HOLD ON TO YOUR UNDERWEAR

[brideylee]

Cruise, Miscavige, and Seger

             Oh, no. There it is again. The opening, piano riff to Old Time Rock and Roll by Bob Seger plays for the fifteenth time this evening. But instead of inciting horny, cheeseball fun, Tom Cruise whimpers into a wash cloth. He’s been hiding in the bathroom for ten minutes thinking this portion of the night was over, but no. The piano riff repeats itself awaiting Tom’s signature entrance. It wasn’t an invitation-it was a command, militant and sinister. He has performed the Risky Business dance for David Miscavige so many times tonight that the bottom of his feet feel burnt from sliding in his socks. Tom takes deep, scary breaths and flexes his muscular pecks that press themselves against his white button down like caged animals. Breathing heavy and looking into his own eyes, in the mirror, was one of Tom’s favorite hobbies and it immediately calmed him down. Quarantining with Miscavige in his underground yacht was a mix of paranoia and “fun” that swirled together so abstractly for Tom he couldn’t tell the difference anymore.  Again the riff plays, each chord hitting harder, growing impatient… 

              Miscavige looks dehydrated, his eye balls, like rubber, as he rests his head on the keys of a shiny white piano. He hiccups himself out of a drunken stupor and some drool lands on the slacks of his needlessly fancy tux. He starts licking the keys of the piano going from high to low over and over.  An albino alligator on a leash sleeps in the corner of the white room that gently sways with the tide of Miscavige’s underwater canal, built just below the Office Depot on Vine. Yes, exactly, the one with the swivel chairs! White leather couches line the rectangular room with a  giant silver statue of L. Ron Hubbard in the center of it, oddly placed, where a coffee table should be, making conversation impossible. Miscavige stops licking the keys and tries again, playing the riff.  “Come out, come out where ever you are," Miscavige taunts, playfully? It’s unclear even to himself what made him treat Tom this way, his only friend in the world.The power of knowing he could make the most famous person alive vanish in an instant was too wicked and sumptuous for him not to flirt with. Plus, he’s in love with Tom and is a self-diagnosed codependent. 

              After a beat of silence, David lurches toward the fire place. The roaring fire burns with a white flame. He stabs at the fire with an iron poker and then places the hot poker on his tongue. SSSsss. His tongue burns and his knees hobble up and down, convulsing with perverse pleasure. David moans delighted by the pain of his mouth flesh sizzling off. He gets bored of this and merrily puts the poker down and skips towards the piano as though he just picked a pretty flower. But then, the toilet flushes and the air is heavy again. His eyes peer around the  room with growing suspicion and land on the eight foot statue of L. Ron Hubbard. He runs up to it. “What? I’m a grown man!" At 4’9, David yelling at the silver L. Ron looks like Mickey Mouse scolding Walt. “You can’t tell me what to do it anymore!” Miscavige yanks violently on his ears and screams-a tick he’s had since he was a kid. 

              Suddenly, Tom appears, but he HAS PANTS ON! No longer in the Risky Business costume. It’s a firm chess move for Tom, not playing along in David’s freaky game. David doesn’t understand what he’s looking at. Why is Tom dressed? Very diplomatically, Tom gently suggests “I’m a little tired of Old Time Rock and Roll.” Tom approaches him, walking cautiously, his  arms stretched out guarding himself in anticipation of a Miscavige meltdown. David walks backward and sits himself down on the couch without breaking eye contact. Is Tom threatening him now? Or is he threatening Tom? Who is feeling what? What are feelings? It was mission impossible for either of them to keep track anymore. 

Tom gets within an inch of Miscavige’s face. “Why don’t we try a different Seger song, ay?” Tom’s mouth being so close to Davids, immediately gives David a hard on, which was adorable because David Miscavige dresses his penis in a little Sea Org captains hat.  With his mouth still within an inch of Davids- “Alexa, play “Still the Same” by Bob Seger.” Tom says in the same intonation as “You had me at hello” in Jerry Maguire: soft, intimate, but with passionate conviction. It’s the type of conviction men had about their feelings in the 90s before their consciousness expanded just enough for them to be perpetually confused and horny. 

                The song begins to play. Tom, with his eyes (wide) shut, sways his head around and lifts himself out of David’s face.  The song has a melancholic catharsis to it, something that stirs the sadness in dead, alive men everywhere. “You always won, every time you placed a bet.” Tom floats around the room, pointing in various directions as he dances, his eyes slicing David with every side eyed glance at him. David sits watching like a pricky dork at a strip club, barely blinking, but showing no emotion. He listens as Tom bellows along with Bob. “You’re still the same. Moving game to game. No one standing in your way. Turning on the charm long enough to get you by.”  

                David has never listened to the lyrics so deeply before. Bob Seger is singing about him. Tom is singing about David, but Tom is also singing about himself. They were both trapped, David thinks- himself, Tom, and probably Bob Seger too. His rubber eyes moisten and a tear makes its way down his face. He looks up at L. Ron’s statue that grins at him maniacally.  “You’re the still same. Baby, baby still the same.” Tom, in the corner, is doing the Saturday Night Before move before the albino alligator chomps down on his leg. “Ouch. Damn.” Tom says, calmly. The yacht experiences a bout of turbulence as Tom pries the alligators mouth of his leg. The statue rocks back and forth with the fury of the choppy tide. “It must be busy at Office Depot” David says, his life drained out of him. 

[brideylee]

Chateau Quarantine

                 Sophia Coppola smokes a cigarette while she waits for an omelette she has no intention of eating.  It’s a gloomy marine layered morning, you can barely see across Sunset. She’s been in lock down for three weeks and while she normally loves the moody, brooding decadence of the Chateau Marmont, its elite solitude is giving her a bit too much time to reflect. She thinks about the concept of crying as she watches a long torso-ed model skinny dip in the pool from the penthouse. There are no rules anymore, not that there were many in the first place. The hotel was shuttered to the public as of three weeks ago, and those who were already there could stay indefinitely. Sophia lives alone in the tower suite with the three bedrooms and the wrap around porch, known by some as “the Deniro”, but Robert himself couldn’t tell you why. Any legends or gossip about the Chateau were just bread crumbs to keep the public hungry and mystified. The real Chateau for the privileged few who used it, was an unceremonious respite for excessive loneliness, addiction, and often not great sex. The Chateau had a reputation: look but don’t fuck. Everyone’s genitals were rendered useless from anti-depressants.

               She thought she would be filming by now. Her cast is stranded too, with little guidance other than “we’ll wait it out.” The film she wanted to make stars Hugh Grant and Ewan McGregor as two estranged brothers coming together for their father’s funeral. Iman was set to the play the mysterious woman who shows up at the funeral who they then realize was their father’s mistress. It was going to be a slow movie about the brothers coming to terms with their father’s death and equally so falling in love with the woman he hid from them. All this would be suggested through intimate long takes, and funny, stylish, improvised montages. Always subtle and romantic without the sap, this was the tight rope Sophia liked to balance on.  At the end of the movie, both brothers are mildly changed, but not entirely. She has a sweet spot for the immovability of people’s psyches, particularly men. 

Sophia watches impartially, as the naked model floats on her back in the calm pool. It is so cold and early to swim, is she on drugs or is everyone at this place even more numb than they think? She wondered if her film was too male, too disembodied from her personally to mean anything.  Tapping into the male gaze, was an ability she was born with. Her father’s point of view was all she interacted with as a kid, and the underside of his specialties became her focus: the lost parts of men when they are too weak to hold up the heavy crown of their egos, who they were when they could let themselves feel outside of their work. But given the state of the world, and the molasses nature of time during lock down, Sophia started to question if what she always found to be her strength was just simply trauma. Was her whole profession a way to resolve some genetic creative stifling that took place in the shadow of her dad? Surely her body of work contains more than that. It’s not all a selfish attempt at repair. Is any art not selfish? "Maybe I should make a different movie, something that everyones gonna like for once.” She thinks to herself.  Thank God, her goat cheese omelette has arrived.

             Later on, the gothic lobby is empty besides the cast of her film and the elegant model behind the reception desk standing like a hollow sculpture, frightened by the chaos that lurks outside. Ewan McGregor, drunk off of five Marmont Mules, is showing Hugh Grant an app that maps the stars and constellations. Ewan has gone on and on about a camping trip he took around Scotland and how amazing the stars were, but when pressed for details about where exactly he was or what he saw or what year he did this, he can’t seem to remember anything at all.But that doesn’t dampen his excitement about the app. “See, that, there is Orion’s belt!” Ewan enthusiastically points out, his cute smirk displaying his bottom row of sweet corn kernel teeth. Ewan just recently learned about the stars. Until the age of 47, Ewan had been referring to them as “night freckles.” Many think this is why he didn’t have a fun time acting in  Star Wars, space simply befuddled him. Hugh and Ewan are dressed exactly the same: navy blue beanie, black jeans, a tight blue thermal, and desert boots- the actor man uniform they give you after you play opposite Nicole Kidman or Renee Zellweger.

“That’s brilliant,” says Hugh Grant completely perplexed by the app and confused at Ewan’s rambling. Hugh sticks a handkerchief up his nostril with his pointer finger and wiggles it around somewhat violently. Iman clocks this with a blink of disgust, her silk, gold blouse  glistens with god-like royalty in the amber glow.  “Can you turn your face away? That’s how the virus is spreading.” Her voice is deep and she rarely uses it because it changes the direction of the wind and messes with the tides.  “Aw, fuck me. That’s right, isn’t it?” Hugh Grant turns away and starting blowing his nose and coughing obnoxiously. Hugh is acting like a resentful brat because he knows he wont be able to have Iman. He decides he’s gonna pick a fight with Sandra Bullock via face time later to blow off steam. Iman is thinking she was right all along, she should never have agreed to this. She was already sick of the “beanie twins”. 

Hugh had been rattling on about how the movie needed a sex scene or at least a sexy scene and went on to say that Sophia had some sort of block. Iman felt that both Ewan and Hugh, however innocently, were exploiting their acting roles to gain real life experience, and there was no way in hell, she was going to kiss either of them.  Her kiss would make them immortal and Iman knew their souls needed more lifetimes to grow. Plus, she liked the script the way it was- underwritten and open for interpretation. Her character is symbolic of the side of their dad they didn’t get to meet-  spiritual, graceful, embodied. It was a soulful choice not to show any nudity or sex, one that could lead Americans to try to use whats left of their iPhone stolen imaginations.

                Meanwhile Michael Cain, who was supposed to play the dead father, is staring at the beautiful Victorian tapestry hanging behind her. “It’s like it’s right out of the Cloister’s.” Michael says under his breath. Michael is sweet, Iman thinks as she watches him stare at the tapestry with wonder, his mouth agape, and a lil warm milk spilling out of his left eye. Iman and him have known each other for years and he always reminded her of her husband: his fierce devotion to his craft, his rigorous intellectuality that does a bad job hiding an animalistic sexuality. Both men contained so much and no one can handle a man like that besides a mystical siren like Iman. 

Hugh and Ewan’s chatter dies as their drinks empty. “If I were to be honest with myself…” Hugh begins. “Better later than never…” Michael Cain interrupts without cracking a smile,  a dryness a la Maggie Smith. In fact, fuck, this was Maggie Smith. No one had realized. Hugh winks at Michael/ Maggie and continues. “ I don’t think were going to be filming any time soon, folks. I think we are being held hostage a bit by Miss Coppola.” Ewan stares off with a thinking face like no one has  ever had a deeper thought before. “That is interesting to think about. There is some kind of bratty assumption that all this will fade away soon enough. And we’ll be back on set. But what if it’s not for another year or so?”  Ewan is really getting worked up “What if we live here for the rest of our lives!!” His eyes are big and dazzling, it’s like he’s thinking of the most ideal outcome for the rest of his life.

               Suddenly, Sophia joins them at the table. “There they are, my little hunchbacks!” This is what Sophia affectionately calls her actors, the origin is unknown. Sophia has a strange new confidence around her. Usually, when she walked into places, she would feel like a Nat Sherman cigarette, like only some select tall New Yorkers in the back would still appreciate her. “Hello, love! Someone slept well.” Maggie Smith as Michael Caine chirped. Even when Maggie-Michael said something sweet, it still felt like someone was aggressively tickling your ribcage. 

          “I have news.” Sophia sits down, and smiled large and toothy, a stark contrast to her usual chic, despondent stare,  a look only afforded  to artists born with trust funds. “We’re not making the movie.” Hugh taps the table. “Well, I believe I won that bet.” Ewan’s jaw drops, destroyed. “You mean we cant live here together forever?” He runs his hands through his hair, petrified. Iman is quiet, which can mean many different things and all things at once, she is eternally the glory of God, a forgotten pyramid at the bottom of the ocean that if unearthed would explode us into 5D ascension. 

 “We are making a better movie! A super hero movie!!” Sophia exclaims. Sophia gets up close in the faces of her cast, pitching them on her new idea. “It’ll be a real heroes journey- good guys versus evil! Fun CGI! Sexy starlets and fun on trend jokes!” She turns to Michael Maggie, her mouth inches away from their milky eye, and says- “And much much more!” Sophia climbs up on the table now. “The adults will love it, as well as the little ones!” She does an Irish jig and starts spinning around and then poses with her arms up as though at the end of a musical.  It was not fun to watch.  Iman cuts her off-“I don’t trust what is happening.This is not reality. This is delusion. A karmic spell.” The power of Iman’s words blows the power out of the Chateau, pipes burst, the fire alarm goes off, and Joel Madden of Good Charlotte in room 304 stops jerking off for a second. Sophia is still catching her breath from her presentation, her sweating, arms stretched to the ceiling. She gulps as her eyes meet Iman’s. “Why don’t you just write from my character’s point of view?” Iman says as softly as she can without causing chaos.   Sophia freezes. Her whole body calcifies and turns to ice, then crumbles onto the table. Ewan and Hugh watch in absolute horror as Iman drops some of the ice into her water. She knows she shouldn’t have said yes to this project and looks on lovingly at Michael/ Maggie who has dozed off. 

[brideylee]

Movie Lover Harry And His Chimp

        Harry fiddled in his pocket for the rest of his almonds. They were unsalted and satisfied him very little, but a pocket full of the stale almonds from his cabinet was the only food he had in his house. He loathed going to the movies without a snack, and hating giving away his money on over priced concessions. The physical world only ripped him off and living off of unemployment without any dreams left had Harry in a bind of frugality and self hatred. 

         Harry passed an elderly usher cleaning up popcorn on his way into the movie. The elderly usher glared at Harry with icy indifference. Harry pointed to a piece of popcorn, the elderly usher had missed and headed inside. He sat in the theater staring at the white screen in front of him. The lights were not yet lowered, and the trailers would not be coming on for at least 30 minutes, but he was in there. He stared riveted at the white, matted screen in front of him that had hypnotized him his whole life.  

         The opening silence began. He shifted in his seat, coughed, and excused himself although no one was in there. His eyes flickered as he watched nothing, eating almonds a little bit at a time with his front teeth to make them last. His heart stirred, by the lack of story,  the ease and unease of emptiness, the collecting momentum of non-existence spoke to his dying intellect. The air remained stale around him, clearly they hadn’t cleaned the theater in a while, but the smells of past life comforted him. He saw himself up there in the pale, vast uncertainty. He watched as it unraveled some tight unconscious ball inside him like all good films do, drawing him closer into the present, his most feared tense.  The empty slate of the screen held his concentrated attention. His heart started to race as the dullness of nothing swelled to a romantic crescendo. Would the absence of anything end up together? 

          He found himself reminiscing about a first love of his and how it had soured with such pungency, that he almost took his own life at the age of 29. Refusing to believe life could feel as good as anything he had with this woman, he began ranting to himself all day and night.  Sometimes out loud, other times silently, but just as shrill. He walked around his neighborhood with what felt like an adult chimp screaming in his ear over any logic. The chimps voice was many voices at once. He recognized his father, his mother, himself as a baby waling, his heartbroken teenage self shouting curses at the bully that slipped viagra into his pepsi. He cut off from the world as the chimp grew bigger, dense with loud pains . He sank instead in the movie theater seat and escaped. He absorbed the beautiful actors, the stories about the contradictions of humans, the desperation of saving oneself from themselves. They broke him and challenged him, seeing how big the world was and what other character he could be playing if he would only open up to it. But instead he just watched. 

        After decades of numbly watching movies, Harry’s chimp had gained control over him and suddenly the chimp was too loud to listen to while keeping up with the films. He tried, but the shrieking chimp was becoming so hostile that during his most favorite movies, was when he squalled the harshest. Harry fought the chimp during Bad Day at Black Rock, he gouged at his eyes, punched his ribs, even tried to tickle him but the chimp just shouted back with the painful, guttural teams of threats from Harry’s past. Harry even tried to lighten up the chimp and brought him to Every Which Way But Loose starring Clint Eastwood and a Chimp, this only angered the desperate monkey. 

Finally, Harry decided he had better give up movies and when he did the chimp trotted behind, him a few a more feet, still yelling, but not as close. Harry settled into just watching the quiet screen and began feeling just as engaged as he did during his favorite films.  After awhile, the chimp mysteriously left him.

      Now in the third act, Harry watches unblinkingly as nothing happened and nothing had to. He leaned forward as space and time invisibly triumphed over the blankness. He stood up and clapped as the nonexistent credits scrolled over the white. Harry gathered his hat  and wiped tears away from his eyes, tremendously moved by the whole vacant experience.  As the audience members for the next film began to file in, he rushed out so he could not make out any faces or details, only shapes, outlines of folks.

Keeping his head down, he absent mindedly bumped into the elderly usher who scowled with piercing malevolence. Harry said “excuse me,” but the elderly ushers face did not change. As Harry walked towards the exit he turned around to see the Usher’s face had turned into the chimps! Harry ran out of the theater as fast as he could and into the world.

[brideylee]

Anti- Fan Fiction: James Woods and Robert Blake at Dan Tana’s

           The air inside is hot, full of dust, and too many rotting mouths had ordered the lasagna. James Woods sits in his corner booth at Dan Tana’s in the main room with his eyes on the bar full of shouting men in suits. Some are West Hollywood slick fratties  and others more smelly and introspective in itchy tweed from the land of 70s character actor city. Squeezed in between these men taking up more space than needed with either their narcissistic sadness or their loud, cologned  bravado are some young women desperately trying to enjoy a martini at the historic restaurant, but instead are resigned to hear a bald someones life story and feeling many passing hands needlessly touch their bare backs as men hover and spill around them.

          Woods watches disgustedly, he watches everything disgustedly: babies being born, the sunrise, an elderly woman saying “Hello, Deary”. It all makes him sick. His belly protrudes forward as he holds back a sudden burp and he releases some air through his famously skeezy lips as though exhaling cigarette smoke. He is repulsively sexy in his stony confidence. He checks his watch and decides to complain about something. Dead eyed with his arm stretched out, he points at a maitre de who is pushing 90 and is only meant to be looked at by tourists as a part of the ambiance. The command of Woods pointing hypnotizes the ancient man and he walks over in submission thinking this could hopefully be death itself beckoning him home. 

            Woods gives him his iconic half smile, where one side of his mouth stays in place while the other curls up his cheek as though being lifted by a fish hook, his head tips forward and his round dark eyes look up at him like an alcoholic father who “doesn’t want to have to discipline.” “Hey sarge, the bread is a little chewy, mind popping it in the microwave or something. I could break my teeth on it. And heat the butter up. It’s fresh, its just not soft.” Woods gets bored with himself half way through his criticism and winks at a woman at the bar whose glance regrettably fell on him. The maitre de with no capacity left to hear, nods and takes the bread away, disappointed to still be breathing. 

Woods spots Tim Allen alone in a four person booth holding up a plate to his face, licking it feverishly. They lock eyes and give each other big, knowing smirks, like two people who both know where the body is.  Allen gleefully goes back to lapping up the rest of the marinara, grease all over his chin, his napkin bib coming into good use. “Funniest man in America” Woods thinks to himself before being distracted by some plastic cleavage walking by.

           Suddenly, the air in the restaurant cools as the door wafts open and a small shadowy figure enters with the silhouette of a miniature cowboy.  “Finally.” James Woods says as Robert Blake plops down across from him “Are we angry?” Blake says defiantly with his headed tilted back, his lids hanging low and heavy across his beetle eyes. “There is this thing called time, Robert. I’ve been waiting here an hour.” Blake laughs with a childish grin crossing his face, and somehow in the smooth red lighting of Tana's, he looks twenty years younger, though still disturbingly gaunt, and getting more pale by the minute like a man whose only sustenance is the unease he inspires. He’s wearing a black velvet cowboy hat that looks too big for him, making him along with his small stature appear like an elderly child. “Time!” Blake regales with impish laughter as though hearing an old joke he hasn’t heard out loud in years. Woods stews, his eye twitches and he chews on the inside of his mouth.  Blake’s laugher continues, even Tim Allen interrupts his slurping to peak at where this sinister chortling is coming from. 

              After a few minutes, Blake calms down and stares at Woods lovingly. “You were always funnier than me, Woods. Never give that up, you can fall back on it.” Blake was full of these little jabs, always insinuating that Woods acting career never amounted to anything. Rehearsing a hurtful father son dynamic was one of the only ways these men could show their love. “How’s the old lady?” Blake is referring to Woods’ twenty-two year old girlfriend. “Driving me nuts,” says Woods gazing off, then he leans in towards Robert. “In all the right ways.” He winks at Robert. “Pet a pussy cat on the head too much, and they go bald.” Blake warns. Woods blinks, confused. He had a love-hate relationship with Blakes morsels of wisdom. On one hand it’s why he enjoyed his company so much, on the other hand, Blake had a way of making him question everything, particularly Blake’s sanity.  Woods decides to change the subject. 

“Some shrimp cocktail I ordered us an hour ago. They might be too dead to eat.” He slides an ornate glass rimmed with withered shrimp in front of Blake. All the ice inside the glass is melted and the shrimp look like they know how pathetic their fate is. Blake knocks all the shrimp off the edge of the glass towards the center and gulps them down like he’s taking a shot of vodka before going bear hunting. 

“So, what do you make of this 'Covid 19'” Woods puts Covid 19 in air quotes and his head bobbles with cocky indifference. “It’ll go away.” Blake states between sips of the shrimp water. “Everything goes away, James.” Blake studies the menu. “Not quite Vitello's…” James didn’t want to get into a Dan Tana's versus Vitellos fight tonight. For one, Blake hadn’t been there in decades since he took his wife there before having her killed and more than that Blake was just biased because Dan Tana's never named a pasta after him. Woods lets it slide, he understands the irrelevancy Blake feels to the modern world and the pain of being pushed farther and father back inside Hollywoods skeleton closet. 

         Yet, although Woods sees Blake as an oracle, his secret virus fears remain. There is a social distancing trend hyped in the media and a possible impending lock down for Los Angeles; a city full of the most insecure egos on the planet. A city that needed to love, use, and discard people so regularly that the notion of a lockdown seemed to go against its code of conduct. Furthermore,  Woods cant stand being in his house with his girlfriend for more than three hours, two if there was no oral sex involved, but even worse is the idea of being alone.

His anxiety is spiking as Blake with half glasses on seemed completely engrossed in the menu, ignoring him just like his old man. Woods dips into the pocket of his blazer and dabs his pinkie into a tiny bag of coke, neatly putting it away and rubbing the gums of his front teeth expertly discreet. Blake raises his eye brows. “They’ve got a chicken named after Sidney Beckerman. Did you know him?” Woods shakes his head, and gestures to a waiter to bring more water with an agro snottiness only he could pull off. “He produced Kelly’s Heroes. Good guy, but I never liked him.” Blake starts singing “Que Sera Sera” by Doris Day under his breath, while perusing the menu like it’s a gun catalogue.

Woods patience runs out, he blows a  long grey hair out of his eyes and grabs the menu from Blake. He smacks a passing waiter on the back with the menu. “We’re  gonna split a plain cheese pizza with a side of spaghetti, and two Roy Rogers. And lots of grenadine for this one right here.” Blake smiles like a school boy brat, pleased.

            “So listen, have you been following it at all?” “Following what?” Blake says with a gentle, Warhol deadpan. “The virus horse shit… Robert, they’re saying that we all need to go into isolation. That it’s airborne.” Blake whips the red napkin into his lap. “Get a hold of yourself. Will you? Fear is airborne. Do you know how many motherfuckers, here, still believe in Lincoln?” Blakes shifts were dramatic. Sometimes, he felt like you were talking to a screwy relative of Yoda and other times he had the grit of a  dried up cowboy that had made love with Joe Pesci. 

“FUCK YOU! NO!” The volume of Tim Allen shouting into his Motorolla razor silenced the place for a good twenty-seconds.  “500 million dollars in CASH or you can take your Santa Clause 6 and…make Santa Clause piss!!” The manager started a clap to diffuse any tension. After a smattering of applause, the place went back to normal. “Can I get a big brownie?” Tim Allen screams towards the kitchen like a kid at his grandparents house.

         Their Roy Rogers are placed on the table. Woods is sweating as the coke is hitting, and he can feel his phone vibrate with texts from his often pilled out girlfriend. Texts like “Can you remind me where the refrigerator is?”

  Blake raises his glass, admiring the red flesh of the maraschino cherry and the slow dance of the grenadine syrup descending towards the bottom, surrendering to him like a wounded lover. “Cheers! May we remember to lock the doors and make the baby swallow the key.” They clink glasses. Blake does a long exaggerated gasp of refreshment, his tongue  wagging out of his mouth for a long time. 

            “Woods, what do you think it was that got in the way of your success?” Triggered and high, Woods replies, coke speed with spit collecting at the corners of his mouth.  “Well, I think it was a lot of things. Particularly, that I am a man who values his freedom of speech and I don’t like my rights trampled on by so called “progressives” and  you know I thought I was pretty good in Ray Donovan, but I really wasn’t given much of a script, but, ah, fuck.” He wipes his forehead and collects himself. “Blake. I have a serious question.” They stare at each other. Blake has a gravelly distance between his soul and his eyes, but something in Woods reaches him. Their cheese pizza and spaghetti ruptures the eye contact, but Woods can’t give up.

“Say there is a lock down, and this virus is serious. I can’t be alone with the kiddo for that long, you know what I mean? I need a friend. Someone I can pal around with. Someone that gets it. Man to man. Blake, do you think we can live together? Either at the Ranch in Burbank or my place, wherever you feel the most like you can be you.” Woods heart is racing, this is the most vulnerable he’s felt since since the scene in The Virgin Suicides after his daughters die. 

         Blake stares at him coldly and takes a bite of pizza. “This virus frightens you.” Woods frustratedly digs into the pizza, his heart; a little more vacant, and confused. “Don’t worry.” Blake reaches into his pocket and takes out a vile of clear liquid and places it next to the spaghetti. “I got a cure for that.” Woods examines it. “Is this-“ “A vaccine” Blake says satisfied. “One sip and everything goes away.” 

       “CHANGE OF PANTS? PLEASE, CAN I GET A CHANGE OF PANTS” Tim Allen roars with a lap full of chocolate brownie. His face and khaki pants are covered in chocolate.  But Woods stays transfixed on the vile. “Where the hell did you?…” “We had to make vaccines during breaks on Little Rascals. Bastards always put us to work any way they could. Learned a thing or two though and this one is special… everything goes away. “Have you used it?” Woods asks, his head cocked to the side, watching the liquid float like the clear lip gloss his girlfriend….Kelly? Katy? wears.  “Used it plenty of times. Plenty of times.” Says Blake with the resigned faith of a Southern preacher.

          “Well, even so, if there’s a lock down, can I bunk with you? Forgive me, you’re single now, right?” “I’m dating,  but nothing to write home about," the eighty-six year old answers. Woods looks up from the vile, expectantly. “Listen, kid. My space is sacred. It’s between me and God. I don’t know if you think I can get you a bit part in something or…” “No, I just would like your company that’s all.” Woods assures him. “A man who can’t sleep alone, sleeps while awake. Take the vaccine. You’ll be free.” Woods leans back. Blake  always cuts him open and leaves him smelling like the chicken broth that seemed to emanate from Blakes pores. But that’s often the medicine Woods needs. He uncorks the vile, holds it up dramatically,“Salud!”

            Allen is standing in his boxers by his booth with his arms crossed waiting for the waiters to bring him pants while Woods finishes the last drop. The blood red walls moist from poor insulation seem to pulse around Woods as Blake stares at him. “Hows it feel?” “Like…uh..like nothing. I mean… like it was water, a placebo?” Blake giggles shaking his head. 

           Pants-less Tim Allen walks over to their table. “Hey Robert! I haven’t seen you in ages!” They high five. “You know me, keepin’ busy back at home.” Allen turns to Woods, “How ya doing, bud?” and then turn backs to Blake. “You know you’d be perfect for the next Santa Clause movie. You haven’t been in any of them yet, right? “Not yet!” “Well, right on,Cowboy!” Allen and Blake high five again. Woods gets dizzy and starts blinking slowly trying to steady himself. Perhaps taking a vaccine manufactured by Robert Blake was not smart, he didn’t know for sure. He barely knew anything. “Woods, isn’t it time we scroll through our imdb pages?” Blake baits him with their tradition. Woods nods and types his name into his phone. “I love this game! Can I play?” Tim sits down. 

           Woods can’t focus his eyes very well, but he has typed his name into imdb four times and nothing is coming up. Tim Allen can’t help  himself “Ok, so this is a show I was on where I played like a handy man…” His mouth hangs open as he excitedly awaits  the men to guess what show. “Garfield.” answers Blake without sarcasm. “It’s not working….” Woods interrupts. “Whats with your friend?” Tim Allen asks annoyed. Blakes eyes don’t leave Woods who is squinting at his phone. “Ok, I’m a dad and a handyman…” “My credits are all gone.” James’s voice seems to morph an octave lower the walls seem to run into the leather booths and booths seem to melt  into the floors and drip into the basement where a drunk couple are fucking among cans of tomato sauce.

Woods psyche seeps further into the earths crust, mantle and then core where he watches his entire identity burned in the furnace of mother earths blazing kiln. Alone with himself. To Allen and Blake, his body sitting at the booth looks like a prosthetic suite empty of an actor inside. “The vaccine works.” Blake thinks to himself sipping his pink drink through a straw. Allen whips his head from Woods to Blake and in his classic broad Tim Allen way says “Uhh, am I missing something???”

[70sscifiart]

1970 cover art by Herbert Norton Rogoff for Sleeping Planet, by William R. Burkett, Jr.

[ozu-teapot]

Hommage à Zgougou (Short) | Agnès Varda | 2002

[the-woman-who-reads]

Joan Rivers (1966)

[brideylee]

Can We Talk About Covid Yet??

         I have been losing my mind with quarantine Covid 19 anxiety fatigue so I thought I’d take to tumblr to get some thoughts down. I deleted instagram and twitter and have avoided the news the past couple days. I am doing a four week, no social media detox. Yes, this is a privileged thing to get to do for the good of my own psyche. I am on email threads for the latest on protests, petitions, reading materials etc. But my addiction to the emotional reactivity got too strong for me.  I will melt the iceberg of frantic energy  in my head so I can de-thaw and focus on hot summer flings. Dirty outdoors sex! Rough doggy style bonking! A juicy 6ft distanced lap dance!   Non-mask wearers don’t apply! And also I’ll be better able to serve myself, the community, the movement. Everything. I don’t think people realize we have to work inside out.  As I walked through Echo Park tonight, I saw a muscle man in a low v tee with a cross around his neck who seemed to be on a first date with three blonde women. Not a mask on any one of them. We’re screwed. Well, he definitely is screwing right now. : ) I guess what I am saying is that I am jealous. 

           What a wondrous and wild time to be alive.  I feel very grateful to witness the kind of healing chaos that’s all around. At the same time, the chaos bit is what can be tricky to navigate, especially when you don’t feel like the “most stable STABLE” of the horse stables, ya feel? My world felt NUTS when I got a bob cut with shaved sides.  This is a whole new wacky-do filled with mainly confronting your deepest, scariest parts of yourself, your country, and our fragile human race. It is beautiful to become more and more conscious, but it’s hard because you suddenly see your legs are broken, your eyes have been shut so long they crusted over. and you have to relearn everything. I don’t think this is an underestimation. My privilege, white peoples collective privilege, has kept us in these problems. For instance, I complain about not writing enough to every therapist I’ve had for the past seven years. You think I write that much more? Not really! Because I get to talk on  a cushy couch about it, and that sorta helps me think the problem will solve itself. But, alas, I still haven’t finished my novel “If Only The Moon Would Spank Me”. 

            For awhile I wanted to pitch to Gary Numan that he should record a cover of his hit 1979 “Cars” but change the word to “Quar” “Here in my quar, I feel safest from all! I can lock all the doors and its the only way to live/ in Quars” It seemed like a sure fire “Of course, Bridey. I’ll be right on it.” Quar and Car are very easy to change, and the lyrics make sense, could be fun. Anyways, I decided not to bug him about it and realized it really had more to do with my own anxiety about the world being ripped open and reaching for some 80s nostalgia to teethe on like an ear of corn to stop myself from screaming. 

            I am not on dating apps and I think maybe I’ll throw in celibacy to the detox. Why not? Masturbation feels like rubbing together two balloons and my porn interests have drastically changed.  It used to see be so easy, now I have more luck putting on the yule log channel. I don't think I will ever be attracted to a person for the same things again. We’re all receiving some x-ray vision from this slow motion living. 

               A man walked by my house and told me Corona was Choronzon.   Choronzon is a demon from occultist 16th century literature that Aleister Crowley and John Dee “summoned”. It is the female version of the serpent and her number is 333. According to the inter web, it is the last obstacle between humans and enlightenment. It is sent to pierce the veil of reality and separate those in ego and those who are enlightened. Choronzon is all about mental and bodily decay. It causes hive brain so people can’t distinguish the thoughts they are having from those around them, so peoples inner truths get buried. It’s a cloud of inane “I am” statements that bolster self-identifying delusions. Anyways, there is lots on Choronzon. As a religious horror- lover, and a former Catholic school girl, this tickled me in the exact right place. (An inch above and to the left of my asshole.) 

          Is Corona “Coronzon”? Or is it just a virus? Are we undergoing a massive human shift or are we going to forget about this and let it fester like a wound on a wound? Happy Friyay!

[brideylee]

Fecal and Tinkle

         His name was Fecal, but no one knew that. From the receipts, it could have been Fred or Fungal. They only knew that he sat at the bar every night from Happy Hour until close, drinking steadily without ever seeming drunk.  His eyes were bulbous and shit brown, (his namesake) and his mouth was a straight line, no lips to offer anybody. His yellow teeth looked like tiny nub-like kernels, that seemed like if you waited patiently enough, could pop into the delicious kettle corn from your youth. He was sexily grizzled, with deep cracks and wrinkles in his dehydrated face that acted like different routes of a road map of all the people he had fucked…all of them dead ends.  He wore the same dark jeans every night for the past 20 years and they hugged so tightly around his crotch, that when he uncrossed his legs or shifted his weight, the whole bar suddenly smelled delightfully like deviled eggs. “Fantabulous, I’ll have a dozen of your finest eggs! I can smell them now!” , a 10 foot tall lady in a Kentucky Derby  hat would proclaim upon catching a whiff of his pants. Sorrowfully, the staff in sheepish, hushed tones would break it to her, there were no deviled eggs to be had. And, oh how she cried! Fecal loved her crying for his crotch, it made him feel wanted. 

             He was a lonely loner who had given up on hygiene and love long ago, other than that, no real personality.  Now he spent his days wiping the oil off his nose and putting his greased finger into his beer to tame the foam. That was until, Tinkle sauntered into his dark dive. Tinkle moved liked no one he had ever seen, she stomped around in circles, winking at anyone and anything in her perimeter-sometimes it was a salt shaker, sometimes a family of four. Whoever was in her path, her smiley nipples were keen on dribbling out of her halter dress and winding up in your soup. She was a sexy blonde klutz, constantly giggling and rubbing her rubber tits. Fecal thought this kind of a lady was extinct, but he was stinky and wrong. 

             “She couldn’t be older than 78, 79 years old” Fecal thought to himself as he bit down on his fist, cracking some nub teeth in the process . His shit eyes were following her spherical ass that was going around in circles as she sprayed Jessica Simpson perfumed chaos in the bar, shouting at no one in particular over and over “Where ShOuld I sit?! Where Should I sit!?” Finally someone pointed her to the empty stool next to Fecal- thats when they locked eyes. There was immediate tension made clear by Tinkles pulsating chest and the orgasmic rolling back of her eyes into her head. Fecal’s eyes were still reminiscent of a poop color, but he, too, was feeling horned up. She sat next to him, her eyes flickering up and down his leathered bod without looking up she orders “a Reindeer Flat Mossimo Target and hold the gerbils, wouldn’t want to deprive Richard Gere” Her voice calm and cool like a collected cucumber. “Must be a New Yorker or one of those magical talking statues from an Egyptian tomb” Fecal thought to himself. But before the bartender could finish asking Tinkle to explain exactly what a Reindeer Flat Mossimo Target was, Tinkle had slapped the bar tender, grabbed Fecal’s arm and commanded “Let’s go to your place.” And off they went, the stench of her Jessica Simpson perfume, and his deviled egg dick trailing behind them as they hurried out. It was the first time he had left the bar before close in 20 years. 

              Fecal and Tinkle were making out hard as though extracting snake poison from each others mouths, sucking on their elbows and knees too. It was very joint heavy foreplay. Tinkle’s Marilyn Monroe hairdo was getting bigger and wilder, as Fecal grew more greasy, his glands leaking pheromones feverishly.  Tinkle bounced onto his bed and raised up her dress, jumping on his bed in platforms. Fecal joined her, embarrassed at first, but then having fun. Her milk bags swung around and Fecal’s balls, released from his denim, whirled around with glorious renewed freedom. They had awful sex and stared at each other after in post coital bliss. “How’d you get the name “Fecal”? Tinkle asked. “My mom said my eyes looked like shit.” Fecal answered. Tinkle laughed. “How’d you get the name Tinkle?” “ Everyone said my hair was the color of pee.”  They both laughed and farted, which made Fecal laugh harder until finally, he smiled so large that his teeth popped into delicious kettle corn that Tinkle ate up like her life depended on it. 

[bikinitown]

Jamie Lee Curtis

[hifructosemag]

Anna Park’s charcoal drawings are kinetic and absorbing, each scene embedded in crowd activity and moving between revelry and violence. See more on HiFructose.com.

[beer-buzz]

Scott Bergey

scottbergey.etsy.com 

[vortexsophia-deactivated2022110]

[geekygothgirl]

I don’t know what we did to deserve Mr. Rogers but I’m so glad we had him. 

[jessicacabot]

Mr. Rogers Hologram 2020 🇺🇸

[don56]

Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft in “The Miracle Worker”

[don56]

Rex Harrison and Gene Tierney in “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir”

[oldshowbiz]

GROUCHO

[joshfadem]

I am sincerely so stoked about this LOOSEY GOOSEY lineup. Let me tell you: we’ve got two of the most hilarious performers to appear on last years @twinpeaks, one of the greatest minds to come out of the groundlings, and a rare gift of a great NY performer gracing LA! I would not skip this Sunday, for real! 845pm @packtheater!