I have tried numerous times contacting people about the UFOs, called them down and told them everything. Well, they laughed and said, maybe it was the transformer who made those blue lights appear and that is why you're fixated on that. Try talking to somebody about what’s going on in your life, you are clearly not well. Have you tried speaking with a professional, maybe they know what to do with you. There weren’t any blue lights and you did not see anything that night. But I did, I watched the blue light beam in the middle of the street. It was the most obscure thing I have ever seen, well the second most obscure thing, alongside that time when I witnessed a chicken being beheaded at some poultry market, that was shocking. I tried reaching out to my contemporaries on the internet to inquire about a UFO sighting, maybe somebody will be in my corner and understand what I saw, maybe I am not alone in this. I’m always being patronized and treated like some crazy person, crazier than I already am. And it's bad for the mind and the soul. And hell, even helpline operators weren't understanding and ironically sympathetic to me on the phone, they laughed at me and made jokes. They told me I was: “crazy”! They said that it was “loonie-toon! Those little men with their beaming lazer-eyes aren’t real! Get over yourself, you wacko! Don’t you have anything better to do than call this helpline? People are in need of real assistance.” Oh yeah, and what the hell do you think I am doing? I ain’t fucking around here!!
“Please, please don’t laugh at me,  you have to understand, I’m not a loonie-toon! I know what I saw! I…. Ask Joey at Stories Book and Cafe, he’ll tell ya all about those little men with freakishly colorful bacteria with their eyes always beaming, always scanning, and watching me change out of my drawers at night, goddamn those little perverts! You move and they’ll see right through your soul, so don’t even try it. So yes, he is very knowledgeable in that field, go ahead, ask him”
“Joey, who?”
“Y’know… Joey with that black leathery cap on his head. Sitting behind the counter every time I come in he is always so nice to me, unlike you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir?”
“Well,  have you ever been to Stories book and cafe on Sunset Blvd, have you?”
Have they? Have they went through the glass door and found themselves at this little book shop that smells of tobacco (not the cheap stuff), coffee, and mexican baked goods, fried eggs, where they have the crime novels on one shelf, the romance books on the other, and the artsy-fartsy scanned-picture books area, the cheap pulpy science-fiction novels, y’know, the ones where they have the Raquel Welch or Fabio tight bodied copycats fighting against the tyranny of the extraterrestrial beings?! And my god, what a cover and read?! Oh they have Scooby-Doo comic books, and Christopher Zeischegg’s Creation: On Art and Unbecoming, Nate Lippen’s My Dead Book, Brittney Manjivar’s Parasocialite, Thomas Moore’s Alone,  James Nulick’s Plastic Soul, Hubert Selby Jr’s Last Exit To Brooklyn,  and well… that is just to name a few.
“I take it, you’re fond of Stories?”
It’s more than just that, it’s my routine, my usual hangout spot where I get off from work and take the number 950/910 and  4 bus to get dropped off on Sunset Blvd, walk up to Stories, where Joey or Tory or John T or Alex or Gleb Or Lady Claudia or Greg (who so happens to be from Gardena, my neck of the woods, WHAT A SMALL WORLD!!) with the tattoos on his shiny head at the cafe counter area and greet me. And I sit there at the bar and drink my cup of water and read my book - usually it would be a Tin-Tin comic book or Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye - waiting for my little fine China (Emma Lee Benson) to retrieve me in the evening time. David Lynch has Bob’s Big Boy, I have Stories book and cafe. 
“I'm sitting outside the back patio of Stories on a hot Thursday evening, drinking apple juice and eating a ham-sandwich while I read my book off the shelf for the evening, Godlike By: Richard Hell. Not too long ago Stories held a launch reading for the reissue of the Godlike novel. Stupid, naive me, had no clue who Richard Hell is nor what the novel is. I don’t know, I just got off from an 8 hour work shift at the Home Depot parking-lot. I just went up there to see my friends and my little fine China. When I got there that Wednesday evening, I was greeted by big crowd of people out the back patio circling around Mr. Hell reading an excerpt of his book. That same evening, I got to see Ian and believe Gabe Lewis and some other people that I don’t see that often. I was too naive about the whole thing. I had no idea what it was all about, but golly, I thought it was neat seeing this congregation filling up a small space. “
“How did we jump from UFOs to a book shop? Where are you going with this?”
“I was gonna get to the point where they held a bizarre sci-fi reading”
“But what does that have to do with anything?”
Good question?
“I’m sorry, I tend to do that, I just keep rambling on and on and on and on and talk to you until daylight is out. It's a bad habit, I just don’t have anyone to talk to.” And yes, I tend to carry these long conversations with myself at work at the Home Depot. This long ass conversation or arguments over nothing. It can get lonely at the parking-lot. 
Anyway back to: “Listen, it seems to me that you have the case of Saturday scaries or the Sunday blues, have you tried hanging out with your contemporaries? Maybe asking them out to come over to Gardena and have a swell time? Or am I missing something here? Maybe this loneliness sometimes… you know… conjure some things you wouldn’t normally expect or see”  Is he calling me a schizo?! 
Loneliness is not the problem here, believe you me, I am not that lonely, but I’m used to being alone. I know the game and I play it well. I go to stories book and cafe or, or get invited to a reading, or I go to punk mosh-pit, or see my little fine China after work, but that’s it, nothing much to it, y’know?
“Listen, I know for certain what I saw. How can you explain that blue circle beaming, looking like a man ray picture from afar?”
The conversation didn’t go anywhere and at the end they hung up the phone on me and went ahead and took their lunch break. Yeah, they always do that to me.

***

Y’know, I am not so crazy about those sci-fic novels, a bunch of phoney baloney crap, if you ask me. Those words  cannot describe what I saw. Hell, the X-Files cannot explain it. 
I’ve heard about this story of a purple haired woman who checked into a room at the Chateau Marmont and never left for days  until the housekeeper went in there to check up on her only to discover her mutilated body on the pink-silk mattress, all naked and bloody. Now, her purple head was found in the bushes near the pool area, oh God, everyone screamed bloody murder, they had to block that area for a day or two.
Prior to her untimely death, according to residents on the same floor: the enigmatic purple haired woman was screaming bloody murder all through the night while Crowded House’ Don’t Dream is Over was playing on high blast! Some say that it was David Bowie’s Space Oddity on high blast! No… it was  Goodbye Horses! Some say that there was an individual with a bald head (not my Greg)  and monotone voice making these grunting noises as he hacked the woman away. Limb by limb. Turned the stereo on and had Divinyls’ I Touch Myself play on high blast volume, Tossed her head out the window, and left with her belongings and went on the lam, drove off to New Mexico or Texas or Missouri, where he changed his identity, met a woman, and opened a hardware shop with her, start a new life there forgetting about his fiendish life in Los Angeles. Hell I wish that was the case. Some claimed that they heard a drilling noise or buzz, perhaps an electric carving knife sawing off her head in the middle of the night? Lord only knows.
“God, what the fuck is wrong with your man, that shit is just morbid.”
“What? I read it in the newspaper. Don't be such a Mary Sue here.”
“Fuck no, I ain’t no Mary Sue, but that shit you telling us is just fucked up, don’t you have anything better to do than scary yourself from sleeping, huh?”
“Listen, I’m just informing you of the oddities that go on in this country, hell the world!”
“Yeah?”
I tried to persuade this skeptical stranger - this young feller with the short bleached hair and I believe he was sporting a jean jacket and black slacks and sneakers and the whole nine yards of thrifty shop attire, typing away his manuscript on his laptop while I sitting next to him at the counter rattling away - at Stories. But I wasn’t just rattling away, I told him every-single-detail, I left no crumbs behind. I tried explaining that there are other beings living far out of this world and living their best and wonderful extraterrestrial lives. Now, keep in mind, I am not one of those types that believes that the politicians and celebrities are snake people that pull the strings and whatnot, oh god, those kinds of folks that believe in that bullshit are the worst. Always nagging away how this snake is the cause of their downfall, their ruin, when in reality it is their own fault for believing that horseshit!! GET A LIFE!!! Too many sci-fi thrillers for them, if you ask me. If there is ever a time (I know there won’t be) I give you permission to just shoot me, end me right then and there. 
“Listen, friend, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea of me. I ain’t one of those conspiracy types.” And let me tell you I know an ex co-worker of mine that would go on this conspiracy theory rabbit, spewing about how The Simpson is the end of the time, and how they predicated every event that happened. And then went on to say that Sabrina Carpenter is a bloodsucker and that she is part of an exclusive cult in Hollyweird. It was one of those kinds of talks in the break room. I was so miffed and turned to him and said: “What the fuck does that have to do with the cartoon,  it is damn cartoon, for christsake!” I just wanted to enjoy my ham-sandwich on my thirty minute luncheon in the breakroom.
“Well… excuse me, I didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers here, I was just…”
“You’re not ruffling my feathers, you’re pissing me off. I can take Karen talking my ear out, but you and your idiotic point I’m not gonna stand for it.”
“I’m sorry if informing people about bloodsuckers and the illuminati in hollyweird is bad.”
“It’s not bad, it’s crazy talk!”
“You shouldn’t be calling people crazy when you yourself are a little loose in the mind.”
Bleached hair feller takes his earbuds and turns to me and responds: “What's up, did you say something to me?” Oh brother. 
“I thought we were having an intellectually stimulating conversation here?” God, those are mouthful.
“With yourself, I suppose.” His eyes darted at Joey singling him for some help, what as if I am gonna kill the stranger, please I have bigger fish to fry.
“Sir, please leave the gentleman alone. Can’t you see he is working on his half-baked, second-rate, hoity-toity manuscript that has already been written, but we all tell ourselves that it is an original work of great importance and art, don’t we all want to believe that lie.” Oh Joey you fooler, hahahaha!
“What?” Oh bleached hair feller, did Joey stutter? I don’t think so.
“I suppose you are right, Joe. This chap here doesn't want to listen to the sayings of a nut. Who wants to hear about headless cows falling from the sky. I am sure he doesn’t want to hear me spout about the little green men with the big black saucer eyes that roam at night, right?”
“You need professional help.” sneered the bleached stranger.
“And you need to shut the fuck up and work on your mediocre novel, or get lost.” responded Joey.
“Yeah, shut up or beat it… please.” I grin while munching on my chocolate chip cookie, oh that some good stuff, I take another bite.
The bleached hair feller moved his belongings to another seat to work on his shitty novel in peace, what a louse.
“I’m sorry that he was a jerk to you, my friend, you didn’t deserve to be mistreated that way.”
“Oh, it’s alright, Joey, it happens.” It does, everytime I get off the number 4 bus to make my way to Stories, there will always be no-good-mean-rotten-egg passing by and being so unkind to me. Like that time these guys were riding their skateboard on Sunset Blvd where my bus stop is and they wheel by and hollered at me to go back to Mexico and throw crumpled up beer cans at me and I don’t let myself get disrespected and would shout back: “WHY DON’T YOU GO BACK TO OHIO, ASSHOLE!” get fucked or anything but leave me the hell alone with your bullshit, I and none of us in this city needs it especially people like that who don’t know any better but to cause trouble. 
“All I wanted was to bring awareness of extraordinary life beyond this world. I know there is something out there living, one cannot explain it” and I try to, “perhaps a colorful bacteria, or giant yellow caterpillar living a nomadic life on mars, or a happy face in space, floating in bliss. I like to think that there is something grand and swell out there, what is the harm in that?”
“Not a thing, my friend.”
Anyway, 7:00 PM hits and there is a  karaoke night happening out on the patio. I make my way to the back and grab myself a seat. Folks are out here singing and dancing and enjoying the song of their choice: Patsy Cline’s Leavin on your Mind, Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer, Foster the People’s Pumped Up Kicks, Divinyls’ I Touch Myself, John Maus’ Hey Moon, Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time, Benny Mardones’ Into The Night, Abba’s Dancing Queen, David Bowie’s Space Oddity, and The Carpenter’s Superstar, what fun!
Danny Cook in his oh so ever elegant all black  attire looking like a character from The Hunger (no relation to the hunger games) sitting and queuing songs on his laptop. Kindly, he asks me if there is a song I’d like to sing, and oh golly, I don’t know? 
“Well, I’m not sure, my friend” I can’t think of anything right now, I just got here from work and I’m all tuckered out from outside all day.
Adam Roth and Mate (my contemporaries and friends at Stories) chime in and they encourage me to sing: “come on, friend, we want to hear that voice of yours sing.”
“Adam, Mate, I don’t know? Y’all are putting on the spot, oh golly.”
Mate: “We were told that you sing during your readings, and would love to hear you out, you know, cheer you on.”
Danny: “We need another song Que, no one else wants to tough it out and sing. Oh please say yes, oh please, we would love to hear you sing, sweetie. If you sing it’ll make you feel better, help get those jitters out of you.”
Well, “what the hell, I suppose I can sing a song” yeah, to end the night, why not.
“Oh yeah, what would you like to sing?”

***

I make my way up to the stage and wait for the music to play and I think about all the wonderful and amazing and wild things in my head. A breath or two, the air rushed out of my lungs took all of my tension away.  The knot on my chest completely disappears, leaving a lightness sensation that can feel dizzying. I don’t feel those nerves coming in anymore, I feel allright, and then suddenly:

I'm nothing special, in fact I'm a bit of a bore.
If I tell a joke, you've probably heard it before.
But I have a talent, a wonderful thing
Cause everyone listens when I start to sing I'm so grateful and proud
All I want is to sing it out loud

***

My mind is spiraling reels of spontaneous images in my head. A kaleidoscope of bizarro scenarios. Everything happening all at once. Spinning, spinning.  I think we all know those feelings and all those strange places we go to in the dark, it’s not paranoia, it’s certainly not our intrusive thoughts playing a game in our head is it? If anything our imagination, that beautiful thing that connects us from our hearts and to the weird realm. That special place we all like to escape when the world gets cold and dark, and lonelier, and there is nobody to come home to and embrace a warm embrace and you know what,  to that, I say….

***

Thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing
Thanks for all the joy they're bringing
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music For giving it to me

***

Picture it… one cold night you find yourself waking up at the horse stables. The whole joint is completely empty, nobody on sight, nobody to speak to. You are completely alone, except for some horses and cows sleeping and one dead with its eyeballs and teeth missing, Jesus H Christ, you can’t explain that shit, you just got here. 
Anyway,
How did you get here? You drank yourself to sorrowful sleep at the Desert Room? Perhaps you stumbled your way to the stables because it was near and went into a deep slumber. Perhaps some stranger dropped you off there and left with your belongings? But you know now you need to quit drinking.
 A pearl of light flashes at your face and then another flash and another and another, and it gets closer and closer and closer and suddenly you hear this gust of dusty wind blowing and roaring and everything is dark. Like a Man Ray picture you see black and white balls of fire piercing through the darkness and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and then BAM!…. You and some cows and horses are floating up to the sky. As you get higher, you see everything underneath you getting smaller and smaller, the world that you know it is no longer but a mere spec. You land on an unknown planet, the ground is all yellowy and green, the sky is black. And you are circled, surrounded by these little colorful creatures with human-like faces, their grins getting bigger and bigger. So happy to have company. So happy to have found a friend on this lonesome planet. They take you to their ringleader. The ringleader is this giant yellow caterpillar with the big red plumping lips. She takes one look at you and then proclaims you as commander and chief of her rock and insect army. To help lead and fight against the tyranny of the evil curmudgeon, slimy green faced toad with the peg legs. As long as you are there that mother fucker with the one glass eye and bad comb over is not gonna fuck with you or the little insect people. Where you come from they fry frog legs and dip them in ketchup (I prefer honey mustard) and eat em. Mmmmh mmmh mmmh, it tastes so good, I could go for some frog legs right now. That bitch knows better not to mess with you. Fuck him. 

***

I've been so lucky, I am the kid with the golden voice
I wanna sing it out to everybody
What a joy, what a life, what a chance!
So 1 say
Thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing
Thanks for all the joy they're bringing
Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music For giving it to me

***

But let’s not get too complicated here….. And let’s celebrate this wonderful night with friends. How nice it is to be with everyone tonight. From being a dreadful day has become a fun hunky-dory karaoke night at Stories, hooray-hooray! Hahahahahahaa!! And oh what fun it is to sing this happy song. Danny is right, those jitters I have are out, finally out of my skin, so long you little fuckers. 
 The bleached hair feller glares at me and leaves the patio: “can’t get anything done in this goddamn place!” Don’t let the hobos hit you on the way out, good riddance, and best of  luck on your shitty mediocre manuscript, you’re gonna need it. 
“Bye bitch.”
“Fuck you, asshole! Fuck all of you!!!” The passion in his voice, hahahah!
“Your place or mine, hun? If you have nothing nice to say, don't even bother coming around here.”
“For sure I ain’t coming back to these fucking freaks.”
Adam and Mate toss a crumpled up paper cup at him and boos the asshole out of the premises: “Booooo!!! Get out of here!!!”
“Fuck you!” He must have an expanding vocabulary, all those fuck yous, how original, “good luck finding any signs of UFOs, you ain’t gonna find anything! Stop wasting people’s time believing in something that isn’t real. The occupants of interplanetary craft ain’t gonna be coming here anytime soon. You are just buffoon, a dreamer, a silly heart, you are nothing at all!!! NOTHING!!!” The asshole finally leaves, thank God. So long to that blood sucking twink face bleached hair demon who tried to burst our bubble, we don’t need those kinds of folks in these neck of the woods. I declare jail for every louse that tries to hurt people and be stone cold massholes, we don’t need that poisoning in our communities. The world is bad enough with war and violence, we don’t need an asshole behaving like a spoiled brat who doesn’t want to split a sandwich because he would want it all to himself, they won’t do well in this life, not at all. Don’t be an asshole.
I don’t care what that duchebag says. Call me crazy, a loonie toon, slow poke, shit for brains, mental,  that doesn't affect me at all. As God as my witness - and he knows my heart, more than anyone else - I am certain that there is something out there  in space having a swell time with Mr. David Bowie on Mars. There’s got to be, I know there is. And when that time comes, when Jesus Christ all might says: “son, we need you space.” I will be there floating around with all of the happy face bugs and contemporaries, being a caregiver of love rather than a tyrannical dictator. Oh, that is a life I’d live.

You’ve seen him as a regular guest on Soft White Underbelly. You’ve read his schizo short fictions on Cream Scene Carnival, Cum Punk, Honk Magazine, 100 Subtexts Magazine, and Elizabeth Ellen’s Hobart Pulp Magazine. You can find his frank interview on Filthy Loot’s Not-Not Famous, Adam Lehrer’s Safety Propaganda, and American Vulgaria. He was scrutinized by the Rolling Stone. He was the cover boy for the third issue of Beyond The Last Estate. And now he is the ring leader of the Dingbats Society and Honky-Dory reading-series of divine obscurities! Ladies and gents, please-PLEASE a give a warm and roaring holler and applause to the icon and legend, the enigma:

MR. OMAR KING!!!!!

© 2026 dream boy book club