12/23/02
12:53pm
IN SEARCH OF CARROT TOP AND OTHER AMUSING CHRISTMAS TALES
It's been an eventful past few days... which explains why I haven't written all that much. Somehow things seem to be coming together. Now I have people to hate Florida with, instead of moping at home alone. :)
I can't remember if I mentioned Anna Young before, but I will take the time to do it now. Again, if necessary. Can we say amazing woman? Yes, I knew that we could. :)
Seems life has a funny way of sending us down a path and just when we think we went in a HUGE circle, we find out that the people we were looking for were at the end of that path all along. At the end of this FLA-la land path waited Anna and friends, which seemed to be the most unlikely place I would find people so much like me. I'm glad I found them, though. Anna is one of those people that can bring life to a room and spark everyone up. Gotta love that.
We hung out and went to Independent Bar (formerly Barbarella's, which I think is a LOT cooler name, personally) and she introduced me to some of her friends. Tybalt is an amazing musician (listening to the CD he gave me the other day, and I have to say, HE MUST GET SIGNED!!). He's one of those laid-back sexy goth guys and you can see talent swirling in the air around him. Awesome guy.
Annabelle and --crap.. I can't remember her name, but she was a gorgeous little blonde girl-- they are natural goths. I was amazed. Ended up chatting with Annabelle a little bit at Anna's pre-Christmas Christmas party last night.
And so.... it all leads up to this:
At the party I unfortunately got SUCH a neck ache, and it started travelling up into the base of my skull. Yes, a migraine waiting to happen. I was having such a good time, too. The whole experience was just flowing together, from the images of Baracca on the television, to the black light paintings, and snippets of conversation ranging from meditation and language evolution to metaphysics and time travel. By the time I left my head was swimming with inspiration and disjointed surrealist poetry.
So on the ride home, with my head bursting with words yet to be born, and flinging poetry out the window of the car on the tips of cigarette ashes, watching the cherry of Chuck's cigarette as it dipped and swayed into the ash tray and back to his face, I was watching the night fly past. The wind screamed and tore at the doors of the car as if trying to wrench them from their hinges. And if I looked down, I could pretend I was flying through the night.
"Carrot Top lives around here somewhere," Chuck said and my train of thought was derailed. I swear the caboose hit me on the way off the tracks.
"Mmmm...," I said.
We drove on, and I started to piece back together some of the thoughts and inspirations, wishing I had a notebook and pen. Always the irony of not having pen or paper that I get the urge to write. I think back on one time that I only had a pen, and I ended up writing the entirety of my short story "The Vigilante Psychic" all over my arms, hands and legs. I learned to be ambidexterous again. Friends asked what the hell I had done to myself, and I said it was my grocery list.
"Right in there, I think," Chuck broke in again, and pointed to one of the many developments of the Wang. They all look alike to me. Same cardboard cutout pre-fab houses, same concrete sign at the entrance. I could drive past a hundred and think we had gone in circles a hundred times.
"Mmm....," I said again. It seemed like a good, solid, non-biased answer that could be interpreted any way he saw fit. The underlying truth was hidden: I'm terrified of Carrot Top. I fear him more than clowns. He twists my mellow and makes me fear the very word "Stand-up comedian". What's even more terrifying than seeing Carrot Top on the TV is that he lives so damned close to us that I might see him walking down the highway one of these days. And what do I do if this happens??? There is no duck-and-cover drill for hiding from a stand-up prop comic... is there? Will I be forced to dial down the center if he catches me at a payphone???!!
The inspirations flitted away and into the treetops as I opened the door to get out of the car. I watched my ideas as they soared into the night above me. At least I didn't have to think about the threat of Carrot Top anymore.
