I was recently reminded thanks to a friend, about how I used to be in Dallas. How life was so good to me there. How when a beautiful and young girl was allowed by her mother to come visit me in the 5th largest market in America, I was able to, due to my celebrity, show her how I could get into crowded clubs and restaurants. Doormen, Hostesses, Police Officers, Servers, Cocktail Waitresses, Strippers and Bouncers seemed to love me. Opening the doors. Offering the best seats. Giving me the scoop.
Those were the days!
I would do my morning radio show, get off at 10am, eat an early lunch with some band or comedian I just interviewed, run home to sleep a bit, go to a meeting to discuss a music video I might shoot or a tv commercial I might direct for an ad agency, grab a free dinner at a new restaurant courtesy of a food critic friend, dj at a teen club until maybe 10pm, run home to shower, maybe nap, or watch a film, and then head to a club and dj, or do a live broadcast from a club until 4am and then drive to the radio station smelling like cigarettes and fog juice… and start it all over again.
I used to have a jewelry box that was my mother's before she died. It was a Japanese design, a music box, ballerina, red velvet lined inside, but it was broken. Music box innards removed, ballerina gone, hopefully she was with the Steadfast Tin Soldier, as I used to like to think and of course mom's jewelry was also lost. I used the box to hold all the cash I made. I'd get paid in 20's. When all the 20's added up to something big, I'd change them to 100's, soon the box would be filled with stacks of 100's just like you'd see in a drug heist movie. Open the box and all you'd see was an empty red velvet lined box, but lift the latches and a treasure would be revealed.
One time a girl was over for one of the numerous bi-weekly parties I would have on Fridays and Saturdays, where people could bring food and booze, which they'd leave behind and then I would happily eat the left overs the rest of the week, this girl opened my box to see what kinda jewels I had… I had forgotten to snap the latch tabs that kept the secret hidden! So just like forgetting to log off on your laptop and your wife finds your porn, this girl discovers my cache of cash and believed I was some sort of drug dealing pornographer!
You'd think that would be a bad thing, but it drove her crazy and she did everything she could to make me hers. She would camp out on my steps. Take nude photos of herself and slide them under my door. Even offer to have sex with other girls in my presence if it would please me. The stakes went higher and higher everytime I turned her down, ignored her, refused her…
Wild!
It got so odd when she told people about me, or what she thought I was up to, and it grew and grew, so much so, that the Dallas Observer free weekly posted an item about "Which Dallas resident's private home movies would you want to see most?" and I was listed number one.
Then the IRS got me.
Strange!
Well, those days have left me far behind. Now I'm nothing. I drive a battered and broken car that I sleep in from time to time when a couch or spare room isn't offered. I ache and am ill from either the heat or the cold as it is now. I have no health insurance. No home. No bouncers that know me. No hope.
I have survived only because of the kindness of strangers and a few friends.
Yesterday I awoke after a flood of bad dreams to a Monday, but I was actually happy it was Monday and that I was alive, because the dreams involved my torture and my slow and painful death. In a state of happiness I made my way out into the world to find that I was a target for abuse. I was attacked by a dog. I was nearly sideswiped by a Xmas shopping soccer mom in a black Escalade with one of those Christian Fish symbols on the back, who crossed into my lane and then gave me the finger! Some psycho-cunt-from-hell Facebook "Friend" attacked me! Then while looking for some deals at Big Lots for Xmas gifts, I opened the door and someone had put their chewing gum on the handle. I don't know why I was even shopping. If you're expecting a gift from me…
Well, I'll try. I just keep trying. I am a giver. That's what I do. I give and give until I have nothing left to give.
I know it all sounds bad. And it is, but when I was at Barnes & Noble to use their wifi, their bathroom, and to read their magazines for free, a sweet little old lady came up to me and said, "Are you the young man that was in that play I saw Saturday night?"
She had me at, "Young" so I didn't hear anything she said after that, but she was smiling, so I nodded a lot, returned her smile and gave her a hug.
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