The Only Milkshake George Jones Ever Drank

It's only been a year or so. Had you given up on me?


Flu onset: Tuesday, October 4 late PM, after Dmitry Samarov's reading at Myopic.

Symptoms: Viagra Falls emerges from my nose at the store. Bike ride home quickly becomes a despondent forced march of muscle ache-y despair.

Medication taken: none.

Amount of sleep acquired: roughly 3 1/2 hours.

Dreams: Oliver Platt and I are working in a record store, and there are thieves in every section, but he keeps yelling at me to make sure nobody steals the Hawkwind CDs. He doesn't have to, as this seems overwhelmingly important. I, meanwhile know that I must attempt to pilfer a huge bottle of Viagra that Platt is hiding in the kitchen of the store. The kitchen looks like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, and the boner pills are impossible to find. Platt is irate when the Hawkwind CDs disappear.

Possible relation to real life: For some reason, I had watched Love and Other Drugs (Fox 2000 Pictures, 2010) two nights previous. I found the film a grievous, if typical, abomination of romantic Hollywood idealism. Watching Jake Gyllenhaal caress and nip at Anne Hathaway's rack to the strains of Billy Bragg and Wilco's Woody Guthrie clusterfuck is more than even a war criminal should be forced to endure. And millions of Americans paid for the honor! Also, I once worked in a record store. I own Hawkwind recordings.

Wednesday October 5

Symptoms: headache, chills, mild fever, tissue piled everywhere, green lung cookies

Medication: about a pint each of chicken noodle and red borscht soup from the deli down the street, two packets of Theraflu.

Amount of sleep acquired: 9 hours

Dreams: My family is throwing a birthday party for me at the trailer in Carrier Mills, Illinois where I lived for a few years with my Mom in the late 70's. The trailer is filled with flowers and huge piles of garishly frosted birthday cakes but no presents. I am disgruntled. Then my Uncle Stu informs me that the guest of honor is George Jones, who has come to sing for me. George Jones seems dangerously thin and attired in an outfit that wouldn't be out of place in a Dangerous Toys video. He looks good. I keep asking his manager (who seems to be Courtney Stodden, if not a ringer for Courtney Stodden) if Jones is sober or not today, and she assures me that he is, although every time he tries to sing, white foam pours out of his mouth and nose, and collects around him as if he's an overloaded washing machine. I keep telling him that he is America's greatest living singer, and that this foam is totally unacceptable. He seems to feel bad, shrugging and foaming over again and again. He doesn't actually appear to be drunk. To reward George Jones, I give him two or three pieces of birthday cake. Suddenly his hair, still in that mighty comb-over helmet he has maintained for decades, is green as a leaf. I ALSO feel bad, because his manager keeps attempting to engage me in very explicit acts of sexual congress behind the couch, which is where my family is sitting, expecting a performance by George Jones, and this opportunity is both creepy and mildly titillating. The dream ends with me showing George Jones a picture of himself drinking a milkshake and asking for a performance of "The Grand Tour" that never comes.

Possible relation to real life: George Jones IS my favorite singer. I also like cake and milkshakes and sexual congress.