the champagne man

one time i had a dream that the champagne man invited me to all of his parties.

bubbles, my pet fish, said the champagne man used to be a famous guitar player but he couldn't remember if it was in the 60s or the 70s.

the parties went late into the night. they were always loud, never had food, and there was no place to sit. there were huge clouds of tobacco smoke that hung in the air with the loud music. it seemed like it was the same group of 100 people each time and they talked about the same stories, from four or five decades ago, over and over again. this seemed to excite them tremendously. they were the heroes of their own tales. 

if you tried to introduce something currently occurring, whether it was music, letters, or just the weather, they'd be slightly uncomfortable and, in the case of the more vocal ones, possibly annoyed. they'd say things like "man, the weather today is never gonna be as great as it used to be. we had the best climate back then. now, your climate isn't even that reliable. we had rain when got too humid, and sun when it shined."

one time, i mentioned a recent periodical that i was enjoying and one of the guys, jerome, said "man, you don't even know about magazines. we used to have the real journals. they don't even publish the issues we had in those days. we had super glossies back then. no more, though. you guys don't have the guts to publish what we were circulating." the five or so people, mixed men and women, all nodded in agreement. they wore looks that mingled self-satisfaction and disgust. just when it seemed that the conversation would die, because none of them had actually read anything written back then, a voice piped up.

"don't worry though, man." said a party man, whose name i didn't catch, "the whole world is going to be reborn in fire."

"yeah, it is." said jerome, the magazine man. they high fived each other, and everybody mumbled affirmations or raised their glass. then they started to discuss the time there was a big fire in downtown pierre, south dakota. the champagne man came over and heard the conversation. he said that he must have missed the fire because he was on tour in britian back then. they asked him to tell him a story about the trip, but he said that he wanted to learn something about the fire, instead. so they told him, and bubbles and me, about it.

they always wore the style same clothes and too much make up -even the guys. it was boring to me, but i approached it like a sociologist.

it turned out he was only using me for my mustard because it made the spots go away on him and his aging groupies when they applied it to their skin.

i stopped going to his parties when i found out.

actually, i overheard him talking about bubbles on the telephone. he was in the hallway and i was in a nearby bed room. the champagne man made some nasty remarks about bubbles, but said that he was willing to put up with the fish, if it meant getting my mustard.

he called bubbles an air-head. 

bubbles said it wasn't even real champagne at the parties, just cheap sparkling wine.