Exquisite Corpse

Huntington Beach Art Center 041005

I was invited to host a dinner at the Huntington Beach Art Center. We had 16 people at dinner and instead of doing a round table where everyone talks a bit about themselves, I decided to follow a looser format and challenged our minds with the exquisite corpse. Basically everyone wrote three lines for our collective story, then they folded the paper so only the last line was visible and passed to the next guest. Then they wrote three lines and so on. Below is our magnificant story:

I met Mark at a Madonna concert in Vegas via Craiglist. He broke my leg ice skating and spit in my hair. Marc ate potato chips in the emergency room. He stole a magazine from the lobby. Afterwards, feeling guilty he mailed in the subscription card with a check.

The check bounced.

So he wanted to return the magazine, but he’d lost it at a state skeet shooting championship. He was a very good shot and quite proud of it. Ever since he was young his father had been teaching him the pride in precision of his work. That’s what hurt him the most – the carelessness of misplacing something – especially something he had borrowed.

It reminded him of that time he got bit by the peppered walrus. He was in between genders at the time but referred to herself at “Potpourri.” Back then Potpourri never would have borrowed anything; she much preferred thieving.

She enjoyed the thrill of stealing. Unfortunately, she got caught one too many times. Now she borrows things when she can and only steals when she has to. But when she left Tucson, she left more behind than the little dog. The DNA left in her hairbrush was the only thing the sheriff needed to follow her to Kansas. Her mother warned her about policemen, but she had a taste for the wild side.

She slowly pulled away from the curb and she thought the policemen weren’t looking she floored it. She thought for a moment they didn’t notice but when she looked in her mirror all three police cars were gaining on her fast. Immediately, she regretted her decision, but then thought maybe she would play a game with them.

She let them choose the game and they chose Red Rover. While playing the smallest child got hurt very badly and they rushed her to the hospital. At the hospital they ran several tests.

Several days later, the test results came back…except one.

Relieved that he had neither Syph nor Ebola, he did suffer the agonies of the damned for three days until the last result came in…

Yes, he will never date and drop a voodoo princess after promising to marry her. That Voodoo Queen did have him convinced his “little friend” would turn green and fall off.

However, the fears and three days of hell were soon forgotten and he continued down his previous path of immortality.

He immediately drank diet vanilla coke, wore white pants, and after Labor Day voted for Kerry.

I give to you this ring. Forever you and I will walk the earth together. Quickly, let’s head back home, it’s going to rain.

So then we leaned the ladder up against the mouth. We climbed in as the sweat and spit swallowed us down.

After the dinner, I grabbed a beer with Aaron and Eva who run an art collective called “Center for Tactical Magic.” Kate, who runs a youth hostel in Ocean Beach, San Diego, came along as well. It was a loud bar full of punk rockers and late night drunks. We set down at a table near the window. A few minutes later in came a heavy set bearded fella carrying a styrofoam airplane and a remote controlled battery powered model helicopter. He sat down with us.

Apparently he knew Aaron and Eva and gave them the airplane. After playing with it for a while, disturbing all the punk rockers, Aaron decides that he can levitate the plane. Sure enough. There he is on the right with Eva. That certainly topped the days events.

After we left the bar and went our seperate ways, I found a cozy parking space for the RV in Loyola Marymount parking lot. Here is a shot of the RV the next morning. It was strange waking up in a blacktop lot with student and professors walking by your RV trying not to look in at you. Ah, the life of a Rubber Tramper.

Can you find the RV?