My Super-Speed 16

Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah! At the drive-in, where I was 16 and out of my mind on these pills. (And there was something else back there somewhere about traveling and a Zappa record or something. I’m sure we’ll get back to it somehow, but you gotta let these things work themselves out.)

Well, there I was, pacing furiously around the entire drive-in theater, over & over again. I was w/ a friend who was not speeding and apparently felt that I needed watching. I don’t know how he kept moving that fast. I was telling him about my idea for an opera, based on the decline of William Katt’s career after The Greatest American Hero was cancelled. (Presumable decline—I didn’t know this at the time, but the guy was still getting the occasional TV guest role.)

I was explaining how there were gonna be all these parts where a buncha valkyries on horses soared around William Katt while he pretended to fly clumsily (and in a really obviously fake way) in front of a rear projection screen, just like he did in every episode of The Greatest American Hero.

And the final tear-jerking number, would be sung by a castrato. And yes I do know (& also did at the time) that they don't castrate opera singers anymore, but that'd be part of what would be so daring about this opera. See, you'd get a different guy to play William Katt every night—starting w/ the man himself, of course. You’d get a different baritone each night & then let him do the whole opera normal-like except for the last scene, before which you’d castrate him w/ a rusty hacksaw! (Back stage, of course. Opera's haute culture and therefore requires the highest standards of good taste.) How's that for daring???

(Though I'm not sure castrating an adult would give him a really high voice. I think that's why they cut 'em off when these guys were kids, I hear, but in the name of great art, anything's worth trying, right?)

And in case you’re wondering about the first night—like, if William Katt couldn’t pull off a baritone, what we’d do. Well, we’d have him lip-synch to some other guy’s voice, but we’d still castrate him & make him sing the high notes at the end, even if he sounded like shit. I mean, every show’s a little clunky on its first night, right?

And so like in the last number, he'd be wearing that stupid red outfit and wandering, alone, around his decaying Hollywood manor, weeping in front of the many mirrors he used to stand in front of whilst wearing the same costume and jerking off to the sight of himself as a famous actor playing a comedic super-hero. And guys dressed in dark cloaks who were supposed to be creditors would be prowling about outside, and his former agent would be singing on a break away set, and supposedly what he'd be singing would be the text of emails he’s sent, saying they shouldn't work together anymore due to (and get this) "creative differences."

William Katt'd weep and wander and bleed at the crotch, all the while belting out these lovely, really high notes that would shatter the lenses of every pair of opera glasses in the house, thus destroying the eyeballs of countless snobs, which, along w/ the pure artistic glory of the thing, would be at least a little beneficial.

(I don't think all opera goers are assholes, and I have nothing against the form or those who genuinely love it. Like Robert DeNiro in The Untouchables. I just hate the clump of pompous rich assholes who are always goin' to the opera. Well, in the movies anyway. I don't know who goes to the opera in real life because I can’t afford the tickets.)

Anyway, in words that were occasionally supplemented by complex sketches I made in the dirt of the drive-in lots, I finished telling my friend about The Passion of William Katt, including lengthy descriptions of sets, lighting, casting, compositional approach, binding of the libretto, orchestral setup and why fat chicks like the ones who sing at the end of opera can be really hot. (My friend was very patient if you haven't picked up on that, by the way,)

Then I started drooling like a basset hound and was feeling kinda shitty, like my chest was about to implode, so I went and sprawled on the hood of my other friend’s car, (the birthday girl's,) and twitched epileptically till she made me get in the passenger seat. I leaned out the window & puked for pretty much the entire ride home. Mostly on the side of her car, for which she did not kick my ass. Wow I had patient friends back then. I wonder why I never hear from them anymore?

And then I got home and woke my mom up with my puking and apologized and told her I ate a bad hot dog at the drive-in. I don’t know if she believed me, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t appear drunk. My speech was way too clear, if fast, and I was way too alert. Fortunately, I don’t think she knew how someone on speed would act. I suspect she hardly even knew it existed. Anyway, she never said anything about it.

But so while I have this bad attraction to stimulants, I also have this bad habit of listening to people on stimulants. And other people. Any people. Somehow, I just find people interesting—even though, generally speaking, they usually piss me off, bum me out or both. Stupidly, I’ll even ask them questions, (which is partly, but not entirely, an occupational reflex,) thereby ensuring that they’ll continue to talk about themselves. With the right kinda person, this can work out OK. You might even meet somebody sorta cool. But usually, the people you talk to just drone on about themselves, revealing general petulance, narcissism, apathy, violence, bigotry, etc., etc. (Not, I’m sure, that I’m any better, when you get down to it.)

So in this case, during the flight from Chicago to Phoenix, I went on listening to my neighbor, the ice expert from the previous entry, well past the point of reason. Part of why she had to get back to Phoenix was because she was only a semester away from completing a degree from the Phoenix Cosmodemonic College. (Don’t remember the actual name of the place.) I asked her what she was studying, and she told me she was gonna be a sex therapist. Caught me off guard. I never met anyone in that line of work.

Then without blinking she said, “I figure people have all kinds of problems with sex. Why not make some money off of it?” Vague smile. Again I was surprised by how blunt she was about her less than romantic and/or altruistic motivations. Don’t know why. In my experience, pretty much anyone who’s in a sex related industry—e.g. porn or strip clubs or flat out prostitution—is not really motivated by sentiment or pleasure. It’s just another job.

Sure enough, the longer I listened to her, the more I grew to dislike her. Not violently—more like with general boredom and irritation. Fortunately, the person sitting to her right chimed in, and she wasn’t a pathological narcissist. She was maybe my age, maybe a little younger and worked as a schoolteacher. Middle school, even.

She had dark hair pulled back by w/ a kerchief type thing. She wasn’t particularly striking—maybe vaguely pretty in a way that good-natured people can be. She was very generous w/ her smile. Here and there she'd turn it my way as though I was likable & interesting, even though I'd just met her. I saw her smile the same way at a stewardess and even... at the sex therapist.

By this time, I’d ceased to make any encouraging noises toward the sex therapist. Or any noises. I think that made me a less desirable audience, because she turned both barrels on the schoolteacher. I probably would've escaped the conversation altogether, if the teacher hadn't drawn me back in with the occasional question. But hey, she was just trying to be nice.

Anyway… Somewhere during the second half of the flight, clouds broke on red mountains. Beneath them were broad expanses of yellow-brown sand, shot through with unexpected swirls of color—mineral deposits?—red and blue and gold. Here and there, sharp light reflected off a distant lake or pool.

I found it easy to lose myself in all of this. I checked out of the conversation, and just watched the landscape mutate, the clouds shift, and the light change. The time passed quickly. Before I knew it, we were making our descent.

While we were on our way down, the sex therapist produced a cell phone and started talking, loudly, into it. It was impossible to zone her out. And as she never seemed to pause to take a breath, I couldn't imagine where the other party was fitting in her/his part of the conversation—if, in fact, he/she/whatever was able to contribute at all.

On the ground, we exchanged the awkward sort of goodbyes shared by air travelers who’ve just met and will probably never speak to one another again. You say goodbye on the plane, and you’re almost always stuck self-consciously ignoring each other while you wait to get off the plane & get gone.

More on the way…

Ice Capades

So back to that Hawaii/Thing-Fish biz…

Online ticketing services can provide you with very cheap travel arrangements, if you’re willing to follow a less than straightforward route to yr. destination. Here’s what my itinerary looked like: Chicago O’Hare to Phoenix, AZ. Here’s the really bassackwards part of my itinerary: Phoenix to Vegas (???) Then it was off to Honolulu, where I had a short layover before boarding the old inter-island puddle-jumper that carried me to glorious, rainy Hilo on the Big Isle of Hawaii.

I’d scored a window seat all the way through to Honolulu. (The inter-island planes are seat-yourself affairs, so I got to sit by the window on the flight to Hilo as well.) That’s the way I like it, but the obvious downside of a window seat is that it’s more difficult to get to the aisle. It’s not the accessibility of the restroom that bothers me. Aside from the 6-hour flight from Vegas to Honolulu, I never had to use the can while in transit.

Nope. What can suck about a window seat is how difficult it makes it to escape from yr. neighbors.

From Chicago to Phoenix, I sat next to a woman in her mid-twenties. She was wide-hipped, short, brunette, attractive. She wore sandals, with carefully painted toenails on display, along with a ring around the second toe of her right foot. Her movements were unselfconsciously sensuous in a—you’ll forgive an overused, but apt metaphor here—feline sorta way.

She slept curled up in her seat for part of the flight, exhibiting a generous flash of silken blue panties between her low ridin' jeans and a thin, short, white zipup type sweater. Her posture was reminiscent of a sleeping cat. I half-expected her to start licking herself, rubbing one spit-dampened hand over an ear, etc. (Sorta like Prince when he’s playin' “I Would Die 4 U” in Purple Rain except minus the weird little jiggle-walk across the stage thing he does.)

Instead she asked me for the time. And after this humble salvo, she unleashed a continuous barrage of anecdotes, observations and encomia—all concerning herself. And almost immediately, she got real unattractive.

She had a grating, gravelly voice and a level of self-involvement that was not only unpleasant, but damn near pathological. (Shades of Liz Elmore, but this chick was not nearly as alluring.) I don’t think she asked me a single question about who I was, where I was going or why—though she was more than happy to provide me with this information re: herself. Whenever I made an offhand comment about my life, my identity, or the weather, she was already in the process of interrupting me, immediately directing the conversation back to something to do with her.

She said she’d been visiting a friend in Chicago. She liked the city and was now thinking about moving there. If she does, the city’s doomed. The levels of green house gases are dangerous enough in the summer already. The amount of carbon dioxide her endless soliloquizing would produce might just spell the extinction of life in the greater Chicagoland area.

She’d grown up in Phoenix, so I asked her how she’d feel about leaving. She said she was getting tired of it. Too many people she knew were heavily into ice. (This is probably obvious, but she was talking about neither the crystallized water stuff nor diamonds nor the long since discredited hip-hop artist Vanilla Ice, but the cheap ass form of speed, for sale on a street near you.)

And I said, “Ah hah,” but she didn’t hear me, because she was already spinning some lengthy yarn about her recent split w/ an ex whose use of said substance, as well as a variety of other recreational substances, had moved a bit beyond the recreational.

In my line of work, I’ve tended to find that the tree doesn’t fall that far from the gander as far as these substance/relationship scenarios go. I recognized the probability that she might be into pharmaceutical recreations herself. Which, even if it was true, didn’t really bother me in & of itself. And either way, it wasn’t really my business.

Besides, I believe anti-drug paranoia runs a little high in our culture. There’s a lotta shit being spread around out there that leads many non-users to some very exaggerated nightmarish imaginings. On the other hand, I do recognize that regular drug use can & frequently does get out of control.

I don’t know where one might draw the whole good/bad line in this area, if in fact one could or should draw one. I do know that I’m inclined to steer away from some chemical entertainments myself. I never tried ice. I don’t generally speed anymore. (Aside from drinking too much coffee here and there, I mean.) Never really had any good experiences with that sorta thing, but I have found that I’m pretty susceptible to wanting to do it.

The one time I really cruised the airwaves, I was at a drive-in theater, celebrating a friend’s 16th. (How’s that for a way to ring in your own personal New Year?) And like, her older sister happened to traffic in some various minor league type recreational substances. And to honor the occasion, she was handing out generous free samples. If we liked the stuff and wanted to pick up more in the future, it was always available for a nominal fee.

So being young &, apparently, terminally stupid, I thought, why not? Life’s about soaking up Experiences or something, right? Party hearty rock n roll drink a fifth and smoke a bowl, as Shelley or Byron or Rilke or Kevin Costner or some other such Romantic spirit intoned somewhere or other. Smoke if you got em. Life’s short play w/ yr. hard-on. Who’s having a potty? Yo having a potty!!!!

So like, I ingested a handful of these interesting little pills, only to find out later that I’d overshot the recommended dosage by a hair or 2. Next thing I knew, I felt great. Freakin' great, even. I was pacing around the whole drive-in, circling all 4 screens, and telling this other friend of mine, who was in town from Maryland and who wisely stuck to organic hallucinogens, about how I was gonna write an opera (and I meant this neither ironically nor in a comedic sorta way) about The Passion of William Katt, because he was so rad in that hilarious Greatest American Hero show that had that really catchy, but asssucking theme song, but now you like never see him and that was pretty sad, because for a while there, this guy must've been riding high on the hog, and he probably shat on his friends and got all these handlers and new sexier, chicer friends w/ better drugs, and partied like it was 1979.

But then, you know, how these show biz rise n’ fall things go. Pretty quickly, the roles he could get must’ve declined in quality. (E.g. and it probably got even worse than this before he really fell of the radar, the first House movie. Anybody remember that one? Sadly, Steve Forceman, P.I. does. It had George Wendt in it if that does anything to jog yr. memory. I think it was just pre-Cheers for him, but he acts just like Norm anyway, which seems to be the only way the guy can act.

It'd probably get real boring hanging out w/ him, because it'd be just like watching re-runs of Cheers, and if you're like me, you probably think it was a sorta good show, but has been re-run a few too many thousand times. Having him go "Good evening everybody!" and then you go "Norm!" or going "What'll it be, Norm?" and having him say some dumb one-liner would probably get old pretty fucking fast, I'll bet.

I'll grant ya, it could be even worse. You could be stuck hanging out w/ John Ratzenberger or Ted Danson, who both try desperately to not act like Cliff or Sam, respectively, whenever I've seen 'em since the show ended. (I try to avoid them whenever possible, and thankfully it’s easier to do these days.) No, they come on all like yeah we’re serious actors and smart and other such snoozeworthy bibble babble.

But then, of course, it could be really bad. You could be stuck hanging out w/ Shelley Long. I'd rather have my face fed into a wood-chipper whilst African army ants munch on my nuts and my legs are slashed repeatedly by big shards of glass and my fingers are repeatedly slammed in car doors while Tim O'Brien reads to me from his novel The Nuclear Age—a literary hunk of dog shit I had the misfortune to step in recently—than spend a single moment w/ that warbling, pompous harpy.

I could never understand why Sam was supposed to be attracted to her. Given his weirdly shaped head—like w/ a pithecanthropoid brow ridge and but w/ a skull that’s like way too longer than that of any pithecanthropoid I ever met. Come to think of it, aside from that brow ridge, he kinda looks like a skull. All sunken and w/ his teeth always in view. Does he even have lips? And man, his little piggy eyes glaring outta those gaping sockets (all the more shadowed by that extended brow)…

Well, given all that, maybe what attracted Sam to Diane—and vise versa—was a principle of ugly drawing ugly. ‘Cuz I mean like otherwise what did draw him to Diane? Dramatic necessity, sure, but did James Burroughs and his shills actually expect me to believe that Shelley Long is attractive? She, like, is all pasty and appears to have a perfectly rectangular torso from which nothing extrudes—no T, no A, no hips.

Come ta think of it, the only things on Shelley Long that seemed to protrude were her bulbous eyes and frumpy hair. (Did she even have limbs? If not, I’m sorry for saying bad shit about her, ‘cuz you should always be respectful to amputees.) OK help me out here, anyone who might read this... Have you ever met Shelley Long in person? If so, please lemme know by posting a comment or clicking on the e-mail link in my profile. Because it just occurred to me that I’ve only ever seen her on TV, which I hear only creates the illusion of depth. So like for all we know, Shelley Long could actually be two-dimensional!!!!

Think of it: All this time you thought Flatland was just speculative fiction! Noooo…. Now that I think of it, I’m almost 100% sure that Shelley Long is flat. I mean she’s a flippin’ flapjack. As in pancakes. Which so might make her interesting to hang out w/ in a mind altering way. (Would she even be able to stand up un-assisted, and if so how? I mean, it seems like she’d just keep fallin’ on the floor. Like a rug. Or a piece of paper.

And wo, shit, think of the vistas that would open before you. And I’m not talking about scientific exploration. Fuck that. What I’m talking about is scrawling notes on Shelley Long. Or watching yr. butcher throw her onto a scale and then plop a big hunk of pork loin on her. (Or whatever animal flesh you like, if you swing that way.)

I’m talking about sweeping dust onto her when you’ve misplaced yr. dustpan. I’m talking about making folded paper type entertainments out of Shelley Long like little hats or boats. Except they wouldn’t be that little, if they were Shelley Long. Unless you cut strips off of her, and I’d feel pretty bad doing that ‘cuz it might hurt and all.

And oh wait! Best of all! You could make a Shelley Long paper airplane! It’d be really fucking big and ergo difficult to launch—and I’m sure she’d bitch at you in her annoying pretentious manner. I mean, how much can she weigh if she’s perfectly flat? (Is it even possible to be perfectly flat? I mean, even paper has some thickness.) Unless she’s like just flat and really dense, she couldn’t weigh that much, right?

Ooh wait! But even better! What if you got a big hunka Silly Putty and flattened it out on Shelley Long, pressing gently but firmly—you know, like you used to do w/ the Sunday funnies—and then peeling it back and seeing a flattened mirror image of Shelley Long. Probably a mirror image death mask of a stunningly blue-faced Shelley Long at that. (‘Tho Silly Putty never quite absorbed the full vividness of the colors.) Wow! You just like smothered Shelley Long as tho’ that Putty were a pillow!

See, now—all this fun we’re having… This is pretty cool! Maybe hanging out w/ Shelley Long isn’t such a bad thing after all…


But wait… Just what the fuck were we talking about in the first place? Something about a drive-in and a plane ride and an opera or something. Ah screw it… We’ll deal w/ that next time around. More is on the way…