Kismet and Crane Boy in Search of the Perfect Mimosa

Kismet! Kismet is fate. Flirtatious. Destiny, dressed in brighter colors.

Kismet is the younger sibling of Fate and Destiny. The fun one that was good at sports in High School but drinks a little too much now. A happy drunk though. Thank God, right?

Kismet. Like Comet or Kermet. Kismet is goofy and adventurous. Like me! Maybe. I hope. Yes?

“Kizzzz meeettt” The way a drunk girl clutching her 4th Whiskey Sour would say, “kiss me” before she bows to vomit all over your Levis 509’s.

Kismet is the word my Dad used to describe the story I would like to tell you. And here is how it starts.

It is Christmas day. My entire family is together on the beach. It is before noon. For the love of all things orange, spritzy and alcoholic… rain down upon us oh Lord of Mimosa! By the way a ‘perfect Holiday Mimosa’ almost always means the ‘nearest Holiday Mimosa’. I decided I would hit the Shell Station across the main highway that runs parallel to the ocean.

Now, the way I looked running across A1A in flip flops and my long skinny legs scissoring out of my small swim trunks must have resembled the unnatural way a bird runs before it remembers it can just fly away. A long-legged bird. Some type of Crane that spends its time sun bathing near a Florida reservoir not realizing he is a chip away from some retired Snow Bird golfing his way through retirement. (So many bird metaphors in one paragraph! The Humanity! Or rather, the Ornithurae!) Every so often one of these Jack Nicklaus wannabes takes liberties on a ‘mulligan’ and ‘shanks’ a ‘divot’ right o’er the reservoir, scaring the rusted 9-Iron stem right out of the Crane’s beak, sending it away in a panic! Scurrying as awkwardly as a human, proportioned such as me, to safety in the cattails.

This was what my step-mom saw as she happened to be driving by at that very moment. She swerved to the side of the road in excitement. I believe because, at first, she was sure a video of this strange Crane-boy running in broad daylight would go viral. But then she realized it was just a normal boy, her step-son in fact! She tilted her head to the side in a close second to that initial excitement of ‘Crane-boy siting’, and waved.

Now this was kismet! I had just told my Dad how much I missed her. (Technically, she is my ‘ex-step-mom’ so I don’t get to see her much. Also, calling her ‘ex’ doesn’t feel right so she will forever be step-mom!) She has always possessed undeniable psychic ability, so whether it was her or me that manifested this to happen is up to the Gods of, yes… KISMET to decide!

We talked about writing and she shared that she had finished the 1st draft of her book, which I absolutely cannot wait to read. And she (as she always has) encouraged me to write. And while the chance meeting above was one of many joyous moments of the Holiday season, it isn’t the only thing that compelled me to take pen to paper. Something of a different 'brand of miracle’ happened to me during the same fateful Mimosa hunt!

Upon entrance to the Shell Station I expected a Christmas Salutation. I was given none of the sort. The cashier, long shaggy hair, thick goat-tee, adorned with tattoos and a furrowed brow aimed solely at his phone did not even look up from the counter upon which he slouched. I thought to myself,

“Ok. That’s fine. I’m going to throw out a wild hunch that he maybe loathes the holidays, is exhausted of all the Christmas songs, is tired of greeting customers with plastic cheer and hates his family.”

Hush, Cookie! You needn’t jump to such sardonic conclusions just because his Facebook feed is more important than wishing his customer a Happy Holiday!

I went straight for the walk-in cooler. I decided to splurge. I could barely even reach the top shelf to take down the $11.99 bottle of Champagne. But hey, money is just a number and age isn’t real. Or is it the other way around? I don’t know but it was Christmas for Christ’s sake.

I approached the counter with two different types of Orange juice. I’m the most indecisive person on the planet and couldn’t bare the thought of choosing between Tropicana or Welch’s. Which is tastier? Which is from concentrate? What does that even mean?

The cashier didn’t look up. I placed the items on the counter right in front of him with a semi-aggressive thud. As to say, “pardon feller, not that I need a stuffed Rudolph or a Santa to sit on, but a little eye contact and a smile wouldn’t kill ya on CHRISTMAS!”

A few seconds went by and still nothing. Oh you better believe my nose was glowing bright! But then, finally he looks up and breaks into an unexpected monologue! Without even a ‘hello’, or ‘is that gonna be all for you’? He embarks…

“You know the producer of ‘Die Hard’ just finally admitted that ‘Die Hard’ is in fact a Christmas movie?!”

“Uh. no, I didn’t..”

“Yea. I mean, no shit. It ain’t even Christmas until I watch that shit. I even made my girlfriend watch it with me two nights ago. She was like, “Can we fuckin turn this off yet or what?!” And I’m all, “Well Mel Gibson doesn’t give a shit about you either, bitch!”

“Wow. Hm.. I think it was actually Bruce…. never mind.”

“Of course it’s a fucking Christmas movie. Then we went to her house and she has two older brothers named Jesse and Joey and I’m all, “Good evening, Mr. Tanner!” And she didn’t even get it. It’s a Full House joke. She didn’t even get it.”

After I broke my trance of nodding and smiling I thought it best to give relationship advice.

“Maybe it’s time to find a more compatible partner?“

“Well, she’s 23. So you gotta live with some shit for that, ya know?!”

“Ain’t that the truth, brother.”

Astonishingly enough, he managed to ring me up for the Mimosas. I gotta give it to him. Some impressive multi-tasking. I gathered my bags and ran like a Crane for the door.

Now the point is that this was all very close to not happening. I could have driven and not awkwardly run like a Crane across the street. We could have settled for the un-chilled beer upstairs. But we didn’t. We wanted the Perfect Mimosa. And thanks to kismet, and all of its phonetic and fateful glory, I not only got to see my ‘ex’/ aka my forever stepmom… but I also got to experience the Christmas Miracle of that Shell Station!

Yippee-kay-yayyy mother fuckers!

-Cookie

• 29 Dec 2017
• 2

Happy 4th of July?

Kerouac grunts and pisses himself in weak little spurts.

A hippy by the name of Sanders, with his diplomacy formed by a secondary education in socioeconomics and a Youngbloods song, parries against laughing women,

“There is a humanness that can’t be quantified in the definition of a ‘hippy’ that the media seeks to pander.”

The women laugh.

A scholar named Yablonsky, too in love with the sound of his own advocacy and too convinced by his own contradictions does not realize there may be more to learn. A scholar.

William F. Buckley speaks to all with respective dismissal. A literate man. His words fall out of his mouth like too much honey in the whiskey… never any cotton in his hands. In confidence, he says the pussy he’s tasted isn’t as high class as he may have dreamed of twenty years earlier. But there’s been lots of what he has grown accustomed to. And that he is at peace with. He wears a small smirk in the corner of his mouth when he takes a sip of Gin.

The beat generation was a different name for what had become the “Hippies”. Only less Dionysian. But hell, Kerouac didn’t choose to be Kerouac more than Dionysus chose to be Dionysus.

“Liberation is liberation regardless of how much sex is being had in the streets!” He grunts and pisses a little.

According to Ginsberg, America had broken his heart. A misanthrope with tender intention.

Sanders continues to reason gently,

“The youth is too articulate for war in an Asian land.”

The women laugh.

Forty years later I sit still in traffic. The melting pot of Los Angeles is deliciously warm on this summer afternoon. Cool air from my Hybrid engine makes my eyes water. I thank the lucky beads hanging from my rear view mirror that I have never been forced to go to war in a land where they don’t speak ‘the Ingles’. I look next to me and see through the windows of her Camry, an Asian woman picking her nose. Looking away before she sees me, I curse the traffic and sip the remains of my Very Berry Smoothie. I think about America in present day. I think about the video of our president awkwardly objectifying a woman journalist in the oval office. I look to my right and a chubby, Latino man in a fedora is looking at me through squinted eyes from the other lane. For a moment, I see myself as he must see me and I grimace. I point the AC vents away from my face and then back immediately. I let off the brake and inch forward, with tender intention.

-Chris Hess (White, Male, American, loves smoothies, will inevitably be getting drunk on 4th of July)

• 3 Jul 2017

The Reincarnation Karma Police

Ever since my best bud Spencer and I talked about Harrison Ford’s earring I haven’t been able to get this idea out of my head. I woke up today and realized music will become secondary in my life’s passions. My first will be writing the triumphant, return season of ‘Quantum Leap’. Friends, acquaintances, business partners… I call upon you to help me make this a reality. Find those producers. Find them and give them the message.

I should ask though. Have you ever watched Quantum Leap? I really wish my AMASSING readership would answer yes but I doubt this to be the case. If not, Quantum Leap was a show during the golden age of cable television (the 90’s of course). The protagonist ‘Sam’ (played by Scott Bakula// the most underrated actor of his time with the LEAST famous sounding name of all time) is sent back in time as a different person, who experienced some undeserved tragedy. In living the last days of that person’s life he can fix whatever terrible thing happened and in turn, positively affect the present day.
‘Al’ is his holographic side-kick that helps him along the way and ‘Ziggy’ is an omniscient little computer thing that informs him of the mission’s details and also how fucked he is… and to what percentile he is ‘fucked’.

Without further ado, here is the concept proposal and beginning screenplay for my episode of Quantum Leap.

Quantum Leap: Episode 1 //

“Harrison Ford’s Gold Earring”

by Chris Hess (aka Cookie, aka Sugarhips, aka Hips, aka Keym, aka KeymCam)

*** Note to producers: Call it blind nerves, but I feel I must preface this episode with a warning to you of the peculiar subject matter, that is, Harrison Ford’s gold earring! The alluring perplexity of Harrison Ford’s earring is without question, perplexingly alluring. The man doesn’t age with that thing on. He can’t be pinned down! The mystery of this accessory is undeniable, ok. Listen, if you don’t like the idea just tell me now. Tell me to pack up my things and head back to the small town I came from… pockets void of money and full of dreams! ———

Sorry. For a minute there… I lost myself. What I’m saying so eloquently is that Harry’s earring makes him the man he is today. Rugged yet woke. Refined yet sexually fluid. You feel better? Good, me too. Now Mr. or Mrs. Producer, lest you not worry about my proficiency in the arts of the literary kind. My talents will twinkle like the gold in that earring on a summer day in Sedona. My flow straying from pleonastic indulgences. Never a dilly nor a dally. Never saying more than needed to be said. Never having said more than what is needed to say. Never parrying in the tide pools of Pierian platitudes. As you can tell, my natural pace is suited for nothing less than riveting television.
Now… read on, Suits!

If you will….
Please.

~~~

As I prefaced, in this episode, Ziggy sends Sam back through time to be Harrison Ford’s earring. But this is before he finds Harrison Ford. So he is just an earring.

The music fades and camera one zooms to a storefront on a small town street. Sam realizes he is in an antique jewelry store in Encino. As he does in every episode he finds a mirror to reveal to himself and to the audience what he has been sent back as. He sees he is a little gold earring. Right on cue he mutters,

“Oh, boy.”

(Opening credits and now into 2nd scene)

So Sam is looking in the mirror. Somehow as an earring he can still talk and he says,

“Ummm, Al… What am I supposed to do with this?!”

Al, who is perpetually frustrated with Ziggy, hits the gameboy type contraption and says,

“Oh, Sam. This doesn’t look good. Ziggy just told me the mission.”

“Well, out with it, Al!”

Al grimaces, “He says you MUST find HARRISON FORD and convince him to wear YOU for the rest of his adult life.”

{Sam looks distressed. In the way a gold earring would look distressed. * Will also direct if need be.}

“Uh oh, Sam. Ziggy says there is a 68% chance that you will never meet HARRISON FORD. But this this the kicker, Sam…. Ziggy says that even if you do find him and convince him to pierce his ear,,, that there is only a 14% chance you will be able to convince him to keep you on after the early to mid 90’s… as that marks the move into a more polished, middle-aged, tough-guy Harrison Ford era. Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, etc. Ya know, Sam, it was remarkable how intimidating he could look in a suit. The way he curled that bottom lip over the top and furrowed his brow—”

“Al!! Back to the mission. Please!” Sam shouts in frustration.

“Right! Ziggy says if, and only if you can find Anne Hesche and convince her to compliment his earring off-set during the filming of ‘Six Days, Seven Nights’, will you ever have a chance of surviving this mission.”

~~~ Camera pans to Sam sitting on glass counter next to a pair of equally defeated looking silver cufflinks; then cuts to commercial.

(ANDDD…. SCENE!)

That’s all you get for now Suits! Let’s see some zeros on that check! Genius don’t come cheap!

***Actually it comes for free until the smoke and mirrors of a dreamy, artistic lifestyle finds its way to fruition. But don’t tell the suits that! Your boy’s got dreams to get his Prius’ windows tinted before the summer heat burns him to a Cookie Crisp!

I’ll leave you now to ponder the many transmogrifications of reincarnation. All making for these following episodes I will write for the magnificent return season of Quantum Leap…

Ellen Degeneres’ frosted tips (Will Justin Beiber’s frosted tips lure Ellen’s away from Porsche De Rossi’s long, luscious locks? You’ll have to watch to find out!)

Rihanna’s chest tattoo (UMM YES PLEASE. Heaven!)

Tupac’s bandana OR … Brett Michaels’ bandana (choose your own adventure)

Nicki Minaj’s ass implants (#BOOTYBLINDED)

Ryan Goslings beard from The Notebook (Rachel McAdams’ dimples have agreed to a cameo)

Flavor Flav’s clock (Flav and Gilbert Gottfried will team up in this adventure episode to become the most annoying crime fighting duo in history and spike ratings by driving multiple viewers to suicide before the first commercial break. ANY PUBLICITY IS GOOD PUBLICITY)

Ron Jeremy’s sweatpants (eehhh fuuuuucking yuck. Must have killed some kittens in your present life to deserve this reincarnation, you heathen!)

Ani Difranco’s armpit hair (my feminists out there gonna love this episode! #futureisfemale #futureishairy)

Jeff Bridges’ slurred speech. (critically acclaimed episode that absolutely no one can understand!)

Snoop Dogg’s joint (twist ending shocks studio audience! Everyone too high to remember why though)

Harry Styles’ pink pants (this strapping, young heartthrob’s attire captures teen girl demographic! Not to mention a lot of his new album is really mature and well done. What a dick!)

Johnny Depp’s goat tee (Pre-Paris Depp. Pre-skull rings Depp)

Owen Wilson’s nose (Luke Wilson’s Giant Jaw-bone has not returned our emailed proposals… yet!)

If reincarnation is real… you better watch your step in this life. If you are well behaved you could come back as Harrison Ford’s gold earring… having dinner with Ally Mcbeal and making cameos in Star Wars remakes. On the contrary if you are just a total piece of shit you may return as Ron Jeremy’s sweatpants (Seriously so fuuuucking disgusting. You sicko!)

Suits please contact my agent for negotiations. (For the time being, I will be acting as my agent)

-Chris Hess (Writer, Director, Agent, Publicist, Food runner, 90’s TV Blogger, Netflix Preferred Customer, Expert Plant Namer, Secret Vape Pen Enthusiast, Body Chain Collector, etc.)

• 23 Jun 2017