'Broken Dreamz' by #andRu? 5-9-14
Recall bouncing on the bed like a toddler, contorting my body into some head-meets-foot yoga pose of glee when my boyfriend bought the tickets off of Ticketmaster, our order confirmed.
I hadn't ever had anything resembling 5 grand in my bank account, but that's what getting one of my dreamz to materialize would start at…
The plane ride was a lot more cramped than my last aerial venture, 11 years prior. Did planes get smaller or had I gotten bigger?? Prolly both, I resigned.
But when we arrived…when we rode the escalators thru the Mall of Terminals and took the subway train with glittering ads for 9 - count them! - NINE Cirque du Soleil shows (I marveled, u could take a weeklong trip jus to catch those!) and stepped onto the palm tree-ladened boulevard of my new dreamz, complete with what looked like, yes, some meth-heads, and, yes, foreign people of every ilk (the rumors were true!), my excitement overwhelmed me in a way I don't remember since the Christmas I got that hot pink BMX bike with the white tires…
Everything was gigantic and flashing. This was even better than they made it out to be! Something to see, trouble to get into, everywhere the eye would wander!
Gambled for the first time ever, a 'Goddess' slot machine. Seemed fitting as we were going to witness a goddess in the flesh…
Didn't expect the amenities that came with our purchase of a lifetime! Thought we were going to jus have front row and a meet-and-greet with Britney Spears for the third show of her much-ballyhooed residency, but her longtime assistant and bff, Felicia or 'Fe,' magically appeared - the only time I was truly starstruck - to be our tour guide! With sugary, delicate Southern librarian charm she took us on the small-for-Brit-but-ginormous-for-Vegas stage where we met the lucky, toothsome dancers, talked with the affable costume department and I got to TOUCH her carnival-bright Circus jacket! Could a gay popstar-wannabe's wet dream get any better??
Perhaps no, but it could get worse.
'Now, Britney's really shy,' Fe warned us in her personable twang. 'Jus go up to her and introduce urself.'
Whatever, bitch… I thought. I'm shy, too…
I noticed the purple unicorn I'd brought Britney sticking out of the pocket of Fe's curious art-smock-looking jacket. The letter I'd typed up accompanied by the song I'd written for her in 2007 were snuggling in their sealed and glittered-with-a-kiss envelope alongside the stuffed animal.
'I will jus give these to Larry, I promise!' she'd told me before our tour had commenced. Larry…
Larry Rudolph…in 2007…had been cast off by the apparently nuts pop princess, acting out some kind of drug-rebellion fantasy or else true manic episode as she aligned with a dark paparazzo and a shady con artist from somewhere in the Middle East to steer her career, firing the man who had built her into the legend she had come to despise.
I watched helpless as the World-Lenz zoomed in and nearly obliterated the girl they once fantasized about, her ominous shaved head (was it rebellion against beauty? because she didn't wanna take a hair-sample drug test ordered by social services? a mind-controlled punishment for disobeying?), her two laughable marriages, her eventual sickening final act of being carried out on a stretcher after locking herself in the bathroom for hours with her baby boiz and refusing to come out, on display for all to dissect and mock with abandon.
It'z ok, girl, it'z ok… I'd written her, expressing my daily trials and tribulationz thru complete verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge-structured diary entriez, ramblingz, and bright ideaz I had started doing out of the blue five years before.
For u I pray, girl, yes I pray… And I really did call many angelz for her.
I hope that, yes, ma'am, one fine day… Did I mention I was a Pisces, a dreamer, lol?
I can make ur pain go away! What I thought she needed was a friend…and I knew I could be that unadulterated companion that didn't want anything from her. I could…
Now, six years after that writing, to the naked public eye she had gotten it somewhat back together. Larry was back and in full effect, walking smartly by me as I stood patiently in line - quite calm, actually - outside the towering casino that from the back seemed stark, cold, and pasty-white, a December desert breeze chilling us all like a threat.
When I'd met Kelly Clarkson or the Spice Girls, personality shined like the twinkling celestial bodiez those ladies were deemed. Kelly liked my neon-blue shoes; I lied and said her flop,My December, had touched me deep.
'Heyyy!!! Ginger DID decide to show up!' Scary Spice said to my Union Jack and (actual) stripper-platform-clad sister…
I watched patient and happy as the first in line, precious, tiny Latinas and their mom, disappeared around the partition and exited in dumbfounded glee, probably too young to understand any part of the weight of the moment.
Maybe I'd tell her about the letter and the song?? Maybe I'd say thank u for inspiring me to want to make music and be an artist??
Something would come. Let it be au naturelle. She's jus a person, I told myself.
And I believed that. Jus a little girl lost in an image, in a dream, as the song goes….
I hopped up a dangerous step leading to the photo-op of a lifetime as bright, blinding floodlights immediately berated me like a starving Papa bear that won't let Baby bear out of his sight…
What first struck me was her shape: diminutive, slight. Then her wig: obvious. Then all that MAKE-UP she was wearing!! I knew she was about to go onstage, but, day-um!
Doing as instructed, I stuck out my hand and said, 'Hello, Im Andru!'
I think she took my hand. I think she said something to me. I don't really remember, like a trauma victim can't piece together the events that led to the destruction of a dearest love.
Whatever she said in response, it came out as a mumble.
'Mmm…ok…' I think she muttered, and then looked down, the uncomfortable air between us thick enough to blanket us from the frosty wind outside, if needed.
Smile! one of the Godz seemed to lovingly whisper to us from above, and we simultaneously beared our grins. I noticed the almost-fear deep in the recessed corners of her mouth momentarily disappear on cue, a girl so accustomed to having to smile when she'd rather eat a turd it was a depressive survival technique.
I picked up my professional picture at will-call after the show, which was exactly as expected, completely manufactured glitz, 100% lip-synced, and an amazingly-good time, complete with Paris Hilton preening thru the audience and Lance Bass chillin' behind us.
But, after we'd met her, all of us who had bonded and reveled in our insanity to spend that kind of money on meeting one of our idols were left with the same empty feeling…
We talked about it, waiting for the show to start...
'Have u ever heard of MK Ultra??' I recall asking this cute, Emo-glam kid from Chicago.
'No...' he answered, puzzled.
I then attempted to explain the Youtube videos I'd seen of a secret CIA-brainwashing technique used since the 40's to control the minds of reportedly millions of people, especially female Disney stars, by the Illuminati so they could maintain their dominion over the zeitgeist of the world…
Britney's 07 meltdown?? A product of her programming going awry!!
And that's exactly what it had felt like I'd jus met: a programmed robot.
The kid from the Windy City didn't comprehend me, which was probably for the best.
My brain was spinning, but it steadied itself long enough to make sure I was 'onstage' as Britney went thru the motions onstage, taking my place as the One Most Into It as I end up doing at all of my girls' shows…
Took some amazing pictures, am still among the only people on tha Planet to watch her perform live or otherwise her last top 20, 'Work Bitch,' and have a tale unlike a lot of peepz' till tha world ends…
Climbed in my bed at the gaudy Flamingo Hotel and Casino under that cheap hot pink furry blanket, the throbbing residue of bad luck, lost life savings, and forgotten prostitutez who once had dreamz suddenly visible underneath the painful glare of so much fraudulent dam-created wattage.
At breakfast the next morn, I sat numb. I could not feel...I could not think…
My boyfriend, ever-patient, pressed me softly over my eggs benedict, knowing it doesn't usually take me long to compose a thought and express myself…
'POOR BRITNEY!' I suddenly yelped out, a river of maudlin tears bursting forth out of nowhere…and this boi jus does not ever cry!
Working out exactly what my mind's eye had perceived, and my subconscious had felt, I realized I'd met a tiny little girl, no different than the hispanic children who were first in line to meet her, who wanted to be anywhere in the universe other than meeting total strangers. She wasn't jus shy. She wasn't there. I was there, I was conscious and aware, but was she there??? Did I, in fact, meet a person or a robot?? I expected to have some kind of experience resembling meeting Kelly or Scary…but it felt like I'd met a child who was made to stand in a corner, perpetually in trouble for SOMETHING….and with so many theories out there as to what was actually going on in the world, I wasn't about to venture a final answer as to what really had taken place.
All I know, and all I'll ever remember, is that I met a sad, shell of a person who couldn't be any more far-removed from the confident image she once projected if she was, in fact, a clone-cyborg replication of the sweet girl so many once revered.
It'z ok, girl?? IF Larry gave her my song…IF robots can read…IF my intuition, so calm and centered, and the perceptions of everyone else who met her weren't somehow overtaken by the event at hand and led horribly astray...
No, nothing was ok….
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