Billy Ocean’s Truffle-Sniffin’ Pigs

Dear Adam Powers,

I know this pair of roommates, and one looks like Jake Gyllenhaal and the other one looks like Toby Maguire, and sometimes I wonder if they just sit around at home in their underwears just staring at each other.  I often have an urge to call up my manager at Carrburritos, who is a dead ringer for Peter Sarsgaard, and who loves 80s music, and have him rent their third bedroom so that I can go over there and perform menial chores for no monetary compensation.  I could, like, put on Point of No Return and wash their dishes and get their autographs and shine their shoes.

We had a Billy Ocean dance party at Carrburritos today.  We discussed what Billy must be doing now, and decided that he must be into holistic medicines or a Zen Master or still in love with the Caribbean Queen, and that he’s just chill.  He probably owns a fleet of truffle-sniffing pigs all named after various gods and idols.  “Find that truffle, Jesus Christ,” he must say a lot.  “Shiva, sniff me out a snack.”  He drinks Sloe gin Fizzes in well-lit pubs with Simply Red on a bi-monthly basis.  He’s the coolest, and never partakes in love on the run.

A black guy in the restaurant heard us talking about Billy Ocean and he yelled out, “That N***a’s whack!”  He didn’t say “ninja.”

I don’t say the “N-word.”  White people never say the “N-word.”  Remember when Louis C.K. did that stand-up bit about it?  He said he hates the actual term, “N-word,” because when people say it, they make him think of the real, actual word, and that’s unfair.  But today at work, Mac told me that, until the late 70s, there used to be a town in North Carolina called “Niggerskull.”  I looked it up on the internet and it’s true.  Mac said there was even a Hardee’s there.  This tidbit sparked a discussion about what their district meetings must be like.  Like, all the Hardee’s managers are in a circle at the conference table and they have to go around and identify themselves, saying things like, “Joey C, Store #4425, Wake Forest, NC,” and “Harold, Store #226, Asheville, NC,” and “Scooter, Store #5564, N***erskull, NC,” and how mortifying that must be.  What if you had to tell people that you never graduated college and you were the night porter at the N***erskull Hardees?  Turns out the name was recently changed to “Negroskull.”

What.

The.

Fuck.

WHY COULDN’T THEY JUST CHANGE THE NAME ENTIRELY?? (Which they ended up doing in 200-fucking-6).  It reminds me of the joke where Shithead McFuckstick got made fun of his whole life till he went to the name-change office and paid his fee and proudly introduced himself by his new name, Shithead Jones.

And here’s something else for you, just to round out the weird.  Today I waited on a couple I had never seen before, and the woman ordered a Corona Light.  I turned to her husband and asked, “Would you like a beer also?”  And before he could respond, the wife reared her ugly head and said, verbatim, I swear it, “HOW DARE YOU??  He is an ALCOHOLIC and he is in AA and you offer him a BEER??  HOW DARE YOU???”

I giggled a little out of shock, which was perhaps inappropriate, but still loads better than what I wanted to respond with, which was, “You’re the reason he drinks.”

I imagine she’s the type of person who resides in Negroskull, NC, now, scarfing down greasy jalapeno poppers half-cooked by beleaguered fry cooks while Loverboy plays softly in the background, a wistful reminder of a gentler, inaccessible place where Billy Ocean is king and the truffles are fresh and abundant.

And in case you forgot what it looks like when Red Riding Hoodasaurus rescues a purple haired alien from a poor-man’s Cantina in the most incongruous music video of all time, I leave you with:

 

My 5-Year-Plan in 434 Words or Less

Dear Adam Powers:

 

hurrah for this.

 

I have made a decision. It is an important one. I have decided that I will coerce Val Kilmer, circa 1988 Willow-style into reproducing with me, and I will ensure that the spawn is female. I want to dress the little shit in clothes like Cindel Towani’s from Ewoks: Battle for Endor.

 

we could always dress like this, if we wanted to.

 

Wouldn’t that be awesome? And I’m gonna deposit her in the woods and make her repair star cruisers to earn her dinner. And if she misbehaves, she’ll end up here. . .

 

she's in the oubliette! don't laugh, she should never have gotten this far.

 

. . .in the bottom of an oubliette with pictures of Charal posted up to scare the bejesus out of her. So, okay. We all know that Wilford Brimley the Oatmeal Man was in Battle for Endor, but did you guys know that the dude who played Wicket, the Ewok in the second picture, is Warwick Davis who played the lead in Willow? Or were you too wrapped up in trying to devise a plan to dispose of Meegosh so you could free a young, sweaty, haggard, and still drop-dead gorgeous Val Kilmer from his floating bird cage yourself?

 

so good.

 

I know I was.  So, the only problem is this. Val Kilmer was on the beach one time lately, see? And this is what he decided was an appropriate outfit:

 

almost 30 means lowering your standards.

 

So I’m not too sure the kid’s gonna come out cute. And all I’ve got at my real-life disposal is a bevy of able-bodied, fertile, beautiful boys who hate children. And come to think of it, I don’t love them either.  The children.  So I think I’m shit out of luck.

It is difficult to locate viable options when the most exciting thing in your life (next to identifying new Rock Band downloads every Tuesday) is the prospect of starting a Settlers of Catan tournament night as soon as we locate a fourth player who will be willing to sit at a kitchen table amidst thousands of cigarette butts and empty High Life bottles and say things like, “I have Wood for your Sheep, give me a Development Card, The Longest Army Plaque, two Roads, and a City, and maybe one more piece of carrot cake.”

 

nerdy.

 

Anyway, let me know when you’re free.  I’d love to see you again.  That would be swell, and my life would be back in proper order for the most part.

And once Val Kilmer jumps on a treadmill and grows his hair out, everything will be picture perfect.

 

Love, Mandey.

P.S.:

 

for good "spank bank" measure

 

How Fifteen Year Olds Sometimes Act.

Dear Local Celebrity:

The song playing during the opening credits was “Stoopid Ass” by Grand Theft Auto.  Good idea.  Let’s misspell Stupid and make it the theme song for a movie called, “Dude Where’s My Car?”

First seven minutes:
Ostriches floating in space: Check.
Fat dude pissing in houseplant: Check
Fridge full of pudding cups:  Check
Attempted feline assassination by pizza slice:  Check.
Terrier smoking weed from a pipe shaped like a terrier:  Check.

And then?  The Ween song.  It redeems everything that’s happened so far.  And then?  And then?  Aaaandddd thennnnnnnn?  And then the (consecutive) lines:

“You didn’t hafta go all eggroll on that speakerboxxx.”

“Well I’m not the one who calls the Dalai Lama a fag.”

And then?  And then I remember why I still can’t manage to sit through the whole thing every time I try:

It’s fucking stupid.

It’s awesomely stupid, but still.  My idea of awesomely stupid is more Kids in the Hall-y.  I feel restless.  I flip the TV off and decide to go play my secret patio game.

So I walk down to the bar below your apartment.  I have good reason to believe that if you look down through your window you can see the bar patio clearly, and who is on it.  I don’t really smoke cigarettes that much yet.  So what this means for me is that I have to idle idiotically on the patio, slyly trying to figure out which window is yours.  The whole time, mind you, I’m assuming you’re standing at your window looking through the miniblinds at the crowd directly below while you listen to your own hit record and imagine us as your music video. There’s nowhere to sit, really, so I usually just fuck around on my Discman, fast-forwarding your sentiments three decades’ worth.

I try to go early in the evening so it’s still light enough out that I can get away with wearing sunglasses.  I punch random meaningless buttons but behind my shades my eyes stare at the crumbly brick wall ahead of me and travel up slowly until they land on the spot where I imagine the second floor starts.  My toes turned inward, my fingers fumbling with the buttons on my stupid little plaid hipster button-down shirt, I’m more Ally Sheedy with the Pixie Stix and less Phoebe Cates swimming pool scene, I know, but in my daymares I pretend you’d rather that for your MTV debut.

I’ll admit, the bar fun sorta wears off when, inevitably, you don’t  come rushing downstairs, slowing down and forcibly regulating your breathing as you turn the corner into the bar, pretending you were coming to hang out anyway.  So I always leave shortly after.

Not content to admit defeat, I tell myself your apartment window faces east, on the other side of the building, and I convince myself I’m not old enough to be in a bar.  I’m not, in fact.

Jose knows I am 15, so he will only serve me Woodchuck Apple Cider because he says it’s just the same as juice.  I resent him now, fifteen years later, because if I even smell Woodchuck I feel like I’m gonna upchuck.  To be drunk on Woodchuck first in life before all other alcohol is to lead an increasingly miserable existence once you realize that things like whiskey even exist.

Since I am 15, it means I am boy-crazy, and Mel always finds me outside the bar where she knows I should not be, since it is a terrible neighborhood.  She pulls me inside and points out a boy in the corner wearing a sweater with stripes similar to one I have, and I am immediately in love, of course.

But I never forget about you.  You say not to look in your window, but I never learn.

Mandey.

Almost 30.

Dear Adam Powers,

Tomorrow I turn “almost 30.”  I have stopped saying my age out loud, not because I am embarrassed of it, but just because it doesn’t really seem to matter anymore.

I keep getting this question, some variation of, “What are you doing on your birthday?”  How do you answer that?  It was my understanding that you don’t “do” anything for your “own” birthday, and, aside from that, “people” don’t “do” anything for you after you turn 21 or so.

I made it explicitly clear to several people that I wanted to have a party at Chuck-E-Cheese or however you spell it, but only if the animatronic Rock-A-Fire Explosion band would perform classics from my childhood such as “Roast Beef Sandwich,” “The Chuck-E-Cheese Beatles Medley,” and “Mr. Bassman.”  But I heard all they play now is Christina Aguilera covers and they go by the name “Munch’s Make-Believe Band.”  The Rock-A-Fire Explosion was a (now-defunct) Showbiz Pizza band, but since my memory has fused SBP with Chuck-E-Cheese because it makes sense that The Rock-A-Fire Explosion would be in high demand and so be hired in other pizza parlors from my childhood, I’m gonna use the two restaurants interchangeably.

If I know only one thing, if I have gleaned only one piece of information from my almost-30 years on this planet, it is that the Chuck-E-Cheese band is decidedly not make-believe.  I have always been well aware that they were wobots, but as a child I assumed that they possessed free will and independent thought and I am not prepared to change my mind.

Alas, no one arranged a birthday party for me.  And I KNOW it’s not because I’m too old.  When my dad turned 30, we had his birthday party there.  And yes, I know he had three kids at the time, and once you reproduce you cease doing things for yourself.  You forgo the parties at bars and instead start celebrating your birthdays at rat-mastcotted entertainment bonanzas.  You trade in the beer pong for the Whack-A-Mole.  So when we showed up for his special day, displayed there up on the marquee birthday board was:

Julie is 3!!!

Christopher is 6!!!

Jimmie is. . .30!!!

AND I WANTED THAT THIS YEAR.  But it’s fine.  I’ll be at Carrburritos for my birthday this year, serving burritos to people who somehow don’t understand what I mean when I say, “What salsa would you like?”  I’ll ask them what they want to drink and they’ll say, “Oh nothing.  Just water,” and I’ll pour their water and I’ll want to say “WATER IS A FUCKING DRINK.”  But I won’t.  Because that would be rude.

I wish I was spending my birthday in France.

I did get a very nice present, though, from Lackey.  He gave me a down comforter and I named it Clarence and now I won’t leave my bed whenever I am home.  Clarence made me late for work last week.  He is seafoam green and he loves me back.

Sorry this letter is so short.  I just got off work and now I have to go to my other work.  And tomorrow morning I go my other OTHER work, and then it starts all over again.

So if you’re in Carrboro tomorrow night, stop by and get a burrito and tell me Happy Birthday.  Or, I guess, don’t.  Because who cares, anyway?  I’m not 21 anymore.  I’m almost 30.

Mandey.

By the Power Invested in Me

Dear Adam Powers:

I was thinking the other day about the night we met, almost a year ago now.  I don’t think you’re aware of the full story.  I’m glad we still talk, even though my brush with fame didn’t pan out.

I remember it was just after band practice and my Wombatalie and I decided to get trashed at OCSC to drum up some interest in our upcoming gig.  We played a little game where Wombatalie picked complete strangers for me to recruit to the show.  Within ten minutes I had convinced about eleven people we were awesome, and that’s when Wombatalie pointed out a small group of people near the bar, a group which I had been specifically avoiding. YOUR group.  You were an intimidating group, really, porcelain-faced hipster boys and a pretty girl with sock-hop fringe bangs holding a stout little French Bulldog in her lap.

But this was a game, and I was determined to win first prize, which was apparently a blue ribbon in exponential humiliation. I stumbled over to your group with my hands out and my fingers splayed in foolish inquiry.  “Hey.  Whatchall doin tomorrow night?”  I looked right at you, Adam, because you were the least threatening.

You just sort of squinted at me and I knew immediately that you were thinking twice about telling me. With unbearable reluctance, you mumbled, “Were going to Charlotte.”

“Oh no,” I said, “You’re coming to a rock show!  My band’s playing tomorrow and ya’ll should check us out.  We haven’t played many shows but we have a good time together and it’s all in fun I mean we’re not really doing it for the money, right?  Who does it for the money?  I mean who does that?” I went on for three very long minutes about how signed bands quickly lose sight of what brought them there in the first place, their fans, their passion.  In the middle of my drunken babble I realized you guys were actually listening to me, so I shut up.

I remember you were holding a fancy camera and kept snapping pictures of the girl with the dog.  You turned to me and said, “Well, give us your name and number and myspace page and email and we’ll be in touch if you want.  Sorry we can’t make it, but we really have to go to Charlotte.  We’re on a little tour and that’s our next gig.”

Oh, neato, I thought to myself.  They’re in a band too!

Your request for extensive contact info seemed a little strange, but I figured it was just some sort of networking tool.  But there was something about the way you said, “We’ll be in touch” that struck a strange, businessy chord.  Plus, if you wanted to stalk me, I was somehow okay with that.

I turned to the bartender to ask for a pen.  There was a tight little group of Carrboro boys watching me, their eyes narrow slits.  They noticed I was comfortable talking to the Charlotte-bound crew.  One of them stage whispered to me, “You’re friends with those guys?”  and I was like, “Yeah, why?”  I was lying, but who cared?  I didn’t know anybody in either group, so what did I have to lose?  “Really?” the boys said to me.  “That’s awesome, shit.”  Weird.

The girl with the dog looked vaguely familiar, so I decided to bother her a little bit.  Maybe I had seen her on one of my Harris Teeter Midnight Corn Dog runs, an errand I feel the need to capitalize.  So I did the socially logical thing by forcing her to look at fourteen cell phone pictures of my dog.  I told the girl about how my dog gets her lips stuck in her teeth when she’s mad or excited.

I was making all kinds of dog faces at her dog.  It was sort of ridiculous.  The group’s interest in me was clearly waning, and only Mona, the English Bulldog, seemed to be paying me any attention.

So I felt like it was time to move on.  I had informed you guys of my show, provided you with every possible way to “keep in touch,” shared my dog pictures and performed “Boston Snorts” for y’all (the noise my dog makes when she eats flying bugs directly from the air).  There was nothing left to say, really.  I was getting progressively drunker the longer I stood there, and the room was starting to spin.  Your phone rang, and as I was saying goodbye, I heard little soundbytes from your side of the conversation. . . “Power. . .packed. . .just finished. . .bar. . .” and right then, Mona’s mom stuck her hand out and said, “Well it was awesome to meet you, my name’s Chan Marshall.  What was yours?”

And it all clicked in my tiny, meager brain.  I knew why she looked so familiar.  I mean, I read Rolling Stone for god’s sakes.

“Um.”  I stammered a little, then a lot, “Man-M-Mandey?”  I said my name like it was a question.

See, it’s hard to properly remember your name when you realize you have just unknowingly invited fucking CAT POWER to your band’s little gig.

Yeah, I so did.

So now Cat Power thinks I’m some stupid crazed fan who’s all like, “Chan, Chan!  Come to my show!  Listen to my demo!  I wanna toooouuuur with yoooooouuu pleeez!!!”  when in all actuality I had no idea who you guys were when I walked up.

I said bye, quickly, and stumbled back to Wombatalie and said, “IjustinvitedCatPowertoourshowtomorrowwehavetogonowdonotdelay.”

We ran outside and Wombatalie was laughing at me and we were freaking out and I got in my Baby Battered Honda and turned the keys, quick, and Wombat jumped on top of my car hood and hung her face down in front of the windshield and said, “GO WOMBAT GO” and right when I was about to take off pealing out of the parking lot with her on my roof, you materialized from nowhere and started snapping pictures with your fancy camera.  And there was Chan, watching us and giggling and cheering us on as we performed parking lot stunts.

And I swear I’m gonna sue if we don’t end up on Cat Power’s tour blog with an appropriate caption such as, “Retards Go For Spin After Crazed Attempt At Starfucking!”  Or maybe just, “Retards!”

So that’s my story.  Of course, y’all didn’t come to the show.  You were touring.  And maybe one day we’ll hang out again, but probably we’ll just keep emailing till we forget about each other.  Cat Power’s keeping in touch, so you never know.

Love,

Mandey?

Buyer Beware

Dear Adam Powers:

“It’s like I’m pressed on the handlebars/Of a blind man’s bike.”

Leaving a brick room, with keys to the bathrooms, with keys to the front seat bumps, and with dejection in mind. And I called, and I called, and I texted, such is my life a twenty-first century digital girl, but he was nowhere to be found.

Pixels.

They are so misleading. Make me want to feel that he will be here to talk me through the nosebleed.

I feel like I am dying.

And I know you wouldn’t approve, but some of us girls don’t mind being window dressing, novelty items. Was I born in the wrong time? Inside my head excuses swirl like an arabesque in unwell light, a bodice tightened in fear of attracting the sort of leer unbecoming of a lady. Take no prisoners, harvest no gold, the prettiest woman is the hardest to hold. I’m a fool for pet names like “darlin”. . .lace collar choking. . .fingers trailing. . .

I once asked a friend of mine if I could read what he writes when he is drunk at home, alone, and he turned all mysterious, which rarely works on me anymore, and said, “Caveat Emptor.” And to that, I replied, “Fuck that. You know I don’t try my shirts on before I buy them.”

But if I had known what exactly happens among the thrift store musk of family quilts, obligations from relatives wrecked with senility, friends with high hopes of photography fame, scrawls and sticks and stones and bones, perhaps a chance encounter with a high-alcohol beer or two or three, in that place where I almost burned down his room, maybe his fingers don’t hold the Maudite bottle too firmly, or firmly enough, and he’s falling off his desk chair, and drooling a little bit of drunk spit out of the corner of his mouth. . .but he better believe he can hold on tight to that pen he’s writing with. His grip on personality issues and possible names he could call me hasn’t faltered. His stick figure approach to the diorama love hospice will not waver. “I am where love goes to die,” he says. “I am a love hospice,” he says.

And it is enough material to publish a novel about all the things he hated about me, I noticed, it is pages and pages and pages upon pages, which I did not read because that would be snooping. But the pages on top were for me to see. . .when he leaves something out in the open, and it shines like a forbidden beacon through the sleep crusted in the corners of my eyes, it is an attractive diversion from the normal “stagger, stagger, grumble” I usually exhibit right after waking up. If there’s something juicy to be had, I will have it.

And really. Who wouldn’t want to wake up and see their name in careful block print, thousands and thousands of words written like a bit of war propaganda? Who wouldn’t want to fumble through morning sunlight reading a catalog of all their faults, meticulously recorded and stored and unfiled for their amusement?

I’ll tell you who. Me. I wouldn’t want to.

So I didn’t. What I did was the equivalent of reading the two pages that are visible from someone’s open diary lying on the nightstand.

How to Read Someone’s Open Diary:

If it’s open, then it’s there to be read. But you don’t turn to the other pages. You read only what is left out for you to read. You never open a closed diary. And you leave everything exactly how you found it. And then you take the information and you process it and you stew over it and you think, “Could he really think that about me?” over and over and then you get tears in your eyes while you edit the credit card tips at work and you feel weird utilizing his voice projection while he’s off the clock.

Let me know what you think.  And while you’re at it, let me know what you do in my room when I’m not at home to see.

Love,

Deuce.

Stars, all froze.

Dear Adam Powers,

For you, a list of random things from my day:

1. It is 2:28 a.m. and I have eaten seven Dora The Explorer Fun Shape Popsicles in the last twelve minutes. The box says that the “Estrella” shaped popsicle is supposed to taste like watermelon. I keep eating them, trying to find this mythical watermelon popsicle. It is nowhere. I even looked up “Estrella” on Babelfish to make sure I was looking for the star shape, because I just ate a star-shaped one that was purple and tasted like grape, and I HATE grape flavoring. I think they are fucking with me.

2. Some sloppy gross fatfatfat lady in line at the bank told me my body was a temple and Jesus wouldn’t approve of me marring it with tattoos. I didn’t even turn around, I just said, “Gluttony is a sin too, bitch.” I got reprimanded by the old hag in front of me. Only the bank teller was on my side. He looks like Egon and he gave me a secret high-five when I got up to the counter.

3. My mom found out today, over the course of normal conversation, that I have not had sex in almost eight months and I don’t care if that changes or not. She thought I was mentally ill. “Are you all right?” she asked. I just shrugged. “Do boys not like you?” she wondered. I told her I wasn’t sure, that I don’t really try. “Are you just lazy?” she inquired. She reminded me that every one of my single male friends is heartbreakingly gorgeous, which is indeed a true fact. Apparently, my inability/unwillingness to seduce these boys or be receptive to some sort of sexual relationship with one of them (“Any one of them! Even the young one! He’s not too young! Half your age plus six that’s the rule!”) was so appalling to her, she found it necessary to call all of her coworkers and tell them of my “condition.” Right in front of me. Even when she dialed the fourth number in as many minutes, I didn’t try to stop her. Maybe I’m just lazy.

4. Lackey and I were at the grocery store because I was desperate for a watermelon. We found the watermelons, which was nice, but even better was the little brand-name sticker on each one that proudly stated “Little Deuce Coupe,” with a picture of a very happy watermelon go-cart puttin’ along to wherever it is that those go. This thrilled me. I have decided I would like for my nickname to be “Deuce,” short, of course, for “Little Deuce Coupe.” So far only Lackey has agreed to call me this. Everyone else refuses. I suppose I will call him this in return, because “Half-My-Age-Plus-Six” is not really that great of a nickname.

5. Today at work I was drinking coffee out of my Diana mug and you know how when you, like, dip a cookie in your coffee sometimes small crumbs will get in your cup and make mush? Well, I got one of those cookie-mushes in one of my swigs. I rolled it around in my mouth a few times, smashed it against my teeth for a few seconds, trying to break it up, when I realized with a horror that I hadn’t eaten anything at that point in the day. I extracted the “crumb” and when I looked at it I found myself staring at one dead fly. Horrifying.

6. Speaking of Lackey, remember a few blogs ago I said I would help him study for his Sound Recording School exam? Well I did end up helping him but I had NO CLUE what I was quizzing him on so I have no idea if I was truly helping or if he was just being polite. Fucking tube amps and inputs and equalizers.  But guess what?  HE ACED THAT BITCH, YO. That’s right! He totally did. And I didn’t understand a word from that damn textbook. I think he is very smart. He knows what buttons to press.

I think that’s it. I have eaten two more popsicles since I started writing this, and I feel siiiick. No watermelon. Fuck.

Talk to you soon,

Deuce.