6/19/13 – Quentin E. Taylor, I Knew You So Well…

Well, it’s another one of those times…

Besides something about a vinyl recording of Hunchback of Notre Dame, the first thing I remember was– well, slightly lude– but it was about a girl who looked an awful lot like Isabella Rossellini from Blue Velvet (which, by the way, is a film that I couldn’t stomach, but it’s worked itself into the annals of my mind. So… good job, Lynch. Good job.)– but in my dream, she was in a large family of folk singers (that looked an awful lot like some of those apparently found in the 60s/70s in Israeli culture) that travelled the globe, and she was, like, the Michael Jackson of the group, in that she was the… well, the youngest GIRL, and she was constantly disturbed by her sisters bringing back groupies every night.

Also, I was seeing everything from her perspective for a while. But– yes– she was very alone and very confused by everything her sisters were doing. (I just remember running around a dark parking lot (darking lot?) late at night and seeing all her/my sisters macking in cars lit up on the inside. … six different cars all just lined up, and all of them looked the same.) But– apparently, her story ended up all right when her and her sisters got put on a reality show similar to the Bachelorette, and she was the only one who won out and had a successful relationship from it! With a… guy named… Brenden or Shaun or some nice pleasant name like that.

 

But anyway, then I became me, and I was trying to look up when their wedding was at some fancy library in some fancy school I apparently had walked onto. (It was really just a morphing of the location I was at while I was thinking about Bachelorette– but let’s not tell anybody that.) Anyway, I kept running back and forth into the library excitedly, putting on, like, different voices, for some reason, as I attempted to ask people if they knew when… Davne… Kavye… Chavke… she had some name like that– and Shaun-Brenden got married. Someone remember it was, like, 2009, but I really wanted to know the MONTH and the DAY. No one seemed to understand exactly why this was important to me. But, like, hey, when two cool people have a cool life together, chances are they picked a pretty cool time of the year to get married. And I don’t really know how to pick those days. At least, as far as nature goes. Like, you can pick an IMPORTANT day… or you can pick a day that LOOKS really nice in a specific PLACE– that, like, lines up with some part of the LUNAR cycle or… okay, this is supposed to be me talking about the dream. Moving on.

Anyway, I was the only one in the library, for some reason. I was on the top floor, and there was this long… bridge-like portion that led from one end of the floor to the other, which was guarded by this… male secretary, I guess. He was kind of gaunt and tired– and a little fed up with my antics and my asking. But in the end, he just let me pass– and I saw that there was this bearded teacher walking around with me. He appeared to be putting back some books he’d been looking at. And then as I headed back– failed finding a tabloid about the marriage, by the way– I turned back and noticed that there was this other kid in the library, and the teacher was calling him. The kid laid the book he had with him on a tiny bench nearby. I just sort of stopped for a moment and watched the conversation. The man was telling him that he needed to start filling his school notebooks as much as he filled his personal notebook — pointing to the rather stuffed-with-stray-papers, leather-binded book on the bench right over there — or else he was going to flunk his class. He told him what a bright boy he was, though, and that he still had a chance, and he didn’t want to do it to him at all. He called him Quentin, by the way. Which is one of the strongest names that’s every come out in my dreams. I’ve only known one Quentin in my life. One of the characters I draw all the time is actually that Quentin. I don’t know if that’s how I chose my name, though. Also, I don’t know exactly how it came up in the conversation I was watching, but there was something about how Quentin is a comic comedian. Like, he uses comics that he draws as part of some new-age stand-up comedy act. (I dunno, I could see it work out. Also, I don’t know how I knew that in the economical language of dreams. But then again, how couldn’t I?)

Quentin just sort of shrugged off his advice– for someone with a comedy act, he didn’t seem like a man invigorated to speak at all. He was very monosyllabic and gave off this attitude like he didn’t care in the slightest about this little educational intervention. He just tried to get the teacher to end it. But somehow, I knew everything about Quentin without ever being told. Somehow, I knew he was very much like me, except he was hiding it, in order to be like everyone else. He started to make his way out of the library, walking past the tiny bench he put his notebook on. I grabbed it and ran to catch up with him. For someone who seemed to be trudging, he really was walking quick. He took it with as cold and ungrateful a grimace as possible. I kept walking with him, and was communicating about– something. I think I was trying to introduce myself. I told him my name was Skye, and that I knew what it felt like to be torn between being a good student and doing the things in the arts that compel you. He sort of mumbled back and remarked that he honestly didn’t care about any of it– or anything, for that matter. I asked him about the notebook, but he acted like it didn’t exist. Apparently, he was embarrassed about it– or didn’t want anybody to know that he actually strove for anything at this school. As we walked through the hallways, we ended up parting ways for a little bit, and finding ourselves picking pathways that led up to each other, walking out the next pathway at the exact same time, at the exact same pace. He looked up and looked unnerved to see me still there, and he made some remark about how stupid it was– how stupid I was. I’d picked up a pencil just as we’d parted ways, and I remember it had two names on it– his name, Quentin E. Taylor, and someone else’s, sort of scribbled off. I handed him his pencil back, which he took with an even more ferocious grimace, then I said, “I pick up pencils all the time, too. You can never have too many of them, for sure. And I hate to lose mine, even though I do all the time– that’s– that’s the only reason I’m giving it back to you. Don’t look at me like I just ruined your life… again or something.”

Then we talked for a little while longer– and it almost seemed, for some shining moment, that he was opening up to me. But then we ended up in a similar fork as before, and he took another pathway that he hoped wouldn’t lead back to me, as he said out loud. He said something like, “Oh… looks like there’s no possible way you can keep following me this time. I’m sure we’re not going to see each other again. And I violently hope we don’t. Goodbye, person-I’ve-already-forgotten-the-name-of-even-though-you’ve-totally-mentioned-your-name-at-least-once-during-this-conversation. Have an awful life.” … No, seriously, that last part is, like, word-for-word from my dream.

I just sort of paused for a moment right there, as he walked away. I waved to him, he looked back for a moment, a little stunned by my reaction. (I could see him trying to ignore it.) In the midst of the smothering sound of car engines (we were near some parking lot), I said, “Bye, Quentin! I hope the comedy act goes okay!” And a little louder, just so I knew he’d hear before he disappeared, “Quentin, I hope the comedy act goes okay!”

 

And then I turned around, hoping I’d made some difference. Then, as I walked in the opposite direction, this dude came up, with this bent metal knife where the sharp part was stretched out and bent over itself. And he started making this… stupid joke about it like it was funny or something (I think it was something about how bending it half made it look like some blimp or an airship. And then he waved it in the air making messy spit-covered plane noises. … mm.), and shaking it around my face. I stepped back, and said, “Whoa, dude. Stop it, the rust on that thing makes it look like it belongs in some cutlery museum.”

And then he just looked at me for a moment with this puzzled, irritated look on his face. Then he said, “What?”

Then I said, “It looks like it belongs it some cutlery mu…”

And then he cut me off there (pun intended), and he began to grate the end of the curved knife against my cheek, still making plane noises.

And then I woke up.

And the moral of the story is, whenever I dream about school, I dream about people acting stupid while also acting really evil underneath.

… No seriously, this is the third time I’ve written about dreams that have ended like this.

Example #1: https://webloomsage.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/42212/

Example #2: https://webloomsage.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/33113-pee-your-pants-terrifying/

And this is Example #3. Now, good night. Hope you sleep better than me.

Too Much … Ideas for Someone Else Edition!

5/20/13 – Warm Bodies, as Directed by Andy Kaufman

… Um, wow. So– I’ve been up for a while now, and I kept trying to think about my dreams last night, and all I was getting out of it were school-stress dreams where I have, like, 10 new classes to start out the year and a myriad plethora (can you use those two words together?) of homework all due the next day. And also something about traveling between classes exclusively on a spinny chair and creating the most perfect sandwich by adding in bits of my left over lunch on-top of an egg-salad sandwich.

But I was wrong.

There was something else I dreamt about last night.

Something I feel very strongly inspired to create someday.

I dreamt I went to watch Warm Bodies– which, in my dream, was a movie directed by Gotye, the singer. But Gotye looked and sounded like Owl City. Like, he literally had the same electro-pop Postal-Service-y thing going for him. But he had the sort of dark, shamelessly artsy-fartsy side that Gotye has.

And so– the trailers for this movie were exactly the same as in real life.

But when we went to go watch the movie, we were in for a big surprise.

We got in late, and we could see the audience was already getting restless from watching this film. We were about 10 minutes late, but when we got in, we could see that the opening credits were still playing. So we were, like, oh, okay, sure. Glad the opening credits are surprisingly long– guess we couldn’t have missed anything.

And we hadn’t.

But we also had.

Ten more minutes passed by, and the opening credits were STILL going. We had no idea how in the world there could be THAT many people to thank for a movie, especially before it’s even began. I turned to Mom for a moment and told her that the graphics created for this opening were rather nice, and the song by Owl-Gotye here was also rather pretty, but they could’ve definitely put this at the ending instead of right now, if they wanted it this long. If only we’d have known.

And right when we thought we were going to get the movie we’d been waiting for, we get a shot of a whole bunch of people in the theatre WATCHING THIS FILM. There this close-up shot of this little girl complaining about how long the opening credits have been, and trying to leave, but finding it impossible to stand up. Everyone is stuck in the theatre. They’re powerless, as the opening credits continue to drone on. And then it cuts to black, and then COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CREDITS BEGIN, AND CONTINUE ON THEIR MERRY WAY UP THE SCREEN. Then, right when they’re finished, we get this DIFFERENT shot of a theatre– this time, it’s filled with all the actors from Warm Bodies– or at least, from the trailers, and they’re all laughing at each other about how they totally pranked the public by making a movie that didn’t exist. They all begin to leave the theatre, and then they end up seeing their zombie movie counterparts about to ambush them outside the theatre. Cut to black, and ANOTHER set of ENTIRELY DIFFERENT opening credits start rolling, THIS TIME IN REVERSE. This time, it stops halfway through, and then we get this big shot of the zombies on one side of a huge post-apocalyptic battlefield, and a whole bunch of Victorian age nobles on the other about to engage in impending combat. And in the middle of it all are the audiences from the first two cut-aways, about to be charged by the zombies and the nobles.

– And by this time, everyone in the audience was throwing food at the screen and leaving in absolute outrage.

I was literally the only one in my family who wanted to stay. So I did until it was over.

Then as I made my way out of the theatre alone, I found it impossible to find my way out. I opened up countless doors upon doors, retracing my steps, then taking the next route, then all the way back, but every way was a dead end. Every way had the same wallpaper, the same upholstery, but what was most disturbing was that all the lights were all turning off slowly, the more doors I opened and closed, even though there was no one around, from what I knew.

And that’s all I remember.

But my guess is?

It was all part of the movie experience.

You know, neo-Surrealist filmmaking with an added element of AR game–or perhaps existentialist plays. An updated Exterminating Angel, as directed by Monty Python, if you will. … or maybe Andy Kaufman. … you know, that really was his forte. Blurring the line of reality in a joke– pushing it beyond it being funny. Making it… REAL. *magical hand gesture*

… What, you wouldn’t LIKE that?! I PROCLAIM IT THE ULTIMATE FUTURE OF CINEMA. So there.

5/17/13 – Headaches

I once named a chapter of this story about a forum I was a part of “Headaches”. And yes, I was a character in it–AND the one with the headaches.

That was back in the before-time of 5th Grade. So… I guess there’s some consistency to me. What am I even talking about- there’s LOTS of consistency to me.

After tossing and after turning and after doing both in succession for an estimated two and a half hours, I fell into a really weird dis-conjoined sleep pattern. I mean, my dreams are always dis-conjoined, but– this was one of those times where even I myself couldn’t keep up with my dreams. Much like my thought pattern before I fell asleep. I had no idea where my thoughts were going– it was like they were on autopilot, going in some kind of circular motion I couldn’t follow.

So this is what I remember: a revamped version of Bedknobs and Broomsticks in which the bed is actually a time machine, and it takes David Tomlin’s character into an alternate future in which he’s successfully married with millions of babies who look like him. … Like, mustache and all. And Angela Lansbury is all, like, “HO’KEH, you can stop bothering me. Goodbye FOREVER.” And then she ascends away on the bed again.

And apparently, I dreamt about this one before? Or at least my dreams convinced me I did: but I dreamt I ended up at a house rather far away from my own– I DID just walk there, though– and it was the house of a girl who vaguely resembled Courtney Stodden, except maybe if she was a little younger and little less scary? But still scary, believe you me. Like, um– anyone ever seen her dancing in-front of the TV with Michael Jackson playing at “age 14″? Yeah, kind of more like that. And, like, it was just her and her mom, and they were ANGRY at me. Because apparently, I’d been there before, and I’d promised to help her film her next music video. … which… I don’t know why I’d do that. But hey, there was a whole forum thread in which we’d conversed to prove it. But I was the last one to leave a message, and it was full of questions about when I should come over and help them film it– what times of day are good for them and all that other stuff. So technically, the ball was in THEIR court– and they didn’t ever get back to me. But apparently, it was still my fault, and different-Courtney threw this awful unbecoming hissy fit. But she eventually calmed down. And so I began to plan out stuff while I was there– setting up my rig and fixing the lighting, but different-Courtney couldn’t sit still. She kept asking me what I was doing and when I’d be done and being generally unaccommodating of my creative process. Which– um, you know, I guess I’d expect from her, different or normal. She still was nicer than normal-Courtney, though. And… I really wish she’d stopped hitting on me. Like, who in their right mind would hit on me? Yes, normal-Courtney hits on everyone, but I mean, girl’s gotta have some standards right? Don’t hit on a guy like me. Mm. I even did so far as to push her face away from me when she tried to kiss me (WHO DOES THAT?!), and say as softly and restrained as I could, “Please don’t. I’m taken. Go marry Doug.”

And– the video commenced, and I tried as hard as possible to make her look classy. She actually turned out to be a fine comedienne, when she really tried. So that’s nice. I hope the video turned out good.

And then there was something about being out in Grandpa’s yard– and Grandpa was alive again. (This is the second time this has happened this month. I’m not sure was the correlation between these events and Grandpa is. But, you know, I miss him, so it’s a thing of awesome wonder to have him in my dreams aga-in.) And me and my siblings and Reyna were supposed to come up with a little ditty to perform like a 10-second musical, based on our Halloween costumes. All I remember is that I was, like, a Candy Vampire. That was the lyric.

To the tune of I Wanna Be Like You,
“Now, I’m a candy vampire.
I found some cursed hair.
I put that wig upon my head,
Now candy’s everywhere.”

… it was the best my subconscious could do.

And there was this verse about running away from mummies, and then we changed up the trick-or-treat nursery rhyme.

“Trick or treat,
hide and peek,
I just hope my bag won’t leak.”

And Grandpa started trying to tell me about another rhyme for peek, which was insanely complicated– and I couldn’t understand what he was saying. And he didn’t want to repeat it, because we were about to run through what we’d just come up with for our mini-musical. It was something like “oblique”– but apparently, it was another word for “night”. He was saying, like, “a summer’s… SOMETHING”.

And besides constantly drowning in fire pits while turning into Spyro the Dragon, ending up in a “detention facility” where absolutely no physical, mental or emotional activity was allowed, and something about bike handlebars that had bat wing skin wrapped around them, that’s all I can remember.

BESIDES that. Yes, of course. BESIDES that. That sentence made a lot of sense.

EDIT of 5/18/13: Just as a little tag-on, today I woke up on my side. Well, okay, that’s a lie. Today I woke up basically curled in a ball with my head at my knees, and my entire body underneath the blanket. And I seemed to be burrowing myself. That’s the first time that’s ever happened. It was very a perplexing position, I do say. And all I really remember dreaming is of jumping off of buses and flying for miles. I really did fly for miles, and this constant flight without any indication of falling made perfect sense to me. And just because I jumped from a bus. … But I ruined it all by hitting the top of telephone pole by accident, and totally got roughhoused by the impact of the pavement. … If you start flying due to jumping off moving objects– word of advice: just don’t touch anything. The slightest touch of the top of the object will be your undoing. — And also, something about Lee Unkrich? Like– just– something in the very broadest sense of the word. — Maybe we shared some frozen yogurt or something?

5/12/13 & 5/13/13 – Morning Conversations & A Slightly Goofier Movie

I was about to not wake up this morning to write down my dreams when I suddenly vividly remembered some of the exact lines in my conversation before I woke up– and realized that I felt the sharp prodding pain in my left foot where I had been pulling off sticky burs in my dream just moments before.

So– the last thing I remember was heading off to school– for SOME reason– carpooling in Mitchell’s car with his grandparents. Which is weird, because, like, Mitchell’s all the way in the Aussies, and he’s never even DISCUSSED his grandparents with me. So– perhaps I was thinking about his relationship with Geriatric1927? REGARDLESS. I was in the car with him and not millions of miles away, and YET, I was typing to him on these huge projected iChat panels, ANYWAY, instead of actually typing to him. And he left by saying on the panel that my latest remix was a sublime masterpiece (I suppose I end conversations with file transfers of this kind far too oft’ nowadays, hurhur.) and that he wished me a fantastic day ahead. And I responded by saying that I wished for him and I to wield swords together in bravery in this abhorred place we call school, and fight till’ the bitter but glorious end, so we can stand there amongst the shrapnel of vanquished chaos, activating cigarettes in hand to dramatically drop upon the wreckage as we walk off together as fellow warriors.

What a portrait, right? HOPE I INSPIRED HIM. But, yeah, as I left, Mitchell’s very near-sighted grandparents tried to read it, and the grandfather accidentally mis-phrased “activating cigarettes” as “engaging faggots”– in that awful completely unknowing way that non-PC elderly folk do. But, um, I corrected them with a little bit of a cringe and a nervous chuckle and ran off with a lowerclassman.

I think it was that one middleschooler from long ago I used to have talks about my comic-bookery with– he wanted to draw, and he was kind of ostracized by everyone else on the bus. But I thought he was amazing.

He seemed kind of quiet and withdrawn this morning and we walked together into quiet, empty woods-y territory on campus, and I suddenly realized as we were walking that my left foot was out of my shoe– which is why every step was giving me a sharp, biting sensation– because a whole bunch of burs had stuck right to the sole of my shoe-less sock. I stopped walking and began to pull all of them off. And we began to talk about how how his life had been going, how his relationships had been going, and how he’d been feeling.

And he responded with, “Sometimes, it’s like I’m just numb to everything that hurts me.”

And I looked back at his resigned face as I picked off the remaining burs and slipped my foot back into my shoe, and I said, “It’s so unfair to have to resort to that in the first place. And I hope you can open up again to take in all the great people around you you’re having to forget in effect now, too. It really sucks– getting bitten. But fight the natural response.”

And I turned back to him as I was about to run off the other way, and I saluted him. And told him in a mock-Latin-teacher tone, “Good-zus day-oos.”

Then I booked it.

 

And that’s all I remember for this night, besides a few touchy details about some weird English-Science merged class I was in with Mr. Slagel again. — The night before, I dreamt about (at least according to my notes of the day prior) jonasonsMovies coming out with their follow-up to Live-action Toy Story– a tribute to A Goofy Movie, which was a fan-made completely 2-D animated three-quel in ToonBoom Studios. HOLY DELICIOUS HOT SCHMO, get me in on that! And– in the trailer they made to advertise it, they had clips from A Goofy Movie to precede the new footage, but when I woke up, I immediately realized that none of that stuff actually came from the movie. Or… any movie for that matter. Apparently, the big showcase of fatherly devotion was when… Max, like, lost a really big bet he had with a Bradley Uppercrust III-ish gent– and had to shave himself completely hair/furless over his whoooole entire body. But Goofy followed quickly afterward without a moment’s pause in order to negate him having to go through the humiliation alone. D’aww. And then in the fan-threequel, all I really remember is that the two Goth girls in the After Today sequence played big roles, and there was this one kid with a huge retainer in his mouth who, in a pretty INSANE visual gag, shoved his retainer higher and higher into the back of his jaw until that top portion of his retainer was actually touching the top of the inside of his forehead. … I REALLY feel like drawing that now, by the way.

And– the one thing that I’d rather not discuss from my dream that night due to how people could PROBABLY analyze this psychologically/somatically– but hey, because it was kind of hilarious, I’ll talk about it. I dreamt that I had cousins who were twins who looked exactly like Lindsay Lohan in The Parent Trap. And– my mom thought I was hitting on one of them. She kept reprimanding me and telling me I was OUT OF LINE when I spoke to them– that I was being FAR too sweet and nice. (Which… is kind of my median and mode to everybody. I like to make people happy, first and foremost.) And then I was forced to apologize to her for… thaaaat… call whatever I was doing a “mistake” and say that I just “didn’t want to be alone” or something. — But really, I think the answer for why I dreamt this is because I watched People Like Us (fantastic, by the way) the night before, and– well– that thing had a whole RIGAMAROLE based on the perception of a sibling hitting on a sibling. At least I didn’t have my actual siblings involved.

Still, when I woke up, the first thing I did was blink, furrow my brow, then go,

“…

 

…

 

EEE-YUGHHH-H-H–

OH, GUH-ROOSSSS!

NO WAY.

*gripping my face hard* GAHHHAAAHAAAGH!–“

And to all a good night.

5/11/13 – Karaoke Redo

So yesterday, I was supposed to join the very first honest-to-goodness group of constant friends I’ve made for a rousing round of karaoke. I didn’t go. It was a rather depressingly ordeal, to be honest, because I’d been feeling like I was– in my own opinion– neglecting friendship over the last few weeks due to school. And I don’t want to make anyone feel like I’m not paying attention to them. And then I think that combined with me watching the Jimmy Fallon lip-sync off (and wanting to rethink the game to be more awesome), and it turned into a last-day-of-school KARAOKE-OFF in which we picked one song each that everyone in the class would then have to sing TOGETHER AS ONE. Even if we had no idea what the words were. Just… continually singing, and keeping on your vocal toes, or you’re disqualified. Yes, I know, this makes complete sense to do this for a grade in an ANIMATION PROGRAM.

And in turn, I subconsciously connected that to a scenario that played out in Mr. Dulatre’s Economics class (another class that you wouldn’t think had anything to do with karaoke. But we had karaoke in that class once!)– and some people from my Economics class were there. Including a girl named Caitlyn who I don’t even think was in the class, now that I’m awake. But for some reason, Caitlyn was, like, the one girl I was, like, really singling out as having been in my Economics class. I dunno, she was in my Biology class. We were paired up for the taste-buds test, in which we q-tipped each other’s tongue. That was nice. (Shoot, I think I even put Tayler in this dream. We never had a class together in our entire time in high-school. My memory just totally betrays me. How dare it. I’ll never trust it again, until it comes to my door with a BIG bundle of carnations and chocolate. Chocolate enemas.) So when I picked Call Me Mellow by Tears for Fears as my song– as I had in the days of Yore in Economics (I’m in Economics… ?), I looked at her, and having remembered her as a witness to my solo performance of this in Economics, I kind of broke down into nervous laughter. Then I scooted up closer to her and said, “You remember when I did this in Economics class?” She didn’t– she was kind of confused. But I said, “I mean, you were in that class, you don’t remember that?” She remained an equal amount of confused. Not only that, but without me to sing with everyone, everyone was dying down to a mumbly, nervousy whistle-whisper, so I got straight back to singing to give everybody else a non-disqualification boost. Don’t want people to die out on Tears for Fears, righty-tight? Now that I’m awake, I guess my brain was the only thing making everyone ELSE sing, so I suppose my mind isn’t very good at multi-tasking with music. Never forget to THINK about singing.

And then the next song– I think Rachael picked it– it was a song I played a lot on the “last day of school”– though I doubt anyone noticed. Nothing in Common by Jason Robert Brown– and– holy cow, people just CLICKED with this, even though the song’s butt is SO obscure. But we were whipping out insane impromptu harmonies together in contrapuntal by the time we got to the big emotional pay-off at “there was a guy who met a girl who had a cat. They fell in love and got a home and made a vow. He took her hand and they lived happily ever after.” (Hey, you can’t NOT love that part. ) — And I was, like, so moved by this musical epiphany we seemed to be collectively having. And– KAWELO was, like, SUPER-PIPES. Her alto part was just SOARIN’ o’er the FRUITÉD PLAINS, so clear and triumphant. And I just wished the music was going to go on beyond the end of this “happily ever after” refrain– and thankfully, even when the music ended, we couldn’t get enough of what we’d started, and sang the refrain A. CAPPELLA.

And after that, I think we were all passed by Myahn.

And then there was something about travelling by go-carts through Parisian streets and taking a look at beautiful museums while speeding in said go-carts with Amanda close behind. But man, as amazing as that sounds, I don’t have enough deets to really pull that together. Or even tails, for that matters. Or heads. Or– nevermind.

This whole– connecting-through-a-song thing is something that reoccurs constantly in my imagination, I guess. Because I believe that music is probably the strongest force in the world, right behind hope and love. (What is wrong with me, right?) — And, you know, music is just… fun! So whenever I need a little pick-me-up, I imagine people getting together and enjoying the universal (or at least that’s how I figger it) pow’r of music. In-fact– in 7th Grade, I imagined all my teachers getting together and making a music video to the song Kaze ni Naru from The Cat Returns CONSTANTLY. Because I just thought it was the funniest, coolest thing in the world. So I imagined my English teacher (who was really, REALLY oriental. … irony?) as the lead vocalist and ukulele player, my Math teacher as the drummer (because, like, she talked about how her husband was into football. So I guess I just figured she was hardcore.), and my Keyboarding teacher as the acoustic guitarist (because even though she’s, like, grandmother-age, she had dyed spiky hair like some kind of punk-rocker. So… you know, perfect.), and my Science teacher as the funny pan-flute section (because he was, like, strange and off-kilter, in a… Pied Piper kind of way. I imagine him constantly in sort of, like, PIED clothes with a silly over-sized purple Wonka hat.), and my ever-illustrious History teacher as the violin player. Because nothing else would do. Like, seriously, he has the soul of a stinkin’ artist. And I just like to imagine him with his eyes closed (I almost wrote clothed. Wwhh…) — playing his heart out near the end with his huge soloww-w-ww.

And similarly, in 8th Grade, my big song was The Bidding by Tally Hall– and I had this whole idea of bringing the camera to school and having Kili sing the first stanza, me sing the second, Pringle sing the third, and Mr. Parker– my unbelievably radical History teacher (see a pattern of being enamoured by History teachers?) sing the last. Because, like, no one else could pretend to be from the gourgeoisie bourgeoisie better than that man, I tell ya. To this day, I just love to think about it being a masterpiece akin to THIS lipsync-off.

And… we (who am I calling WE?!–) already know about my whole… … fantasy of meeting someone through song from two-ish years ago on this here self-same blog. I guess it’s an important, integral part of me, even if it’s silly. I guess I just need a partner to duet and dance with, hah. Recently, Rachael found this piece– it’s the closest I’ve seen to someone expressing whatever that entire long-standing dream of mine has been.

It’s comforting to know some people must share this dream. If they do, then I guess things can’t turn out all THAT bad in the end, you know?

5/8/13 – Babies and Poos

… Mm. So, this is all I remember.

I was filming a comedy sketch, and in it, I was featuring some famous guy. MIGHT’VE BEEN WEIRD AL YANKOVIC– AGAIN. But quickly, Weird Al just turned into my dad. Well, no, my dad wasn’t Weird Al. My dad was my dad. … But my sketch was being made up on the spot, and I had this “hilarious” idea that I was going to be a proctologist, and I was supposed to be helping with a problem my dad had while he laid on the bed. But suddenly, my dad starts saying that something’s coming. And I, the proctologist, am like, “We’d better get you to the toilet, then, mah’ man.” But my dad corrects me before I make him stand up, saying it’s a baby. And then I say, “What, an actual human alive kind of baby, or a feces baby?” And my dad doesn’t have enough time to answer, because the contractions start– and he begins to give birth to a baby, and I’m all, like, “I’M A PROCTOLOGIST, NO. NO, I DON’T KNOW NOTHIN’ ABOUT BIRTHIN’ NO BABIES. Um– uh– PUSH, MR. JOHNSON. PUSH.” (I just remember that I decided to use the same ever-so-common name from Whose Line.) And then I began to scream as I pulled Nova out from under the blanket.

And yes, the punchline was that it was all put together for a proctology clinic commercial, so it ends with the name, address, and phone number.

This is such a strange callback to the Q&A I did on babies!

A couple of production flukes occurred– Mom didn’t want me to say “feces” — instead, she wanted me to say “poo”. And then proceeded to put a “Pooh Bear” shirt over Nova. BRILLIANT. He was wearing a very elaborate Buzz Lightyear costume before then, just as a sidenote. Also, Dad was going to actually take off his pants and underwear for this scene. … I immediately told him to put it all back on. — *cracks up* Goodness, Dad does that a lot in my dreams. Just like when (in a previous dream) he came out on the porch wearing nothing while two puppeteers were taking wedding photos next door in the lawn. And began to take pictures of them, while he stood there behind the tripod, buck-naked.

And– then the rest of this is kind of vague, but Nova put back on his Buzz Lightyear costume, and I imagined Nova as baby Clark Kent in Man of Steel– he was having this really emo conversation with a friend by the sea about how he doesn’t have any real parents. Even though he’s never gone a day without some form of parents at this point. Just– has issues about them being his “second” family. And he begins to angry lob around a car– and huge pieces of glass land every which way and where. And when he comes to, he goes around to try and collect the glass before anyone gets injured. And then he ends up meeting this sleazy looking pool hustler who’s selling free lessons. And Mr. Baby Clark Kent takes the pool hustler up on the lesson.

… And then something about an animation about frogs in the style of Brad Bird in Iron Giant– but with a twist of surrealist comedy…

And then done!