Francesca Bossert's Blog, page 35

DOOBIE-DOO

I smoked a doobie years ago,

Victoria rolled it, quite the pro!

Did I inhale? I must have done,

Because my giggle switch turned on!

 

Don’t get me wrong, I’d laughed before,

I’ve never been a tight-lipped bore.

I’d tasted wine, had some champagne,

I figured weed would be the same.

 

But goodness me, that stuff was strong,

Two tiny puffs and I was gone!

We told wild stories, secrets too,

I called my boyfriend, said, “we’re through!”

 

Effervesced with sparkling wit,

We babbled woo-woo truths for twits.

Soon the munchies joined the mix,

Demanding Toblerone and crisps.

 

Sprawled on cushions, fluffy-brained,

Linking thoughts like daisy-chains.

Doobie Brothers, doobie-dooed,

Shaking our booties around the room.

 

We crashed like comets, overslept,

Called the office, told them fibs.

Doobie-sisters, still best friends,

Goofylicious ‘til the end.

 

 

BOLD RUSH

 

 

Candlelit, emboldened,

She is irresistible.

You loved me once.

She eyes him, sultry as Bacall.

 

Head rush.

He leans in.

Runs a finger from her lips

To her heart centre.

Lingers.

 

Ice-blue into emerald.

 

Bold rush.

 

Fade to black.

 

THE ADVENTURES OF A ROCK CHICK IN AMERICA: dazed, confused, broke and clueless.

(This is the 2nd instalment of the piece I wrote about ten days ago called FROM TRAD WIFE TO ROCK CHICK) 

I didn’t know it was such a long way from Montreal to Santa Cruz. Obviously, I knew how far it was from a geographical point of view. But to actually travel there non-stop in a bus? The sheer endlessness of it didn’t register until my bum went numb after the umpteenth pitstop in the middle of nowhere. Were we nearly there yet?

 

Well…

 

In early March1985, at the age of 23, I spent four days on a Greyhound bus chasing the American dream. I’m not sure I knew what my American dream was, in fact I don’t think I really had one. But Blaze (not his real name), my boyfriend, did. Frontrunner of a rock band in Geneva, Switzerland, Blaze dreamt of making it big.

 

Initially he’d picked Montreal as his celebrity launchpad, which sort of made sense if you sang in French and English like he did. But the icy temperatures combined with the horrendous windchill factor messed with his vocal cords and his hair. As for me, every time I looked in the mirror I saw a Smurf. So, after spending all our money on renting an apartment that we never even moved in to, we decided to make our way to Santa Cruz, California with our few remaining bank notes.

 

And a phone number.

 

During the summer of 1984, Blaze had  met an American woman - let’s call her Shandy - who was visiting Geneva from California. I don’t recall hearing a single thing about her until Blaze mentioned having her number when we were in Montreal. Shandy was in her late thirties, which to me sounded old. Blaze himself was five years older than me and far more streetwise than I have ever been. I attended a private school, went on to study translation at Geneva university, and had never ventured anywhere remotely dubious until Blaze whisked me off into Geneva’s nocturnal underground scene.

 

Apart from a handful of private parties held under parental supervision, the social gatherings I’d ever attended were school dances. So, when my new edgy friends threw a full-on dodgy-do for my 21st in a squat, and post-punk gothic/metal rock group Killing Joke turns up, and all the girls lose their minds as well as - in some cases - their knickers, you know you’re no longer doing the bump to Boney M in Cologny (Cologny could be viewed as Geneva’s Park Avenue, but with villas, not buildings). Not that I ever lived in Cologny, but you get the idea. I remember wearing mat-silver lamé skin-tight trousers and a black tee-shirt, accessorized with the requisite low-slung, helter-skelter studded belts. My younger brother DJ-ed, letting loose with all the best New Wave stuff: Simple Minds, Depeche Mode, A Flock of Seagulls, The Cure, REM, Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Billy Idol, you name it and chances are he played it because my little brother was seriously into his music back then. Sadly, the party ended relatively early by antiestablishment standards because one of the Killing Joke dudes fiddled with the squat’s decrepit electric board which promptly shorted, plunging us all into darkness. Also, there apparently was no more alcohol, either, which was crazy because we certainly hadn’t skimped on attempting to get everyone cross-eyed. Personally, I don’t remember being particularly trolleyed; I just remember having a wonderful time dancing my butt off to all my favourite music.

 

Anyhow, back to1985, the Greyhound Bus and a lady called Shandy.

 

I have never experienced anything like crossing America in a bus, and if possible, I’d prefer to never need to again. I’ve always been incapable of sleeping in any position other than lying down, unlike my husband who can get on a plane, rest his head against the Kleenex, close his eyes and sleep like a baby for hours. But I’m hypermobile, so as soon as I nod off, I end up with my head resting on my own shoulder and wake up feeling like I’ve narrowly escaped decapitation.

 

The bus. The bus. Right. I just have so many stories I want to tell!

 

The first day was pretty much ok. I felt excited, like some sort of New Wave rock chick pioneer. However, by nighttime I was desperate to sleep, but Blaze was a bony, wiry guy and didn’t offer much in terms of padding for me to lay my weary head. Also, emotionally speaking, he wasn’t the “lay your head on my shoulder” kind of guy. In fact, sometimes, he even went and sat in a totally different part of the bus from me, just to be awkward, leaving me to deal with a number of weirdos who were delighted to sit next to an anxious, exhausted young girl from Switzerland who was clearly out of her element. One night I was so scared of the drunk man sitting next to me who had clearly lost several of his key marbles, that I didn’t dare attempt to fall asleep at all. Nor did I dare squeeze past him to visit the lurching cesspit right at the back that splashed your butt if the bus happened to hit a particularly big pothole. It happened to me once and was so revolting I almost threw up.

 

What I remember most about the middle of America is that there was an awful lot of open space and loads of those dusty twirly things rolling around that I’d only ever seen in cartoons or maybe in old Westerns. When, after four days, we finally reached San Francisco and had to switch to yet another bus for Santa Cruz, I was so so exhausted I could barely keep my eyes open. I also felt filthy, smelly and so disgusting that I wished I’d stayed in Geneva.

 

It was quite late when we staggered off the bus in Santa Cruz. Blaze found a phone booth, pulled out the crumpled piece of paper with Shandy’s number on it and put some of our precious remaining coins in the slot. Shandy didn’t answer. I burst into tears. We had twenty dollars between us, no credit cards, nada. I just wanted to go to go home to Geneva and sleep for a month.

 

Instead, we boarded another bus, one of Santa Cruz’s metropolitan lines, without knowing where to go. The bus was full, there were no seats available, and anyway, my bottom had turned into a pancake. I hung onto one of the poles, sweating under the sheepskin jacket my mother had bought me to get me through the harsh Canadian winter. My hair was greasy, my face was blotchy, and I felt so ashamed. An elderly woman made eye-contact with me. She smiled and I smiled back. I plucked up some courage and asked her whether she knew of anywhere very cheap where we could sleep, explaining where we’d come from and how we’d travelled. To my surprise she said “you look like a couple of good kids; if you like you can sleep in my old camper van. I live in an old people’s home, and not allowed night guest, but my old van is parked in the back, and I could sneak you in. We’d have to be careful as I could get in trouble, but if you were my daughter I’d hope someone would be kind enough to do the same.”

 

So, this angel took us under her wing, snuck us into her room so that we could brush our teeth and wash our faces, then took us out back and smuggled us into her camper. She apologized for the lack of electricity, pulled out the bed, found some blankets and told us she’d come and find us as soon as she could in the morning. We were not to come out until she reappeared as she could get into big trouble.

 

We followed instructions, and sure enough she reappeared the next morning and snuck us back into her room to brush our teeth again, and then we were back on the streets with our suitcases, looking for a phone booth to try Shandy’s number again.

 

No answer.

 

At that point I was seriously debating calling my parents by reversing the charges and begging them to please get me out of here, but I knew Blaze would be livid, and I’d feel like an idiot and a failure and get zapped with a million I-told-you-so’s for forever and a day, so I did my best to keep it together. Eventually, late in the afternoon, Shandy finally answered the phone.

 

It turned out she didn’t even live in Santa Cruz, but in the foothills of San Jose! Nevertheless, she drove over, picked us up in her big old silver Cadillac Seville, and took us back to her amazing wooden house overlooking San José where she lived with several lodgers from different corners of the world.

 

There were two young Scandinavian boys, and a boy from Geneva and his Columbian girlfriend. All these boys were doing their pilot licenses in San José. Then there was Shandy’s eldest son who was 16 and lived in her trailer in the garden with his girlfriend. There was a Mexican fireman and his wife in the basement flat. And then there was us. It was quite a big house, but all the room were taken, so Blaze and I slept on a blow-up mattress on the mezzanine above the living room until we went with Shandy to a garage sale one Saturday where she picked up a cheap mattress.

 

Shandy was in real estate, but had a side-business doing music video, and was really into music. She was a lovely person, and incredibly generous to both of us. She and I became close, and soon were going off camping in Big Sur together, meeting sexy hippies who worshipped the Grateful Dead and lived by the creek in what I called Fuck Trucks and who invited us to campfire dinners where someone would play guitar and we’d all sing along. I became very familiar with Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb which was clearly a firm favourite!

 

Shandy and I slept in her trailer, heading over to the River Inn café for breakfast, and often returning there again for Happy Hour where we’d order huge pitchers of Margaritas on the rocks and where dinner would be their free Nachos with guacamole. Afterwards we’d go back to the campfires for more Comfortably Numb. Sometimes, after midnight, if Shandy wasn’t too tired, we’d drive over to the Esalen Institute where we’d sit in the outdoor hot tubs overlooking the Pacific Ocean along with all sorts of spiritually inspired late-night philosophers. Everyone happily partook in passing fat doobies while listening to the waves crashing below and counting shooting stars. To this day I swear that I actually once heard a shooting star, although I may have been a little over doobee-dooed. Then again, maybe I did. I like to think so, anyway.

 

Meanwhile, Blaze was networking like mad, trying to kickstart his rockstar career in the land of opportunity. He met a couple of musicians, including an older woman who sang in a band. She was mega smooth and rather creepy and, looking back, I’m pretty sure Blaze was enjoying amorous encounters with her. She was married, but her husband didn’t seem too miffed over her wanton behaviour around my boyfriend. One night, while out with Shandy at a club called The Catalyst in Santa Cruz, I met a nice, very cute guitar player who lived in Fenton or Boulder Creek, who then got in contact with Blaze and began to drive over to San Jose for regular jam sessions along with the wanton singer and her easy-going husband. I think there was another guitar player too, but I only really remember the cute one because he flirted with me. Pretty soon Blaze started going to spend time over at the wanton singer’s place, leaving me alone with Shandy and her gang of lodgers. The two Scandinavian pilots moved out soon after Blaze and I arrived, presumably fed up with the constant racket of all-night jam sessions. The Swiss pilot stayed around; he was quite a character and even managed to pass his pilot license stoned off his head because Shandy had baked Brownie Space Cakes late at night, and left them on the kitchen counter to cool when she went to bed. Our Swiss friend woke up early to go to his exams, helped himself to a couple of magic Brownies, and drove to the airfield. I like to believe he sealed the deal by looping the loop and buzzing the tower.

 

As for making money, Blaze did some odd construction jobs for one of Shandy’s friend’s up in Marin County. I got a couple of gardening jobs, and once weeded an entire field on a slope so steep I could barely keep my balance. I worked as a cleaner in an old people’s home but got fired within a few weeks got fired for using an abrasive product on the beautiful old wooden floors. Blaze played gigs, but I doubt they paid anything. Basically, we were living off Shandy’s incredible generosity.

 

After nine months of living on next to nothing, I flew back to Geneva to earn some proper money. I returned to the law firm where I’d worked part time as a secretary prior to going off to Canada and was promptly hired again, this time to work for four young lawyers doing their internships, three of which I already knew. One of them, Patrick, super nice, accompanied me to meet the latest intern. He knocked on the door.

 

“Come in,” said a male voice.

 

“This is Cedric. Cedric Bossert,” Patrick said.

 

Cedric Bossert was sitting behind his desk with a tin of coloured pencils. He looked up from his colouring and smiled. And my heart did a series of somersaults.

 

Reader, I married him, but not before returning to America for many more adventures!

 

(TO BE CONTINUED!)

 

NINE NOTES AND A CHIME

Moonlight disco,

Nine notes and a chime.

This moment.

This song.

I hold my breath.

All around us,

Awkward teenagers desert the dance floor.

You, a whisper away,

Unsure.

I risk my life with two words.

Shall we?

Seven more notes.

Your ice-blue gaze bewitches my skin.

You take my hand,

Pull me close,

Turn my name into something sacred.

 

Tonight,

After nine notes and a chime,

I hope.

 

After seven more notes,

I know.

 

 

SHIELD

The weight of disapproval

Slithers through the quiver of your lips.

You cuff me, catching me off guard

With unwarranted reproaches,

Nonsensical demands.

 

Shielded by clarity,

I only flinch.

 

 

DOPAMINA!

 

Quick!

Get to the front!

Come on, hurry!

I’ll go,

I’ll take up space.

Ooh, Cava, gracias!

What’s the time?

We’re three hours early?

Never mind!

Look! See me, up there, big screen,

Dopamining the universe,

Smile after smile!

Eeeeeh!

Here they come!

Yay, there’s David!

Here comes Ricky!

Eeeh! David said Hi!

Sube l’adrenalina!

My Spanish isn’t fluent

But I know all the words!

Well, most of them…

I’m a giddy superfan

I am I am I am!

 

 

 

THE HURTING: the sad impossibility of never disappointing

Connections, short circuits,I have loved, unloved,Floundered, Growing, experience by experience.Unsettled, I have staggered on,Fragile, broken, mending,Fluffing tattered feathers,Shocking,Upsetting,Disturbing the peace.I inspect my heart and findBeauty alongside Ugly.Polishing my sparkle,I seek, grow, heal,Hoping to never displease.I want the impossible.You strike me down,Momentarily blinded by my ugly.I forgive you.I forgive myself.This is my truth.

FROM TRAD WIFE TO ROCK CHICK: how I moved from KitchenAid to the Geneva underground music scene in the Eighties.

When I was young, I was a trad wife. Well, a trad girlfriend; because I realised the error of my ways before I dug myself any deeper into KitchenAid territory.

 

Like most young people who have lived a privileged, sheltered life, I was extremely naïve. I’d never been popular at school, I was shy and insecure, and craved masculine attention. I’d had a lovely American boyfriend in 11th or 12th grade, but he dumped me for a girl I kept pointing out to him, telling him how gorgeous she was. Yep, shy, insecure and a twit to boot.

Me, on the left, in 13th grade

 

During 13th grade, which was my last year in high school, while out in Geneva old town with a couple of friends, I met a boy a few years older than me who was very good looking, and – initially at least – really nice. He had green eyes and chestnut hair with that floppy Bryan Ferry type fringe (Ferry was his idol) and was studying computer science at Geneva university. Sadly, he soon turned into a bit of a macho dictator, telling me what to wear, what perfume to use, what music to like, and when I didn’t agree, or said something he didn’t approve of, he’d squish me with a giant blob of sarcasm. Looking back, one of the things that I most regret is allowing him to talk me out of going to my high school graduation prom; I had a fabulous outfit, and had spent five hours and a small fortune having my hair done in the Bo Derek afro-style that was popular at the time. Why didn’t I just tell him to shove it? I remember being very sad that night, and really confused, as we lay in bed in my studio apartment.

 

Anyway, soon we moved in together and turned into an old boring couple within two and half seconds. I did the cooking and the ironing and the shopping and went on holiday to Portugal to stay with his family, and his mother was mean to me and made me cry. We’d go there for about three weeks, and it seemed never-ending. We’d also have to go for Christmas and New Year, and I had to eat dried cod and it put me off fish for the rest of my life.

 

And then at work one day I met a girl called Victoria who seemed to be living the most exciting, wonderful, crazy life ever. She was two years older than me, and had run away from home at sixteen, lived in a squat in London, been travelling in Guatemala where she eventually ran out of money, stayed in one village and made money by baking apple crumble that she sold to villagers. Now she was working as the personal assistant to one of the hot shots in a bank. I was at university at the time studying translation, but worked part time answering the bank’s very important phone calls.

 

Incidentally, I must tell you the incredible epilogue to the apple crumble saga! Years later Victoria, who now lives in Ibiza, met a woman who had also been travelling in Guatemala. This person had stopped in a place where the villagers told her about a young woman who’d lived there decades ago and had baked the most delicious apple crumble. Whereupon Victoria nearly fell off her perch and told her that the young apple crumble whizz was her! How small is the world? Another crazy story regarding Victoria is that when I was sixteen, I had a pen pal who lived in Singapore but who spent her summers at her parents place in Ibiza. Victoria told me that she spent most of her holidays in Ibiza in her parents’ villa, so I asked her whether she happened to know S, my pen pal. Well, S was one of her best friends! Many years later, soon after Victoria moved to Ibiza, I finally met S at her 40th birthday party!

 

Anyway. Back to my story.

 

Worried about our (then utterly inexistent) wobbly bits, Victoria and I signed up to the very first fitness club to open in Geneva. It was called The John Valentine Fitness Club, and we thought it sounded ever so cool and glamorous, and the guy at reception was blonde and tanned and in his late twenties and super-hot. In fact, the hot guy at reception is probably what cinched the deal the very first time we wandered in there to have a look around. Of course, we never went even once went there to work out, although I remember using the pool and the jacuzzi. I also recall using the tanning booth quite a bit, because Mr. Super-Hot - whose name was Jacques - would come in and make sure all was well, and adjust my little glasses, and press the button to make the tanning lights come on and sit there for ages asking me all sorts of questions about myself. He was excellent for my ego.

 

Also, melanoma didn’t exist in the early Eighties…

 

One evening after work Victoria and I decided to finally go and firm our wobbles at John Valentine, but we got distracted during our bus ride and missed the stop, so we ended up back at her flat in a funky part of Geneva. It was a gorgeous little duplex on the top floor of an old building in a funky part of Geneva decorated in that colourful, bohemian vibe that Victoria has always been brilliant at. We flopped on her big cushions covered in Guatemalan fabrics, and ate avocado on toast, and lit incense, and listened to Level 42 super loud, and she told me all sorts of fun and wild and naughty stories, and I told her all about which washing powder I used to wash Serge’s knickers, and we giggled and I smoked my first joint ever, and time went by and it got later and later and suddenly it was almost midnight and I knew that my jealous, controlling boyfriend must be prowling up and down our crappy little flat in that boring area outside of town listening to Roxy Music, or Madness maybe, and he’d be worried, furious and jealous because not only had I not come home to make his dinner and do the ironing and watch rubbish TV, I hadn’t even phoned.

 

And then it dawned on me that I had absolutely no desire to go home, nor did I want to have anything more to do with him. I wanted to experience crazy stuff, go dancing, go to cool bars and have fun. I was done with the KitchenAid and the vacuum cleaner and his dirty knickers.

 

My heart beating so hard in my chest I thought it might come through my solar plexus, I called him and when he picked up, I told him that I was at Victoria’s, and that I wasn’t coming home. As in not ever again. And he just said OK, and I hung up and probably had a little cry whereupon we smoked another joint and told more funny stories and called in sick at work the next day and went for a wander around the flea market and for coffee and croissants in cool bars where she knew all the cute boys who worked there. And I felt wonderful and excited about life and ever so pleased with myself. I dutifully informed my parents that I had left my controlling boyfriend, and a few days later they came with me to pick up my things at the flat where I’d lived with him for a very short while, and that was that.

 

Looking back, I’m not very proud of how I ended that relationship, but he was such a bossy-boots and if I’d gone home and tried to explain he’d probably have talked me into staying, at least for a while. So, even if I hadn’t met Victoria, I like to think I’d have woken up one day and realized there was more to life in your late teens than playing at being a middle-aged couple, and I’d have walked away. I wish I’d been confident enough to handle the break-up with a little more elegance, but I was a little bit afraid of him.

 

So, I moved back in with my parents for a bit but spent a lot of time over at Victoria’s, having a wonderful time. We’d rent Goldie Hawn movies and listen to Grace Jones and Roxy Music and smoke elegantly rolled doobies. Within a couple of weeks, by some miracle, my father found me a duplex studio right next door to Victoria’s, which meant we now only had to walk about four metres to hang out together, and we often just left our front doors wide open and wandered back and forth. We were both popular at work with the younger guys (and with quite a few of the older ones too!), and there was one guy in particular that we both quite fancied, let’s call him Serge, and one day Victoria invited him over for dinner at her place, telling him to bring a friend.

 

So, he did.

 

Serge’s friend - let’s call him Blaze - although his name wasn’t anything as cool as that – was a rockstar. OK, so he was a little rockstar. But locally, in Geneva, he was a star. He had a band and wrote songs and sang and played guitar and keyboards. He was skinny and cute in a sort of effeminate, feline way, and wore a white leather, very smelly motorcycle jacket that he’d bought at the flea market, and skinny jeans and black tee-shirts, and drove a horrendously embarrassing and dilapidated red Deux-Chevaux van that always got him stopped by the police. I think I was probably more attracted to his enigmatic rock-star persona than to the guy himself, but as my very rock-solid, recently retired lawyer husband of thirty-five years always says, my choices in life always tend to be extreme!

 

Anyway, there I was, twenty-years old and eager to sample the wild side of life.

 

Blaze and I got together within a week or so, and I did a drastic Olivia Newton John at the end of Grease-type makeover. I ditched my beige and navy Benetton-goodie-goodie look for full-on rock-chick diva-de-luxe, developing the ultimate high-end Chrissie Hynde meets Debbie Harry wardrobe. I swathed myself in studded belts, wore studded dog collars around my expensive slouchy black suede boots. I bought vintage, embroidered black silk blouses and jackets that I’d wear with a dove grey, calf-length circular skirt, accessorized with my studded belts and dog collars, and skin-tight stretchy black jeans with baggy black crew-necked sweatshirts. I wore tight dresses, and trendy boiler suits. And always the studded belts. I cut my hair and gelled it spiky. I went to dodgy bars to watch my boyfriend and his band play, and once again put up with all kinds of bad boyfriend behaviour on the totally opposite end of the spectrum from that of my KitchenAid era. Blaze would disappear for days on end, wouldn’t call, and seemed to get off on making me feel insecure. I even wrote the lyrics of a song titled Insecure, which he later recorded, and which turned out to be one of the better songs he and his band ever did. The drug scene worried me, but in the spheres he moved in, illegal substances were apparently a way of life. But we did have a lot of fun, going dancing and staying up all night, and drinking too much, and going to concerts. Also, I enjoyed being Geneva’s prime rockstar’s girlfriend! Seeing him on stage, really was quite thrilling!

 

One day, about a year into our relationship, Blaze decided it would be a good idea to move to Canada. He sang in French and English, so if he wanted to make it big and become the next Sting, or Howard Jones, or front a band like Depeche Mode or Duran Duran, he had to leave Geneva. Seeing as Canada is bilingual, moving to Montreal seemed like a no-brainer.

 

By then I’d spent six months in Florence, Italy as part of my university course to study Italian, and had made a friend, Hélène, who lived in Montreal. So being an absolute idiot, I quit university a few months before my final exams, and off I went to Montreal via Milan on February 17, 1985. I remember the date because of the record snowfalls Geneva and many other European cities experienced. When our train from Geneva arrived in Milan and we took a taxi to the airport, we learned that our Air Canada flight had been unable to land because of the snow, so had been diverted to Genova, a city further down the Italian coast. So, after a long wait in Milan, the airline put all passengers on a bus and carted us off to Genova.

 

By the time we eventually landed in Montreal we were both exhausted. Geneva gets cold, but the Canadian winter was beyond anything I’d imagined. Thank goodness my very worried mother had bought me a long, sheepskin jacket, because had I ventured out into those arctic conditions wearing my regular black wool coat, as I’d initially planned, I would have turned into an icicle.

 

My girlfriend from Florence had agreed to house us for a little while, but not being able to stay with her more than a week or two, we did the dumbest thing ever and rented a small apartment. Meaning we blew all our money on a deposit and the first few months’ rent.

 

I don’t remember whether we ever even moved into that flat, because the next thing I knew Blaze had decided Montreal had been a terrible career move, that arctic temperatures were disastrous for his vocal cords, and his future as rockstar clearly lay in California.

 

Unfortunately, we had no more money. We couldn’t afford to fly to San Francisco.

 

No problem, Blaze decided. We would simply hop on a Greyhound Bus…

 

(to be continued)

 

BONKERS

A bonkers thing happened to me,

I lost my swimsuit in the sea!

It happened while trying to save,

A famous man from starstruck babes.

 

Deceived by his mad agent’s snare,

His ghastly fate I couldn’t bare.

I’d met this man before, you see,

He flew to Ibiza next to me.

 

We’d spoken for a little while,

His caramel eyes had me beguiled.

I offered him a lift, some help,

He desperately needed a hotel.

 

Sadly, there was room at the inn,

It bummed me out when he checked in.

My half-baked plans had fallen flat,

I really thought that that was that.

 

Then fate got funky, as it can,

And led me straight back to this man!

As I lay baking on a beach,

A boat sailed in laden with freaks!

 

A fan club party, bloody hell!

I knew that type of clientele.

Giddy, they waited on the shore,

To see the dude they so adored.

 

I saw him come, I had to act,

I couldn’t see that man attacked.

As his yacht sailed into our view,

I quickly swam to his rescue.

 

But on the way I lost my top,

I flailed around but it was lost!

I checked my bottom, was it there?

Oh, flippin’ eck my bum was bare!

 

But that’s not all, things got much worse!

Life really can be quite perverse.

I felt a sting; this was the pits,

A jellyfish had stung my bits!

 

That famous man had heard me scream,

And sent a member of his team.

He dove right in, this brave young man,

And pushed me out with his bare hands!

 

So, there I was, bare-bummed and all,

On board a boat; frankly appalled.

The famous man said, “Oh it’s you!”

Far more adventures did ensue!

 

Things got quite steamy, oh my lord,

That famous man deserves awards!

I spilled the beans, they’re rather hot,

His manhood really hit the spot!

 

So, if you want the full report,

A tale so wild you’ll laugh and snort,

You’ll have to head to Amazon

And spend some cash on my romcom!

UNFORGETTABLE

Her fortitude dazzled him.

She harnessed herself to his heart,

Haunting his harmonies with her smoky voice.

Her summer-blue eyes ship-wrecked his love affairs,

Sabotaged his marriage.

 

Her tantalizing smile taunted him from billboards,

Tormented him from magazine covers,

Startled him in glamorous movie commercials.

 

Decades later, she still inspired every song,

Claimed all his awards,

Slipped between his sheets at night,

Moving over his body like a sacred whisper.

 

Damn you, India, he exclaimed.

Hastily packing a suitcase.

He booked a flight,

Locked his Malibu beach house.

 

Thirty years was long enough.