You saw him first. Of course you did. Back then, when you were six, you spent most of your time at the window looking down on the street. What else were you going to do when Mama fought with Johnny? The apartment was not that big. It still isn’t. But your room was yours.

If there is a problem, yo, I’ll resolve it, check out the hook while my DJ revolves it.

It has always been about love, seriously, straight up, love of music, love of words, language, telling stories and making people happy, all up on their feets and loving life. And I do love everyone, even the haters, the liars, the disparagers and those big pimpin’ motherfuckers who will do anything to bring someone down the second they get any kind of props.

When I got there, Rob and his law school friends were sitting around the living room playing cards. The TV was on but silent, and some miniature image of The Simpsons was floating around the royal blue screen. Homer was holding Maggie—his arms outstretched—and he had a look of frenzied panic in his eyes. Rob and his friends were playing a game I didn't understand, it seemed that maybe they were making up the rules as they went along. The coffee table was littered with pistachio nuts, and a clamshell that looked like a Japanese folding fan, sat in the center. One of Rob’s friends rested a half-smoked joint in its lap.

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Exterior shot of the Playpen. A tall dark woman in a top hat and bondage gear is herding the crowd outside into the warehouse. She’s got a bullwhip in her hand. She’d crack it against the pavement to move everyone along. “Come inside and play,” she’d say, “or come again another day.” The police would only bust up the party if it wasn’t contained within the building. There were a lot of noobs that first night, I recall Cyrus complaining, so a handful of regulars rotated as security, breaking up would-be fights, chasing off freaks blasting fireworks in the street.

The return is the most difficult part; the thin membrane that separates the world from the quest is harder than diamonds. The hero pushes, he leans, he tries to reorder his atoms in the shape of a shepherd, a monk, a maiden.

The first time I wore a bowtie to work, I expected questions. I expected students and peers to ask if it was “real,” meaning had I tied it myself.

Oh you're all back now, huh. Cool. Cool cool cool. There's room enough for everybody so come on in, stretch out, make yourself at home. I've been here for awhile, of course, since the Upside Down wasn't cool, since before we could all spell Demogorgon, when it was just funny dice and banana seats, brown bag lunches and nostalgia movies and red baseball hats. I've been eating pop rocks and drinking soda, slushing it all around in my mouth and forcing it down, hitting refresh and retweet and trying not to rub at the membranes while this foliage grows around me, all over, up my thighs and my fingers and and into my belly.