What the hell? Last I remember I’d stolen a car somewhere in L.A. and started driving around town but now it looks like I’m somehow parked inside a big ole art museum. Right away I see a huge painting named Boss and read a label that it’s by Ed Ruscha. Who is this guy, a mind reader? Those four letters must have been dictated to him by the bastard who every day for years clamped my head in the vise depicted between two big S’s. I’m not going to look at that anymore. I’m starved and want the Actual Size spam over there and run to reach but the can turns into a fiery jet and takes off.

Fine, I’ll go somewhere better in my new car soon as I fill up in that shiny gas station. What’s this? The damn thing’s boarded up and painted bright red and white and right there on the wall’s a sign saying Standard Station, Ten Cent Western Being Torn in Half. No problem. I’ll just fill up over there. But the damn Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas is boarded up, too, and this one’s backed by spotlight beams. Wonder what they’re advertising.

My stomach’s growling and I see a plump fish with a long sharp pencil jammed through his mouth and jump at him but my head hits a wall and even as I grab he keeps escaping somewhere right in front of me. When I finally get hold of that Strange Catch for a Fresh Water Fish I’ll eat him raw and pick my teeth with the pencil. First, I need energy from that glass of milk targeted by a dive-bombing bird who eats the glass and howls before he drops dead. Maybe my luck is improving or I’d have been the one Angry Because It’s Plaster, Not Milk. I’d rather have a restaurant meal, anyway. I get a delicious steak and baked potato and huge slice of apple pie at Norm’s and walk out, looking for my car and wishing I had a wallet. Some uptight waiter tries to stop me so I punch him in the jaw and reach for my lighter and in minutes I see Norm’s, La Cienega, on Fire.

             Crackling heat spurs me to run around lighting other paintings and eluding slow-poke security guards and pretty soon wicked flames and black smoke are shooting out the back of the Los Angeles County Museum on Fire and I sprint to my hot car and take off and get lucky running red lights and driving through a canyon and north of town I look in my rearview mirror to see Back of Hollywood spelled DOOWYLLOH in a red sky and thank god I’m getting away from this crazy place until I run out of gas.

Ed Ruscha/Now Then at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

George Thomas Clark Page on Amazon