This article has been contributed from the Fall 2008 issue of Resource Magazine, courtesy of the publisher. To subscribe to the magazine and explore Resource’s online features, visit the Resource Magazine website.
“Death doesn’t exist . . . ,” she said.
“Doesn’t exist?”
“Death.”
What was she saying? It seemed like she was answering a question I had asked. I had been out late celebrating the end of a big job, and was now about to hug the girl who was showing me around the Ferris wheel in Coney Island. Was she some kind of gypsy? She had tight pantyhose, a red T-shirt that dropped just below her crotch, and eyes lined with jet-black mascara. I felt overly sympathetic to her, like a brother wanting her to cover up. Focusing on the specs, I ran down the list: truck, Ferris wheel, Southern exposure. In other words, I was still rolling, but I had a job to do.
“That’s OK, I don’t need death. I just need an eighteen-wheeler attached to a Ferris wheel.” Though it seemed impossible, I was having a good feeling about this job coming together.
“Hey bro, pass me some of that.”
Jordan Maxwell is the best rigger in the city, and we were out drinking beers after a long day of shooting. Maxwell is the man—he had made the eighteen-wheeler swing back and forth beautifully on the Ferris wheel at Coney Island. F-ing awesome rig.
We had a little buzz on and decided to pick up a snack. It was 4 a.m. You gotta love New York for the late night snackability alone! We had gotten some oranges at a Korean deli on our way to a late-night eatery in the East Village and decided they were not too tasty, but looked pretty cool skimming across the wet city streets. A smile ran across our faces as we enjoyed the simple pleasure of watching little orange meteors skipping beautifully across 2nd Avenue.
“I think I been ‘mind-controlled’.”
“Really?” I have to admit that I was impressed and curious. A Manchurian Candidate. Swell. “How can you tell?” I asked, intercepting him as he careened toward the scene being filmed. I began to lead him over to the public area where people who wanted to watch could stand. There was a pause and the man, who was obviously homeless but also seemed either witty or informed, sneezed. New York has some of the best-educated and -connected taxi drivers and homeless people in the world, I thought.
“For real, you think you have been mind-controlled, by like, the government or something? Is that why you are homeless?”
“No! I like being homeless!” he protested. “You are the slave,” he insisted, pointing all the fingers of his left hand at me. “And precisely, I tend to think it’s something within the government. They move around and do whatever they like and seem to have jurisdiction over everything. They took me from my home, walked me right into JFK in my underpants. Nobody—none of the employees and security officers—even looked askance, mind you! Then off to a bay that was separated from the other terminals, where there was a large egg-shaped craft that flew me into space.”
I was working on a movie set. I’m told it stars the Dalai Lama and Jenny McCarthy, but I can’t be sure. Everyone’s a celebrity here. We were filming down by the waterfront. Getting permits can be tricky and require quite a bit of guan-xi, as the Chinese say, especially given the last-minute changes we always face in this industry that loves to spend money.
“The more money it spends, the more powerful it is. You ever hear of MK-ULTRA?” This homeless dude seemed to be responding to my thoughts.
“Hey, you seem like you know what’s up. Where can I get the best deal on sneakers? Broadway or Canal?” I joked.
“Is it any wonder all you can think about is shopping? You are informed, employed, and led by an all-consuming Mobius!”
“Ouch! Sharp reply by the man in rags . . .”
She looked like she had just stepped out of a magazine advertisement from the early ‘60s: tapered blue jeans, a black wool turtleneck sweater, a thin white leather belt, large bug-eye-shaped sunglasses, and red lipstick. At nearly eighty years old and with no signs of Botox, there was no question that Janey was in charge.
“You think Eyes Wide Shut was strange, let me tell you . . . the real criminals are not even from here . . . ,” she said, brushing the wisps of her bangs out of her face. That was the way it was all day: Janey constantly implying some outlandish Weltanschauung while deciding the fate of our photo shoot.
“Last week, Astronaut Edgar Mitchell freely admitted that our government has been communicating with extraterrestrials for more than sixty years,” Janey said, complaining as if it was about time or something.
I was listening intently because she drove the golf cart and had final say on where and when we could shoot in this prestigious estate that she alone was overseeing. We were on Long Island, just off the Long Island Expressway, using the 400-acre estate as a location for some Japanese product I had never heard of.
Her words penetrated me and then just dissolved. Janey’s cryptic approach to the property seemed to ignore the fact that it was built by an industrialist at the turn of the century to simply woo a woman of the aristocracy.
“Did you see the sphinxes?” Janey said, implying something esoteric, “and the angels over the door and along the building?” It was true: prominently displayed in the garden were two lion-sized sphinxes with large female breasts and heads. And the figures of angels were everywhere.
“I think some of the angels appear to have grown horns, or are chasing each other and behaving in what can best be described as ‘naughty behavior,” she continued.
It all seemed somehow too contemporary. “All the world’s a stage . . .” Shakespeare’s words unfolded at the thought of angels and sphinxes, adorning the scene of an exopolitical crime.
“A Vatican astronomer recently said that if aliens exist then they are God’s creatures. Does that translate into: aliens are people too? Haha-ha!” she laughed.
“I never really thought about what the Pope thinks,” I thought, “but I guess it vaguely seems to matter.”
“The Pope has been visited,” Janey said, while nodding at my request to set up a trampoline on the lawn between the sphinxes.
“They want a shot of the talent flying with the angels on the roof line,” I hear myself say out loud.