Dream #32 - Late Show with John Goodman

The camera flew in low over the heads of the backstage crew through the dark, here and there the flicker of a blue from monitors and switchboards, the outline of a head and shoulder reflecting the stage lights. "I've always wanted to see the Ed Sullivan Theatre," the announcer remarked over the sound system. I noticed him sitting at his podium off stage and wondered that he never saw the place he was sitting in. Only now in the waking hours do I think perhaps he was blind.

"And now, all the way from New York City, John Goodman, ladies and gentlemen!" The camera pulls up close to John Goodman in a tuxedo, slimmer and young looking despite his years leaning casually against a desk. He holds a statuette in his hands - an Oscar it seems, until I look closer. It is instead some grotesque, deformed Oscar with a wicked snarl and curling horns. "All the way from New Hampshire, actually," he says quietly, almost wistfully,  while stroking the statue. [Apparently he's actually from Missouri]. He gives his big, loveable smile as the camera zooms out to show the huge red curtains of the stage on which John and his desk are the only ornaments. The stage lights glare into view along with the gold wrapped balconies on either side.

The camera pans up to the blue-black painted dome with it's pin-pick painted stars as fireworks start to explode right there in the theatre. I wonder if the place is really big enough to be setting them off in here and question whether this folly is wholly someone else's or partially my own for being there. I hear screaming from the mezzanine above me [I don't often get to use the word mezzanine and it brings me a little thrill to do so]. A cloud of smoke plumes from the heights as I crane my neck to look. The crowds above begin to shuffle and push and panic as they fight though the marble columns and red velvet seats for the exit. I cast around for a fire extinguisher and spot one by the door on my level. I grab it quickly, aware of vaguely of leaving some companion on their own as I pull the pin and leap the seats and end up on the balcony in some kind of lobby. I'm a little disappointed to find some lobby attendant in a bellboy hat with an extinguisher in hand already putting out the flames. Indeed, they are almost all out already. I point my nozzle at a few meandering flames by one of the pink and brown marble columns and give it a blast of white foam. There are large clear glass jugs scattered around on tables and bar tops with little tea light candles burning in them. I start to shoot them from a distance to prove my hose slinger skills. If I can't be the hero, I might as well look good, figure. The usher joins me and we have a good laugh competing to see who is the better shot.

A scream from behind causes us both to turn and look. "Where's the gold?" someone shouts. My mind briefly flashes. Gold? What gold? Was there a card table there laden with gold bricks earlier or am I just imagining that now? Was the smoke show just a smoke screen for the gold heist? Alarm bells started ringing.

I hit the snooze button and rolled over to face 5am through bleary eyes.

[Also somewhere in that night]: Chris Rock turns to me in the locker room - beige walls and snot green lockers - and says, "Most of us in LA look like this now." He's referring to colour of his skin which is more of a sandy brown than the black guy you tend to think of Chris rock as being. Maybe it wasn't Chris Rock at all, but it was his voice. "We're not all turning white one eyeball at a time, you know." I'm not clear what this is supposed to mean so I focus my attention on the 1950's travel poster on the door - an art deco gleaming grey DC-10  in a sky blue sky hovering over a palm tree. It wasn't clear where this was supposed to be or what company is was with but it did offer 50% off in large yellow type.

Dream #31 - A New Mind Prison

There is no method to getting there. I am simply transported inside the room. It's dark and cold. The light is ambient, coming from nothing. I can see myself but nothing else like in a heavy fog. Or perhaps it's not dark at all but the room is painted black. It's another dome, approximately 15 meters tall and maybe twenty meters across. But there isn't an object of any kind in the room. Near the top of the dome are a line of irregular windows, grey and smeared as though painted on. A tall thin one, followed by two short wide ones and a tall and a wide one again. As I spin to try to take in the other side of the room, the windows turn with me, not allowing me to see anything. I notice a dark line about half way up the wall; it's a seam, I realize, that allows for the spinning of the top of the dome. There is no door and no way to climb up to the windows even if they weren't painted on. I can hear my shuffling footsteps echoing around the room, coming back at me from all sides and realize the walls are soundproof. No light, no sound and nobody and can escape. The concrete floor sends a chill up through my feet. This must be what prison is like.

Dream #30 - Nightmare on Reid St

We sat at a table by the window of a restaurant. Outside the cars were lined up around a grassy yard waiting for their turn at the drive thru. The four of us chatted idly around the tinkling of dinnerwear over a red tablecloth. Lily cavorted in the yard outside. Another dog barked from one of the cars and Lily came running to check it out. Alarmed, I called her off through the window, telling her to stop and pointing in the opposite direction. She stopped for a moment but apparently was excited to see me and came barrelling toward me. I was at once charmed by her eager face and alarmed by the danger posed by the cars. She came up close under the window where I could see her no more and a blue truck quickly passed in the same spot. I darted through a door at the side of the white sided building with a set of red painted stairs leading up to the second floor. "Don't look!" shouted someone laying lazily in the opposite corner of the yard. I was perturbed by their lack of action. I spotted Lily laying in the path of cars and ran to her. The line of cars honked and drove around us, showing no concern for the drama unfolding. I ran to her and thought maybe she was ok. There was no blood that I could see. Nothing out of the ordinary. I slid and came down face to face with her and called her name. Her eyes were bright and alert. I reached out to her and she lifted her head and for a moment I thought it would be ok. But as she lifted her head, her paw moved in an unnatural manner and her jaw dropped in a grotesque death mask. I think maybe the vet can fix her but... no. It's a hopeless cause. She smiles at me as the light goes from her eyes. Tears start to drip from my eyes and a wail escapes my lips. Why does everything I love get taken away from me? Why does no one seem to care? My sadness and fear turns to anger. The anger turns to rage. I suddenly want to kill everyone, to deconstruct the world with my own two, vengeful hands, atom by atom. For the first time in my life, I wanted to see the world burn.

Dream #29 - California Dreamin'

We were barrelling south on Route 1 along the California coastline with the cerulean skies and azure ocean to our right and rising cliffs of roan red covered in moss and scrub to the left. It was a Peterborough dump truck in white with a green stripe that we were driving. Suddenly the driver slowed down and I jumped out. I released the gate on the back of the truck and allowed the butterscotch pudding to flow out, waving my hand back and forth through the stream to promote even distribution. I gestured to the driver to weave the truck back and forth across the road in case our pursuers decided to bypass the butterscotch slick by swerving into oncoming traffic.

Dream #28 - If I Can Make It There

We were driving along a dark highway with the lights of oncoming cars whizzing by. It was a boys' road trip. I spotted a place with neon signs says "NUDES" and stylized women in suggestive poses. "Let's stop at the rippers!" I say. But Curt says no. I wonder what has happened over the years that makes him uninterested in naked women flaunting their bits and pieces at him. Instead we ended up at a diner, blue and yellow with big windows facing a parking lot light by more yellow neon signs. Curt eats pancakes with gravy and my stomach churns a little in disgust.

 

I step outside for a walk in the night air. I turn around the back end of a red Dodge Caliber and put my head down close to the ground where there is a pile of dog turds.

 

Back in the car, Bobby [I don't know Bobby] requests we make a quick stop over the border for a little errand. We agree and drive into New York City. We drive down a street of red brick houses, none of which are in a good state of repair. In a basement apartment flooded in no natural light Bobby is followed through a kitchen straight out of 1976 by two men and I follow them. Bobby turns around the fridge through a doorway and disappears from sight. I have the sense that something bad is about to happen. "It's not worth it!" shouts one of the men but there is no conviction in his tone. It's just part of his cover story. I see him pull something tucked into in his belt and the shot echoes through the kitchen. A small glass vial tinkles to the ground and rolls toward me along with a number of bluish shards of something I don't recognize. I stoop and grab the vial along with a few of the shards and tuck them inside and plug it with my finger. I move to hide it behind my back, thinking if I just keep my mouth shut it should be worth a few bucks. But one of the men has seen me and stands straight and intimidatingly in front of me. "Go! Take it and go!" He says in a deep sonorous voice with a hint of a accent from somewhere tropical.

 

I run outside and through the streets. I think to myself that of all the times I've been to New York [0], I've never been to Central Park. And so I find myself there. It's nothing like I expected. There's an overpass running through it. An oil drum burns with a homeless man drinking from a clear square bottle nearby. The struts of the overpass are covered in red and yellow graffiti. A few black teenagers play basketball in the paved park. There isn't much worth seeing here and I've been just as well off not having seen it all these years.

 

I run from the house onto the porch where my brother [I don't have a brother] and little sister [not my sister but an actress who plays her in my dreams] meet me. I show them the vial and poor it out its contents onto a stone balustrade. "I've always wanted to..." but I don't finish the sentence. The blue shards have turned into pink rocks speckled with black like a candy from my childhood. I have the sudden urge to smash them. My brother grabs the rocks and forms them in his hands into something resembling an ashtray a six year old might make out of clay. He puts a lighter under it and it begins to smoke. He runs away with thin wisps of smoke trailing behind him. My sister and I chase after him down the street of middle class brick homes, dodging trees and shrubs. I try to inhale the smoke but don't feel like it is affecting me at all even after the smoke becomes a wavy rainbow set with stars and glitter. I feel happy but not high. My brother runs up an embankment on someone's lawn and I follow but spot and older man start to follow us. I take the lead and make a sharp turn around a spherical bush. I jump down off the embankment onto a walkway and through a white screen door. Lily charges in past me and bolts down a short flight of steps and through a hallway. Two women are there in the hallway. I apologize for running through the house and for Lily, my head hanging in shame as I mumble the words. "It's ok," says the older one on the left. She opens a door and Lily leaps through. "She probably wants water," I offer in way of excuse.

 

I descend a flight of stairs into the basement but stop near the bottom where the other woman is standing. "What is it you want, Tony?" she asks me, turning toward me, hand stretched out on the railing, breasts protruding toward me. "Or is it Foxx? Thomas? I can never keep it straight. Have you ever been a Donald?" I find this last question odd as it causes some dissonance in my thoughts. I feel like I've been asked this before by Sam in real life and that suggests I'm dreaming. She says something and I realize she's insinuating that she'd like me to give her a baby. I look her up and down and decide she is attractive if a little on the butch side, with broad shoulders and hips, large breasts and a stance like a cowboy. But her features are soft and her hair is blonde, tumbling in waves around her shoulders. She wears a white blouse and faded blue jeans. I place a hand on her wrist.

 

[I can't remember where this section fits in].

 

I run outside into the darkness of night. The streetlights and stars burn like suns in my dilated pupils. Everything else is black. There is a car parked on the street in front of me and I notice the most adorable grey kitten lying on the hood by the windshield. I mean unrealistically adorable like eyes the size of golf balls, shiny and black - anime eyes. It lies there and stretches it's paws, scratching the paint off the car and it suddenly becomes a little less adorable. But in my excitement I feel I need to take a picture. I fumble with my phone and when I look up there is a little teddy bear there leaning on the kitten and it's heartbreakingly adorable now. My heart beats like a motor. The flash from my camera lights up the lawn behind the car where a few people are milling around a line of picnic tables underneath some patio lanterns. They turn to look at me and I apologize for disturbing them. "It's ok. She's adorable, isn't she?" They wave to me to come join them.  

Dream #27 - Fragments

I watched the two women run down the long hallway. One of them looked over her shoulder in terror at their pursuer. The hallway was wrapped in plastic sheets taped together. The maniac threw a switch and a vacuum began to pump the air out of the hallway in an attempt to shrink-wrap the women. The plastic fluttered inward as the women approached the end where the plastic came together blocking their path. "This is absurd," I thought. "They could just poke through the plastic and keep running. And so one of them did, digging her French nails into the sheets and tearing a larger hole.

I looked at myself in the mirror. I'd grown noticeably older and like I'd been living on a desert island. I'd grown a long, scraggly beard with what might be little bits of dried leaves tangled in it. My hair, too, was long and grown wavy. My face had hardened, pitted with dirt and browned by the sun. The little bit of fat had faded away leaving tighter lines along my cheeks and jaw but a few wrinkles. In a way I felt more handsome. My skin was lived in and had a story to tell even if I couldn't remember it. I picked up a bulbous green breastplate and began to strap it to my chest.

Undouche #6 - It's Been Awhile

I'm sitting on my couch watching Netflix - that bane of productivity - with the window open. I can hear my neighbour on the front porch talking with someone I assume has just taken over his apartment but I'm not listening in. A man approaches from the side of the house and starts talking to them. I assume he's one of the building's maintenance men as I hear her questioning him about the paint he's going to use. He's closer to the window so I can more clearly hear what he says. "It's a pretty good building here. You've got good neighbours. "This one here," I imagine him pointing at my apartment as he isn't likely to be pointing at the upstairs apartments or the one who's sitting out there with him, "is a really nice guy." He mumbles something. "You probably won't see much of him." Now I'm curious why it is that people won't see much of me and, hell, maybe he's not even talking about me. Certainly I've had limited interaction with the repair guys. But I'll take a genuine compliment. Because you offer kind words behind someone's back - even if it might turn out it isn't mine - instead of biting commentary, you sir, are an undouche. Unlike me.

Dream #26 - Tidbits

I walk into the wheelchair store. The room is square, painted a sickly shade of orange as though the owners never wanted their customers to get better and lined with people sitting idly flipping through glossy magazines with less nutritional content than celery. I walk up to a man who seems to work there and tell him I need to buy a wheelchair. He tells me they only have one left and points to a now deserted spot on the side wall. The wheelchair itself is invisible and is comprised solely of two parallel free-standing, waist high, oblong wheels. Spokeless and wide, they somewhat resemble tank tracks. My creepy neighbour, Pat, stands there in his omnipresent khakis, brown suspenders and blue shirt smoking a cigarette. He nods in approval.

 

I walk down the narrow aisle of stainless steel food and beverage equipment and into the slightly more spacious drive thru. I feel like I am narrating the events as they happen and this bothers me as it feels like I am a character in something someone else is writing and I have no control over myself. It's a curious feeling; dictating to myself and hating the fact of it. Mike greets me there by the sliding window, the only other person there. He says something and I'm bored by it. I lean out the window and let the sun spank me in the face. Turning around I adjust my bust in my slightly sun stained bra. I look down and notice I am naked and shoeless but for a pair of granny panties and the bra. I find it odd that I should be wearing that and think to myself, no, this isn't right. But I shrug it off and walk back down the aisle giving a wink and point to the few customers who turn their eyes to me. I get a few hoots and whistles. Hey, if you've got it, flaunt it.

 

I watch myself approach the bar of the Queens Hotel. It's pine top is scratched and sticky; rings of forgotten condensation spot it here and there. The walls are a deep shade of red, which I'm sure inspired a number of romantic liasons over the years. There's a tall, blonde kid working the bar to the left of the taps. He's good looking, I suppose, but gangly and unsure of himself. I soon realize why. I order my customary rye and Coke - get rum and Pepsi with a twist - and hand him a twenty. He gives me back two Toonies, a Loonie and four fives. I look at him with my hand out, the money in my palm. He stares at me blankly. I roll my eyes and blink away all the faults of the education system, the failings of a feel good instant pleasure society, wrap my fingers around the money and walk away. A line of people stands against the wall  as I walk between them and a large black speaker cabinet. Someone is belting out "1,2, 3, 4." I look up at the sixty inch black TV hanging on the wall with the numbers in white, realizing it's karaoke night. I walk up to Olivia who's holding the mic and pat her on the shoulder. "Thank you, Olivia. That was beautiful," and meant it. She looks at me skeptically at first - like everyone else she's never really sure if I'm being sarcastic. But then she smiles in thanks.

 

I walk down a lonely dark country road and into the light of a Shell station. There's Chris Fuller gassing up his Buick. He's dressed as a paramedic. I haven't seen him in twenty years - barely even knew him - and here he is now as a paramedic. Who knew? He says something to someone else. I get closer and say "thank you! I've been asking that for twenty years! It's nice that someone finally has an answer."

Review - Hunger Games: Mockingjay Pt II

I decided to watch this one because I've already watched the other two. There's this thing in human nature called "escalation of commitment" which basically says people will continue to do something stupid even after it becomes clear that what they are doing is stupid just because there has already been an investment in beginning. (Plus, watching bad movies typically results in far better reviews). Here, then, is an example of that. Knowing what I was in for, I watched it anyway. And boy was I not in for a surprise.

 

Firstly, this has the worst attempt at humour since the last Adam Sandler movie came out. It's kind of like watching Anne Frank tell knock knock jokes.

 

The direction and writing are utterly horrible. The segues are so bad that I had difficultly following the story. And there is no story to follow. It contradicts itself at every turn, seemingly to retconning itself but with no major objective in it's future story to truly justify that. It's like deus ex machina for a single point in time that then reverses itself.

 

The dialogue is meaningless. Aside from an hour of the worst military rhetoric ever written, there are gems like "He's warning us! That was a warning!" NO SHIT!? It's dialogue like that that makes things like Dora the Explorer popular with the 0-2 year old demographic. Can YOU spot the villain? Point to him NOW! And then there's the over arching theme. Or there isn't. Or there is but it's like watching a black hole slurp down another black hole. "Question them. What are their motives? What do they want?" Valid questions. But don't actually, you know, do it because then things would kind of implode because the answer to those questions is exactly the same thing you're fighting against. The whole thing is really just a how-to manual on making a pop star. It's all about the PR. We'll make her famous for nothing in particular and we'll have a hero to lead us to salvation and by salvation we mean destruction. It just doesn't make any sense. It's a world that couldn't possibly exist and as such it is very hard to suspend disbelief and immerse oneself in that world. Perhaps whichever district specialized in making munitions should have taken a second and thought "hey, waaaaaaaaait a minute...." The world they are fighting against is exactly the same kind of world they represent. What the fuck are they even fighting for?

For an entirely militaristic district, it has no concept of strategy. Full frontal attacks on a narrowly defensible target are stupid, especially without weapons - which you have apparently been stockpiling in abundance. Attacking a barely defended target which benefits yourself as much as the enemy is even more stupid. Killing a dozen meaningless guards at the expense of hundreds of your citizens is not akin to chopping off the head of the hydra. Even the US government has figured that one out.

Ultimately it's kind of sad and pathetic that one of the few stories that has a strong female lead should be set against such a pale, sad and pathetic narrative. Kind of like getting a Ford in any colour you want as long as it's black.

The best part of this film was when it was over. 0.58/5.

Dream #25 - Going Places

I saw a post on the internet about someone who had bought an old diesel engine and was looking to restore it. I must have liked the idea because the next thing I know I'm standing in tall grass beside the tracks giving a hand up to an attractive young lady into the cabin of the beast. I climb up behind her and enter the seafoam green cabin. Evidently the restoration is well under way already as many pieces have been replaced with polished stainless steel, newly machined and etched. I follow a group of volunteers all clad in brown jumpsuits up a short ladder and then another and another and another. We keep climbing far higher than the cab of a locomotive should allow us. Finally I come out of a hatch onto the deck of a tugboat. We're listing heavily to the left with water billowing up onto the dun coloured planks of the deck. The conning tower rises up in that same seafoam green behind me. The woman I helped aboard stands atop it calling "You can see the whole world from up here!" I look out along the river in what can only be described as the antithesis of the Heart of Darkness. The river is lit up with every colour of light dancing across the night sky. A thousand beats of a thousand drums beat a hundred rhythms echoing along the shores. The river is crowded with all manner of inner tubes and drunken college students splashing in the water. I pull out a point and shoot camera and try to take a picture of a glittering dome crowned with red and green lights in the distance and the sound of the music thuds in my chest. A heavy sheet of rain begins to fall obscuring all but a blurry mirage of lights and sounds. I become aware of a young woman standing knee deep in the water in the path of the boat. The thudding in my chest becomes the thudding of panic as I cry out to her to get out of the way. "It's a tugboat! It's not going to just bounce off!" We plowed ahead.

 

I find myself in Connie's apartment in Toronto. I wander into the bedroom and notice a peculiar pillow hanging on the wall with a series of questions and buttons on it. I pick it up and start poking at the buttons, wondering what function they perform. I flip the pillow over to see if it's attached to wires or anything but see nothing there. Connie and John enter the room and are surprised to find me behind the door. "I didn't know you were here," she says. Though surprised she seems neither happy nor sad to see me but rather distant.

 

I decide to take a nap on the couch. When I wake up,I'm surprised, concerned and a little nostalgic that Tabi is cuddled up to me underneath a blanket. I see her head sticking out the other end sleeping peacefully. I reach out to touch her and find her rather more hairy than anticipated. It is the touch of thousands of tiny, short hairs, a little stiff but soft. Lily raises her head from under the blanket and I smile at her.

 

I get up and wander the apartment. The floor is strewn in overlapping Persian rugs in true Connie style. There is a missing floorboard which I check out and discover that underneath is a set of stairs leading down to the basement with a lightbulb on a wire hanging above a wooden door. I find it odd that the supers of a building should be barred from entering the basement but I let it slide.

 

Leaving the apartment, I find myself in Hazeldean Mall. I'm standing at a high café table littered with cigarettes, lottery tickets and empty beer bottles in the middle of the concourse. I'm watching two women. One seems to be some kind of faith healer and the other is testifying. She holds out her hands in which I see Popeye sticks, Hubble Bubble Bubble Gum and a third candy I can't discern wrapped up in wax paper. "I gave up my Lick-A-Sticks!" she cries, emotion flooding through her like the wrath of God. Sam grabs my shoulders from behind and tries to push me forward, telling me I should do it, too. A small baggie of something I can only imagine was some kind of drug falls from the package the testifier holds into a gray garbage can between the two women. There is a commotion on the mezzanine and flash of blue.

 

"Run!" calls Colin, his blue button up shirt flashing away from me, Sam close on his heals. I'm a little baffled as to why we're running when we have no affiliation with the woman with the drugs but my feet start moving. I chase them down the brown tiled corridor of the mall, a little anxious of slipping on tiles. I realize I forgot my lottery ticket on the table and turn back while the other two carry on. When I get back to the table it has been cleared of its debris. A man shrugs and says "I didn't know you were coming back so I cleaned it." I scowl and begin to run again. Sam and Colin are nowhere to be seen. I take the escalator two stairs at a time and come out to a short strip of concourse with only the entrance to a movie theatre between me and the exit. I take little notice of the flashing lights and movie posters as I dash out into the night along a grassy dirt road. The path branches between a better road and a less used one shuttered by overgrown trees. I make for the road less travelled. I hear Charlie from "Lost" [I've been watching "Lost" lately] call from behind me. "Sometimes a fox and his dog are one!" The dirt in front of me begins to crumble and a large anime style fox with bright orange fur and certain wolf characteristics emerges from the earth to leap at me. As it gets close it morphs into Lily and I feel relieved as she makes a quick turn and starts running along side me toward my grandfather's old, blue Chevrolet half ton. I drop the back gate and Lily jumps in as Sam and Colin come scurrying up behind me. Colin runs to the passenger side and heaves on the locked door. "It's locked!" Sam jumps in the driver's side to take the middle seat as I climb in behind her. I begin to panic about being locked out of the vehicle when I realize I'm already sitting inside at the wheel with the keys in the ignition, my father's old brown leather keychain dangling there. Sam unlocks the door and I rev the engine.

 

Douche on the Street #31 - Dirt

I was out walking my dog around the block as the need arises. She's a bit picky and insists on finding the perfect spot, often pacing and sniffing, seeking a little cover among the bushes - out of modesty perhaps. Sometimes I think she scouts out spots on our walks for next time though I can never really be sure. What I do know is that she will squat and pee near any other dog's poop as a future message to any would-be trespassers on her turf. In any case, she had picked a spot on the lawn across the street a little off from the sidewalk (she's sixty pounds of muscle and goes where she wants despite my efforts to reign her in) where she was pacing and sniffing. Along comes a gentleman from across the street and walks up to me. "Excuse me! Excuse me! You're not going to let your dog crap there, are you?" "Well she's got to go somewhere," I respond. "Yeah, but you can't just go walking up to people's houses and let her crap on their lawns! Someone lives here!" And I'm thinking, do you live here? No, you don't. You know how I know? Because this is church property. Now I'm no historian or even religious but from what I recall of grade 7 history class, the government of Upper Canada gifted the church with one seventh of the land being given away to settlers as a means of supporting themselves and further making it tax free. Now, technically this makes the land private property. Yet, I feel a strong sense that land owned by the church is the land of God (that I don't believe in) and that I have every right to traipse across it as I please since God doesn't seem all that interested in personally mowing the lawn (and further that my tax money goes to mow the lawn in some roundabout kind of way). And lastly, I don't think God would mind terribly if one of his creatures responded to a natural urge.

 

By this point the stranger is huffing away to a car and I wonder if he was in a car when he saw me and stopped and further wonder what kind of person has the nerve, the gall, the lack of things to do, the verve, the balls and the lack of social skills to get out of a passing car to confront a simple man walking his dog over the dog's choice on toilets. Apparently however the dog was embarrassed by the man's speech or at least his watchfulness and decided not to poop there but rather around the corner.

 

Because this is at least the fourth time someone has confronted me about my dog's daily routine as though they themselves don't shit and stink up the house and because the next time I want to ask them if they would rather she shit in their house and we can arrange that, these poop obsessed civilians are douches.

 

For the record, I am a responsible pet owner.

 

 

Douche on the Street #29 & 30 - Death From Above, 2015 and Guardy Loo!

Apparently you're the king of the castle. Or at least on some middling level of it. While I, humble peon that I am, live below. Immediately below. So all that garbage that you throw out your window lands on mine. Won't it be a pleasant summer breeze that blows the scent of your rotting refuse through my little dungeon? And verily, you shall sit in your crystal tower on high and suffer not of the stench of yourselves. And lo, a beagle shall eat of your gifts and cost me three hundred and twenty fucking dollars in veterinary bills because for some reason you seem to think you live in the dark fucking ages where it's still ok to dump everything out the window because, hey! why not? It's not like there might be people below!

I had just left work and felt mighty sexy in my brand new wool coat (dry clean only). I looked good and I felt good with my head held high. But not twenty yards into my homeward trek - a lengthy march across the precarious Bridge of Winds, along the Slippery Sidewalk of Icy Death and through the Watching Forest of Fishnets - without warning - and in fact with seeming intent - I am assaulted. Some rascally foe on high has cast off his or her water from the window above with nary a warning. I look up and see a face disappear from the window into the darkness behind. I hope it's only water on my new wool coat (dry clean only). It's smells vaguely of alcohol but then maybe I just smell of alcohol. In any case, if it was anything more obscene than water (and in this town the probabilities favour it), you can expect the pudding-resembling shit being expelled from my dog's anus thanks to my upstairs neighbour to be hitting your window.

Because, WTF? This isn't the middle ages. We have things like sinks and toilets and garbage cans and compost piles. We no longer need to throw everything out the window because, you know... that kind of shit (literally) causes the plague and all. You guys are douches.

Dream #24- Guernica

We walk through the high brown marble arches of the museum, funneled toward the heavy oak door at the end of the room by thick black velvet ropes. Sam and I are close behind a youngish man in a tweed jacket with a pack of students behind us. He’s handsome and successful and about my age. She skips up beside the man and grabs his arm. I watch her long blonde hair waving wistfully as she jumps ahead with glee. “So how do you become a published author?” she asks the man. I’m a little jealous as I watch her turn to look for his answer. But at the same time I want to hear the answer, too, hoping to hear something profound and meaningful, something to help me with my writer’s block, my laziness, my insomnia or other various woes. He turns to look her in the eye knowing he’s got a fish on the line. He smirks and spits out something glib.

Unsatisfied I wander off by myself. I find a large room of the same brown and white marble, high ceiling and heavy oak doors carved with intricate motifs. There is not, however much of anything in it but a set of stairs leading up to the floor I stand on and another set leading up to the next. I’m staring at a remote control in my hand. A simple black box with a blinking red light on it. I have no idea what this is supposed to do. Yet I feel confident it is doing what it is supposed to. I become aware of Sam staring at me curiously from the bottom of the stairs to my right, her head cocked slightly. She runs a hand through her hair and calls my name. Though she doesn’t say it, the word “silly” echoes through the halls of my audio canals. I ignore her and become engrossed with the schedule I’m holding in my other hand. I’ve missed most of the presentations listed, they having started at 10:35 and it being close to 4 in the afternoon. The room contained no windows or skylight but I could feel the long slanted rays of the sun edging the horizon outside. I spot a lecture that looks promising and figure I can make it just in time if I hurry.

I start moving through the crowds of students milling about. Somehow I’ve made my way into some kind of underground dormitory that is just packed with people. I mean packed like a cattle car. People stand in the hallways, sit on bunk beds – top and bottom, press up against support columns and each other. I half heartedly search the faces for an attractive girl or two to distract me but they’re all so bland and generic, all had blonde hair and plain faces, the same dead brown eyes, listless and empty though their bodies and mouths moved energetically in conversation with others. I feel good though. Very good. I move quickly through the crowd, climbing like a young orangutan over other people, agility personified. I start ascending a long broad staircase with a black railing running up the center. I’m aware of a shift in the movement of the crowd. Though some still move toward me, the majority have turned to follow me. I feel a slight bump against me but think nothing of it. I’m feeling too good, too energetic to slow down. I briefly fancy there is a television camera following my ascent. I feel like Rocky in training. But I check myself. I feel like my right foot is kicking out to the side as I jog upwards, upwards, upwards and feel like whoever is watching would be wondering why I was doing that. Sheepishly I try to keep my foot tucked in underneath me.  Up, up, up. I see daylight ahead of me and yearn for it; I want to feel that sunlight on my shoulders and I want the sun to feel my warmth. I break through into the light of a Spanish city. Directly ahead of me, in white and glass, gleams a beautiful resort for the rich young socialites settling on the hillside like a blanket. To the right are likewise tiered houses of the rich in sombre hues of burnt sienna and umber and roan red and dusky yellow shingled in clay tiles. Behind me are the slums. They don’t look much different from the houses on the hill, really, but they don’t shine, they aren’t as clean, the streets littered with trash and rusty bicycles, cast in the shadow of the hill. “The difference between the rich and the poor is the light in their life.” I can’t tell if someone behind me said that or the words formed of their own accord and traversed my brain.

I pull out my camera to take a nice travel picture of the resort. I can feel it going to be the kind of picture you see in magazines. The camera feels heavy and oversized in my hands at arms’ length with the flash and 40mm lens. It’s the widest angle I have and I hope it will catch the scene just right with the glint of steel against the blue, blue sky. I’m aware of some jackass at a bit of distance running through my shot trying to photobomb me. I ignore him. But the shutter isn’t tripping when I press the button and I’m concerned. The lens is focusing but the shutter doesn’t click. I think maybe the flash is screwing with it somehow. I try again and again I’m aware of the guy trying to somehow make himself famous or ruin my picture. Again and again I press the button with no click and again and again the guy runs through my shot. I pull the camera close to have a look at the problem and notice it has gotten much darker – past dusk though there is still a line of light blue on the horizon. The picture won’t turn out now and I’m vaguely aware that the sudden change of light suggests I’m dreaming but try taking the picture again anyway. Again the guy crosses my line of sight. I give up and lower the camera. Reaching for my wallet I notice it is gone. My mind flits back to the bump on the stairs and I’m suddenly much more suspicious of my photobomber. But it’s ok, I think to myself. I spot a traffic cop in blue and a reflective vest directing traffic in the neon streets of a bustling, humid, Spanish night. I’ve been through this before, this being walletless. But then I think last time I still had my passport – something to identify me to the authorities, something to prove I am who I say I am. I feel panicky as I realize the traffic cop won’t understand me nor I him. I have nowhere to turn and no money to get there if I did. I suddenly hate Spain by moonlight again and sink back into the shadows of the slums.

Review - Filth

"Filth" is a great Christmas romp for all ages 18 and up. This story of an up and coming police detective is filled with drugs, booze, sex, backstabbing and a dark corner. A surprisingly great soundtrack for an indie film. Well rounded ensemble (Moaning Myrtle doing phone sex). Beware however, they speak Scottish. 4/5.

Review - Detachment

I've watched a lot of dark, gritty movies lately but sweet Jesus, "Detachment" takes the cupcake. It's like Leonard Cohen started writing and directing movies. Shakespeare, had he seen this, would have raised Hamlet from the grave in order to inflict more dastardly pain upon him. Heavy flat piano chord fadeout. 4.8/5

Random Writing - The Last Great Escape

The straight jacket goes on first
Immobilizing my arms
Clasps and hasps tighten
Handcuffs click
Chains rattle and roar
Weigh heavy on my shoulders
Padlocks lock

I'm lowered head first into the tank
Bubbles rising
Hair flying
Water overflowing the tank
The sharp clink of metal
Dulled
One more lock locks

Each lock I pick
As I struggle
Upside down
Underwater
Each cuff escaped
Every chain loosened
Relocks, refastens, still binds

The water becomes opaque
Vaguely aware of my own thrashing
The sudden weight in my chest
The darkness binds more closely than any iron
After the struggling stops
The stage lights go out
But there is no applause.

Random Writing - Cheap Motel

She closed the orange curtains
in a cheap motel.
The bedspread and carpet matched
in a cheap motel.
She sashayed to bed
in a cheap motel.
She kissed me that night
in a cheap motel.
I paid her her dues
in a cheap motel.
Though we'd both spent nights
in cheap motels
She left that night
from a cheap motel
without having performed
in that cheap motel.
There was something about those orange curtains that said
"not in this cheap motel, mister."

Dream #23 - Celebrity Status

I was Malcom in the Middle and had pulled my little brother into the basement catacombs to explain to him the results of the last time I was bullied. I stuck up my left thumb and showed off the Band-Aid strapped over the top of it. I was about to explain how it happened when a series of large pink opaque bubbles came wafting around the corner and up the short flight of stairs. Emma Watson followed them with a mischevious grin on her face. She held a hot water bottle with a hose attached under her arm and was pumping it like bagpipes to produce the bubbles. "It's Pepto Bismal!" she said.

 

We walked on down the dimly lit steel catwalk until we came to the sewage treatment plant. It was a large dark room with nearly nothing in it but some steel grates on the floor and some kind of generator hanging over head. I took the bottle of Pepto and placed it under my arm and began to spurt it everywhere. Rather than bubbles though, it came spurting out like bubble gum pink ejaculate to land gooily on the grates and generator. I had this odd notion the Pepto would boil up through people's toilets and cause havoc.

 

Emma caught sight of headlights flashing through the trees and the slats of the barn doors. "It's the cops!" she called. Grabbing my little brother's hand she galloped off into the night. But I, I felt such an urgency I emptying the water bladder than I could not stop until it was done. The white police SUV stopped at the door when the stream finally trickled out. I dropped the bag and bolted through the door into the dawning morning. I could see trees in the darkness beyond the SUV but instead of hiding in them I darted around the corner of the building, ran along a quay and into a field. A stream ran through it. I was about to set my foot down when I noticed a gurgling in the stream and realized it was an open drain and that if I put my foot down there I would fall in. Luckily I was able to boost myself with my other foot at the last moment and land on a seemingly pointless concrete pad in the middle of the field. I turned to my right to corner a hedgerow only to find the field full of small lakes. I circled back as best I could toward the town hearing the sheriff calling after me in a thick Tennessee accent, "You made a bad decision, boy!" I looked over my shoulder but could see no sign of the sheriff though his voice rang clear in my ears. I figured must be right behind me, around the corner of the hedgerow. Rather than the sheriff though, not far behind me was a disgustingly obese white deputy duck, the size of a pig waddling after me with surprising swiftness. On his chest was pinned a blue ribbon of office. Behind him came a handful of normal sized ducks of the black and brown variety.

 

I was winded and tired but I carried on. For a brief moment I considered giving myself up but knew this would be my last strike if I did. Having reached the houses on the edge of town I realized my best hope of losing Deputy Duck and Sheriff Tennessee (who's voice I could still hear in my ear saying "You won't get away with this!") was in the back alleys. So I jumped the tall picket fence and ran down the alley for a house before corning behind another fence. A big golden 74' Dodge Stardust stood in my way. I looked back and the duck was right on my heels. Sliding across the trunk I attempted to get through on the other side but found myself cornered by the car, some vines and the fence. I jumped the fence and turned another corner.

Dream #22 - Small World

Christine and I walked through the nighttime streets of Naples. The brick and stucco walls glowed with the orange light of sconced torches and braziers. To our left was a small market place with archaic looking stalls propped up beside wagons overflowing with brightly coloured fruits from around the world. Red and white striped awnings covered the windows and doorways. "What do you think?" I asked, smiling. I had wanted to show her this for some time.

 

"Hmm. It's ok, I guess." I was a little disappointed with her answer. "But I want to see the Bellagio."

 

"Ok," I said. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the Bellagio is in Las Vegas, not Naples. So I took her there instead. We walked on down the promenade through an archway into the bright desert sky of Nevada. To my left rose the 36 stories of the hotel in all its granite and glass glory beyond the fountains shooting into the air. I pointed it out to her. Her mystification quickly turned to excitement and she ran off to see it up close. I chased after and found myself going through a peculiar garden of tall hedges and concrete planters. The path meandered at square angles. At each of the angles was a statue of a small child facing the corner in hues of black and blue wearing overalls with cut off legs. I sensed some of the statues were watching me despite having their backs to me. The path eventually opened up and turned up a steep hill. Part way up I stopped on a small outcropping of grass where and blue and red holographic touchscreen appeared with four options: stop, grow, petrify and wither. I pressed the button for wither and watched as the long green grass quickly turned brown and crumbled to dust bellow my feet. Somewhat alarmed at the speed of the decay I pressed the petrify button whereupon the withering grass immediately turned to stone. Amused by this turn of events, I skipped off up the hill, no longer searching for Christine but for something else.