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EDITION NO. 1

THE DARK SIDE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM s/s 2014

IN LOVING MEMORY OF ALL THOSE WHO HAVE LOST THEIR SOUL TO HOLLYWOOD

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preface

MY SOUL TO TAKE

There is something about this place, something disconcerting.

They all wander around cool and confident but I believe, at least I hope, that underneath they are just like me.

We are swans gliding aloof and elegant on the most beautiful lake you have ever seen, whilst underneath the gentle ripples, our legs are constantly racing, racing as fast as they can.

It’s so hard to relax here, to really be who you are inside. I try my best to breathe but there are never moments to breathe or at least never moments to exhale and let go of it all. You can only inhale this air.

Sometimes I sit back in that deck chair and just observe the chaos.

It’s the chair that belongs to me, even has my name on it, but the chair really belongs to her. They all adore her. They shower her in adoration and want to believe that she is real so much that there are times in my day when she is my flesh and she is my blood.

In those moments she becomes more alive than I ever am.

With every beat of her heart, mine slows and slows and slows… ************************************** Home from the party I slip off my emerald gown. Givenchy they told me, a gift from Hubert himself. This is what they want; to dress me, to observe me, to speak for me, to consume me in my entirety.

But no, I mustn’t let them.

The bubbles are rising and the delicate scent of lavender fills me up.

I climb in, the tap still running hot. Closing my eyes, I sink. I am a swan and it’s time for me to take my final bow.

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CHAPTER ONE

THE CLUB TROPICANA

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Go downtown to the LA jungle, palm trees lining the golden

streets, the Boulevard of Broken Dreams leading you all the way up to the heartbreak of the Hollywood Hills.

Beware of the predators.

Six feet tall and Amazonian the gazelle poses, observing your every move. This season they disguise themselves as the snake; shiny green scales on their Jimmy Choo’s and mini skirts give their clever camouflage away.

The leopards are far easier to spot. With Dolce on their backs they prowl the pavements territorially, basking in the heat of the sun.

The Queens.

Tread carefully, take only what you need and make your way across no-mans land.

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Back at the Hotel California the candles flicker softly and the watermelons are fresh and thirst quenching. The waterhole.

Red-blooded Penguins in bow ties serve the forbidden fruit, their veins pulsating at the prospect of a catch. Lust, temptation and desire overwhelm but resistance is essential to survival.

Fight your way through the tangle of banana leaves, spiked branches and exotic foliage. Sit down slowly, your silk dressing gown, draped around your slender shoulders, ethereally brushes the unvarnished Italian mosaic tiles.

Wrap your lips around sweet Pina Coladas and lean back into the wicker of your chair. The heat of the glasshouse warms your bones and eases your mind, slip into a euphoria of fresh life and vegetation.

Hot, hot, hot.

Drift off to where the stars go brightest but just for an hour or so.

Siesta.

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Later inside the bar the colourful, feathered birds in bright Versace

swing their hips from left to right as the amateur in the Hawaiian print shirt imposes his moves on the crowd, the male ego. The neon lights glow pinker as the pack jumps and moves together as one.

Bodies swaying, heads rolling, beats dropping...

This is the Club Tropicana [17]

CHAPTER TWO

hOLLYWOOD ARTEFACTS

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knew

She her life belonged to the

people now

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Skin brushing skin and

lips

brushing lips

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AND ALL THIS OF SUCH

LITTLE MEANING [31]

CHAPTER THREE

SHALLOW WATER

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Hitch, they called him.

A man with a daring ability, the ability to take a nightmare, a nightmare you may not yet have conjured up yourself, and turn it into a reality.

He was a man who understood certain things, like how to make the skin crawl and the hairs stand ridged on end. He knew how to pluck tension and suspense from out of nowhere and most vitally he had an innate understanding of fear. He knew exactly what it took to truly frighten a human being and that is exactly what he had in mind. ************************************************** After, when the film has run its course and we have climbed unaware into bed is when it begins. Fear grips us at those moments when we have nothing to fill the empty space in our heads with. The hours where we have far time too much time to ponder and reflect are the ones where our palms start to sweat and we instinctively pull all of our chilled limbs under the quilts as a necessary precaution.

Sometimes the mind wanders off on its own accord. We assume that we are fine, that tonight we will be okay.

“I’m not scared” But Dreams have thoughts of their own too, they think conceptually and they are very bold, unafraid to venture into territories that the body would not dare to go. They extract darkness from places that we have only ever known on screen and create experiences from them that sometimes feel so real. They wake us up at three in the morning, our veins pulsating and our hearts palpitating.

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We do it to ourselves.

We are the ones who conjure up those scenarios from the sounds we think we hear in the middle of the night and we allow every shadow in the darkness to become the figure from our cruellest nightmares.

They are all spooks of our own creation.

The things our eyes see do stay with us, they attach themselves to our buried memories and they linger there in the shadows, waiting for an appropriate moment to expose themselves. And just when we forget to remember, they will re-appear because after all, we cannot un-see them.

That face.

We feel as though that face will haunt us evermore, that every single time we close our eyes we will not be able to erase that arresting and harrowing image.

How was such an iconic moment created from a mere scream?

That feminine face of terror, she holds such great significance to our culture. The dark shadow behind the plastic, opaque curtain haunts every shower; as the water runs over the face, one eye widens and widens.

On edge.

He knew. He knew that it was a scream that would alter the face of Hollywood horror indefinitely. Sexuality, violence and deception became forever encapsulated in grainy black, white and grey.

Tonight, the man from the motel becomes your worst nightmare.

And just up the coastline in little Bodega Bay, the blackest birds begin to gather on the old telephone line. They perch silently in their rows.

Eyes black and beady, they watch the children.

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There is a fear here that had never existed before and yet is heightened in mere seconds. The birds.

Then there is red. We associate a flash of the colour with danger, with passion, with anger. Imagine a fear so intense that every unpleasant detail of a sleeping memory is hurled right back up at the very sight of red.

Dearest, darling Marnie, her tragic and tainted childhood forever preserved in her complex adulthood. She was scarred by masculinity and not loved quite enough by her mother. Red haunts her.

Sometimes people, real people, are the ones we are afraid of the most.

The actions of a living, breathing man can prove more devastating and more terrible than anything any ghost or spectre could ever do.

Then there is another kind of fear. The fear of failure, of failing the people we love the most in the world, of failing to fit in and failing to impress. “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again‌â€?

Daphne Du Maurier did not give the girl a name because in the dark and glamorous shadow of Rebecca she was not worthy of one.

The girl tried hard to impress them, to morph into one of them but she was never accepted, never felt good enough. She never understood that it was because she was so different.

Once the dark truth is unearthed and all the cards are set out on the table, our fears are diminished. The girl had never realised until the moment he said it that he had never loved Rebecca.

LOVED HER? He had despised her.

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Hitch, they called him.

The man with a daring ability, the ability to take a nightmare, a nightmare you may not yet have conjured up yourself, and turn it into a reality.

He was a man who understood certain things, like how to make the skin crawl and the hairs stand ridged on end. He knew how to pluck tension and suspense from out of nowhere and most vitally he had an innate understanding of fear. He knew exactly what it took to truly frighten a human being and that is exactly what he had in mind.

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CHAPTER FOUR

the girl with no face

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It is all in the face.

The gateway to the heart, a shortcut to the soul.

So much can be said within a single expression, a subtle movement of the lips or a quick shift in the eyes…

And oh the eyes! Those instruments of deceit, those masters of seduction…what are we without our eyes?

Shock, pleasure, and humour… what would become of the comedian who occasionally shows face or the lover who cannot help but lose all control in that final euphoric and pinnacle moment?

It is all in the face.

The arms are expressive too, sometimes. There are those two fingers that appear in a flash and disappear just as rapidly, Embrace who welcomes friends and family alike and the fingertips that run so delicately up and down his spine in the earliest hours of the morning…

But no, it is not enough. Not enough to just feel that skin on skin without the warmth and comfort that comes with looking up into those big, knowing brown eyes.

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But, the body too can show emotion‌

Vulnerable and childlike is the ball of bones curled up in the cold, round top bath, whilst in the nightclub the slow winding and rolling of the hips entices a mate like a spider in a web.

In the hall they are statuesque on the rubber mats as incense smoke winds down the open space infusing their minds with freedom and serenity, although their bodies maintain a position of power and control.

Our limbs, our bodily parts do understand how to feel. They learnt from the face that there are simpler ways to explain and express ourselves than to merely speak. Speech is lazy, an ironic example of an action without words and anything can be said but not everything can be felt.

For the tongue lies just as much as the eyes try too.

Without our faces we are blank canvases, mannequins on a runway able to transform into and become anything and everything we desire.

There are no obstacles; she can wear those risquĂŠ Alexander Wang boots, her face unable to give away that she is self-conscious.

There is no one to judge her beauty, only her style and her accessories and because of this, she is invincible.

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EPILOGUE

THEY WILL COME

They come to me because they desire fame, they crave money and they believe that this life is their destiny.

They come to me because I have proved my worth time again.

Because I remain at the pinnacle of human aspiration, the mother and the father of all lost hopes and dreams.

They come to me because they believe that I will change their lives forever; that they will never have to look back and in my presence they will make something of themselves.

They come to me claiming to shine far brighter than all of the other aspiring stars in my moonlit sky.

They come to me with their rouged lips and their wide eyes.

They come to me innocent, untouched and a whole person.

And inch by precious inch my lifestyle begins to take its toll.

They lose their faith in me. They feel rejected; too old and never talented enough.

They are self-destructive and unreasonable; just kids caught up in the dark side of the American Dream.

They are demanding and troubled; their souls saddened by the harshness of my reality.

In the daylight they are frightened by the truth of me, of the way I really look when my lights have faded, when the lovers have left and they lie in the dirty sheets fragmented and confused because afterall, this was their choice.

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But still‌

THEY WILL COME

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