8 + 2 + 8 = Ate + Too + Eight

 

*Sunday Morning by the Velvet Underground. Lou Reed whispering sweet psychedelia that asks for a location, a time of day, an answer that can’t be given. Why do I feel that banana isn’t ripe?

 

*Warhol, like a good Catholic pretty boy, believes in service o’er all and delights us with 15 minutes’ worth of blueberry pie entertainment; a modern ‘merican mysticism that we’ve lacked.

 

*Paul America is a weapon, a blank slate baby-brickhouse with no greater ambitions besides standing there. Maybe he was Saul America once, I wouldn’t know, but I’d bet he’s just as blind.

 

*Superstars gorge themselves on the self-serve speedball dispenser. 3 out of every 13 of them turn into a statistic, and they all get nice and pretty for the autopsy (someone wanted a ‘manualpsy’?)

 

*Velvet went Underground because they were worried being Overground would make them realize that the Beatles were fucking great. Screw the Scousers, put the Euro-broad on the track!

 

*Nico, honestly, kind of sucks but she’s so cucumber-cool that they keep her around. Vibes are important under the ground! She also dated Alain Delon which has to count for something, right?

 

*Lou Reed plans to exterminate the paparazzi industry. It’ll involve a civil war between the day & night shift crews who’ll fight for full 24-hour coverage. Sadly, there’s a global SD card shortage.

 

*Valerie Solanas looked at that first album cover and said, that’s me! I’m convinced she was confused by the silver wig and thought Warhol was a Madam. Girl please, he pees standing up!

 

_______________________________________________________________

SCUMSCUMSCUMSCUMSCUMSCUMSCUMSCUMSCUMSCUMSCUM

 

 

Basquiat, who did your hair?                        “Never got a name. Untitled.”

 

 

Books burning by the bridge. Zippo hungry hippo white flame glutton on saliva seared portraits being ate-ate-ate in moments and yielding to the Hot. Crumple recordings of Factory produced savantry to live and tomato turned black out the cameras. Nitrate film empty calories, the one documentary You liked about City of Love on fire and this alphabet mythology of silver weave made protein powder keg for Capital Blaze.

 

Nude Male Torso’s clothes were stolen. They jumped him while he was looking. While he saw. Can we ask him a question?

 

“What are you thinking about?”

​

Someone goes and starts playing

something on a projector or

possibly some kind of voice

recording.

 

We see the montage that ensues

via poem and image.

 

Solaris Saturday and all the astro-guys in colorful outfits side a blank little room since the maid came this morning, they can’t wait till the year 2001 where the monkeys are juggling and the computer boys sing songs. Campbell found an old Jesus movie but the laserdisc was all bunged up so the only scene salvaged is Lazarus getting off his ass. Orfeu can’t stop messing around with the Magic Mirror, thinks the Bends might give in for a recompense. All you zombies wear the fog drag-queen style while them hosts are loading FMJs for party favors. Liquid-works water-artifice in Victorian skin plays on this deceased evening so can we please stop wasting time and pick the flick already? My god, the herd just wants an excuse to check their phones anyway so stop thinking so hard about people pleasing, you insecure pansy. We’ve got Jodorowsky and Molly Ringwald’s birthday party and Laura Palmer making blue lightning. Hold up, who is that leading the pack? Aw shit, it’s what’s-his-face’s Monster, the one who gets no pussy. Yes, that one. By the way, Campbell has to bounce soon, let him use that wormhole behind the upstairs bathroom’s shower curtain.

 

“Wait, what are you doing here?”

 

It’s at this moment that Campbell is beat to death. This is a lesson for all you kids out there:

 

1. Don’t be a Peeping Tom. It’s not cool anymore.

2. Don’t post up on somebody else’s watering hole. You will get jumped by apes.

3. Knock on the Loo door before waltzing in, please. This isn’t the Philistine Frat House.

 

Schwein! Schwein! Schwein!

 

Rando with a Bowl-Cut pops a tape in. Can’t hear Campbell’s ghost through all this chewing, the cadaver crew brought their own snacks to share but it’s that one brand of chips that comes a little stale so we flinch at every single fucking crunch. Maybe a worthy sacrifice for them not raiding the organ pantry, and life’s always been about tradeoffs. Hey, hey, sh sh sh! It’s about to start!

 

 

ATE TOO EIGHT

​

DREAMED BY PARTY BOY

 

~STARRING~

 

SOLE VILLAINOUS

RAW ALOHA

THE GUN

​

Fade to white.

THE GUN emerges from the void.

Fully loaded.

 

“Hi there. I’m surprised you made it this far. Campbell’s bleeding upstairs in the tub. We’re all soup when you think about it. Something to make and something to be made. All that matters is how badly you want to escape from the Can.”

 

 

RAW ALOHA

 

Chico Buarque back from exile. Grabs

his guitar. Drums and the flute come

from nowhere. You can still hear

them. God is paying you with music.

 

♩♪ This is-is-is…

How I learned to-to-to…

Looooooove theeeeee… ♩♪

 

GUN.

 

Reassemble Walther.

Chamber exhale. Nostril smoke.

Carbine romance. Gunpowder harem.

 

“Give us a peck Smith? And how about you, Wesson?”

 

She’s coming back later today. I’m so excited. The big bad boygirl with his earrings and… oh Christ, those fangs! Drain me now, you monster! I could crave her aftershave from my nightmares, a sick-fuck scent that makes my thigh hairs stand sergeant. And me, just a lil liberal art Lolita, waiting for him to tear the glasses off, run her fingers through my porcelain shag, speak soft genocide into the Gomorrah between my ears. Oh… yes. I want it so bad; he has to know. She has to have seen that Thing lurking in the auburn of my eyes, the Exit with claws and a poison kiss. I’ll be anything he wants me to be, anyone, anywhere, anywhen, anywhy. My one-and-only wo-Man-Devil, tell me of your conquest of blades; how you raped entire civilizations with double-entendre and snake smiles. I don’t want you to love me more than I love you. Cast me aside, you bastard. Break my heart and incinerate my status quo. I want that bitch to burn. No French-maid martyr escape hatch, make it headfirst teardrops in the oven like the poet-princess. Let’s have Nuclear Sex, Armaghetto Intercourse, Holocaust Coitus. Bind me in your death-trap fictions. Make me immortal.

 

SOLE VILLAINOUS

 

“Remember to close the loop when you’re done.”

 

TWO LIVES!

TWO LETTERS!

WHO DIES THIS TIME!?!

 

“We’re never going back again.”

 

Sitting on plastic toilet with weapon. Style of Private Pyle. Biding my time before the Mickey Mouse shit. Jotted down some quality on the pad. Stick’s out of ink. Knew I shoulda packed more than a peashooter. Slip out the Porta-Potty to infancy fields, the playgrounds of proto bebe-boy. Empty ‘cept for titan transmission spire. Mod-God of steel feeds the block with the name Now-Zeus. Marlboro toothpick, get me sharp to follow the power lines where I need be soon. Look over there: pre-teens on top of sedan filming, twin gets out of trunk and falls onto road. A third uses electric scooter to catch the whole thing on camcorder. Bad luck taking a car that’s been named. Better man-up for the hike. Turn the camera on for this.

 

♪♩♬

 

Tunnel in golf course. Escalator to Under. Lake reef express lane, Mud Metro maybe. I think there’s an app for that. Night floating in pool or at bottom swimming. A nice visual. Timing to some song from the 50’s would be dope. Running out of the bushes in the lights of the backyard at night. Standing outside sister’s window, or mine. Thinking long and hard about letting me in. I don’t mind. There’s a bridge I can climb if I have to. Secret entry into Citadel. VIP only. Trying to get in a door = I can't enter. Muffled humming rides neath floor, very familiar. It’s from the 8 & 1/2 soundtrack. Yes, you still need to watch that one.

 

♩♬♪

 

This office is filled with daggers and tomahawks. All over the walls, shrine to Super-Goddess. Marilyn and Gena Rowlands and Parker Posey and Anne Hathaway, Mammy SCUM at center, primed coven of blondes and brunettes for the black mass ritual. Old school iPod queued up with three songs by The Paris Sisters. Tighten bandana and switch out cig. Leave all artillery behind, they won’t do me any good in the dark. I’ve written what I needed to and memorized my lines for the crescendo.

​

♬♪♩

​

8:28 PM

 

The music is getting louder. Up, up, up the stairs; bee line to the see line woman. There’s my best girlboy, the white-wigged doll RAW ALOHA, putting on mascara in the mirror. She turns around and tries to seem surprised. His bad acting on purpose. Genius.

 

“Oh. Hey there Sole.”

 

Look to my left only to find a fully loaded GUN coming out of the restroom. Their chamber carries lamentation like a cross. Now’s the moment I realize this place was a Can the whole time. Classic eleventh-hour shenanigans. Art’s eating itself and I’m at the very end of the buffet. Steak-knife executioner is filling his plate.

 

 

“Aloha, is this it?”

 

“I’m sorry, baby.

It was fun while it lasted.

But our affair was like the Flu.

It only stays for a season.”

 

“I understand.”

“Forgive me too, Sole. I wish I di-”

“I understand.”

 

“Just tell me one thing:

In all the time that we were together,

Did you really like my poetry?”

 

 

It’s a Superstar Standoff.

Scored by Ennio Morricone.

I now recognize how much this

rhymes with the last story.

Like Shakespeare and the Bible.

 

 

“Gorgeous Aloha,

I was the one who invited the undead.

I switched the chips.

I stole the kid’s clothes.

I beat Campbell to death.

I did Basquiat’s hair.

I set fire to the books…

…and turned on the projector.”

​​

​

THE GUN goes off.

RAW ALOHA shoots SOLE VILLAINOUS.

Nobody is surprised.

And the Art doesn’t stop.

 

 

“Sorry to… disappoint you… darling….

I been… cut up for… a long time….”

 

 

SOLE VILLAINOUS dissolves into a

pile of shredded paper. God spelled

backwards homework munch, now bona

fide invisible excuse that no one

doubts for a second. RAW ALOHA wipes

an award-winning tear from his cheek.

 

“I don’t want to be immortal anymore.”

 

​

Fade to black.

 

Everybody disappears.

 

THE GUN is left alone to whisper in the dark.

 

Cue the Bob Dylan track.

 

 

“I’m blind, deaf, & dumb. I don’t know if I’ll make it to Sunday. Can you hear me? Can you see me? Please, I’m begging you. I need you. Please. Where are you? I can’t do this alone. There’s no end to this stage, no curtains to call. Get me out of here. I don’t want. Are you still writing? Are you still thinking? Did you forget? Was the promise a mirage? A trick of the wind? Did I make up the rain in my head? Who did I weep with beneath the night? Who did I say goodbye?”

 

 

Suffocating in the forever-side of 15 minutes.

 

The Want that sabotages.

The Wait that strangles.

 

No poetry.

 

Just soup.