(for Ziani, who said hey, I need your words)
I haven't been writing in here because I started talking to dead Bob Fosse.
It started because I watched a Sam Rockwell show where he played Bob Fosse the dirty yet distinctively funny choreographer fuckaholic chainsmoking Cabaret All That Jazz Damn Yankees awardwinning you know his stuff. But besides the play fame what I liked was this guy was broken and me
No I have never been a dancer I am a runner from dancing, I am the one in the corner holding up my hand going that's okay I'm good here you guys look great
But this Fosse bro, he could get it DONE. So I started reading about him (biography books are like 4 dollars on Ebay) and his book is a FAT one that takes alot of time to read if you only get to it at night for a few minutes each time. Then I had to watch all the movies they were talking about and look up the dances he did and study this guy. Then I suddenly needed to talk to Bob.
Bob is my friend
I understand Bob. It's also easy to understand someone when there's a book with the blueprint and he's not in your house sitting there eating pistachios loudly while you're trying to think. Bob has been like this swirl of color in my mind, and I started thinking I think I better talk to this guy
Which is how all stories get started
Or am I crazy
You decide
So I said to my friend Chris I'm having some impure thoughts about dead Bob Fosse and my friend Chris said dammityeah what are you waiting for talk to dead Bob Fosse
So I started writing. It's easiest to write dialogue since people are talking in my head so I just went down to hell which is where I figured Bobby ended up after all the womanizing, and found him choreographing a number in hell. But he still had time to talk to me and even hit on me, since that was really his full time job, that and smoking, the dancing was just sort of a hobby.
So Bob and I had a funny conversation about the thing we know best about - how to make sure no one falls in love with you or if they do, how to fuck it up the best you can -
and then the scene was done, I was escorted to the elevator in hell and said goodbye to Bob Fosse leaving him to his afterlife afterjob
But then the next day I got to the couch near my mom, like I normally do, my daily job, and I thought
where's bob
So I went back in to see what was going on and talked to Bob some more. On tv, Mom and I were watching Biography and Eva Braun was on.
Sidenote -- we may have made many mistakes in life, ladies, I'm sure you feel the same but - at least we didn't marry Hitler
So I had Bob Fosse, and since we were still in hell, of course I found Hitler there. And I started having a conversation with Eva and the choices she made, and the in fact moron that she was. If you watch her biography she basically read fashion magazines and tried on bathing suits, a good way to get through a world war by the way.
Seems like people in hell were having alot to say, and I said to my friend Chris, should I be talking to these people? Also I might be in love with dead Bob Fosse
She said go all the way, Jule. Go deep into Bob, I won't watch. Here, hold this rope. I have the end, you go ahead. I can pull you out
That's how I ended up under the bed in Hell's Elevator with dead Bob Fosse while Eva Braun and Hitler were wrestling around on top of us.
I've been alot of places in my life.
My time with Bob has been so surprising
So anyway, I kept writing and thinking I was done and the next day Bob is scratching at me so I'd go back and see what he wants and now I have 246 pages of me talking to dead Bob Fosse. We've taken trains, gone to camp, gotten a little cabin in the country, fought dementia as an ensemble dance number, he's helping me figure out What Went Wrong and What's Coming Up Next. Sort of a dead man's life coach
Do people have life coaches this late in life? I'm only 57, so maybe you can only sign up for the inspiring dead ones at this age, which is how I got Bob.
All I know is, you have to watch his dances. They're fucking hilarious. Jim Carrey meets steamyflirty Paul Newman. A solid statement about the comedy and sultriness of our life's core.
I don't know if I learned anything about myself or Bob, or what the 246 pages is for. It might be the length of an extensive therapy session or the thing the kids hold carefully with two fingers as they burn it on top of my grave. I know it is a love letter to myself, loneliness mixed with the need to laugh, and this deep drive to understand why I crave the things I crave. Who better to write a love letter to, you've been with yourself every day so far
Love letters are funny because they don't make much sense, but there are all the elements we need to survive
hope whimsy yearning confusion shame rejoicing gutlaughs perilous situations tension release
and dance, what joy does when it has nowhere to go
