Rev Jen: where have I been?
So, I haven't done the Anti-Slam in well over a year. Mostly, it was due to lack of venues. I was hesitant to ask Jack's because you don't shit where you eat and Jack's is where I eat, drink, use the Internet and chat with people when I'm lonely so no one light the place on fire. Old Man Hustle was the last venue. I think the phrase "shit-show" aptly describes the tiny closet that I tried to make work but they were actually, truly mismanaged. They let Gerber bartend for Christ's sake. First night of the show, someone got locked in the bathroom and Gerber tore the door down. Ah…the Anti-Slam. How I have missed it. More than anything, I've missed my fellow art stars. Most of you have been part of my life for most of my adult life but the beauty of this show is that someone new always shows up, looking for a family, so to speak, and though we are insane, we aren't like the Manson Family because we would never kill anyone, especially a hot person like Sharon Tate. So, with all that said, this has been the single roughest year of my life (so far!) and I have, to a certain degree, fallen off the radar. A little less than a year ago, my boyfriend, Joe, had a cerebral hemmorhage while visiting his family in Boston. Yes. Boston will give you a stroke. I'd called his family a few weeks earlier and said I thought something was seriously wrong with him. And they were like, "Yeah. Something's been seriously wrong with him forever." They chalked it up to him being a drunk even though I insisted that I was a worse drunk but could still see something was wrong with him. So he has a stroke and would have died if his six-year old nephew hadn't found him close to death on the floor. He was rushed to Mass General where they discovered he had brain cancer. After 8 and a half (how Felliniesque!) hours of surgery, they removed 70% of the tumor. The other 30% is slow-growing so, unfortunately for all of you gross dudes that have tried to bang me while he languishes in a hospital, he will live but not without the constant risk of seizures. Joe's family hates me. Not sure why except that I'm a mentally unstable alcoholic who lives in a Troll Museum, is unemployable and spends most of my time either in eviction court or talking to my pets. Still, I went to Boston a ton of times. At Mass General, they let me have private time with Joe wherein I made sweet love to him, His head was bleeding a river and I didn't want to notice. The family never invited me to stay with them so I would go all the way out to Cape Cod and stay with either George's mom or CC's parents and got caught skinny dipping in CC's parent's pool. This trip made my trips to Boston about 3 hours longer than need be but I did it anyway. One day, the bus from the Cape to Boston just didn't show up so I got to his sister's house an hour late. She was infuriated. But, Boston buses appear to run on "Lower East Side Standard Time." Late.
Meanwhile, after my 3rd trip there, I was fired from my job as a sex surrogate for "taking too much time off" to see Joe and for, not kidding, "doing my job too well" because the evil bitch of a doctor wanted everyone to have sexual problems forever and I am capable of fixing a flaccid dick in minutes.
Broke, I let a psychotic lesbian stripper stay with me and she agreed to pay one third of the rent. One morning, she came home at 7 AM, strung out and for no apparent reason beat me and CC (who was staying on the Slanger Memorial Cot recovering from back surgery) up. We didn't fight back because we would be the ones sitting in jail right now and also, she hit lke a girl. Had I hit back, I would flattened the bitch. CC tried to hold her back, away from me, and every time he let go and begged her to leave, she punched me in the face again. So I grabbed my cell phone and called the cops whereupon she fled. The cops were like, "That's some single white female shit!" I filed a report but that's as far as it went. I had bigger problems.
I got a bladder infection, probably from not bathing in my haste to get back and forth to Boston and also, my overwhelming despair. Bellevue gave me a high potency antibiotic. About 4 days after taking it, I went into anaphylactic shock on the bus back from Boston. (Never go there, as you might die.) I called my neighbor Craig, an army vet who served in Iraq who lives a block away. It was 4 AM but he had a kitten and couldn't sleep. He rushed over and took my temperature. It was 103.9. He had to go to work as a janitor at 6. I called CC who is a very short ride away. He took me to Bellevue where I was interred for 4 days and signed my own "do not recuscitate" forms. There was a crazy old lady named Mary there who I fell in love with because she tormented the staff over their shitty food, at one point, dangling a piece of cheese in their faces, screaming, "I hate cheese." Tom Tenney recorded the fiasco. A random person brought me a drawing of a shooting star and I started crying remembering the first time I saw a shooting star with my dad on my front lawn when I was about six, at a crazy Saint Patties' Day party at the Miller house. The poison left my system and I was told I am in perfect health. They let me go.
A couple weeks later, Joe's other sister, not the one in Boston, but the one who is a Minister, actually showed up at my door and banged on it. I thought it was one of the annoying kids from the skate shop around the corner who steal my shit and drink my beer, so I ignored it and then I heard, "Jen. I know you're in there. I want Joe's checkbook and I want his paintings." I didn't even know the motherfucker had a checkbook since I'd supported his even more unemployable ass working as a sex surrogate for 6 months. So the banging gets louder and crazier. CC is on the Marc Slanger Memorial Cot in the Troll Museum, still recovering from back surgery. He came into my room and was like WTF? THEN, JP, came running into my room and told me there were a bunch of cops on our fire escape in para-military gear with machine guns. I called the 7th Precinct. They told me that the good "Minister" had called in a suicide threat regarding me and that if I didn't open the door, they would break it down. OK, last thing I needed, was yet another thing broken in my shithole. JP and CC opened the door where there were about 16 cops with AK47's pointed at their heads. Slowly, I handed them some paintings, one of JJ and handing that over, I felt more than anything, sorrow not fear. They rushed into my room, grabbed me violently, cuffed me and threw me, quite literally down my 72 steps and into a van. Do you know how hard it is just to get down the stairs? In handcuffs and no shoes, it's a lot harder! When we got in the "cruiser" they realized I was not suicidal at all but they had to take me (without writ of habeas corpus, of course) to Bellevue anyway. At Bellevue, I was thrown into the psych ward. There was a tiny black midget with dreadlocks that they allowed into the women's ward because he was getting harassed by the men. He was the only other person apparently not suffering from catatonic schizophrenia there so we watched Springer together. I refused all tranquilizers and watched as the midget curled up on he a cot and slept in the fetal position. He was the size of a 5-year old. I think about hurdles I've faced but also, that I've never been a black midget, which must make life very hard, if not unendurable. If you've never been to the psych ward in Bellevue, it's like prison. No one is allowed to see you. But a psychiatrist saw me and I told her my story and to look for a preppy dude named CC in the lobby. She found him and our stories coroberated exactly so she knew I couldn't make this shit up even if I stayed up all night. Fiction isn't my strong point. She let me go. I felt bad leaving the midget behind, sleeping. I wanted to take him with me and take care of him. I wanted to be the person in the waiting room, helping him get out. And I wanted to give him a hug and tell him, that like me, he was a beautiful freak.
I walked home with CC but my heart broke for everyone left behind.
I'm a wreck. Nerves are shot but I need to eat. The pets need to eat. CC has bandages on his back and he can't change them because they are on his back and I know what it's like to have to deal with a shit-ton of bandages. He'd gone out his way to help me get to Boston, his parents helped me. You gotta be there for people because a day will come when the favor is returned and also, because it's the right thing to do. You know, the whole "do unto others" thing.
I take work in a sex club run by a group of Italian people with a specific title I will not say out loud. It's one day a week and it's fun. As Bruce correctly predicted, they had baked ziti served on the first night. But a few weeks in some gross dudes from Dubai show up, as the club is next to a fancy hotel. My boss has the flu so he goes home early and the bouncer gets drunk and stoned and isn't watching shit. So, to make a long story short, a large man from Dubai sexually assaults me. He puts a leather belt around my neck and basically starts choking me to death and manages to slip his revolting, tiny dingus into my honeybucket but he doesn't finish and he doesn't last long because I kick him in the abdomen. The bouncer finally hears the madness, comes in and throws the guy out. I don't go to the cops because a.) I like my boss and don't want him to get in trouble and b.) I can just imagine the cops, "Oh, you are a sex worker…" Also, dude was from Dubai. I didn't know his fucking name. It takes me a week. I stop eating altogether. I tell only a few people, one being CC, who is still on the cot! He insists we go to the hospital because one of my ribs is perpendicular to my rib cage and I am covered in bruises. Only this time, we go to Beth Israel because no matter what, I won't be able to pay medical bills. Broken rib, severe chest and abdominal trauma and a bruised trachea. I am still convinced the piece of shit was going to strangle me and I thanked God for my thigh muscles and soccer kick.
A few days later, Joe comes to town for his art opening and it was like he'd never left. Only he looks different. Having lost his hair, he looks more like Richard Dreyfuss than white Jesus. I had mentioned the injuries and had been telling most people I "fell." We fuck and cuddle and I start crying and he said, quite simply, "You were raped." We are like twins and can't hide anything from each other. He held me and stroked my hair but his family started calling him non-stop. They wanted him to come back to Boston immediately even though he told
me he felt more relaxed than he had in months. I begged him to stay another day but they'd bought him a train ticket for that afternoon. He walked out the door and I felt my sanity crumble. I didn't eat for 10 days. Then I tried to eat and have a sip of Bud and the next thing I know there is projectile vomit covering the Troll Museum. Meanwhile there is a sweet French brother and sister staying in my room via Airbnb. I got back to the hospital, Beth Israel again and they tell me I have gasoenteritis and that I've become anorexic and have major depression. CC visits. It's important to have friends who telecommute and can take their laptop anywhere. They filled me with IV fluids and were about to let me go when they tried to feed me a sandwich and I projectile vomited once again. So I spent the night there until I could eat food. I can never drink Budweiser again so the apocalype is clearly at hand. A little rum, yes. (So maybe the world won't end entirely.) In fact, just writing all this down, I need rum to wrap my head around it. I am trying to get back on my feet and have started my application with Teach America to teach LGBT teens because they are more harassed and have a higher drop-out rate than any other group of kids in America and I feel like, if I can teach a bunch of crazy art stars to behave and work on their art, I will be a great teacher. But getting back on my feet meant starting up this show again where I can share shit like this. Not throwing a pity me party, because I am strong, strong enough to kick the shit out of a buck-toothed rapist, to just let a lunatic throw punches at my head, to have AK47's pointed at my head and strong enough to share all this crap. Still can't even kill a roach yet. But I'll get there.
And with this tale of woe, I begin the show I started in 1995 and I welcome everyone to just share the shit out of whatever is going on. No matter how fucked up you are, you will always be a ten.
Oh yeah, and the good "Minister"; when I saw her before the art opening, I hugged and kissed her. I wanted to teach her two lessons: judge not lest ye be judged and, forgiveness is divine. Maybe I did really earn the ordination I got from the back of Rolling Stone magazine.
Meanwhile, after my 3rd trip there, I was fired from my job as a sex surrogate for "taking too much time off" to see Joe and for, not kidding, "doing my job too well" because the evil bitch of a doctor wanted everyone to have sexual problems forever and I am capable of fixing a flaccid dick in minutes.
Broke, I let a psychotic lesbian stripper stay with me and she agreed to pay one third of the rent. One morning, she came home at 7 AM, strung out and for no apparent reason beat me and CC (who was staying on the Slanger Memorial Cot recovering from back surgery) up. We didn't fight back because we would be the ones sitting in jail right now and also, she hit lke a girl. Had I hit back, I would flattened the bitch. CC tried to hold her back, away from me, and every time he let go and begged her to leave, she punched me in the face again. So I grabbed my cell phone and called the cops whereupon she fled. The cops were like, "That's some single white female shit!" I filed a report but that's as far as it went. I had bigger problems.
I got a bladder infection, probably from not bathing in my haste to get back and forth to Boston and also, my overwhelming despair. Bellevue gave me a high potency antibiotic. About 4 days after taking it, I went into anaphylactic shock on the bus back from Boston. (Never go there, as you might die.) I called my neighbor Craig, an army vet who served in Iraq who lives a block away. It was 4 AM but he had a kitten and couldn't sleep. He rushed over and took my temperature. It was 103.9. He had to go to work as a janitor at 6. I called CC who is a very short ride away. He took me to Bellevue where I was interred for 4 days and signed my own "do not recuscitate" forms. There was a crazy old lady named Mary there who I fell in love with because she tormented the staff over their shitty food, at one point, dangling a piece of cheese in their faces, screaming, "I hate cheese." Tom Tenney recorded the fiasco. A random person brought me a drawing of a shooting star and I started crying remembering the first time I saw a shooting star with my dad on my front lawn when I was about six, at a crazy Saint Patties' Day party at the Miller house. The poison left my system and I was told I am in perfect health. They let me go.
A couple weeks later, Joe's other sister, not the one in Boston, but the one who is a Minister, actually showed up at my door and banged on it. I thought it was one of the annoying kids from the skate shop around the corner who steal my shit and drink my beer, so I ignored it and then I heard, "Jen. I know you're in there. I want Joe's checkbook and I want his paintings." I didn't even know the motherfucker had a checkbook since I'd supported his even more unemployable ass working as a sex surrogate for 6 months. So the banging gets louder and crazier. CC is on the Marc Slanger Memorial Cot in the Troll Museum, still recovering from back surgery. He came into my room and was like WTF? THEN, JP, came running into my room and told me there were a bunch of cops on our fire escape in para-military gear with machine guns. I called the 7th Precinct. They told me that the good "Minister" had called in a suicide threat regarding me and that if I didn't open the door, they would break it down. OK, last thing I needed, was yet another thing broken in my shithole. JP and CC opened the door where there were about 16 cops with AK47's pointed at their heads. Slowly, I handed them some paintings, one of JJ and handing that over, I felt more than anything, sorrow not fear. They rushed into my room, grabbed me violently, cuffed me and threw me, quite literally down my 72 steps and into a van. Do you know how hard it is just to get down the stairs? In handcuffs and no shoes, it's a lot harder! When we got in the "cruiser" they realized I was not suicidal at all but they had to take me (without writ of habeas corpus, of course) to Bellevue anyway. At Bellevue, I was thrown into the psych ward. There was a tiny black midget with dreadlocks that they allowed into the women's ward because he was getting harassed by the men. He was the only other person apparently not suffering from catatonic schizophrenia there so we watched Springer together. I refused all tranquilizers and watched as the midget curled up on he a cot and slept in the fetal position. He was the size of a 5-year old. I think about hurdles I've faced but also, that I've never been a black midget, which must make life very hard, if not unendurable. If you've never been to the psych ward in Bellevue, it's like prison. No one is allowed to see you. But a psychiatrist saw me and I told her my story and to look for a preppy dude named CC in the lobby. She found him and our stories coroberated exactly so she knew I couldn't make this shit up even if I stayed up all night. Fiction isn't my strong point. She let me go. I felt bad leaving the midget behind, sleeping. I wanted to take him with me and take care of him. I wanted to be the person in the waiting room, helping him get out. And I wanted to give him a hug and tell him, that like me, he was a beautiful freak.
I walked home with CC but my heart broke for everyone left behind.
I'm a wreck. Nerves are shot but I need to eat. The pets need to eat. CC has bandages on his back and he can't change them because they are on his back and I know what it's like to have to deal with a shit-ton of bandages. He'd gone out his way to help me get to Boston, his parents helped me. You gotta be there for people because a day will come when the favor is returned and also, because it's the right thing to do. You know, the whole "do unto others" thing.
I take work in a sex club run by a group of Italian people with a specific title I will not say out loud. It's one day a week and it's fun. As Bruce correctly predicted, they had baked ziti served on the first night. But a few weeks in some gross dudes from Dubai show up, as the club is next to a fancy hotel. My boss has the flu so he goes home early and the bouncer gets drunk and stoned and isn't watching shit. So, to make a long story short, a large man from Dubai sexually assaults me. He puts a leather belt around my neck and basically starts choking me to death and manages to slip his revolting, tiny dingus into my honeybucket but he doesn't finish and he doesn't last long because I kick him in the abdomen. The bouncer finally hears the madness, comes in and throws the guy out. I don't go to the cops because a.) I like my boss and don't want him to get in trouble and b.) I can just imagine the cops, "Oh, you are a sex worker…" Also, dude was from Dubai. I didn't know his fucking name. It takes me a week. I stop eating altogether. I tell only a few people, one being CC, who is still on the cot! He insists we go to the hospital because one of my ribs is perpendicular to my rib cage and I am covered in bruises. Only this time, we go to Beth Israel because no matter what, I won't be able to pay medical bills. Broken rib, severe chest and abdominal trauma and a bruised trachea. I am still convinced the piece of shit was going to strangle me and I thanked God for my thigh muscles and soccer kick.
A few days later, Joe comes to town for his art opening and it was like he'd never left. Only he looks different. Having lost his hair, he looks more like Richard Dreyfuss than white Jesus. I had mentioned the injuries and had been telling most people I "fell." We fuck and cuddle and I start crying and he said, quite simply, "You were raped." We are like twins and can't hide anything from each other. He held me and stroked my hair but his family started calling him non-stop. They wanted him to come back to Boston immediately even though he told
me he felt more relaxed than he had in months. I begged him to stay another day but they'd bought him a train ticket for that afternoon. He walked out the door and I felt my sanity crumble. I didn't eat for 10 days. Then I tried to eat and have a sip of Bud and the next thing I know there is projectile vomit covering the Troll Museum. Meanwhile there is a sweet French brother and sister staying in my room via Airbnb. I got back to the hospital, Beth Israel again and they tell me I have gasoenteritis and that I've become anorexic and have major depression. CC visits. It's important to have friends who telecommute and can take their laptop anywhere. They filled me with IV fluids and were about to let me go when they tried to feed me a sandwich and I projectile vomited once again. So I spent the night there until I could eat food. I can never drink Budweiser again so the apocalype is clearly at hand. A little rum, yes. (So maybe the world won't end entirely.) In fact, just writing all this down, I need rum to wrap my head around it. I am trying to get back on my feet and have started my application with Teach America to teach LGBT teens because they are more harassed and have a higher drop-out rate than any other group of kids in America and I feel like, if I can teach a bunch of crazy art stars to behave and work on their art, I will be a great teacher. But getting back on my feet meant starting up this show again where I can share shit like this. Not throwing a pity me party, because I am strong, strong enough to kick the shit out of a buck-toothed rapist, to just let a lunatic throw punches at my head, to have AK47's pointed at my head and strong enough to share all this crap. Still can't even kill a roach yet. But I'll get there.
And with this tale of woe, I begin the show I started in 1995 and I welcome everyone to just share the shit out of whatever is going on. No matter how fucked up you are, you will always be a ten.
Oh yeah, and the good "Minister"; when I saw her before the art opening, I hugged and kissed her. I wanted to teach her two lessons: judge not lest ye be judged and, forgiveness is divine. Maybe I did really earn the ordination I got from the back of Rolling Stone magazine.