Here's a humungoid mishmosh of two of my older pieces that I've never done at Moonwork. Well, I'm doing them both tomorrow night as one mammoth weirdfest:
Good evening, Moonwork! I am Andres du Bouchet. Forgive me for insulting your intelligence by introducing myself, for there is one man who needs no introduction, that man is this man. At this point, no doubt, a dozen or more of you are busy tapping away on your blackberrys or text caddies or palm ponies - incidentally, I communicate the old fashioned way, I do whatever the fuck I want and when someone has something to tell me they need to figure out what fake name I'm checked in under and sneak a note under the room service tray that brings me my nightly jenga tower of sushi. I will not acknowledge you in person unless I've previously received a note via the method just described! Simple system. Cuts away the clutter. Anyway, yes, right now many of you are sending e-mails to one of those celebrity sightings websites - Gawker or Defamer or Stalker or Loser or snarky a-hole loser dot com, you know, one of those sites, and you're typing "Andres du Bouchet spotted on a stage in a school on Sullivan street. So large and masculine! As if a tiger had fucked a tornado and 9 months later Andres sprang forth from that tornado's windgina."
Yes, such is my presence. I do not merely have stage presence, I have world presence. After all, as Shakespeare said, "all the world is a stage." So why confine my presence to the stage? No, I command every corner, nook and cranny that I occupy. I have stage presence, bar presence, Starbucks presence, vagina presence, sitting on the bus presence, Kate's Paperie presence, it doesn't matter where I am. "Excuse me ma'am can you help me choose some stationery! Show me some stationery, won't you, Kate??? Bring Kate before me so that she may show me my stationery options!!!" Do you see? I have presence. I remember one time I was at an ice cream establishment entitled The Cold Stone Creamery. The employees were so inspired by my presence that they broke into song...but I digress. I didn't come here to spend my one night off from the set of "Thunderlazer Four" to wallow in my own presence. I am here to tell you a story.
After all, I have led a storied life. And as such, my life has many stories. You are about to hear one of them. It is not for the faint of heart. I am not proud of the tale I am about to relate.
(sigh)
I met David Hasselhoff in the Spring of 1996, while shooting a guest role on his then white-hot hit show Baywatch Nights. I played a rogue nightclub owner slash private eye named Dash Brilliatine, who had just moved into town, and was roguishly, sexily attempting to muscle in on Mitch Buchanan's (Hasselhoff's character) nightclub slash private eye business, using all the savvy roguish charm at my disposal. At any rate, in the episode (I believe it was called A Dash of Mitch and A Pinch of Dash) Dash and Mitch actually roguishly join forces to defeat their common enemy, a bellicose Cuban cockfighting-ring kingpin slash druglord named "El Pedo Del Diablo". We only shared three brief scenes, and two of them involved an intense karaoke face-off in Mitch's nightclub, so our actual screentime didn't overlap much. However, due to a mutual affinity for belittling the catering staff, we soon became fast friends.
Following the shoot, I stuck around for a few extra months just to hang with David and enjoy the nightlife. We made superb carousing partners, harvesting eager starstruck hotties with ease, scaring up the 'tang with alarming frequency and precision. The potency inherent in our mere identities was so strong that the only opening line I needed to utter in order to initiate poonage with a fame-guzzling-booze-hussy was "Hello, I'm Andres du Bouchet," and the only line David needed to offer for the sugartrap to snap was "Hello, I'm...a friend of Andres du Bouchet."
We did have a third companion on these sexcursions, however:
Zeus' Nutsack. I see some of you nodding. You too have experienced the sack.
For the uninitiated, a Zeus' Nutsack is a diabolical alcohol and drug cocktail in which two shots of peach schnapps are dumped into a pint of Guinness, and then the resulting concoction is imbibed through two straws made of pure crack cocaine. One straw up your mouth, and one in your left nostril. The right nostril is reserved for simultaneously smoking a menthol cigarette.
On a typical night, David and I would each do six or seven Zeus' Nutsacks. It was an unbelievable sensation, like shooting through psychedelic space in the nude whilst straddling a giant Toblerone candy bar as the soundtrack to the original 1977 Star Wars film reverbrates through your perineum. Positively reverbrates.
Incidentally, the Toblerone is my favorite of the candy bars. To my knowledge, it is the only candy bar shaped like a prism. And as such, it refracts deliciousness into its two primary components - chocolate and nougat.
But Zeus' Nutsack giveth, and Zeus' Nutsack taketh away. After a rare unsuccesful evening of she-spelunking, David and I stumbled into his condo just as the sun was beginning to tickle the horizon's own perineum. We were still smashed out of our gourdballs on zeus' nutsacks.
You guys know how it is. You've been out all night, you're wasted, you don't want the night to end, "hey let's chill back at the condo and watch shitty movies we'll pick up a six pack, a large valencia orange and some electrical tape on the way yeah!" -- "yeah alright sounds good wait did you say orange and electrical wuh? ah, whatever woo!"
Once at David's condo, we began to half-heartedly debate what to watch on tv - either a pay-per-view M. Night Shalamyamlmlm flick - the one with the twist at the end - or our favorite nature special - 'Awwwwww AAAAAHHH - Cute Animals That Will Eat You Part 3 - The Polar Bear'.
We settled on a DVD that David produced from underneath his mattress entitled 'That Won't Fit In There! #18'. This would prove to be a warning shot over the bow of the listing ship that was my consciousness that went unheeded by my Zeus' Nutsack-addled mind. We settled in to watch the film. Just as David began approaching me with a valencia orange and some electrical tape, I blacked out.
For some reason my mind must have known I was in peril, for in the inky blackness of unconsciousness I began reliving snippets from my long and successful career:
There was my role as Dean Xylorb in the hit 80s sex comedy Frat Planet - "If I find any space beer in your biodome, space frat, I'll confiscate your modulators!"
Then I flashed back to my role as the host of the hit reality show 'Who Does Joey Fatone Want To Have Sex With Twice' - "Candy. I must regretfully inform you - that it is my pleasure to tell you - that I must sadly see you go - nowhere at all as I give - the bad news - to your pessimistic side - that disappointingly - we won't be seeing you go - anywhere but out of here - if it were backwards day. Therefore, you are not - not one of the people - Joey Fatone won't not be having sex with twice. You may return to the row of whores."
And then I flashed back even further to the PBS documentary about helium that I narrated. I can still remember - "Helium. To most of us, it is nothing more than the substance we use to inflate party balloons. But helium is so much more. Come with me now, won't you, and together, thanks to a grant provided by the American Helium Advisory Council, we shall discover the wonders of Helium, The Noblest Gas!"
Hmm. I remember that one very well! Let's see...
"The year is 1868. Venezuela has just begun its long, tumultuous relationship with that sultry lady known as Civil War. The good people of Japan are waking up to the dawn of the Meiji Restoration. And the United States Congress says "Howdy, you big cowpoke, welcome to the Union" to the brand new state of Wyoming. In a bittersweet turn of the Great Wheel of Life, the whole world celebrates the birth of Scott Joplin, the future King of Ragtime Music, and then mourns the death of David Brewster, the inventor of the kaleidoscope.
And on the dark and mysterious subcontinent known as "India", French astronomer Pierre-Jules-César Janssen discovers the first evidence of a brand new element! While observing an eclipse through his telescope, he notices a heretofore undocumented yellow line in the solar spectrum. This would prove to be one of the most startling encounters with a yellow line in young Pierre's life, second only to the time just a few days earlier, when his brother, Francois, had gotten completely loaded up on Beaujolais and then relieved himself in the snow on Pierre's front porch before passing out. There in the snow next to Francois' unconscious body, in fine, yellow script it read – and I'm translating from the French here:
"My dearest brother Pierre, best of luck to you on your upcoming trip to India to study the solar eclipse. I am so proud that you have the talent and drive to pursue your lifelong passion of becoming a truly great astronomer. Do you remember the times I teased you about your dreams when we were children? I said you had stardust in your brain, and I always gave you horrible wedgies. Well, now it is I who deserves the wedgies. You are now a great man of science, whereas I am nothing but a drunkard with an extraordinarily large bladder and incredible penile dexterity. Sincerely, your devoted brother, Francois-Guy-Henri Janssen."
And Francois did indeed have incredible penile dexterity, for there, beneath the many loops and flourishes of his signature, was a perfect, yellow rendering of the family crest. Two unicorns crossing horns in front of a shield emblazoned with a perfect map of France, detailed down to the county lines, and shaded according to each region's population density.
Incidentally, Francois would go on to reap quite a fortune touring the globe, displaying his prodigious skills as a urinary maestro until passing away tragically from an infection that he contracted in the Amazon river. An infection brought about by the Candiru, a very tiny species of catfish that, when sensing warm urine in the water, follows the urine stream up into the human urethra and then, using tiny spines on its head, lodges there, causing excruciating pain, then infection, then ultimately, death.
They called this new element helium!"
I woke up on David's bed - what could have been minutes or maybe hours later, my head pounding dull. A painful weight pressing against my spine. My wrists sore and behind me. Were they...bound? No! Yes. As my world started to clarify, from random jockeying through my career memories to the nude prone now, I could start to make out my own blurry face in David's mirrored closet door. A valencia orange electrical-taped into my panic gurgling maw. A small length of blinking red Christmas lights somehow affixed to my forehead. The red light blipping back and forth across my sweat-streaked temple. Back and forth. Back and forth.
I could see my clothes in a heap on the floor.
I soon made out a husky voice in my ear, mumbling - "duh duddle duddle duddah, duh duddle duddle duddah, duh duddle duddle duddah, duh duddle duddle duddah...bah bappa bah, bah bappa bah, bah bappa bah bah BAH!"
And that horrible weight upon me. Eager and hairy weight. David must have cycled through the Knight Rider theme 10 or 12 times, before saying:
"C'mon KITT. Someone's drowning. We've gotta...we've gotta go help the drowners. C'mon KITT. Turbo BOOST!"
On "Boost!" my worst fears were confirmed.
I don't know what I found more upsetting:
a) that David had gone so far over the edge, that his brain had become so addled by abuse, that his two hit shows were in his mind now one - in which a lifeguard saves people with the aid of an intelligent car?
b) That he was now inside me?
or c) That there was any debate as to which of those two things was more upsetting?
"Helium also plays an integral role in the process of nuclear fusion!"
Ahhh. It feels good to have opened up to you, ladies and gentlemen. I have never told anyone that story. Please, do not let it leave this room. I don't want David Hasselhoff to be the gerbil to my Richard Gere. Just remember this one lesson if you remember nothing else from tonight -
If you dare to steal the bathrobe of fame from the hotel room of life, it will get added to your karmic bill. Make no mistake.
Goodnight, Moonwork.
Posted on April 13, 2007 |