House Anxiety

Lauren in front of a destroyed wall.

I'm back at Squallyoaks for the first time in over a week. It was a much needed vacation. I think I’ve been subconsciously avoiding coming home. Everything is just getting too much for me—the drugs, the mess, the people. Seriously, all everyone ever does in this fucking house is eat frozen pizzas, snort ketamine, and argue about whose turn it is to clean out the pond.

I'm back now, however, to help make the house look presentable for when 'THE MAN' (said in emergency emergency robot voice) who owns the building comes over on Wednesday to check up on us. He does these little checks every few months to make sure we haven't done any serious damage to the building since his last visit, i.e. burnt it to the ground / painted it glow-in-the-dark / made a pond out of the bathtub, etc. If the poor guy only knew the half of it…

Subsequently, we’re now trying desperately to fix everything we managed to fuck-up since his last visit. For starters, three of the four windows in the living room are broken. Since we can't afford to fix them professionally, my flatmate James is attempting to repair them himself. He's already cut his hand open twice. Kerri and Michelle are repainting the walls. This is necessary as they are completely covered in graffiti. We now all seriously regret drawing over every reachable surface in the house when we were drunk. I mean, was it really necessary to write TOM SELLECK HAS A MUSTACHE on the kitchen wall, or LESBIAN DIES IN FEROCIOUS SICCORING ACCIDENT in giant red letters above the toilet? I think not.

Not everyone is helping in the mass tidy-up, however. Dom, for example, has opted not to clean but rather to sit on his ass eating fried chicken and watching the Paralympics.

"This is so much better than the real Olympics," he says with a greasy piece of chicken hanging from his bottom lip. "The real Olympics are so boring. Who the fuck wants to watch a bunch of starving Ethiopians run around in circles all day when you could be watching quadriplegics attempt to do gymnastics?”

"Really?" says Kerri, her face covered in magnolia paint. "I really enjoyed watching that event in the Olympics where the hairy lesbians threw metal balls really far."

"This doesn't seem fair" adds Dale, staring blankly at the 100-meter breast stroke. "I mean, that lady is missing an arm, but that other lady is missing a leg. Surely it's easier to swim with a missing leg than it is with a missing arm."

"I wouldn't really call that swimming," adds Dom. "It's more like drowning in a forward motion."

My personal mission for the day is not to clean per-say, but rather to make some small but vital improvements to the house that will help to change THE MAN’s perception of us squatters, and prove to him that we’re not the unmercifully evil and destructive bastards that we make ourselves out to be, but rather that we’re all intrinsically good people intent on making the world a better place. Or whatever.

For example, at the moment I am fashioning some decorative signs out of cardboard that I feel will improve the general morale of the house. All the signs have super positive and clever saying written on them. So far I’ve thought of DRUGS ARE FOR MUGS, CRACK IS WHACK and DON’T BE A SLOB, GET A JOB!

Holy cow, I feel better about myself already.

Art Slut

It was the summer after I graduated fifth grade that my father took me to my first car show. The extravaganza took place in the parking lot of our local McDonalds, and was a main attraction for fat, shirtless men, crack whores and people will less than half their teeth. It was far from a typical Sciortino family outing (we were more the church fair / bake sale / sober knitting circles type of people), but the event offered a change in the normal routine of our mundane suburban lives, so my father dragged me along.

I wasn't into it at first—drunk men, car engines, cheap hamburgers, whatever! But then suddenly, in amongst all the fuck-ups, I spotted the most shockingly beautiful thing I’d ever seen: car models.

Who are these mystical blonde goddesses? I thought. They were like Barbies, only bigger and with fewer clothes. I had never seen anything so beautiful, so perfect. They looked so happy in their hot pink bikinis—their white teeth glistening in the July sun. Everyone around them was smiling and taking their photographs. It was the closet thing to celebrity that I had ever encountered, and I wanted to be one of them more than anything.

"I want to be one of the car girls," I said to my grandmother over spaghetti dinner that evening.

"What's she talking about?" my grandmother shrieked, glaring at my father. She has a habit of referring to everyone in the third person, even when they're seated directly in front of her.

"I mean one of the models who sits on the cars," I said, my face covered in red sauce. "You know... in a bathing suit." The thought of me growing up to be someone whose job was to wiggle my half-naked breasts in front of a bunch of drooling perverts was more than my grandmother could bear.

"Those people are scum!" she shouted, her fork was raised in the air like some sort of trident. "You hear me?! Scum! Look what you've done! She's scarred for life!"

* * *

It's twelve years later and I’m lounging on the hood of a 1970, tangerine-colored Dodge Challenger. I’m dressed in a hot pink bikini top, denim short shorts and a pair of knee high Dr. Martins. The car belongs to the artist Richard Prince, and is parked directly in the middle of London’s celebrated Frieze Art Fair. The people surrounding me, starring—they’re different people than those I encountered that day in the parking lot of McDonalds. They have less back hair, for one. They're also probably more likely to get a hard dick from staring at a Damien Hirst than they are a souped-up car. But then again, when it comes down to it, is there really a difference?

I’m being paid £500 a day to strut sexily around the car looking hot, wax it repeatedly, and smile seductively every time a slimy art tourist wants to take a photo. Admittedly, I’m finding it kind of fun. At times anyway. I mean, who doesn’t love being the center of attention, especially when the majority of it is complementary? Although I can’t help but worry that my thighs look fat in these shorts...

"I hope you're getting paid a lot of money to be here," smirks one man dismissively as he passes by me.

"I am actually, you bald fuck,” I hiss. “Now piss off. I'm trying to look hot."

Yesterday Hugh Grant asked to take a photo with me. The day before it was Jarvis Cocker. I couldn’t help but wonder if they knew I was “in” on the joke. (Or am I?) An hour ago I was violently attacked by a woman with armpit hair. "I won't let you do this to yourself!" she screamed as she ripped me from the hood of the car. "It's degrading!"

"No no no," I responded, trying to explain. "You don't get it. It's art." Fucking philistine.

***

It's the next morning and I get a phone call from my mother. "You’re in the New York Times darling," she says. "I'm so proud of you! You look amazing. But maybe it’s best we don’t mention this to your father. Or your grandmother for that matter. They’re both close enough to death as it is."

A Correspondence

Since I graduated high school and moved to London four years ago I have kept a correspondence with my friend Josh Rawson. In high school I liked him because he was weird and awkward and would walk around quoting Wes Anderson movies all day. Now I like him because he sends me creepy emails about the fact that he's a paranoid, degenerate, alcoholic maniac. He currently lives in a chicken-coop in Upstate New York and plays bass in the band The Felice Brothers. He is also the person who made up the word 'slutever.' I just stole it. These are some excerpts from recent emails he's sent me. I think I might make this a regular thing.


Kaaaarley,

So we just played Bonaroo Festival in Tennessee. It was deep. I saw Vampire Weekend. Ugh. What a boring bunch of college kids. The bass player dances around like a gigantic gay bunny rabbit. Super lame. I bet you would have loved it. I didn't really get to see any other bands. I missed MIA. I heard it was crazy. A gigantic sex party. Oh well. Festivals are too deep for me. Who wants to walk around surrounded by 80,000 ugly, barely clothed people- half of them who have Grateful Dead tattoos? Uck. I don't understand the world at all.

I am becoming obsessed with the end of the world. The gas prices are so fucked up here. The internet scares me. Teenagers scare me. Politics scare me. Technology really fucking scares me. TV scares me. Hippies and enviormentalists scare me more than anything else though. I swear shit's gonna start going down soon. So I think I am gonna stock up on bottled water so when the nuclear fallout happens I can trade water for all sorts of commodities (ammunition, canned goods, bicycles, batteries). I am so smart. And I am gonna be a real fucking mess when I'm an old man.

Saw the whole Sciortino family a couple of days ago. It was at your brother's album release show. I stayed away from your parents. Your mom scares me. Your bro's album is good. For the artwork they have like a million pictures of themselves. Ugh, too many pics of Dave's tiny little head haunts me.

So anyway, keep that money saved away. We'll definatly go to the desert. Start making plans. I think December might be better for me. What's your vision?

J-Christ


Karley,

So for the record, I've sent you a couple emails with you totally not responding. Do you hate me? Maybe you got too famous. So here's what's been going on:

1. My Grandpa died. Intense. I sat with him on the deathbed. Ugh. Then a crazy fucking Italian funeral and wake. Guidos are the most fucked up race of people.

2. Been recording this record like crazy. Our studio is so beautiful. It's gonna be good.

3. Went to San Francisco for like four days to play some festival. Was pretty fun. Ate tons of Mexican food. Drank many White Russians. It was weird. I don't understand anyone who grew up in California. They are all out of touch. When the seasons don't change your brain rots away and all you care about is roller blading, smoking pot, and going to bodegas.

4. Planning for the desert.

Love, J Christ