Don’t be mad at me for waiting until the Great Old Ones thing blew over before I posted to my blog again.
I finally listened to the Paul F. Tompkins CD that Chris gave me. Funny, funny stuff, as promised.
The show last night was pretty good. Not as good as the official CD release party but still good. Some rock was played, some jokes were made, some shirts were sold, and I was pleased. Friends old and new stopped by and I thank them.
This morning I had two separate dreams that had these turning points based on a single word or phrase spoken by one of the characters. Interesting, no? Wait, let me explain, because I know hearing about other people’s dreams is in your top 3 of Fun Ways To Spend My Time:
Dream 1: a violent mafia dream. These criminals were plotting their next scheme in a house, and suddenly one of them looks out the window and sees a crowd of regular citizens (the mob meets a mob?) marching towards them. The criminals scatter into the streets and into the wilderness behind the house. The citizens cut down a couple of them but this one guy is trapped in this rocky area by about two dozen John Q Publics and is fending their melee weapons with his own martial skills. Meanwhile there is some verbal exchange between them, which offers some of the backstory to the whole dream. Then one guy says that they found out where the mobsters were hiding out by Phil. The last mobster standing goes crazy with this information, like he thought Phil was dead and Phil is the most important person in the world. So the revelation that Phil is still alive completely energizes the mobster and he just starts cutting through the crowd. Grabbing people’s weapons and using it against them, turning the tide completely.
Dream 2: the ex-girlfriend. This is one of those dreams where sometimes the character is his own person and sometimes the character is you. Let’s say for the sake of comprehension that it’s me for the entire thing. So my ex-girlfriend, who is not one of my real ex-girlfriends, but who is a cute little number with short blond hair, works at the grocery store checkout. I have done something really stupid that made her break up with me, but oh my goodness I have learned my lesson and I want her back so bad! So I am standing outside the grocery store and thinking of how to do that. Then I realize, of course, I’ll buy a bunch of stuff and with each item I’ll make a profound statement like “these are raisins. Raisins start with “R” and “R” stands for “regret.” So I fill my basket and work out what all these groceries are going to signify, and when I finally get to her she will have none of it. She is still too mad/intelligent to see through my half-baked ploy. She is off work and she gives me some stern words and walks out. As she’s walking down the street and left there holding the groceries, I become magic man with dream power and I yell out something like “if you won’t listen to me I only have one thing to say – ‘Calkan.’ Now, in the context of the dream, even I have no idea what this means except that I know it will get her to change her mind, and indeed it does. She stops, and reels, absorbing the heavy weight of this meaningful word and at the same time being amazed that I know it. Now in the dream, I think this is basically some kind of magic word and I don’t even know what it means myself. It just gets the job done and she begins to listen to me and reconsider our relationship. Whether or not this is a valid last-ditch effort to get an unreasonable person to acknowledge the truth, or this is just me being a manipulative asshole to get what I want, I will leave it up to you to interpret my dream.
But when I woke up I thought, “you know, from a storytelling perspective, that was really cheap. It would have been better of Calkan referred to some great regret this girl had, like an ex-love that she didn’t give a second chance and lost forever, or else something meaningful for her, emotionally.” In short, something sincere rather than a retarded magic word.
But, them’s dreams for ya!