Never Imagined I’d Live to Say It…

…but – damn – - it’s good to be back in D-town.

What I mean by that is – my alter-ego [the breadwinner] hath just returned from an arduous job that took him [me] to Dallas – a city devoid of identity (save its ubiquitous place in pop-culture history as ‘home’ to the first [American] prime-time soap-opera) – which was, as predicted; muggy, too hot, spread out, and lacking much redemption outside the sublimely surreal Magic Time Machine  (watch yer back, Casa Bonita!) and the Book Depository Kennedy Museum; and then onto the sickeningly-too-real Tampa Bay (populated, seemingly, by only pensioner/geriatrics, sleeveless rednecks, and adequate populations of Minorities needed to scrub, serve, and maintain illusions for the Spring Break crowd).
     Whereas a person might demand exorbitant renumeration to work in such appalling conditions of anti-culture [I do] – sometimes merely the phenomenological rewards far outweigh even the most plutonium-weight paychecks.
   

    The final night; after all the field videotaping/interviews were
done – we contractors and the big-wheel clients somehow felt compelled
to meet for a ‘drink’ to wrap up, et al… and found ourselves in one
of the most depressing ‘chain-but-not-really’ watering holes; located
in an ensconced but obnoxious location – an insta-mega-mall.. not just
adjacent to, but connected to, the abject terror of faux ‘luxury’ hotel; Courtyard by Marriott.
   Skip ahead a bit, brother – to the moment I decide to linger on
after my employer and the Client shuffle off; to have a final cocktail
and cigarette.  It is in *this* moment that my whole life stands on its
sad little nugget [head, to the unimaginative] for a tick. 
You
see – I was *just* about to order the Road Sauce (s’okay… I was
walking. Obviously) – when the barman, an unremarkable but
adequately-Florida-’hunk’ – gets an earnest look in his eye and asks:

      "Have you ever had someone – a famous person – that you really admire and respect; and then got to meet them in person?"
  Thinking of my misguided-but-passionate Younger Days [I was 20, I
believe - a time before any of you were born; check it out on wikipedia
(1990)] and my run-in with Perry Farrell, I responded "Actually, yes."
      "Well," he nearly sighed, "it happened to me tonight."
Remember
- all Uncle Sid wants, in this energy-vortex, is some booze. But, ever
the (opportunist/manipulator) gentleman, I ask [despite being able to
fathom an instant in which I imagined that I had a dream that I
considered, for a split-second, the notion of having a nightmare in
which I speculated, in idle masochistic fantasy, that there was an
alternate universe in which I gave a shit, even for pretends) "Who was
it?"
    At this moment, another employee has rushed up and
whispered into wistful ear of the Barkeep; and he plants his hands on
the bar, handsprings over it [a la (personal fave) John Dillinger at a
midwest bank heist], and rushes outside.
    The Pink One is still without a cocktail.  Imagining the Whisperer could help, I remained calm.  But no.
   Yet, a few seconds later, the Meatmeister returns, takes my order,
and seems lost in a beaming world – forcing me to follow up:
   
"So – who was it?"  I query; just *wanting* to know exactly what kind
of vaulted, admirable, unique, rare human would dare walk into this
joint.
    I wait out his smirk, the far-away look that tells me
he’s already re-living this moment wherein he’s met one of his
most-respected heroes of all time.
     As he hands me my Liquid Tolerance, he gives the darting-chin-up "hey, bro" conspiratorial look and confesses:
     "My favorite porn star."
    Inexplicably, despite all indicators, I am still surprised in a
nauseating way.  Not because I am anti-porn, or prude, or judgmental -
- merely because this poor sucker-egg of a man has just experienced a
‘defining moment’ in his life; and this was it.  A porn actress sat on
a stool in the place where he works.  And his universe has come
full-circle.
    Poor America – you created this, and then cry ‘foul’.

I choked half of my drink and half-heartedly pulled at my last
smoke.  I had not only been sideswiped by disillusion, disgust,
depression and decadent depravity; I had been temporarily ruined.
    Other than that, a delightful time.