An American Dream

FOR NO APPARENT REASON, last night I had an American Idol dream. It was not similar to my wife's yearly American Idol dream, in which she is a participant. I was just watching the show. So, on that note alone, nice work, imagination. Way to really run free. In my dreams, I get to do things I ordinarily do anyway! Jealous much? I thought you might be.

Anyhoward, so in my dream I was watching American Idol and this contestant, who was about 6-foot-8, was about to do a song. Very quickly, the show reminded us of his previous performance, which was a little country ditty. They showed the footage of it. He had a big ol' acoustic guitar on and was flanked (for no good reason) by two attractive country-attired ladies. They did not provide background vocals and did not dance. They just hung there on his arms, like the sleeves of a jacket.

The show played just a short piece of this lame country song he sang, before we went to the new performance. The Giant Potential Idol (GPI) walked out on stage to very '80s sounding synth-pop. And once he was at center stage, he started doing The Robot. He was not good at doing The Robot, but he seemed very pleased with himself to be doing it. The song he danced and sang to was a medley, and I wish to Elvis above that I could remember what songs he quickly cycled through. Because they did not go together in the least. But there were three or four songs he sang -- and Robot-ed to -- before he landed on the main course.

First, GPI stopped doing the Robot to get the audience up on their feet and clapping and shouting. This, to almost no musical backing at all. The audience happily complied. They were eating this shit up. And I mean shit. He was horrible. But the audience was going crazy. He got them rhythmically clapping and shouting in a sort of "We Will Rock You" kind of way, and once they had that down, he added his part, a strident screech that he repeated every four beats. I will approximate it here in print since you cannot hear me scream from where you are sitting.

It sounded like, "EeeeYIE-uh-yi-yi-yi-eye-EEEEEE!"

He did that over and over again. And after two or three of them, the audience had their "ah-hah" moment. They recognized what he was doing, what song this was, and they went even crazier. He was singing Peter Gabriel's "Shock The Monkey" and it was a surprise (somehow). And they loved it (also somehow).

Once he started his weird shriek, he resumed his Robot-ics, which continued, with increasing awkwardness, throughout the whole song. His performance was a disaster, but no one in the studio seemed to notice that. They loved the singing. They went crazy every time he did something Robot-y. Everyone was totally won over by the GPI. Excepting of course Simon Cowell.

When the camera finally cut away to Simon, he looked flabbergasted. Or maybe he was gobsmacked. Whatever the case, he was not pleased. And you could totally read it on his face. He hated the performance. He hated the Robot dancing. And he hated that everyone in the studio, excepting him, loved the shit out of it. He looked bewildered. Yeah, that's the word I was looking for! Let's go with that one. Bewildered!

But the best part was that Simon, in the dream, looked just like Mel Gibson. Not Lethal Weapon-era Mel Gibson, but crazy anti-Semite Mel Gibson. The Mel Gibson everyone has found so cuddly and crazy and adorable and horrible of late. But I need to be clear here. It wasn't that Jew-hating Mel was playing the part of Simon (as sometimes happens in dreams). It was that Simon, for reasons my brain did not explain, was disguised as Mel "SugarTits" Gibson. He had a wig on, and a beard, so you could totally tell whom he was emulating, but you could also still tell it was Simon.

Unfortunately, my alarm went off before I could hear Simon/Mel's reaction to the GPI's Robot "Monkey". I'm sure it would have been good.

Cast-a-Gump

ON OCCASION, I HAVE WEIRD DREAMS. They're never eerily prescient or anything like that. They're just weird. Like, for instance, a few weeks ago I had a dream about Tom Hanks. Luckily, I jotted down what I could recall of the dream right after I woke up. It went a little something like this.

So I’m sitting at a bar just chatting up the bartender, and someone brings up the movie Forrest Gump.” And I say, “Have you seen it lately though? It’s not that great.”

And the guy next to me says, “I don’t know, I think it’s a pretty good film.” The guy next to me is, of course, Tom Hanks.

So I try to do damage control and I say, “Don’t get me wrong, you were fantastic in it. You were great. Just some of it was a little corny and doesn’t hold up.”

And Tom Hanks says, “Well, I like it.”

“I do too!” I say, because, obviously, I want to win over Tom Hanks. Who wouldn’t want to be buddies with Tom Hanks? “I do too! Especially the parts on the island. I mean, the parts on the island are unbelievable. You were amazing in those scenes.”

Tom Hanks doesn’t look at me. He’s staring off in the distance with a wistful look on his face. And I’m still trying to press my case. Not realizing that I’m now talking about Castaway, not Forrest Gump at all. Also, right about now, I realize my barstool isn’t a stool at all, but a chair of ordinary height. So Tom Hanks towers above me and I have to crane my neck uncomfortably to talk to him. But I try to pretend I’m not uncomfortable, that the chair and the fact that I put my foot in my mouth haven’t made me uncomfortable at all.

“Where did you shoot that by the way?" I continue. "Where was the island?”

We had all been having a conversation up to this point—me, Tom Hanks, the bartender, some other people at the bar. But they’ve all disengaged now to leave me to be a total ass all by myself. Tom Hanks in fact has turned away from the bar and is still staring off, and now I realize that he’s not listening to me. He’s listening to the radio, like an old timey AM radio, with the white single earbud. And I know he’s listening to the USC game, because everyone knows Tom Hanks is a huge USC fan.

Then, just as I realize that, Tom Hanks and I are at the USC game. USC is playing Baylor in, what essentially looks like a community rec center. It’s sort of like a big barn of a place, but not nearly big enough to contain a whole football field, much less a football field plus fans. And the concrete floor is covered with a thin, thin layer of green carpet, that, I suppose is subbing in for actual astro turf. The game, while played by a bunch of football players, doesn’t look much like a football game. It’s kind of a barely organized game of grabass. Also, USC looks to be coached by a six-foot-four, 23-year-old girl.

Then a guy runs out and shouts out some awkward rhetorical question to the crowd. The crowd, by the way only numbers in the couple of hundreds and we’re just milling around near the game as there are no bleachers. The watching of the game is as much of a grabass situation as the game itself, it seems.

So this guy shouts out some awkward double entendre of a question to the crowd, something that obviously he hopes will result in a big cheer from the crowd. I wish I could remember what he said, but I can’t. But whatever the question is strikes both me and Tom Hanks as funny and we start laughing. And I say to Tom, “Please call on me. Let me answer.” And we laugh and laugh. And I'm relieved. I feel like Tom Hanks has finally warmed up to me.

The dream goes a little haywire at that point and makes even less sense.

Another Weird Dream

I HAD A DREAM EARLY THIS MORNING that I was standing in line at a hospital. The hospital in my dream didn't look that much like a real hospital or even a TV hospital. It looked more like an information desk in the middle of a dimly lit mall. I was there with a friend, holding a green chit of paper in my hand and feeling very proud, because I was going to donate my heart to the hospital. I remember being really proud, full of myself really, that other people might be donating kidneys or eyes or whatever, but I was going to donate my heart.

The woman behind the counter wasn't really that impressed. Just another day at the office for her. She just looked at the green chit in my hand, shrugged and stamped it with a big rubber stamp. I looked at what she had stamped on this document that declared to everyone I was donating my heart.

It said, "oven-baked."

Then she gave me a whistle. Like a coach's whistle. It was like the lollipop a pediatrician might give to a kid after a visit.

"Here's your whistle," she said. "You can blow it all you want."

As if that's what I earned for my bravery to donate my heart: a free whistle and the license to blow it all I wanted.

I remember being a little disappointed by that.

Leave It To The Germans

IT'S THE FINAL SOLUTION!...to your hunger!



That's right, bitches, it's canned cheeseburger. Seriously. Cheeseburger in a can. You know, for when you're camping and you want a cheeseburger? Out of a can? Don't tell me I'm the only one who had that crazy dream. Because I just won't believe it!

Well, whatever. It's a reality now. And I can eat all the canned cheeseburgers I want.

Thank you, Germany!

Bathroom Crazy

MENTAL ILLNESS DOES NOT RUN IN MY FAMILY, so my fears are probably baseless. But I have this recurring thought in my head of exactly how I might go crazy, how it will first manifest itself. It's ridiculous, I know. Like the weird fear I have that I will suddenly, capriciously, put the end of a power cord into my mouth. It's not something I want to do. It's just an odd recurring thought. Like the thought my friend Skap has when he's somewhere high (like a balcony or at the edge of a canyon) that he might just jump off, just for no reason.

So my future (and totally make-believe) madness will manifest itself this way, I think. Instead of putting toilet paper in the toilet where it would belong after using it, I will just put it in the trash can. The latest wrinkle on this is that I might, instead of putting it in the trash, hang it on the towel rack behind the toilet. Given those two options (and assuming I'm not going to put it in the toilet where I should) I'd hope that I'd put it in the trash can. That would be, I think, much less crazy. At least, much less disturbing.

I think if you behave like that, you are definitely crazy. So, maybe it's good that I'm making a mental note so that I can recognize my craziness when it manifests itself. Not that it will, because, like I said, crazy brains don't exactly run in my family.