jamming with your mom, you were a weirdo in high school

dreams are weird.

this morning's saga involves a group of people i knew in high school who weren't close friends or anything. lydia (not her real name) had called me and asked if i wanted to play in a band with her mom. for whatever reason i said sure.

now i'm at their multi-family house and it's a big, open-kitchen-living room with bright tan counters with white cabinets and walls. there's a high angled ceiling and through the windows and patio doors you can see a large yard with a pool. the dining room table has been moved and they have set up a small stage in its place. lydia's mom is cleaning up the clutter in the kitchen and we're talking about the songs she wants to play. lydia's husband (we'll call him dirk) is going to play drums. great. her dad is there but he's not involved in the 'band'. soon someone is holding a baby next to me with curly blonde hair. i don't know who's kid she is. she'd be a cute baby if her right eye wasn't sticking out so far. someone gently pushes it back in the socket.

we spend an inordinate amount of time talking about what to call the band. dad chimes in but everyone hates his ideas. no one can agree on a name so it never gets decided.

we end up jamming and it is turrrble. i'm trying to help but nothing seems to work. dirk hasn't played drums since the early nineties. everyone knows that it sucks. after a while i have to leave. better luck next time, i say.

flash forward: i'm back at the house, but this time lydia is going to sing instead of her mom. apparently watching her mom roused some sort of competitive thing between them. the dad is still there, he is in a barcalounger with no socks on. surprisingly, dirk isn't playing drums anymore. "he couldn't do it today" she says... but i get the feeling they had a big fight about it and he said 'screw you'. there's another kid there, someone to play bass or guitar. he has cropped blonde hair and is wearing a red and grey striped button up shirt. i think he's 15.

we start playing. it seems like were playing a siouxsie and the banshees song (even though i couldn't tell you what that sounds like in real life). at some point lydia said we had to be punk rock because that's what her kids like. so i took off my pants and underwear and was wearing only a long t-shirt. nevermind that little kids and her mom and dad were all there. i'm just here flapping in the breeze.

the 'practice' goes only marginally better than the previous one with the mom. very quickly i'm starting to get jaded with this project and the no pants thing.

later.... i'm outside loading up my gear (with pants). another friend of lydia's (who also was in our graduating class) has shown up to hang out. i haven't seen her in years.

"oh are you jamming with lydia's mom?"
"actually, lydia was singing today."
"that's cool"
"i haven't seen you since high school, it's been a long time"
"you were a real weirdo in high school"
"sorry, i was pretty confused back then"

after this exciting conversation, i'm back at my house. our car is stuck in the alley, something is wrong with the wheels. i leave the door open and corey and i head off to the bar. when we come back, my crazy neighbor lady is screaming bloody murder. there are cars in front of and in back of my car in the alley, cars parked in her yard, on her slab, they are everywhere. a veritable log jam of cars. the cops had already been called but they are just hanging out. this sends crazy neighbor lady into a spitting rage. we laugh and laugh as we leave.

eventually the other cars are moved and i push our car in front of the house. it's now missing a door. someone had yanked it off and threw it in the trunk.

flash forward to my childhood home. my friend trevor is driving a huge dump truck with 6 giant tractor wheels. he is tearing up the yard and my dad will be pissed. he gets to the barbed-wire fence and just drives right through it, which blows his front left tire. but that doesn't really stop him. he tears up the field beyond. then i wake up.

the end?

gambling blackout, the lady in white, joining the CIA

dream:

at the casino, but no one can find me. i see my concerned friends and wife asking the pit boss if he had seen me, he can't remember. this goes on for a while.

then i'm somewhere in the service area of the casino after going through a door in back of the food court. i end up in a small hallway with many dirt-stained, metal doors. i know there is something bad behind each of these doors, so i get out... fast.

eventually i find everyone and i recount what i remember: i was playing a table game (blackjack?),  getting more and more drunk, and i blacked out. (i feel like i was drugged by someone) i apparently lost more money than i said i had on me (cause i still had $50 in my pocket) and became belligerent. at this point i find there was someone (the tall blonde in white) who bailed me out on my debts. i only know this because she mysteriously left a note in my pocket. the note was vague but it somehow put me in some sort of indentured servitude to the lady in white, a CIA agent.

later there is a tense meeting filled with confusion and denials but i reluctantly become a fledgeling  CIA agent for the lady in white. i'm out there now, hustling people at the casino and drugging them and giving them citations (and worse) and eventually it dawns on me that the entire thing is a ruse and they are still just using these tasks to keep tabs on me! (and she's probably not in the CIA!) i began to plot and scheme on how to get back at them but i can't remember the rest...

right before i woke up, i was telling someone that Coffinworm had to cancel their show at the children's museum because mr britts refused to change the lyrics to happy, kid-related topics.

prison viagra - crazy neighbor lady pops in

so this morning's dream was a little extra weird. the parts that i can remember, anyway. i was in prison. i don't know why or how. but the prison guard lady brought me a viagra, and i was pretty happy about it, but i don't know why. my prison outfit is blue denim and my hair is short and spiky. the bars of the prison are painted lime green.

flash forward and we are being shown some girl's house. she is explaining her small business but i can't remember any of it. just orange walls and black tables. then i'm talking to my mother (not in this life mother) and two daughters (not in this life daughters) and they are asking me for something. i have no idea what or why, but i'm sitting in a towel, having just gotten out of the shower.  a door materializes next to me and someone opens it with a key. my eyes go wide and i can't believe it. my crazy neighbor pops her head in and says "i can't believe you didn't give them the money. harumpf"

what?

herve villechaize sings

to be listened to before bed every night

BEELZEFUZZ "Hardluck Melody"

lost in europe

so yesterday i had a long dream sequence that involved a scavenger hunt (which i hate) and it somehow ended with me ALMOST getting the last items before being attacked by john goodman's eye-patch wearing character from "O' Brother Where Art Thou?", big dan.

today i dreamed we were in europe. we were in a toy store that was a very old converted church. the toys were stacked to the ceiling, all kinds of japanese rare collectibles. i had set my backpack down and when i came back to get it, everything was gone. my passport, my money, my clutch tickets and my H2 recorder were gone also, along with the normal stuff. i remember telling myself it was ok, i could get another recorder, but then i thought of the files i lost. someone came over to see if i was ok. i told them what happened and i looked again and my money and passport were back in the bag.

then i realized i lost my wife somewhere. of course i knew she probably lost me and went back to the hotel, but i didn't remember which train we took and i didn't know the language. for what seemed like a very long time i was wandering around trying to remember where to go, and what to do. i started asking around and someone suggested i take this roller coaster train. i began waiting for the train and generally being worried when i heard my mom's voice. she was below the waiting area in an outdoor restaurant, telling an apparently very funny story to some germans. everything about the train station and restaurant was wrought iron with dark wood planks, benches and steps. she didn't seem surprised to see me, but i was relieved to see her and be able to speak english again.

then i heard my name called out and saw mr. corey webb shopping for records. apparently there was a record store nearby and i went to talk to him. he was trying to convince me to buy this giant book about def leppard and some of these rare vinyl items. after waiting in line we got our def leppard books and european records and walked out front where my wife was waiting. she was pissed.

the end?

left behind, mega-casino & brann's baby carrots

had a dream i was left behind at a gas station on tour. thanks to some friendly truck drivers, i was able to get a ride to the nearest mega-casino. it was big, like the death star. they had the original guns n roses back together doing a residency. i was milling around in the super-mall inside the casino and saw duff mckagan carrying his bass to their practice room. somehow i stumbled into brann dailor (Mastodon was doing a residency too). he seemed under the weather so i gave him a bag of baby carrots. we talked for a while and he gave me tickets to the show. then i was off to find the luckiest slot machine, but i woke up instead.