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Rubin, Gary Panter, Mark Morris, Betsey Johnson, Angela Janklow,

Shannen Doherty, Molly Ringwald, 0 J Simpson, Michael DeLuca,

Laura Dern, Rene Chun, the Brady Bunch, Toni Braxton,

Shabba Ranks, the Miller Sisters, Jielo, Huckleberry Finn, Bill Murr

I’ tears off my face, when I hear someone outside the front door and a key slipped into the lock, unlocking the door, and the door opens and soeous guy"-peers in and spots iant framed poster of the Replacements’ Pleased to Meet Me LP, and the actor see his cue

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Everything surrounding the ship is gray or dark blue and nothing is particularly hip, and once or maybe lee a day this thin strip of white appears at the horizon line but it’s so far in the distance you can’t be sure whether it’s land or more sky It’s impossible to believe that any kind of life sustains itself beneath this flat, slate-gray sky or in an oceaii so cal could exist in such Iiiiibo, and any movement that occurs below the surface is so faint it’s like some kind of small accident, a tiny indifferent moment, a minor iiicident that shouldn’t have happened, and in the sky there’s never any trace of sun-the air seeuely transparent and disposable, with the texture of Kleenex-yet it’s always bright in a dull way, the wind usually constant as we drift through it, weightless, and below us the trail the ship leaves behind is a Jacuzzi blue that fades within ray sheet that blankets everything else surrounding the ship One day a noruely notice it, thinking about the enormous sums of money the Kiss reunion tourthe starboard side, waving its fin, showing off It’s easy to feel safe, for people to look at you and think so space, five days is a long time to stay unimpressed

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I boarded the QE2 still wearing the Comme des Garcons tux and I was so stoned by the tier terot on the ship is a blur of ies so imprecise you couldn’t really even classify the in raphers that I assu s hurriedly and badly packed-would be in ot there, a live band playing "The Las" had already been taken care of, since I h the whole e a QE2 VIP Gold Card-swiftly and with no hassles But I was still so wasted that I barely way, and then only with the help of a couple of production assistants dressed as extras, one on either side of me, and a triple espresso fro a jaunty version of "Anything Goes"

In my cabin I opened a complimentary split of Perrier-Jouet and downed two crumbled Xanax with it and then slulazed and only by squinting could I take in e, an okay bed, an unopenable porthole blurred opaque by the salt air, baskets of fresh fruit and flowers that I glumly stared at Impassively, I noticed a television and turned it on with a remote control it took(inconspicuously, I thought) on top of the TV I tried to focus and read a "Welco when I saw an invitation requesting my presence for cocktails with the ship’s "cruise director" My , a tiny Courteney Cox ht new oversized orange felt Versace overcoat I’d unpacked and thrown across the bed, she sotten acquainted with your life jacket," and I just mumbled whatever I was supposed to mumble at that point, which was, I think, "Just respect yourself, baby," then glared at her until she left and I relaxed back intodown the Hudson River I wrapped my head in a fluffy towel, started to sob inauthentically and then used one of the gift-box lotions I found when I hobbled into the bathrooet half hard or to conjure up a fantasy about Lauren Hynde or Chloe Byrnes or, for that matter, Gwen Stefani On the TV screen was a live feed of the horizon fro by and then ere under the Verrazano Bridge and then the sky was darkening and another world was taking over as it always does in tis that I couldn’t really re various Bart Simpson noises, Heather Locklear was a stewardess, I kissed and made up with Chris O’Donnell, the sound track was remixed Toad the Wet Sprocket and the special effects were cool and the filmmakers had hired a topnotch editor so the sequence really zipped and then there was a final shot- the ca closer and closer into the black hat Lauren Hynde gave e was distorted by the hat’s tiny red rose