Adventures in Territoriality

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The phone rang, shattering the melancholy still of my second floor walk-up office. I don't like interruptions. Piercing wails for attention rose pleadingly, demandingly, into the still air. I swirled my scotch, watching the oily tide rise and fall, chasing itself around frigid icebergs. I never answer my phone before the third ring - I don't want people thinking I'm available.

"Yeah?" I answer the phone with bored contempt. It's taken me years to get this delivery right. Now I have it down to a science. You can almost see the light arcing thinly through the narrowly cracked blinds onto stacks of paper and burnt-out candles, clouds of hazy smoke churning in the slow revolutions of a ceiling fan, just from hearing my voice over the phone. The faint tinkle of ice in a glass, carefully produced by holding my drink to the receiver, completes the image. I am a near legendary figure.

"May I speak to Shaggy D please?" A low, formal tone that speaks of things official. Never good.

A pregnant pause and then, "This had better not be you, Greenspan."

"I'm afraid it is, Mr. D. I believe you know what I'm calling about."

"Yes, and you can tell Mr. big-shot rock star Shaggy to go to hell. It's my name, I had it first and I'm not changing it."

"Mr. D I believe that we can amply establish precedent over the 'Shaggy' moniker. We've been very reasonable so far and,"

"Reasonable! That Rastafarian bastard shaved my dog!"

"You have no reason to believe that my client was responsible for that. We've been very patient but I'm afraid that if you don't acquiesce immediately we'll be forced to pursue other alternatives."

"Reasonable! That Rastafarian bastard shaved my dog!"

"Stay the hell away from my dog, Greenspan!"

"I'm talking about court, of course, Mr. D. We'll file papers against you on Monday if you haven't given up use of the name."

"Gotohell!"

I felt like I managed to get through that one while maintaining the right balance of righteous fury and disinterested cool.

So it's a week later and I'm backstage at the American Music Awards in Hollywood, California. I'm lounging around, casually disinterested in the bubbling chaos of stars and peons that froths around me. A pair of youngish looking blonde groupies are draped over each of my shoulders, giggling and feeding me hits of bourbon from a silver flask. We get them you know - writers that is - we get groupies. Good ones. Well, actually, they aren't really my groupies. They seem to think that I'm Andy Dick. A lot of people say I look like Andy Dick. I tell them to go to hell. I'm not telling these girls to go to hell - only an idiot turns down a free ride when he's hitchhiking.

From my perch atop a wheeled equipment box I'm watching from the wings while Sharon Osbourne makes drunken overtures to polished, young, boy-band frontmen. Suddenly, Shaggy storms onto the stage from the opposite side. Wild, misguided applause erupts from the evidently shortsighted crowd. I flip him the bird and spend the next several minutes fending off the confused and offended Osbourne matriarch, who hits harder than you'd expect from a woman of her age. When the dust settles, Shaggy is filling time at the microphone with a scathing review of my latest column. Fresh from one battle, I launch myself at the stage with wild abandon.