past 10050 lonesome lane, cielo; to the peak of the love that was runnin'

"it was so quiet that night - i'm sure you could have heard the sound of ice rattling in the cocktail tumblers in the homes way down the street."

the street of skid row in arcadia, usually lively, was tired on the night of february 17 and exuded a misgiving calm. kathleen's 312 manor lies at the end of the street, in a semi-seclusive, albeit genteel neighborhood. everything considered - someone should have heard something. fresh from "the human slaughterhouse on skid row," as the papers have commissioned it; kathleen has sixteen stab wounds, some inches deep, several bruised ribs and heavy rope-burns around her throat. for the first time, the doll's story of the bloodbath at the 312 will be heard.

kathleen, "the doll," doesn't have a manager. she doesn't have a spokesperson, an assistant, or even a maid. what she does have, though, is her brother sodapop - who "fixes what needs to be fixed," - and headlock, who "drives the car." there is also nineteen year-old trotsky, who tends to the property while kathleen or jimmy is away. that being said, she is not one of your run-of-the-mill celebrities, what always flanked with a fleet of people, nor is she the wild drug-dealing party monster that the papers typify her as. "she is the doll," jimmy illustrates, "when she's good, she's really good - but when she's bad, she's better."

the way to kathleen and jimmy's lonesome lane estate takes you up the hills, beyond the valley, high above the city of cielo. the drive goes along a curvy, beaten, single-lane road that dead ends at a gate - the gate of the kisses' 10050 summer retreat. her residence at skid row is now easily distinguishable, thanks to all the cop cars and press vans; to boot, the house has been spotlighted in countless television news specials and features nonstop since the day of the murders. the home in cielo is quite the opposite. these are the hills where the pretty people live - where the real world ceases to exist. the doll's domicile is set back against dense trees and thick flowers; hidden in the folds of the land and totally invisible during the daytime. howbeit, in the night, her lights can be seen all the way down in the valley.

i arrive at 10050 lonesome lane in the middle of the afternoon and it was hot - 89°; a bizarre temperature for early march in cielo. maybe summer has come early this year, to the delight of all. i approach the black security gates, entangled with budding primrose vines, and a grim veil drapes over me. a few minutes pass and headlock runs up; he motions me to come closer to the gate. he asks to see my credentials and after a bit of small talk, presses a button to allow me entry. as we walk up the cracked driveway, well overdue for a pave-job, i notice that he's carrying a gun on his hip. i also observe that the usual troupe of flashers aren't piled outside, caterwauling to catch a glimpse of the doll - they have been keeping their distance since the murders.

casing the place, i make my way towards the main house - i see a garage to my left, the doll's black gravedigger parked outside, dripping and gleaming bright; obvious victim of a pre-summer car wash. continuing on, off in the distance, i see a large, lavish-looking pool, surrounded by thick, shady bushes and blossoming patches of mountain laurel and lilac, the ground nearby blanketed in wildflowers. to the right, is the main house. far in the back is the guest bungalow, on the edge of the ravine, where trotsky rooms. in all, it's at least three times the size of her skid row property. the 312 was "elbow to elbow with snobby snobs and had a backyard that you could spit from one end to the other without too much of a headache." in so many words, it was a small squat. 10050 lonesome lane - nicknamed 'the love shack' by kathleen - is a not just any port in the storm; it is the port in the storm.

she peeks out from a window upstairs and then opens it to shout inaudibly. moments later, she appears on the lawn. her once tan and beautiful body is now littered with ragged scrapes and spotty bruises; she has gauze dressings on her arms and legs, hiding deep gashes, as well as a thick bandage wrapped around her ribs, supporting a gaggle of contused ribs. there are dark, purple rope burns around her neck.

she doesn't say hello, she just turns toward the view of the valley and lifts her hands to shield the sun from her eyes; i follow suit. then, once a few moments have passed, she says, "booze, dust, breaking hearts - believe what you will; make up more if you want." i tell her that i have no means to hang her out to dry with the fence. she smiles and politely quips, "good, because i know people who know people who could break your legs if you do."

headlock yells to her from the garage that she has a phone call in the main house. she treads inside and i, getting used to the feeling, am right behind her. her 10050 love shack is an attractive place and in many ways a simple, modest home. the front door opens into the living room - i spy wooden floors, white walls and exposed beams; a wood stove sits in one corner and an ample bookcase full of records stands in another. there is a hayloft overhead, ladder leading to the plush, pillow garret above.

the wolfman jack show is on the radio, sounds of laughter and happiness ring through the lively household. that is, until i glance down at the sofa in front of me - draped over the back is an american flag, stained heavily with blood. in front of the lounge is a zebra rug, decorated in a similar fashion. a blood-spattered lamp off in the distance fits the design motif perfectly.

"pretty gruesome, right?" she inquires with a grin and hands me a drink. i nod and take a sip - it's straight whiskey and ice and not the iced tea i was stupidly expecting. i swallow and hold back the tears as she continues, "you think that's bad? jimmy and his kid brother, joey, received the charming chore of cleaning up the crime scene after the fuzz was done with it."

i feel a look of disbelief come across my face and jimmy, loping in from the kitchen, says, "it's all true - every word." he is tall, thin and shirtless. candy bar in one hand and beer in the other, he is none other than kathleen’s main squeeze. he tells me that once he and joey had removed the furniture to replace the carpet, they could see exactly what kind of evil-doings took place. jimmy tells me that joey found other significant pieces of evidence, but refused to expose it to the police or press. by the time the two had removed the carpet, blood was found underneath, having soaked into the wooden floor below. also, in jimmy and kathleen’s bedroom, the filmmaker boogie had been stabbed, and in his blood were the words 'piggys' and 'live freaky, die freaky' written on the walls. a piece of rope was left swinging over the rafters, clearly deemed useless for the investigation. jimmy says, "i lost it. there was blood - all over the place. it looked like the set of a horror flick. i love her and i find it hard to talk about this and say what i mean, because in this instance, it is not my reputation on the line, but the reputation of the girl i love." jimmy, a man not often sodden with tears, pauses briefly to wipe his eyes. he continues, "she is the toughest girl in the whole wide world."

kathleen stops him and suggests we go out to by the pool, as the heat has become stifling in the house. jimmy grabs more beer from the refrigerator; kathleen grabs her cigarettes and illegal drugs. in the loggia by the water, she skins up a joint and continues for jimmy, "there was a lot of talk in the papers about parties in the house," she says, "and it's all true, what the people say. the 312 was the party that never ended. it was a seldom sight to not see the gates constantly opening and closing - people coming and going. i would be working and jimmy would be working; yet, every night there was always someone coming over. i’ve been there. in my house there were plenty of parties where people smoked drugs and guzzled booze. i have never been to a single party where someone wasn't stoned."

jimmy emerges from the shade and, once realizing kathleen is rolling fatty, scampers over to trotsky’s guest house and invites him in on it. it takes her a mere minute - she is skilled in her craft and has perfected her art. a few quick flicks of the wrist and her pile of grass is gone, revealing one rather fat doobie. "time waits for no man," she says, and lights it up, without trotsky and jimmy.

the two return and jimmy says, "you know, when i phoned her that day from mulholland - that could have been the last time i talked to her." he takes a hit and says, "she was bitching at me, because i was trying to weasel out of attending a party with her. she also talked about possibly getting signed with hep parade, to which she was keyed up about. it just seems so silly now."

"you would have never believed it, though!" kathleen laughs, "the killers - they looked just like kids! they wore beads and had long hair and were barefoot - they totally fit the part of someone you would see hanging around the 312 on any given night." kathleen goes on to say that one of the young girls, sent to check out the property for other party guests, smiled and waved to her through one of the windows - so kathleen smiled and waved right back. the girls continued walking, casing the grounds. "they had to be the dumbest crooks alive," kathleen says, "trotsky snores louder than jimmy does. if you ask me, that's the million dollar question - why did they pass trotsky by?"

she shrugs the mystery off for another time and carries on, "the next thing i know - and this is no shit," she says, "a young, blonde boy came into soda's bedroom with a knife and told me to follow him. i was scared shitless." she and her friends accompanied the man into the living room, where another man with a gun was waiting for them. "you’ve got to understand that these weren't your average horror movie monsters - they looked like barefoot, hitchhiking, grass-smoking kids! i didn't know if i should laugh, cry for help or what." the group of eight stood trapped in front of the 312's stone fireplace. once assembled, the older man with the gun demanded they lay on the ground and bram goodman, brother of beau, said, "why? what do you want?"

kathleen looks up from skinning up another smoke, "so he shot him." bram’s eyes opened wide; he fell to the floor instantly and the girls began to scream - some for help and "some just for the hell of it."

the blonde man with the knife then started to jump around the room, trying to scare the girls. he hopped back and forth and would yell, "watch out!" and wave his knife in front of their faces.

he stepped on bram’s hand and bram yelped, "so he put two more bullets in him," kathleen says. although she doesn't seem fazed by the tale, there's a cold tone in her voice.

jimmy wraps a lanky arm around her shoulder and says in a low tone, "it's okay baby - we're going to get them." he is referring to the instance that two of the assailants managed to flee the 312 property and are still at large. jimmy tells me that he filled up a gun cabinet in the 10050 love shack and now has kathleen sleep with a pistol by her bed. "i told her to shoot first and ask questions later."

kathleen keeps going, "they shot bram and boogie, who, up until that point had been filming everything, lowered his camera. naturally, the killers demanded her pick it back up and continue recording." the film remains in evidence for now, "but i’m sure it will be out in no time. the toybox will not have the release of DIG!

compromised any further." next, the young man asked if the group had any money - only the girls did. with many opportunities having already passed to escape and very few chances left, kathleen began thinking of a way to beat feet, "there's a back door, but that just leads to a gate, and i need keys to get out or i have to punch in a code. it was basically a murder movie and i was trying to buy myself time. i kept asking if he wanted assorted expensive items in my bedroom, which is all the way upstairs - i tried to give him a pair of jimmy's boots, a diamond ring and my collection of overdrawn credit cards, to which he all denied." by the time the four made it back to the living room, the man with the gun sent the man with the knife off to get some rope to tie everyone together with. he returned and tied kathleen up first by wrapping the rope around her neck and threw it over the rafters above and then "he tried to tie my hands up, but he did a piss-poor job." kathleen remained silent and the young man tied up the rest of her friends. as he had run out of rope, he fetched towels from the bathroom and poorly tied up the rest. the knots were useless, "very loose," and mostly for show.

at that time, one of their girls came in from the outside. she said that she was posted lookout and everything was cool, until she heard some rustling in the bushes. "she described a person that could only be the creature from the black lagoon or beau goodman and said that she stabbed him. in fact, i’m quite certain that her words were, 'i stabbed him until he stopped moving.'"

jimmy interrupts her and snorts, "beau? good riddance to bad rubbish!"

kathleen ignores him and goes on, "the man who had the gun followed the girl outside to investigate and told the younger man that when he would send the girls in and when he came back inside, 'everybody had better be dead and the scene had better be as gruesome as they could make it.'" the man raised his knife and soda's girlfriend, daisy, freed her hands to tackle him. "the two scrambled for the knife and rolled around on the ground for a flash." as the rest of kathleen and company escaped their terrycloth shackles, daisy was sustaining defense wounds. that is, until, "soda swooped in like a papa eagle and tossed the kid off daisy. took the kid's knife and gave him what for. sodapop stabbed him a couple times and then i bounced his head like a basketball off the brick facing on the fireplace."

"before i could make it outside," she says, opening a beer, her second, and taking a swill, "i heard six shots and two bodies drop. i heard screams, i heard people running around. it was like a party - a party of death."

sodapop and kathleen ran towards the main gates. there they found one of the killers. "i got the girl who stabbed beau - i got her knife." the two then proceeded to stab, until her "body gurgled blood." after which, kathleen then opted to, "beat her in the head with a rock." she smiles, "i don't want to sugarcoat it - i did some things that were not very nice to those people, but they asked for it. i should have been better prepared; i was not and as a result, i was forced to use crude tools to get the job done."

thereon, the man with the gun caught up to them. "he smacked me right on the top of the head with the gun and started pistol-whipping soda in the face. i pounced on his back and i got a couple good ones in with the knife, but he shook me loose." coming to, she saw the remaining murderess chasing boogie and johnny frigiletti, the young filmmakers, back into the house. "they didn't come out," kathleen says, "but the girl did."

kathleen watched in horror as the girl hunted daisy down and attacked her in the grass. "it was so quick - knife in, knife out; over and over again. i don't know how you could get a kick out of something like that." at this moment, kathleen ran to the main gates and began screaming for help. as she tried to scramble up and over them, the man with the gun pulled her down and into the grass. "i had that rope around my neck and he started dragging me by it. i was like his little puppy - tired from brawling all night and weak from all the wounds i had sustained. i had no fight left in me. the papers say that he 'stabbed me until i stopped making noise,' but that's bullshit. the last thing i remember was him shaking the knife at me and bellowing, 'how does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?' i felt the first three or four pokes, but after that - i was out for the count."

she designates here as a good place to break. the sun is setting in cielo, a lovely shade of lavender and pink. kathleen stares off and says, "and that's the fact, jack. i don't know shit about beau hitching to the l'amour, considering he was drenched in blood and probably crawled on hands and knees out the front gates--"

"--besides," jimmy interrupts, "i heard that friends of yours were driving down skid row and spotted him. they pulled over and after he told him what had just happened, they gave him a ride to the l’amour."

"yeah, sure. you just never do know with him - it could be an illness or it could be an act. he’s like the boy who cried wolf, i swear." kathleen woke up in the hospital hours later. by then, the bodies on the 312 property had either been sent off for immediate care or to the morgue, and the cops had begun their investigation. "they rudely rousted trotsky and scared the shit out of him. they handcuffed him and took him outside for a tour of the corpses on the grounds," and then incarcerated him for seven counts of homicide. arresting officers reported that he had 'no life' in his eyes. he was barefoot, shirtless and genuinely spooked. These charges were later dropped, as, "he didn't do it. i know who did it, i saw all their little scumbag faces. and the ones that aren't dead yet, i’m going to find."

jimmy quips, "oh yeah? and just how are we going to do that?"

kathleen smiles and pinches his cheek, "they're hippies with knives - how tough do you think it'll be?" she turns to me, "and that's the name of that tune!"

with story time over, kathleen hands me a beer and sends me off on the road. i blunder around the property in a daze and confuse myself for a good fifteen minutes. whereupon, i wander into the garage and confess to headlock that i was lost on the estate and looking for the main gates. he points off in the right direction and i kick off. to my luck, the grounds are well-lit, mostly thanks to the white christmas-tree lights strung around the fences; hung and left up by the after a party. i glance back in the direction of the main house and see kathleen sitting on the front porch, barely visible in the light. only her silhouette and a flash of golden hair are distinguishable from the driveway; but, still, it makes me think, "wow, she sure is the beautiful one."

the summer of death claims another

a couple more deaths and we can put a calendar together

well, it looks like the pair of black death overalls kathleen donned for her mates' funerals after the 312 bloodbath will have to be brought out from collecting mothballs; for, her buddy tim bob has passed onto the happy hunting ground in the sky.

after slamming a couple of armfuls of heroin and guzzling a bottle of booze, he collapsed on the floor of his flophouse hotel room - where he eventually stopped breathing. he was discovered by staff on thursday. his death has not officially been ruled by police yet, but it is said to be a suicide. those close to him told the fence that, ever since the freak fest, he experienced heavy symptoms of anxiety following the amount of publicity he received. young and impressible, he became succumbed by the spotlight.

kathleen gave an informal eulogy outside of her house today and pretty much said that tim bob was her hep parade intern and that, yes, she knew he was a writer at the time of the freak fest. she also said that she suspects foul play in his death and will be in contact with the fuzz.
detective kiss has put his theory out there too - he told police that hep parade had hired men kill tim bob, in an effort to keep kathleen out of jail, because he "knew too much" after spending several months conducting interviews with her for an article he was writing....that, to my knowledge, never came out.....and was separate from the article he wrote about the freak fest.....hmm...

in response, baby babble retorted that kiss is as dead to her as tim bob. okay, she didn't, but that comment alone made it sound like she wanted to and was biting her tongue and rolling her eyes in his general direction the whole time.
anyways, rest in peace tim bob.

baby babble's fanmail column has death rattle

for once, she didn't phone this one in

kathleen sure didn't seem to have a problem pulling out her notepad and pencil for hep parade this week; and it's a good thing too - because with the responses garnered from kathleen, it's a wonder she even has fans at all!

Q: Do you really use cocaine to help you stay up late and crank out deadlines?
A: no - i snort coffee grounds to help me stay up late and crank out deadlines

Q: Is it true that you're on cocaine right now?
A: GO FUCK URSELF - I ONLY DO DOPE, OKAY??????????????

Q: Just how many men have you scared off?
A: 2 MANY; I'M PRETTY SCARY - THE SCARIEST!!!

Q: Are you banging Joey Kiss or is it some sick sort of publicity stunt?
A: WTF - never met him........or his brother

Q: What did you ask Joey to get you for Christmas?
A: some clean needles, a real 90's letterman's jacket from a bona fide varsity jockstrap, cha cha heels, chinese gunpowder tea, a roll in the hay...............

Q: I happen to think you are one smart blonde for landing that cutie pie Joey - what's it like to be his girl?
A: IT'S LIKE CRIMSON + CLOVER OVER AND OVER

Q: Everybody knows that you always make the first move - so, Doll, what did you say to Joey to get him interested in you?
A: CUM WITH ME - I'LL MAKE U FAMOUS

Q: Jimmy Kiss still loves you, whether you give a shit or not.
A: UM OK I'LL BE SURE 2 ALERT THE FUZZ AND GET MY HOT LITTLE HANDS ON A RESTRAINING ORDER

Q: You and Jimmy are star-crossed - stop playing with Joey's heart. Good things come to those who wait and I'm sure Jimmy would wait until the end of time for you.
A: WTF is it with you people? i feel like i'm on another planet! is this a twilight zone episode i missed or what????

Q: I happen to have a babydoll dress from the 90's that I think would be perfect for you - it's purple and blue and in butterfly print. What's an address that I can send it to?
A: i don't like butterflies - just butterfly knives

Q: I know you love sugar - so, what's your favorite type of candy?
A: flying saucers, sour lollies, dusty popping sweets, cherry bootlace, neptune fizz, saturn zingers, ultra-violets, jelly snakes.............

Q: I just read a column that you did for the Pretty People Club Magazine - who knew that you were so intelligent?
A: I'M NOT JUST A CUTE GIRL - I HAVE BRAINS 2

Q: Are you going to have an preface for ☺?
A: yes, and it will go a little something like this : i, the doll of the city of arcadia, in order to form a more perfect piece of fiction, establish long trains of thought about outer space, insure domestic cats, provide for the common criminals, bestow a sense of trust on all habitual cocaine users, promote the generally lost and secure the shit that needs secured; to ourselves and our notoriety, do ordain and establish this constitution of the doll.

Q: How do you think people view you?
A: i know that you all think i'm bad, but really - i'm not

Q: You are a literary prostitute; you are a Satanic bitch with your sadistic way of writing - don't be surprised when all your pretty friends leave you in the dust and your life goes in the toilet.
A: UM I PAY 2 MUCH MONEY 2 BE IGNORED BY MY PRETTY FRIENDS - IT'S THE UGLY ONES I'M WORRIED ABOUT

Q : How does it feel to be back home in Arcadia?
A: ROFL - like taking a bump of ski-blacky off of a key for the first time

Q: Why did you choose the Easy Street Hills to live and not Skid Row? Do you want to live closer to Beau Goodman?
A: O YA RIGHT - IN BEAU'S DREAMS

Q: What's going to be different about the Riot House in Arcadia as opposed to the Riot House in Cielo?
A: one thing : BLOW AVAILABLE BY ROOM SERVICE

Q: You're not the prettiest girl on this planet by far - stop acting as if you were.
A: earth doesn't deserve me - OUTER SPACE NEEDS ME

Q: There's a small print of the same foreign phrase on the back of every issue of the Pretty People Club Magazine - what does it translate to?
A: "THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS"

Q: How do you feel about the fence, now that the media storm following Trotsky's death has lapsed?
A: the less that they know about me - the better

Q: How does it feel to be used daily by everyone you know?
A: WRONG - IT'S THE DOLL WHO DOES THE USING AROUND HERE

Q: If your town car is called 'the Gravedigger,' and your personal jet, 'the Crippler' - what do you call your motorcycle?
A: the iron horse

Q: So, your summer home at 10050 Lonesome Lane in Cielo is nicknamed 'the Love Shack,' and your former home at 312 Skid Row was nicknamed 'the Dollhouse' - have you figured out anything to designate your new home at 1999 Lisbon Drive?
A: YUP - IT'S NAME IS the 1999 KISS CRADLE - you know, like rattles and bibs and night lights when we go to bed

Q: Besides the Wolfman Jack Show, what kind of music do you listen to?
A: the best of the 60's, the best of the 70's and the best of joey singing in the shower

Q: How much do you pay Joey to be seen with you? Everyone knows that you're not really in love.
A: he pays me £21.15 a week - half in cash, the other half in coupons for things like bear hugs and piggyback rides

Q: You and Jimmy obviously had pet names for each other; do you and Joey follow this trend as well?
A: he calls me sticky; i call him biscuits

Q: So, if you call each other 'Sticky' and 'Biscuits' - what do your friends call the two of you?
A: DUH- THE KING + QUEEN OF THE PROM

damn, her column should come with a little glass box that says 'break in case of emergency' and contains a disposable foilie, box of matches and hollowed-out inkpen within. i can barely make it through a whole article without bearhugging my baking soda and aluminum foil and i mean it!

Q: are you writing this from inside trotsky's coffin?

A: DUH

um, is it just me or is kathleen a handful of pills away from ending it all? if you don't agree now, perhaps you will after reading her latest installment for hep parade.

Q: Mulholland or the Isle of Grimaldi?
A: grimaldi - going to mulholland makes me want to slit my wrists

Q: You know, for Trotsky's sake, you shouldn't joke about wanting to kill yourself.
A: you think i'm kidding

Q: When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A: i wanted to be able to write a mean book; and now, my books are so mean, that they never call their mother

Q: So, just how did you get your reputation?
A: by being the bitch that nobody wants to be

Q: No, really - how did someone like you get to be so famous?
A: someone like me???? um, i used to be the prettiest doll in arcadia and now i'm the prettiest doll in cielo

Q: I thought HEP! was a great dedication to the friendship that you and Trotsky shared - congratulations.
A: you obviously didn't 'get' HEP! then

Q: You are such a stupid slut. Do humankind a favor and disappear - you can take your little party dresses and your dollies with you.
A: many a true word spoken in jest

Q: If only you knew the people that I have keeping tabs on you - you would probably think twice about the things you do.
A: HEADLOCK??????????????? WTF i've done nothing incriminating.........yet

Q: I read a gossip report recently that said you fell asleep during a phone interview and cited the reason as you were "high as a kite off of heroin" - any truth in this?
A: I THINK DOPE IS DOPE - what's it to you?

Q: Are you a morning person?
A: NO WAY - especially not today. someone had been calling me all morning since 666 o'clock. some of us still live fast and die young, you know? and it just had to be someone from the fence! none of my friends wake up that early - they stay up that late

Q: I'm sure that you're tired of being badgered about Trotsky and all the elements surrounding his death, but I've always had a question about him and figured it was now or never - why did Trotsky select the 69th room at the Riot House as his suite?
A: R U FUCKING WITH ME? trotsky was as camp as a row of pink tents

Q: What did you think when Hep Parade Magazine told you to write another fanmail piece?
A: I THOUGHT 'O GREAT, I CAN'T WAIT TO TALK ABOUT DETH IN NOVEMBER

Q: I miss the normal Kathleen - when is she coming back to Planet Earth?
A: ROFL - WHEN WAS I 'NORMAL?'

Q: You probably won't spill, but were you the one who gave Trotsky the 'barbies?'
A: well, that depends - is it a crime that the pigs just write a little ticket for; or is it a crime where they puts my hands behind my back and wrap those darling silver bracelets around my wrists?

Q: Why the Jimmy tattoo?
A: U SAY 'WHY?' - I SAY 'WHY NOT?'

Q: Could you give me an estimate of the percentage of people around you that snort coke?
A: 100% this is cielo DUH

Q: Gibby Bastien is naturally gorgeous, whereas you have to pancake your makeup on and yet you still look like you rolled out of the grave. I'm glad Jimmy Kiss has moved onto a more mature woman and left the little girl in the playground.
A: WTF? playground.....grave.....natural.......U CAN SAY WHATEVER, BUT GIB HAS YET 2 ENTER THE 10050

Q: What is the last thing Trotsky said to you?
A: "doll, i can't breathe in here."

Q: Well, then what's the last thing that you said to Trotsky?
A: "but, baby, you are safe - in here."

it's almost like kathleen has spent one too many hours hovering over her favorite framed picture of trotsky, blowing lines. she probably thinks she can talk to his ghost now too. quick! someone check the doll's pulse - i want to be 100% sure that she's still with us.

the beautiful one launches the pretty people club magazine

and only the pretty people are allowed to read it!

kathleen held a very ladylike and demure tea party in the ballroom of the arcadian riot house this afternoon to celebrate launching the pretty people club magazine and later on, hosted a celebration at the il coyote country club in the early evening. i'm glad she's learned her lesson - slurp tea with the rich people, your bosses, by day and snort drugs with the kids, your target market, by night.

she announced that not only would she be extending the shelflife of her fanmail column with hep parade  while continuing to write books and star in films, but now heading  the pretty people club as well - ☺ is going to be on the backburner, so she can have time to put the finishing touches on HEP!.

.still, she's the president of the pretty people club now and that includes not weaseling out of highly important presidential duties. and, did i just lose my mind or did the doll seriously promise more fanmail? NO!!!!!! i would rather have a feral alley cat scratch my eyeballs out than read more of that shit!

the best part came during the doll's champagne toast :

"someone asked me why i started my own magazine......i was tired of the suits getting all of the hookers and cocaine..."

LOL. now, even though we all know that the pretty people club is going to have already gone down in flames by the same time next year, i still want to take it upon myself to formally wish kathleen luck on her latest foray. she is so in demand right now that she can barely spit on the sidewalk without some photographer having a conniption fit. besides - i hear ☺ is going to knock us all dead.

here we are again

and so soon

i hate to say this, but i really can't wait until hep parade tells kathleen, "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!" once and for all, because this fanmail shit is for the birds.
you know the doll, though; she has always been quite the bitch and hardly appreciates her fans. speaking of, get out your reading glasses and get ready for another ascent to outer space, courtesy of our one and only baby babble!

Q: Do you really think that you'll still be relevant in 10 years?
A: no, from what i've been told, i've proved that underground literature is a bankable commodity - THEY WON'T NEED ME 4EVER

Q: Isn't it funny that Jimmy's new girlfriend looks just like you?
A: O YA - THE RESEMBLANCE IS UNCANNY

Q: Did Jimmy really replace you with Trotsky's sister?
A: LMAO!!!!!!! YA RIGHT! restraining order

Q: I heard Jimmy Kiss recently took a foray into the music business. How does this make you feel?
A: like killing myself - jimmy kiss singing makes birds fall dead from the trees

Q: Oh yeah? Well I also heard that he's doing a show in Arcadia at the Disco Room soon.
A: IS THAT SO? WHEN AND WUT TIME??? I'LL HAVE THE FUZZ WAITING IN CALLY ALLEY 4 HIS LOSER ASS!

Q: Since when did you start on all the Jimmy Kiss hate?
A: SINCE 4 EVER. DUH.

Q: What's the last thing you said to Jimmy?
A: you can eat shit for all i care...

Q: I love you.
A: JOEY'S GONNA BE SO MAD

Q: Did you ever go to your high school prom?
A: OF COURSE NOT - 2 UGLY

Q: What would you describe yourself as?
A: LIFER

Q: Did Jimmy teach you the term 'lifer?'
A: ROFL - HE WISHES

Q: Do you drive drunk?
A: only always - me sober attracts too much attention

Q: Quick! Go to your window right now - how many photographers are outside your house?
A: LOL - 1 FLASHER, 2 FLASHER, 3 FLASHER....when i'm alone i count myself - ONE DOLL!

Q: I have some blow - I'll be at the Riot House, in room 234, under the name of 'Kurk Crowbar' - can you meet me there on Monday?
A: BLOW? I LOVE BLOW. WUT TIME????

Q: Let's meet at midnight - wear all black.
A: U GOT IT

Q: Will you ever marry?
A: WHO WOULD WANT 2 MARRY ALL THIS??? I SUCK

Q: What's with the outer space talk? You start going to astronaut school or something?
A: i dropped out of astronaut school - besides, i've already been to the moon and looked down on the earth; UR NOTHING IF YOU'VE NEVER BEEN 2 SPACE

Q: Go ahead and sign with Hep Parade because your latest boyfriend works there - they just want to make a quick profit off of you.
A: PROPHET = PROFIT

Q: So, if you are what you eat, then what does that make you - nothing?
A: OOOH GOOD ONE

Q: How's the heroin from Cielo compare with the heroin from Arcadia?
A: IT'S MORE DOPE

Q: I've followed you're entire career and noticed one thing - you have no friends that are female. What is with this?
A: THERE'S NOT ROOM ENOUGH FOR 2 QUEEN QUNTS IN THIS TOWN

Q: I've heard that you have terrible vision and been in more accidents than you can remember - how do you still have a license?
A: IDK - sometimes i can't even see signs until after i've passed them. IS THAT BAD?

Q: Where do you believe your appeal truly lies?
A: IN OUTER SPACE, DUH - no, i believe it's because i truly DGAF

Q: Whatever happened to Sodapop? Did you finally shut him up?
A: LOL I WISH - he's still kicking around somewhere....probably chasing some tail

Q: I was informed that you only make a mere ten thousand a day. Am I wrong, or are you in the poorhouse now?
A: U WERE ILL INFORMED - i make a million a day

um, what - the poorhouse? please. she makes boatloads of cash as it is, what with all the gibberish she scribbles out. the doll has made her fortune off of plenty of different things over the years : books, columns, death threats to beau badman, essays, jimmy kiss' eulogy, speeches, shit that nobody understands...why would she be in the poorhouse? i mean, the bandanna was one thing, but she's since given that up for a super sweet denim jacket from 1993 that joey handed down to her. duh.

and, if i could direct this towards sodapop - you know he's chasing a gaggle of flashers around, trying to get some kind of story published. it's either that or he's dead, because there's nothing that can shut him up.

two kisses too many!

one of them has got to go - my money's on jimmy!

jimmy's younger brother joey is fresh off the train from arcadia to cielo and all bets are off, seeing as how kathleen has had a crush on him since time began. good! i hope the two fall madly, truly, deeply in love with each other and jimmy cracks under the pressure. maybe he'll finally make good on that suicide threat.

now, according to hep parade magazine, jimmy is currently living with the happy couple at the 10050 love shack. all the doll has to do is slip a, "it's been real and it's been fun, but it ain't been real fun," under his pillow on the sleeper sofa and he's a goner for sure!

but on a more grave note, there must be something going on between the doll and joey, because she even took loyal's grungy bandanna off her neck and put it up on the gravedigger's rear-vision mirror. hopefully someone finds it there and throws it in the garbage where it truly belongs. i think i've discovered what direction her look is going in next, though : 90's gothic cheerleader.

today, she donned a black lace top, lavender schoolgirl skirt and a spike dog collar around her ankle. people in the streets were actualy running in the opposite direction to get away from her. and, sadly, joey and trotsky are seemingly following the trend - the two were both wearing matching jean jackets. say it ain't so!

now, believe it or not, but the front pages think that joey is in town to help jimmy move on with his life. the dailies have reported that the two are prepared to go into business for themselves. they should go into the drug-dealing business; i'm sure they'd be just tip-top at that. instead, the brothers kiss are planning on launching a magazine. jimmy wants to take photographs and joey wants to scout out the talent to feature.

they're forgetting one key element to a periodical, however, and have kept quiet on hiring a staff of writers. i'm not surprised - i doubt neither jimmy nor joey knows how to spell. if this shit really does happen, it's most certainly going to be the worst magazine in the history of magazines. the pages will be made out of old foilies and pieces of garbage and the columns will probably be written in blood. give up now, kisses!

in closing, joey may be swell and all, but if he and the doll become an item, i'm walking. she needs to learn - kat + kiss = star-crossed.

lost in cielo

the walk up to kathleen's lonesome lane estate is an all too familiar hike for writers and photographers. after parking at the side entrance for appointments and deliveries, one then continues up the narrow, shaded dirt path and doglegs through a back alley - nicknamed 'freak alley' by the papers - to ultimately end up at the front gates. to the left, sits a security booth. up ahead, lays the main house.

on this particular evening, however, the walk to kathleen's lonesome lane estate is unusually dim; the twinkling christmas lights installed earlier this year - in an act of home defense - are off, the moon casting a shadowy track from the side entrance to the main house. even the security booth, mounted after the knifings on skid row, is dark - instilling a grim veil over the property. the only light that can be seen is trotsky's, at the distant end of the manor.

i persist up the walkway and notice that, even in the darkness, kathleen knows i am here. she is on the front porch of her house, smoking a cigarette, her towering pile of blonde ratted hair shining in the dusk. she throws me a slight wave and then disappears back inside.

the front door of kathleen's 10050 'love shack' is closed and locked. all the windows have been drawn in and the house looks uncanny; it is sinister, without so much as a glow emitting from the inside, save for the candles placed haphazardly throughout the house. upon a second look, i realize that two windows closest to the entrance have been shattered and are secured with american flags. when i later ask what happened to the panes, she responds, "i lost my keys........twice."

through the threshold, there is a surfeit of sounds resonating. i can hear the wolfman jack show blaring from the kitchen, drowned out by the clamor of kathleen screaming from her bedroom and trotsky trying to calm her from the study. i knock, but no one answers, so i take it upon myself to walk in. within seconds, i am assailed.

kathleen bounds through the house at a record pace; she shoots me a dirty look and says, "who the hell are you?"

"i'm a writer - i work for hep parade."

she continues to dissect me with her eyes and says, "and you think you can just waltz in?"

i feel my brow winkle and say, "well, it was dark out there and there was no one at the side entrance; the guard is gone, so i figured you were expecting me."

her face drops. "the guard is gone?" i nod. her eyes open wide and she screeches for headlock. he pokes his head in the room and she howls, "those asshole lessons are really paying off! get your tail to the front gates now or you can find another doll to displease." she doesn't notice, but he rolls his eyes before stomping out of the room, out of the house and down the lane.

this is when i become aware that not only kathleen, but her house as well, are trashed. her appearance is sallow; she is gaunt, frail and sickly. she is wearing a dirty babydoll dress, with plastic clips in her hair, ripped stockings and smeared makeup. she is pale, pie-eyed and littered with cuts and bruises. drops of dried blood dot her arms. garbage spans the floor - wadded bits of foil, broken glass, old credit cards, ruined garments and candy wrappers act as a provisional carpet. amid the mess, notebooks upon notebooks that kathleen asserts are her drafts for ☺. perusing through the pages, i note scribbles and objets d'art; such as, a train pass, flattened cigarette box and hotel key - and blood. some pages are blemished with drops of blood; others are stained red, as if the blood were used for ink. as if that weren't bad enough, trotsky, boyfriend ludo ludovic and joey kiss are acting equally as odd. running around the house with black spray paint; they commence coating the walls with evil eyes, upside-down crosses and pentagrams stars, without comment or reason. filming all of this while it happens is one of, if not the, hippest director at the moment, johnny frigiletti. he stands just a little over five feet and wears embroidered snakeskin boots, a plain white button-up shirt and leather pants. dark, handsome and completely unintelligible due to a heavy italian drawl, he is a mysterious character and remains on the outskirts of the group, locked in observation. he could basically be the second-coming of roman polanski.

joey, who looks almost identical to jimmy, has peroxide, bottle-blonde hair and says, whether joking or not, that he did so to differentiate himself from his rather recognized older brother. "he's a scumbag," joey declares soon after, "some of the things he says about my doll makes me sick."

kathleen nods and adds in, "everyone thinks jimmy was my first kiss, but nobody knows shit from shinola - joey and i fell in love when we were just kids. then there was jimmy, but he didn't last long. if you ask me, it's always been joey....only joey." joey beams brightly.

i gaze off toward the swelling wall of rubbish that consists of, but is not limited to : old fanmail, take-out menus, unopened subpoenas, invitations to all the popular parties and, naturally, plenty of past-due notices. kathleen spies me eyeing them and remarks that she hasn't paid a bill in years. "one day, out of the blue, the lights went out - just like that. i don't know who pays the bills around here, but it isn't me and it was almost a whole week before we had power again!"

astonishingly, kathleen talks openly about the most melancholic of issues - jimmy kiss, her failed work with hep parade and suicide. of jimmy, she says, "our time spent was, like - oh, what did coleridge call it - as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean. you know - an impasse."

she spills on hep parade and declares, "i'm never, ever going to use a producer again. they are just shitty little pigs - all they're good for is telling jokes. and joey knows better jokes than any of them."

when she speaks candidly of suicide, i comment that she couldn't possibly be serious, that she has plenty of reasons to live; instantly, she bolts up and stomps into another room. moments later, she returns with an unpromising glass jar, full of scraps of paper, change and dollar bills. "this is my suicide jar," she informs me. joey goes on to explain that any time she threatens suicide, she has to slip some money or an I.O.U. in the jar. boredom soon ensues as kathleen delves through the jar, counting the contents - a total of 67 threats, some dating back to the beginning of last year.

upon revealing the total, joey muses aloud, "wow, doll, looks like you'll be dancing with the devil before i will."

kathleen quietly quips, "you don't need to look for the devil, baby - the devil will find you."

anon, she receives a call from a friend who ostensibly informs her that he is stopping by. the entire time, she speaks heavily in codes; such as, "is the weather on the coast clear for boating?" and, "it's raining really hard outside right now and the lost boys are rollerblading around the park, so i can't come out right now," and, "we need to make some cookies for ludo's birthday - do you have a cup of sugar you can bring me?"

she hangs up the phone and there is no doubt about it - whoever was on the other line has her spooked. in a worrisome fashion, she commences cleaning up and nervously busies herself with arbitrary tasks like straightening paintings, re-positioning couch cushions and arranging a tray of drinks. moments later, her friend makes his presence known outside the front gates and in no time at all, the police arrive.

fueled by chagrin, kathleen starts to spin. talking a million miles an hour, she confuses the two officers at first and then begins to intimidate them off the property. they claim that have had a report of underage use of illegal drugs and they want to search her grounds and that they would obtain a warrant if necessary, kathleen challenges them. "you two are a real pair of prize assholes, you know that? fuck you and your warrant!" totally abashed, the policemen stand silent for a moment, blind of their defeat. ultimately, they retreat back to their squad car, leaving kathleen and her friend to convene in private.

she invites him in for a friendly drink, but it becomes evident at once that the two are not friends. he introduces himself as, 'ponyboy' - which, unmistakably, is a drug alias - and doesn't speak a word the entire time. wiggling around in his seat and never breaking his eye-contact with an escape route. kathleen, on the other hand, remains standing and is noticeably on edge. she moves from window to window, lifting the blinds back to, doubtlessly; peer out onto her dark territory. her off-putting behavior leads trotsky to ask, "just what in the hell are you doing, doll?"

kathleen retorts, in a particularly haunting manner, "i'm tuned in. you ever seen the coyote in the desert? he's in a total state of alertness - he sees everything."

by now, it is nearing five in the morning. trotsky and ludo have long since skipped off to the shack on the edge of the hillside; johnny frigiletti has fallen fast asleep in front of the television set as an old episode of a 60s sci-fi programme continues on without him. kathleen has just rousted headlock with a telephone call to the security booth, in which she insisted he run to the corner-store for candy, beer and, strangely, a bible. she mockingly cracks, "i just want to know what happens in the end - do any of us make it out alive?"

there have been rumors passing through the affluent, well-to-do crowds - stories that no one has denied, mostly because they don't know what to believe anymore. there are whisperings about how she is hemmed in isolation in her lookout mountain home, a place few dare to tread because of its inhabitants; neighbors say, "she thinks that she's jesus and her people are the 12 disciples." there are stories of a former 'it girl' who now sees little of the outside world, who is too paranoid to go out the front door alone, who stays in her house to read and finish writing her most recent manuscript ☺.

but these are not just unpretentious rumors. kathleen truly is living the cliché - she is the doll holed up at her lonesome lane domain, because she is "too scared" to stay unaccompanied in her riot house bungalow. additionally, the night manager of the riot house respectfully requested that kathleen leave after a weekend of debauchery thanks to the lost boys, moonshine and a modest stash of speed. wholly abandoning all duties as proprietor of the riot house - not to mention employee of hep parade - she disappears off the face of the earth without a word of warning. it's not uncommon, friends attest, to not hear from her for weeks at a time.

"now," she tells me, in a singsong voice, "it's time for you to scram, sam." she has already been up for seventeen hours; everyone in the house is either asleep or in a solemn state of languor - except for kathleen. she is buzzing; nipping in and out of each room, each time for a different reason. within mere minutes, the house is spotless, the kettle is on, her notes are gathered for the day's writing and a hot bath is being drawn. joey, at first adamant to join her, now curls up on the loveseat and slips into a slumber. as i slither out the front gate, i find headlock, fast asleep himself, with his feet propped up and old baseball game on the radio. snoring, supine and childlike, he seems to be lost without kathleen's chaos.

then again - aren't we all?

hide and seek

kathleen will not disclose the exact location as to where we are meeting...

...for lack of a better description, i am on the east side of the city; in the belly of primrose canyon - the home of the pretty people. it is nearing midnight; outside, a nearly full, jaundiced moon hangs in a bed of amethyst-and-smog stained clouds - a common, but nevertheless eerie sight for summer in cielo.

i did as i was directed, over the telephone last night at 3 AM, by a young male to drive down the strip, take a left at benz street; go up the mountain, take a left at coston, take a right on lookout mountain road and park at one of the viewpoints - "we'll find you," he said, before hanging up. and aside from stopping up the hill for a bunny to hop across the road, i am right on time.

i'm beginning to think that maybe i'm another victim of a senseless phony phone call, because i've been waiting for kathleen since before the sun set. i'm also thinking that if i continue waiting for her, i'll be seeing the sun rise as well; so, i make my way to the ol' jalopy and turn the engine over. across the street, a fox darts through a lawn. this is when i hear the sound of kathleen's boorish boat of a town car barreling through the streets. nicknamed 'the gravedigger,' and boasted as, "the car so tuff, it'll wake the neighbors - even when it's parked," there is no mistaking it.

kathleen's driver opens the coach door for her; she steps out - a pile of tangled and ratted curls, supported by a wisp of a body. she is dressed in a flowery baby doll and has her iconic jean jacket knotted around her waist.

there is no time for me to ask where we are - she ushers me inside the gravedigger with few words. once inside, she introduces her driver - a young kid by the name of trotsky, who acts as her right hand man. he is wearing a mod-looking navy blue suit and a smile; a borrowed trilby sits ill-fittingly atop a heap of matted brown hair. his tie is loosened, undoubtedly as a result from the sweltering heat. although it is nearing midnight, the hundred degree hot spell has still yet to desist. trotsky rolls up the sleeves of his shirt and lights a cigarette, securing it in the crook of his mouth.

the backseat is dim, lit only by lamps hanging in the corners and it provides an orange glow - like a muted fire. i open my mouth to begin, but kathleen stops me with a shake of her head. then, without a word, i watch her glance up at trotsky in the rear-view mirror and with that; we are gone, bound for another top-secret destination.

only the next locale is not as top-secret as first imagined - it is none other than the riot house on the bethel strip. trotsky drops us off at the nightclub street entrance and into the midst of "the beautiful circus," as kathleen so poignantly put it. i follow her into the riot house gardens; "to the last bungalow on the left." it is numbered 666, the same as her room in the hotel. all the windows are open and a folky punk rock is flowing out of them, portentous to the sensationalized lost boys.

at this moment, the front door to the bungalow bursts open and a rather blonde, slim and dirty shirtless youth appears - it is loyal, the youngest lost boy. he exclaims, over the music, "there you are!" in a brainless tone, as if he had been looking for kathleen all over. he starts forward towards us, stops suddenly and then retreats back into the bungalow. a few moments pass and, like a bleached-blonde bullet, he shoots out from the cottage and absconds the lawn in a matter of a few sweeping paces. he wears filthy, tattered grey colored trousers, heavily laden with stains - he later reveals that they began as white trousers; tattoos dot his arm like crude sleeves and he balances his trampy look with a grungy, grey paisley bandanna tied securely about his gullet like a neckerchief. kathleen dons a similar one, which has been seen around her neck as well, albeit tonight, it hangs off her ankle.

within seconds, kathleen and loyal have dropped out of sight. assuming that the two are playing possum inside the bungalow, i begin a slow, but meaningful stride towards the party. i take no more than three steps when i hear trotsky shout loudly; turning to him, he gives me a disapproving look and motions for me to come stand by him. we wait.

and then we wait some more. while we are waiting for kathleen and loyal to reappear, we meet loyal's merry band of mates, the lost boys, who are all as fantastically named as he - rocko j. nasty, freddie the freeloader, eddie spaghetti, jolly roger - and just as dirty. they too, all wear the same begrimed bandannas, though each boy adorns a different color.

rocko is tall and incredibly svelte. he has brown hair, cut short into a fringe mop and brown puppy dog eyes. his look is soft, but his attitude is hard. he is the leader of the pack and, of all the lost boys, has the worst attitude. as rocko is the only member who has a higher education, he manages the band in every aspect and drafts all the music.

freddie is the romantic of the group and otherwise known as the heartbreaking libertine. he writes all the songs for the gang, which has kept a synonymous theme - women. freddie the freeloader is responsible for such hits as, "sadie's a psycho," and, "leslie's not a good girl no more," and the unforgettable classic, "linda's lips sink ships."

eddie is a spritely fellow - offbeat and excitable. he is clad in a rainbow suspenders and a funky tee-shirt that bears a cartoon of a naked black woman with a large afro on the front and 'a whole lot of woman' on the back. he keeps his banjo on him at all times and constantly breaks it out to break the silence.

i notice jolly roger, the boys' wrangler and security, sitting quietly on the bungalow's front steps. stoic-like and clad in jean overalls, he is big and tall, with a dark, brooding face peeking out of a large, bushy beard. then, all of a sudden, he jumps up and takes his hands, which are as big as baseball mitts, and balls them into fists - he launches into "oh du lieber augustin" and begins to pound the tune on the front door. "ach, du lieber augustin,"

boom, boom, boom
"...augustin! augustin!"
boom, boom
"ach, du lieber augustin, alles ist hin!"

kathleen opens the door, just as he is preparing to strike, and smiling sweetly, says, "alles ist hin!" the two exchange word and she passes by, with loyal trailing her. again, i open my mouth to speak and she denies me. "if we were going to stay, i would have invited you in. get in the car."

with that, loyal, trotsky, kathleen and i clamber into the back of the gravedigger and roar down the street. it is at this time that i realize the gravedigger is a cunning beast. whereas on the outside, the roar of the engine is loud enough to rouse the dead; on the inside, it's as quiet as a tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it - the ride is quite slick. similar to its owner, i found the entire facet noteworthy.

now, the sun is coming up and the streets, mostly abandoned in the dawning, feel peaceful. the night now seems much ado about nothing; i am still anticipating her to crack and speak about jimmy kiss or the freak festival, but all hopes are surely trivial at this point. rush hour will begin shortly. kathleen and loyal seem more awake than the rest of us and in high spirits.

without warning, trotsky makes an abrupt u-turn and turns sharply down a narrow alley. "where are we going?" loyal asks.

"to the hidden glade of cielo," kathleen snickers. we leave the main roadway and, sure enough, on the far side, away from everything else on the far side, we emerge into a little cul-de-sac lined with brick townhouses and trees, with thick primrose bushes, white dogwood trees and ivy crawling up the buildings. it seems uncanny.

kathleen asks trotsky for the owner's manual of the town car and she flips it open. loyal then dumps out the contents of a small parcel onto the book and kathleen begins to curse. "i don't have any papers!" she complains, "what a nightmare!"

loyal says, "let's just dash to the love shack, doll, and pick up some papers there - we're like five blocks away." she shoots him an icy glare and makes no comment. "no, it's okay, let me see your cigarettes." within moments, he produces a fine looking doobie, worthy of street praise.

kathleen commends him and, sparking a match, remarks, "here, let me get that for you - pretty girls don't light their own cigarettes."

in the light, i glance around and notice that the palatial backseat is more of a home away from home than your average carriage. the floor is littered with discarded objects : loose credit cards, candy wrappers, bits of wadded up foil, a torn copy of nietzche's thus spoke zarathustra - a pack of rolling papers.

i look up at kathleen to announce my discovery when she says, "it's nice out here - i think i ought to stay a while."

loyal responds, "hate to break it to you, doll, but we'd better beat feet - or the rail bulls will get us."

kathleen asks trotsky for the time - it is now 5:55 AM - and shoves the roach in his face. before the words, "be careful!" can exit his lips, the two scamper out of the gravedigger and, picking up speed, sprint through the meadow. trotsky looks at me questioningly and then says, "well, what are you waiting for?"

following their path, i catch up to kathleen and loyal just in time to see them hop on a cielo red line train and pull away - two shreds of blonde hair in the wind.

by the time i make it back to the gravedigger, the sun has risen. trotsky is waiting for me, grinning and shaking his head. after lighting a cigarette, he confirms my ultimate fear by saying, "you know, you should have gotten on that train." there is no defense - he is right.

i ask for a cigarette and mutter in acquiescence, "you snooze, you lose."

oh yeah loyal, get some of that pancake butt

as so cryptically revealed in this week's hep parade magazine, as well as other highly accredited sources, we now know the reason why kathleen is not getting freaky with jimmy kiss anymore - it's because she's getting freaky with loyal the lost boy!

the lost boys, according to street legend, are a pack of young, greasy trainhopping punks who roam the streets in search of the wayward american dream. they busk for their dope dinner, possess only the clothes on their backs and if you believe the word around the campfire, they are here for the doll. she gave them a regular gig at the riot house every tuesday. there are rumors flying around that they will help her and the pretty people create a festival to take place sometime during this summer.

now, even though jimmy has moved all of his worldly belongings - two trilbies, a pair of black denim jeans and his most-cherished dinger - back into the love shack, that does not mean she's still his baby babble. she proved that last night after she let loyal get to second base. hey, she's not sharing needles with jimmy anymore - she's a free agent.

the best part of the night came at the riot house nightclub - flashers have been pressuring the doll all week to come clean about her relationship with loyal. she must be tired of all the bullying, because she took the opportunity to say, "well, he did give me his knife - since the piggies took mine away," and then she pulled her knife out from the sheath on her hip. you know none of those photographers were the least bit scared; kathleen's had them knocking on death's door more times than few.

and, that knife isn't the only thing he gave her - someone forgot to mention the addition of one filthy, stinking bandanna to her wardrobe, which she proudly decided to sport last night like some sort of cute necklace, when it was anything but. hopefully she decides to retire this look soon, or else...

the fanmail answers itself nowadays

you've got to hang it to the doll's fans - if they didn't support her, who would? no one, that's who!

and hopefully, for her sake, they can continue to support her, because the beautiful one doesn't have much to do this summer. DIG! was set to premiere in the fall, but kathleen purposely pushed it to the summertime to clear her schedule; ☺ has been put on hold until further notice. other than bothering the riot house staff and answering fanmail, the doll has nothing but time on her hands. speaking of fanmail.....time to suffer!

Q: Missed me, missed me, now you've got to...?
A: MY MOM AND YOUR MOM WERE HANGING OUT CLOTHES

Q: I read somewhere that you and Jimmy were secretly married. Is that for real?
A: snot true!!!

Q: Do you use coupons?
A: ROFL

Q: Have you ever done something completely disgusting, just because someone paid you? (Note : heroin doesn't count!)
A: if heroin doesn't count - I DON'T WANNA PLAY

Q: Do you charge admission to your house parties?
A: ....SUCKERS!

Q: No, really. If I come to Cielo, I want to see 10050 Lonesome Lane.
A: that costs money too

Q: Who do you love?
A: i love the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees

Q: I read once that, during the writing of ☺, you suffered from insomnia. What's the truth in this?
A: I'LL SLEEP WHEN I DIE

Q: Have you ever had team sex?
A: what's team sex? I'LL WIN.

Q: When you drive, do you drive the speed limit?
A: LIMITS ARE 4 SQUARES

Q: Paranoid?
A: COYOTE

Q: You worried?
A: the doll, worry? IDGAF

Q: Which of Jimmy's features do you like most?
A: BUTT - next question

Q: What's next for the Doll?
A: first, cielo - THEN, THE WORLD

Q: If I wanted to take you out for hamburgers - sans the tomatoes - would you let me?
A: i never eat.....HAMBURGERS

Q: This question is for Jimmy Kiss : When you finally leave that eyesore Kat, do you think she'll become a harpy? I do.
A: WHY I OUGHTA - harpy? really? JIMMY'S THE HARPY

Q: Are you happy with your life?
A: i'm happy with death

Q: Wow, I was reading Hep Parade the other day and I saw that you have a copy of the Satanic Bible in your Riot House bungalow. Never figured you for a Devil-worshipper.
A: SATAN'S MY #1 FAN - 666!!!

Q: Beau Goodman, Marynard B. Alberkraut or Jimmy Kiss?
A: beau is garbage, maynard is green - jimmy's the still point of my turning world

Q: Isn't Beau dead?
A: worse - HEMMED UP

Q: Did you break up with Maynard because he doesn't like to party?
A: KRAUT PARTIES LIKE IT'S 1999 - he takes a whiskey sour at the riot house when i'm nice enough to give him drink tickets

Q: Okay - then what is it? Did he not put out?
A: PASS

Q: Sodapop likes to talk about you in the papers like there's no tomorrow - what's one of his dirty little secrets?
A: mother and father used to call him "the mistake" - one time they put him in the oven with the gas on as a young child

Q: God loves you.
A: cod? what cod do you speak of? THERE IS NO COD.

Q: Who is this Loyal character I keep hearing about?
A: LOYAL IS THE DUKE OF PUKE

Q: I don't get it - are the Lost Boys greasers, or are they punks?
A: GREASY PUNKS

Q: What is the Coston Fox?
A: the coston fox is your friend. he lurks nearby lonesome lane, but on coston - THE COSTON FOX LOVES CIELO

Q: You have it so easy - some would kill to be in your shoes.
A: ROFL - some have tried to kill to be in these shoes

Q: Why would anyone, in their right mind, drive all the way up Lonesome Lane?
A: to see the doll of course! JUST GO2 THE END OF THE LANE!

Q: Trotsky seems like the little brother of the 10050 - does he have a nickname?
A: Baby Bear

all i have to say is - harpy.

the hep parade true cielo story

"The Doll was originally a nice girl, called Kathleen Grace. She came to Arcadia after trainhopping with the Lost Boys and was immediately taken under the wing of the popular people."
Jimmy Kiss, photographer; boyfriend

"Kathleen began as your typical poor little rich girl - spoiled and pampered her whole life. Then, one day, she opened her eyes and woke up."
Freddy the Freeloader, Lost Boy

"I couldn't believe my eyes - this well-to-do, classy broad turned into a railriding tramp who ran around with some of the most rotten characters I've ever come across. She told me that she wanted to change her name and asked me what I thought....thus, the Doll was born."
Joey Kiss

"Joey is Jimmy's younger brother by a couple years and was Kathleen's first love. He used to busk on the strip and that's how the two met."
Rocko J. Nasty, Lost Boy

"You know, I told my brother to keep his paws off, but it was no use."
Joey Kiss

"Before Jimmy, all she dabbled in was a little bit of psychedelics and heavy metal. With Kiss, came the heroin."
Eddie Spaghetti, Lost Boy

"I left home after school - got a job washing dishes."
Kathleen, the Doll

"The boys and I first met her in Mulholland, at a bikie bar called the Bear Club - but it's gone now, so don't bother looking for it. She had been washing dishes for a couple months, when the owner let her spin the records for a night - their usual kid hadn't show up. People liked her so much that she was given a regular spot. She was known for her music. She'd play all sorts of things - from new to old - but she absolutely hated requests."
Loyal, Lost Boy

"Now, one night at the bar, a girl kept nagging her about playing "I Want a Riot Grrrl, Not a Housewife." Kathleen loved that song - the Creepy-Crawlies were a local band - but the girl was pushy. Finally, Kat got out the LP and said, 'Is this what you want to hear?'
The girl says, "Yeah, spin that."
Kat goes, 'Spin this!' and cracks the record over her knee, busting it into a bunch of little pieces. That's the kind of jockey she was."
Rocko J. Nasty

"The first memory I have of the Lost Boys is not a pleasant one. At the time, I had heard the word on the streets - that they were a rowdy bunch..I heard they liked to drink and act like little pukes. Well, one night at the Bear Club, I went on stage and everything was going fine until I heard someone making a fuss in the audience. I stopped the music and then heard, "Cunt! Cunt! You're a cunt!" or something of that nature creeping out from the audience. I rolled my eyes and turned the music up over the voice.
Then, I started to hear the hateful slander again. So, I said, 'Who the fuck is that? what's it to you? why don't you come up here in the lights and say it so we can all you see, you little puke?' All of a sudden, up stomps this tall, ugly, horrible thing with greased back hair - Rocko J. Nasty. I started screaming at him - calling him a 'pig,' and a, 'woman beater.' Then, he jumped on stage. I don't think he was scared of me, but I was right scared of him. I thought he was going to hit me, so I picked up a bottle and threw it at him. It hit him right on the collarbone. He swaggered and lunged at me, so I got him on the floor and started hitting him in the face with my fists. People were screaming in the crowd, 'kill him!' When they broke it up, I had blood all over my pretty party dress and my makeup was ruined."
Kathleen, the Doll

"I was there. She kept taunting him, 'Hit me! Why can't you, chickenshit? A real man would hit me!' Later on, he was arrested and sent to jail. She refused to appear in court and the charges were dropped. The two have since made up and what's in the past is in the past."
Sodapop Cola, Kathleen's brother

"Mind you, when the Lost Boys were in the grips of becoming a real band, people referred to them as 'the Garbagepail Kids' and rightly so - Rocko J. Nasty isn't much of a prize, either - sort of a mother's nightmare."
Headlock, Kathleen's manager and wrangler

"The boys stunk and they were always spitting everywhere; they never had their own cigarettes. They were always drunk, always nicking things....because none of them have any money - though most of them busk during the day."
Jimmy Kiss

"I just remember their bandannas - they all wore bandannas. They never took them off, so they were absolutely filthy and you couldn't tell what the original color was. They also all had sheath knives...and bad attitudes."
Joey Kiss

"The Lost Boys were all a bunch of freaks. They got a kick out of scaring people. Rocko liked to put out ciggies on his hands and arms - Eddie Spaghetti used to walk in front of moving traffic. You had to constantly be watching them, like children. Some of them were just your run-of-the-mill dopers - sleepy all the time, but, for the most part, they caused trouble everywhere they went."
Headlock

"The Lost Boys wanted to go on the road, but didn't have any money. Until, of course, Kathleen came into the picture. They tuned her in to their trainhopping tour and within a week, the pack was bound for Arcadia."
Sodapop Cola

"She rode trains for the summer with the boys - their last stop being Arcadia. As soon as stepped foot in the city - that was it. She disappeared within and didn't come out, for a very long time."
Joey Kiss

"She was green. She would still be really excited, even when everyone else was scared shitless."
Rocko J. Nasty

"I was really broke then. I landed my first gig with Grrrl Riot, writing horoscopes and I thought I had hit the big time, even though I wasn't making much money. I remember only allowing myself one treat a day. I would get candy....or a 40."
Kathleen

"She used to leave copies of her first book, 1doll1 all around town - in grocery stores, book shops and café - knowing someone would eventually pick it up. She had a bunch of them made up, you know, because she'd go down to the copy shop and make goo-goo eyes with the boys who worked there. She had about a hundred copies of her book in the car and she'd give them out to just about damn near anyone who was interested. One day, the editor from Hep Parade called up and offered her an internship. Just like that, she went from sailing in the gutter with the serfs to running with the big dogs."
Loyal

"...before long, Kathleen was dead, the Doll having killed her..."
Kathleen in 1doll1

"Arcadia chewed her up and spit her out."
Jimmy Kiss

"We eventually became so accustomed to the constant visits of the drug squad, that at one point, we knew them all by name."
Headlock

"I got a reputation for drug-taking, but then again - I did take a lot of drugs."
Kathleen

"I'm too beautiful to get rid of."
Kathleen

"Arcadia was a circus and good while it lasted. Right around 2012, everyone was on edge and Cielo seemed like the still point of it all. So, Kathleen and her fleet of followers packed up and moved ship."
Sodapop Cola

"Everyone went to see the pretty people in Cielo and expected to hear about flowers and beads and love and grooving, but Kathleen had them singing about leather boots and people being beaten and Satan and shooting heroin."
Jimmy Kiss

"Her art is for the pretty people - all the beautiful people."
Maynard B. Alberkraut, Riot House waiter

"I told the kids to burn their money, to smoke reefers, to riot in the streets."
Kathleen

"Once she opened the Riot House, there was no stopping her. The papers say that you have to rent a room a year in advance now, can you believe that? Well, I'll tell you something - most of those rooms are rented to your usual Cielo hood out of Kathleen's own pocket and that's the truth."
Sodapop Cola

"I love her, but she can make some very nasty choices. I will say here and now that nothing good has come of the Riot House. Many a night have I walked into a room and seen a couple of lawsuits waiting to happen."
Headlock

"One time, I saw Kathleen take a pair of pliers and grab the fingers of this gent that she thought had ripped her off for some money. She brought him to his knees and, in tears, he confessed to her his hiding spot. She let go and he took off for the hospital - she had broken two of his fingers. That gent was none others than Johnny Headlock...and don't let him fool you, he's just as scared of her today as he's always been."
Rocko J. Nasty

"Her backers thought that all the kids running around the Riot House was making a mess of their reputation, so she moved them all to the 10050. I haven't had a decent night's sleep since."
Trotsky, Kathleen's housekeeper

"The Love Shack is now a living zoo - tents set up all over the yard, motorbikes by the dozen lying in a heap by the front gates; if the kids get hungry, she feeds them and if their clothes fall apart, she lets them raid her closet. Anyone who blows into this town and is worth a damn will end up there at some point."
Ludo Ludovic, Riot House waiter

"I am terrified of her. I am always trying to think of things to say to her that would be sharp."
Joey Kiss

"Everybody is in love with Kathleen."
Jimmy Kiss

"...such as there was none like this Doll, nor shall be like her any more..."
Kathleen in 1doll1

taking a walk on the wild side

kathleen and jimmy have been through it all - heroin. arcadia. celebrity status. 
together, they are like fire and gasoline. 
apart, they are no longer.

our story begins in the beatific city of cielo, in an offbeat hotel called the riot house that overlooks the bethel strip. it's eleven o'clock on a hot summer night - there is no moon hanging in the sky, nor breeze blowing through the air. i am late, due to customary downtown traffic and walking in, it's easy to understand why the papers paint the far-out hotel as a freaky meeting place for all of cielo's outsiders.

the lobby is packed, elbow to elbow with what i assume are the pretty people and i can't help but taking a seat to watch them, lost in admiration. within moments, a very young, tan, tall blonde boy appears in golden hotpants and asks me what i take to drink. a look of alarm washes over my face. he then says, "i work here, man. don't worry - i'm not trying to pick up on you." relieved, i tell him that beer is fine.

he returns and i realize that he is on roller skates. i stifle out a small laugh and he gives me what my mother would call 'the hairy eyeball.' covering my tracks, i say, "wow, this place sure has some beautiful people." he gives me another strange look, so i continue nervously, "it's just a little loud in here for me. i'm really here for kathleen - do you happen to know where i could find her?"

his face relaxes and he slowly says, "why? are you a cop?"

"far from it - i'm a writer for hep parade."

the hairy eyeball reinstates itself and he says, "will you do me a favor, then? i only want you to write half of what you see tonight."

"okay, which half?"

"the good half." he disappears on his skates back into the crowd.

a few moments pass and then, finally, the elevator door sounds and kathleen steps out. she is instantly recognizable - ratty blonde hair, jean jacket, cigarette at hand. she motions for me to come to the elevator - which, mind you, is the original birdcage lift from 1912, refurbished to functioning status. she is friendly and calls the operator by name when asking for the top floor. She leaves him a £50 tip.

we walk together to room 666 and upon walking through the door, it becomes quite clear that the riot house is not just kathleen's casual hideout and that she has been living in the room for longer than just a few days. she jokes, "well, the freaks have totally taken over 10050 lonesome lane and the house has gone to shit." she then informs me that she and jimmy haven't left the room since they made up earlier this week.

trotsky, pal ludo ludovic and brother sodapop take to the sitting room, like gangsters out of a mafia movie. they are seated around a small table, drinking what appears to be scotch, playing a game of cards. a cloud of cigarette smoke veils them. whenever a knock comes to the door, one of them springs up to get it - same with the telephone. every once in a while, they say that they're leaving to 'case the joint,' but we later find them buying drinks for girls at the bar.

kathleen throws what was in her hands - a silver cigarette lighter and case - onto the bed and slips into the kitchen to make a drink. from the balcony, in walks jimmy kiss. kathleen describes jimmy as, 'a tall drink of water' - he's 6' 4, skinny as a rail and all limbs, long arms speckled with tattoos. he looks like the greaser dream. he's wearing tight black jeans and a crisp white tee-shirt. naturally, his cigarette pack is rolled up in his shirt sleeve and his hair is slicked back with pomade. he walks into the kitchen, i follow. the pair have launched into a heated liplock, so i turn heel into the foreroom. sodapop wins a game of cribbage and I get a chapter of the satanic bible in before jimmy hollers from the kitchen and asks the boys what they would eat from room service - kathleen's buying, as always. they begin to debate, but he's already made the call. they'll be having cheeseburgers and strawberry shakes.

as soon as jimmy hangs up the phone, it rings again - this time, for kathleen. she spends a few minutes talking hurriedly and hangs up the phone. it rings again. she answers and wails, "i don't know - tell headlock to figure it out!" she slams the telephone receiver into the cradle and like clockwork, it rings again. kathleen's wild blue eyes go electric. she lets out a howl, "those...freaks!"

she is seemingly talking about her cielo commune. "there are juice freaks...grass freaks...pill freaks - every one is a freak!" she goes on, "in the mornings, what we have in mind is breakfast for forty-five," the introduction of granola proved an urgent fix for a desperate situation. she discloses that she recently purchased another three acres in monticello for her pretty people to set up camp - "only because i was tired of them sprawling out on my lawn." the papers have properly named it 'the freak farm,' identifying kathleen as the astute mother. the harem, which started out with a handful, has now grown to well over fifty and will continue to grow. the 10050 'love shack' began as a place where the down-and-out privileged hellions could take a breather; the commune is now open to people from all walks of life. "there are freaks all over cielo - working at the riot house and at hep parade. i'm also helping some of the kids open up a store. it's going to be called 'nobody's business' and it's sure to be essential for all." she goes on to describe the store at length - it will be full-service : books, clothing items, artist exhibitions, instruments and a complete range of hip paraphernalia. the paper's think she's started a revolution; they call this 'the summer of love' and her 'the beautiful one' - the paramount. "the fence thinks that the freaks are an organization, because they camp out and gather in cielo - and some think it's a movement. and that's what i think it is - the doll's pretty people and freaks anti-squares movement and all you've got to do to join is come by the house. since me a song, read me a story - paint me a picture. the revolving doors are open."

at this time, a knock comes to the door. kathleen is sitting on the edge of her bed, smoking a cigarette - although she's received several complaints - in a bathrobe. the wolfman jack show is playing in the background, on a small radio. the bellboy, after scooting in the cart in and before he snatched up his tip, raises his eyebrows at the doll. eventually he musters the strength to remind her that the floor is non-smoking. with a smile, she pulls a £50 note from her wallet and says, "i pay the taxes on cigarettes, don't i?"

the boys crowd around the cart like a pack of feral street cats and scarf down the food in record time. retreating, they reveal three beat-looking hamburgers, with a tiny pile of fries crowded near each one and three pink milkshakes. jimmy hands me my eats and serves kathleen before himself. i take a bite and look over at kathleen, who is still inspecting her food. "there's no tomatoes," she says weakly. i stop chewing and scan the room, anticipating a first rate prima donna meltdown. Instead, she looks at jimmy and says, "no one ever remembers that I hate tomatoes!"

soda jokes, "wait - you don't like tomatoes?" but the damage is done. within moments, kathleen and jimmy resume their heavy petting and drive everyone out of the room.

our story closes in the riot house bar and lounge, at or around two in the morning. kathleen has just finished her third double-shot of her 'baby's love,' also known as whiskey, and has already ordered two more. people look on - some in jealousy, some in distaste; still, she perseveres - in fact, she gets on the stage. the room begins to crowd around and kathleen, so deep into dancing, doesn't realize that a troupe of hecklers are pelting her with whatever they can find - bottle caps, lemon and lime peels, pennies wadded up in napkins. as soon as she catches onto this, her response is classic doll - "oh yeah, you people are so cool - you are going to sit in the darkness and throw fruit at me? come on up here, in the light, so everyone can see you. why don't you throw glass? do you have a gun? why don't you just shoot at me?" as she is being peeled off the stage, by her own security, she caps her diatribe with, "and don't forget to boogie!"

the end

i don't know how much longer i can do this with you, doll

it is time, yet again, to gather 'round and lend your eyes to kathleen. she's been answering her fanmail every other week like a good girl for hep parade magazine and unless you've been hovering over a dusty mirror for the last few months - it's the hottest thing on the block. hep parade has reported a surge in membership and they have even given kathleen a £100,000 raise. i don't get it!

Q: You're still really trying to make this '90s thing happen, aren't you?
A: it's the SUMMER OF LOVE

Q: What is the Summer of Love?
A: there's a lot of 40s, calamine lotion, doobies, heavy metal and freaks

Q: No, seriously - what happened to your jean jacket?
A: it's went back to 1993......PSYCHE!

Q: Punk rock?
A: PUNK RAWK.

Q: Which did you like better : 312 Skid Row or 10050 Lonesome Lane?
A: ROOM 666 @ THE RIOT HOUSE

Q: I read that you and Jimmy are actually married and you have a child on the way - care to comment?
A: i don't read fiction - I WRITE IT

Q: Why do you get thrown out of all the clubs?
A: they throw me out for being too rich

Q: What in the hell is the Riot House?
A: best party in cielo

Q: You're so Generation X.
A: I BELONG TO THE BLANK GENERATION

Q: You know, I really used to like and respect you. When all my cool friends talked badly about you - I would stand up for you. But after you broke up with Jimmy Kiss and ran his name through the mud to make yourself some quick cash - you lost me. I'm sure I'm not the first either. Get it together.
A: Wait a second, wait a second - HOW COOL ARE THESE 'COOL FRIENDS' AGAIN?

Q: Give me 3 words that best describe you.
A: God among mortals.

Q: Is ☺ ever going to be released?
A: NOT TODAY

Q: I think it's sad that you're using film footage of your dead friends for DIG! It must be hard to live with yourself.
A: LIVE FAST - maybe you'll die young

Q: Coke or heroin?
A: foilies - ONLY FOILIES

Q: Even though I'm sure that you'll respond 'NOTHING' - what did you eat for breakfast this morning?
A: dolls!

Q: Why was Jimmy arrested?
A: kiss got hemmed up because he's kiss - NEXT QUESTION

Q: A pool party? Isn't that a little junior high-ish?
A: what's it to you? DON'T BE A FOOL - GET IN THE POOL

Q: I really think you should give Jimmy a second chance. You and Maynard aren't meant for each other. Atticus Finch, really? Really?
A: REALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Q: Trotsky has said in the past that you're a "bad influence" on him - specifically that you give him drugs on occasion. What's the hardest drug you've ever given him?
A: MY FACE IS NUMB

my face is numb too - and not in a good way. don't write when you're high on crack everybody!

summer of love

it's about half-ten in the morning in the cielo valley and it is already nearing a hundred degrees, easy. the doll, kathleen, is running around the riot house property in an american flag bikini with a glass jug of dago red wine that is already half gone - she has been filling up sunbathers' drinks as they lay by the pool. trotsky is chasing after kathleen, sodapop is rumbling through the property on his ancient motorcycle. inside her bungalow, the phone is ringing off the hook. monster speakers are pushed up against the open windows, blasting heavy metal.

"the summer of love is nearly here,"  kathleen says, running up to me to fill my glass. i tell her that, much to my dismay, i have none, as i have just arrived. "that's okay," she says, "lean back and close your eyes - open your mouth, i'll give you a surprise!" 

kathleen flings the doors to her bungalow wide open and continues inside, talking to whoever will listen. she turns as a loud grown comes through the primrose vines - we hear a couple of girls in the pool nearby shriek as sodapop rides up in his motorcycle, beaming a movie star grin. shirtless, tan and young, he is a cielo dreamboat. "the girls just love it when i ride my bike around the pool," he says, hopping off the beast. kathleen rolls her eyes.

maynard g. alberkraut sits on the front porch in a comfy wicker chair, leafing through gone with the wind. alberkraut seems like the typical type kathleen would take under her wing and appears to have either confused himself with atticus finch or have just fallen out of a time machine from 1931. he is dressed in a thin white cotton shirt, trousers held up by suspenders, and finishes the look off with a pair of brown leather loafers. it wouldn't hurt to mention that his dark blonde hair is slicked back, à la james dean's character in east of eden. as i walk in, alberkraut looks up, pushes his reading glasses down his nose a little and then goes back to his book, pausing only to sip whiskey from his tumbler. "how's your drink?" kathleen asks, "warm as piss?"

"warmer," maynard replies, "the ice melts faster than i can drink it. it has to be over a hundred degrees by now, baby, even in the shade."

she turns to me. "he's been reading books on the great depression for the past few weeks and he's starting to drive me up the wall! to kill a mockingbird  has been on heavy rotation and 'kraut's quite the square now" she leans in and whisperers, "but trotsky and i have a plan to turn him into a freak!" snickering, kathleen then dips inside to freshen maynard's drink.

inside the bungalow, all the ceiling fans are spinning wildly and trotsky is filling up a swamp cooler that sits on the bay window; all the windows are open - in hopes of catching a stray breeze. "sodapop broke the air conditioning," she says, "we have," she turns to soda and speaks a little louder, "or should i say had - we had the cheap little box that sits in the window - the fancy air is being installed later this week; and, well, one night he got drunk and kicked it out the window. then he threw the television in the pool."

at this moment, soda lopes into the kitchen and interrupts her, "like you're any saint! you took my bike for a spin down one of the hallways of the hotel!" kathleen smiles impishly. "and, on the night of the opening, she rode around the gardens on a horse, totally in the nude! the horse wasn't even hers - it was a cop's! she was lucky that time and only got laughed at."

she throws him an evil look, "i've done wilder things."

sodapop, says, "like what? like dangling out of a sixth-story window? you call that wild? that's kid stuff."

kathleen snorts and points at trotsky, "don't say things like that - trotsky's just a kid himself! talking like that might hurt his feelings." she laughs loudly at her joke.

meanwhile, a pack of wild-haired, tan-skinned kids make their way through the side door, carrying armfuls of fresh-picked wildflowers and nursing burns from the sun. kathleen stops and, upon noticing my observation of them, makes formal introductions - "these are my canyon kids. yes, these are the famed pretty people. only this isn't all of them - there's more of them running around here somewhere." her lonesome lane estate has recently become one of your run-of-the-mill communes for the down and out billion dollar babies. there are camps of people around her yard - the cozy  house functions as a sort of rock 'n' roll salon; she plays host to both locals and strangers. the blessed bands of cielo's most divine wandering souls are none other than the beautiful one and her friends themselves, known collectively as the pretty people - or the freaks, if you ask the media. they are holing up at the doll's free spirit enclave on lookout mountain and away from prying eyes, working to help kathleen in any way that they can.

she finally sits down on the patio, next to maynard and begins to skin up a joint. she invites soda and trotsky over. trotsky, who has been acting as mild form of security since the massacre on skid row stands outside, but never sits. "he is constantly casing the joint!" kathleen later says, "i'm sure he probably feels guilty - you know, because he didn't get sliced up and all, but that's okay. whatever floats his boat. if he wants to case, he can case all day - he doesn't bother me any."

trotsky, who, in the papers comes off as shy, unassuming and eager - seems nothing of the like. "last night, i remember taking off my shoes and getting into bed, but i woke up this morning in the main house, face down on the kitchen floor with different clothes on."

he shrugs it off at just another night out with the doll and her sect, until kathleen says, "well, in your own defense, after going down to the strip, getting good and loaded and pissing yourself in the back of a squad car - it's no wonder you don't remember it play-by-play."

with that, trotsky pops a squat on the ground and passes the doobie around. "i'm listening," he says, prompting kathleen to continue.

"i can't tell you much, because i wasn't holding your hand through this one, but i heard that you got lost in the valley and were ticketed for being drunk in public. they said you had to beg a ride home off the police."

it doesn't take long, but trotsky begins to remember the sordid details of nights past - he lost his keys in the riot house and after sleeping in the bushes outside of kathleen's cielo home, took back to the streets in the valley. he says, "i don't know, i've heard by a few people that i got picked up by the fuzz - i can't really say for sure, i mean, i woke up in the yard this morning."

"the yard? i thought you woke up in kitchen!" kathleen exclaims, back in the kitchen preparing more drinks.

"yeah - whatever."

she returns outside with a tray of tumblers as headlock walks up the path towards us. "headlock!" she shouts, "what are you doing here? what did i do now?" he lets out a weak smirk and immediately launches into a tirade about throwing televisions in pools, sleeping in bushes and riding motorcycles in the hotel.  she tries handing him the roach, now barely burning and says, "take a hit, relax!" headlock ignores her and presses on that reporters are in the lobby of the riot house, waiting for a statement. "what are these people waiting for?" kathleen inquires, "a bus? things fall into pools and people sleep in bushes all the time! they were just lucky that the television didn't fall on their heads - or worse!" she ushers headlock back towards the hotel to smooth things over.

i stayed for a bit longer than headlock, but when my time came, she then gives me the same walk she gave him - arm draped over the shoulder like we've known each other for years, not hours - and says, "well, you know, i 'd really love you to stay, but the summer of love is only so long and i've got to get my kicks in before it ends." she leans in, "besides, this is the second time i've ever been alone in my life - i'm scared shitless."

the doll's new toy

kathleen has revealed to the fence that he has a new man in her life, now that she's sacked wet mop jimmy kiss. she has been snapped out numerous times with maynard b. alberkraut, her friend from arcadia who is currently working at the riot house in hotpants, dancing on tables. i don't believe it - the picture inside the doll's locket will always be of jimmy kiss.

their romance became official at the opening riot house bash last weekend - she showed up with 'kraut and kiss, although he was banned from attending, went stag.

maynard became close to kathleen after the 312 knifings and before long, was in her inner circle. he spent time holidaying in mulholland with the doll and recently, the two took a trip upstate, to the farmy monticello to purchase property for, well, it's a surprise. baby babble told the papers, "i can't tell you what it's for - it's a surprise! it's for me to know and you to find out." you know that's just doll code for : my drug dealing hub. just you wait. in a couple of months, there's going to be a big drug bust in monticello. believe!

people close to her - aka sodapop - told the papers that the two get along like a house on fire and that kathleen thinks he's the perfect gentleman. well, of course she would! jimmy kiss was the imperfect gentleman. after seeing how kiss behaves, i'm convinced that he was either raised by wolves or savages. or both! his take on life is totally warped. come to think of it, it's just jimmy that's warped.

if you ask me, maynard b. alberkraut is a total bore. aside from being ticketed for minor in possession of tobacco - when he was sixteen - curfew and parking on the wrong side of the street, he's a snooze! for a while, everyone thought that he was the doll's new drug dealer, but after sizing him up - i highly doubt that.

'kraut makes me yawn! there's not a wild bone in his body. i mean, shit, in high school, jimmy kiss knocked up a cheerleader and she broke his heart by getting an abortion, so he brought a gun to school and the rest is history! i don't like jokes so i'm not even kidding. oh and p.s. - he was star of the football team. can you imagine? kiss doesn't have the lung capacity to go up and down the stairs, let alone a field! i suspect the doll had something to do with the write-up of his 'official' - officially bullshit, maybe - autobiography page on the world wide web. kiss was born in the gutter and he will die in the gutter. and you know that kathleen didn't attend high school because she didn't need to - she was born a genius. she was also born blonde, so don't get it twisted.

in other doll news, the beautiful one confessed that she has plans to take her family of freaks on tour - "we've received a warm welcome from the crowds in arcadia and mulholland, not to mention right here in the valley; we're gearing up right now for a movement." gearing up is right on the money. gearing up with gear! she said, "so, look out your window - because we'll be coming to a town near you!"

yes, it has been a busy couple of weeks for the sunshine kid - from breaking up with longtime loverboy jimmy kiss, to all of her work with hep parade magazine, to opening the riot house, to shacking up with maynard - and now a tour announcement. b. alberkraut told the papers that he hopes she hasn't "piled too much on her plate." earth to maynard! first lesson : this girl doesn't eat! so, there should be no problems.

baby babble answers her fanmail

the doll is such a hoot! her latest composition for hep parade magazine has me thinking that she doesn't take anyone - except herself - seriously! if she continues on like this, she won't have any fans left! well, other than myself.

in fact, i'm almost convinced that the beautiful one made up most of these questions by herself. the only one that i'm not sure about is : "I'll be at the Riot House tomorrow - I'll have your eight-ball ready. I'll be wearing a shirt that says "Satan Loves Me."" if that's not jimmy kiss, then i don't know what is!

Q: Do you think Jimmy Kiss still cares about you?
A: i don't think

Q: Are you single now or what?
A: or what

Q: I heard that you fucked for fame - is that true?
A: hey, i heard that too!!!!!

Q: Is the Riot House only for your friends or can normal people stay there too?
A: WEIRDOS ONLY - what is this 'normal' shit?

Q: You always look so gross - when did you get that jean jacket, 1996?
A: ROFL - you are so right, i am so filthy it's disgusting

Q: Are you mean in real life or is that just your reputation?
A: i like being mean.......BUT NOT TO YOU

Q: You know that you're totally going to hell when you die, right?
A: HELL NEEDS ME - heaven doesn't deserve me

Q: You need to clean up your act and quit with the drugs bullshit and find a nice boyfriend - not Jimmy or Beau.
A: LOL WUT - shut up headlock!

Q: What kind of drugs do you want, I can get you anything. I know people who know people - let's party!
A: I WANT THEM ALL - LET'S HUG

Q: I really like your columns for Hep Parade and I can't wait for DIG! and ☺ to come out - what's next after that?
A: ALOTTA FREAKS!

Q: I like what you're doing - we should get together. I can make you famous.
A: talk to my agent

Q: Are you really into the Devil?
A: YES HAIL SATAN 666

Q: Have you ever blown Beau Goodman?
A: i have done blow with him - LOL FOILIES!

Q: You really do like your heroin, don't you?
A: not enough

Q: No one care about anything you do - you mean nothing.
A: LOL WUT

Q: How fun is the Riot House on a scale of 1-10?
A: there is no scale for disco

Q: Is Disco all you play at the Riot House?
A: no, we also play punk rawk, doo wop do wop, heavy metal, polka and funk - why? WHAT'S IT TO YOU? WRITING A BOOK OR SOMETHING?

Q: I'll be at the Riot House tomorrow - I'll have your eight-ball ready. I'll be wearing a shirt that says "Satan Loves Me."
A: no one loves you - NOT EVEN SATAN

Q: Did you love Jimmy Kiss?
A: i don't love

Q: Do you really roll your own doobies? I thought you would have someone for that...
A: ROFL - if the doll were a country, rolling up doobs would be the national pastime

Q: Who is @heavyhorse?
A: well it's most definitely not JOEY KISS

Q: What's your favorite thing to do in Cielo?
A: DO SPEEDBALLS COUNT?? LOL

Q: Do you have any friends?
A: no, i pay trotsky, ludo and maynard to hang out with me

Q: So, let me guess, you're just one of the average Cielo airheads, right?
A: no - ABOVE AVERAGE

this is why i love her! she tells the best jokes.

wild honeypie will open the riot house in cielo

right on the strip in the valley and everything

the riot house is soon to be known in cielo as the end-all of hotel-nightclubs, because the doll has given it her sunshine touch. she's opening up the joint under her name and you know she's only doing it to drink for free. a hotelier, by the name of rudy rubideaux, is helping her with all the angles.

back on subject, she told hep parade magazine that when it comes to the riot house, she wants to emulate some of the idyllic rock 'n' roll hotels of long ago, as well as give it her signature hep look. she considered opening in mulholland for a hot minute, but finally decided upon cielo after her move from arcadia. renovations began earlier this year, once the doll purchased the the benz high school building. katty cakes has transformed the nine acre property, originally built in 1881, into a really happening scene.

instead of a gymnasium in the east wing, there's a grand ballroom - intended for formal dinners, masquerades, balls and other elegant affairs. the ballroom is decorated with the utmost extravagance - a massive dome, constructed of wrought ironwork and glass covers the entrance; inside, false windows with mirrors and mirrored glass open the hall, making it more light and bright. the 72-foot high ceiling is composed entirely of glass - the massive skylight opens up the beautiful cielo sky, day or night.

the ballroom connects to an auditorium in the middle of the hotel; the theatre was left as-is and renovated to its former state. the kitchen is located in a separate building, cater-cornered to the bungalows; in the basement, sits the riot house bar and nightclub - the street entrance can be found on benz alley. everything reeks of the doll - in the bar, above the dance floor is a giant "man in the moon with a cocaine spoon." i can't even make this shit up. the moon and the spoon are suspended above at opposite sides of the room and meet when the glittering, cocaine-dusted spoon goes back and forth into the moon's nose. the busboys for the bar are going to wear gold hot pants and nothing else - kathleen said, "their job is to wipe off the tables and then dance on them." trotsky, maynard b. alberkraut, sodapop and ludo ludovic make up the bartending and wait staff.

in a building that hosts so much history of cielo, the doll felt that it was inappropriate to demolish and affirmed that the added relics would only appeal to patrons more.

the riot house sits on the intersection of benz street and bethel boulevard. the hotel has one hundred rooms, twenty-five suites, five garden cottages, five poolside cottages and five penthouses. the property itself is surrounded and filled with lush gardens, in which three ample mountain pools are contained. guests will revel in things like in-room safes, personalized stationary, limousine services, fine hand-stitched linens, laundry facilities and 24-hour room service - food can be ordered from the rooms or the bar. the rooms differ, but features range from working fireplaces, hardwood floors, full kitchen and dining areas, private entrances, attached carports, landscaped courtyards, wraparound terraces and private gardens. basically, anything you want, you can have - at the riot house. and yes, that's means drugs too. i mean, this is the doll we're talking about.

the opening ceremony will take place this weekend - the who's who of arcadia, mulholland, cielo and even people coming in special from the isle of grimaldi will be there - or be square.

kathleen is the sunshine kid

baby babble and her spoonful of sugar are hitting the road!

kat and kiss are going on tour! why, you ask? i think the more important question is : THOSE 2 ARE BACK TOGETHER? oh lord jesus help us.

yup, kathleen somehow talked her way back into jimmy's pocket. word has it, she showed up outside of jimmy's cardboard shack on the street last night and lied through her teeth made a bunch of empty promises to get him back. i guess it worked, because today hep parade magazine announced 'the sunshine tour'. tickets will be on sale online starting next week. i'm sure those two will paint the skid row neighborhood red. and a little bit of the brown and white, if you know what i mean.

in the rider, the troublesome doll rather ridiculously demanded;

one (1) roadie who speaks decent french, bad german and even worse english. he must not be afraid of death. also, he needs to be comfortable with:
1.) headlock - headlock will be his right hand man. this may seem obvious, but take it from me - he is not a people person.
2.) china white, needles, wadded-up pieces of tinfoil and getting arrested - this is all we do.
3.) sodapop - sodapop will talk at will. feel free to ignore him totally or carry your own earplugs.
demands:
security; we will be requiring the use of three (3) intensely loyal security persons - who don't mind looking the other way if certain situations should arise - to be stationed at the entrance of the dressing rooms. yes, three men, preferably built like brick shit-houses, to stand menacingly outside the doors. please also note that during the crawl, we will have extra persons with us - no police, thanks.
parking; this is skid row and kathleen and her people will require parking passes for at least seven (7) cars on the dar of the crawl.
dressing rooms; three (3) comfortable dressing rooms will be required. one for trotsky and sodapop - as well as the production crew of DIG!
*the kisses will require the exclusive use of the dressing room for the entire day and night of the gigs. the doors should lock and the rooms should have the ability to be temperature-regulated by the occupants. there must also be a 120-volt electrical service in each. this means a really janky-looking wall socket that's already got three things plugged into it. for our friends from france.
1.) silver tea service would be the best. i suppose you could provide a kettle or a coffee machine if you like, otherwise i'm sure there's a café nearby. and if there isn't - this is god, telling you to open one.
2.) two (2) packs of playing cards. in case jimmy wants to do some card tricks - or kathleen wants to hold a quick game of strip poker.
the kisses;
fresh ginger, honey, lemons and a knife sharp enough to stab jimmy kiss with. and some chinese gunpowder tea so we can blow the joint up. kidding! i doubt you'll be able to find chinese gunpowder tea at this time of year.
an english language newspaper
a bucket of ice, for champagne
a box of tinfoil
2 bottles each: grey goose or belvedere
jamison whiskey
martell cognac
1 case each: heineken
banana bread beer, brewed by our friends from england
coca-cola, in bottles, with cane sugar
ribena juice boxes
2 boxes of rough rider condoms
assorted candy (saturn zingers, flying saucers, raspberry bootlace...)
1 carton each of camel blue, parliament full flavor and light american spirit cigarettes.
*i'd just like to say that the next time that i, the sunshine kid, gets booked, if my rider is not totally satisfied, i will show up at the venue three hours late and won't go on until my needs are met.
*and no wimping out every night after a few drinks. the sunshine kid will frown upon this as the tour motto now is "blood in, blood out."

the fun, fun times for her.

and, it sounds like sodapop will be joining in for the hijinks as well! hopefully the kisses cut him out of all the action, because you know the second that the tour is over, soda's going to go make some real money with the newspapers. i am convinced that sodapop should get a device installed in his body, so that when the fence needs ideas for cover stories, they can just stick a couple of quarters in him and he'll spit on out. it's pretty much the same thing he does now, only with less mechanics involved.

happiness is a bathtub full of vodka

"instead of perfume, there will be rottenness"

-isiah 3:24

a little before one in the afternoon, on another typical bristling winter day in arcadia, my taxicab drops me a few streets away from 312 skid row - where i am to meet with the owner of the residence, kathleen grace, better known as "the doll". because i am aware of her reputation for being last-minute to just about everything, i purposely post up at a nearby bar, arriving half an hour late. i am still early. as if that weren't bad enough, i have to take a leak.

just as i start to think about going into the alley and taking matters into my own hands, kathleen’s black rolls royce town car - "the gravedigger" - rumbles up the street. headlock doesn't stop for me and goes through the gates and up the driveway to park in the garage. i follow. first, a young looking man gets out, dressed in black pants, a ripped-up sweater and black motorcycle boots; his hair is brown and short. he walks slowly, with a creeping manner - smoking a cigarette. totally cool, it is none other than beau goodman. behind him trails a taller man, but with a mean grimace stretched across his face. it is headlock, the wrangler of the world's most famous doll, who i have come to see.

beau walks up and throws his cigarette on the ground, then spits. headlock disappears. i set about following beau throughout the preeminent property - there seems to be some sort of party going on and the grounds are crawling with people, despite the frigid weather. as i walk by, i notice that the dense crowd is made up of completely conflicting social groups- the city's high society hoity-toities are actually sharing oxygen with the down-and-out. despite their differences, they seem to be getting on quite well. beau takes me through the front door and into the living room, where the bash has spread as well. i start to make my way up the stairs, when sodapop cola, kathleen’s brother, stops me. be pulls me aside and inquires if i will go easy on hounding her about her boyfriend, jimmy kiss. their relationship has been on the rocks ever since beau entered the picture. "she loves him," he says, "and she doesn't want him to get the wrong idea and think she's up to no good while he's away." i agree.

soda walks away and i continue up the stairs. beau is waiting at the top, smoking another cigarette. he laughs when he sees me and says, "don’t let soda scare you. he’s like a big puppy dog, really. no one around here takes him seriously." he opens the door to kathleen’s bedroom and we walk in.

her bedroom is inviting and lush - with dark wooden floors, big bay windows and vaulted ceilings. in the middle of the room, she has two sofa couches and a plush chair - upholstered in pop-art rosebud print - all comfortably gathered near an ancient-looking vanity. it looked like impromptu midnight gab sessions between high school girlfriends have taken place here and will probably take place again in the future. i politely introduce myself and shake kathleen’s hand - even though i’ve met her three times before - and ask if i can use her bathroom. "yeah, sure," she says, "but if you're going in there to do drugs - don't do them without me." she laughs and i stifle out a confused chortle.

every room in her house is lovelier than the last and the same is true for her bathroom. a biblical fresco stretches from the walls to the floor. a glass chandelier hangs above a claw-foot bathtub, complete with golden bath accessories. a sauna lies in another corner - a standing shower stands opposite. midway through my self-guided tour, i notice that her bathtub is filled to the brim with ice and bottle after bottle of upscale vodka. i walk back into her room and quip, "well, kathleen, you have outdone yourself yet again. i do believe you have enough booze in that bathtub to give a whole fleet of sailors alcohol poisoning."

she laughs and tells me it's free from a company gig. "they threw me this big shindig in some ballroom downtown for new year's, but headlock forgot to tell me about it, so i never showed up. they got kind of mad, but never asked for the vodka back."

beau rolls a doobie up and passes it to her. she lights it and moves from her seat in the middle of the room to her vanity and begins applying makeup. she tells me that she will be appearing on a late-night arcadian television show to promote her new book; "even though it hasn't been released yet." she rolls her eyes. "i mean, i hardly just came up with the title - ☺." she sighs.

she gingerly lays down her thick eyeliner in between puffs on a cigarette - downstairs, the walls shake and a loud crash is heard. kathleen doesn't blink. she simply roots through a drawer for her mascara and runs the wand through her eyelashes until they are thick - but not too thick. then, she says without missing a beat, "it's okay, i didn't pay for what they're breaking anyways."

by now, the sun is barely hanging in the sky and it's nearly time for kathleen to head down the road. she stands up and walks to her balcony - below, the party continues - past the gates, photographers are lined up in a pack, waiting. she returns from the balcony and heads downstairs, making her way through the thick of people. as soda opens the backdoor of the gravedigger for her, i ask if she's worried about leaving her home in the incapable hands of this congregation. she cocks her eyebrow and says, "like these creeps will notice if i'm here or not." for all the things she is right about - she couldn't be more wrong.