Not Vary Right
By Bryan May
There were all kinds of plans
for you this week. Good plans, too. Turmoil in the
industry, anecdotes of trips of the international variety,
ingestion of legal narcotics to foil sinister intentions of
toxins attempting to inhibit my cost per action
distribution, lack of ingestion of vitamins necessary for
stimulating my ever-atrophying condition and the lost
Peruvian girl complete with eye contact, green handbag and
need for warmth. But now I’m left in the desperate hours of
the AM, with hours due until deadline and hours to do before
dead time. “You look beat.” “I am beat.” Even the
near-blind, loopy security guard could see I was close. Did
I ever tell you my theory concerning the makers of Coca-Cola
infusing their diet variety with an addictive substance,
resulting in purchasing, ordering and drinking hysteria?
Diet Coke drinkers, I mean true Diet Coke drinkers,
have you ever noticed how much they consume? I’ve known
more than three people to say, “I need my DC.” In the late
90’s I worked at a dot com start-up, and my boy there drank
easy a 12er a day. Yeah. Not Twelve Monkeys, not
twelve little 1/16th Cherokee Indian brothers of
mine, not twelve steps Re:hab. Twelve diet coke cans
emptied into the recycle bin by 5:00 pm. And who knows what
that fiend was up to come 5:30 or 6:00. There really isn’t
anything theoretical or insightful involved in my Diet Coke
theory other than I think they do some shady trash. How
come no one in my family will answer me regarding my Native
background?
It was mentioned to me some
time ago that I might actually be 1/8th Cherokee,
and not only 1/16th. But no one is really sure.
No one is really sure of anything in my family, except that
we love each other. If there’s a problem or uncertainty,
insecurity or worry, we pretty much all keep it to ourselves
and let it fester and boil internally. Cheers to health!
After telling the DC-sipping security guard that I was
indeed beat, I made my way to the corner, where the lost,
green bag toting Peruvian girl stood anxiously. I would
find out that she is an exchange student here for three
months, and that she needed access to the gym in order to
look for her friend. This friend may or may not have been
inside, but she got off the bus in hopes that she would find
her in the gym cycling or stretching or running, because she
had been sitting on a bus with LA’s finest and was ready to
get off. She had never ridden a bus until she came to
America, which I found humorous in its own little way.
Riding a Los Angeles bus three hours a day? Aren’t you
supposed to come here and have your life be better?
I would rather ride on a three-man motorcycle through Iraq
with Pee-Wee Herman and Michael Jackson than be on one of
our buses during prime time. “Bryan, please show me inside
the gym.” Her tongue exposed itself at some point during
every word. That, and the thick accent, upped the level of
intrigue by a significant margin. “Bryan, I don’t want to
get back on the bus. Scary.” “Yeah, I hear you there. I’d
rather be gimp-masked riding on a three man… nevermind.”
“Let’s see if your friend is inside the gym, I’ll sneak you
in.” She was wandering the streets trying to find a gym
where her friend “might” be. The venture didn’t
appear to be going so well. She looked beat. “Bryan, are
you tired?” “Just a little. Let’s go find your friend.”
“Please find her! Plllllllllleeeeeeeeeeease find her. That
bus is not very right.” What’s the need for proper
grammar when you can communicate an entire encounter, a
string of days, and a mass of relationships all in three
words, that when strung together would make your high school
English teacher gasp in horror, yet they are making perfect
sense to you and me right about now. “Hey Bryan, can I
approve this guy as a Publisher,” my new rep asked me.
“What does he do?” “He owns a bunch of whore
sites.” “He owns a bunch of whore sites,” I inquired
incredulously. “That sounds very right! Approve
that mother f!” “No, man. A bunch of hor-ror sites.” “Ah,
horror sites. Got it. Give him Ghost Sweeps, damn it!” My
girl from the South, America that is, never found her
friend, and had to return to the not very right bus stop. I
roundabout but not really extended a hypothetical ride home,
not really offering as I had a conference call at eight, and
her not accepting the hypothetical invitation, as she was in
a foreign land and didn’t know me. I mentioned that I would
offer to drive her home if it weren’t for my conference
call, not that she should say yes anyway, because there are
a bunch of not very right in the mind delinquents, and I
could be one of them, to which she agreed. I seemed like
the nicest in the land, yet even still she could not accept
my passenger seat as her 15-minute place of rest even if I
had the necessary allotted time to offer it to her. Next
time the bus dropped Andiana at my corner and she was lost,
we settled on meeting for dinner. She’s studying bi-sexual
architecture, which sounds interesting. “Bi-sexual
architecture??!!” This girl was really wowing me. She
laughed with an open mouth and joyous eyes. She’d had a
long day and needed that one. “No, silly. Symmetrical
architecture. You say funny things that are not very
right.” Yeah, I suppose I do. Probably won’t stop anytime
soon, ether. Ether?! Grab a cloth, put it in your palm,
and hand it over, this ghost needs some shut-eye!
bmay@emarketmakersinc.com
Bryan May
