Wednesday, February 26, 2014

i was joey


i was joey from 'friends' and for some reason i was wearing the dress from the i love lucy episode where the girls try to work at the chocolate factory. however, instead of pink with grey accents, my dress was mint green with vivid 1940's red collar and cuffs. i kept trying to remember why exactly that was, but since i was joey i didn't have much to work with upstairs and couldn't really figure it out. anyway, i was driving to pick up my friend who i knew would be dressed like me and be able to remind me what we were doing. the night was really beautiful and there were strings of lights everywhere. i remember thinking that no matter what, i lived in a really pretty place and it always seemed like something magical was about to happen. i pulled up to the curb where my friend was standing (it was me) and after i got in, joey and i proceeded to have an argument about who was lucy. it was obvious to the me me that the gag was only funny if the man is ethel, but joey couldn't understand it and was on the verge of getting hurt feelings. i decided to drop it and just let him think he was lucy if that's what would make him happy. i directed him to pull over to pick up more of my friends, soon the backseat was full and then joey noticed that the inside of his car had been stripped to the floorboards. he seemed surprised and somewhat indignant and wanted to know when it would be fixed. everyone looked at each other like, 'wtf?', but no one responded. we arrived at the party and joey kept saying, 'no, really, who's gonna fix my car?'. i tried to get him to come in with us, but he was still trying to remember what had happened to his car. soon the valet made him relinquish his keys and joey came inside and got too drunk to care anymore.

Friday, February 21, 2014

super hero girls


my girlfriends and i were in a gang of super hero girls. every day we picked out hilarious outfits and made each other laugh before we got down to business and looked at the list of villains and crimes we needed to attend to.

Monday, February 17, 2014

neil young


neil young was pissed. he wanted only to write songs with us, but he had somehow been elected to run the royalty committee and his focus was too split to do both. 7 of us sat in a small room each holding our instruments and tried a couple of times to get something going, but just as a groove was about to fall into place the door would burst open and some business type would bark out fragmented details about a fiscal urgency. neil tried to get me to take the post, but i threw it back to him like a hot potato. 'i'm not interested in numbers.', i told him. 'neither am i!!' he yelled back. 'goddammit!' he said to no one. he started shuffling the piles of paper in front of him trying to make some sense of them. the rest of us exchanged stealthy looks. it was so typical of neil to allow himself to get roped into helping outside of his area of expertise and then be pissed about it later. it wasn't the first time a writing session had to be scrubbed. we all just sat there waiting for it to become obvious to neil.

the door opened again and someone brought in flyers about a kidnapped child. i knew in my gut that the keyboard player had done it. i feigned disinterest and said something funny and cruel to make him think it didn't matter to me. he perked up instantly and gave me a fleshy grin. i decided i would follow him back to his house and rescue the child. i made small talk with him until we all started to pack up. it didn't matter to me if i killed him.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

ex-navy seal


i was a 58 year old, 6'4" ex-navy seal. i wore my hair closely cropped like i did when i was in the military, but now it was mostly grey. though i was not a young man any more, years of daily workouts had left me stronger than most- but my physical strength was not why i'd been able to make my living as a high-level body guard. i had almost precognitive awareness of negative human behavior. when i'd worked for the secret service protecting several presidents, i could spot the invisible travis bickle in any crowd. my co-workers thought i was spooky- i just felt burdened. i gave seminars to my colleagues but i could never truly distill dangerous intent in people down to a simplistic or exact formula; a flick of an eye, arrhythmic breathing patterns, artificial casual postures... i don't know, a million tiny cues that stacked up and glared like high beams into my eyes. mostly i didn't understand why everyone couldn't see it. eventually i grew tired and left the service. now i worked for pop stars. the people i protected against were sicker but less dangerous. they wanted intimate proximity but usually carried no weapons. my current gig was standing between a young blond superstar and her fans. the concerts were loud and fast. i think i only understood music as a different kind of sound, so i had no ability to judge the content of anything i heard other than degree of cacophony and volume level. her fan-base was mostly sycophantic with the exception of one man who claimed to be her father. as we toured the country, his presence intensified... his persona grew darker. 

the superstar was very young and had never known a world without technology or social media. she shared her every waking moment in real time with her galaxy of admirers. she created her own truman show. an enthusiastic fan could watch her count the steps to a stage as she walked to sing in front of 100,000 people or observe her crunching down on toast in the morning. she had no concept of private vs. public. everyone was in on every moment. this of course made it very easy for her 'father' to draw ever closer.

as we traveled to venues i became more aggressive about the buffer zone around her. i gathered more staff and soon found myself heading a small army. no matter how i increased the protections, the 'father' found a work-around and soon i could spot him within the first few rows of every show. it got to the point where i could no longer offer the illusion of total safety, i could not absorb his intent. i had to speak to the girl about the danger she faced. she would not accept the connection between her on line life and the threat to her real one. i had to show her footage of his proximity to her before she registered any fleeting concern. still, she refused to alter her on line behavior. 

the night he grasped her shoulder as she boarded the bus, she looked at me with true fear. through his hand he transferred what exactly he meant to do to her. as i pulled them apart and pushed her onto the safety of the bus, he held my eye and smiled.


Saturday, February 15, 2014

i guess i need a vacay...


i was renting 3 loosely connected funky and charming beach cottages from richard. as usual, once he had cut the deal with me he had remorse and then pestered me for more money. as usual, i told him to bugger off. i promptly forgot about him and immersed myself in playing with my friends, laughing to tears, cocktail hours that started at noon and delicious communal dinners that ended with those of us still able to amble climbing every evening to the top of the bluff to watch the sun fall into the ocean and paint the lucky sky in pinks, oranges and yellows.

one morning i woke to the sound of what i thought was a wailing cat and soon discovered that richard had rented my seldom-used front cottage to a very serious lesbian couple with a small baby son. 'oh great... there goes my fun.' i said to no one but myself. i was fuming at the thought of having to consider the baby in regard to my noise level- or worse, having the baby disturb me as i slept till noon. i tried to get hold of richard, but the cell reception was spotty and it was impossible. soon my friends were waking and one by one discovered the baby (who by this time had stopped crying and crawled to the gate to show himself). he was curious and unbelievably cute and soon my friends had lifted him over the gate and his chubby little body got passed around until he wound up in my arms. 'okay,' i thought, 'the baby can stay but the parents are still going to ruin things for me...'. by mid afternoon we realized the parents were not serious, just responsible and very shy- also incredibly tolerant. they came to our crazy dinners and made sure we didn't fall asleep with the stove on.

fast forward to my drunk friends and i at a laundry club. a place where you could listen to bands in between changing out your loads. we were all smiling and so excited as we entered the club with our baskets on our hips. so. many. haier. machines. we knew our clothes would be really clean! like a little domestic procession we snaked from room to room to room looking for open machines, but people were crabby and hogging even empty ones by placing towels over the open doors. i started to feel scrappy and began to clear a row of the towel 'place-cards' but things started to get angry with the machine monopolizers and my friends ushered me out before any actual shit went down. the next day we bought a used washer and dryer on craigslist, had it delivered to the beach houses and continued to have happy.

Monday, February 10, 2014

something about bioidentical costumes...