavernous, as if he was about to lose consciousness. This really gets to me.

I see the stars every night on my balcony, and I’m trying to convince myself that Nothing’s impossible, that I can go through this, that it may be my dreams coming reality though I cannot see that right now:

Even the stars look brighter tonight
Nothing's impossible

How you can connect so much with a song is a mystery. And as I said before, I wish I could achieve that in literature. Seems impossible. But nothing’s impossible, Dave Gahan said it, and he is well placed to know.

Dear me! Just read an interview about the new album “Playing the Angel”, and Martin Gore states as a joke, that the album was taking a direction like:

Anything that appealed to dysfunctional people!

And that’s it, I’m just dysfunctional and I have always been. Terrible thing to say. I’m a freak! As long as I enjoy it, I don’t mind being dysfunctional. Better that than having a normal life, no nervosa, no problems, and of course, no personality and nothing to say. You might just enjoy not existing then. I feel the pain, “the pain that I’m used to”.

I just had a flash, listening to Nothing’s Impossible. The building where I work right now, the walk with the mountains in the San Fernando Valley, the cleanliness of it all, my apartment, the building, the car park of the shopping center, everything.

This is the kind of flash I get years later, once I have left the place and listen to the music I was listening to then. And it was a nice flash, great memories which will last me a lifetime. I think I will get to like the place.

Which brings the question, you know, what place will this book I am writing right now will have in all the stuff I have written in my life? Because, you know, I have few of these books already published and they were sort of popular. And since I’m not going to stop writing any time soon, eventually they might get known in Québec and finally be appreciated.

That’s the plan anyway. And a book about the youngster arriving in L.A., I would think, just by the sheer concept of it, might erase my books about my arrival in Paris and London, or at the very least put all of that in the shadow.

This could be my most important book ever. The one I could be remember for if ever I get more known and break that barrier and finally sell more copies. I had not thought about this up until now. Even though, of course, it has always been at the back of my mind. The only reason I’m here, is because of this book I’m writing now and perhaps the fictional one I will write in parallel (and of course, the film scripts).

It just occurs to me now that it was perhaps more than just moving into a new city, a new life, writing a couple of books, and get out. It could be it, it could be the most important thing. And I am babbling like crazy about the most stupid details and emotions I am experiencing. Nothing grandiose, as grand as the new DepMod album.

But that’s it, this is what I’m known for, this is what I do. It is the only content I can get in here. I even made the decision earlier on, that this would be written for me, and not for anyone else. Otherwise I would not speak of my emotions, my fears, how a wimp I can be sometimes.

I would describe to you some sort of paradise filled with actors and actresses and the whole L.A. experience we have been told existed somewhere around here. I would just have to buy a few magazines, talk about what it says, and it would get you the vibe. The Beach Boy vibe. I’m not going to do that. It is perhaps a mistake, I understand now.

For my most important book, which would be in any case, whatever the content or what I might say. Because what sells, it is the concept, the marketing, the idea. Not the content or the style. I know that now.

The young writer leaving everything behind, London no less, to go and succeed in Hollywood. I don’t even need to succeed, a major flop, career wise, would still make a great book. Because one sentence will make people buy it, will make them dream that nothing’s impossible. When we all know that when it comes to our lives, everything’s impossible and is just the worst nightmare. Even though you could be rich and famous with palm trees all around and a bright sun and summer on 10 December, makes no difference.

Am I making history here with these few babblings without realizing it? Am I putting the last nail on my coffin as a writer? Nothing after that will top this book? Another irony, is that it is the first one I actually write in English. None of my fans so far appears to be able to read English. So unless it is translated (and I won’t translate it, you can be certain of that), this will be the one book they will never read, but wish they could.

So I guess they will do like I did for so many years listening to Depeche Mode, they will imagine for themselves what it is that I’m talking about here. And it might be just as well. The mystery will remain, and they will imagine something greater than what it is. A boring blog from just another blogger in L.A.

And now, I certainly will go to bed and forget I just said that. Tomorrow, one way or another, I’m buying a convertible Mustang. It is not my style, it is not my personality, but I have to do it. I have to get the ceiling down and go to Santa Barbara by the beach, and experience that thing we always see in the movies.

And if that does not do it, then I might as well just pack my bags and go back to London. Somehow I have the feeling that it might just work. Because humans are so imbeciles and it is all so psychological. Feel like you are living a dream, and who knows, you might actually live that dream.