Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta walked into Dressing Room #34 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles after the conclusion of the 2010 Grammy Awards. She was in seven-inch soled shoes with ten-inch heels, and her shoulders were burdened with what could best be described as silvery balloons that rose above the top of her bleached hair. Stefani, otherwise known as “Lady Gaga.” slammed the door shut, making a sound that penetrated her temples and made her flinch. Stefani turned to face her reflection in the makeshift mirror bolted to the wall of a room that Stefani knew was not designed as a dressing room. The Staples Center is set up to house many different kinds of events, mostly sports, and has only a handful of what entertainment professionals consider “full-service” dressing rooms, with bathrooms, hot tubs, a kitchen, a fully stocked refrigerator, and a lounge area. The walls of Room #34 were cinder blocks, painted in what Stefani considered a dull yellow, and there was definitely not a kitchen or lounge area. There was a sink. And the card table set in front of the mirror is where she plopped her two Grammy Awards. She went to the sink against the wall to her right and washed off all her makeup. Her eyes were think with black, and as she splashed her face, the black ran down her cheeks, giving her a gothic appearance. Stefani pulled out the hardware hidden in her hair which released the long strands which fell to her shoulders. She then ripped off her wardrobe, tearing it in places, and as each piece came off, she threw it to the floor. By time she was down to her white underwear and bra, she sat in the chair facing the table and looking at her two Grammys.
There was knock at the door. ”What” yelled Stefani.
“Security,” announced a man’s voice through the closed door. Stefani rose and opened the door.
“Yeah?” asked Stefani, standing in her underwear as she was scratching her right armpit with her left hand.
The security guard was taken aback by the bare appearance of Lady Gaga.
“You are going to have to vacate in thirty minutes,” said the security guard.
“What the fuck are you talking about? This is my shit-hole dressing room. I’m going decompress,” said Stefani.
“You can’t. This is Derek Fisher’s room,” said the security guard, a tall African-American man.
“Who the fuck is Derek Fisker?” said Stefani.
“He’s a guard for the Lakers,” said Stefani.
“The Lakers. Jesus Christ, is there like a fucking basketball game on tonight, huh? No. I doubt it. So tell Derek Fisher to come back tomorrow,” said Stefani.
“No can do, ma’am,” said the security guard. ”Basketball takes precedence over everything here,” said the guard.
“Well then tell him to come in with me here like this in my underwear, OK. He won’t mind if I hang out while he does whatever he wants to do in this cinderblock prison cell,” said Stefani.
“He just wants to get into his closet and pull something out,” said the guard.
“Yeah, well, OK,” said Stefani.
“I’ll go tell him he can come,” said the guard.
The guard turned to go, and then stopped to address Lady Gaga.
“If you ask me, I think you should have gotten Record of the Year for Poker Face,” said the guard.
Stefani stood and looked at the guard.
“Oh yeah?” said Stefani.
“Yeah,” said the guard.
“You want to come in. Join me for…for whatever,” said Stefani.
“Come in?”
“Yeah, like come into my dressing room. I’m sure Derek whatever his name is can give us time to….you know,” said Stefani.
The security guard looked down the hallway. He then looked at his watch. Stefani walked into Room #34 and stood at the table next to her Grammy Awards. She unsnapped her bra and it fell to the floor, exposing her breasts. She then fingered her Grammy Awards.
“You want to touch them,” asked Lady Gaga.
The guard came into the room and shut the door.
Grace Barnett Wing slowly moved her legs off the couch where she had fallen asleep. Every movement caused pain in her 68-year old body. Well, not 68 yet, thought Grace. Grace’s birthday was in a few weeks on October 30th, and she planned to have a party all by herself, no friends, no neighbors. Not that she knew any of her neighbors. The wooded area where Grace lived in Northern California was thick with twisted green trees and large white flowers. The breeze from the Pacific Ocean blanketed the flora around Grace’s property with a salty mist that kept the branches guessing which way next to grow. The growth was so dense that Grace could not walk to her neighbors if she wanted to.
The late afternoon sunlight made puzzle shadows on the Persian carpet as Grace’s bare feet touched the floor. She hoisted up so her spine was against the dark green fabric of the couch back. She was now sitting up. She glanced at the six or seven prescription bottles on the Mission end table to her right. Back in 2006, Grace suffered with diverticulitis of the large intestine. But after the surgery, she had an unexplained relapse that forced the hospital to place her in a medically-induced coma for two months. The procedure made it difficult for Grace to walk, and since then had been on many prescription drugs, including pain medication. And she used a cane. The pain in her left hip was bad this afternoon, but she was averse to taking any more medication. Afterall, that is why she had slept for most of the day.
Grace looked at the oil painting on an easel she had been working on for months. It was a painting of Jim Morrison. Grace had three evenings of wild sex with Jim Morrison back in 1968, and Grace was trying to paint something that represented those three evenings. This was not easy since she did not remember much of it. The drugs. The alcohol. At least one or both of them. Morrison could not have remembered much of it either since he was tripping on something.
A loud whack of the large bronze door knocker came from the front door, which she could see from the couch. Who could that be? No one came to Grace’s house unannounced. She was slow to get up, and then the door was whacked again, only this time in threes and louder.
“OK, OK, I’m coming?” said Grace as she walked with her oak cane capped with a red crystal sphere.
Grace opened the door. Two men dressed in black suits and wearing sunglasses with their hands clasped in front stood at attention.
“This the Slick residence?” asked the one on the left.
“Yes. What is this about?” asked Grace.
“Are you Grace Slick?” asked the one on the right.
“Yes. Yes. What do you gentlemen want?” asked Grace with a stern voice that did not have the same strength as back in the days when she was singing with the Jefferson Airplane.
The suit on the right pushed passed Grace and walked into the house. The suit on the left stayed immediately outside the front door.
“Hey, you cannot just come in here. I’m going to call the police,” said Grace. Grace was worried. Had she not paid her taxes? Do they know that some of her pain medication was obtained over the internet from Canada in not the most legal of means.
The suit in the house walked around, poking his head in the kitchen, he opened the bathroom door, a closet door. He paused at the oil painting of the Morrison-Slick sexual encounters. He pulled out a walkie. “Everything seems to be safe here. You can bring him in,” said the suit into the walkie talkie.
“Bring who in?” asked Grace.
The sun was low and was bursting through the front door, silhouetting the man who walked in. When he stepped deeper into the great room where Grace’s couch and painting were, Grace focussed her eyes on the man. She could now see his face. One suit remained inside the house, the other outside. Grace saw other vehicles in the circular driveway, as well as other suits ambling around the grounds, all with there hands clasped in front, as if they were robots.
Grace felt like this must be a dream. Some kind of dream. Here right in front of her was a man she thought to be, it certainly looked like, yes, it is the….no, it couldn’t be. It is the damn pain medication. She was delirious.
“So I finally get to meet the famous Grace Slick,” said the man.
“OK. OK. I think you do a great impression of President Bush. That is cool….but….”
“You use a cane? But I can still see the Grace Slick I had a crush on. Oh, wow. This is…this is amazing to me,” said George W. Bush.
“This is not happening. You are not Bush. This is all some kind of fucking mind trip. You are with the media? Rolling Stone? Blender? Spin? You assholes have been trying to get in here for years. Well, fuck you. Tell me where you are from?” asked Grace Slick.
“I am trying to wrap up stuff, you know, for myself, during my last year…my last year as President. Meet the people that influenced me. That changed me on some level. You are one of those people,” said President Bush.
“What? Me? I changed you? This is like a joke, right?” said Grace.
“White Rabbit. That song White Rabbit changed my life. I still have the very same Surrealistic Pillow album. It’s in the Oval Office. I keep it their for good luck,” said Bush.
“OK. That’s good to know,” said Grace, flummoxed beyond comprehension. She had now come to the conclusion that this was indeed the President of the United States. And it appeared to her, at least, that the man had lost his mind. The world was falling apart, she thought, and here Bush was in her house talking about a song she wrote back in late 1965 for the group she was with before the Jefferson Airplane called The Great Society.
“And Alice In Wonderland is my favorite novel,” said President Bush. “You know I have been reading a lot of biographies of Presidents. They were actually very very boring reads. I skipped a lot. My life, well…anyway, I went back to Alice In Wonderland a few weeks ago. Read it on Air Force One. There’s a lot in there,” said Bush.
“So why exactly are you here, again?” asked Grace.
The hookah-smoking caterpillar…I just love the lyrics. White Rabbit builds and builds to its finale, until you sing “Remember what the Dormouse said. Feed your head. Feed your head Love it, just love it,” added George like a high school kid.
Grace was feeling weak in the knees, and so backed up and sort of plunged back onto the couch.
“I can see you have had some medical problems. Alcohol. I know about that. But we both licked it. We both licked it. We have a lot in common, Ms. Slick. And I wanted to thank you for all the fantasies you gave me. You were really my first crush. Oh boy, did I want to…well, you know. I was young. I just wanted to meet you, touch you. And here you are, right in front of me. I am so lucky,” said Bush.
Grace stared at Bush. She was not angry. She was not sad. On some level, she felt special, like possibly a new chapter in her very tired life might be forming. But then, why would she want any chapter to be with this man. Then she had a rush of anxiety, like this was some mind trick. The Xanax. Where had she put the Xanax.
“I can see that you are having some difficulties. But I wanted to tell you thank you. Thank you for being you, for having that great voice, for writing and singing White Rabbit. It fed my head alright. And when the polls show that I am like in the trash heap, I blast White Rabbit on my stereo in the Oval Office. Dick. Dick Cheney hates the song. Screw him,” said George.
“We have to go, sir,” said the suit in the house.
“We probably will not ever meet again, but I consider this to be a supreme pleasure,” said Bush as he glanced over at the oil painting. “What’s this of? This your work?” asked Bush.
“Yeah,” said Grace. “It’s Jim Morrison and me fucking each other over a three-night drunken weekend in London back in 1968.”
“Really. Really. Damn, I wanted to be Jim Morrison so bad. Just for like a week. Got to go,” George said as he offered his hand to Grace. Grace reached up, and then shook hands briefly. George turned and walked toward the door.
“Who else you seeing on your little last-year-of-the-Presidency tour,” asked Grace.
George W. Bush turned his head just as the suit in the house was about to follow him out.
“Micky Dolenz. He was the coolest Monkee. I hear he’s in New York now,” said Bush.
The President walked out the door, followed by the suit who shut the oak door from behind. Grace lied back down on the couch, but she did not have the energy to lift her legs, her bare feet remaining on the carpet. She closed her eyes and dreamed what the world would be like if she had never written White Rabbit.
This is an audio recording made of Judy Garland singing Over The Rainbow for the very first time . Parodical believes Judy sang the song in front of her high school class. It was thought that Judy did not sing this famous song until she was cast in the movie The Wizard Of Oz, but there were rumors that she may have sung it earlier in high school. This mystery has persisted until now. Parodical has obtained a copy of a secret recording made of Judy Garland singing Over The Rainbow. The recording is cut off near the end, so we do not hear the entire song. Hand written notes on the quarter-inch audio reel reflect that the recording was made in the Spring of 1936 when Judy Garland was 14 years old. Click the link below to listen.
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The year is 1964. Michael ran into his bedroom, crying quietly, his father yelling from downstairs. Michael shut the door and jumped onto the bed. He placed his face into the white pillow which he hugged with his arms. He was wearing a white undershirt and flannel pajamas. Michael kept his face pushed into the soft pillow until he felt the tears stop. He lifted his head and touched his left cheek where his father had hit him with a fist. It was tender. Michael sat up on the bed and noticed the small wall mirror. He quietly walked to the mirror and examined his face. His cheek was inflamed and had turned dark blue. He looked at his left hand where he touched his cheek and was happy to see no blood. But his hand was dirty from having played in the backyard dirt under the sick palm tree. The mess he made was the cause of his father’s anger. It was different everyday. His father’s rage came and went like the Santa Ana winds, unpredictable and with always a violent force. Michael reached into a drawer and rummaged around and found his sister’s white glove. He put the white glove on his left hand to cover the dirt. He then looked back up at the mirror and stepped back, keeping his eyes on the mirror. He stepped forward. Then back again. Then forward, keeping his eyes on the mirror, looking at his face get smaller than bigger. Michael then thought he saw his face contort, one cheek up, the other down, his nose got bigger, one eye drooped. He was growing ugly. Michael’s heart raced. He walked forward to get a closer look at the mirror, but oddly saw that his face got smaller. He walked forward again and his face continued to get smaller. He did not know what was happening. Michael then looked down at his feet which were in white socks and black slippers and noticed that he was stepping forward with one foot but pulling himself back with his other foot, intending to go forward, giving the impression of going forward but actually walking backwards. Michael got scared. He thought this was spooky, like he was possessed by some demon that was tearing him apart, ripping him in opposite directions. He then felt a warmth in his crotch and realized he was peeing. He grabbed his crotch with his ungloved right hand and pulled it up to stop the peeing. It stopped. He was wet, but he had stopped himself and held it. Michael stood in the middle of the room, his right hand on his crotch, his left white gloved hand open and up near his face. He raised his head and saw himself in the mirror again. Michael looked at himself and would never forget this moment.
The new Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki sat in a high-back bamboo chair holding the box that President George W. Bush handed him. Bush was sitting in a companion bamboo chair. There were heavily armed guards everywhere in the large room, with Iraqi and American political aides standing by.
“It’s an iPod. Sixty gigabytes. I got you the black one. Open it,” said Bush with the excitement of a kid at the base of a Christmas tree.
Maliki opened the box and undid the wrapping.
“Isn’t it neat how Apple packages their stuff. They have the most awesome gadgets,” said Bush.
Maliki looked up and smiled as he unwrapped the black iPod. He held it in his hands.
“I betcha that is the only iPod in Iraq,” said Bush.
“Oh no. My nephew has one. It is white,” said Maliki.
“Really. That’s cool. You want me to help you turn it on?” asked Bush.
“I just did, and I am scrolling through the music,” said Maliki.
“There’s music on it already? Jeez, mine didn’t come with music,” said Bush.
“You have a sense of humor, Mr. President. The Dixie Chicks are on here,” said Maliki.
“The what? You are joking,” said Bush.
“Not Ready To Make Nice is a good song. My nephew downloaded it from iTunes,” said Maliki.
“You Iraqis surprise me. I never figured country music would be big here,” said Bush.
“No. No. We do not like country music. The Dixie Chicks are crossover, Mr. President. We like music that crosses over. The Middle East is filled with cultural crossover.” said Maliki.
“Yes. Yes. Of course. Do you feel ready to face the media?” asked Bush.
“Have you heard Enya?” asked Maliki.
“Who?” asked Bush.
“An Irish singer. She composes all her own music. It is very new agey. Very beautiful,” said Maliki.
“I will check her out. So let’s get this show on the road,” said Bush.
Bush stands. Maliki stands. They start to walk toward the double doors that lead down the hallway to where the video cameras, photographers, reporters and the rest of Earth’s media was waiting.
“Do you like Tom Petty? We like Free Falling. It is how we Iraquis feel. I like Tom Petty’s voice,” said Maliki.
“Yes. I haven’t heard Free whatever,” said Bush. “I haven’t heard a lot of new stuff since becoming President,” said Bush.
“He is not new, Mr. President. He is old like you and me,” said Maliki. “I imagine though he has more women than us,” said Maliki.
“I heard of Tom Petty. Jeez, am I silly, or what. Tom Petty and The Blackhearts, right?” asked Bush.
“No. You are thinking of Joan Jett. I read she is performing again and still looks good,” said Maliki.
“Americans know how to stay young, Mr. Prime Minister. Americans know how to stay young,” said President Bush as he and Prime Minister Maliki entered the large media room into the bright video lights and flashes popping off.
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