IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS 

with DAVID BOWIE

By

Mey

 

 

 

 

 

1.

I was dreadfully nervous the first time I was in the same room with Bowie. Not that I was delightfully threatened by his holly experience, no no sir, but more so because it was the opening day of my solo show. What was on the walls terribly confused me. I had a hard time remembering when and where have I ever spawned them. If they were to hang on the walls of my own personal habitat I wouldn’t have felt so estranged. But in this room, with this crowd, I felt, they shifted in to a completely different character like a 9 year old’s opinion about her favorite ice cream flavor when it is challenged by a group of other 9 year olds and an 11 year old as the alpha. 

No matter how much I drank I couldn't gulp away the sense of sickness I had to my stomach. Little did I know the curator of my show had watered down the hard liquors served to me to slow down my inebriation initiation. After my third, I knew something was up so I resorted to my almighty flask. It might have been the stress of the show, I thought to myself, otherwise I would have never mistaken watered down bourbon for its full-bodied holiness.

Shortly after that I felt saturated with the crowd and headed out with a group of people I deemed to be "that'll do".

"Isn't this your show?" asked one of the smarty-pants condemning my premature departure. Maybe that'll not do after all.

"Is it now?" I played coy.

"Leave her be" said another. Needless to say the owner of the voice that I haven’t gotten the pleasure to have acquaintance with instantly became my favorite. I turn to see the face belonging to that saving remark only to be drenched in a full-blown Bowie. I turn my head away instantly like a girl in high school caught ogling her crush. That far back I went, all the way to the high school. My flask, again, came to my aid, relaxing my nerves. There was a talk of going to a cafe or something like that to grab a bite. I did not object. Who am I to object? I am just an Ikea spare part in this group of people. The posse kept its delightful pace leaving Bowie and me a kind two steps behind.

"I used to be bisexual.” he said. What an odd way to start a conversation I thought.

"What do you mean you used to be, the season came then you shed your skin and you no longer are?"

"No, I got married."

"Ooooh." I said. Isn't marriage an end to a lot of beautiful things these days anyways, I mused imagining marriage as the guillotine operator chopping off various heads, blonds, brunettes.

And that was it.

 

Next time I saw him, I wanted to say something smart more so to leave an impression than to start a hearty conversation. But he beat me to it again:

"Can you pass me the salt?"   

“Which one is the salt?" I panicked. I could never remember if the single hole or the three hole shaker is the salt.

"The single hole shaker." He pointed to the one on my left.

As I watched pepper fall out of that single hole, I amusingly thought we at least had this one thing in common, if nothing else. I placed the other shaker in front of him. I wished we had exchanged a brief smile to start an odd friendship, but that didn’t happen.

The interaction immediately reminded me of another ubiquitous legend: Miles Davis, a very lonely fellow who puts too much salt in his food and probably just because of that he never misjudges the shakers even if they are not properly filled. He always lands on the salt as if there is an invisible string between him and all the salt shakers in the world. I guess beyond all the nicknames he got throughout his life "Saltman" I got for him was the least remembered. 

I was around Miles Davis a long time, in and out, watching him put way too much salt on his food. Never warned him, no one did. Not because we didn’t think it was our place to have such an opinion but because he had gotten way worse demons in his pockets than too much salt. But hey, too much salt will kill you, too, eventually.

 

Next time I saw Bowie I was drunk out of my mind that I failed to appreciate his holiness, such a shame, I blurted something like:

"Can you see with that eye or is it just and accessory? Referring to his perpetually diluted left eye.

"They both are." He answered giving me that little smile I had long for so long. I definitely was not in the right level of soberness to appreciate it. Yet I remained flabbergasted. Something that might have resembled a smile have had rushed around my lips but that might have been easily mistaken with disgust.

I couldn't help but wonder what would Bowie say of Miles' excessive usage of salt. Maybe he would not even be able see beyond Saltman’s ability to land on it, unmistakably, every time. You see what I did there, such a lousy attempt. But it was worth the try.

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2.

I lay in bed, unwilling to get up, trying to remember memories, not one in particular, but any memory. I can’t attach myself to any that comes in to my perception even though I remember them to be mine. I say to myself out loud 'I remember being there, therefore it should be me' yet hearing my voice distances me further more from the memory at hand; say playing hide and seek with the neighborhood kids. Could it be because so much time has passed? However I feel the same intangible distance to more recent memories as well. Again, I remember; it was me. I remember I was there yet in the meantime it feels like I am prying on somebody else’s, maybe some dear friend’s memories. Could it be that I am so much different from the person these memories belonged to, that when I look back I can’t find a point to reconnect. 

But come on, I feel the same disconnection from yesterday’s events also. Do I change over night? I go to bed one way and wake up anew, as if some reset button is pushed. I could be a robot. Blade runner comes to mind. How did Rachel convince of herself that her memories, even the new one she is making are hers but not implanted? Ahh she dictates to herself as she does things: I get off the bed. I walk towards the kitchen. I make coffee. No, sorry, I take the coffee out of the cupboard, put coffee in the machine, I add water, hit the button. I make coffee. I light up a cigarette as I watch the coffee drip. I wonder if I ever watched the coffee drip this intently and intensely. I think of nothing. I watch every drop drip. I don’t count them. I just make myself aware of each drip. I pour myself a cup. I light another cigarette to accompany the morning coffee. Strangely enough I don’t feel under-stimulated. Observing myself, putting my focus away from thoughts and towards my mundane actions ground me. I find myself enjoying this practice immensely. I decide to do more random things and dictate them as I do to see how far this can go. The enjoyment doesn’t cease yet a staggering annoyance pinches my bottom: Cogito ergo sum. Is it enough just to observe myself doing things to say that I exist? Could this be considered the “think” part of cogito. Being aware. I am aware therefore I am?

 

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         3.

Imagine Damon Albarn sucking on a sucker, dark shades on, not a singe fuck is given. He is enjoying that sucker all right.

"What flavor is that thing?" I can’t help but ask.

"Cherry."

"Igghhkkk that's probably the worst of all flavors. Of course that's before Harry Potter introduced wide range of truly disgusting flavors."

He smiles. He has a nice smile when it is sincere, but on the other hand everybody does have nice smiles when they are sincere.

"Come take a lick, this one is really not that bad." He reaches the lollipop to me. At that moment I am torn in between two notions: I hate cherry flavor. But when I say I hate I want you to imagine Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets and remember the scene where he describes how much he hates taking pills. But there is no way I was going to turn away the chance to lick Damon Albarn's lollipop. And I was curious how could a cherry flavor be 'really not that bad'. 

My long and inspective lick confirms it; It is shit. In fact it bitterly dawns on me as I watch his face; he lied. This flavor is no different, ergo awful, than any other mediocre cherry flavor.

"You fucking liar."

He smiles again. God knows what is going on inside his head. I wonder if he takes pleasure in torturing animals also. It is kind of a similar disposition you know; subjecting the object of hate upon someone knowingly even willingly. I take a long sip from my beer to wash off the taste. It takes two more bottles to wash off the shame. When you come to think of it: what shame? I practically French kissed the guy and from the looks of it he French kissed me back as he continued to suck on that sucker. We are practically boyfriend and girlfriend. We don’t get along very well. He gives me hard time often but we just can’t seem to break it off because we are perfect. Yes, I am getting carried away. And that is my disposition.

 

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4.

I sat first class with Johnny Depp on a cross Atlantic flight. We didn't exchange any words during the first part of the flight. It's called 'respecting the personal space in a claustrophobic environment’.

When it was the time for my favorite part, the dinner, I couldn’t help but to glance at him to see if we shared similar sense of excitement over single serving edibles. 

We didn't.

Apparently nobody does, at least nobody in their right minds, says Gordon Ramsey.

Am I the only living soul who enjoys plane food, I ask you?  Of course there is this theory that while in the air your taste buds are all in a funk so you can't taste things properly which doesn’t apply to me for some reason but how can you look pass the individual containers for each food item. If doesn't that bring you back your childhood memories I don’t know what will. And this comes from someone who didn’t have a great childhood. I just liked being a child.

I enjoyed my meal, immensely. First class meals definitely worth the extra dough you drop on the ticket. Johnny Depp disagreed. Nearly untouched, his plate ogled me or maybe the other way around.

“Hey, are you going to eat that?" I boldly asked.

"This is first class, you can ask for another."

"Do I come off as a lady who asks for another?"

"You come off as a lady who asks for her fellow traveller’s meal."

"No you couldn’t have been more wrong. I come off as a lady…” I start in a lecturing manner “…who asks for Johnny Depp's unfinished meal. Now the real question is do I come off as a lady who gets what she wants?"

"I'd say she does." He says all smiles.

"Well thank you." I say and indulge myself in Johnny Depp's unfinished plane food, first class.

 

Ps: I would have done the same thing if it weren’t Johnny Depp, first class being the key word here.

5.

I arrived at the banquet, already half drunk. Stumbled over to the bride and groom and gave my condolences or was it congratulations and dragged my ass to the buffet for some food but more importantly for some more drinks, scotch to be precise was my choice of weapon that day.

It was not long before I found myself having a conversation with a shrimp from my shrimp cocktail. We discussed the sea levels in Antarctica. He did not know much. He said he came from much warmer waters and that he missed his family of another 100 million shrimps, give or take a few thousands. I offered my help to look through the shrimp cocktail to find a familiar face but he refused. He said uniting outside his natural habitat would not feel zen at all. He actually said ‘zen’. After that, I could not eat another bite. Having all the imaginary conversation with each and every ingredient that came to help make of the food at the buffet had turn down my appetite. So I drowned myself into more scotch… on the rocks. Not that I particularly liked my scotch watered down. I just liked ordering my drink saying ‘on the rocks’. Rock as ice or ice as rock. In any case, it sounded nice.

Just before I blacked-out and opened my eyes in my crappy studio without a single clue on how the hell did I get there and where my car would been parked, I had the opportunity to pull Bowie aside with Iman and have another surreal conversation:

“So when you guys have sex, which one is the girl and which one is the boy?” I asked.

Bowie and Iman laughed open-heartedly:

“I guess it depends on the mood and on who has been naughty.” answered Iman oogling Bowie from head to toe like she wanted to eat him alive.

“Oh, I have been very naughty dear, almost as much as you. I guess we are going to have to flip a coin. Be a sweetheart hand us a coin, will you?” said Bowie and blindly reached his hand out to me, maintaining his gaze into Iman’s dark black eyes. I dropped the only coin, a nickel I could find in and around my pockets and skedaddled out of there guessing the ending of that dance. Knowing Bowie, I felt I successfully diverted a very close close-encounter with a threesome, with some of me and much of them. 

 

6.

When I first met Tom Cruise, it was shortly after I had watched his latest movie of that time, Mission Impossible: The Ghost Protocol. Did not like the movie in particular, but I thought he was one of the better aging men of Hollywood. Soon after I bumped in to him on one if his movie sets, can’t recall which one. He approached me as the boss of the whole place which he sure was since he saw me wandering around aimlessly:

“Are you supposed to be here?”

“Don’t you think it is quite a heavy question to start a conversation with a complete stranger? We are all where we are supposed to be. I am here, therefore I am here, yet I don’t know where ‘here’ is. My friends call me M but you can call me a little bit lost.”

“This is my movie set.”

“Aaaa, knew I knew you from somewhere, not that I have not know from where 5 minutes ago. But your ego just slapped me back into reason. I have to say, after watching the last Mission, I realized you looked pretty good with those years on you. Can’t wait to see you get older and hotter.”     

“I’m sorry, but who the hell are you?!”

            At that moment I felt the need to divert that question, to revisit the whole situation later.

“Is that Imaginary Conversation with David Bowie you’re holding?” pointing at the bent book in his hand.

It was obvious that I had hit him in his weak spot, If not in the heel. He was somewhat ashamed yet amused.

“Yes it is. I’d much rather say, it is a Dostoyevski or Bukowski rather than this pop corn of a book but I cannot seem to let it go unnoticed. It is shallow and deep with a hint of sweet and amusing.” You spoke like a not so true book critic Mr. Cruise.

“I gather you read it.” he asks me.

“Yeah. It was good enough.” I play coy, one of my strong suits.

“I wonder who the writer is. I don’t even know if it is a he or she.”

“You can generally tell that by the tone.”

“Yeah, I can’t pinpoint it with this one. What do you think?”

I reflected on it a bit and decided to continue the game I play:

“Oh, I know it is a she. I’ve even met her.”

“You did? How is she like?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Like anybody, with a little hint of weird.”

“What do you mean?”

            “I am not sure. I cannot pinpoint it, like she is there but not exactly. She is definitely fun. I met her at a gallery opening. After we got introduced and conversed a little bit she took me aside and start listing all the funny and absurd facts about everyone in the room as if she knew everyone. And just when I started to think she was making it all up like in her book, David Bowie HIMSELF came and gave her a hug and said something like: cocoa puffs huh, you pretty little cunt?’ and hugged her again and laughed a bit and left. I had to re-read the whole thing again, from a completely different point of view, now that I knew everything or something she wrote might be true. But some of them are so absurd, still can’t believe it could have really happened. Anyways, I should get going. I am meeting with my publisher here. He wanted me to meet him somewhere here to introduce me to someone, something. And I am late, and he is probably gone, and I have to get a ride back home cause can’t remember where my car is.”

Just as I was motioning to leave the bench that we have been sitting for the duration of our little chit chat, I saw Deren, my publisher running towards us. His sunglasses jumping up and down. He looked more silly than funny.

“Looks like you guys have already met. I guess you didn’t need me after all.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about. I am here for the free donuts and I need you to give me a ride home.” He looks puzzled. I love to pull his leg. We have an opposites attract kind of thing going on here with him. He is as gullible as they come and I love to experiment how far. For some reason he lets me, he even enjoys it. I guess because he knows it fuels my creativity when it comes to writing and he is my publisher after all.

“Where is your car?” he asks.

“Uhm, not sure, I hope it comes out somewhere. So let’s go, I am getting late.”

“Late for what? You were late for our meeting! I am here, you are here, Tom is here. Whar can you be late for?”

“Well, late for the meeting afterwards, my 6pm with MR. Daniels.”

“Jeff Daniels?”

“Jeff, No. Jack Daniels. Come on let’s go. Very nice to meet you Mr Cruise. Keep those ages piling and you’ll be surprised how amazing you will look.”

I took extremely shocked and baffled Tom Cruise’s hand and shook it as vigorously as I grabbed Deren from his arm and dragged him to the parking lot. 

Another close encounter successfully evaded.

 

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7.

I have met Rhihanna once. I didn’t know it was her then and I wouldn’t know if I met her again. Saggy boobs, awful tattoos. The over jazzed over head lights in the Starbux did not do her justice either that much I can tell but what is justice anyways, especially these days. 

She wasn’t the reason why I picked to pick the sugar packets on her table. It is a Starbux for God’s sake; sugar packets and all the other assorted needs are located by the condiments station. But her table had the exact amount of brown sugar packets I needed, two to be precise. And it was closer than the station. So alluring, so tempting, a perfect match for my ocd. 

“Can I… “I pointed at the sugar packets on her table next to her cup as my hand approached to grab them without waiting for her permission; It was obvious from the emptied packets that she had used as much as she needed. Rest was up for grabs. We locked gaze and without breaking it my hand landed on the packets. I picked them up shake ‘em a bit, you know that ‘move all the contents to the bottom’ shake so when you rip the top tip the contents wouldn’t spill? The next bit proved to be a bit trickier; I ripped the tip of the packets and spilled the contents in to my cup while not only keeping the gaze with her in lock on but also looking nonchalant. Boy I don’t know if you ever looked nonchalant. But if you didn’t, go in front of a mirror right now and try. Only then you will be able to appreciate the work done here. But I have to admit the large sip of whiskey I had before coming in had a great positive impact on my success in doing whatever I was doing nonchalantly.

I took my flask out, unwound the tip and for a split second, maybe for a split second twice removed I saw her gaze unlock and wander towards the flask. Maybe it was not an actual wander, maybe it was an idea of wander but boy we were so connected that I was able distinguish that nano instant. So instead of dropping the contents of my flask, that being Jameson single malt 12 years old, in to my cup I offered her by pointing the tip towards her open lid cup and boy did not stop there, I even brought my hand carrying the flask closer to her cup. Mind me remind you we still had our gazes locked. Luckily I had exceptional peripherals that I was able perform a successful pour.

As I was raising my cup for a toast I amusingly saw hers reaching mine half way for a silent paper clank. We slurped our irish coffees, my slurp being louder then hers, gaze still intact. I felt she was starting to get under my skin.

“Well I’ll be seeing ya.” I blurted out as I get off my chair and Jack Sparrowed myself out of Starbux. Now I know why people like her. Whatever her name is.

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8.

We burnt Jean_Michel’s father today.

Well when I say it like that it sounds like a murder took place but it is far more innocent than that, I assure you. Actually we obviously failed to kill him because years later he killed Jean-Michel, again not what it sounds like; there was no murder that took place there either. But in what we tried and we failed, he succeeded.

My building has a heater tank in the basement. You feed things to it and it feeds heat to you. A very mutually satisfactory relationship, much more satisfactory than most of the relationships in my life. Not all the apartments in the building are heated by it, very few, 6 to be exact, mine included. It is generally fed by the super but sometimes, just for the kicks of it, I go down to the basement and I feed it things; memories, failures, never hopes, rarely dreams. 

On ‘the’ day I call Jean-Michel:

“Yo Jean-Michel. Take a 40 by 60 canvas and some chalk, multiple colors, come over.”

See this it what I love about Jean-Michel. He doesn’t ask why, he doesn’t ask how. He just says:

“Ok.” He is all in because he is intrigued. He doesn’t need to know anything more.

In less than 24 minutes he gets out of the cab in front of my building, wrestling with the canvas with one arm and chalks, many of them, with the other.

‘Hey” He greets me. I grab him by the arm and almost drag him to the elevator. As I hit ‘B’ for basement:

“Hmmm” he hums. That is the declaration of him noticing that we are not going up to my apartment. He doesn’t necessarily need an explanation but he would appreciate it. It’s that kind of a hmm:

“I have a completely different adventure up my sleeves for you. We are going down to the more receeding rings of hell.” 

Boy I wish I had my flask. I might have come up with a better line than this with its help. He catches me with milk on my lips:

“That is pretty lame for someone like you…. Going down, rings of hell?”

Hmpf he mumbles to himself. He is unamused and right. Rings of hell? Just because we are going down? Just because we are going to the boiler? I feel ashamed. I should have come up with something more inspiring yet I didn’t want to blurt out the surprise but I am left with no choice.

“You are right. Only a white collar nine-to-fiver with a tiny knowledge of Dante Alighieri would have come up with this lame monstrosity. Let me make it up to you my dear friend. Today, We are going down to the pits of hell to burn your father.”

Now that’s the reaction I prefer; 3 emotions pass across Jean-Michel’s face. First one is of fear stricken panic from the realization that we might really kill his father, burning being the minor detail. Second is the sense of adventure this conveys. Third and the last amuses me the most; mischief in the sense of arising opportunity, an unspoken pact to bring up similar situations on to me like I have bestowed upon him.

When we enter the boiler room I introduce him to the various residents; the three legged chair waiting for it demise, the metal coffee mug that probably belongs to the super, the wooden crate I use as a chair, various other wooden crates I personally do not use as chair and oh that old metal clanking bestiality? That is the boiler where I burn memories, failures, never hopes, rarely dreams. I feel like I said this somewhere before, to someone else though. You can never wash in the same river twice.

I take one of the wooden crates that I do not personally use as chair and sit JM on it.

“Here, cozy up. Is it comfortable? Great. Now I want you to draw you father’s portrait. Take all the time you need. I closed this space for us for as long as you need. It cost me a fortune but anything for you my friend.”

The light in here is literally horrible. If there were an Oscar for horrible lighting ‘the lighting in boiler room at 8.37pm’ would have won it. But instead it will remain as a dread amongst friends; the metal coffee mug and wooden crates. It takes him little over 2 hours to finish the painting. In the meantime I find my flask to my surprise in my inner left pocket and remind myself again how efficient I am in drinking in horrible lighting and write on awful materials with pens that never deplete. 

“Done.” He announces.

“Perfect. Now throw it in the burner.” I point towards the beast. I even go there and open the lid up. He looks at me briefly, almost expressionless. He is generally expressionless when he is overwhelmed with emotion. It is more like as if he couldn’t decide which emotion to go with rather than hiding it. I can tell somewhere in there he is hurt and lonely but also angry. So he throws the painting of his father in to the burner. We watch it burn. We fail to kill him then and there because Gerard manages to kill JM a couple of years later. All metaphorical of course. There was no murder that took place, in either case but Jean-Michel died, for real. 

 

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            9.

“I thought I heard something.” I say out loud, not to scare the presence in my living room but to let my awareness of such presence known. There is a big fat red fella in my living room. If I were any wiser, mind you that I am not, I would say he is Santa.

“Well hello dear. Glad to have caught you awake.”

“Why?” Out of all the questions I could have conjured up I can only pick the most recent one.

“So we can chit chat. It’s been a long time.”

“I don’t remember if I ever had the privilege. I don’t think you existed.”

“Obviously you do.”

“I do?”

“Obviously.”

His palms are showing his jolly belly. It makes all sense. There is no other way to explain this overweight overjoyed red fella in my living room. I didn’t even have that much to drink, but:

“Why now?”

“Now is better than any other time. Either way I am not restricted by time, linear time that is.” He sits down on one of my armchairs.

“Wow that is so weird.” I fall back on the one next to his. I light up a cigarette, take a big fat sip from my flask, pun intended. Offer it to Santa.

“No thank you. I am still on duty. Or I’m driving. Or I don’t drink. Whichever one you prefer.”

“I am going to go with the first.” Santa refused my offer of scotch because he was still on duty. Now how one can describe that duty, hmm.

“Hey thank you for the milk and the cookies.” He says pointing at the mini coffee table between our chairs.

“I don’t remember putting…”

“Oh but your 5 year old self left it for me. Remember I am not bound by time as you perceive it. I am not really human actually.”

“Really, what are you then?” Again with the most recent question, grrr.

“I am Santa Claus, of course. It is like an angel, say Gabriel, but not really. I am Santa. I am my own thing.”

“Oh wow. That explains a lot.”

“It should. I mean I thought humans would have figured it out a lot sooner. I mean what else am I supposed to be, a super hero? News flash: there are no super heroes. Not yet anyways. Of course I am something out of this reality, imagined by solely yours truly.” He says pointing at me.

“ME!?”

“No not you in particularly, but you humans.”

”Wait, does that mean anything we imagine comes true?” Now we are getting somewhere with out of the chronological line of questions.

“Yes, If you really believe it. And that’s problem kiddo. You no longer can tell the difference between ‘wanting to believe’ and ‘actually believe’. But let me give you a clue: if it ain’t happening then you only wanted to believe but you didn’t actually believe.”

“Wow that’s like biblical man!”

“You bet it is.” 

“So wait. You are telling me I have been good?” Almost proud of myself with out of the chronological line of questions now.

“See that’s why I am here, kiddo, to set the record straight. There is no such thing as good or bad that I or HE decides. It is you who does the deciding.”

“But there are a lot kids or people out there who think they are good.”

“That is the thing. Remember the believing bit I mentioned? They only think they are good. But deep inside they know they are not and I know their ‘deep insides’. Nobody can fool me.” He taps to my heart then to my head softly. “There is not judge out there looking down on you. It is all you.”

“I know why you came to me now, but not before. You could have driven me nuts with that shit if I had met you when I was 5.”

“Could I, now? From the looks of it you’ve done a pretty good job yourself.”

“Thanks. I try.” I smirk and take another sip. “So what did you bring me?” Super proud by now of my questioning abilities.

“Ahhh” he says. And reaches down to his side pocket and takes out an envelope with a red Santa seal and all, it even smells cinnamon and vanilla then he puts it on the coffee table.

“What is it?”

“It is an idea, an idea that will last you a long time, maybe it will even save you.”  

He gets up and reaches the non-functioning chimney with a speed unbefitting his bulk and disappears. The perpetual question lingers: Was he even here? Milk I never put out finished, cookies my 5 year old self left half bitten.

I eagerly take the envelope. Observe the paper first then the seal. It seems authentic but how one can ever authenticate a letter from Santa? As much as one can. 

I open. 

He is right.

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10.

My phone rings. How dare?! I answer.

“Hi, this is Jimmy Fallon. Can I speak with Mey.” I contemplate for a second to make a voice to go unrecognized but then I remember we never met, he doesn’t have any idea how I sound. So I decide to play a little game:

“No way!”

“No way I can’t speak with Mey?” 

“No, no way to Jimmy Fallon.”

“Is this Mey?”

“No.”

“Can I speak with her?”

“No way man. There is no way I am going to go to her and tell her there is a Jimmy Fallon on the phone for her. If you are not who you say you are I’ll get the grilling. So you have to prove me that you are Jimmy Fallon. Tell me something only Jimmy Fallon would know. Wait, that wouldn’t work. There is no way I can fact check that. Wait have you ever played with Barbies?”

“What? Well I mean I held a Barbie, I might even moved her legs and arms, maybe some talking but it wasn’t for me. I was entertaining. How does that ever prove I am Jimmy Fallon?”

“It doesn’t but it also does in away that your honest and direct approach to this question also proves you are who you say you are. Anyways I recognized your voice from the get go. I was just giving you a hard time. Hey Mey!”

Now I play both characters.  I hold the phone in different ways to make it sound like I am far and then near.

“What?”

“There is Jimmy Fallon on the phone.”

“Bullshit.”

“I swear. It’s him.”

“How could you possibly know.” I take the phone from the other character’s imaginary hands. 

“Yes?”

“Mey?”

“Yes.”

“This is Jimmy Fallon.”

“Prove it!”

“With that again? But don’t worry I thought about something in the meantime. We are actually on my show, taping.”

“Really. And out of everybody you could have called you called me? What time is it there?”

“9pm. How about there?”

“Shit past got to hang up o’clock. Bye.”

 

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11.

            This kid, running around so happy yet calm, so peaceful and vivacious hands me a wooden horse. It is badly made. It is hardly a horse. Why does he give me this? I don’t even like horses. Rhinos yes. Deer, hell yeah, but horse is so mundane, so ordinary and it is badly made.

“Why are you giving me this?”

“I want you to have something from me, to remember me by.” How can one say no to that, to a child with sparkles in his eyes and wooden sandals on his feet and dirt under his nails and joy in his heart and eternal forgiveness? 

Well, there was a Master of None episode in which Aziz Ansari’s friend’s kid offers them a horridly made completely inedible sandwich while his mom accepts it fearing rejection might harm the kids’ little soul and Aziz flat out says no, he even goes out to pinpoint how horribly made the sandwich is. 

Now, I don’t know which one does a huge favor to the kid. The mother who protects the child from an early onset sense of rejection and failure or Aziz who exposes the child to a very common, no-need-to-exaggerate trait in human life which is, again, rejection and failure? Well instead of wasting all that energy to protect a child form something he or she will eventually have to face later on in life why don’t you teach that kid how to deal with rejection and failure? Oh snap, you can’t do that, because you don’t know how to do it yourself. By protecting the child you hope you give the kid enough space and time to figure it on their own then maybe be an example for you and even teach you because you were not given that space and time ergo your inability to deal with rejection and failure. Let’s see how this scenario will play.

Millennias later the sense rejection and failure I couldn’t bestow upon that little child catches the corner of my eye, staring right back at me from my bookshelf, failing to hide its hideousness amongst books. It doesn’t even serve as a book holder. It just sits there, being weird. And I cry:

“If you would have given it now I would have showed you the glorious sense of rejection and failure.” Well of course I don’t cry this entire sentence out loud but in my mind I play the whole scenario where the kid hands out the horse to me and I kindly reject it:

“No, thank you but you keep it. I don’t want it right now. I don’t like it.”

“But I want you to have it.”

“But I don’t want it.” The persistence in his eyes matches mine. Now it is a game of who is more stubborn. He is younger, so I estimate he has more resilience but what I lack in resilience I make up in hard learned techniques of discouragement. Game on!

Fast forward millenias, the monstrosity is staring right back at me from my bookshelf, failing to hide its hideousness amongst books. It doesn’t even serve as a book holder. It just sits there, being weird. Sometimes all the possible permutation of a scenario leads only to one outcome. But it gives me a sense of serenity to play in my head all the possible permutations.

 

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12.

 

 “We actually promote office romance.” What a weird way to commence a business meeting unless you plan to shag attendees. No lady, you are not my type. I like imperfect things.

“You can wait here.” She guides me into a room. When I first enter I fall into to delusion that I am alone but as I turn my head to see the corners of the room that I am enclosed in I see a man, a very well built man, like a Greek statue at the end of the room, sitting all leisurely. He raises his head up very briefly to examine the logistic change in the room then he goes back to his task at hand: a book, a phone I cant tell.

            I sit in the middle, neither close to him nor far. Urinals come to mind. Never been in one. Well that’s lie. But I have never been in one as a man who needs to pee so he strategically choses his urinal for optimum comfort and privacy. I hear that’s a thing. I very political choose to be in the middle. I examine the room. How very boring. Just a long table with chairs around it. A conference room obviously. Slightly different from the ones we have back in NY. For starters in NY they are smaller. The room, the tables, the windows. In a room like this you can’t help but feel isolated. I resist the urge. I also try and resist the urge to think there is something weird going on. I fail. Now I am convinced there is something weird going on.

I slide to the chair across the Greek statue.

“Pssst, why are you here?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why are you here? Who are you meeting? What is the purpose of your meeting?” He looks around then leans on the table.

“A script.”

“That’s pretty vague…” So Am I. I look around and spot 2 cameras. “…Give me your phone, have the notes open.”

He complies submissively. I write:

“I think we are being watched. I think it is not a coincidence we are in the same room together. I think we are expected to perform office romance.”

I give the phone back. He reads. Raises an eyebrow and looks at me. There is a mischievous smile on his face.

“How did you come to the third conclusion?”

I take his phone back: “The lady who brought me here blurted only one sentence: We like office romance here. Wtf? Let’s act to agree to get coffee and leave?” I give the phone back. This time he reads emotionless, Greek statue. Slightly nods.

“Hey do you want to get coffee?” he asks. You know how it plays out after this. We leave. Once we reach the underground park I finally say:

“I guess we can split here. That was weird.”

“We can have that coffee you know if you have time. I think I actually know you. You are that writer aren’t you?”

“And you are the Superman.” It baffles me how many people recognize me now. It is becoming more and more surreal. I am not made to be famous: When people you don’t know knows you. In this case I know him, but I don’t know him know him.

“There are things I want to ask. Please.” He is really pleading. I must comply. So we go to the nearest coffee shop. I get grande soy chai. 

“What did you get?” I ask being all noisy.

“Tea.”

“So what do you want to know?” Wait a second, my spider sense is tingling. The weirdness I sensed back in the room is actually getting stronger. It wasn’t the room. It was him!:

“Did you arrange this whole thing?!” He nods. But why?

“I wanted you to have story with me in it that you would enjoy writing.”

“This is brilliant. This is genius. Just when I started to worry how to proceed with imaginary conversations, maybe even to abandon it or put it to sleep, you come along with this genius approach! This is marvelous!” 

Suddenly I have an epiphany: Bill Murray would be my last chapter.

The book becomes something more than me. It becomes an anthology.

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13.

I am not going to turn this set of memoirs into a pathetic attempt of interview with a vampire but I cannot pass the opportunity to shine light to their grim psych which saddened me deeply because it made so much sense that I had to agree.

How are they you ask? Well they do have blood in their veins unlike ours that carries oxygen, theirs are more like a vessel of void, black, that carries the antimatter. They carry impending doom in their veins. It is neither fun nor glorious. Every moment they want to end it all once and for all for all the beings, in the name of their master that is the antimatter which also requires them to keep on going forever until forever is no more.

How do I know all this?

I met one of them in the sewers. Why was I ever in the sewers one might ask? Then one should go down the sewers, at least once in their lifetime, for the same reason one must bungee jump. But in this case it was a case of a kitten. The little meow beckoned me so strongly that I could swear it had my name on it. So I went down the sewers right by my house.

As soon as my feet hit the bottom of the stairs I hear a voice easily distinguishable from the beckoning yet fading meow. The sound is more like a creaking of door to a room where an abandoned fairy is kept hidden. A voice you immediately want to avoid yet by hearing it you know you can do nothing but belong to it.

“So it is you.”

“So it is I.” I say but I don’t know what the voice means. 

I cannot see the owner of the voice. I cannot even tell from which direction it comes. I speculate left, the voice moves behind as if it comes from a fog I cannot see but breath only. My throat starts to fill with a putrid smell. Is it the sewers or is it the voice?

“My my, you are a special one, aren’t you?” At this point I guesstimate him to be an older male. Even if his words imply an ominous approach, the underlying tone is so unintended even tortured that I easily dismiss it as a threat and reach out for him with my hands.

“I am neither special nor common yet I must admit, sir, your voice is the most unique experience I have ever had; it feels like I am swimming in speech. Please do tell, who are you and what have you done with the kitten.”

“Oh this kitten?” He says in the kitten’s voice. I shimmer down my spine. I have fallen in to his trap and followed a sound I thought was to be a kitten’s that turned out to be a monsters.

“I am no monster!” He cries as if he has heard my thoughts. But most likely he has heard my gulp and accelerated breathing. 

“I am no monster” he cries softly. “But you are right I am damned.” Did I say he was damned? Did I even think it? I am not sure, but I agree vivaciously. I have never seen a more desperate being in my life, if he is actually a being. His agony is undisputable. His pain is not something that can be worded. It is not physical nor mental, more monumental: It is existential. Boy! Sartre would have loved this fella, he would have loved to a have hearty conversation with him.

“Master is the opposite of God.”

“You mean Devil.”

“Oh child you didn’t mean that.”

“No, not really, but I also don’t know what you mean.”

“God is creation, God is existence. My master is the opposite of it.”

“You mean destruction, anhalation?”

“There is no word for it, but the closest to it is VOID, the nothingess, Nothingness runs through my veins.”

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14.

You can tell Steve Carell is falling asleep from his little giggles. He maybe laying on his back on the couch or bed or he is snuggling on your lap eyes closed, you hear his giggle, chuckle almost. So look down on your lap or your side to see where his eyes are pointing in an attempt to see the same amusing thing to accompany him in his chuckle. But instead you see his eyes closed looking inward to a world nobody can see but him. 

His giggle is so pure, it is so naive and simple that you get jealous for an instant that you are left out from that instant, that you cannot share his giggle. Because you can’t remember the last time you felt so naive and pure even simple. Last time you felt like that was not even when you were a kid or a toddler, baby even. You were filled with worries when you were a kid or a toddler, baby even. All your chuckles were melancholic, darkened by the earliest trauma; your birth. You never giggled pure and naive even simple. That’s why you feel jealous every time you hear Steve Carell’s sleep chuckle. But then why you seek it, you deliberately make an effort to be near it? Because even though it sparks this bitter sense of jealousy in you it also sparks an unidentifiable something else. That something enables you to identify that chuckle pure and naive even simple. You might not have had it in your lifetime but the sheer knowledge of recognizing it gives you that sense of eternal marvel, divine expenditure, serene clarity. You embrace yourself beyond your being. That’s why you want to be near that chuckle, when Steve Carell falls asleep: to feel eternal.

 

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15.

 

Have I met Dali? Of course I have. Although I can’t remember if it was in his dream or mine but we were constantly evading each other yet ending up in each other’s face only to depart in opposite directions with unspoken make shift excuses. 

Finally we end up in a desert of endless dunes not much short of that Uncharted 3 episode with balmy heat and cooling breeze. There is no need but he has his shirt tied up around his head like a Tuareg. Vest still well adjusted to his bust, mustache according to his mood, sometimes up and tidy other times down and messy. We don’t converse. We kind of move around each other. You might even call it a dance. There is no touching. I wonder why. I wonder if I am in my dream and he is in his and we kind of watch each other from our own habitats? I want to talk to him, of course. It’s Salvador Dali after all. Come on. But his infamously self-advertised shortcoming in English hunts me even in the dream world. I cannot find a common language that I can interact with him apart from this ridiculous dance thing we are doing. He is definitely not worried about interacting with me anymore than we are already doing. It is understandable; he is a man of images and shapes whereas I am a person of words. What if the words can feel like what they mean without being spoken out loud. Ooops I might have just invented telepathy. Yet I fail to come up with a sensation I would like to pass across. 

I send him an eight by eight cube. I can hardly keep the cube in shape. It constantly wants to turn in to a blob. But as soon as it enters his perception he goes bananas with it. He turns in to shapes and colors. I could never behold but for some reason the cube remains intact. It gets softer edges almost like a cushion but it is a cube nonetheless. It sure does melt at some point. Are we even surprised? Then it elongates for miles and finally Salvador swallows it. I don’t miss my cube. I am even glad he can give it a meaning. But I have to admit I didn’t know swallowing was on the table. Hats off to Dali for thinking out of the box, or the cube. 

Now he is extremely interested in me. I feel like I am expected to throw things in our cross section. I call in my horse. Black and thin, strong and wild. I have no intentions of giving it to Dali but I am sure he can do something with its shadow. And I am not wrong. He takes the shadow of my steed; he plays with it for a while like he did with my cube but more 2 dimensional since it is just a shadow. He elongates it. He makes holes in it. He liquefies it. He walks around it, under it, over it.  Finally his bright golden horse appears. It is breath taking to say the least. It definitely looks like a Dali horse with unnaturally elongated legs yet I get the feeling this is not Dali’s doing. The horse has its own mind. They get consumed in each other’s presence, forgetting me. And I get bored. Do you ever get bored in a dream? Find yourself mowing the lawn or waiting in the line or watching the grass grow. And finally you realize that you are bored. And this gives away the dream.

Poof I wake up. But I fall right back to sleep in to another dream world. So when I wake up from that one I can no longer tell the reality from the dream. Did I give Dali my cube? I should call him up and ask.

 

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16.

I was at Billy Crudup's laboratory last night. I mean it wasn’t Billy but then it also was. I know it sounds confusing. It was him, short and handsome. (It pains me to say it like that; short then handsome. The order doesn’t really matter, just these two words together to describe him is painful mostly because it is accurate.) He was this mad scientist ergo ‘his lab’. Was it a movie set? I can't really tell. I was calling him by his name, not by a film character name like professor Mad-ison, see what I did there? There was someone else with me but I will come to that later.

“Hey Billy, what's up?”

“Wonderful” such a Billy thing to say. 'What are you doing here?' now that's a question I'd like it answered.

“I guess I am visiting you” the obvious.

“How wonderful” he is absolutely ecstatic, almost can’t stand still, organizing the tops of the tables by taking some clutter from here and dropping it there. So on a hindsight I wouldn’t call it organizing, it is more like redistributing clutter. For what purpose my mind wonders? Probably to keep himself busy? No, no that is not it. He is trying find a place to fit me in this room which is a representation of his mind. His is trying to find me a place in his mind. At first I try to respect his process and wait for him to make a space for me but not long after I realize that he will never succeed. No matter how much he redistributes he cannot find a place for me more so because he doesn't grasp me. But I grasp me. I know where I can fit. I can easily fit my small ass on the corner of that table over there and ask for a coffee to cozy up. And that’s what I do. He seems relieved. How strange I think to myself. He is actually very specific. He has a very specific way of things; not that 'it is not messy, I know where everything is' but more like every idea has it's own space. The childhood is on the back table, college is on the stool over there. And I found myself sitting right on the corner the table of 'ongoing projects'. How befitting.

I offer a bit of frisk to his coffee as I pour some into mine.

“No no, I should keep alert” he turns it down kindly.

“Anymore alert and you would disintegrate.” I observe,

“No no I tried that already, it doesn’t work. But alsoI like my mind like this.”

“What do you mean 'like this'?”

“Like I can move whatever I want whenever I want, unlike you. You like things to move around and take their shapes when you are not looking.” Such a fucking accurate observation! Shocked and awed I take a large sip from my coffee and wait for things to move and take their shapes while I am looking around the room:

“How did you find this place? We literally had to go through the closed blinds of an H&M store, get past the door which is there to block permittance and walk a dimly lit concrete and humid hallway where lights were so scarcely distributed that for one instant, just one breath it is pitch black. That instant can even make you forget where you are, who you are and what is real. If you choose to stay in that instant you can switch to the alternate of things but who has the time or the balls for that. I need to pass through a good 6 of them to even consider the idea but after 2 here we are at your door. So my question is not actually how did you find this place but have you ever gone further in to the hallway?” He grins then the grin turns in to smile:

“I have been there and back.” He is exstatic.

I know what he means by 'there' and I can see what 'back' is. Suddenly I desperately want to go there and back.

 

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17.

I don’t plan on living on. At the rate of things I even hoped to be done with it all before I reach a half of century landmark. So everything I do is the opposite of taking a good care of myself: I don’t eat well, I don’t sleep well, I smoke, I drink a lot with almost too often drugs and I have been doing this since the beginning of the time. I am sure I had much different scenarios before this where I was an athlete, or a politician. I have a sense that I had played all the chapters of the game where the hero does all the right things. The only chapters left un-played are where the hero is an anti-hero, villain even? So I do all the wrong things in this lifetime. And recently I have begun to feel my well-oiled machine to start to stumble. I have tougher handovers. My lungs ache all of a sudden like a clogged exhaust of a Citroen Azam. Once beloved coffee that cleared all smoke in the morning turns things into a rumble of uncanny thoughts like a bully in high school. And suddenly a terrorizing thought stroke: I am getting old. It is inevitable, especially if you look at the numbers. They go up, never down. But somehow the sense of getting old had evaded me. Until now. Then a more terrorizing thought sent a cold shiver down my spine: what if it only gets worse, I mean it is given once you start getting old it doesn't get better only worse but what if you never die but slowly get worse like that parabola of the equation y=1/x getting closer the x axis but never touches it dragging its sorry ass tale till infinity. Everything getting worse till infinity. When the infinity is involved, is there such a thing as better or worse. Doesn't one lose perspective in the vastness of infinity? You need perspective to have sense of things. I am not immortal, I remind myself.  But I haven't died before. Not that I can recall. Sure there are examples of death but what proof is there that I am, lack of before word, die-able. So I started thinking about an exit plan. If it gets worse enough I would provide the end if it doesn’t represents itself. But all the scenarios that comes in to mind requires the ability to self-terminate which I have learned to be an ability not a decision. I fall in to despair. It better not get worse yet it does I pray the worse be the end of me instead of the witness.

 

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18.

You don’t flat out ask someone if they are real. There has to be some groundwork for it to be not offensive. Are they real? Hmph? Are you real? Are you for real? I mean I am not offended. No, not at all, don’t get me wrong. But this is like asking a magician how the trick is done. If you’re watching a magic show you don’t go and ask how the trick is done. You watch a magic show to be convinced that there is magic, that magic is real. You don’t bring your freaking cynicism to the show, don’t object disbelief on to the magician. If the show did not convince you go watch another 8 shows until you are convinced that magic is real. 

Do you see me running around asking every broad with a nice rack if they are real? I prefer to enjoy the sense of perfection that nature bestows upon some lucky individuals rather than nurturing a sense of disbelief that supports the crookedness of all things. So take a hint and don’t come and ask me if my stories are real. I mean have I met a vampire? Of course not. Do vampires even exist? But the distinct smell of the sewers that night never leaves my memory. And the tiny meow so characteristic that no other meow has resembled it. So is the vampire story real? You decide. You don’t ask me.

Santa was real. Or was he not? When did you stop believing in Santa? Apparently I haven’t yet. So don’t burden me with your lack of belief. But I can tell you for sure that I have never met Mr. Cruise. That was a whole fiction. But then again, what if it wasn’t. 

There is this trend now. Everywhere I go I hear it: manifestation. That’s magic right there: Now I have a glass of water in my hands and I want, I really, purely want to have wine in my hand. And it happens. No, not like the water turns in to wine. Grow up. You are not Jesus, neither is any of you. But a deliveryman rings your door to deliver your food. They included a complimentary wine with your order. Boom. Now tell me that’s not magic. And imagine doing it so often that the magic you see in movies or read in book start to make sense.

But if you must ask the correct following approach should be ‘Dont tell me whether they’re real or not. I don’t want to know.

 

 

 

19.

I opened the fridge. An orange with a green mold on its bottom left corner greeted me. Half eaten sandwich motioned to beckon me but half closed sling wrap obstructed it. Why did I even have a ‘one sip left’ bottle of whiskey in the fridge.  I took that one last sip with my name on it and put the bottle back before I closed the door. I already took a good 8-9 steps away from the fridge before I realized what I had done. Too late, Next time I said. 

My life and next times. The boxes I store aside to be opened and dealt with whatever within, later. Next time. I marvel at the fact that I still have space left in the palace of my mind to store new boxes considering I hardly ever revisit and open and deal with whatever within any of the boxes. Instead I finish ‘one sip left’ bottles and fail to discard them. 

The sad condition of my fridge depresses me, so I throw myself out to the nearest bar. And to my wonder I order a Cuba libre; rum and coke with a fancy twist. There is a lousy music dim enough to tolerate. Any bar with good enough music is already overcrowded by hipsters and white collar happy go arounds. The only bars I don’t feel alienated are the ones with lousy old rock or country music which makes you wonder how the hell did they manage to survive. Then a ligt bulb appears on top of my; there are many like me. We don’t fit in with hipsters or white collared happy go arounds. We are dreadful but not enough to be goth or emo. We don’t particularly like black exclusively but darker colors are preferable, also overwork any naturally torn clothes are a common sight in our midst. Look at me go incorporate myself in a bunch I know I actually don’t even belong. But hey I wouldn’t stand out, at least at first.

A Ben Afflect walks in. This is not my first encounter with him. I am more excited about third one but the second one actually sets the tone forever more. Just like the stall law I might have mentioned before or I shall mention later you do not sit on the bar stool next to the only customer in the bar. Nobody wants to compare dicks or listen to your gloomy sad stories even if it is Ben Afflect. So I have a perfect social choke hold for situations like this: I order the man a drink, virgin, water probably before he even sits down but after I know he is going to sit down next to my stool. I get up, wrap my arm around him and blurt out something like: you look good, the swaeter makes you look well rested, maybe you slept well who knows but sweater must have something to do with it. Hey man, I say to the bartender, can I have my rumco to go. Oh it’s done. Well make me another one, don’t leave me stranded. I have a long night ahead. - I always have a long night ahead, is that the excuse to keep drinking or the other way around. Which other way around. By the time the confusion clears in the air and the chip fall where they may I am out of the door leaving the bartender with a fat tip and Ben Afflect with an icy glass of water.