| The Night I Fucked Ice Cube |
I went to the post office today to send some head shots and resumés to talent agencies. The reason for this is that I want to stop walking around in the background of commercials and start walking around in the foreground of commercials, and start getting paid a lot more for it. Traffic on the way to the Highland Park post office was slowed down because of a movie shoot that was happening on the sidewalk half a block down from the post office, and it was kind of annoying. I didn’t bother to check for celebrities, as I was in a rush. But after dropping off the envelopes, I was on the way back to my car when I overheard a girl walking nearby talking on her cell phone. “You’ll never believe who I just took a picture with!” she was saying. “Ice Cube! Ice Cube, fool!” My heart dropped, and immediately I turned around, walking back in the direction of the movie shoot. I had to get a better look at him. I was able to get a glimpse from about fifty yards away, and he looked adorable in an orange jumpsuit and a little mini-fro, waiting for the scene to get started. I stood there for maybe thirty seconds, and then walked away, savoring the memory. To celebrate this awesome celebrity encounter, I must now share with all of you a story I wrote a while back, and have never found the right moment for releasing it. Now is the time. Enjoy! continue reading |
The gray roots of her hair were starting to show. “I know,” she said, following my line of vision, “I know. That’s one of the things you probably don’t remember, either. Your hair grows much quicker on this planet. The days are shorter, your average life expectancy is shorter, your hair grows faster. Our bodies compensate for the slow grind of time, here, by speeding toward the grave.” She took a drag on her herbal cigarette. Her room was so dusty. There was only one window in this long pine box above the apothecary, I could see the soft square of light moving. It was yellow there. A dozen pictures on the wall had not been looked at for a long time before I had come. continue reading |
Jukka walked across the foggy soccer field, taking his time. This was in Finland. There were a string of white lights illuminating the field. They were attached with a thin electrical wire that stretched far back to human civilization. This was somewhere else. There was no one here. No one had ever taken a picture of the place. The soccer goals were made of rotting wood. There were no neighborhood kids. This wasn’t a neighborhood. It was a field enclosed by a thick forest of symmetrical trees, standing straight and proper, never having been disturbed by hunter or woodsman. One summer Jukka, many years earlier, had come here with his friends and his sister for a game. It was for pirate camp, a summer activity they’d created for themselves. There was no summer camp, so they made one up themselves, where everyone was a pirate. There weren’t any counselors. Jukka was the assistant captain of the red team. They sailed the high seas and became beached in a long-forgotten soccer field covered in mist. The black team was five miles away, pursuing lofty goals of silver and gold in a cave on the western ridge. “We’ll set up here for the night,” said Tomi, the captain. They slept in piles of leaves. |
