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My friends and I were bored last night so we looked for things to do in our town because there's usually nothing. On Google maps we find a place that was a "boarding school for witches, ghouls, and monsters" so of course we get in the car and pull up.
Once there it is obviously a witches house. An old 1800s building with glowing pumpkins out front. Red lanterns illuminating the windows and so many random things in the backyard including a circus tent. This had to be a witches house. So we approach and knock on the door. We are pretty certain it's just someone's house but it's a Tuesday night at 7pm what's the worst that could happen.
We wait for a moment until we see a light turn on and a disheveled man in his pajamas, a big orange beard and a trucker hat opens the door and says "hello?" Looking at us quizzically. I say "hello is this ****** - boarding school for witches, ghouls and monsters? We found it on Google maps and are curious." He chuckles a little and says "let me explain. Come inside." We enter a dimly lit living room decorated with antiques and ominous knick knacks. Dozens of candles hung from the ceiling and he takes a seat on a large throne in the corner. We sit on plush antique couches as he begins to tell us about his passion project.
It turns out his whole entire home was basically an art installation and a manifesting of his life into a fantasy world story. He has lived in his artwork for atleast the last 14 years since he moved into the home and you can tell he cares about it deeply. He tells us how it's morphed and changed for years as he's lived and grown. He wants to make a TV show or a movie and that's what all of this has been for. He's done many things like haunted houses, mercantiles, fantasy experiences, but as of recently he got married 6 months ago and has 7 step children now. His art project has morphed and become more functional. Where he used to live in his characters bedroom he now lives in his own with his wife who is a costume designer. They work together to bring his story to life.
He gave us a tour of every room in his home. Each eclectically decorated with antiques and knickknacks his dedication has attracted him. One was an original glass domed framed photograph of a women's father from the early 1900s gifted to him. And strewn about the home was hundreds of dolls and doll parts. He has acquired these from a random phone call from a man he has never talked to, but he offered him $30,000 worth of antique turn of the century dolls and doll parts. This man just attracts the most amazing things.
His laundry room was half decorated as a wizards mercantile expertly hand crafted shelves and signage marked hand crafted wands, brooms, wood jewelry and so much more. He told us the story of how down in southern Utah he discovered a tri split winding tree alone in the middle of the desert. He harvested this ancient tree and turned it into 3 sister brooms all gorgeously crafted.
We talked with him for an hour and a half and we learned about his TV show he wants to start shooting this year. And about his dreams for what he wants to do with it. We gave him tips on social media and short form content to share his passion and we learned much about each other. We met a very interesting man yesterday.
Mar 5, 2025
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First thing she told me about him was that he had weird style. A 2015 hypebeast who got a gig vibe curating for organic grocery stores. Thatās what she told me about him. She showed me a picture of him where he had his lips all pursed up like he was trying to show off his jawlineā but in a knowing, self-effacing ādonāt I look so silly making this handsome pouty faceā way. Shortly after she asked me to look at this picture & make fun of him & after I had complied, she told me something interesting.
āHeās got this car. Itās a complete, from scratch model of the car from that lindsay Lohan movie herbie, fully loaded.ā
I sat up, cross legged
ānot just the chassis, not just the engine, the whole thing. He found concept art & behind the scenes schematics of herbie. He tracked down each part & made absolute sure to get them as authentically as possible. He didnāt include anything unfaithful to the original vision. He mentioned something about being unable to be unfaithful to it. That working on āHimā, he kept calling the car āHimā, that this was his way of discovering what faith meant.ā
This confused me, so i asked my friend to keep explaining.
āItās likeā hereās the way he put it. Itās like this, you can get a ready made replica of just about any famous car you could dream of jsut by knowing the right people. But a replica is not āHimā. He told me that he had no interest in driving something sold to him with āauthenticityā, itās āfaithfulnessā being a POINT OF SALE.ā
I was intrigued, so I asked her point blank what she thought he got out of the whole thing. She gazed up at the ceiling for a while, I think looking at the same daddylonglegs that I was looking at earlier. The one with the big orb of eggs attached to its thorax. an orb that would burst & bring forth 10 million babydaddylonglegs into my home. After a few moments of spidergazing, she told me this, this is what she told me. Like the words were being sucked from her mouth.
āI donāt know. It might be some weird type of prayer, like heās building himself an idol or a god or a friend or a father or a lover. He told me that when heās inside āHimā, he feels in control. He feels safe. Powerful. His hands are on the wheel & Herbie responds perfectly to everything he does. Thereās no resistance, like Herbie is an extension of his own flesh almost. He insists that he can hear Herbie whisper words of encouragement to him. There was something vaguely sexual about it all. Itās weird Jake, but I couldnāt tell if he was gonna laugh or cry or kiss me. And I wanted him. Badly. It was the most honest a man had ever been with me. I havenāt been able to stop thinking about it.ā
I asked her if she planned on seeing him again.
āI donāt know. Maybe. You know I donāt have a car. Thing is that he lives far away & the drive is kind of a bitch.ā
Dec 16, 2024
āļø
Iām at the workshop of some guy to get a jacket chain stitched. The workshop is in a building behind a house in Chicago. If youāve been around here, you know what Iām talking about. The artist is this British dude that has very wild energy. Kind of reminds me of that dude from Idles, but smaller. Looks like he doesnāt shower.
So I brought him a jacket and he completely disassembled it. I start freaking out because I remember that I already have a deal with a different artist (I am actually working with IRL). At one point his mom is there and he kicks us out? So Iām just chilling in the backyard with his mom while sheās on a swing and Iām sitting at one of the many lined up picnic tables.
When he was done it was an incredibly beautiful and creative jacket, far beyond what I had asked.Ā Ā I realize that I was still getting my husband jacket made by the other artist, but this jacket was for me. I hadnāt even paid.Ā Ā I was worried about paying for another jacket.Ā Ā I was confused why he made something so intricate. Did this guy love me?Ā Ā Did I love him?Ā I sat on him and kissed him.Ā Ā He tasted like cigarettes. I started leaving and he asked if I wanted to make babies and I said I already had some.
Jul 16, 2024
ā
In 2014 I went with my buddy and my girlfriend of the time (now best friend) to see Danny Brown. I hadnāt slept the night before, and we were in a bit of a low key tweaker phase, fitting for seeing the self described Adderall Admiral, and I think between me and GF we honked up easily 300mg of adderall and drank a 12 pack and a pint, before the show. The show was so fucking lit. He passed blunts around the crowd the whole time, it ripped, my heart rate was like a Venetian Snares song, I wanted to swallow the crowd with the force of my body. Later me and girlfriend had a horrendous fight that kept going on in cycles all night in the hotel room that we shared between the three of us. We were too drunk to consistently remember what it was we were fighting about, and my homegirl in the other bed had to keep getting up and running interference, deftly explaining to each of us what we as well as the other person are doing wrong, probably less out of pure kindness and more out of at least a bit of rational calculation like āif I can socially engineer the fighting out of these two fuckheads I love but canāt stand right now, I can finally sleep.ā The girlfriend and I probably broke up with each other ten times throughout the night. We slept gloriously eventually and the next day in New York was beautiful and it was truly as though nothing ever happened even though three times she tried to ātake a bathā in a hotel shower that was not remotely a bathtub.
Five years later Iām in grad school dating a tiny smokeshow gothy hipster nerd stripper ā I donāt know how I managed it ever, really, I was bald as fuck by then and a skinnyfat overstressed drunk ā but it was fabulous, we didnāt have a whole lot in common background wise or anything but it was, for a while, a sublime dynamic. The show was Tommy Wright III, and like all ratchet-chic girls, she correctly loved the horror-tinged blown out grit of Memphis style rap. It was at the spot where I met the lady, a sort of quasi-speakeasy hole in the wall club in DC that doesnāt exist anymore, but where Iād ended up, alone in a new city on Halloween when I sidled up next to the alluring aforementioned, who chided me for not wearing a costume. āI live in a closet, I donāt have costume stuff, what are you?ā āIām a slut for Halloween,ā she said, wry and earnest. I invited her to my closet of an $800/month room and she stayed for four straight days, smoking weed and reading manga while I put off the mountains of grown up homework I had. Anyway, like two weeks into dating this show comes up, and she wears basically the same little red silky Nothing shirt thing and Iām in a black beret and leather jacket and jump boots. They canāt tell that Iām not *actually* Cool, I assured myself. It had been months of total isolation and School, policy and philosophy, no culture no parties. Tommyās set was short and a blast. After the show was the more memorable part. She wanted to talk to Tommy but at the same time, I was on a mission to the ATM several blocks away to purchase cocaine for us to inhale. I get back and theyāre still talking, her and Tommy Wright, the legend, with the goofy perm hair still. Apparently heād asked if sheād go with him to his truck and smoke a blunt and she told him no, she had a boyfriend ā fuck, I could have hardly blamed her if she took him up on it. But then we hung out with Tommy, mellow and normal and tired seeming. Forgot to mention her friend was there too. Tommy politely declines doing coke with us. The three of us evacuate the baggy of terrible cocaine seemingly in one instant. Girlfriendās friend wanted to fuck us both, she whispered to girlfriend. I declined.
Not sure this answers the prompt but it scratched an itch
3d ago
