The great Silver Lake blackout of 2012.

It was actually lighter outside than it was inside. The rest of the city was still lit, and because it was a rare rainy July night, the light bounced off the clouds.

The power went out around five. There was something unsettling about it, as if you knew it would be out for an unusual while. I went next door to see if Carolanne’s power was out. It was. She called the DWP.

Three hours later I grabbed my Jambox and went back. Matt was there by now. They were reading The Hunger Games by candlelight. “Blackout party?” I offered, Jambox playing Beach House.

Matt fixed us some rums and cokes. Carolanne brought out some weed called “Cheese.” We talked about Jerry Sandusky and decided that child molesting was worse than leaking nuclear secrets and also cannibalism. We talked about the crazy lady across the street and I thought about every other crazy neighbor I’ve had in Los Angeles (there have been three) and how everyone must have a story about one.

Matt told me about an old president of MGM who got derailed by the Heidi Fleiss thing because apparently he liked hookers, a lot, and also a lot of hookers at once. And how this guy was the guy who picked the key department heads for L.A. Confidential, and Russell Crowe, and won an Oscar. Fucked up people can do amazing things.

There has never been a child molester as high profile as Jerry Sandusky.

And then Matt had read a great theory about the Catholic church. That child molesters become child molesters themselves, because on some level they’re trying to understand what happened to them, so maybe this has been going on in the Catholic church for decades. Maybe centuries. An unbroken chain going back to the Romans, when child molesting was more socially acceptable among the influential.

It’s 11pm now and the power is still out. The Jambox still has a charge. An hour ago the crazy lady came home but nothing crazy happened.

(photo: a twisted face in the clouds above Los Angeles during the great Silver Lake blackout of 2012.)