What I Really Want to Do is Wait Tables.

Hello, sir, madam. How are you both this evening? Have you decided on anything yet? May I take your orders? Our specials today are—excuse me? No. No, I'm sorry, no. Yes, I get that all the time. Yes, I know i look a lot like him, but it's just a coincidence, I assure you. Anyway, our specials—what? No! Yes, I’m sure! Well, I think I would know, wouldn’t I? Ma’am, would you please keep your voice down? You’re disturbing the other diners. I—oh, Jesus. Fine. Look, yes, I’m him. Okay? Now will you please tell me what you’d like to—what am I doing here? What does it look like I’m doing here? I’m trying to do my job! No, I’m not joking. No, I’m not doing research. Ma’am would you please lower your voice? Sir, please put the camera phone away. You’re starting to make a scene. Look, I—shut UP!

Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. Can we just start over? Our chef this evening has prepared—will you just let it go already?! All right, if I tell you what I’m doing here, will you please stop harassing me and order the French onion soup? The grated cheese crust is a special touch this evening, the chives imported from—oh, right.

I never wanted to be famous. Okay, I did, but not like this. I never wanted to be an actor, a movie star. I wanted to be the best damn waiter in town. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, ever since Dad took me to Olive Garden for the first time, and I saw our waiter balancing five plates on one arm while reciting the entire menu by memory, without spilling a single bread stick or pausing to take a breath. From that night on, I had it all planned out. I started out doing all the right things: I didn’t go to college, began at the bottom rung, mopping floors at Burger King, paying my dues. And then I slipped up: I agreed to do the Burger King commercial when the camera crew showed up. Hey, it’s not my fault… I was young, I needed the money, and they promised me it was a one-time deal, no strings attached. How was I supposed to know that the commercial would get picked up and go national? Next thing I know, Law & Order is approaching me for a guest spot. I know, I should have said “no” and stuck to my craft, but it was so much money, and I figured I could afford a short break from my goals. Three years later, and boom: Oscar-nominated. You just never can see it coming until it’s too late.

It all happened so fast. When I finally woke up and realized what was going on, I tried to get out. But both my manager and my agent told me I was now locked in some stupid Emmy Award-winning series for two seasons, minimum. And then, one day, I’m eating lunch at Spago, and, get this, the guy serving me is a friend I did a couple episodes with on Lost last year! And now he’s here. At Spago. Lucky son of a bitch! I ask him what happened, and he mumbles something about having an attitude problem and getting canned. Get this: when I congratulate him on his big break, he actually spits in my goat cheese-infused, low-carb, seahorse salad. It just goes to show, when someone makes it they forget the little people. It didn’t matter, though, because I had finally figured out how I could get back to pursuing my dream: all I had to do was get fired!

After that, I started showing up stoned every day on the set, snorting lines of coke off of boom mikes, urinating on scripts and screaming profanities at the director and production assistants. Sure I felt bad about doing all this, but I had a plan, and I had to be ruthless in seeing it through. And you know what happened? Not only did I not get kicked off the show, I got a raise! A leading role, a larger trailer, and more free call girls than I knew what to do with! I ask my manager what the hell’s going on, and he says something about my growing reputation as a “troubled and tormented star” increasing my appeal. Then my agent calls, cooing, practically making out with me on his cell, and says the movie studios are taking an interest in me. I’m so hot right now, he says, so hot, that he can get me anything I want. Any job. I figure this is my shot, and I tell him point blank, I want to be an waiter. There’s silence on the other line for like half a minute, and then he says, Babes, you want it, you got it. I hang up, breathing in deep the sweet scent of long-delayed victory.

And that’s how I got cast in The Waiter, that stupid, gritty thriller that’s up for like twenty Academy Awards right now, even for animation. There wasn’t any animation in the entire goddamn film! Working on that movie was like methadone for a heroin addict: they let me research my role by taking lessons from some of the masters in the business. This one—I don't even have to say his name, he is one of THE preeminent artists in the world of waiting—he actually complimented me on my napkin folding formations. It was like… like they had switched the heroin back in for just one day. But it couldn’t last. After a few weeks, the studio told me not to go all “Brando” on them and get on to shooting the scenes. Several months and millions later, I got the Oscar nod. For a moment I felt redeemed, like my performance as a waiter had meant something. But as the weeks went by, and the box office numbers kept climbing, I knew, and all those real waiters in the packed megaplex audiences knew, that I was a fraud. You just cannot fake an art like that, and my imitation made a mockery of all my childhood dreams.

So I took off. I told my agent and my manager that I was going into rehab; my publicist, that I had a stalker and was lying low; my accountant, that I was exploring some real estate opportunities in Montana; and my mom, that I was hanging out with Jude Law for a few weeks. I dropped off the Hollywood radar, and now I'm just trying to get back in the game, play some catch-up. Anyway, I've explained to you why I'm here, and I've got about six or seven other tables right now, so have you guys figured out what you'd like? Uh, no, ma'am, my autograph is not on the menu. Yes, I get it, that's a good one. Yes, ha ha, very good. Now, about that French onion s— No, sir, you can't tell anyone I'm here! No, not even your brother. I don't care how big a fan he is! Sir, put the phone down! Great, now everyone's looking over here. No, I'm not him! I'm not! Don't listen to these people! No, you shut your hole! SHUT UP! Oh, God, I can't take this, I haven't got nearly enough Xanax on me to deal with this mess. Enrico, take over for me. NOW! Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am?! I don't need this! God DAMN it! I'll be in the kitchen!

Where Have All the Goblins Gone?

We are among you. In the shadows we bide our time, hidden, waiting... waiting for you to finally vaporize yourselves into nonexistence, for your cities, your grotesque raping of the Mother’s body, to decay and crumble, until, at last, when only a whisper remains to suggest that human beings once walked the earth, we shall reclaim our birthright.

In the old days, you had many names for us: fairies, elves, dwarves, gnomes, pixies, brownies, leprechauns, nymphs, imps, satyrs, and trolls… and, eventually, demons and devils, come from Hell to tempt and torment you. But we were always here, always the same: goblins. Elementals. The true children of the Great Mother, burst forth fully formed from her womb, not some tree-climbing, flea-infested mammal that developed the absurd gift of opposable thumbs. And we watched, as you squandered your blessings, unknowing, unappreciative, undeserving. We learned not to interfere, neither to guide nor try to help, for fear of being hunted and eaten like some other helpless mammal, or, later, being chained and forced to lead you to some legendary pot of gold or other meaningless treasure.

There were those who stayed, who chose to inhabit your towns and cities, changing to fit your changes, as we always had to fit the Mother’s. But yours were not natural, a perversion, and our fellows were perverted in kind. The gremlins are now no more than glorified cockroaches, with an eye toward mischief, and, more likely nowadays, malice.

When you see a shadow flicker in the sunlight, with no breeze to conveniently explain the occurrence, no fluttering paper bag, that is one of us. Count yourself blessed, mortal: you have been granted a privileged moment to witness a spark of the primordial beauty that still beats deep in the heart of this world.

Thos whom your “ancient” Greeks called muses? Again, us. Those of us who could not bear to stand by and watch the monkeys tear glorious Eden apart in their orgy of rampage. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (That was mine. Okay, I wasn’t technically the one that whispered the line into that simian’s ear—some chum of mine stole it from me during a moonshine-infused debate on the meaning of being. No, not your moonshine. Actual filaments of moonlight. Bottled. Powerful stuff. And for the record, I wanted to call him Harold, not Horatio.) Nearly every object, every idea of pure beauty, that one of your kind created—your Aristotle, Leonardo, Mozart, and Elvis—he had an unacknowledged chaperone guiding him. You are not creators, composers, nor architects… you are vessels. And you should fall down on your knees, weeping in gratitude, for having been so used.

The time of man is drawing to a close. Even you, with your fatuous monkey brains, can sense this. And when the last skull of homo sapiens has crumbled to dust, we will again dance freely in the moonlight, scaring our young with delicious tales of the bogey-man, and rejoice in the restoration of a world once rotten. We are patient. What are a few centuries, but drops in the pool of eternity? We have time. You do not.