Madame Holly

Madame Holly

Saturday, March 8th, 2008
Chinatown

"You're going to live to an old age."
-Every psychic who has ever existed

My journey has begun and there is no going back. My partner and I have looked it up and found over four pages of psychics, mentalists, spiritualists, clairvoyants, mediums and general John Jay bullshit artists in the City proper, all of them willing to peer into the secret garden of our soul (for between 25 and 150 dollars a reading). This being a point close to the beginning, I should expound a bit upon my reasons for these psychic readings especially because I'm a sort of psychic atheist. Actually, that might give psychics too much credit. Atheism implies that there is an opposite that could also be the case. Truly, I'm more of a psychic interloper. But who knows, perhaps I've entered their world in the same way C.S. Lewis once entered a church. Perhaps, I'll come out of this experience and write books about the power of aura healing and tarot card readings. I doubt it.

What does it mean to be alive? I mean, really, why are we here? This is possibly the stupidest, most boring, question in the world. It's also the only important question, and sort of humorously, if it were to have an answer it would, no doubt, be incredibly unfulfilling. If God were to open up the heavens or burn from a bush and tell me my reason for being was to procreate, it wouldn't surprise me. I mean, that's pretty much the reson He gave to Abram. But damn; if procreation is my only reason for being, then what a boring life. My conciousness would be minimized. I'd be nothing greater than an animal, and I don't care what PETA says, animals and me are not on the same playing field. It's not even the same fucking ballpark. I mean, let's think about the dog. Man's best friend lives and eats for free on the Marshburn dole, and this is fucking expected. My dogs are bums and no one seems to care. All they do is sit around, sleep, and hump things. Is this the life I'm supposed to live? I sure hope not. Help me Holly.

To get to Holly's reading room, we had to venture through Chinatown on a Saturday. San Francisco is already a small city, but Chinatown on a Saturday might as well be Beijing except with taller and whiter people. The smell of fish permeates everything and, on this day, the air was thick in the sort of way city air gets on a warm calm day. Why couldn't it be blustery and rainy? Those seem like movie quality psychic conditions. In any case, we're not operating under the optimum conditions, and there isn't enough electricity in the air, but who needs lightning when I've got Holly? Let's get my self-exploration on.

We found Holly through a Google search, and as we walk into her psychic reading room, I feel as if she is looking into my soul like a child looking at a new pet for the first time. Then she begins to speak. "Who's up first?" she says. Shouldn't she know the answer to this query? I mean, her vocation is clairvoyance. Shouldn't she just point at one of us? That would have been much more impressive. In any case, Nick is first, and they don't even go into an adjoining room. Up to this point, coming to a psychic had been akin to--what I assume it's like--when one goes to a brothel. You go into a separate room, she services you and you come out with empty pockets. Until now psychic readings were exactly the same, except without the sloppy seconds and possible sexually transmitted diseases.

As Nick's reading comes to an end, I prepare to have my mind blown by Holly's truthbomb cards, and as I pick some, admittedly, great cards, I begin to think about Bill Murray. Apparently I'm incredibly gifted but also walking a path that isn't quite right for me. I'm a searcher, you see. Luckily, a mentor is going to come along by the time June rolls around and he's going to make me an unbelievable offer, and in my mind, this man is Bill Murray. He seems perfect because he's talented and lazy and just my type, and He's going to take me under his wing, and he might also try to take my girl, but I can't really complain because, you know, he's Bill Murray and all.

As the reading continues, I just keep imagining myself placed into the movie of Bill Murray's life. We're planning screenplays and new ways to hit golf balls together. He's the big dog and I'm nothing but a cinderella story getting my rocks off at the ball washing machine devising a way to "kill all the gophers," and its exactly what I've always wanted except now I'm worrying about Bill's newfound sensibility. Has he lost his ability to play up for laughs because I might need him to do that a little bit. I might need him to re-incorporate a little Stripes-like slapstick to go with the quiet laughs of Rushmore. I mean, is he even capable of this anymore? For a person that's about to become very successful, I sure do have a lot of self-doubt. Thanks a lot Holly; you've just managed to muddle the waters even further with your tarot cards. Maybe, you just needed a little more lightning.

You know, this being a journey of self-empowerment, I sort of get the feeling that I need to drop my cynicism and allow the power of pyschic thought to heal my soul. Maybe, I just need to cure myself of using ironic distance as a shield for the mind. Or maybe, psychics shoud be better bullshitters. I don't know, but if being clairvoyant was my J-O-B, I think I'd think of something better to say than, "You have an aura; you're going to live to an old age." Though, now that I think about it, I am two for two with the old age thing.....so I've got that going for me, which is nice.