7:35 de la Mañana

Around 3 in the morning, I climb down from my column and go into Buñuel's cold coffee and day-old pastry shop and order my favorite drink, the Mi Ultimo Suspiro. Playing on a forever loop in the background is "7:35 de la Mañana," a 2004 Oscar-nominated live action short from Spain. I do not know why.

I wait in line, surrounded by a clientele that communicate with each other by holding up cue cards. They frighten me with their petit bourgeois small talk sameness and their matching purses. I am depressed. My donkeys have died while I was playing piano at a jazz bar; all the women around me have thicker beards than I do. I will speak about this to Freud the next time he blows cigar smoke in my face.

Yesterday, a man dressed as a nun and riding a bicycle cut in line and told me my Andalusian dog was peeing into the morning coffee. I laughed to camera. He handed me an invitation. It was to a party hosted by The Devil, who would steal my soul using a set of pliers after first boring me to death with simple magic tricks involving balloons. I would then be driven to a disco; I should refuse for he is a lousy dancer and a mean drunk. I looked at the invitation. The party was yesterday. My soul remained safe, although I would have enjoyed seeing the balloon tricks.

I order a latte and sing in front of a surprised woman who pulls out a razor blade and threatens to strike me with it 400 times. She asks me whether my name is Jules or Jim. I tell her she is confusing French New Wave with surrealism and avant-garde movie making. She tells me never to fall asleep watching Turner Movie Classics again.