Caught Between a Bad Cake and an Earache

Bzzzt...Bzzzt...Bzzzt

I'm standing in the rain in Sin City. My Santa suit is turning into an Indian rain dance version of McArthur Park and the Man called Horse is dead.

Karen Carpenter still loves me. I wish Minnie Ripperton did; both dead...just me and Micky Rourke and this bad plastic surgeon standing here. I forget why. I feel sick. People tell me I am sick. It's still raining...my Santa suit...it didn't fit when I got it...now? Don't ask.

It's hot for some reason. I should be cold. It should be as cold as my heart but....

rain...

voices....

something is melting in the rain and I don't think it will ever be the same again.

I did everything I could. I did my vulnerable James Dean thing. He's dead too; not cause of me though. Not cause of me.

I reached out and

touched somebodys hand...wait a minute...is that another song?...no, McArthur's Park is still playing. It feels like it will go on forever. Last time I heard it, it did. How come? ...never mind.

I'm not Jason. I can't even skate all that well, much less play hockey. I could have learned though, if life hadn't gotten in the way...I...who?

Somewhere back down the road I wanted to do something. Now there's just that old Tarzan movie playing in the electronics store across the street...no sound...it's quiet except I want to kill Richard Harris. But if Celine Dion and the Belmont’s walk by right now, Johnny Wadd won't have to dress up like an Indian in that small house across the street in North Hollywood. It's strange... I thought he died on Wonderland Drive... no... that was the other guys. Anyway Richard would be safe if Celine walked by. I just want to kill someone but it has to mean something....there's this big multi-tiered cake...it's melting. I really don't think I can take it again. Elton's gone. One of the grooms is buried to his waist in mascarpone, the other one is just a bump in the icing. I don't want to think about what's going on...down there in the part of the cake that I can't see.

I asked somebody to play. I gave him a challenge... I waited. Wait a minute...keep waiting...nobody came. I would have done Shakespeare; Conan-Doyle, even R. Crumb but nobody came. Some lawyer broad from the ‘burbs made me famous for about five minutes on a dysfunctional message board...Shakespeare, Crumb...? Bzzzt...Bzzzt... that cake ...all the sweet green icing...moonlight. Old Man Moon...or is that River...no, he died outside that club. I had sex with Winona that night...later. Johnny Depp was tied up...no not like that...he and River were tight. Winona told me that people referred to her as 'wanna ride her'.... that was some really nice icing... Did that actually happen? ...I think so- the number she gave me worked. I know because it rang and rang and rang.

It must have been one of those things like that song "Patches"...down by the river that floats by the coal yard...floats by...shudders torn down...girl named...Patches...from Old Shanty Town. She has her friends after all...she could have been pretending or just hungry but...who would fake an orgasm 5 times? ...and it wasn't even for some kind of camera thing. But she's an actress...yeah, so am I.

I wanted to play...but nobody answered me and it was Christmas too...the sweet green icing looked like blood in the traffic lights. Why didn't anybody challenge me...what? did they think I couldn’t do it?....probably...it's no fun here. People throw dirty snowballs from behind parked cars but they don't let me play...

Sad, lonely...twisted guy...limp Santa hat in his hand...Hey guys!! anyone...? anyone?...sniff...sniff...

I've got this tight feeling in my chest...my father is going to beat me when I get home...even worse...he's been dead for some years...Steven King country....I wish my mom was still cute...

Bzzzt...Bzzzt...Bzzzt... fucking neon...so this is Vegas? You can have it. I still got money though. I keep getting more and more ...what the fuck am I going to do with it? Pay somebody to keep the icing from melting? Dig up Richard Harris and party down with John Barrymore...Errol Flynn is still biting the balls off of sheep from where I stand in fractured fugue time.

I was told what didn't kill me would only make me stronger but I can't defend my heart against the lies. All I know about myself is that I never ‘threaten’ to kill anyone....I’m more into apologizing after it happens. ...you and the green icing in the same box with Richard....They said I touched little kids...they said I hated Jews...what's next...commercials?...politics?...religion?....it took so long to fake it and I'll never have that...that....fuck...!

Dateline called...makes me think there might be hope... no... kidding myself ....stupid Santa suit...stupid fucking hat...friends gone....you're just a piece of shit...smack! Smack! Does that hurt? that doesn't hurt enough...no, ...I'm going to cut myself...I'll show them...they'll feel bad when I'm gone. They'll have to listen to all that shit about green icing and go to bed with Celine or even Barbra...yeah that's it...I'll make the whole world take acid and Yohimbe and go to bed with them ...and Elton and them will sing 80's duets all night long along with Lionel Ritchie's daughter.

I thought if I pretended to be Santa and pretended to be high they would....does that hurt? How about this you piece of shit...you dirty little piece of shit!!!!..... I look like Mother Teresa on her period exclamation point...it doesn't hurt and I won't cry....I'm not afraid...why wouldn't they play. I wanted to play...stupid Santa suit...poor bedraggled hat...broken heart....fade....


Merry Christmas! Hello? Anybody? Mickey? Richard?


Credits....


Bzzzt...Bzzzt...Bzzzt....keep on truckin....

What the Hell! Man... that was a bad dream. How come the bedroom stinks of ozone? maybe it wasn't a dream. Maybe this is the dream or I'm actually in a coma in a hospital bed somewhere and... Well, I could be catatonic too- medicated up in some institution... Bzzzt... Bzzzt...

The bad thing is that I can still hear McArthur Park playing somewhere. I know it wasn't playing when I went to sleep last night. I'm really hungry now but I'm afraid to look in the icebox. I'm afraid there's a big green cake in there with tunnels eaten all through it and that I will see the red eyes of rats in parkas watching me from the shadowed interior of the tunnels in the cake. Look out for the bad stranger. Look out for the bad cake... melting in the rain.

I shoulda been a junkie in Samarkand... pipe-dreaming, hype injecting... watching rainbows explode on the inside of my eyelids... turning into dancing musical notes cartooning their way across the horizontal ...like ducks in a shooting gallery.

Well... it hasn't been real and it's not going to get real. I know that... I know it before I walk out the front door. But I've got my pretend face on and I should be able to fake my way through whatever happens until I get back home again. I don't really like going out but it's not the same as it was in Coleridge’s day. You pretty much have to go out at some point and then it's buzzing neon and strange people... Bzzzt... Bzzzt... At least here I'm not holding some wilted wet Santa hat and my feelings aren't being hurt. I'm way past that on this side of the dream... unless I'm in a hospital bed or an institution... or? Bzzzt... Bzzzt... neon buzzing... telephone ringing...