I am sitting alone on my polyester paisley patterned bed cover in room 29 of the 78’s Motel. It is 3:47 am. Suddenly, a hunger has come over me. I scour the hallways for vending machines. The vending machines are nowhere to be found. Ahh, I find one but its only contents are caffeinated gummy bears and sour nonfat milk. The vending machine doubles as a portal to Eau Claire, Wisconsin but it wont accept my change and who wants to go to Eau Claire anyways?

I go back to my solitary four walls. I need sleep but the sound of Fred Astaire tap dancing outside my door to Wilson Phillips on Acid doesn’t help. „Fred, can you please just take a break? Go back to your room and watch T.V. or something?“ I begrudgingly ask him. He turns into a cockroach and multiplies, scurrying under my motel room door and hides in dark places. I turn off the lights. Little Fred Astaire cockroaches crawl in time to a big band version of „Hungry like The Wolf“. Their legs have been replaced by miniature drumsticks and when they crawl among the formica furniture the clatter drills my brain like a street hammer. I feel an itch on my skin and Fred Astaire is biting me on the arm asking for some sour nonfat milk and a gummy bear.

The big band music gets louder in an excrescent wail of banshee lust. The cockroaches have turned into orange and black amphibian banshees. They are making love to themselves. The sonic backdrop is „38 Violins Drowned by Bassoons“ by a new group from Fargo, North Dakota called Lohands Federbine. They are the newest midwest sensation West of the Mississippi and East of the Missouri. The music is coming from the mesh drain in the bathtub. I submerge my left ear to the mesh drain and sweet nothings are whispered in my ear by a husky voiced woman. She sounds like Lou Rawls reincarnate. The record skips and I look for the record player. It is in the bathroom sink. The needle slips over the vinyl like a Southern Californian ice-skater.

Suddenly Lou Rawls and Fred Astaire are knocking on the door outside. They invite me to their room. We have Mojitos and Gummy Bears and play Montana Strip Poker. I win and leave them naked shivering in their Paul Frank designed boxer shorts. Finally, I feel the pull and tug of sleep. My eyelids feel heavy and as I enter my room the bed is my closest friend. Under the covers, I discover twigs and pebbles. The walls turn into trees and I am in a forest in New Zealand. Peter Jackson is singing Karaoke to Matt the Hoople’s „All the Way from Memphis.“ The phone rings. Wakeup call 3:49 a.m.

C. Gibbs Live:

Heute: RecRec Laden, 14 Uhr (Mini Show)
Heute: Helsinki, Zürich
Morgen: Helsinki, Zürich (mit Trio From Hell)

(Illustration: Sarah Von Blumenthal)