Didja Ever Have The Feeling You Wuz Bein' ... Watched?
by Your Diva, Robin Pastorio-Newman

Once upon a time in New Brunswick there was a great band called Butthead. It was a mighty band of three crazy men who played excellent songs and had many fans and were loved far and wide, and then MTV and Mike Judge came out with Beavis & Butthead. The band changed its name to avoid the appearance of ... well ... idiocy. So the newly-christened Buzzkill was a mighty band of three crazy men who played excellent songs and had many fans and were loved far and wide. Then MTV came out with a new show called Buzzkill. You see where this is going, don’t you?
 
Years ago, Your Darling, Your Diva, Your One True Love had the great pleasure of hearing a fantastic story from her vivacious brother. He and two of his friends played a game of their own invention: full-contact golf. It works like this, if memory serves:
 
1. Everyone tees off, shoves a golf club down his left pant leg and runs across the green. The person whose ball lands farthest from the hole carries the boom box.
 
2. Tackling is allowed. Blocking is expected.
 
There may have been a rule about who carries the flask, but who remembers? Anyway, the mental image of one Italian and two Puerto Rican teenagers crookedly running around a golf course with a boom box is priceless. This story was repeated many times in New Brunswick bars, which was why no one should be surprised full-contact golf turned up in a television commercial a few years back.
 
Some time later, a landing party to a theater showing Kevin Smith’s Dogma experienced an unusual jolt. Your Starfruit’s wacky and brilliant lady friends can often be found in public places smoking, drinking refreshing beverages and discussing a truly staggering array of topics in astonishing depth. Science. Biblical texts. Art. Obscure folk music. Politics. American Chopper. Establishing an alibi. Really, the conversation could go anywhere, and the surprising twists and turns are better than the best shiiiiiiny objects. So imagine our surprise when conversations we’d had came out of the mouths of actors we’d never met. We checked: the script was written at a time when Kevin Smith could not have stolen it from our chatter, but not before we emailed him -- everyone in New Jersey has his email address, right? -- to tell him next time instead of eavesdropping he should sit down at the table and introduce himself.
 
Presently, there’s a gossipy business about a famous novelist living in Princeton. Your Papaya has never met the person. It is commonly whispered that anything you tell that person finds its way into the next novel. Shhhhh! It should come as no surprise then to see the latest soft drink commercial featuring Anastacia, chatted up by one altrok contributor, singing her heart out in a bowling alley, harmonizing with Cyndi Lauper, whose praises Your Pineapple warbles daily and twice on Sundays. Seeing those two women side-by-side was like a bolt from the blue. By itself, this ad is simply good fun, but in combination with other events, it is enough to make one believe writers of several ilks have an ear to the ground at Central Jersey busstops and in bars, and your life becomes their livelihood. Hey, are your problems yours or All My Children’s next storyline?
 

©2003 Robin Pastorio-Newman