Adventures in Territoriality

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Hollywood security is something to be reckoned with, it turns out, and a couple of legally-challenged days later I'm sitting back at my desk, papers rising in discordant stacks around me like the skeletal ruins of fire-gutted high-rises, nursing a scotch and playing with the large scab that has formed on my left cheek. My ear aches from talking to my lawyer on the phone, discussing my slander lawsuit prospects. My counsel seems oddly reluctant to pursue this legal endeavour, but I'm undaunted. I offer to provide pictures of my dog, to help establish Shaggy's history of ill will, but the offer is ignored. Greenspan, having gotten word of the impending lawsuit, calls to play hardball.

Denial is strong medicine.

"Drop the lawsuit, Mr. D., you know you can't win."

"He's scared, isn't he? Is he in the room with you? Of course he is. Tell him I've dropped the lawsuit, and then tell him you're just kidding. I want to hear his reaction."

"You know, Mr. D., Shaggy is a powerful man, he gets a lot of women… he could arrange it so that you never do again. His word carries a lot of weight with the fairer sex."

"You don't scare me, Greenspan!" In actuality he does and I hang up and spend the day with the blinds closed. I stay on the phone to prevent him from calling back. Denial is strong medicine.

Two mistrials later (I didn't even know you could have a mistrial in a lawsuit), nothing is settled and Shaggy and I have taken to bombing each other with email viruses. It isn't very effective, as neither of us seem to know what we're doing. On at least two occasions I accidentally infect Flipperson's computer, interrupting his daily ritual of bombing Eric Estrada with gay porn and provoking a snapping exchange of opinions that results in one broken window and a visit from local law enforcement authorities. Greenspan makes another threatening phone call and is forced to admit that his computer is "down at the moment" due to something Shaggy inadvertently did to it. We're artists you know, we don't need to be good at this technology stuff.

Not long after that, I return home to find the message light flashing on my answering machine. Forty-two messages. This is highly unusual for a reclusive writer. I suspect foul play as I hit the playback button - I don't bother to get a pen ready to take down names and numbers.

"Shaggy D, you suck!" It's Shaggy. I'm really starting to hate him. I wish I owned an album or two so I could break them, or burn them, or something. Thanks to the archaic design of my primitive answering machine, which my current professional endeavours aren't paying me enough to replace, I am forced to listen to each message before I can delete it. I'm amazed at the range of insults that Shaggy calls to bear - not a single repeat in the batch. It's actually kind of impressive, but I can't let it get in the way of hating him.

Three days later, shortly after I successfully convince the National Enquirer that Shaggy owns a third world sweatshop which uses child labour to manufacture boy bands, my phone rings, disturbing the tranquillity of the deep, sonic well in which I compose my diatribes to the outside world. I wait for three rings, then answer.