Her past doesn’t define her.  Nothing does.  Everyone wants to label her with this and that, these and those.  By labeling her, they think they have a better understanding of what she is.  She sits quietly at table 7 staring into her soup as if there is an answer to all her problems swimming in the broth.  She feels tortured inside.  She was gifted as a child.  She was in all the gifted and talented classes, but no one ever seemed to see her real gifts.  They tried to make her conform to the standards they held for the others.  They would call her parents telling them of how she couldn’t keep focused.  How she would become disruptive.  Her parents punished her as if she was doing something wrong.  Instead of channeling her gifts into something that could help her later in life they sent her away.  To where the troubled kids went.  True artists sometimes have to go through this.  Never getting the counseling they really need.  Always trying to be changed into something more “normal.”  Some adults are too busy with their own lives to see the real beauty a troubled child has to offer.  Most of the time, they don’t realize why that child is troubled to begin with.  She was in and out of mental hospitals and youth homes throughout her early life.  Her disdain for her parents grew more everyday.  They always told her how much they loved her, but they sure didn’t like her.  Did they really not like themselves and were taking it out on their child?  She was clearly a free spirit, willing to cross the line that society rarely stepped over.  Very intelligent with a sense of humor that most people associated with her.  She never liked discipline, but was also never taught to respect it until it was too late.  The passion she felt towards the things she loved was infrequently cultivated.  Without the knowledge and encouragement, she never learned the things she would have succeeded at.  She was always told to be normal or asked what was wrong with her.  She started to think something was wrong with her.  It has to be me.  Life was no fun, because the way her mind worked didn’t work with these people.  They expected something she could not be.  She had to change something.

Parties and good friends became the norm over the next few years.  An escape from the prison she was in for so long.  No one could tell her what to do.  There were no rules.  There was also no learning.  The lessons of the day wouldn’t be realized until later on in life.  But like a fine wine, the older the better.  It takes time to gain wisdom.  You have to understand what you are doing to get there.  She would get a better understanding through her own dedication.  The others, still trying to “fix” her, make her normal.  She turned a blind eye to them, but secretly she would listen and see what she could use from them.  As usual, the conversations turned on what was wrong with her instead of what was right.  Every now and then they would see it, but their minds couldn’t see through its own haze and pride.  Her parents always thinking they were right.  It’s not her fault they only see one side.  Unfortunately, that was the exact opposite side she saw and it was just as hard for her to understand what they were trying to convey.  She has always loved them, but the time came to let them go.  Keeping them in her back pocket was the way she carried them now.  Like a wallet you use only when you need it.

After years of study including numerous trial and error attempts she finally stumbled upon something.  That something was nothing at all.  There was nothing wrong with her.  Peoples’ perceptions of her was the problem.  All these people thinking they knew her, when she barely knew herself.  Looking deep inside herself she discovered the secret of inner peace.  That peace doesn’t always come easy, but it’s also not as hard to find as it was before.  People have always labeled her.  She ripped those labels off and believed she could be anything she wanted to be without conforming to what she was supposed to “be.”  Because she wasn’t anything but her.  Yes, you can’t take all the labels off, but you also don’t have to limit yourself because of them.  Sitting in the park one day, so watched the passing people and noticed how many of them limited themselves to what they thought they were supposed to be instead of just being.  Sadness overcame her and tears swelled in her eyes.  Just then an old man sat down next to her and said, ” life attracts life.”  Then he stood up and walked away.  No matter what he meant by it, she knew what it meant to her.  She had to keep living her life to the fullest and hope it attracted others.  She stood up, wiped the tears from her eyes and with a wide smile danced around the pavilion.  All eyes were glued to her.  She changed the lives of a few people that day with her joy for life.  The world is still spinning and she is still living.  Today is a good day.

And now, the final installment of Doogie’s “The Time Machine” series. Catch up with past chapters: I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII.– – –

Amidala and I caught a rocket back to the Earth the next morning. Now that her fur was growing back, she felt more confident, more attractive, and was openly amorous. She looked like a sheepdog who I had trained to walk on two legs, and french kiss me at embarrassing moments. Her public displays of affection were frequent, and I could feel the eyes of the other rocket passengers on us as she snuggled with me.

Stars streaked past our window. Amidala’s shaggy head rested on my shoulder. I thought she was asleep, so I was surprised when she spoke. “I’m so glad you’re finally finishing your quest, honey.” She squeezed my hand with her albino wolf paw, and planted a furry kiss on my earlobe.

An old lady directly across from us stared at me with disgust, and mouthed the words “alien lover.”

– – –

I knew Wells had begun the Time Machine the night of September 25th, 1894 while at his country home in Sandgate. Transporting the Time Machine to England was much easier in the year 3000 than it had been in colonial Philadelphia. Once we returned to earth, all we had to do was drag the machine to the nearest transporter station and then plug in the coordinates of Wells’s country estate. Within seconds we were transported to the exact spot which, 1106 years in the past, would be Wells’s back yard. At the moment it was simply miles of charred rubble, since Great Britain had been decimated by soccer androids after the 2588 World Cup.

The Time Machine sat in the middle of a grey wasteland. A listless wind kicked up clouds of ash. I felt a sense of loss now that the end was so close at hand. I had gone through so much to make it to this point. Would the prize be worth the price I had paid?

I put the brass key into its slot and grabbed the crystal topped lever.
I looked over at Amidala, who was braiding her stomach hair into a French twist. “Hold on,” I told her. She put her arms around my waist and I threw the lever back. The machine spun faster and faster, until everything became a blur.

– – –

We stopped with a lurch. Amidala and I stumbled out of the machine and promptly threw up. As soon as I finished saying goodbye to my Venusian flapjacks, I looked up and saw the night sky. Clouds covered the moon. We were on a manicured lawn. I could barely see the outline of a house, and landscaped shrubbery.

Then someone knocked me off my feet.

We hit the ground and wrestled for a moment, but I karate chopped him in the neck and threw him to the side.

I heard Amidala scream, “What are you doing?”

“Amidala!” I yelled, and then someone punched me in the stomach. I lashed out but missed. I was knocked to the ground from behind, and landed on an unconscious body. I realized there were people all around me, fighting with each other, and attacking me as well, brawling blindly in the dark.

I heard a gunshot from within the house. Then another. Then two more.

Amidala screamed again.

I fought my way towards her voice. I could see her white fur glowing in the night. She was surrounded by black figures who had pinned her to the ground. I beat them off her, picked her up, and ran towards the house. “It’s you! It’s you!” she said breathlessly.

“Yes, it’s me,” I dragged her behind me. “Run for the house!”

Just then another figure leapt into our path. “Stop!” he yelled. I bowled into him, but he held me fast. Amidala broke free. We were almost at the door. “Keep running!” I yelled to her.

Amidala made it to the house, but a second before her hand was on the knob, the door flew open and a shaft of bright light flooded the lawn. A man in a smoking jacket stood in the doorway, a rifle held ready at his waist. His face was contorted with fear, a frayed rope about to snap. He screamed in horror when he saw Amidala who, blinded by the bright light, flailed her arms wildly. The man in the smoking jacket pulled the trigger. The rifle went off, and Amidala fell to the ground.

I turned around to struggle out of my attacker’s grip, and found myself looking into my own face. It looked resigned, and mildly annoyed. “Aw shit,” it said. “Well, that didn’t work.”

– – –

Ten minutes later I sat in H.G. Wells’s parlor. I sat on the couch, the divan, the chairs, the floor. I lounged against the mantle, stood in the door jamb, and rummaged through the icebox. Two of me lay dead in the dining room, and one in the bedroom hallway. A hundred different versions of me from alternate timelines crowded his house.

Wells was badly shaken. His smoking jacket was covered in blood, and he had a broken nose, because I had punched him in the face. He tried not to look me in the eyes, but it was difficult, since there was scarcely an inch of the house I didn’t occupy. A hundred different Doogie’s filled the room.

One of me brought him a snifter of brandy and a bag of ice to hold against his nose.

Wells cleared his throat. “Uh, which one of you punched me?” Everyone pointed to me, except the two Doogies who were arm wrestling.

“I’m terribly sorry I shot your girlfriend,” Wells said. “I thought she was a polar bear.”

“A polar bear? In England?” I said.

“Well I don’t know!” He waved his arms around the room. “All these chaps were running around here, attacking me, and then I ran outside and saw this big hairy beast!”

I lunged at him when he said “beast,” but luckily for him I held myself back. One of me said “We’ve been trying to stop Wells, but no matter how many times we go back in time and replay this night, Amidala always gets shot.”

I had traveled back in time to this moment a hundred times, each time running into more and more timeline versions of myself, all trying to stop Amidala from getting shot. But every time something had gone wrong, and the outcome ended up the same. It appeared the past was immovable.

I looked around the room at all the other Doogies: so fat. I addressed them as one. “Do you know what happens next?”

They nodded wearily.

I turned to Wells. “Okay, I’m here to watch you write your new book. So get crackin’.”

He looked at me, honestly puzzled. “Which one?”

“You know, the one about a machine that travels through time!”

“A machine that travels through . . . time?” He lowered the bag of ice. “That’s a bloody good idea!”

I grabbed the snifter of brandy out of Wells’s hand and tossed it back. It burned going down and my eyes welled with tears. I choked out a bitter laugh. I looked at a Doogie who was fingering an astrolabe on Wells’s mantle. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said.

“It’s so ironic,” I said. “Amidala would have loved it.”

The next installment of Doogie’s live comedy show, THE MINISTRY OF SECRET JOKES is on Wednesday, August 27th at Fergie’s Pub (1214 Sansom St.)

The Molemen mounted a massive offensive against the farmer, who was armed with a death ray from the future which he used to kill King Ralph. The farmer and Doogie fought in the basement, where the farmer shot Princess Amidala with the death ray. The Basement People freed themselves from their cages and ate the farmer alive. Doogie rushed to the Princess’s side and discovered that the death ray hadn’t killed her, it had simply burned all the fur off her body, revealing a beautiful woman underneath. The Princess was horrified to find herself disfigured thus, and wailed in shame.

Catch up with past installments: I, II, III, IV, V and VI.

The Basement People’s clacking teeth, as they ate the farmer alive, sounded like Satan tap-dancing on an empty coffin. Amidala’s screams merged with the Farmer’s death throes, creating an atonal melody that reminded me of the Pixies’s early albums, especially Surfer Rosa. In that moment I had an epiphany: I would make a great music critic. I made a mental note to send my resume to Dog Fancier Magazine once I returned home. If I returned. (Dramatic foreshadowing, or red herring? Read on to find out!)

Amidala wept, knees huddled against her ample, heaving breasts. Holy shit she was hot. Her boobs were big, but not too big, a little more than a handful, which is perfect. Because when you go to grab boobs like that, you’re like “Oh shit, this is more than I can handle!” But it’s not so much that the slack boob meat slips between your fingers and you realize “This really is too much.” With a boob like that, the extra 10% of boob tantalizingly out of reach holds the allure of the unattainable (especially if you only have one arm because your other arm was vaporized by a laser).

I’d like to go on and describe the rest of Amidala’s body, but I’ve already spent a whole paragraph on her boobs, and I don’t want you to think I’m shallow. So all I’ll say is that her personality was incredible, totally bald, and beckoning to me; its silent song wormed its way into the reptilian corridors of my mind.

The Basement People were finishing the last morsels of the Farmer, which wouldn’t take long, since he was a pretty little guy. Perhaps now they would rush over and proclaim me as their savior! Or perhaps they would eat me too, since they had lived their entire lives in cages, like wild animals.

“Princess Amidala,” I said “We have to leave.” She continued to weep, heedless of my words. I pulled her arm, but she wouldn’t budge.

“I’m hideous! Leave me here to die!” She wept.

The clacking of teeth stopped. I looked back over my shoulder and saw nothing but blackness beyond the thin strip of light cast by the open basement door. Then I saw a pair of glowing eyes rise from the floor. Then another. And another. They all turned and stared unblinkingly at Amidala and I.

The Princess followed my gaze to other side of the basement, where the glowing crowd of eyes shuffled closer to us. Amidala shrieked, and the terror in her voice must have awakened some primal hunter instinct within the Basement People, because the pack broke into a run. I could see them appear in the corridor of light and then disappear on its other side: eyes wild, pale arms outstretched, scarlet blood smeared on their pallid lips.

Then a thousand hands were upon me. My stump was still sensitive, and though I swore I wouldn’t scream out, I did as their stubby fingernails scratched my nub. “Stop!” I yelled. “It’s me! The guy who released you all from your cages! Remember?”

They stopped immediately. This was a polite mob. Slowly they released me. One of them, very old, pushed through the crowd and peered into my face.

“You’re the adventurer?”

“Yes, yes, the guy who saved all of you.”

He placed the brass key to the Time Machine in my hand. “This is yours.”

Nervous laughter floated up from the group. One of them spoke. “Geez, sorry we tried to eat you. You know how it can get. Mob mentality and all that.” Everyone apologized profusely.

A thin voice piped up from the back. “I’ll tell you what makes ya’ crazy, it’s the taste of blood.”

At the mention of the word “blood,” all the Basement People stared into space and spoke at once, in a daze: “Blooooooood.”

But Amidala and I were already rushing up the stairs and into the light.

– – –

We were in such a rush to escape the Basement People I didn’t have time to warn Amidala about the carnage she was about to see. Her hands flew to her face, and I put my arms around her. I was looking for any opportunity to put my hands all over her.

The entire house was ruined, a pile of rubble and broken wood.

The carnage was gut wrenching. Fun Fact: Dead Molemen smell awful! Giant worms were squished all over the place, and their segmented halves continued to writhe aimlessly through the rubble. Fran had finally been subdued, held down with thick gold chains and guarded by a dozen Molemen. The precautions were unnecessary, I could see the fight had gone out of her.

Lefty saw Amidala and I and rushed over.

“Is the Princess alright?” he asked.

“Yes, yes, she’s fine, just a little shaken up.”

“Where is she?”

“Well, she’s right here,” I pointed to Amidala.

Lefty looked at the naked, hairless supermodel huddled under my arm. He screwed up his face.

“Ugh, that dog? That’s not the princess. Where is she?”

Fire blazed in the Princess’s eyes. “Insolent swine! Bow before your Princess!”

Lefty recoiled. “Please, hairless wench, be silent.” He turned to me. “Doogie, I don’t know whether to thank you or not. We are free from the farmer, but our victory has come with a terrible price. Are the basement people still alive?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Good. We’re starving.” He gave me a fist bump. “God speed you on your journey, adventurer.”

“Where is my father? He will recognize me,” the Princess said.

It was then we saw the King’s body. Six Molemen carried it on a golden platform studded with burning torches. A procession walked ahead playing what sounded like the theme song to Alf on accordians, while a phalanx of soldiers did the electric slide, shaking golden kooshes.

The Princess tried to rush forward, but I held her back. She watched the funeral procession pass by, tears streaming from her eyes. She turned to me. “Take me with you. There’s nothing for me here.”

I tried to maintain the proper tone of mournful sorrow, but it was difficult.

– – –

Amidala and I got into the time machine and took a quick jaunt to the year 3000, where we spent two weeks vacationing on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. We lived in a little space hut on the shore of Kraken Mare. We spent our days swimming in Titan’s massive hydrocarbon lakes and hiking its breath-taking cryovolcanoes, and our nights (which last 15 days) were occupied . . . in other ways.

One morning Amidala rushed into the bedroom and shook me awake. “Look, look!” she squealed.

I woke up groggily, looked at her face, and screamed in terror. Amidala had a massive grey handlebar mustache, and her bountiful knockers were covered in whispy grey fur.

“It’s growing back!” She leapt on top of me and showered me with kisses. Her mustache tickled my nose. I prayed for the merciful darkness of night, and realized, ruefully, that another chapter in my adventure had come to an end, and the final chapter was about to begin.

The next installment of Doogie’s live comedy show, THE MINISTRY OF SECRET JOKES is on Wednesday, July 30th at Fergie’s Pub (1214 Sansom St.)

IN LAST WEEK’S LITERARY ADVENTURE: Doogie built a time machine that was an exact replica of the titular contraption in H.G. Wells’s science fiction classic, The Time Machine. His intention was to travel to London, 1894, and discover what inspired Wells to write the famous story. However, our well-read adventurer made a crucial miscalculation: though his machine traveled in time, it didn’t travel in space. Duh. Doogie was transported to a farm on the outskirts of 1894 Philadelphia, where he met a very short, rude farmer who explained that London was on the other side of the Atlantic.

The Time Machine
Part 2

Embarrassing!

In a word, that’s what it’s like to confuse the concepts of time and space. You can’t sit down on the curb in front of the 7-11 for an hour, and when you get up, expect to be outside the Wendy’s down the street. You gotta’ take the bus. However—as proven by Einstein’s groundbreaking time and space experiments—you can pass out drunk on the curb for an hour, and wake up in jail. At the bar in Munich, a drunken Einstein would often harangue patrons with claims that he could bend the space-time continuum if only they bought him one more peach schnapps.

I thought time travel would be exciting and dangerous, but so far it was nauseating and inconvenient. I thanked the tiny apple-faced farmer (see The Time Machine, Part 1 for explanation) for his insulting but sage advice, and turned to trudge back to my time machine. But as soon as my back was turned, the little bastard threw a rock at me. It hit me in the spine. Hard. Behind me the farmer laughed and laughed and then played the worst rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon in D I’ve ever heard plucked on the Jew’s harp.

I turned to face him, searing zinger on the tip of my tongue, when another rock hit me in the forehead. His tiny arms were deceptively strong. I fired my retort as I retreated across the fields, pursued by stones. “You’re short! And you got an apple face! And you’re a poor player of the Jew’s harp!”

Though I was well out of his range after a few feet, his cackling laugh pursued me even as I climbed into my machine and spun back through time. The jangly, atonal boings of CampTown Ladies swirled with me, accompanied by the farmer’s high-pitched whoops.

Was I going to run away from a wrinkly Cabbage Patch Kid? Hell no.

My plan for revenge was flawless, and elegant in its simplicity: I would go back in time one day, approach the farmer again, and through casual conversation discover his name. Then I would return to the present, find his birth certificate in the Philadelphia hall of records, and discover where and when he was born. Then I would go back to that date and murder him as a child.

I went back in time exactly one day.

– – –

“Hi there!” I smiled widely as I approached the farmer. He was still on his porch swing, still plucking the harp, still three feet tall. He eyed me shrewdly, as he had the day before (the day after, whatever).

“Howdy,” he said.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

He gazed across the fields. “I think I’d remember seeing a fag tall as you afore.”

I laughed. “Well, my name is P.T. Barnum. What’s your name? I’d like to hire you to perform in my Greatest Show on Earth.”

“What? Why?”

“Uh, well, you know.” The man was three feet tall.

“No, I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Well . . . you’re kind of short.”

His hand was a blur of motion, and before I could move he hurled a rock which almost took my eye out. He followed relentlessly with a volley of stones, many of the shots well-placed: my neck, my knee, the soft flesh of my temple. Moments later I was fleeing across the fields again.

I climbed into the time machine.

– – –

“Hell son, you all banged up!”

I hobbled toward the porch using a stick for support. The bruises on my face were swelling. “Yes, yes I am.”

“Well, that’ll teach you to be a swish.”

“A what?”

“A poof.”

“I’m sorry?”

He spit in the dirt. “A cocksucker.”

“I didn’t get beat up because I was gay!”

“But you admit that y’are.”

“No! I don’t! Look, what’s your name?”

“Are you flirting with me? Sorry to say I ain’t interested. But, I do have a friend who’d love to make your acquaintance.” His sparkling, coal black eyes locked on me. Slowly, deliberately, he dipped his hand into the bucket of rocks under the swing.

Like a slag of iron hardened in the blacksmith’s forge, my white hot rage burned all the fear from me. I no longer cared. I rushed the farmer, swinging my crutch.

My assault caught the elf unaware, and his first rock sailed long, hitting a groundhog and breaking its leg. (Its twelve children would later starve to death. So it goes.) I covered the rutted ground between he and I quickly, and then I was clumping up the steps of the porch and nearly upon him. My mouth salivated in anticipation. The tiny, wrinkled sockets where the farmer’s eyes hid widened as he gazed on the monster I had become.

“Fran!” he screamed in terror.

Fran?

The screen door burst open and a giant woman filled the frame. She stooped to fit through the door and came onto the porch swinging a bathtub. Yes, an entire bathtub. AND it was full of water. And a baby was inside it. The baby had a black powder musket in its hands, and aimed it right at my head as the she-monster roared like a bear. The musket misfired (luckily the powder was wet), but the swinging bathtub hit me in the pelvis. I could feel the right side of my hip shatter, and I fell to the ground.

“ROOOAAR!” Her deafening bellow seared the psoriasis off my elbows–the lone silver lining in this dark cloud of an adventure. I crawled down the porch steps on my hands and knees. She dropped the bathtub. It crashed through the floorboards, and the porch collapsed in a pile a splinters. The farmer yelled. The baby screamed. Fran bellowed like a bear.

I escaped in the chaos.

I crawled to my machine, face dragging through the black soil. I passed the crippled groundhog and her litter of pink, helpless babies. Her pleading eyes reached out to me.

I crawled past.

TO BE CONTINUED

Doogie will be hosting WALKING FISH COMEDY at the Walking Fish Theatre (2509 Frankford Ave.) April 13th, 8PM, $10 and his new comedy show THE MINISTRY OF SECRET JOKES at Fergie’s Pub (1214 Sansom St.) on April 30th, 9PM-midnight, $0

Arthur Golden’s debut novel, Memoirs of a Geisha, made a huge splash upon its publication in 1997, and was made into a crappy film in 2005. (Don’t worry, you’re not the only person who didn’t see it.) The book presents the fictional confessions of one of Japan’s most celebrated geishas.

Western readers were enthralled by the strange, foreign tapestry which the memoirs wove. Demure housewives liked it because they got to read about prostitution–but classy, quaint prostitution filled with tea ceremonies. This wasn’t really prostitution, because . . . well this was in Japan, and the women wore white face powder and put their hair in buns and wore little silk kimonos. And there were tea ceromonies–oh how there were tea ceremonies!

So where is America’s Memoirs of a Geisha?

Is it Jenna Jameson’s autobiography, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star? No. Geishas are different than porn stars or hookers. Geishas don’t stand in front of boarded up tenaments at three in the morning and yell obscenities as you drive past with the doors locked. Geishas stand in the corner with their head bowed until you ask for more green tea, then pad over quietly on their little wooden sandals. Hell, they even bow to you! They’re equal parts servant and sexual objects, and spend more time entertaining visitors at teahouses than doing the dirty mambo.

Could this country duplicate such a combination of class and ass?

I wracked my mind for an answer but found none. I was hungry. I needed some brain food, and nothing makes me feel more smarterer than Jalapeno Poppers. I called up a friend and he dragged me to Hooters. I have never been to a Hooters before because I hate bad, tacky restaurants, and haven’t associated breasts with food since I was an infant.

Once inside though, my defenses were quickly breached.

Like a gorilla from the mist, our waitress emerged from a cloud of menthol cigarettes wafting from the smoking section. Her tight white tube top hugged her bulging twin peaks. Her orange running shorts shimmered like a sun dappled pond filled with goldfish who talk in the tongues of men. She also wore weird flesh-colored stockings, which almost ruined the experience.

I was spellbound by the arcane rituals she followed in the ancient “water pouring ceremony” which followed. She decanted the water from my left hand side, using her right hand. There were exactly 25 ice cubes in the glass. A slice of lemon was placed at precisely 3 oclock on the rim of the glass with her left hand. She then retreated two steps, gave a shallow bow, and asked if I was ready to order. I was speechless. I finally said no, and she retreated to the kitchen.

It was then I realized that Hooters waitresses were the spiritual heirs to the Geisha.

I now knew what I had to do.

First I had to find a Hooters waitress and become personally acquainted with her. Then I had to find out if she kept a diary. Then I had to sneak a peek at it long enough to read the entire thing and transcribe relevant sections. And then if there was time left over, I had to give her bodacious boobies a quick squeeze to see if they were ripe.

A daunting task. Luckily I was able to pull off the entire daredevil stunt in one whirlwind weekend. I bumped into a chic with humungo gazangas in the produce section of Whole Foods the very next day and asked her out on a date. At the time I didnt even know she worked at Hooters! Serendipity. (Thank you lucky Gaelic wishing stone!)

Her name was Carmel, and let me tell you, she was as sweet and sticky as her namesake.

We had a dinner date that night at Chilis, where I primed her with enough Daquaries to swamp a lifeboat. She babbled drunkenly that she was a freshman at UPENN, worked at the Cherry Hill Hooters, liked horses, and liked to have fun. I asked her if she enjoyed reading, and she rolled her eyes and said, “Uh, hellooo! I said I like to have fun!”

When we retired to her charming dorm room, I began slyly probing for information on whether she kept a diary, where said diary might be located, and the price of her virginity. She actually leapt up and brought her diary over to me! She was completely shitfaced. She stumbled on her way back to the beanbag chairs, smacked her head on the bottom bunk bed and passed out. As the diary fell from her salsa stained hands and hit the floor, its heart-shaped lock sprung open. Serendipity squared! (Thank you mummified Egyptian monkey paw!)

After lifting her shirt up to make sure she didn’t have any abdominal bruises, I left with the diary.

What I found inside was shocking. Reprinted here are excerpts from Carmel’s diary that show what love, life, and the elusive quest for happiness is like for these women:

- – -

7/1/06
Tommy iz such a jerk. I hate him sooo much. Sometimes I wish he wuz dead! Sometimes I wish I wuz dead. Sometimes I wish I wuz pregnant with his baby. Sometimes I wish I wuz a bird, and could fly far away. If I was a bird and had his baby it would come out of an egg!

- – -

7/10/06
I heard Sheila talking to Jane at work 2day and she said that she was going to the beach this weekend with Tommy. She was wearing big hoop earrings that make her look like a total whore (cuz she is!), and I grabbed one and ripped it right out of her ear. She screamed and bled all over a five wing flappertizer and I did not give a shit.

Then I went and found Tommy at school, and wuz going to yell at him 2 and maybe kick him in the nutz, but then he turned around and he was crying and I fell in love with him all over again and I luv him soooo much!

- – -

7/14/06
At Hooterz today one of my teacher’s (Mr. Mentzl) came in and sat at one of my tables. He is totally old and gross, and he stares at me in class. He said he liked me shirt and then he totally stared at my boobs! Yuck! He asked what wuz good on the menu and I said i don’t know I never eat the shit here, it’s all fried. But what I really wanted to yell was Stop looking at my Boobs! But I wanted to get a good tip so I told him to try the Hallapeno Poppers they’re okay.

Afterwords I went in the back and told Holly what happened because she knows him too because she had him for Biology and she was like OH MY GOD NO WAY! But way, he totally did.

- – -

7/20/06
Tommy walked by in the hall today and grabbed my boob and made a honking sound. I told him to stop, but really I wanted to tell him to keep going. But there were people watching.

- – -

8/1/06
I hope Tommy gets attacked by a big angry dog and it bites his nutz off. And I hope all his dumb friends DIE in a car crash.

Tommy came to the restarant tonite to visit me. He was there with his buddies and they got a booth. He asked if he could get some free chicken fingers and I said well I don’t know I’ll try. Then Mike (his big dumb friend who’s got a Hummer. I hope it explodes in flames and flies of a cliff and he gets burned alive) he asked if he could get a Beaver Burger, and I said I don’t think that’s on the menu, and they all started laughing at me. And then his other friend (the ugly fat one) asked if he could get some Poontang Poppers, and I said we don’t have any of them. They started laughing at me again, and I thought maybe there was ketchup on my shirt, so I said Is there something on my shirt? And they said Yeah a big pair of Sweater Muffins, and I got angry and walked away and I don’t know what they were laughing about but I bet they thought they were pretty funny.

I locked myself in the girls room and cried.

I came out and went back to the kitchen to get ice from the walk in freezer to put under my eyes, and Tommy was making out with Sheila on top of the frozen french fries and he totally had his tongue way down her throat! And she iz such a skank! I punched her in the face and he said he loved me but I don’t believe him.

I wish I wuz the bird on the Hooter’s sign. I think it’s an eagle. I wish I wuz a bird and could fly away.

Greetings Faithful Literary Adventure Reader (if you are a Casual Literary Adventure Reader, you can fuck off right now): I’d like to preface this Literary Adventure with an apology. This particular adventure, unlike most of my escapades, is not funny. In fact it’s a bit depressing. Also, it’s really long. It’s a long, somber, joy-draining slog punctuated by buggery and weeping. On the plus side, it has a little more adventure than usual. As an incentive for readers to finish this bitter meal, I have devised a contest. Hidden in the story are three funny parts. If you can find them, I will buy you a shot of absinthe. Let the hunt begin!

– – –

Oscar Wilde—novelist, playwright, foppish wit, and convivial conversationalist—was one of the most famous celebrities of late Victorian England. His novels and plays won critical and popular acclaim, but his fame was due just as much to his dramatic and unconventional personal life. He cultivated a indolent, over-dressed, effeminate persona that was in stark contrast to the masculine depiction of manhood then held as the ideal.

His quips and catty remarks were wired around the world as soon as they fell from his languid lips, and his gay society escapades regularly made headlines. His renown opened exclusive, golden doors to parlors where he rubbed elbows with the highest echelons of British aristocracy. Unfortunately he also rubbed penises with some of them, which drew the ire of powerful heterosexuals in the British government. Especially incensed by his shameless buggery was the Marquess of Queensberry, whose son, Lord Alfred Douglas, had been seduced by Wilde. Based on this and other documented gay activities, Wilde was eventually put on trial and convicted of “gross indecency” for which he was sentenced to two years of hard labor in Reading Prison.

When Oscar emerged from prison his fortunes had been scattered in the wind. A penniless, unemployable pariah, he fled England and went into self-imposed exile in Paris, where he depended on the charity of friends to survive. The harsh conditions of prison had done irreparable damage to his health and three years after his release he developed meningitis and died, destitute and forgotten, in a rented hotel room.

His death was a bit of a mystery. Historians are still unsure what brought on the fatal meningitis. At the time, physicians diagnosed that it could have been caused by an ear infection he had a few months prior, but the evidence was inconclusive. Some have speculated it was a side effect of syphilis, which Oscar may or may not have had. Still another cause could have been a skull fracture he received while in prison.

All of these theories are plausible—but they are all wrong.

The truth is far more astounding.

It’s so astounding that it’s scarcely believable, and may cause you to scoff haughtily before canceling your subscription to Literary Adventure Quarterly. But let me remind you, it wasn’t too long ago that I exposed an equally shocking revelation which was eventually proven true: the fact that the Martin Lawrence film Black Knight was merely a thinly veneered rehash of Mark Twain’s novel a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

We all know the history books are packed with lies. Only suckers think Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin without any help from the Atlantians. And if the South really lost the Civil War, then how did they end up with all the cool shit? Barbecue, NASCAR, sun tea, John Denver, and Emmett Otter’s Jug Band?

I had to dig deeper than the Encyclopedia Britannica to uncover the real story of the last few days of Oscar Wilde’s life. My search took me to Paris, London, Naxos, Tibet, and Sbarro, where I got some breadsticks (good brain food). Unfortunately no single source held the complete story.

In the catacombs beneath St. Mark’s cathedral I found Oscar Wilde’s final journal, only to discover that several crucial pages had been torn out. I caught a glimpse of a black cloaked figure running away, but after a brief cane sword fight, I lost him in the labyrinthine tunnels. Nevertheless there was useful information left in the journal. Using it along with other sources including interviews, newspaper articles, government documents, and tea leaf readings, I’ve compiled what is to date the most complete (true) picture of the final days of Oscar Wilde ever published.

The following are relevant excerpts, edited and organized to describe events in chronological order. Our story begins with an excerpt from the journal of Giuseppe Fillages, a French wallpaper designer of great renown who had a wallpaper shop in Boulogne Billancourt, a suburb of Paris.

June 6, 1896.
Abaddon spoke to me again last night in a dream. His visits become more frequent. In the dream he told me to awake. I did, and beheld in the air over my bed a burning pattern, burning in the air before my eyes. I closed my eyes in horror, but the pattern was already seared into my mind. The flames glowed green, a hideous green like oozing pus, and as the diseased flames sputtered and dropped on my bed, they burnt holes like acid. I’m ashamed to say I threw up.

Beelzebub has shown me what I must create to help Him cross over. I have seen the pattern. I do not know if I have the strength to create something so hideous, but I will try. I know of only one way to create that awful shade of green, but I don’t know if my soul (what is left) can stand it.

– – –

Footnote: Abaddon is a name for the Devil, used in the book of Revelation. It’s literal translation is “destroying angel.” Beelzebub is another name for the Devil, and also the title of a Dead Milkmen album. It’s unclear which usage Giuseppe is applying here.

We pick the thread up next with a newspaper article from Boulogne Billancourt.

August 25, 1896
A fire broke out in the Fillages wallpaper shop last night, burning the entire factory to the ground. The fire started sometime after midnight, and only the owner, Giuseppe Fillages, was inside. He was killed in the fire. The fire started quickly and was raging out of control before the fire department was notified. The entire factory burnt to the ground. The large vats of highly flammable dye inside probably contributed to the speed and ferocity with which the fire burnt, and also the strange color of the fire. The green flames were visible as far away as Paris.

The cause of the fire is unknown, and foul play has not been ruled out.

Amazingly, amongst the ashes, one thing survived the flames untouched—a single spool of wallpaper. It has been sold by the family to pay for the debts they have incurred due to their loss.

– – –

The wallpaper which miraculously survived the flames was sold to the Hotel d’Alsace in Paris, which used it to paper the room Oscar ended up moving into on his release from Reading Prison.

A few months later, as the ashes of the Fillages wallpaper shop were sifted through, large piles of bones which could have come from animals OR human babies were found inside the wallpaper dye vats. My bet is baby bones, because that’s how Satan worshippers roll.

Oscar Wilde’s journal chronicles his arrival in Paris, and his initial impression of the Hotel d’Alscace.

August 25, 1897
The Parisian air is thick with foul odors. Yet it is imbued with an energy, a creative crackle. Robert has helped me find lodgings at the Hotel d’Alscace, a towering monument on the Rue Des Beaux that rivals the Palace of Minos in the unapologetic gaudiness of it’s adornments.

Nowhere is it more disgusting though than in my very own bedroom. The bed is large and fine, made of oak with a soaring canopy. All of the appointments are very tasteful, in the same rich oak with burgundy cushions. But the walls—the walls are grotesque. The paper on them could not be more hideous if Satan himself had been flayed and his skin pasted to the walls with the blood of children. It’s shade of green is so putrid and powerful that when I close my eyes at night the pattern hangs before my eyes a moment still.

My evenings are made much more pleasant by the warm company of a number of renters [slang for male prostitutes –ed.] whose acquaintance I have made already. My favorite is but a sliver of a lad, whose slim hipped white figure droops gracefully like the bell of a lily.

When he told me his name was Aiolos, I was delighted. “Are you Greek?” He nodded shyly. Imagine my good fortune, to travel all the way to Paris to find a new Adonis to play with!

– – –

Footnote: Oscar’s favorite male prostitute in London was a beautiful young Greek lad. When the boy moved away it’s said that Oscar wept copiously, and exclusively wore violet for several weeks.

The next entry is a letter from Robert Ross to friends in London. Ross was Oscar’s oldest friend and lover, and had weathered a torrid on again off again relationship with Oscar for years. He was one of the few friends who didn’t abandon Oscar after his release from prison, and followed Oscar to Paris.

February 2, 1899

Dear Reggie,

Greetings from the City of Lights! How is dreary London? Oscar and I miss you terribly, although I can’t say we miss much else about the isles. The weather here is mild, and the people pleasantly open-minded. When I think of your sitting room on the Thames though, I admit a wistful tear wells in my eye.

[Next two paragraphs omitted by editor, because they are irrelevant. He talks about poetry for an ungodly length.]

Oscar is adjusting to his new surroundings with difficulty. He does not seem to understand that he is living in a hotel room, without the authority to change its appointments to his liking. He is obsessed with tearing down the wallpaper in his bedroom, which I agree is rather ugly.

He gave me quite a scare yesterday. When he didn’t meet me at Augusto’s for breakfast, I went up to his room and knocked. Nobody answered so I let myself in with the key. Immediately my nostrils were assaulted by a pungent odor. Pressing a kerchief to my nose, I rushed in and found him unconscious on the bedroom floor, his face white as marble. There was a tub of turpentine next to him, and fuming rags were scattered around. I could see that he had been using the solution to try to scrape off the wallpaper, which hung tattered in some spots. I threw open the windows and dragged him into the parlor, where I revived him with difficulty. He was incoherent at first, and babbled about some word that sounded like “abbadon.” His eyes were filled with terror, and he clutched at me for protection. A doctor inspected him later and said he was lucky not to have died.

The hotel was very upset and I only talked them into forgiving Oscar with great difficulty. Of course I had to pay for the repairs to the paper.

When I scolded Oscar later for the incident, he responded in a most uncharacteristic way. Terror again stole into his eyes, and he wouldn’t say a word. When I pressed him he finally apologized, and said it wouldn’t happen again.

– – –

An excerpt from Oscar Wilde’s journal:

February 10, 1899
Ron is a dear. How many times has he saved my life and soul? Yet I fear my soul is still in mortal danger. Perhaps it would have been better for me to die. I will not set another foot in that room alone. It wins. Let it be so. Let the evil within rot there.

– – –

And another:

September 10, 1900
I have tried everything. Yesterday I picked up some lovely blue fabric in the market, and hung it on the walls to cover that ghastly wallpaper. When I woke in the morning the fabric had fallen apart. It seemed to have aged a hundred years in one night, and lay in rotten shreds on the floor.

I swear I hear the walls breathing.

Have I described the pattern? I have not. I am not brave enough to stare at it for very long. It appears at first glance to be rose bush vines climbing an ornate trestle. But at night I swear the vines writhe like thorny tentacles. I must tell someone what I have seen. Robert would think I am mad, and perhaps I am. I can’t tell him. Who can I share my burden with? I must know if I am mad.

– – –

All the pages in Oscar’s journal past this date were torn from the book, and the trail turns cold. A few months later Oscar fell ill and died, supposedly from acute meningitis.

We know from Robert Ross’s letter and journals that Oscar never did tell him his fears about the possessed wallpaper. But Oscar’s journal expressed a strong desire to tell someone. Did he share his secret with anyone?

He did. The young prostitute Aiolos.

The following is a transcript of an interrogation recorded by the Russian Secret Service in 1944. Aiolos Hortis had been drafted into the Italian infantry during World War II, subsequently transferred to a German Panzer division, and was captured by the red army during the siege of Leningrad. He was interrogated fiercely, even though he knew nothing. After 48 hours of brutal questioning and torture, he was delirious with pain. He confessed to everything he had ever done, including the following:

January 2, 1944
(Transcribed)

Interrogator: We know you know!

Aiolos: I don’t know anything!

Interrogator: We know!

Aiolos: What? What?

Interrogator: It’s all written down! Your friends have abandoned you! WE KNOW EVERYTHING! Just tell us!

Aiolos: (unintelligable)

Interrogator: We will cut your cock off!

(Screams, a scuffle, tape stops, then starts again.)

Aiolos: All right, all right. I was there. I saw it all. I don’t know how you know.

Interrogator: We know everything.

Aiolos: It was awful. (sobbing)

Oscar was always good to me. I think he really loved me. Doing that, it was just for money, to get by, but Oscar, he made me feel special. He was always calling me a Greek god, that was nice.

We spent a lot of time at his hotel, but eventually I noticed we wouldn’t go into the bedroom anymore. We would stay in the parlor, or sometimes sleep in the bathtub, which was uncomfortable. When I asked him why we didn’t use the bedroom anymore, he got very nervous. I could tell he was trying to decide whether or not to tell me something.

The he got up and said “alright, let’s go in the bedroom.” There was a padlock on the door. He took a key from a chain around his neck, and I could see there was also a cross on the chain, which I thought was odd. He opened the doors and we went in. We walked into the middle of the room, which seemed unnaturally dark, darker than the drawn curtains should have made it.

He asked me to look at the wallpaper, and tell him if I saw anything. I didn’t. It just looked liked ugly wallpaper to me. Then I looked closer, and the pattern took on depth. It became three dimensional. I stared in amazement. The pattern was a rose bush climbing a trestle, and as I looked at it the vines began to twist and turn. They grew. They writhed and reached out. A stupor descended over me and I realized with sudden horror that I couldn’t move. I was transfixed. My mind sunk in green, viscous water. The vines slithered toward me, and I couldn’t move away.

Interrogator: What the fuck are you talking about?

Aiolos: Oscar was behind me, and saw what was happening. He pushed me aside. “Vile pattern!” he yelled, “Haunt my room no more!” He pulled the cross out and I saw it was surrounded by blue flames too bright to stare at. He could barely hold it, and the licking flames that fell around its hilt singed his wrists. He couldn’t move any further, it was too much for him. The vines reached out. Oscar looked down at me. I don’t know what he saw, but it leant him strength. He thrust the cross into the wallpaper, which reared back and shrieked. Every curtain in the room tore in two, and bright sunlight poured in. A shockwave burst from the wall, and I was knocked unconscious.

When I woke up the first thing I saw was the wallpaper looming over me.

Interrogator: Where is the Enigma!? Tell me the code!

Aiolos: I scurried back in fear, but immediately I could see the wallpaper was different now. It had no more power. It was just ugly.

I found Oscar laying on the floor next to me, also unconscious, but in extreme pain. Blood trickled from his ears and nose, and he was moaning. I was unable to rouse him, so I ran for the doctor. I didn’t tell anybody what I really saw, because I didn’t think they would believe me.

(Smack, a scream)

Interrogator: (unintelligable)

(More screams)

– – –

By now, all of you should be nodding your heads in silent assent: “Yes Doogie, your case is airtight. I believe unequivocally that Oscar Wilde died from injuries sustained while battling ugly wallpaper. I’m sorry I scoffed at you. Enclosed find my check for $3,000, which should keep my Literary Adventure Quarterly subscription up to date for the next 100 years. P. S. Thank you.”

“My wallpaper and I are in a fight to the death. One of the two of us must go.”
–Oscar Wilde’s last words (no really, look it up)

Doogie Horner will be performing tonight at Die, Actor, Die at The Khyber (56 S. 2nd Street), 8PM, $5.

Here is the super groovy and hilariously funny Bill Bryson at a signing at Star Hotel in Sydney on Friday 9th Feb.

Ross and I headed up to Sydney early in the day (with the plan of meeting up with our respective families a bit closer to the Blue Mountains later on in the day to head up to Zoe’s naming day – further adventures below) – Ross had the unenviable task of tolerating me on the short flight from Canberra to Sydney, which is about as long as I can manage, and am still a nervous wreck.  Last I heard, there is hope for his right arm and there’s no longer a need to amputate, the blood is flowing freely again.

After a bit of ‘shopping’ (for lack of a more appropriate word) at Paddy’s markets, we set off to the hideous casino complex.  We caught a tram with about 500 old ladies on it, and I figured we were on the right one as they were probably all heading to the poker machines.  As it happens, they did get off at the casino, then followed us over to the hotel.  So it turned out that, out of 700 people that made up the literary lunch/audience that day, 95% were over 70.  3% were over 50.  Which left me, Ross and perhaps one other person that made up the 2% of people under 35.  And yes I know my maths sucks, but you get the idea.  Anyway, they gave us a posh lunch and a bit of wine (uh-oh!) and then Bill came out to do a reading from his latest book “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid”.  He is pretty much how you picture him (of course the pics on the book jackets help give you an idea there), but his voice is a little higher than you expect.  I don’t know why I noticed that, but I did.  He not only read from his new book, but also a few paragraphs from “Down Under” which was published a while back now.  He also did a bit of a Q&A in the little time he had available – and did confirm that an adaption of his fantastic book (and my favourite of his) “A Walk in the Woods” will indeed be made into a movie, with filming beginning in the northern Spring.  And yes, it will star Robert Redford (as Bill) and Paul Newman (as Katz).  Matt and I saw this in a paper about a year ago, and couldn’t quite get over it.  Seeing as Paul Newman is now 82 or something, I can’t imagine them filming any hideous hiking scenes in Maine (or Paul will indeed be shouting “Kill me Billy!).  And the real Bill and Katz will probably be funnier, but it’s certainly something to look forward to.  A decent movie – who would have thought, there hasn’t been one for a while …

With that, he was whisked away into the lobby area, as he only had a short time to sign books before he had to leave to do a radio interview later that day.  So, while I did get him to sign a couple of books, it was all very “Hello, hello, lovely to meet you, thank you for coming, bye!” and that was it.  He was doing a signing at Gleebooks later that evening, which probably would have been better to go to and not nearly as rushed, but Ross and I already had other plans.  Hopefully next time Bill visits it will be a bit more relaxed and there is time for a more interesting exchange.  All in all though, it was a wonderful experience and one I had been looking forward to ever since my high-school friend Emma introduced me to his work.

www.billbryson.com

~ by tylerlizenby on October 26, 2006.

I found this on The Things We Think But Do Not Say.

It’s great! The others are sometimes a bit vulgar for my taste, but it’s still an interesting idea and there are some cool little snippets of stories. This reminds me of a fellow who lived above me last year, BJ Hollars. Pretty sweet author, and amazingly sweet guy.

Also, here is the relevant and necessary Family Guy reference.