Dr. J fascinated many, you didn’t even believe she was real. In a red wig du jour and haute couture, “you’re going to have to let go of the truth,” I said, “there’s no difference between a lie and a truth to Dr. J.”
“Is that true?”
This line on which I sat, my foot swinging — over here, Achilles heel, in a movie, over here in real life…
That’s why I ended up in the hospital.
Someone can prove themselves to be the liar of all liars, Dr. J was, and it still won’t register.
That’s where I come from.
An exhibitionist, prodigy, performance artist, the J stands for Joy, her personality a burst of confetti.
“AH!”
Joyce as in rejoice.
“Don’t mess with the IRS.”
They’re making their way through my house, balloons. Yes, balloons all over, an atmosphere. Mirror mirror mirrors on the walls, what is the truth? Tea cup sets, she collected tea cup sets. The Mad Hatter. She had hats. These mirrors alone that covers her walls became my first “metaphor” though I did not know this word yet but she was “like this.” An optical illusion, the mirrors reflected one another…where you might lose the line between what is real and reflected…in multiplicity.
She believed her own lies, my father said, but so did he. And people do, believe their own lies, truly, a harsh truth. Not to some. Not to some. Once Upon a Time on Miracle Miracle, for four years, I lived in another house. Some truths don’t seem to matter. A child molester might not inspire any real action to be taken except to start some game in which the victim, me, is used as a toy to destroy him since he could not step a foot into her house. She lied, this woman who never expected to find herself in this situation. Everyone was a liar. I rehearsed my script for the lawyers.
Sure, bring in these people. Put the hand on the Bible. Dr. J is the first.
“I swear,” Dr. J says.
People think they know what’s going on, what the truth is, we have expectations: a woman isn’t going to lie, no one is going to lie that their husband is a child molester. Think about Emmet Till, that woman lied. Life and death. But then, no one is going to…actually do that to a child? Where am I? It happens more often than not — another truth. Money — a hard truth — my mother paid her to do this. It’s a hook. Fame, that’s a real one for some.
In the end, this stranger I lived with decided that my father wasn’t a child molester…based on nothing. Some woman who isn’t even there. Dr. J just bounced. I don’t think Dr. J would have cared, quite frankly, if he was or wasn’t either. She had an agenda — save the world. That’s the type of person I’m talking about — a tax law expert, Supreme Court, sexy.
I could laugh, just laugh, oh, I’m sorry, did I make you uncomfortable?
That was the edge.
“AH!”
She could burst, suddenly, you cracked up.
Dr. J…cruising fast in her limo. IRS STEP ON IT, to her lover. It was Krizia, with her hand, at work though she could get fanciful, naked. Once the sun went down, she pulled out a theatrically sexy wardrobe, many lovers, or so she told everyone. The white mink coat. She had a doll side, too, so dresses with sashes, kimonos —a whole closet.
Why am I home?
Don’t we believe he’s a child molester? I didn’t have a bed in this house. Dr. J took it. My parents took me to dinner opera this evening. I got up, walked over to the stage, to test them, sat there while this person was singing. He integrated me into the aria but my parents only raised their glasses to me — what is this? I was still living in another house.
But this woman sends me home with people who might be a danger to their child — but it was a lie? It’s not the point, either. Don’t we believe this to be true…right now?
Um, that’s why I was in the hospital.
On Sundays, at church, cocktail dresses, ballgowns, she played the organ, piano, beautifully, did she? A con artist? Huh? A musical prodigy, apparently. So these are the hands. She’s a musician. Classical. Dashing to the priest to talk to him about her rapes. She put on dying displays. She was dying of terminal illnesses. From outer space, Dr. J. Every night, most nights, she’s end up at the police station for drinking, driving, and looking for sex downtown, though the limos took care of it. For a while though, she had a cherry red Mercedes convertible and a license plate that read IRSHELP.
Think about that image, the police are pulling her over in this vehicle, but the limo became the replacement. It’s just time to move up. You see, my problem is not the questions, questions questions. What’s real, true? The benefit of the doubt is given to everybody, even her. And how many people admit the truth? Sure, I might have had a part to play in this…
Just come on.
Another truth: how could anyone sleep with her? Men don’t care. It’s just a hole. This other woman said. Ouch, smile, teeth growing in, at nine years old, ten, ouch. I see. I see. Vulgar, yes, I understand. I was studying truths, for sure, how narratives are perpetuated. If I had a son, I would throw this giant coke in her face. But again, like I gave a shit, this situation fascinated me. Some men don’t care, ah, sure, the truth has exceptions, it depends. I could continue…this conversation.
She shuttered, she cringed, stuck her finger in her mouth and gagged, disgusting, Dr. J. Shaking her hand, she wasn’t sure about my mother’s handling of me, a woman who accused my father of being a child molester. Please, I thought, all these years later. Just please. Can you imagine remembering all this as an adult…how did she know that if Dr. J only came over twice? If I started living with her “in a snap.” Maybe there was a transition period, maybe not, maybe we just went over to my house for a birthday party. The factual truth in this case comes into question but it doesn’t make what she said untrue. That’s another kind of truth and that’s more common than not, something I could not do.
Even when I write, I tend to insert in a sense, in a way. Being concrete was challenging, so no, I don’t mean just that, literally, solely. The world of “I know,” not mine. I draw it, “this is called a framework.” And yes, funny enough, this understanding that it doesn't have to go that way, that way, any way…came to my aide during this Mother’s Day experience in the hospital.
Whoosh, putting this time together — in the real — I started going through feelings in my body I didn’t understand. If I could have picked up the phone and said “maybe it wasn’t a lie…” but this was my whole life. I held onto this lie so tightly, figuring that’s what I was going through, and I couldn’t bring myself to talk — just thinking about what people go through. That might have been my biggest mistake. But again, this was my whole life, a way of being, too. With someone like Dr. J, someone putting alcohol in my burger patty, since she didn’t make me food, okay, um, this person is not necessarily safe, literally speaking. A little for the flavor, I looked at her at four. I’m four.
Framing it, this was the subject, the area to evolve: four. Scared? I was terrified. Didn’t know that.
“She didn’t call, write, come over?”
No, no, no, the same question, because it was hard to believe my story was true.
“Well,” at that point, “twice,” drunk, drugged.
She put on the greatest show on Earth…graining back, the audience member: is that true?
My smile. Her smile.
You had to perform Dr. J to give an impression of who she really was, a walking legend, a buffoon opera. Running out of the limo wig shining in the night— breathless, she cannot wait. Into the house wearing a white mink coat and a sexy sequin number, she was so excited in her heels turning to the two of us side by side, this Brazilian woman’s daughter and I in the living room.
From afar she began her aria, stunned by the sight of this other little girl.
She ignored me, didn’t even look at me.
So the truth?
“Was it blind guilt?”
Why did she act like that?
I don’t know.
“She gave you away to save you from herself.”
I heard many truths, nodding, “there are many truths.”
“That’s it.”
Ah, the one.
It’s not to say there isn’t…but still.
Money, fame, DESIRE, Dr. J can live in this space, too, you’d be surprised what the truth is.
My closest friend lied to me. Were good intentions also wrapped up in these four years— Jesus Christ, this is what I mean. Sure. The set-up, the set-up, wake up. Another life back there. People lie, they do, they can, not the easiest problem to resolve; that too. My other friend lied to be the second I came out of the hospital, she admitted it though, but that socked me in the gut. I paused at the top of the stairs. So, “you don’t have to say that.” I saw Dr. J — a mirror. People lie, it happens, kids do.
Dr. J, you see, arms crossed, wig, luscious lips, she’s on my side to call me a hypocrite, for no reason, a reason, doesn’t matter. I am a character in her head. Dr. J is on every side, running with her wrists like flimsy hankies, saved at the end of these four years because she was a genius. That’s what this mystery man said who came in out of nowhere to take her out of this situation for real: the escort. So I can just see her, “out of this world…” sort of breathy, demure, ready for the picture. Smiling, sweetly, even. Think Trump. Not exactly the same. But a spectacle. Lavish lifestyle. “J.” Put it on the building. Let it face his.
Dr. J knows money = power.
I couldn’t believe that this was my mother — the fiction in real life.
I had a shaky experience opening up my childhood.
Basically reframed my whole life so the truth was a journey.
In the hospital, a hand on my heart, was it a lie, about my father? My parents ended up terrifying me. Whatever that 5 AM message set off, the things I started to feel, I didn’t know. I had to sit outside my room; I was that uncomfortable. Night two. It was my worst night. And no one in this hospital was equipped to deal with something like this.
I was released the next day.
Since I had different spaces in this experience — the motion picture was Gotham City the Trilogy, a main event. How that story started is funny, in that, the idea that I could write a villain began to present itself before I got here. Couldn’t stomach it. Now, I wish I started there. That story was useful because I could direct the 5 AM message people over there — be a hero, go. Be a villain, take it to the next level. Just put it somewhere. Be psychic over there. The government could get involved. A city could be brought to its knees in exposing its darkest truths…this was the realm of justice.
The Bat, Bat, Bat, no? Dr. J.
My mother’s motivation— justice. She’s fighting for people in court, Supreme. Law. A professor. And maybe it was mine, secretly, thinking about Batman, in investigating this situation as a child, the true symbol of justice. We are all fundamentally innocent. Why didn’t I call someone after this, tell people about all this? I don’t know.
A dazzling smile — straight out of Crest commercial. Her wig like the Pantene Pro V commercial on TV: so healthy it shines. Her eyes otherworldly and wide like the clearest blue sky, not dark. She pushed the laugh button, even cruel. A joke. Treated like trash. Wanted to be. An addict. Just go down the list. Fabulous. Chic. Her wound, sure, I’m turning around the sensations in my gut, who gets this lens and who doesn't? She comes with a lot involved. She might not be anymore but this is the journey through the real content…
I was studying the relationship between criminality and civilization even madness as a kid. You’d never expect that, looking around, thinking about Dr. J. I did this on purpose. I was trying to evaluate what people believed to be true. People are, generally, unsuspecting, no? They might not know what you’re doing. What makes a good liar? That, too.
Hard to explain with my friend around my apartment since he evidently pushed a Dr. J button, too. I just didn’t know this button existed. I was on the cover of some magazine, and my hypnotherapist friend said “uh oh,” about my mother; that could have ticked her off, as her escort would say. Who is right? Is that true? Fantastical, this character. My friend had dropped me off at the nail salon and around the time I exited, he appeared in a strange way to me sort of taking the street. Looking down, up, and marching forward, not looking at me but it struck me.
Later, “write the movie about what happened…”
Sure.
This is where my evil brother was kinda a genius of a character. This is another section I’ll tell you about. Dr. J and my evil brother are in the same universe. But the idea that I could write villains began with him. This, whoosh, couldn’t go there, and my evil brother told me to take my time. “This,” looking at him, “is just pretend, babe.” My evil brother wasn’t “really” against me, he wasn’t a villain for real, he wanted to be realized. “We’re just playing.” My evil brother could simply appear and say, think about it — the truth, performance, the whole thing — getting into some town car, something. “Think about it, you and me.” He’s on his way to deliver the news. Big plans, my evil brother.
This Gotham City universe had already taken shape as I was the hospital.
It’s my worst night. I could tell where I was in this architecture — I had a choice to make. It would be the moment that I could give up. I was in that much pain. What is this? That’s when I saw — The Joker. For Dr. J. A real Joker.
Could be Disney princess. The world is full of wonder…to the point that you’d start laughing. What a world! The world, she became even brilliant, which she was. She could play “kooky” suddenly a shark…if not reveal a hint of what’s to come…maybe a disfiguration of some kind…by…maybe something cosmetic. Justice is the Joker’s point, as well. She loves the camera, the clothes, the fame, selfless. She can sort of do anything. She’s in a limo, fur. In terms of “costume,” right? What it means to be masked, she would be the expert in this field of villains. No problem.
She was a mastermind to me, she could stage something in real life, she’s this kind of person. A Joker. In the worst case scenario over this 5 AM message, my mother could very easily lie to the mutual friend, be protecting the other, a moment of emotion, and manipulate it. Her own daughter, too. “I did this for you…” With someone like my mother, there’s very little I can’t imagine possible. That’s the truth. No one in this culture asks a question about the body — also true. Lie, truth, who gives a shit?
My mother is “a star,” I was “a star,” and you could feel how deliciously scary this could become.
“THE WORLD!!”
She was, you see, with a hand, “a genius.”
This she knew for sure, in her limo, and it was most certainly hers.
“Mama,” she told me, “is a genius.”
Pushing the button, laughter, with her hand.
“A house full of high IQs,” they said, “people don’t have my brain,” she said, hands, he used, smart hands trying to intelligently explain what the meaning is. “How do I know what I know?” He said. Not Dr. J. ”Shush shush.” Finger to her lip.
“Don’t tell anybody how smart you really are,” she suggested against it. She suggested it.
No one.
She’s not playing the smart game: a genius but she’s not telling anybody….?
Something about her operation — my “evil brother” looking NYC sharp with his scarf — worked. Expectations. It takes someone really smart to play stupid, I learned in clown school. I wasn’t there yet but I could get there — something like this.
People think they know. They think they know what’s going on and does she exploit that? Able to manipulate a situation where you the audience might not, in the end, know what she’s capable of…asking for it, yes. Someone who was a master at performance for being so unaware, in a sense, “haha,” so operatically caring. The world, the world for her baby, tap tap, her wrist, her wig, it could be fabulous, “in a sense.” Her tea cup sets. Then, she could kick your ass. You have no clue who she is. Really dirty, applied differently. A Joker.
On the floor, in the hospital, the very thought that I could write a sensational villain. Me? Too sensational, a light at the end of the tunnel. A female Joker and you would never expect it. A villain could do…I thought, on the floor, a lot of good, and isn’t that funny?
A villain as good not bad.
That surprised me.
I mean, how many people can say that about their own mothers? She’s a Joker. I could turn her into one, I could turn myself into her daughter, that’s a whole saga. And people love a good villain in a literary context and in real life, she’s not really a villain, “right,” because there aren’t “really villains,” sure. The villain not being bad — was sort of moving in itself.
Could I conceive of something like that — on that scale? Maybe I could. Maybe I could get there.
The spectacle of her, I saw the smile.
It’s not so much my father who seemed to give me my physicality, too, my energy, it was Dr. J. She can be — sure, eyes bright, and knock you down. All you have to do is know what your strengths and weaknesses are. The art of combat, part of the deal. There’s the super close combat style that a woman developed, I just didn’t remember what it is. Aikido — just go with. Systema, the master said to me — “you little, him big, him on ground, you up. Give me your pinky.” I was on the ground in a second.
Her style of fighting could be really fun to think about — I thought. Unusual.
She has a body, a sexy body — lethal weapon, too?
And I think a good villain mirrors society…and she does.
It could showcase the best and worst of her, depending, again, the truth. Look, I’ve had some mysterious experiences, right? I was a bit unbelievable myself so there she is. I’ll take the gifts from it. If I end up being a great storyteller then I suppose this would be where it came from. Feeling a universal nod from the world out there — a female Joker, child.
That’s how I solved it, her.
“The anti-heroine of the moment.”
Dr. J.
The Joker.
I hope it’s a good idea.
Why not, Maria — the mastermind?
“The one,” my evil brother, so good, “who’s so small, so pretty, not a high IQ, though.” He’s talking down to me too. “A good person, ouch,” my evil brother could really have fun with this one, scarf hanging off his suit, coffee, playing the part, out of the car. He’s playing the part. Of course. “Everyone,” hand, “loves you.”
“Why not — a big big world, big big ideas, villains.” We’re headed uptown. Lunch. Famished.
So maybe the Jokers is a family thing. I don’t know. The next generation.
“Maria — you’re so smart,” my evil brother began to suggest it.
“So so smart.”
I thought, how about that?
I suppose I let go of a lot, I suppose I did, but there were bigger dreams but it required that I get in touch with my guts because I had them. Isn’t that something? That’s my gut, where I got hit, that’s the power of the reframe.
You have GUTS.
I don’t know what people’s “psychosis” is, what they think they’re doing, looking at, or feeling. This is what I did. It was a healing event with characters that began to organize themselves around my real life — take that, leave that behind, move past this — and write a super iconic villain.
“We think that the path of the villain is a fall from grace but she proved another way was possible…up up up into the sky the color of her eyes…” Where…she is?
My evil brother turning in sunglasses, yes, he is playing the part.
Like, you’re laughing, and sometimes, you might not want to.
I’ll share more of the Gotham City narrative even if it’s just a concept and there are too many ideas. I don’t know how this all fits. But that universe came to life. Gotta think about who the villains are…gotta think about how these Jokers begin to infiltrate…if there is more than one. What this world is…What’s the point? “Save the world,” Dr. J — looking fantastic, Supreme Court, crime boss. She worked with criminals. Gotham City rises though, that’s the idea — over there.
Also, potentially interesting to think about the larger picture since she said “my first client is typically about to go to jail.” Think about that. Maybe a man in jail will rise…a leader! This character who turned in a jail cell. You see what I’m saying? A truly good man. I saw a whole architecture. This would be a series. I felt so triumphant myself, I walked just playing this large project in my head that I consecrated to paper since I went through many stories to get through one — rises, falls, wins or triumphs, depending, not so sure about the Jokers, so we’ll see. There was even a spiritual light at the end for the young prostitute who inspired a city to rise, too. I mean, Gotham City rises is a whole idea. There was a place for all of it.
Just think about how I did that.
I haven’t even told you half of it.
I have to finish a book first.
A female Joker on the way…
I’ll be turning back now to my regularly scheduled program.
I guess I needed to take a week or so to share some of what happened that year that changed my life. I struggled a little bit as of late especially because I don’t know where home is, I had to let go of a lot, how to put it? Nothing wrong with that. These couple of years I’ve been traveling…confusing…so many ideas. I’ll take a moment to consider who I am as a friend since that fart was so perfectly timed. I am a really good friend.
Just everything around that apartment, the message that hit me in the gut, getting in touch with my guts, which I might appreciate over brains. Guts. Someone with guts. Real guts. I came from somewhere— Dr. J. I had to sort of carry myself through this story, “in a way,” because I know how to work with it, how to reframe, transform, who knows, you might find a brilliant idea to walk away with. The rest of your life. Empower.
So, this makes me happy, makes me feel alive, so I would rather go in that direction.
Not portal antenna channel, funny, perfect: Entourage — let Ari handle this line — I’ll take guts.
Smarts do not necessarily give you those.
I struggled a little over the past week with how I was seeing that year, and it came back to me and stunned me. Where to go to next? Having had to let go — really — of a lot, that meant people too. I’m not in the same relationship I used to be with my life. I experienced a miracle. What isn’t possible? I have seen Gods die to become ordinary men and I have seen ordinary men die to become extraordinary men ! This is the line, this one, rose from my belly from a place so deep it was impossible and so sensationally strange I began to rise out of bed and it boomed through my body as if it were a speaker.
It’s weird to put it like that out there but what am I supposed to do with an experience like that?
So, maybe, Barbara Harris, there’s more to us than surgeons can remove…Alan Jay Lerner.
Back to making my videos, back to my draft, back to life, I can’t totally help that I am here, here, I suppose I could hop on a plane tomorrow, but I don’t quite know what that means yet, but for anyone out there who might be struggling with problems from their childhoods, remember that you are fundamentally innocent, we all are.
If there was more to the story than meets the eye, which is generally speaking true, keep going, direct yourself toward healing and health — it resonates across. For me this meant villains, as well, not becoming one, but who knows, maybe there’s some comedic conceit where a villain and good guy, gal, gender nonconforming individual, try to make this work. There’s nothing but possibilities. I feel that way today.
Dr. J, the Mad Hatter might arrive at the top of government. Nothing but possibilities there. Even for the person who hurt me the most.
Of course she slept with him. Of course, shrug, of course, she slept her way to the top. How else do you think she did it? What other options are there? For a pretty girl, not much else to offer, you know, you know, you know how the world works. I will deliver it as the escort— Iran.
Thanks for reading if you are.