Madame Tussauds....

Madame Tussuauds is a wax museum. Vivian notes that anyone who has accomplished anything at all in their field of endeavor has their anatomy molded and placed on permanent collection.

Exiting the bus Vivian talks about the Sherlock Holmes museum down on Baker Street, noting how the fictitious address  221B Baker street still gleans several hundred volumes of mail every year.
As we cross the street in London Vivian will often stop in the middle of the street Her arms quickly jolted and splayed like wings in a hasty and emergence fashion, halting the caravan of taxis and double-decker buses, putting her own life in jeopardy so that, for the most part, spoiled white kids from the most opulent nation in the globe can strut across the street in security.

Madame Tussauds is a jungle of stalks and human glens stagnant, familiar, facial impressions crested into our subconscious via the domestic altar of the television, movie screens, supermarket tabloids. From ahead I can hear Jim Baker stating that this place is freaky-looking. There seems to be an emphasis placed on verisimilitude when it comes to height. The bodies seem real and eerie. The statues are placed out in the open with no hindering boundaries so that one can walk up next to them and have their photo taken. If it weren't for the bludgeoned red coats one would have a hard time discriminating from what is viable real and what is virtual wax.

Spencer has already stated how much you want to make a bet that when no one is looking the statues come alive at midnight and have little parties at night.There is Michael Jackson. There is Madonna. The Beatles are lounging on a couch each playing their instruments. There is Crocodile Dundee. There is George Bush. Bill Clinton was unveiled a month after his inauguration. The royal family has a room all their own. It is Madame Tussauds. Even though she is not a commissioned tour guide of the establishment Vivian is going out of her way to delineate that first wax statue christened was that of Voltaire followed by your Benjamin Franklin. Vivian says that there is quite a bit of security, noting that the Adolf Hitler statue has been vandalized several times since the end of World War Two.

how soon hath beer, the subtle thief of adolescent waistlines..

 All the Big Ten is a little freaked out. Somehow several members of the Big Ten already slipped on their HARD ROCK CAFÉ t-shirts like some sort of prize. 

There is a room of entitled Legends. Humphrey Bogart. Marilyn Monroe swapping at the white flap of her skirt as if it is some sort of wild spring. John Wayne. I think about Renae Holiday and the poster in her Bedroom I never saw of James Dean when I see the Life time James Dean re-enactment. Next to it is Elvis. I stop my roommate Justin. I hand him my camera.

“He’s like my hero.”

Justin says that he can tell by the hair.

“No seriously. Elvis Priestly is like my mentor. You got to get a picture of me next to him.”

Justin shrugs and says a whatever. He says that he is still exhausted since I was on the phone a last night.  

Next the Beatles I see Jennifer Flood flirting with several counselors. She pulls a Nat Pflederer when I wave and appears to be examining her shoes.  In the room with Pope I bump into Heath who appears to be having some sort of religious epiphany. Apparently there group was the last to stop at Hard Rock Cafe and everyone thought it was a dud since they couldn't go inside the actual cafe itself.
Ironically after the room with the pope there is a room featuring world leaders.  Gorbachev and Castro. Saddam Hussein. Jim Walks up to it, raises one foot up, grabs his crotch and tells Saddam to suck it. In teh second to last room there is Richard Branson, British millionaire. On a ledge above Brandon is Mark. He is standing there stagnant, statuesque, unwavering. He has his hand pensively slapped across the side of his cheek. Several tourists of Japanese origin have already been furiously snapping Nikkons at him.

                             

“Mark?” I say, in inquisitive fashion. He remains still-lipped.

“Mark!!”

He turns back, slowly, looks at me, offers me a wink. He then releases himself.

“Careful, people are going to start tossing pounds at you and then expecting you to do a little jig.”

Mark smiles and laughs. I ask him if he enjoyed hard Rock café. His smile reverts back to a hyphen. Mark still does not move. Several other guests strut back and look at me with their head tilted, as if they are wondering why I am trying to communicate with an inanimate object.

“I’ll see you in a little bit.” I tell Mark, still intractable.

I look back. He is still gravid and motionless, his eyelids darted at an oblique angle. Somehow, when I am telling him to have a good one I swear, even though he refrains from moving, he is looking straight at me.

There is no Big Ten give it up when we leave. The final rooms consist of past British Leaders. Margaret Thatcher. Winston Churchill. There is a video exhibit talking about how each statue takes as thousands of hours to create. Spencer keeps trying to emulate Mark by standing still and not blinking only every time thirteen year old from Daisy's group look at him he breaks out in fits of laughter. We walk past a final room of Guillotined heads of past and future exhibits.  There are strewn wax limbs and half-melted femurs. There is something about Bob Hope where I swear he is looking at me.

As we reach the exit Jim, almost on cue, says that place is so gay his ass feels kind of funny.

I despise the Big Ten.

I wonder if Mark is still standing unmoved in front of Richard Branson.

I have not seen or spoken with Harmony all day. 

She might not even be alive.