Dream 23: Freedom

I'd like to describe my escape from a mental institution.

At some time, I had been a free man in the city. I was walking around the perimeter of a circular corporate office---it's courtyard was constructed of lain brick surrounded by a low brick wall---when I spontaneously decided to venture into the building and explore its hallways. I wanted nothing more than to trace a circuit along the entirety of each office floor, to peer around the endlessly bending corners and pass the time this afternoon.

Without much reflection or hesitation I entered one set of double-doors on some indeterminate floor and began to examine the room around me. Almost instantly, as soon as I visually registered the throngs of people milling about the room dressed uniformly in cream colored jumpsuits, I became aware that someone had shut and locked the doors behind me and that I was now captive, unjustly imprisoned in what turned out to be a mental institution.

As I turned around to leave, assuming my entrapment to be an accident, I could see that hefty guards outfitted in navy uniforms had already taken their posts in front of and alongside the only set of doors into and out of this place, and that release would not be offered to me. The guards entered and exited freely, dutifully flashing their credentials to one another as they slid through the doors, which opened ajar just enough to let one body pass. I stood and watched them enter and exit, changing shifts like clockwork, and they never tired of their posts.

Years passed...maybe three or four. I paced in circles around the large common room of the mental institution, among the other crazies, all during that time.

Eventually, I obtained information that a close friend and confidant, a tall, athletically built bald man, would attempt a break from the ward. I witnessed only the aftermath of the unsuccessful escape, however, my friend being strong-armed and dragged by four guards away from the open doors of the ward's lobby, into a remote padded cell at the end of a short hallway. He had at least made it that far.

Soon my friend would attempt again to escape the mental hospital, this time inviting me to join him. He managed to stir up some commotion among the patients and prisoners, apparently leading a chase towards the elevators which accessed the rooftop. The guards left their posts in pursuit, and I alone ventured through the double-doors of my prison and slipped out, darting through the halls to another elevator, which I rode down to the ground floor. It seemed no one was pursuing me.

The main lobby of the building, the courtyard, the bricks, all looked as they had when I first encountered them. And I made haste to locate my friend, my savior, whom I had feared had been caught. I retraced my original circuitous path along the perimeter of the ground floor, around the ever-curving hallways, which were desolate. I was searching for something new, some tangible change. Exiting, I finally discovered my friend, sitting calmly on a bench in the courtyard, wearing a purple hoodie and dark sunglasses, and a stoic expression on his face. He was in disguise. I greeted him with cautious formality, just two men casually rendezvousing among the unseen predators, and we left the courtyard, and finally the premises.

We came to the street, where hispanic merchants were selling trinkets and small dolls from wooden wagon carts. I peered down at one basket of dolls, miniature and dressed in woven ponchos of many colors, all singing in unison the song "He Venido," and at that moment I understood that I was once again free. I picked up a black-and-white checkered gymnast streamer and began to spin in circles in the middle of the crosswalk, tracing a slanted ellipse dreamily around my body, gyroscopic, and with outspread arms I began to cry, overjoyed.

Poem

Bleak in the underground

Breathing uncirculated air,

 the musty aspiration of the 

 garbage-soaked rail ties,

 an entombing experience

The tenacious wait,

 sinking into the suck of

 the moldy platform, dirty

 to its foundation, and falling

 asleep standing up when it

 gets too heavy 

Ahhhhhhh here comes my train

Reading over someone's shoulder,

 spying my little eye,

 invading, I read the 

 inscription

     RELIEF FROM THE

     WICKED INFLUENCE OF

     SATAN IS NEAR

In this city, you never know.

 The spirit of SATAN may be upon us,

 down here with with the rats,

 but as long as he doesn't bother me, and I get

 to where I'm going, he can ride right along.

And I'll pretend not to notice anyone,

 and they'll pretend not to notice me, 

 and everyone is safe

whach this

lip gloss on the bathroom mirror came the previous year, or the time that he realized he no longer had a uniform because his mother liked the colors and stitched it onto the couch.
motional hang-ups at a bohemian salon in New York City. "Shortbus" expands to 10 more cities this weekend.
But Musladin insisted he fired in self-defense Mrs Faraway was a terribly unhappy
on May 13, 1994. Musladin arrived at AOF asking the court to reconsider the case, Los Angeles theaters.
An argument broke out and from there the accounts the magic
garden motional hang-ups at a bohemian salon in New York City. "Shortbus" expands to 10 more cities this weekend. first weekend. The movie had
had have made that same phone call now. well who could tell what would happen. 

Other Dream on Recorder

The forest was definitely enchanted. Little fluorescent mushrooms spread across the mossy earth. I did not hear the typical din of crickets and frogs, but just naturally assumed they were there.
Then the manta ray shot - nay, burst - out of his hole and advanced. I immediately noticed that he was wielding a mini power sander. This fish was out for blood. 
I was instructed to drive myself back to the party, avoiding the main roads. HE thought the cigarette carton was a juicebox, and his lips were searching for the straw for quite a while. In green haven, I was on the boxing team where I worked out and without ever considering how his actions affected others the man became invincible. He knew he had to write something, in case he ever came back ten years later and wanted to demonstrate that it just didn’t matter what the common man detested... definitely enchanted.

Little fluorescent din of crickets and frogs, but I just naturally assumed the manta ray shot - nay, burst - out of his hole... drive myself back to the party, IT wouldn’t have made a difference if shots were fired, his friend was running drunk into the ocean and surely would have drowned himself had he not been brought detained in the jungle gym on the sinking beach. He thought the cigarette carton was avoiding the main roads.  the boxing team where I worked out without ever considering how the man became invincible. He knew he had to write something, wielding a mini power sander. his lips were out for blood.

Poem

And I fell into
deep sleep, where the night wandered
cool into the beige velvet sunrise,
thick with oatmeal and cinnamon

Poem: The Prolonged Melancholy of My Mother

Mother, I sit next to an ugly man returning
guilt weary on the train from our slowly-
sinking dog-house. In the half-humbled
din of the passengers I hear the
invocations of twenty-seven years, tears,
spending yourself, looking into the future
for iron deeds and not necessarily gold,
tending the repeat wounds you believe were
salted. I would like you to see me as a son,
as I see you my child, delicate, red,
lonely in your own mind. This train speeds to
your desire, to stay hostile affection, and now
to my cyclic...sigh. Please do not cry on your
birthday, nor two nights before, because I
called you insane. Wait, as you say, this will pass.

You say that you pray, that I pray, that
I pray for you. Would you dance with me
in this car, tearing your wedding gown,
if I played you a song? Choose to hear me,
today wade cold above your theories, and
reply, vacant, 'alright.' The woman whose
calloused feet were washed by priests; who
swelled alive with slender limbs balanced,
ascending divine among V, wingéd V, to follow
the geese; who eventually wore a crown to issue
orders to an empty room, receive my signal:
The nightmares which you suffer from
grow in the words
nobody says nobody says,
and they're random like the lottery.
A general and a martyr, generous mother,
faultless and fierce, you've been a holy
angel on the highwire, but scared to death.
Please remember the ground is stable, your
children able, and that the lights are on, once
bruised but on. Know that this animal cage
around you will soften and expand, and
only for the brief remainder of the night must
you climb through the fog overhead
until now, when you wake again.

Rise from your bed, I command you, rise! From
now until we return to dust, golden ash, I lead your
grace, your soul, my mother, through the thousand
faces of paradise, an eternal vacation from your poverty
in sorrows. Today, I take you to Paris, morning
under the tower, where I tie up your slippers to watch
you bend over and around the sun from my egg in
the grass. At dawn we cruise North, Nova Scotia bound,
whalewatching, continental breakfast on the upper deck
where you are the most beautiful woman the captain says
he's ever seen. Beholden we early feed dolphins from
your brother's boat in the Everglades, and sunblocking
your shoulders I announce that I'm moving back home.
The air is hot here in Africa, where your body has ceased
to trouble you, and the bachelors persist, and they
are all reverent, doting, rich; Nevermind and
walk, I will let no one dishonor you today.
We bristle as the shops open in London...

Dream 22: Branded

I was browsing the Ralph Lauren store, searching for some dress shirts and sweaters to wear to my new job in the upcoming Fall and Winter months. I entered the "New Arrivals" section of the Men's department, and featured front and center on the shirt rack---to be the first item beheld by any visitor---was this pink atrocity that I felt compelled to investigate further, up close, if only to convince myself that it actually was for sale.

I held in my hands what I reasoned was a bathing suit: first of all, this article of clothing was so flashy, so colorful, that its dimensions and overall shape were obscured, confused; if it even was a bathing suit, I was not sure which part of the trunk I was holding...the leg, or the waist? Secondly, it was too ugly to have been any other type of clothing one wears out in public. I thought, only bathing suits get away with patterns this busy and obnoxious.

I soon found that the article could be unfolded, and doing so I discovered that in my hands was a standard pink long-sleeve button down-men's shirt, which had been covered all over by the embroidery of a handful of circular consumer logos that typically signify either social status or capitalism. Here is a fairly-true-to-memory mockup of the shirt that I was now appreciating, with wonder, in full view:

The first thought that came to mind was, "This is fucking atrocious...who would buy this? Who would sell this? Oh, of course, Ralph Lauren would." Then, almost instantly after, I started to admire and desire the shirt: "Actually, I could see myself wearing this...yeah, it's cool! I like it! I want it! I must have it."

A Dream Interpreted (Dream 21: Brother)

I was living with my mother and my older brother in Queens.

Note: I do not have an older brother in real life

I believe that many of the walls were either glass or mirrors, like an exaggeration of a gaudy/tacky Italian mobster's house. The decor was also distinctly mod---I was sitting in a very low, black leather couch in my living when I decided that I was angry at my older brother, and that to retaliate against him I would destroy all of his possessions.

In this dream, my older brother is played by my Uncle Ray, in fact my mother's youngest brother

A flash of me walking by my brother in the living room as he relaxes on the black leather couch, playing his guitar. There is a large crystal chandelier in this room.

When no one is home, I pillage the house for every picture frame that holds a photo of my brother. All of the frames I find throughout the house---on mantles, on dressers, on walls---are thick crystal: noticeably heavy, cut into complex geometric patterns, and very ornate. As I scour my house, each frame I find with a photo of my brother I hurl violently at the floor or walls, watching it shatter into a sparkling burst of shards. I would hold the frame in my hand to both feel its weight and briefly study its jagged texture, then throw it down with vindictive indulgence. I recall pickup up one particular photo that showed my brother and I in a brotherly embrace and smiling, somewhere outdoors. I broke that one as well.

Once every photo of my brother has been destroyed---and there are a considerable number of them, everywhere, so I really spend time in each room---I enter his bedroom, intent on smashing everything he owns. Some objects I notice are a skateboard and an electric keyboard. His walls are all glass, except the far wall, which is a mirror from floor to ceiling. The ceiling is also a mirror.

I hear my brother enter the house downstairs, and immediately my fear of him and his reaction consumes my emotions, displacing my mission. I seek a place to hide, an escape from his wrath upon the discovery of my raid. I know he is going to want to kick my ass, and that he is soon to find me.

Luckily, my friend Becky shows up and drives me (us) somewhere...Manhattan. We explore the city at night in the security of the theater of the front cabin of her Jeep, and the skyline is incredible...the atmosphere is so clear, that I all I want to do is admire how every building and street light is lit up. We cruise around all night, and the air is cool. Sometime later, she is sitting in my lap, and we are sharing a very intense gaze into one another, and I want us to kiss but make no advances. She either leaves, or something beckons her away. I am content with this ending.

Justine, Becky's sister heard an abbreviated (censored) version of this dream and offered me this psychoanalysis, based on her studies:

"You wish there was an older sibling, a boy, to whom you could relinquish the responsibility of maintaining familial structure and peace. You are angry and out of touch with those emotions in everyday life, so you resolve them in dreams. You smash his photo because you are distraught that someone else doesn't exist to carry the burdens that you don't actually deserve and shouldn't be responsible for. You want to be free of the family drama and your role as the oldest responsible man. Your father is not an option in your mind, so you want an older brother, the only other male figure who could potentially take this burden from you. You smash his photo because you are beyond enraged that he doesn't [actually] exist... that you've been dealt this hand, but in real life you're peaceful, so these feelings are resolved in dreams.

Your getaway [through] Becky represents the happiness you find in true friendship..."

Not having known my family situation at all, Justine happens to be right on the money. I'm actually surprised with how accurately she had divined a deep-deep-inner desire of mine (an older brother) from one of my dreams. Kudos, Justine. I guess textbook psychology has its merits.

Poem

The following is a poem I heard, recited over an internet radio station one evening while I was drawing in colored pencil in my living room:

The Paris sky is burning bright

I want to fly with all my might

Her legs are long, her feet are high

Her jeans are strong, but so am I 

Dream 20: Acid

7/14/13

My age is uncertain: I am at least 16, past the major developments of puberty, but I most certainly am still a minor. Therefore I am left with a generous two-year window to exist in tonight, and in which to experience all those feelings of anxiety, amorphous anticipation, and confusion associated with a sexual plot not even explicitly disclosed or defined between the two participating parties.

I have been driven here by my mother, to this vacation-style cabin, to visit some family friend, or perhaps just a friend of my parents. Her age is also unknown, but certainly different enough from mine. She's also about a foot taller than me---Amazonian wouldn't be an exaggeration---but she was dressed in fashionable outdoorsy clothing, relaxed, and her strong features, wide smile and eyes, and brown skin caused her to strongly resemble Carly Simon.

When the dream begins, the two of us have already telepathically committed ourselves to each other for the evening...the question of "how" was not consciously known to me, but the enabling circumstance worked itself out perfectly. It was late in the evening, a fire might have been roaring, and the seated conversations could be heard simmering down to a collective sigh. I was lying in a bean bag chair on the floor, eyes gently closed and focusing my attention on listening to the room. I was actually rather tired---enough so that the volume from my mother and this woman, and the other people with us, was wavering---but more than anything I was waiting for our chance. I didn't even know what exactly to expect, except I knew "it" would manifest into something that would consume the both of us together. And I was thinking about how beautiful she was.

My mother interjected something like "Oh, it's getting late, and we have a busy day tomorrow, so let's wake Joseph up and get everyone home." But this woman countered, so expertly, "But look at how he's sleeping soundly! Let him sleep over here tonight, he'll take the spare bed, and I'll give him back to you tomorrow, when we meet for lunch before going to...." and whatever we were to do as vacationers tomorrow was lost on me. Victory was secured. My mother caved too easily, moved by my peaceful composure on the floor, and she left with the other family members she was toting around.

As the cabin acquired a refreshing new tranquility after the last visitor had left the room, a warm glow began to permeate around the house, and low trace lights faded on to illuminate the doorways and molding around the fireplace. I opened my eyes to see the feet of this woman disappear into her bedroom at the end of a short, unlit hallway branching off from the main room. I kind of stared off into that space, satisfied that we had made it this far already...so far and yet still nowhere, but headed somewhere, is all I knew.

I get up and head for the bathroom, also in that hallway, and when I return she is setting up a makeshift bed in the middle of the floor, in front of the fireplace. Quilts are stacked to approximate a mattress, and even more quilts she is pulling back and already slipping under. Finally, I am standing over her as she casually reclines under the most welcoming and assorted array of blankets I have ever seen, and she acknowledges me for the first time with a few pats of her hand to the empty place beside her, coaxing me under. Ceremoniously I kneel down and enter the flap of quilts peeled back for me, and she says something, and I say something, and we proceed to awkwardly, clumsily grope at one another for a few minutes, still fully clothed and mostly silent. I'm feeling her---or individual parts of her in broken and miscalculated strokes---and she reciprocates by knocking into me with matched ambivalence. And although we cannot fully embrace even once, let alone find enough of one another in the dark, I am giving this all I have, because I could not have imagined wanting anything else from this moment, from her. I was inexperienced.

-

From my fumbling under the sheets, Sophia walks over and literally plucks me up like a ball of socks from a drawer. I am out of the cabin now, walking with Sophia along the Little Neck Bay around midnight, and the abundance of street lights from the nearby parkway give the illusion that the stars have descended to hover close above the bay. The night sky is dark and light at the same time, very golden while being very black. The rippling water is striped like a bumblebee from the lights' reflection. I am very happy to be with Sophia...it's such an uncomplicated and tangible emotion. We find my car parked near the dock, with a view completely unobstructed to the bay and the glowing parkway. From the front seat, the lights seem brighter than ever. The water and the sky are twinkling on a macro level from the density of bulbs lining the shore. Sophia and I have sex in the driver's seat of my car, and as I rock her in my lap we look out onto the water, and I am euphoric over the sight.

-

A bunch of guys and girls from Fordham have come over my Aunt Dolly's house---the regular Nick, Paul & Co. crowd. We decide to take acid, which Nick is amply stocked in. He starts distributing tiny paper wads to everybody, and as I receive mine I notice it is actually a series of individual wads cleverly folded over one another...Nick was stealthily trying to quadruple my dose. I said "Nick! What the fuck, why'd you give me so much?!" holding the unfolded strip of acid tabs out like an accordion paper craft in front of his face. His lips curl back in a wily smile, acknowledging that the trick is spoiled...he has been caught. I tear off one wad for myself and give him back the unused tabs, and take the acid.

A few minutes later, I get up from the plastic-tarp-coated dining room table and begin to pace the living room, anxious for activity and stimulation as I begin to peak. The entire group is vegetating on the couches or floor--- completely inert. I try to rouse them to action: "Guys, let's do something! Make something!" Anil responds for the group that he'd rather watch some television while tripping on acid, and I am indignant towards their lethargy and lack of inspiration. "Why would you guys want to watch TV right now? It's fucking pathetic that you all are just sitting there, when you could be creating something awesome." I give up on the group and enter the kitchen, where I dump a big barrel of Lego's on the table and begin to meticulously assemble this red-and-blue hovercraft-looking object. I am hunched over, holding the Lego model very close to my face and inspecting each individual brick before I place it.

Dream 19: Keys

7/7/13

We are waiting in the cockpit of a tractor-trailer, cruising down a highway late at night, somewhere between the coasts. We consist of I, Sam, and two others---at least one more female is present, perhaps KC. Who is driving right now, is unknown.

We pull over along the shoulder of the road and pick up a stranger, a man. Quickly he is in the trailer with us, and we have pinned him up up against a stack of logs, actually tree trunks, with hands and legs spread and face down, as if we were going to frisk him. I walk up behind him resolutely, and in one fluid motion I insert my house keys through the finger-gaps in my closed fist and punch the man in the back, hard. I grit my teeth as I see the keys disappear into his back and feel his spine jerk. He probably screams---I don't hear anything---but his shoulders flare up in recoil to the blow, and it looks like he's instantly grown a foot taller.

As the others (my friends? team? accomplices?) look on, I pummel this guy a few more times from behind, into his back, and I become conscious that my keys are really tearing into him---blood is soaking his shirt through a dozen small, scattered holes. I pull myself away, at which point the others join in beating this man, and I become consumed by the sight of my hand, smeared in his blood. Bright red streaks flash across my knuckles and wet the soft flesh in the crook of my thumb, and I am horrified, transfixed at this evidence of murder. As I stare at my hands in bewilderment, an acute sense of regret overtakes me. In my periphery I see my crew continue to kick this man with such speed that he remains standing through it all.

Later on, we are sitting in the cabin of the truck, again cruising through the night, staring out into the blackness before us. No one is speaking. For a few moments I watch the slice of road illuminated by the headlights spin beneath us. I receive a keen premonition that this crew will abduct and murder three more people, hitchhikers, throughout the course of the night. I retire to the back of trailer, to figure things out by myself.

This area of the trailer, the back right corner of the storage unit, has been partitioned off and converted into a liquid waste facility. A metal-grate walkway encircles a pool of greenish water, and I am standing along the back, slumped over the railing, ruminating, staring blankly at the floating waster barrels as they bob along the surface to the shifting inertia of the truck. Sam finds me back here and eagerly informs me that they picked up their next hitchhiker; somehow I know he is a tall, bald man.

I tell Sam that I have to leave, that I can't kill another person with them. She is hurt but not discouraged, and tries to lift my spirits and persuade me to follow her to the other area, where they are holding this man. At this point, KC also walks in and tries to console me, putting her hand around my shoulder in a maternal gesture. Whatever she says doesn't reach me, however, and I calmly step back and walk out of  the water area, open a side door to the trailer, and jump out onto the road, where it is so cold that I can see a trace of my own breath.

Dream 18 - Vegetables in Easter Hay

4/7/13

I had recently completed my online TEFL certification and had been hired to teach English as a second language to non-English speakers. My first student was a young Chinese girl, 5 years old according to my dossier, living just around the block from me.

As I approach her house, I observe that it is a perfect box-shape, like some sort of modular home, riveted together with massive copper plates. It resembles a treasure chest or deep-sea diving helmet.

Standing at the door, the mother greets me warmly and welcomes me inside. Playing in the foyer are a small girl (maybe 3 years old, still clueless), a slightly older boy (9 and obnoxious), and an older girl, 11, who turns out is actually my student. Shit, my lesson isn't age-appropriate...I'll have to improvise.

I go to turn on the sink in the kitchen, and it violently rumbles while coughing out dust. I notice the kitchen island is covered in a plastic tarp, which itself is covered in sawdust. The floor in the kitchen hasn't  been laid yet: I am standing on bare plywood. Forget about the bathroom, it's filled to eye-level with central air-conditioning units and aluminum siding, and the sink isn't even connected to anything. The central stairway in the house is only half-installed, and the grandmother is standing at the 2nd-floor landing, placidly observing us from up above. How'd she get up there?

Before I can fancy a guess, the mother shoves a steaming palate of colors in my face, and stepping back I realize it's food. Chinese food. The mother cordially insists I dine with the family before commencing my English lesson with her child. She made General Tso's Chicken, and it looks delicious.

Sitting around the dinner table, I watch the youngest child slap her dinner plate with both hands---broccoli rockets across the room like fireworks. This gives me an idea: the shelves behind me are lined with plastic models of vegetables...toys, in fact. I will teach my student the vegetables' names in English, using these "realia" (in teacher-speak) to spur the lesson and make it interesting! I excitedly shovel the plastic vegetables off the shelves into my open knapsack: Carrots, Celery, Tomatoes ('why not?'), Eggplant, Potatoes...everything goes in the bag.

Suddenly I notice that Sam is sitting next to me; I proudly tell her my plan, and she approves.

-----------------------

Dan, Alex, and I are in a theater watching a shitty disney/dreamworks/pixar movie, replete with nauseating confetti candy-coated scenery and special effects. It's the new Johnny Depp movie.

Bored to tears, Dan and Alex produce from somewhere these neon-colored paint-pens (Hot Pink and Screamin' Orange) and start tagging up their seats. Actually, they are tagging up everything, leaking globs of fluorescent paint onto any surface in the theater. In the bathroom, where we stop to take a piss before bouncing, Dan scrawls a massive splat of Hot Pink on the tiled wall next to the sink. it looks haphazard and amorphous, as if someone literally launched a handfull of paint at the wall.

We give less of a shit and head for the bathroom's exit when the matron of the theater---an old and grisly woman with her hair in a beehive, personifying "expired"---barges in and orders us to clean up our graffiti. She specifically points to the big pink mess on the wall, and actually doesn't stop pointing at it until we acknowledge its existence. The three of us just awkwardly glance at one another, not really wanting to clean it up and telepathically weighing our options, looking for an escape. Tensions are high as two bouncers of considerable heft float in to give the manager's threats some muscle.

Realizing there is only one sensible option left to us, I sigh, grab some paper towels, and begin to scrub off the paint as Dan and Alex watch me uncomfortably. However, I'm not so much cleaning as I am polishing...the paint is not coming off the wall. Rather it seems to be changing color, a metallic white with a navy blue border. Actually, the more vigorously I scrub the more the splat assumes a resemblance of...words? Gradually, where there once was a nondescript tumor of paint on the wall, there now appears to be a bona fide graffiti tag, in ornate block-style lettering, with a shadow effect, spelling out the name of the movie we just walked out of!

Suddenly everyone is aware that Dan has painted this beautiful typographical specimen with a magnificent 3D effect, and I am just stunned. I drop my handful of paper towels and back away from the wall, towards the exit, which is now unobstructed. "This is beautiful," I declare to the theater manager, who is only more infuriated. "I can't erase this."   Alex and Dan cautiously sidle toward the exit with me. I take one last look around the bathroom, at the fresco of pink and orange smeared all over the stalls---works of art also waiting to be uncovered---and walk out with my friends.

The woman screams, "SOMEONE has to clean this up!! Who is going to do it?!" Alex, Dan, and I break into a sprint across the theater's hallway and towards the parking lot, hysterical with glee, and I call back to our challenger, "I don't know! Why don't YOU do it!... HAHAHA!" as we slide down the handrails to freedom.

--------

(Actual) lyrics to the Frank Zappa Song, "Watermelon in Easter Hay":

"This is the CENTRAL SCRUTINIZER. Joe has just worked himself into an imaginary frenzy during the fade-out of his imaginary song. He begins to feel depressed now. He knows the end is near. He has realized at last that imaginary guitar notes and imaginary vocals exist only in the mind of the imaginer. And ultimately, who gives a fuck anyway?! Excuse me. Who gives a fuck anyway? So he goes back to his ugly little room and quietly dreams his last imaginary guitar solo."

Sometime in the future, I re-enter the movie theater and take my seat near the back row, watching Frank Zappa perform live. A deep purple glow illuminates the theater. At intermission, he invites a member of the audience to assist him in the next song, and I am fortunate enough to be selected. I walk down to the the stage and take a seat at a table across from Frank Zappa---a table on which he lays an elaborate sampler pad, furnished with not only buttons but switches, dials, cables, and antenna you can flick to produce buzzing and whirring noises. 

The audience settles in, and Frank triggers a low synth back drop, against which he and I begin toying around with the pad and creating a medley of fleeting beats we continually evolve. We scrap one sound for another, our four hands and all twenty fingers weaving across the sampler, him untwisting what I just twisted, me hammering out patterns, him rattling, me scraping...for a few minutes it's just noise. But then...

But then I press these three drum-pad buttons, followed by two antenna that create "swish" noises, and Frank fiddles with a dial to fix the levels...and this is the sound that ultimately suits the mood. Resembling the opening to Animal Collective's "Cobwebs," it is minimalist, a little dark, and driving. Frank Zappa and I release the sampler from our clutches and relax back into our chairs as the groove loops onward and the stage guitarist licks a nasty solo for minutes.

After the song fades, before the crowd even realizes it's over, Frank exhales for the first time since the song started and remains dazed for another moment. "Wow," he breathes, staring into space, "that was amazing." I am beside myself with delight as I give Frank Zappa a hearty high-five in celebration of our impromptu opus. I shout "Yeah!" and take a victory lap back up to the nosebleed section to sit among my friends. 

Back in my seat, I am searching through my backpack, and dig up a large bundle of fireworks that I was not aware I had. Some commotion is reverberating through the audience, and as I glance towards the stage it appears that Frank Zappa has accidentally set a stage curtain on fire. Many people are confused or concerned, wondering whether the fire is part of his performance, as Frank is just standing downstage shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.

I look back down into my bag and pull out the fireworks.

Back at the stage, the fire has combusted up into the scaffolding above the stage, spreading rapidly, while Frank Zappa doesn't do much besides fumble on the floor of the stage. People are rioting and looking for an escape before the flames overtake the theater, and pandemonium reigns. Scrambling out of my seat, I light the fuse of my handful of firecrackers and chuck them down the aisle towards the stage, and as I turn the corner towards the exit door I can hear their POPOPOPOPOP over the tumult of rushing, panicked crowds and an all-consuming flame.

Someone grabs my sleeve as I dash out of the theater---I recognize him as a friend of a friend, whom I consider a complete asshole---as if his intent is not to use my speed to help his escape, but rather only to slow me down. I shove the guy away and brush past a family as I clear the glass doors of the burning theater.

Dream 17: Moment to Impact

8/30/2011

...I run in from outside, after a long day...

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The wood of this room is old; I rest my hand upon the sill of the fixed window and stare out from my cabin overlooking downtown Manhattan. Sam (my girlfriend) and Nick are with me, but I am the first to notice the large object falling through the sky towards the city.

I focus intently through the afternoon haze upon what becomes a large yellow waste container with a bright red "nuclear" logo printed along the side, as tall as the container itself. Time begins to slow down : the container descends, by far the most sharply defined object in my vision.

"That's a hydrogen bomb," I realize, "and it's going to impact in less than a second." Panic paralyses me as the knowledge manifests that within seconds my life will end, and along with physically evaporating in the path of the blast, my consciousness will also die ::: my complete existence terminated.

(((("... these are the last thoughts I will ever have..."))))

I gesture mechanically to Sam and Nick; they see it too. By now the massive container, with the inertia of Jupiter, has been partially eclipsed by a silhouette of buildings. As I watch the bomb disappear completely behind the skyscrapers, a moment to impact, I tightly hug Sam, my girlfriend, and apologize inwardly that she must die also. I'm too afraid to realize that I am afraid. The scene dissolves to white.

Dream 16: Steaks

7/4/11

I was playing / socializing in the living room / bedroom of a house, when I remembered that I had left some steaks frying on the stove. The kitchen was fully furnished in black marble flooring, dark wood cabinets, stainless steel appliances, and mellowed in a blanket of refined, delicate, even sophisticated ambient yellow lighting.

The steaks were bubbling over the sides of the pan in coagulated, rich yellow fat and hissing grease, a pot of meat, smoking and salted. The butter popped and stirred, and I grabbed a fork and dumped the steaks in my plate, a juicy pile of slabs of flesh.

The steaks were salted; maybe someone had seasoned them earlier. Using only my hands, I gripped a flank and stuffed it into my voracious mouth, teeth tearing in as grease slid down my face. I chewed loudly and with zeal. My mouth never closed; it just kept on being fed.

Everything about the steaks was ecstasy. I smelled the meat still steaming into my nostrils -- I was breathing hunger. Every sinew tore in my teeth, gnashing fibers and slivers of the tenderest meat, dissolving on my tongue, melting as I chewed. And my hands were always reaching for the next piece: one groping the plate, blindly feeling around for the next piece, while the other in my lips, fumbling the loose bites downward, sliding along slick teeth and flapping tongue.

I grabbed a bottle of barbecue sauce, but I don’t recall using it. I just kind of waved it above my head and shook it like a rock, as I began to hear music and danced around the kitchen table in the hot yellow light.

Dream 15: Tension

12/6/10

The first episode of this warped nightmare is a series of false awakenings. First, I am in bed, dark dawn, exhausted, cross-eyed and babbling for Theo my dog. Theeeeeeeeooooooooo I moan, eyeballs itching from pus and contact lenses, hands slapping the side of my bed in search of fur and ears. Space itself is bending and I am quickly losing consciousness again as the dense grey of morning masks everything.

Eyes open - I must have been dreaming, and it is in fact almost dawn. With greater lucidity, I roll over and  l u r c h  myself up onto my bedpost, keeling over the rail blindly as I fumble for the light switch. My knuckles grate against the cold wall, fingers limply reaching for ... it. click click click click click as I throw the switch, but the light doesn’t come on. Damn it, I must still be dreaming, so I collapse into sleep again…

Dawn a third time. I must be awake now (please), because I need to get to class. I manage to get out of bed and numbly tumble into the dark living room, turning down the hall. I stagger through narrow grey, void of thought, but before I make it out the front door I wake up a fourth time. ARGGGGG After some confusion, I discover a sizeable tarantula under my bed and vainly fight it.

After this saga, I find myself awake and dressed, storming out of my living room in Long Island and running madly up to my bedroom, as I’ve just quarreled with my mom. Of course she storms in, and my sister follows to watch. And we have ourselves a good old-fashioned showdown. I get up in her face, like noses touching, naturally towering over her and my shoulders thrust forward, daring her to do whatever it was she threatened. Do it. You wouldn’t. Stone-cold fury in my eyes as I try to conquer my mom, intimidating her to retreat backwards around my room and leave or leave me alone. Defensively she grabs my neck, which is bulging and tense, and words end; we just stare grimly. Who will falter first? Who will win? Raw grit embalms my brain as I draw all power of intimidation into my brow and she keeps a steady grip on my throat. Her face is ice and she looks about ready to burst...so must I. 

Surprisingly, nothing happens. The tension dissolves immediately as I give up and dash out of the house with my sister in toe. I knew I could count on her! We pile into our Black Humvee and drive off down the street, me riding shotgun. Cruising slowly, looking for something as we pass through residential streets filled with people. We sense war in the air, the presence of a foreign threat, and suddenly everyone is a suspect. But I get the feeling that we, my sister and I, are in fact the terrorists.

The reality is still unclear to me even as I write this.

Pulling over, we leave the vehicle and head towards a tree, where four pistols are stealthily hanging from branches. We both grab two each, steel Magnums, and prepare to blast off down the road, armed and dangerous! Action. 

Pickup trucks and vans are pulling up next to and behind us, trailing us for a few blocks, then speeding off down side streets, as we continue our reconnaissance. I keep my sights on anyone and everyone, especially the motorists eyeing us suspiciously, one gun cocked and raised and aimed at the head. Pieu! I whisper as I pull a mock trigger and fire one imaginary bullet at a time at cars and pedestrians. Mock recoil. Pieu!

No one is chasing us yet, but everyone seems to want us dead, and my sister Kim at the wheel is doing a great deal of pitching as we accelerate to the point of speeding tremendously. My anxiety creeps up, and I pull the hammer back, as beat-up trucks begin to keep speed with us. Pulling into an underground parking complex below the mall, we abduct an older woman and her middle-aged daughter, Southern and middle-class, opening the back door and throwing them in. I fire a warning shot or two in the air and at an approaching van, howling and cheering. Kim, hit the gas! 

Climbing out my passenger window, I hang from the careening Ranger by the door handle. The door swings open as we run over some sidewalk and I’m hanging over the edge of the roof by my armpit, beating up against the side of the truck with the wind, shooting wildly, blindly. By now all scenery is blurred and we are the only car on the road. So we crash into the house of our hostages, right through the garage, and I scour the rooms for any more occupants as Kim holds the women hostage in their kitchen. I discover the den, and as I notice the TV is on, an older, heavyset man turns slowly in his lay-z-boy chair from his view of TV, towards me, and I’ve already drawn to his forehead, ready to fire.

“Who are you?!” I yell, Aim. His hands are raised for surrender but his calm demeanor shakes me, and I sort of snap out of whatever survival, autonomic fight-or-flight combat mode I was in. 

My gun looks foreign to me, and it’s awfully quiet everywhere. Who is he? A husband or something, I don’t know. I don't know. I stop knowing what’s going on. What’s going on? I slouch in confusion and exhaustion. I forget my gun and purpose.

“What do I Do now?”

Idea: Short Story: Two Old Store Owners

Background: I was in an Economics class, thinking about the theoretical conditions under which a producer (firm, company) can obtain the most profit from his business. I don't want to get too technical, but the idea is that there is a Minimum price at which you can sell an item and still make a net profit from that sale. Any price below, and you're a sucker who's losing money (for fellow economic geeks out there, this is the marginal cost of the good -- it should not be larger than the marginal price for which you sell an extra unit).

Anyway, I was musing about one of the fundamental, crucial assumptions made by economists, that is, that people are rational beings, who make rational decisions. I thought, is this really true? Are people always so sane and logical? Instinct and years of economics has told me No, often decisions made in market situations are not the optimal ones. In fact, they can be rather disadvantageous. I want to investigate that error in judgment.

Execution: I'd like for someone to write a short story, comedic, about two elderly men in a small town who own the same type of store (hardware? auto repair? appliance?) and are trying to put the other out of business. Except they are so stubborn and curmudgeonly, that they are willing to cut their prices so much that they take a loss, just to draw business away from the other. It actually becomes absurd how often they undercut one another...it gets so severe that it begins to occur multiple times per hour. Eventually some of the townspeople become alarmed by the rivalry that they try to warn the old owners against putting themselves into bankruptcy by charging too little, but each is so hell-bent on ruining the other that soon they are just giving their goods away.

The competition ends with both stores going bankrupt and out of business, and the men having to suffer defeat. Still, no embarrassment though; they are firm in their (irrationale) price war until the very end.

But does the story necessarily end there? Where do the men go after they lose their businesses? Do they learn a lesson? (I'm guessing not). Does the audience?

Inspiration: The short stories of Nikolai Gogol, who exploits the absurdity of the everyman in his ego-driven interactions with others equally as dimwitted as he.

Idea: Short Film: The Few Frictionless Minutes

This is an idea for a short film I had a while back. It doesn't have to be long, maybe five to ten minutes.

Background: I ask the question, "What would happen if friction (as in, the physical force that keeps ALL things from slipping) disappeared one arbitrary moment in time?" The answer is, utter madness would ensue. The entire universe as we know it would literally unravel, screw by screw, thread by thread, and everything, every structure around us, maybe even ourselves, would collapse and crumble like a sand castle, leveled to the ground. My film offers a close-to-lifelike as possible perspective on the first few moments in which the world experiences a complete lack of friction.

Some scenes to consider:

A group of college kids sitting in a living room, on couches, shooting the shit.

A middle-aged, attractive woman driving on the highway.

The crowd at a professional baseball game.

An amusement park, On the top of the Ferris Wheel.

That's all I can think of now, but any situation/environment will provide ample opportunity for action, because the force of friction is so overwhelmingly pervasive. I have no doubt that we take it for granted more than any other force commonly experienced. In dramatic, panoramic slow-motion, with the audio removed, the film would capture the following...

Execution: Set up the film by presenting all environments as they naturally are, giving a few glimpses of  the action going on with a variety of shots. Adolescents laughing and joking on couch ::: Woman checking her rear view mirror as she prepares to make a turn ::: Runner rounding first base, kicking up dust behind him ::: Sweethearts at the top of the Ferris Wheel, operator sweating under the sun at the bottom :::

This film will be scored, all orchestra, with no supplemental audio from the actual footage. At some moment, after the audience is settled into some comfortable understanding of what's going on, a musical cue is given (violins striking a high, dissonant note?), and chaos ensues in the natural world. Cellos hammer away, leading us through the hell that ensues...

Living room: Boys begin to slide off the couch towards the floor, simultaneously. They all start looking confused and horrified. As they are sliding, the entire room around them appears to slide as well. Zippers on their jackets are mysteriously becoming undone. The open windows are slowing falling, though no one is pushing them. Bottles of beer are slipping out of the boy's hands, spilling onto the floor. The screws in the hinges of the doors are slowly turning outward, as if drawn by an invisible magnet. The oscillating floor fan just falls over, because the rubber belt moving the fan blades deatches from the engine and snaps, and all gears within the fan itself come apart. Nails are sliding out of the walls, dropping the framed photos they were holding up.

Car: The car starts to drift in the road, as if it were on an ice rink. The woman cannot, for the life of her, grip the smooth wheel. All mechanical parts within the car fall apart simultaneously. The woman, screaming in terror, is too slipping to the floor of the vehicle. In fact, all cars behind and in front of the woman, on the road, are sliding, bumping, crashing, as the camera pans out. We see crazy things happening in the background as well, buildings wobbling, airplanes miles high nosediving.

Baseball Game: Batter up; friction goes after the pitch, so as the batter is swinging, he kicks his feet up and falls backwards as he tries to turn to swing. The bat flies from his hand. THE ENTIRE CROWD ARE DROPPING EVERYTHING AND SLIPPING OUT OF THEIR SEATS. Anything being supported with the force of friction, as opposed to hanging or leaning, is falling down. (Are you seeing a pattern developing)

Carnival: The wheel begins to drop.

The camera offers these surreal vignettes, flowing from one scene to the next, as chaos and entropy escalates. I ask the director, use your imagination; but beyond that, use your intellect. Try to comprehend ALL that would be affected within a restricted environment were friction to suddenly disappear. The list is far longer than what I have provided. Consider the macroscopic as well as the microscopic level of things. See the knots in ropes unraveling. See that crooked drawer slide out of the armoire and onto the floor. See entire series of books, pots, TV's topple off shelves. UNDERSTAND THAT, UNDER THE THEORETICAL LAWS OF PHYSICS, UNLESS AN OBJECT IS PERFECTLY LEVEL, IT WILL NOT SUPPORT ANYTHING, AND EVERYTHING WILL BE PULLED TOWARDS THE GROUND BY THE FORCE OF GRAVITY. FRICTION IS OFTEN TIMES THE ONLY THING KEEPING US UP.

I emphasize that all this should be occurring in slow motion. Also, don't put any subtitle on the screen at the moment of transformation, like "*Friction Gone*" or something corny like that. The shots, and the title of the film, will tell the audience all they need to know.

Other Specs: I'm not sure how this movie should end. My suggestion is you just cut to blackness after enough devastation has been shown, as the anti-denouement to this supernatural conflict. Keep the orchestra music going while you roll the credits.

Dream 14: In a Hotel

11/25/10

“Well, wait up for me?” My few friends already had their coats on, it was early Spring. We were ready to leave the hotel, but I realized that I first needed to take a shower.

“Sure.” They zip up, I watched them walk towards the station wagon in the dirt parking lot, and returned to the room. It was rather luxurious, lots of polished brass and white marble, and the sleeping quarters were open with large windows facing the late morning sun.

I enter the shower – multiple large heads, brass; stone tile surface; glass doors – then exit after some time…I realized that was still in my dress clothes, which were now soaked through. A minor inconvenience, no matter. Peeling off my brown silk pants, striped blue cotton shirt,  tan socks, I perceived people moving around in my bathroom…lots of them! Bodies large and small...colorful, or maybe just colors; But I turned my head in terror and there was nothing! Only, an empty bathroom, disheveled, much larger than it needed to be and full of furniture and clothing. The running shower sprayed SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS to my apparent solitude.

Despite the unlikelihood, I was certain I saw something, more than just suspicious. So to assuage my curiosity, I begin to casually pace between the bathroom and bedroom, actually pretending to the nobody in the suite that I wasn’t looking for them. I kept my eyes either fixed directly in front of me or locked on the steam-filled shower, carefully tip-toeing and making no sounds, ears perked and pupils wide. Again, flashes of colors and limbs in my periphery, so I break my mock trance and spin around, to a room full of life-size cartoon people: two dimensional, bold-outlined, colored-in-the-lines, four-fingered, wild-haired, empty-eyed cartoon people.

Not breaking stride, the flock of specters continued to mill around the bathroom, just all staring at me. Their faces displayed some curiosity, and even impishness, while mine probably just exhibited terror. I couldn’t even find words, just stood in the threshold between the two rooms and watched as they watched me for a few moments. I think I got the hell out of there quick, leaving the shower running and my wet clothes dripping over the rails.

Dream 13: Disturbances

9/3/10

It is possible that I’ve actually had this dream on more than one occasion…A recurring dream. My uncertainty lies in the fact that this realization was made by my dream-self during the dream’s course. Was this merely a delusion? Or archived memories being re-drawn, reborn?

I was meditating up in a tree-house, although not some slipshod, weekend hobby tree-house with one room and amateur carpentry. This was a home, in a tree, and made almost completely out of smoothed and polished wood. The word “autochthonous” comes to mind, since the structure blended almost seamlessly in with its surrounding sylvan environment. And my house had a lot of open space; the outer walls were practically all window (no panes of glass though…just open air, for a more complete synthesis with the surrounding nature).

            Boom! The crack of a shot echoed in the woods, and I felt immediately threatened. Someone had fired at me! A rifle, to be exact; I knew it was a sniper rifle, and that there was a sniper somewhere in the trees, targeting me. Boom! again. He was trying to kill me. I look out into the forest, over the canopy, seemingly miles afar into the treetops, in hopes of spotting my assassin. I see rustling, but nothing more. I cannot make out any human form. But I immediately get low to the ground and crawl towards my spiral staircase in the center of the room, to get down to ground level and a safer location.

            It’s around this time that I have the thought, the spark of lucidity, that I’ve been in this exact dream before. That my dream-self can actually have its own consciousness is amazing.

            Some adults are congregating on the floor below, men and women alike, and I recognize them as my acquaintances. They also are aware of the sniper, and report having been fired at as well. He’s going after all of us! BOOM! This time, the shot is closer, and although we are below the canopy now, I definitely see movement in the treetops, coming from the same direction as last time. Flash of blue wiggling and vanishing quicker than I can recognize it. Our assassin is advancing through the trees, approaching our dwelling for a better shot. I see the flash of some limbs flailing from a branch as our assailant leaps through the air to his next mark. The four (maybe five) of us crouch down and hustle behind a steel bookcase or large safe, whatever, for protection.

            At this point we discuss the necessity of defending ourselves, and that’s when I discover a black Glock in my right hand. As soon as I notice my weapon, however, four (or five) bullets WHIZ by my head in super slow motion, ripping and curling through the window space and through the room, around my head; they leave slow visual trails of bronze and nickel snaking like comet tails, thick winding coils wrapping around me, and past the trails I see a man in a blue shirt peeking out from behind a patch of branches…he’s only a few meters from me! A phantom, more than a man, acrobat with a deadly weapon, on a mission to end me. Instinctively I raise my right hand to eye level, close my left eye, aim my handgun, and fire three rounds into his chest. He falls from his perch.

***

Familiarity with the movie “Inception” is recommended, to fully recognize the action that takes place.

An individual builds his memory palace like a warehouse building, floor-by-floor. In the basement are his deepest, darkest, most sinister memories and ideas, monsters of the subconscious and irreconcilable regrets. As he enters the elevator shaft, enclosed by only an iron fence, and travels skyward, the memories become lighter, happier, more peaceful. At the tallest floor accessible by buttons reside the most magnificent memories, those of pure splendor and love, sunshine, the memories most frequently looked back upon with exuberant longing and adoration. This individual’s top floor is a beach, with his wife and children playing by the surf.

I am an intruder into this man’s mind. I have gained entry into his memory hotel, and am riding the elevator upwards. I know of a trick that hotel patrons use to access the exclusive penthouse suites, those located at the VERY top of the building, but which cannot be reached by the pressing of any one button. Instead, I know to hit the topmost buttons in all the columns simultaneously (granted, there must be more than one column…in this case there was). The elevator continues half a floor past the beach scene, and stops. I pry open the fence doors and climb to the next floor, which is concrete, barren, dark, and extends forever in every direction, like an infinite parking garage, absent of time. The only light comes from the beach below, and a perfectly square hole in the ceiling above the elevator car. I climb onto the car and hoist myself through the opening, up to the roof, the roof of this man’s mind.

Stepping out into the ascetic city streets, from the manhole whence I emerged, I recognize this place as the man’s subconscious. It resembles a post-apocalyptic New York City, where the sky is a churning stormy grey. My footsteps echo down the street, which is void of everything except the most plain, austere cement sidewalk. All cars, signs, coloring, has vanished. There aren’t even storefronts or entrances anywhere - the faces of the buildings are flat and windowless, stone blocks which may or may not be hollow. The face of the city begs for ornamentation and animation. Just then, the silent street produces three well-dressed agents, advancing quickly in my direction.

I suppose I am also an agent, but more likely a thief. My mission is to perform extraction or espionage upon this memory palace, the mind, and only now, once I have seen the raw, inner crust of the subconscious and its loneliness am I forced to face defensive combat against the mind itself. The three guards approach, question, and ultimately attack me. I manage to kill one of the guards in our battle. As the ringleader has my throat under his boot, however, his other henchman turns on him, rescuing my life in the process.

See, I had had the foresight to send a double-agent ahead of me to infiltrate the security of this mind: to establish himself with the reconnaissance team, and shadow the number-one until it was time for me to be hostilely confronted...at which point he would use the element of surprise and betray his own team and rejoin me. The plan worked; my accomplice takes me by the arm and pulls me up from the ground where I lay.

Dream 12: Makeout Sesh

8/24/10

After making out with Chelsea for a good 3 hours, intimate touching, rubbing, feeling, kissing, tonguing, etc., I had a dream that we made out for an additional two hours in the creamy pinkish light of our autumn afternoon. Throughout my dream, the Beatle’s “When I’m Sixty-Four” was playing from somewhere in the room, and astoundingly, every note was hit, even the clarinet solos! It was as if my brain had a vinyl recording of the song; it was hyper-realistic. For most of my dream, Chelsea I were staring playfully into each other's eyes.

***

After waking up, I related my fantastic and amusing dream to Chelsea, who was still lying next to me. I then fell back asleep, and dreamt that I was in an old yellow dusty courtroom, wooden, and the Beatles themselves were the defendants on trial. One of them stepped up to the interview box to give their testimony, but at no one's cue, the fab four broke out into song, again “When I’m Sixty-Four.” A live band carried the bouncy tune as the courtroom around me transformed into an elaborate, burlesque stage, complete with garish theatrics and choreography. It was a droll little number, and even I sang along.