Melting Like Butter in Her Hands

The room is deathly quiet.
I am in a tiny space
where the dust gathers in corners.

A famous dancer named Jopay is with me,
sitting on my lap,
in a tiny wisp of a dress,
whispering sweetness into my ear
Making my blood hot
Making my back stiff

She offers herself to me.
For a night. For however long I want.
For a multitude of pleasures.
I ask how much.
She says 10,000 dollars.

I agree and she strokes,
I agree and she sighs,
I agree and she strokes again,
I wonder if this deal forfeits my soul.

My resolve melts like butter
in her smooth hands,
in her tender mercies,
in her velvet glove,
In her vicious circle.

My Grand Banquet on the 8.4 Floor

It’s strange, this elevator I’m on. Instead of a confining cube, it’s a roomy rectangle. In fact, it looks more like a hotel walkway between buildings or a museum hallway, than an elevator. It even has paintings lining the walls, lit artistically, and there are bright windows in-between.

And yet the thrum and the throb of its movement is faintly perceptible through the walls and floors. We are moving it seems.

I look over at the buttons on the far wall and see a sight worthy of Being John Malkovich. The floor numbers are all fractions.  I only remember seeing 8.4 and 5.25.

I exit at a floor which looks like a mezzanine floor overlooking the hotel lobby, and the roped dividers lead me to an uber-chic restaurant serving a fusion of Chinese and American foods. The menus are gorgeous! The decor inviting! My hunger rapacious!

I eat a superb meal, and stuff myself to the gills. My companions are cloudy memories. I can’t remember who they are. Or if I know them, just that I’ve eaten with them.

When the bill finally arrives, I sweat bullets. The slip of paper tells  me the meal cost a grand total of $622.00 and I have no wallet, and no money to pay for it. I look around for an exit.  My heart rate esscalates. What will I do now?

Panic.

Photo Credits: Photo by O.Palsson on Flickr.

An Argument With Mel Gibson

INTRO NOTE: VULGAR LANGUAGE AHEAD.

Mel: That f***ing russian c*nt wh*re gold digger. I’ll put her in the rose garden.

Pucci: Stop it., you’re panting all over my furniture. You’re drunk, you’re horny, you’re mad, and you haven’t been blown in a week. And stop boasting that you could probably get it from Alicia in 5 seconds because she was looking your way. B*llsh*t.

Mel: Ah f*ck you. I want to give that b**ch another f***ing piece of my mind. She has no f***ing soul.

Pucci: Put that phone down. Your life is being recorded. You’re living in the YouTube/TMZ age remember? So shut up and sit down.

Mel: That b**ch won’t ever forget what she’s done to me when I’m through with her! She has the nerve to act all whiny! She did this to me. SHE DID!

Pucci: She did it to you up to this point. Now you’re doing it to yourself. Let it go. Unhook those fingers from my Hello Kitty phone and CALM the f*** down, you drunk a**hole before I start swearing at you like you’re swearing at everyone these days.

Mel: Oh shut up. I’m paying you and don’t you ever forget it. Don’t you EVER be ungrateful.

Pucci: You’re paying me? YOU? What the f***? Who’s the guy who bought all your DVDs and then went out to watch Edge of Reason at the theater on opening night? Who’s the guy who gave The Passion of Christ to all his Christian friends by buying them off Amazon instead of off the back of a truck? You egocentric d***wad. I’m the one PAYING YOU to do your art, so shut the f*** up already.

Mel: and to think I left my wife because we didn’t have any spiritual connection … only to end up with that c*nt wh*re gold digger…

Pucci: You left your wife because you wanted to be blown by a different stripper every day of the g**d*mn week. If that’s what you call lack of a spiritual connection, I’d have to agree. But shut up about it anyway.

Mel: You’re one to talk, all you do is sit around in your bathrobe and blog all day. At least I HAVE a life to whine about!

Pucci: I am not your enemy okay? Listen — and I’m speaking to you as a friend not just a fan. Stop speaking with this woman. Stop ranting over the phone with ANYONE. Apologize for this sh*t, donate a wad of money to some rape victim’s center, and enroll yourself in rehab for a month or so. Get your act together or soon you’ll be in YOUR UNDIES blogging all day because you don’t have a career to go back to. You listening to me?

Mel: Give me the phone. And I’ll give her something to write radaronline about.

Pucci: F*ck.

Hungry Hair in a Haunted Hotel

Once again, I am travelling with a large group of friends — rugged backpackers and mountaineers, teachers and social activists — and we’re in a rustic wooden hotel that is haunted as heck. The hallways are dark, cold and menacing and despite knowing there are malicious spirits around, i have to keep going in order to enter our room. My roommates are all asleep. I’m not even sure if they’re really there or if I’m all alone. Unsure whether the mounds underneath the blankets have slumbering friends under them or vengeful spirits. The darkness is thick and frosted with mildew and despair.

Something touches my shoulders. A quick glance and I realize my hair is growing by leaps and bounds. Like Sadako in The Ring, it’s blossoming from my scalp and quickly covering my back, my face, my torso, then my feet.

It’s now several meters long and seems to be burrowing into the floor underneath me, trapping me, keeping me rooted to the spot. I cannot move. And the tangles of hair begin to choke me. My hair has a life of its own. And it is hungry.

In the moldy darkness of this room which reminds me of a Haruki Murakami novel , I silently pray for death.

*

In this video clip is the sort of hair I dreamed about. This is the original Japanese version of The Ring before Hollywood cast Naomi Watts in the English remake.

I blame a post over at FemThreads where blogger Lindsay cut her hair short and donated it to charity for reminding me about this recurring dream I’ve had over several years on and off.

Photo Credits: The Wardrobe Creatures2 by Gabriela Camerotti on Flickr.

When the Porn Stalls are Empty, the Elves are Busy

I am walking down a dusty field where, behind strange fences made of string, I see children playing volleyball. I try to watch for a few seconds but it bores me so much I resume the walk.

Soon I am jogging slowly and painfully down a narrow trail which leads to my two-story elementary school building. On the path, two grounds sweepers are clearing the way of leaves. I have to skirt between their noisy machines in order to get through.

My elementary school building is decrepit. The muddy walkway has sewage water leaking from some bathroom on the ground floor. The classrooms have been boarded up. Still, I keep going.

The path leads me to bustling Hong Kong, replete with sidewalk food vendors and stalls for bootleg porn DVDs. Most of the stalls have been closed down, I notice. Probably a nominal crackdown on piracy by the local government — something just for show. The few stalls still working appear to be lotto ticket vendors, with some porn magazines on the side, y’know, just to keep their street cred.

And then I am on a bus with 4 homeless people. I’m bringing them back with me to my room at a mansion. They need a place to stay. I am being hospitable although I cannot for the life of me recall who they are. I apologize that the room I am taking them to is actually big enough for more people.

But by the time I open the door to the room, I am shocked to find a million elves going through my stuff, and tagging everything with tiny clear stickers and gnome-sized Sharpie markers. They all stop what they’re doing at the same time and look at me and my visitors like I’m the one disturbing them from their most vital cataloging task.

Photo credits: Elf Clothesline - by Andrea R on Flickr.

How a Burning Desire to Perform Leads to a Surprise

A few establishments down from where I stand, I spot a dimly-lit bar with live bands auditioning for a gig. Amidst the throng of sweaty musicians, I see an old friend — accomplished guitarist Jazzyboy — getting ready to perform. He’s dressed in a leather jacket and is slinging a shiny new electric guitar onto his shoulders. He doesn’t seem to have a band backing him up which is unusual, but I could be mistaken.

The urge to enter the bar and watch him perform is like iron. I want to go in and give moral support to my friend, but the wife is waiting for me at the hotel restaurant several doors down.

I force my feet to head towards the hotel restaurant and do my duty but my heart’s not in it. The wife is there. And some other characters, possibly my in-laws. The dinner is tasteless. I remember nothing about the conversation. The evening with them is as bland as boiled chicken.

The Performance
I leave the dinner early, hoping to still catch Jazzyboy’s live audition, and rush to the dark, seedy bar. The only problem is I have no cell phone coverage inside. I look at my worthless Nokia brickphone and think to myself: “No bars inside the bar.”

I realize I am doomed. There is sure to be some wifely wrath that this decision will bring about. I just know it.

Jazzyboy delivers his usual dazzling solo acoustic guitar performance, and I sit mesmerized but also blatantly charged with this electric need to join him onstage. The urge, the desire to perform, to expose the artist’s nerves beneath my fake, husbandly epidermis — this thrill envelops me like noxious gas. I am poisoned with the desire to let go, to let it out.

The Argument
My wife accosts me in the sidewalk outside the bar. “Where were you? Do you know I’ve been looking for you? Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

The argument begins to well up between us. There is a throb in my temple and butterflies in my intestines.

I say: “There was no signal inside. I just went here to support Jazzyboy’s audition at the bar and wish him well. He’s trying to get a regular gig. See here? No bars in this spot.”

I show her my cellphone screen which glows orange and true enough: dead air. No signal. No nothing.

My wife hugs me and apologizes.

This surprises the bejezus out of me because it usually takes a while for her anger to dissipate.

What is this, I wonder? A new phase for us?

But it is a pleasant surprise nonetheless.

The Gossip at My Own Funeral

I am a fly. On the wall. Below me is a casket. I am in the open casket, caked in embalmer’s make-up and dressed in a suit that I wouldn’t have been caught dead in had I been alive. What are the people saying?

Photo Credits: Stupid Spoiled Whore

I hear someone whispering:

“Pucci was a bad bad boy. Did you know he used to peep through our windows? Elena and I would be dancing naked in the laundry room, and outside in the itchy bushes would be our neighbor’s ten-year-old son Pucci, beating his one-eyed monkey to the tune of the Macarena.”

Off in the corner, I hear a woman sobbing:

“Why did he die anyway? He was supposed to take out the garbage next Thursday!”

And right below me, I hear:

“Pucci had one eye on the world, and one eye on porn. No wonder he died blind and blistered.”

Choosing Old Guitars from the U-Haul Trailer

The back of the U-haul trailer is hot and dusty. And I’m swimming in confusion. There are guitars of every kind strewn about everywhere in this storage unit, and some of them are mine. But which ones?

Paulo is ready to move to some distant state. I’m not sure how I feel about that. My high school best friend moving away? We lived down the street from one another all our lives.

I look down at the guitars in the pile. They’ve been here for years. There is a mandolin with its neck broken which I borrowed from the drama club and never returned. There is a guitar made in a local shop, still in the original black and white vinyl soft case which I bought back in junior high. There are some Fender stratocaster electric guitars I never owned.

This is bittersweet for me. So many guitars to choose from. But so much sadness to follow. The nostalgia, it bites me like a snake in the grass.

My Father DeeJays In Brazil

I am a little child of ten or eight or six. My jetsetting parents have taken me to Brazil for a vacation, I think. Nothing is clear in this hazy drug-induced environment that spawned “The Girl from Ipanema.” All I know is that I am thrilled. I have been listening to Brazilian jazz and bossa nova since birth. Soft bossa rhythms are bonded to my DNA like Coppertone on the suntanned skins of the puta elite.

There is a nightspot in a Spanish villa which looks like the one where Antonio Banderas and Angelina Jolie once cuddled in a bathtub. The music is deafening and pumping testosterone into the air even from outside. And my father brings me in even if I am too small to smell the whiff of putaria all over the place.

The disco is packed and sweaty. Dancers are responding to the DJ who spins aggressive German techno. It makes my head spin and the beat makes me giddy.. I am not on ecstasy but rather in it.

Suddenly my father mans the turntables, taking the spot where the technomeister once was. Daddy is mixing in latin guitar over the beats. The mixture of soft sensuality and screaming synths makes the club go crazy.

I am in an upper balcony, where I watch both my dad and the crowd from my overhead perch.

It dawns on me that this may be the reason why electronic dance music appeals to me so much: that with one flick, with one fell swoop, a single man can whip a crowd into a frenzy and give them a night that is both unforgettable and undechiperable. And suddenly, the world is a better place for it.

The Day I Pissed on the Theater Sinks

The play is on.

I notice that the theater is huge and gaudy. Velvet curtains and embrocaded trimmings in corners. Lace up the wazoo. People in formal frocks and coats, sucking up the sugarpop entertainment.

The amateurish display of emotion and hamfisted characterization disgusts me. I know I can do better than the actors onstage so I get up. To exit, perhaps?

No, the burning need to urinate consumes me.

I head for the lavatory only to find no urinals. Instead, there are sinks at multiple levels — shallow, aluminum sinks only about an inch thick and protruding from the walls like shelves rather than washbasins.

In horror, I realize even the lowest level sink is too high for me so I gather some chairs laying about and stack them one atop the other. Monobloc tetris, I think to myself in delight.

Then the desperate need to relieve my bladder is upon me. I climb the chairs and aim… And I start to pray that the sink minimizes the splash zone. But I know this will be yet another wet predicament in my repertoire of faux pas-es.