A quick note from the author:
After rereading this piece, high as a fucking kite, I got the urge to actually write a short story called: Ray of cosmic love.
As a creative exercise.
Can I create something unique from what was originally a pacified idea to praise Benin?
After locating and purchasing a Olympia, Splendid 33 typewriter, at the Mankola market in Accra, Ghana.
I was determined to write a love story on it.
The truth is writing the way I have been is starting to suck.
I’m waiting a lot.
For visas and shit.
Yet I feel obligated to transcribe my experiences with care and in detail.
Which is sometimes torturous to relive
Like watching “Titanic” on cable.
Succinctly said, my blog is becoming a responsibility I no longer want to burden myself with.
Imagine watching an F1 race with an 80 kilometre speed limit.
“Here comes Andretti on corner 4, lets see how he navigates the traffic circle and cross walk combo?
So fuck it, I’m taking a break.
Thank you for your time and consideration, I hope I can do the Ray Of Cosmic Love Story justice, in whichever iteration it happens to manifest.
Au rivor moi petit cherries, goodbye my friends.
(Bobby walks stage left and shoots himself in the face with a 1997 super soaker XTI.
He dies instantly.
He enters stage right, a new, entirely other.
…back to your regularly scheduled Blogram.
I consider the small country of Benin a refuge, camouflaged perfectly between Nigerias extreme corruption and Burkina Fasos dark Islamic overture.
Benin is safe, relaxed and best of all, not Nigeria.
I could very easily spend a lifetime toiling in various artistic endeavors here.
Just as Van Gogh travelled to France, England and Belgium looking for muse, today’s artist can find margins for similar inspiration, here in Benin.
Because, frankly, traveling the “country side” in France, painting ships on canvas, will likely get you beat up.
Todays artist has become bewitched by commercial interests and internet fervour.
How many gifted creatives do I know working for advertising firms on marketing schemes?
A dismal plenty.
If Justin Timberlake loves it so much, why doesn’t he just marry it?
Marry McDonald’s Justin.
Your bitch is a Burger, homie.
Prove that your love for a cheeseburger is similar to the love a mother feels for her placenta covered first born daughter, Justin.
I mean sure, you can work in an office in New York or Milan, but have your own studio near the sea? “Pipe dreams pop.”
Ask yourself?
Do you want to wake up smelling plaster drying from what surprisingly turned into last nights sculpture orgy?
Or spend a quiet morning casually picking dried acrylic paint kneaded into your nail beds, because you devoted the entirety of last week painting fantastic dicks?
Here in Benin, exotic flowers bloom.
Butterflies fuck.
Dragon flies too.
And curious blue lizards scurry at your feet.
Me?
I want to write a series of short stories about a homosexual alien obsessed with Ray LaMontagne (played by Bradley Cooper), on a vintage typewriter.
In my world and possibly yours, results are intended to justify means.
Can I sell a homosexually charged love affair between a beautiful singer song writer and a mysterious yet rugged extraterrestrial, to a publisher, film maker or Netflix?
I don’t think so Tim.
But.
That’s not the reason I want to create this or any story.
I’m writing for me, for you.
Because “A Star Is Born” didn’t have enough choreographed Indian dance sequences or graphic alien sex.
Why not write a story to see what some random idea can evolve into? After polishing it to a mirror.
Until Slurptpon the alien absorbs my failures as a lover, a brother and a lactose intolerant ice cream junkie.
I want to explore his shortcomings as a space lover. A stereotypical bachelor, ever bouncing between white suns and the bed sheets of space hunks, both on the brink of exploding supernova.
I want to channel my inner Frank Herbert and guide Slurpton from distant worlds, through dimensions, through men sitting in crimson sand amidst a ocean of rolling dunes, seemingly alone in their remote particulate of the cosmos.
When in fact these unsuspecting people are actually portals Slurpton uses to be near his beloved, Ray (played by Bradley Cooper).
Shit!
I’m calling the series, Ray of cosmic love.
The sexy twist?
Slurpton can and does, lick human balls in a manner akin to an old Chinese man rhythmically rotating authentic, Chinese made, chrome stress balls, which is to suggest, Slupton can wag a wet tounge across an orgasmic mans asshole like a pack of starving sewer dogs.
Imagine pounding this colourful saga on a vintage typewriter?
Antiquated mechanical percussion complimenting West Africas oceanic symphony, as a never ending series of waves beats complementary larghissimo in the deep, almost invisible back ground, of your beautiful life.
Until you’re lost.
Someplace beyond your subconscience.
Near to where Bing Bong is planning his revenge
As I said, Benin feels like a refuge.
Not just from Africa, but from the world.
I could have illustrated my point in million different ways, why create fictional characters that are destined to offend at least one person reading this?
Maybe it’s you?
Are you offended?
“A homo sexual alien, Bobby!?”
Right, so after ten glorious days of live music, Voodo rituals and mental freedom,
I travelled north to Natitingou.
My intention was getting to Niger, despite plenty of warnings regarding that choice.
*note.
There have been kidnappings and some murder near Natitingou.
Islamic extremists are widely believed to be responsible, said to be from Mali and Burkina Faso.
But who really knows?
I was told by locals that going to Timbuktu right now would be suicide, with a lot of steps.
Add to that, a Norwegian shipping vessel was bordered by pirates and nine crew members were held hostage just a few days ago.
Lots of hostage going on.
Which was the reason I made a pseudo hostage video.
Because I have a visa for Niger, my reason for going to Natitingou, in northern Benin, was research then Wonka related.
Under the cover of night, I went to a grocery stall. .
Where the woman at the counter refused to sell me three individual pieces of both Chocolate and cherry suckers.
“You must buy all of them” she said, daring me.
“How much” I asked
Two thousand five hundred each.
Q: Why did you buy so much candy Bobby?
A: I have a sickness.
After nearly an hour of eating candy like a ten year old, I lamented for my lack of discipline.
“I can’t eat all this candy, I’ll go retarded”
I said, picking fragments of melted chocolate from my chest hair.
The following day I walked to the local market carrying my sweet wares.
No stranger to a market collective, I set up on an abandoned wooden table, under a tattered black tarp.
Within seconds I had customers.
My business plan: Give me a coin and I’ll give you a candy, or three.
Business was never my strong suit.
If you’re old or very young, you get a free candy.
Soon I was surround by sixty or more people.
Outstretched hands pinching gold coloured coins, thrusting them to me, shaking them at me.
Some of the woman had intricate scars woven into their faces.
Some had small green tattoos of shapes etched into their foreheads and under their mascara adorned eyes.
The mass of customers clamouring before me, all had the shine of sweat coating them.
Making the crowd sparkle in the hot sun.
I keep saying relax relax, but people were enchanted with the novelility of buying sweets from a white.
At a hell of a deal to boot.
“Did you see, he gave five suckers to that old woman, for 50 Francs!” I imagined them advertising for me.
Soon the kids were slipping their tiny hands into my chocolate bucket, stealing my sweets.
This was happening blatantly, as I was now distracted by the colosseum of babies before me, each one fashioned with a coin in their tiny hands.
If a baby gave me a coin, they got a sweet and their coin returned, followed by a short, rehearsed, “The pleasure is mine” said to the curtsying mother.
Then it was on to my next customer.
People who appeared especially worse for wear, were given free candy, despite their having coin.
Those with no allegiance to capitalism were rewarded with a sweet.
Mine was a sellers market that could never be reproduced by a imitative entrepreneur.
“Combien?” I would ask
Meaning how much candy do you want, for anything of value?
Then I would hold their coin up to the sun, inspecting it with somber diligence.
The kids stealing from me would stop momentarily to laugh.
Giving me an ounce respite.
Then I would return the coin, with a couple suckers.
Humour was the only way of somewhat effectively controlling the mass of people plotted in a complete circumference around me, with an ever decreasing radius that was very nearly choking me.
“Relax relax” I kept repeating.
Humour was doing a dodgy job now.
This moment reminded me of how powerful a group of people can be.
Not as a metaphor, but as real power. Real energy.
A real encounter producing more than enough energy to push me around.
To overwhelm me completely.
Imagine trying to sell sweets in a mosh pit.
Toward the end, I couldn’t control the little thieves.
I gave what I had left to the oldest person near me.
I walked away with my hands in the air.
To the boisterous jeers of my former customers.
The lesson I learned again was, I’m not in control.
If a group of Islamic extremists forced me to wear a pillow case on my head, while walking me through the desert under starlight, to a cave with really bad wifi.
It would take five skinny, determined men, to do so.
In a country of 23 million impoverished people, five Muslim kidnappers in skinny jeans, isn’t such a tall order.
Fortifying my position further, I noticed this particular market had hundreds of refugees from Burkina Faso and Mali.
Refugees are always an indication of a serious problem.
And the most important observation, was the way I was looked at by some of the men.
It was neither brotherly or amused, it’s how a caged lion would behave watching Lamb Chops play along
I was food.
Given an opportunity, I would become an opportunity.
The wave of my reconsideration started to break.
That following day I visited the jewel of the north, a waterfall in Kota.
I smoked some magic grass and made a rather long video illustrating my love of art, Avichii and what I think of hostage takers.
Later I climbed the falls, squatted on a rock while staring into the mist swirling all around me.
In the mist, a rainbow appeared.
Two rainbows.
The Colors were presidential in all their primary glory.
Except these rainbows were vertical.
In that moment, my intuition told me that I’ve reached the end of this rainbow, this beautiful grotto in Benin.
That I should not venture beyond the color.
And like a good boy, who listens to his Omens.
I surrendered.
I leave for Ghana on Saturday.
I will abandon the ancient mystery of Timbuktu.
Morocco is after all, my goal.
I vow to return to this Timbuktu side mission once I wrap the game.
“The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels in the world and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.”
⁃ The Alchemist.
Earth Bobby 