I wake up every morning and have to take a few moments to figure out what is real, and what is dream. Every morning. I wonder if this is the only day I am alive, and all I know is preprogrammed material written by strange Gods that delight in stories about humans. Maybe they made up the whole thing. Humans. Earth. Music.
No. Music is real. That is certain.
Regardless, I wake, and the day begins.
Coffee. First thing. Every day.
Except for the days when it's not available. Which usually means I am doing something different, something new and exotic. So no coffee days are okay.
Write in my journal. My morning pages. My attempt to make some sort of order out of the chaos. And the doors open, my mind wanders and leaps in confusion and joy, and all these possibilities present themselves to me.
And I accept as many as I can.
Except for days I don't.
Those are the sad days. The days lost to worries and angst that never gets me anything but a sense of stolen time.
Even if this day, this life, this existence, is a simulacrum, an advanced computer program, I dig it. I love it. I revel in it.
I think, therefore I am.
And I am alive.
I think at least a hundred times a day.
Here's a song. It's "Free" by Flo and the Machine.
Started to watch the Tod Browning version of Dracula starring Bela Lugosi last night. I know for a lot of people, when they think of Dracula, they base it off of that movie. And I can see why. It's just creepy and weird and kind of awesome. And when it came out, it must have freaked people out. We all kind of expect to see vampires coming out of coffins, but we've all seen either that movie, or some knock off of it, or at least a variation of it on commercials around this time of year. But when that movie came out, I bet the first shot of a coffin sitting in that castle probably seemed shocking. And then to have it open and have Bela Lugosi, all decked out like a man about town in his funky Tux and cape outfit climb out of it must have been crazy. And then to have this three creepy wives, who I was never sure were real when I was little, dreamily walk up to him. It's bizarre. Like nightmare bizarre, where it gives me the creeps and I'm not sure why.
I love stuff like that. Things that are dreamlike, ethereal but somehow familiar, speaking to some part of my soul that fears what I am being presented with is an accurate representation of the world. A world full of people who sleep in coffins, of lost souls wandering abandoned castles, of madness and sorrow wrapped up in expensive clothes.
I think horror appeals to people who live in this world.
And I'm not alone. There's a great article in the NY Times about horror themed restaurants, and if you click HERE you can read it.
Horror films are by far the genre that gets produced the most. You want to get someone to listen to a pitch for a movie? Make it a thriller. Scare them. Excite them. And also give them a little bit to chew on, to reflect on as they lay in bed at three in the morning after being woken up by some car alarm, waiting to go back to sleep, seeing the shadows take shape, reflecting in various and ever changing manner the world they live in. Zombies, werewolves, ghosts. All things we see on a daily basis. I feel like a zombie as I trudge to work. I am a werewolf by night, howling at the moon with my pack. I am a ghost each time I look at a photo of someone from my life who has gone on to the next world, for in my mind they are the living and I am the one banished to this strange world where I can't be with them anymore.
Happy Tuesday, folks.
I have lots of things like that in my stories. My first play centered around a man haunted by the love of his life. My latest pilot has a small town taken over by malignant ghosts who bring out the worst in everyone. The script that is a Second Rounder at Austin Film Festival this year has the main character saved by the Ghostboy of Thunderbird Island.
I'm kind of a nut. But as Ghandi said, "I am a nutjob and a lunatic and a freak, and so are all of you".
Tomorrow, I head off to the Lone Star State. I wonder how many monsters I will see, how many ghosts? Will there be ghouls waiting at the airport to eat us up? Coffins in all the basements, where they sleep at night? What if the film festival turns out to be this secret cult of weridos? I hope so. I have to just leap, and pray that the net appears.
Here's a song I found last night on a playlist of spooky songs. It's Haunted Heart by Christina Aquilera.
Dreamt of this strange temple of sorrow. I was in a line with people I know, or have known through out my life. We were in a long line that stretched back as far as the eye could see, in front of what looked like, or rather felt like in that way things feel in dreams, a church or temple. I was at the front of the line, over to the side. As each person from my life got to the front of the line, a person in some kind of pain would be brought out of the temple and placed in front of those in line. Then a voice would ring out, telling everyone what was ailing the person in pain. "Brain tumor". "AIDS". "The Virus". And so on.
This went on for a while. Then a kid, a boy of about 12, was brought out. He was clearly in great pain, and it looked like he had been through several operations. His parents were on either side, weeping. It reminded me of The Pieta by Michelangelo. Only sadder. The voice spoke.
"He is racked with pain. He has many afflictions. It has not been detected yet, but a cancer will slowly kill him in the coming months and years".
His parents lost it.
I had that weird thing where, overcome with sorrow, I try not to cry, which only makes it worse. It's like clinging to the last shred of sanity before giving over to complete and utter dismay. My friends in the line, a couple who divorced many years ago but in the dream were the age they were when I met them, turned to me and told me I had to tell the parents of the sick child what was going on, because in their grief they couldn't hear what the voice had said.
I couldn't. I just held on by a thread, so very sad.
Then the alarm went off and I awoke to a chilly Friday morning.
I do come across a lot of sorrow, and have my whole life. I think that is true to greater and lesser degrees for all of us. Am I telling myself to stop holding the sadness in? Am I telling myself that when I let it out, which I do in my writing probably most of all, to address the truth of our pain and suffering? Was it a reflection of what I have seen of late, people angry and lost and scared, feeling powerless as day after day and moment after moment, strangers tell us of another tragedy while we stand in line, waiting for our own particular pain to be presented to us?
I don't know. "Dreams are toys," as Shakespeare wrote in The Winter's Tale, "And they can fuck with you".
Whatever the reason, it resonated with me and I feel more connected to reality after experiencing it. And I still find life magical and amazing and joyous, even with all the pain and suffering. Indeed, I think the pain and suffering necessitates our need to revel, to eat, drink and be merry- for tomorrow we die and today is probably going to have a lot of rough patches.
So let's put on some music that elevates our mood. Let's hug the ones we love. And let's be honest about what is going on out there and inside our souls, about our sadnesses and about our joys. Let us relish this life while we can.
Wow. Deep thoughts. A Blue Friday.
Maybe this song, a cover of New Order's Blue Monday by Orkestra Obsolete, will cheer us all up.
I had a ton of vivid dreams last night. One of them took place in the 1980s, when I was in high school. The song Blue Monday featured prominently. Sadly, I can't tell you much more, because I had so many dreams, and they were all so vivid, they kind of cancelled each other out, and I am left with this strange mish-mash memory of them all. It didn't help that my dog Padfoot kept waking me up and needing to go out. Usually, he has one trip outside a night. Last night he went out four times. I kid you not. Four damn times. And just to pee. And each time he woke me up, I was in the middle of yet another vivid dream. And all of them were positive. I do remember that. They were those dreams that when you start to awaken you wish could keep on going.
Still, the dreams put me in a good mood. And so, in honor of Blue Monday and songs of the 1980s, on my way to get tested for Covid, I put on U2's War, and listened to the whole thing. It was one of the first albums that I listened to over and over and over, and it always brings me back to those days, that time when the world was classes and friends and music and the Impala and driving over the hill to Santa Cruz and the Dollar Movie and Young Life and Swim Team and Scouts and no clue about where I was heading and not really caring all that much. A time when most nights I'd end up at Carrow's with Tom and Brian, going over the events of the day.
Those vivid times are jumbled up in my mind now too. And they have an excellent soundtrack.
One thing I can't stand about movies set in any section of the past that I have lived in is how often they get the songs wrong. They play top ten hits, but no deep cuts. No rarities. Just the hits. Not that some of the hits don't belong. If I was going to make a movie about my high school years it would certainly feature Blue Monday, I Will Follow, and Video Killed the Radio Star. But it would also include a ton of Dead Kennedys, Angry Samoans, and songs by Madness beside Our House.
I do wish I had all my old records. LPs, EPs, and 45s. I think most of them are long gone. The few that are left are sitting in a storage unit in San Jose, and once my mom's house sells, I'll go get them. Not that I want to be one of those who only play the songs from their past. That is out. In fact, in my first play, Last Call, I had a group of friends who would only go to this one bar, and only play the songs from high school on the juke box. Over and over. To the point where the songs lost all meaning and resonance and became barriers to thought and expression and joy.
So I don't want to do that.
But I do like to listen to the old stuff now and then.
And I did back when I was in high school, too. I think if you limit yourself to any one thing, type of music, kind of film, and so on, you limit way too much.
Sometimes, you need to expose yourself to the unexpected. To things that aren't part of your past, or determined to be something you might like by some algorithm.
As Beckett wrote, habit is a great deadener.
So here's to trying new things, to listening to old things, and to things in general.
Here's a song. It's a cover of Blue Monday by Orkestra Obsolete.
Had several weird dreams last night. Notable in that, of late, I've been sleeping easy as can be. The stress dreams of the early days of the virus had receded, replaced by the usual space traveling, magic realms, and ghosts among us kind of dreams. But not last night. First, I dreamed my neighbor, who is a very nice guy, was playing music incredibly loud in the middle of the night. I was enraged, opened a window that doesn't exist in this reality, and shouted obscenities. He yelled back apologies, and I realized I was being a bit of a nut, felt embarrassed, and closed the window. Then I dreamt I was teaching some late night event with a bunch of my theatre students. Like three in the morning late. Finally, it was over, and time for me to go home. I went to the parking lot, but couldn't find my car. I wandered the whole lot, which was empty. It was dark and hard to see, and the more I searched, the more frantic I became. Finally, I found the car, but by then, the gates were closed, and I couldn't get out. So, of course, I drove the car into the school, somehow got it into this little room on the second floor, and then freaked out. I got out of the car, called home to say I'd be a bit late, then turned to discover that somehow, while on the phone, the car had been disassembled and put into a bunch of shoe boxes. This was a drag, as I knew it would take some time to put the car back together. And just then, I kid you not, a giant spider started to crawl into the room through an air vent. Happily, I was awoken by my dog, who needed to go outside and perform his early morning ablutions.
I think I was picking up some of the anxiety running rampant in the world, the waiting for the other shoe to drop, the sense of unease. The despair I feel when I see people acting like the pandemic is over, that crowds are good, that wearing a mask is an unnecessary imposition. Such willful denial. Add to that the people, the few who are left, who don't seem to understand what the protests are about. It's frustrating.
I do believe we are in a time of change. That the old ways of doing things are on their way out, that ignorance, privilege, soul deadening jobs, and oppression are through. I think of the Velvet Revolutions of Eastern Europe, and how quickly things changed. I think of my own life, and how when I finally decided to change course, it was the easiest thing ever. We have all been given the gift of time. Of being forced to confront ourselves, our fears, our joys, our sorrows. And when we do that, our choices become clearer. That doesn't mean that change isn't scary. It is. Uncertainty can be overwhelming at first. But so freeing. I remember my first acting job. I was twenty-one. It was in Durango, Colorado. One of my teachers at San Jose State asked me if I wanted to get paid to do theatre for the summer. I said yes, jumped in a car, and was off to the races. It was very exciting. And terrifying. I had never lived anywhere but San Jose. I had never had a job doing what I wanted to do with my life. I had never done a lot of things. And the first night I was there, I had a bit of a freak out. What would happen? What if I was no good? What if I was great? I had no idea what to expect. And it scared the shit out of me. I went to sleep full of anxiety. But I got up the next day, went to work, and ended up having one of the best summers of my life. I leapt, and the net appeared. It was an important lesson for me. One that I learn again and again. There is always another leap to make, another risk to take.
All who wander are not lost.
Here's a song. It's a live version of Can't Find My Way Home by Steve Windwood w/Tom Petty.
Dreamt of rodents last night. Mice and rats mostly. All in NYC. First, I was in the alternate New York I dream of from time to time. Lisa and I were living in some shabby little apartment way out in one of the boroughs, somewhere still full of old buildings owned by landlords you never see, all the apartments tiny and falling apart. We were having rehearsals for some show in our apartment, had been up all night, and finally were asleep, when some workers from the unseen landlord arrived, unannounced and with their own keys, and started ripping apart some walls to do some kind of electrical work. We tried to ignore them at first, but the work was very loud, and then they started working our living room/bedroom. I got up, screamed at them that I was going to call the authorities, and the grudgingly left. It was then that I noticed there were mice all over the place. Maybe a dozen or so, scampering around. Not cute mice with big eyes, but NYC mice which are basically little rats that want to eat your toes. The dream then cross faded to me downtown, in a parking lot full of people doing some sort of sit down strike. I was looking for my friend Elena, who runs the New York International Fringe Festival, who for some reason had become the borough president. She was on a flat bed truck, driving slowly around the parking lot, which was huge, waving and shaking hands. People were cheering. Whatever it was they were there for, Elena was clearly on their side. She spotted me, and I climbed up onto the truck and said hello. She told me she wanted to catch up, but first had to go take care of a few things, and invited me to join her. I said sure. First, we went to this really awful old apartment building. It looked condemned. As we walked into the building, there were all these snapping sounds, like traps being sprung. Sure enough, the place was overflowing with mice and rats, and when we walked in, a bunch of traps had gone off. And these were industrial strength traps. They had cut off some of the rats legs. But it didn't kill them. It seemed to just make them insane and angry. Like little zombie rats. Even their severed limbs were still alive and bouncing after us. Elena told me not to mind them and to follow her. So, wading through hundreds and hundreds of vermin, we made our way into the building. I could hear their bones crunching under my feet. We made our way to a balcony on a higher floor, which was fairly rodent free. I looked around, and their were several fancy new buildings nearby, impossibly shiny and large. And active. One building in particular was like the robots in the Transformers. It would shake, move about parts, and then become a new type of building, Every few minutes. I wondered aloud how anyone could stand to be inside a building that was constantly rearranging itself, and Elena said "some people like that sort of thing." Then the person she was there to see texted her announcing his arrival. We went to another room to find him. He had brought more traps, and had killed all the mice and rats, and was sweeping them into huge piles. Then he reaching into the piles, pulled out a carcass, and started eating it.
Happily, Padfoot woke me up right then. So I got up and let him out. It was around 4:30 or so in the morning. The world was quiet. Well, not the world. The people in my neighborhood were quiet. But the birds were up and having a very loud breakfast luncheon in some nearby tree. Even now, in the midst of so much uncertainty and sorrow, so much anger and division, I find the world beautiful and magic. I suppose I might be insane. It's okay if I am. I have always suspected that we are all indeed mad here. There's a sort of comfort in madness. And a glint of a hope that perhaps through madness comes a form of crazy wisdom. And that wisdom is love. Pure and simple. When I say love, I don't mean skipping along tossing daisies on front of you, although that does sound fun. And I don't mean poems, or sex, or hour long hugs, even though those are all fun too. I mean the realization that we are all connected. To everything. To rocks and trees and dogs and birds. So maybe I do mean skipping and tossing daisies. But not only that. I find solace in love. And purpose. And joy. And I felt love this morning, standing in the backyard with my dog, listening to the birds.
Here's a song. It's Things Grandchildren Should Know by The Eels.
Had two contrasting dreams last night, divided by Padfoot waking me up to go outside and do his business. First dream, I'm in NYC on a visit. It's the NYC before the virus. packed and crazy and teeming with life. We're walking up Broadway from Midtown, heading for a friends place, when I run into a former student who just got into NYU. She's super excited and happy, and tells us all about it. She's so excited and has so much to tell us about that she joins us on our walk, chatting away. As we cross an intersection, a man who is clearly not stable or happy is shouting his misery to the world. Most people walk by him, taking no notice. As we pass him, he aggressively spits on my former student and runs off. As we are reacting, I wake up to Padfoot barking. Sometimes I think he is tuned into my dreams, and knows when to pull the cord on one. So I get up, let him out, look at our rain soaked back yard which is peaceful and lovely. The dawn is just beginning to think about showing up, so there is a light silvery light to the world. I go back to bed, and have another dream. This time, I'm in a lovely park, that is a cross between Vasona, a park nestled in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains near Los Gatos, and the park in Boulder next to the library. I am teaching a theatre class, and have been given a new book to use for my class, full of quotes and lessons. Today's class is on Stanivslavski's influence on the world of acting. It's a perfect Spring day, and we sit in a circle, reading from the book, playing theatre games, laughing and enjoying every moment. It starts to rain, and we run for cover. I realize I left the book in the middle of the field, run to get it, and a nice police woman has found it and kept it dry. I thank her, and we all head inside to this nice library/school space. Inside, a friend of mine is in charge. She tells us we are just in time for coffee and snacks. And then the alarm goes off.
As I lay in bed, thinking of those dreams, I thought about the country right now, so divided and angry and yet so full of love and hope. I'm glad they came in that order, because that's sort of how I process what I see and hear, what I watch on the news and read in the papers. I see anger and fear and lots of people shouting and screaming their dismay to a seemingly uncaring world. Some of them spit at one another. Or worse. And it feels like we are all lost in this rushing stream of humanity that is unable and/or unwilling to change in anyway whatsoever. But then I see families on their porches, closer than they have ever been, spending way more time than they are used to with their spouses and children. I see those children running up and down the street, making up games to pass the time and having a blast. I don't know how they got off their phones and video games, but they did. I see them. And they look so happy. I hear the howling at 8pm every night here in Denver. Last night's was especially exciting, seeing as it happened during a thunder storm. All these people opening their doors and windows and howling out their joy and love for humanity while the rain comes pouring down. Awesome and healing. Maybe we are all werewolves, changing under the moon, but instead of turning into homicidal monsters, we are both evolving into stronger beings while at the same time reconnecting with the earth, with our primal selves.
I know times are rough. So many people dead or dying. So many more people sick. It seems we are heading into a global depression. And I wouldn't be surprised if we have a huge second wave hit us thanks to opening too soon, and then shut down again, and on and on. But there is something in our spirits that keeps moving, keeps evolving, keeps finding the light. I think we have to remember that evolution is a very slow thing, and we have only been on this planet for a short time, all things considered. I am going to try and be a better person. I am going to try and listen to people who are angry and maybe insane. I am going to try and howl in the rain often as I can. If I do turn into an actual werewolf, I am going to try and not eat my neighbors. I am going to try.
Here's a song. It's Jumping Jack Flash by The Stones.
One of the things we do a lot of these days is play games with friends online, via Zoom or Facetime or whatever. Last night, I had a long dream where I was playing Dungeons and Dragons with a bunch of people I didn't know so well. They weren't anyone from this life. In the dream, I knew the way you know things in dreams that they were students, co-workers, and even a few strangers I was meeting for the first time. The entire dream was all of us arguing about the rules. And really minor ones, too. How many hit points can a troll regenerate each turn. How far a group of adventurers can go each day. Things like that. And it got really heated. Lots of name calling, questioning of integrity and intelligence, and screaming. It went on and on. Nobody seemed to be having any fun. Nobody was creating characters, or fighting orcs, or thinking up some funny action to do that would make the group laugh. We were just stuck. And that was the whole dream. And It went on so long, and was so annoying, it overshadowed the other dreams I had. Took center stage, if you will.
I think I had that dream because of all the back and forth between the folks who want to re-open right away, and the folks who want us to proceed with caution. Especially on social media. As bad as it was before, it is so much worse now. No listening to each other. No considering the other side. Just flat out statement of feelings, comments from like minded people, a few dissenters who then get attacked by people they've never met, and maybe a meme with a picture of someone doing something really stupid. There are the occasional nuggets of wisdom. And once in a blue moon, people make new connections, learn something they didn't already know, or even change their mind on something. But mostly, it seems like social media is a place to make proclamations.
So here is my proclamation. I don't think we only have two choices. I don't believe it is either re-open or stay inside. I think there are a myriad of other options, myriads of ways to deal with this global pandemic. We could change our way of doing business. We could install rent/mortgage forgiveness programs that make sure the landlords are taken care of too. We could start universal income. We could become communists. We could become anarchists. We could go back to being hunter/gatherers. We could become a real life version of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. Or Logan's Run. Or Star Trek. The list is endless. Point being, it is not just "open" or "close". I don't think either of those options are even tenable. Open, right now, with no more pesky masks or social distancing or civil liberties being trampled on, and the virus eats us for dinner, the bodies pile up, and it's the end of the world as we know it. Close, completely, right now, and we'd see even more people on the steps of their capitols with signs about whatever it is they need, more people shooting each other in grocery stores, more poverty and hunger, and it's The Purge: Covid Night.
Seriously. We can't have any other options? We can't all put our heads together and figure something out? Some new way of governing or doing things or living that protects us from the greatest amount of harm while at the same time preserving our inalienable rights? I say we do. Change has come. No going back. Time to move forward. Enough with the freak outs, the screaming, the weeping, the gnashing of our collective teeth.
Time to kick it in the ass.
Here's a song. It's the great chunk of cheese that is Saga doing On the Loose. You're welcome.
So last night, had a dream. I was talking with all these former students. Tons of them. First, I was working odd jobs as the world had gotten a little more dystopian, the virus had caused vast devastation, and society was sort of falling apart, so I took a job at this theatre/food dispensary up in the mountains. My boss was former student, and had hired me to do odd jobs. Part of the pay, which wasn't much, was getting free lunch. This was important in the dream, as food was scarce. I showed up for the first day of work, and nobody was around who could tell me where to go or what to go, so I explored a bit, came upon some other former students, all putting together a revival of Drowsy Chaperone which we had all done several years ago. I didn't seem to be going so well and most everyone was distracted. I explored some more, still no sign of my boss. Finally, it was time to eat, and I lined up with everyone else for the grub. The food was like the worst kind of high school cafeteria offerings imaginable, but we all ate it. At last, we got word that my boss, who had morphed into a sort of mythic status, was somewhere in Italy, and we would all have to swim across the Mediterranean to her. Who she was was no longer clear, but off we all went, swimming the sea. AS we swam, we came across a bunch of mines, floating along in front of us, covered with triggers that if we so much as brushed past would surely explode. It took what felt like a long time to get past them. Finally, we arrived at our destination, which turned out to be the city of Ravenna. I asked people if we would see the famed Monster of Ravenna, but nobody seemed to have the slightest idea what I was talking about. The place we all came to was this huge mansion, full of citrus trees, mostly limes and oranges like the ones we had in my backyard growing up in California. And then reality shifted, as it so often does in dreams, and we all decided to take a walk to the movies. As we did, I was once more a teacher, and all the other people in the dream were my students, and we had this long talk about whether anyone had learned anything of value yet in their lives.
Weird but true. Which seems to fit most of the world these days. Weird but true. There seems to be this great desire to act as if none of this has happened, that it was all a long, rambling dream with no point, no meaning, and no connection to our lives. Which would be cool if it were so, but just doesn't seem to be the case. Over a thousand Americans die each day. Over two hundred thousand dead worldwide. That's a lot of dead people, however you want to frame it. I don't get the people who dicker over the mortality rate, the infection rate, and so on. Huge numbers of people who otherwise would not be dead, are dead. End of story. This virus spreads incredibly fast, and the best weapon we have against it is social distancing. Those are two pretty basic facts that no one can deny. And yet, we bicker about our civil liberties, and restaurants on Mother's Day, and getting massages. It is strange, to say the least. That' s my go to word. Strange. It just fits.
I watched part of a comedic propaganda video where this guy was pretending to be a variation on the typical liberal. The basic premise was that this guy completely believe whatever the media and the W.H.O. told him, and he'd proclaim how he didn't want to make any decisions about his life, and that he'd like to stay in isolation forever. That was the joke. It went on for over eight minutes. That's kind of overkill. Like that skit on SNL that always comes about midway through that seems to go on forever after making its one joke. My friend who posted it thought it was hilarious. Fine. To each this own and all that. But this same friend wrote this very long post about how we all should be nice to each other and sensitive to our feelings the day after Trump made his now infamous remarks about shooting up with disinfectant. Yet another strange incident in a universe seemingly built on the Strange Principle.
The other thing that happened yesterday was a zoom meeting with a bunch of fellow writers where we discussed the first sixty pages of my latest screenplay. It was quite nice. I seem to be on a bit of a tear with this one, and hope to have the first draft done before the end of the month, so that I can clean it up a bit and enter it in the Austin Film Festival. Which I know is strange too, given that there might not be a festival this fall. But one must move forward. One must continue to seek meaning. One must endure stupid videos posted by friends.
I often dream of an alternate world, very much like this one in some aspects, but vastly different in others. I am me, but lived a different life, made different choices, ended up in different situations. And on several occasions, I dream of the same alternate world. There's nothing amazing about it. I don't have super powers or anything. But I never quite made as much of a living out of theatre, never married, never moved past where I was after getting out of college. Last night, I dreamed of that world, and I was working a summer theatre gig somewhere in the middle of nowhere, some part of the country that is mostly working class people trying to get along. In the dream, I had this awful, ancient computer with mice living inside of it. I was doing summer theatre and teaching at the local school's summer session to make ends meet. A group of students, another teacher and I were near a room I was renting in this shabby house outside of town, playing touch football. And I got a phone call that change had finally come, that I was to pack up my stuff, I was going to be paid to be a writer and needed to hit the road and head for Los Angeles. I went to start packing. My meager belongings were dirty, falling apart, and I decided to dump most of them. I did need my computer, but that was in bad shape as well. I opened up it up, looked inside, and it was full of old yarn. So into the trashcan it went, I got in a car, and headed for points unknown. As the dream ended, I felt this great joy, a mix of calm and excitement. And I knew I would never be the same in that world again.
Sort of feels like right here and now. We can argue all we want about the need for haircuts, wearing masks in public, and where or not the President was serious or using sarcasm when he suggested we all shoot up with some disinfectant. But one thing that is a fact, so much so that most folks don't even talk about it, is that we have changed forever. Probably more than we changed after 9/11. I don't know all the particulars of that change, but I feel it in my bones, in my soul, in my dreams. How we approach this life, how we deal with healthcare and our food and our air and each other, it's all different. And will continue top be different. Most of these changes will become apparent once we crawl out of our respective caves and gaze at each other in wonder, happy to be alive. I sense this change is every person I talk to, with every neighbor we wave hello to and say muffled "hellos" to through our masks. Even the revelers who try their best to deny it, who rush to the beaches or secret parties or rallies on the steps of their capitols are different. Their desperation gives them away. What happens next is anyone's guess, but in a way, I feel as excited as I did in that dream, loaded up and heading for the great unknown.
Change. It's inevitable. We watched another great movie last night, a little family drama/comedy by Noah Baumbach called The Meyerwitz Stories (New and Selected). So funny, sad, interesting, and smart. And one of the best performances by Adam Sandler. The change in the story, which takes shape at this art show with a heart breaking speech by Ben Stiller, is healthy and needed. As with all change, it's difficult. And we don't get to see what happens after the characters change. We just see them make the change, and it's uplifting and hopeful.
I feel uplifted and hopeful. There is terror in the world, and death and pain and sorrow. But we can change, we can adapt. We can be great if we so desire.
Here's a song. It's Old Man, by Randy Newman, performed by Glen Philips in some gym.
And here's a bonus link to an article about change in the NY Times. Just click HERE.
Had a torrent of dreams last night. And most of them involved the theatre. No too surprising, seeing as I've spent most my life in and around theatre. In one, I was watching a production of You Can't Take It with You at a theatre somewhere in California. It was opening night, and an old friend was playing Grandpa. Well, Grandma, as I had switched the sex for this actor. As I was watching the show, I realized I had not set curtain call. In another dream, or another part of that dream, or another dimension/reality that I was seeing, I was casting a play with all these young people in it. Also not surprising as I direct a lot of plays with and for young people. This group was high school age, and the auditions were long. Afterwards, it was time to cast the show. There were about five of us making the decision. We decided on some local rehearsal studio to go do the casting, instead of staying at the theatre, and everyone went to put their headphones on for some reason. Mine got mixed up with the sound designer, who was part of the casting process for reasons unknown but felt totally normally in the context of the dream. I really needed my headphones, and was about to freak out, when we figured it out. And then I went to this apartment near the appointed place, started going over my notes, and met a friend not involved in the casting, and we discussed the song Time by Tom Waits. And that was that. And there were other dreams, too. Sometimes, I wake up and feel like I've returned from a ten year journey through strange lands.
I had a thought yesterday that maybe my dreams fuzziness of late were trying to tell me to write about something other than dreams on this blog. And last night's deluge of dreams seems to back that up. We are living in such a strange time. And in a way, I've been trying to normalize it, to make it palatable. This blog has become the same thing every day. Dream, thoughts on dream, brief commentary on the world, song. I think that is all fine and good, and structure is awesome, but I do think I also have to acknowledge the crazy, which I feel like I haven't done enough of.
I don't think many of us have. I drove by Wash Park yesterday because for the first time in over a
week, I had to go get some supplies. And the park was full of people. I'd say 80% of the folks there weren't wearing masks. People were jogging, riding bikes, acting like it was a usual day off. And it pissed me off. I get the desire and need to be outside, to be near other people. I feel that need keenly, everyday. But suck it up, people. It's been all of a couple of months. Makes me rethink how awful it would be to serve time in a prison. Used to be, if I read about someone getting a couple of years for some crime, I'd think "wow, pretty easy sentence." Clearly, being locked up isn't as easy as I thought. For the most part, just being under this national version of house arrest is more than most of us can handle. And that's crazy. People who claim they want to make America great again can't make the slightest sacrifice in our country's time of need. If they want to make America great, they have to be great themselves. Whining about taking measures that seem to be working in slowing the spread of a deadly disease doesn't seem great. It seems entitled, childish, and foolish.
And complaining about the New Walking Dead feels a bit redundant as well. Not that I won't continue to do so. There is too much at stake to let things slide. I don't want to open up at the cost of people dying. I don't want to lose the post office. I don't want to see us relax the rules that keep our air and water only partially awful. I don't want to ignore science. I just don't want talking about what is going on to become routine, something I do to pass the time.
I want to continue to ask the big questions these times demands. What happens when we die? What happens when we live? Why has it taken a globe pandemic for some of us to realize how badly we have been treating this miracle of a planet that we live on? What have we been doing with our lives? What is truly important? How much can we withstand?
Here's one thing I always felt to be true, that these times have validated for me: Love, Forgiveness, and Acceptance are the only way to get through this world.
Another hazy dream last night. Something about being in an escape room, but the details are like the facts in a White House briefing these days, fuzzy and wrong. What does this mean? Have I entered some new phase of the Great Shut In? Did whatever I was supposed to learn in all those crystal clear dreams remembered with complete clarity get learned, and now it's off to some new land where I delve into a different aspect of my soul? Am I on another path?
On one level, that would make sense. I do feel different, like I have gained some infinitesimally tiny grain of wisdom. Something about living in the moment, accepting the universe, and so on. But it also doesn't make sense, as I have always had distinct dreams, and have always remembered them. But then again, not all of them. Some remain, some head for parts unknown the moment the alarm goes off. Maybe one of the tendrils of the Great Flux Monster has poked into my skull, creating an escape route for the dreams, and now they're running about, whopping it up, freaking other people out, and spreading a mix of chaos and order.
It could also be as simple as the fact the last night Padfoot needed to go out to pee twice, once around
1 am and again around 3 am. I hate having my sleep disturbed. And he is so annoying when he has to go. He walks around our bed, pants, shakes his head so that his dog collar acts like a miniature cow bell, and then, if those moves fail to rouse me, barks. On top of that, I made pancakes yesterday with some leftover batter that might have started to turn. Lisa had made the batter over a week ago, and it was sitting in the back of the fridge. I didn't stop and taste the batter, or even smell it. There was nothing green growing in it, so I figure it was fine. So, pancakes for lunch. Yay. Lisa took one bite and said she thought they had turned. Defiant and refusing to concede a mistake, I ate both my pancakes and Lisa's. And then felt like terrible for a couple of hours.
Things Change. Not only the title of a great movie written by David Mamet, starring Don Ameche and Joe Mantegna, but a fact of life. And we almost always resist change. You would think we would learn. And we don't resist by trying to take into account the change that has happened, dealing with it and moving forward with that change as part of our world. We try to pretend it never happened. To erase it from the cosmic ledger. And that's usually where the trouble starts.
The pancake batter is bad. Pretend it's still good and chow down. You can insert whatever metaphor you like here about our current global pandemic, our current President, family values, music. Whatever you like. Change, like the virus, is an equal opportunity event, and accepts all takers. Hell, it accepts all non-takers too.
One change that happened yesterday that I am not fond of is we finished The Great British Baking Show. I always hate coming to the end of a first watch of a good series, the final chapter of a good book, the last good bye of a great party. But what can you do? Act like Xerxes, and lash the sea? Xerxes was the Persian King who invaded Greece, who most of us know from the cartoonish movie 300. According the historians, after a storm washed away some pontoon bridges his army was using to cross some straits, he had his soldiers lash the sea 300 times. Can you imagine that? A world leader having a temper tantrum and trying to spank the ocean?
Xerxes, by the way, was a descendant of Cyrus, the king a lot of people on the religious right compare to Trump- not of their faith, but good for their agenda.
Well, it's time to rise up, read, Zoom, write, walk, experience, cook, eat, love, laugh, play some D&D, sleep, and dream.
Here's a song. It's Can't Happen Here by Rainbow, which seems appropriate. Oh, and before I forget to mention it. If Trump ever does adjourn Congress so he can do whatever he likes, I plan on going out and throwing rocks through windows and I don't know what else. Hope you all feel the same.
Mundane dreams last night. Lots of just doing domestic chores. Cleaning the house. Shopping for food. The one thing that sticks out is at one point, I was checking something out front, and the meter reader- I don't know if they even have those anymore, the person who goes house to house and reads the electric meters- but there he was. I asked him a question, and he ignored me. I asked him again. Still nothing. His son was with him for some reason, about 20 or so. I asked him what the problem was, and he said his dad doesn't like answering questions.
It felt like the frustration, the boredom, the being cooped up had spilled into my dreams. Of late, I can be a bit cranky. For little to no reason. I can also be overly happy, giddy, sad. Any of the seven dwarfs. But there's also the new things: introspective, meditative, active, present. Well, not new, but certainly around a lot more. There are things I don't want to go back to normal, things I like that I have found by being forced to contemplate more, to look at things longer, to have to work a little harder to communicate and spend time with the people I love. I've even learned some things from doing Zoom meetings. Shit, I think I even learn when I annoy my wife for the millionth time. I think we are all changed, whether we like it or not. Some of us ask more questions. Some of us refuse to answer questions. Some of us howl every night at 8pm. Some of us have found religion. Some of us have left religion. But this event has changed us, as individuals and as a people, forever. I wonder what will happen. Star Trek or Road Warrior.
Well, it's Easter Sunday. Aren't we supposed to all be packed in churches, walking the streets, shaking hand and hugging strangers? How insane does that sound right now? I mean, I would love to be hugging strangers and sitting in a crowded room full of people chanting and singing and putting money in a dish. I really would. But not right now. Not when two thousand people die in one day in the good old USA. I am sure we will be able to do that again. Just not yet.
Here is today's first song, to finish the days of the week songs. It's Sunday, Bloody Sunday, by U2.
Last night, I was overcome with a yen for green chile. We had just discovered this place on Santa Fe, Tacos de Mexico, that makes the best green chile I have ever had. It's unbelievable. One of those things that as you eat, unfolds a new flavor every second it's in your mouth, and makes you think you have eaten the food of the gods and just might develop some super powers. Lisa had made bunny scones, and was out leaving them on people's steps, like the Easter Bunny, and I was home listening to the Flaming Lips live at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony (a record I highly recommend) and talking with my good friend Jack, and the urge hit me. Green Chile. Get some green chile. Like most moods these days, it hit quick and hard. I had to wait for Lisa to get home, because parking on our street is horrible, and I didn't want to lose the space in front of our house. Sadly, this was the wrong decision, as I discovered that while Tacos de Mexico is still doing take out, they also close at 8pm. Lisa got home at 8:15. And the web site for the taco joint has the old, pre-quarantine times still listed, so I didn't find out they were closed until I was on the road, calling them en route. So I called several other places. A lot of them close at 8, it seems. I ended up getting a couple of burritos at Chipolte. And what was really weird was being out at 8pm on a Saturday night. It looked like it was two in the morning. Empty streets, a few cars out, and whomever was still out trying to find a place that was open to get some food before bed. There was a dream like quality to it. Maybe the portals have opened, and not only is reality invading our dreams, but our dreams are invading our reality.
Here's a song. It's a cover of the Pixies Where Is My Mind by The One and Only PPL MVR. You have to love a band that's dresses like Sasquatch.
Dreams were rabbits last night, leaping about. I'd focus on one, and poof, it would be gone. Some of them woke me up. Some were interrupted by Padfoot who must have been having the same kind of dreams, because he got up several times over the night, for no apparent reason. Lisa was tossing and turning as well, but her sleep has been like that since the whole thing began. It felt like all these things from deep inside my mind were fighting for the spotlight. So much happening, everywhere, all at once. And with all this time to introspect, it seems natural that old wounds, situations that never quite resolved, dreams deferred, and so on, have begun to rise to the surface. Which I think is good. It is so easy to ignore ourselves. Well, it used to be easy to do that. Before we all got grounded for an unspecified time by a virus. Most of the old diversions just don't seem to cut the mustard any more. TV is too full of press conferences with a president void of compassion and intelligence. My phone has too many updates from too many news sites about too many people dying far too often. Zooming as much as I have been makes me never want to facetime when I don't have to. So I am left with: long walks in the wee small hours, where we connect with nature and each other. Reading books, which open my mind and pry loose thought and memory. Writing that script, or scripts. Working on puzzles and playing actual board games. Meditating. All those things I've meant to do but haven't are now being done.
And I like it. I like being in touch with myself and my feelings. Having dreams that feel like they having meaning. Writing a blog every damn day. Long daily walks with my wife. These are things I should be doing anyway. And now I am. Not that I'm not still making mistakes, often. And boy, we can argue about pretty much anything these days. Having only one person to interact with makes them your all-in-one human, to vent at, pontificate to, and of course point out the slightest inconsistencies. It's like everything, good and bad, has been put under a microscope. Still, we are closer.
Watched more of Our Planet on Netflix last night. It's one of those nature shows, narrated by David Attenborough, with some of the most beautiful cinematography ever shot. Something about nature is so comforting right now. At least for me, which I'm sure you've picked up on if you read this blog. But this show, along with showing the wonders of nature, the majesty of the world, also shows how much of this amazing world is in danger of changing for the worse, and how in fact a lot of it has changed, in our lifetimes. And that resonates right now. We are in a global pandemic, caused by who knows what but no doubt has something to do with human beings doing things they shouldn't out of basic greed and sloth and the rest of the deadly sins. And it's madness. We live on this miracle of a planet, full of life and possibility, and magic. We need to take better care of it, and ourselves. If you decide to watch this show, and you should, be careful when you get to episode two. There is this segment about walruses who, with no more sea ice to live on, are now all crammed onto this rocky island. Thousands and thousands of them, all laying on top of each other. They fight, the look miserable, and eventually, a bunch of them die. It was brutal. Almost as depressing as watching Trump speak. Almost. But even in dire circumstances, nature is beautiful.
Wow. I am getting a bit preachy. Sorry. I don't want to do that. Just like this planet, and would love it if we could not be so foolish. Myself included.
Ok. Got a full day of teaching to do, plus writing, walking, eating, and whatever else.
Here's a song. For those of you who are having trouble linking to the song, it's The Minders doing Hooray for Tuesdays.
Slept in, woke up to another bizarre snow day with no school, no work, no going to the movies, no going to a restaurant, no high fives or hand shakes or hugs, no work out at the gym, no rehearsals in the theatre, none of that. Also, no constant roar of traffic, no brown cloud on the horizon, no doubt about what's important and who I care about or what I love or what I want to do. It's a mish-mash of things, isn't it? Some days are good, some not so much. But even when I space out, which is often, I feel more connected to the here and now, to myself and to everyone. I notice what the weather is like a lot more. I see flowers popping out as spring comes more. I listen to music and hear more of it. Background noise has somehow gone away. I don't know if my sonic filter has evolved due to circumstances, but it seems to be the case. Will this be like Flowers for Algernon, and when it's all over, I go back to the old me? Will we all? Will some of us become hippies who denounce all possessions and go form communes while others go hard-core paramilitary and go form compounds? Will I wake up soon from this dream?
Speaking of dreams, last night's were a series of runaway trains, all crashing through the nightscape of my mind, whistles blaring and out of control. Some were off the tracks. Some could fly. Some were ghost trains. As the trains passed, I could glance into some of them and catch little snippets of stories. Something from my childhood. A monster. Outer space. Padfoot must have picked up on it, because he got up several times, demanding to be let out to pee. Then he'd come back in, walk the room, sit by my side of the bed, walk the room, sit by Lisa's side of the bed, and walk the room some more.
Maybe it's because I watched the news before sleeping again. I think it is important to watch a little of the news, but not too much. I mean, there is so much crap going on that drives me nuts. A hospital ship that can serve a thousand people, sitting in NYC harbor with only three patients? Stockpiles of needed materials running out? States that still haven't issued stay at home orders, making sure this fucking disease continues to flourish? Lots of madness out there. Loads. Scads. It's like there's a Santa bag of endless toys in the White House, but the toys being passed out are all variations of Talking Tina from the Twilight Zone, driving already weak minds over the edge of sanity.
Well, what a happy entry today.
On the not so terrible front: I worked on new screenplay yesterday, and got some good stuff in. Early scenes that may or may not make it to the final draft, but that help me figure out the world of the story. Played D&D with one groups of friends, where we battled a manticore and met up with some orcs, and have another campaign to play today with my brother who is in Michigan and my sister who is in California. Did some extra meditation stuff yesterday, which was lovely. Started One Planet on Netflix, which is numinous. And got some reading in.
On the blah front: have to go over the stimulus package today to figure out what all I can do. Some of my jobs are cancelled, some are postponed, some are there but with less hours. And who knows when things will go back to some variation of normal where I can work as much as I did before.
There's a word we will here more and more of. Before. Before the virus. Before the shut down. Before the world changed. Before we went to sleep. Before we woke up. Before we realized we need to rethink our healthcare system. Before we changed our whole economic system. Before we stopped being afraid and did what was right and made the world a better place for everyone. Before.
Last night's dream was epic, like Day After Tomorrow or Independence Day epic. Lisa and I were both in NYC, were working for the DCPA which was also NYU, the virus was going on but in the dream it was a giant system of storms. The city was still full of folks, as in this reality social distancing was not part of how to deal with it. We were both supposed to go to this large end of the year meeting in one of the theatre buildings, in a medium sized theater space that could seat about 300. I got there, and the place was full, and on stage they were trotting out set pieces from the season they wanted to get rid of. Lisa wasn't there yet, but had texted me she was on her way. I noticed all the teachers were heading for the door. And then an alarm went off. We all got up and headed out. It wasn't mass panic, more like when we had to evacuate during 9/11- lots of people trying to get somewhere, some freaking out, some in disbelief, some just forging ahead. I got to a hall with a long glass wall, and looked out. right outside, and coming downwards, was a huge tornado. I could see up into it. People were being directed one way to a shelter, but I knew Lisa was several blocks north of there, and nowhere near the shelter. I had to get to her. I ran down the stairs, and out across Union Square. The streets were now empty. Someone yelled out to me to get to the shelter. I tried to yell out how I had to find Lisa, how nothing else mattered. But all I could do was cry, and the more I tried to tell this anonymous person how much I loved her and needed to get to her, the more I cried. Then I woke up.
Can't believe we are going to be doing this for another month. Seems like we've all been in our homes, figuring out how to spend time ourselves, for a long time. Some of it I do not mind. Introspection, reading, calling old friends I should have called but haven't in ages, cooking more, meditating, this blog. Those are all positives, to be sure. Not being able to hug friends, have a rehearsal with actors in the same room, go to a movie in a movie and/or play in a theatre, have other people into our home for a meal- these things I miss. But it does make me realize what I miss, what I find important, and what I don't find so important. I really love seeing nature sort of come back a bit, with cleaner skies, more birds in the neighborhood, and even more wildlife venturing out. I wonder if this reassessment of what matters will carry over after the Duration? I imagine it will. I think our economic system will have to change, as well as our medical system and how we care for each other. And our planet too. In a weird way, I think a lot of us feel like maybe the world is chastising us for being so damn stupid- polluting our air and water, denying folks basic health care even though a healthy population helps everyone, and so on. Magical thinking, I know- and there are some who are using this to say it's God punishing us for liking the gays. Those people are nuts. They remind me of the group of rabbits in Watership Down who let the farmer who takes care of them kill some of them from time to time because he also feeds them and let's them live a nice life (until he needs to eat them) and create this weird cult out of the way it works. In the story, which follows a group of displaced rabbits on an odyssey as they search for a new home, Fiver, a rabbit with some psychic powers, says of these rabbits who have made up a belief system that allows for percentage of them to be killed off that"they are in love with death". I feel like I see some of those death loving rabbits on Facebook more and more.
Last night, we had an old friend over for a social distanced meal, which meant she sat in a chair on our front lawn while we sat on the porch. Lisa, who expresses her love through her cooking, made a fantastic pasta dish and a lovely cake. We had to be extra careful with serving the food, used gloves, and only put the candle on a slice of cake so that our guest of honor could blow it out without blowing all over the whole cake. It was a grand time. A few neighbors walked by, and we would say hello. Lisa kept wanting to give them slices of cake, but they all politely, and probably wisely, declined. At 8 pm, a lot of people started howling out their windows. We joined in, not sure if this was in gratitude for all the people working in the hospitals and at stores and such, or just an expression of life, but it felt great. Having been a life-long howler who has heard the Chime at Midnight many a time, I never pass an opportunity to howl into the night. After dinner, I did the dishes while Lisa turning into Gene Gene the Dancing Machine for my entertainment. A magic, unique night.
We are all still alive. We are all full of magic. We are all made of stardust and love.
Dreamt of going to school. Elementary School. I went to Strawberry Park Elementary in San Jose, California, long ago and about twenty minutes from the sea. In the dream, it was that school, but looked more Ivy League, less weird 1970s style. When I got to the school, there was confusion as to which classroom I was to go to. One was overcrowded, even though the room was very big. I went to that class first. The teacher was nice but struggling to keep control. He told me he thought I was supposed to go to the classroom next door. So I went there. That room was a little bigger than a broom closet, and was empty.
For some reason, that woke me up. Lisa was asleep. Padfoot was asleep. Just me and the room and that dim light from the windows and electronics that fills a room in the middle of the night.
So. I am still wrapping my head around the fact that there is a virus that has spread across the entire planet, infecting over half a million people and killing so many. Even now, it doesn't seem real. It all feels like a dream. Sometimes, when I am having a particularly bad dream, I will realize that it is indeed a dream, and I will wake myself up. No such luck with this one so far. And the peak has happened yet. I mean, how are we supposed to wrap our heads around estimates like 100,000 to 2000,000 dead just here in America? Large numbers are hard enough to contemplate in happy times.
I think our brains are all processing and changing, adapting to this new reality. How it will change is anybody's guess. Cuomo the other day said some will become better people, some worse. That's probably true. I'm fairly certain our appreciation of the little things by and large will increase dramatically. Also, I think the way we treat each other and the planet will change. The need for universal health care is pretty apparent, and gets more so each day. So does the wonder of nature, which is moving along with no care, shaking off a bit of our mess and showing her glory more and more. Every day, the sky is cleaner, and it seems like there are more birds in our neighborhood. Maybe we just hear them more because the traffic is so much lighter. I don't know. But I like a cleaner planet.
Yesterday, for the first time since this all kicked in, I did a good bit a yard work, mowing both our lawn and the neighbors. Took a few hours, but felt great. Working on the new script, it was nice to have something like that to do, so that my subconscious could kick around ideas without me telling it what to do. And, of course, ideas came. For me, writing is best when I let my subconscious come up with the fun stuff. It's like that idea bubble they make you do in writing classes, or at least the classes I took. You get a blank piece of paper, write down and idea, and then make a bubble around it, and then just let your mind go where it wants, and write down other ideas that somehow relate to the first idea. Free association. Improv. Being in the moment. It is something artists always strive to do, find a way to follow structure and at the same time be in the moment.
I think that's what we are all trying to do now. I come across friends doing their best to deny the moment. To fill their day yelling at the tv, or posting every couple of minutes about how it's a Deep State conspiracy. Or how good their ratings are. There are even some who are still trying to tell toilet paper hoarding jokes. Not too many, though. That, I think, has finally jumped the shark. And while all those things are of course valid things to do, sometimes I get the vibe that some of those folks are not being true to themselves.
No doubt, I am not true to myself all the time either.
No movie to promote today. We watched an Amazon original called The Pale Horse, one of their new Agatha Christie adaptations, and it was great, but I fell asleep early on. Maybe the lawn mowing tired me out. Maybe the whole global pandemic did. Hard to say. I did do a zoom meeting with a bunch of local writers, and that was amazing. We all vented about things, or talked about what we are working on, or what we want to do, and decided that the meeting itself was a great idea and plan to do one each week. For me, writing isn't a problem, even now. What I want to write about has changed, but the act of writing itself helps me. Hence, this blog.
Ok. Time to wrap this one up, then it's off to go shopping for a few essentials. And later today, I do my first bit of teaching/rehearsals. Should be interesting. Will I have a class full and wild, or an empty broom closet?
The dreams all ran off this morning. Jumped over the moon while looking for the dish and spoon. And I woke up extra early for no reason. Well, I did go to sleep a little earlier than usual. But only a little. I always feel a bit robbed when I can't remember my dreams. Like a message from my spirit guides got lost in the mail or something. Sometimes, as I wake, I can feel them fading, can remember them for just a moment, and then they're gone. As if they had substance and were physically taken from me. I wonder if there is a cabin out there somewhere, full of forgotten dreams. A country sized cabin, a world, full of me flying and being in old places that aren't really those old places but an amalgamation of other places that only make sense in the dream world.
We watched JoJo Rabbit last night. I've been wanting to see that since I first saw a trailer for it at the Alamo Draft House (my favorite movie theatre). I blew me away. So funny and original and exciting and sad and tragic. That's the kind of film I would like to make. Sort of a farcical magic realism period fable from a modern perspective that's both intelligent and heartfelt. And so damn funny. I think it's streaming now, so if you can, watch it. Fables of courage in times of madness seem like a good idea right now. And it has a fantastic quote in it which I think applies to us all more than ever.
“Let everything happen to you Beauty and terror Just keep going No feeling is final”
― Rainer Maria Rilke
Speaking of which, it's almost the end of the month. Bills are coming due. Energy, water, phone, internet, cable, credit cards, and mortgage. What are we going to do? I know, the stimulus. And yes, that's a good thing and I'm glad it passed, though I'm not sure yet what all it means other than that one time check. I hear artists might be able to apply for grants. And that there are small business loans at zero rate. I hear lots of things. But what will actually happen? How hard will it be to get these things? What will we all do at the end of next month? I think I heard that we will be in isolation until at least the end of April now. So much for the Easter uprising. I think, as this grinds along, we are going to have to rethink our economic system. Completely.
I remember, shortly after 9/11, standing on the balcony of a friends apartment in NYC, talking about the world, what had just happened, what to expect, and so on. This was right after, when you could still smell the electrical fires from downtown and there were army dudes in the subway stations and it felt for a brief moment like wartime. My girlfriend had just gotten a radical masectomy and was in chemo, and had caught pneumonia after that day of the attacks, being young starving artists we had no insurance, and things looked a bit bleak. My friend conjectured that the world would either go in one of two directions: towards the anarchic dystopia of movies like The Road Warrior, or towards the Utopian world of Star Trek. I think about that conversation a lot these days. I vote for the Star Trek world. We can start by doing the Andrew Yang thing of guaranteed income paired with the Warren/Bernie thing of universal healthcare. Seems like a huge portion of the world would be better off, happier, and healthier- and this would trickle up, down, and all around. I'm sure there would still be problems- Klingons, Tribbles, and such- but we would all be better equipped to deal with them.
So. Another Monday. Only it's not like Monday used to be. Not going back to the grind Monday, no sleeping in Monday, no it's-a-whole-week-until-the-week-end Monday. It's just a day that starts with the Sun rising, the dog needing to be let out, and a world that seems cleaner of late quietly spinning.
Time to explore the inner soul a bit, tend to our garden, and write my story.
Here's a song. It is a bit of a spoiler if you haven't seen JoJo Rabbit. So watch the movie first!
Dreamed last night I was hanging out with President Trump. Well, not hanging out. I was at the White House for some nebulous reason, in that dream logic kind of way. It felt like when you were a kid, and your parents visited other parents, and they went off to do parent things, and you were left in the other parents house with the other parent's kid. The White House was really empty, just a few staff members in the background. Trump was like this lonely outcast kind of kid, awkward, not good with his words. He told me he needed help in communicating. Wanted to know how I was able to talk to people, to connect to the world. Then he ordered a fancy sandwich for himself, and let me order something for myself as well.
It was a peaceful kind of dream. And the president looked different. Not so angry, not so orange, not so bloated. Maybe it was an alternate reality? I often think that dreams are portals to parallel universes, worlds where there are other versions of us. Somehow, when we dream, we are allowed to travel between the worlds. I wonder if other versions of me visit this world in their dreams. What would they make of this?
Yesterday I watched too much news. The only thing I watch when I can that I like is Cuomo's daily address. That guy has the X factor for leadership in a crisis. No baloney, connects to the audience, and gives information that is useful. I usually feel better after watching one of his conferences. When I watch the White House task force, which I don't do that often, I usually feel confused, lost, and more afraid. They say that people who grew up in alcoholic households are the best lie detectors. They also say that people from the theatre are excellent at sniffing out the bull. Being both, I must be great at it. In any event, I always feel like I am being sold a bill of goods by Trump & Co. And then there's poor little Fausty. He seems like the prisoner, the one who will help the heroes with vital information when they get to act three of this strange movie.
Also yesterday, we drove to a few stores to get some things for ourselves and a friend who isn't doing well. I could not believe how clear the sky was. The Rocky Mountains stretched out forever, crisp and clear and inspiring. I wonder, when this is done, what we will do about the world, about the environment. It is such a lovely planet. Is this whole thing the result of Mother Earth saying "enough!"?
Last night, we had dinner at a neighbor's front yard, all seated at least 6 feet from each other, in a sort of Council of Elrond setting. Nobody got up to say "One does not simply walk into Mordor", though it would have been cool if they did. There were five of us total. It was a warm, early spring evening, the sky bright blue, and the conversation awesome. I think already we are all starved for connecting with each other. Not that I mind exploring myself and my soul. I don't. I love it. But I also love people. Being near one another. Something to look forward to and to savor more after the Duration.
Then we went home and tried to watch an episode of The Great British Baking Show, but fell asleep before the technical challenge. That is a show I highly recommend. Everyone is so nice to each other in it, the food looks amazing, and it gives me faith in humanity.
Well, on to today. Here's a song. Note on the song- first off, I don't endorse being in a room that full of people until after the Duration. Second, it is full of youthful lust and energy. Don't let it get you down because you can't go to a club at the moment. Third, do you think there is an alternate reality where Debbie Harry is President of the United States?
