A Dream Over August 5-6, 2009

Text by Robert Barry Francos
Images from the Internet (To Come)

The days go on, and more boxes get unpacked, but there are still so much to do. We finally moved into our house proper, cats ‘n all, and we’re adjusting to our new life. Meanwhile, I had this dream that makes no sense to me…As a passenger in a car filled with friends, I arrive at a complex of small theaters, much like a Cineplex, except it is for live performances. It may be New York City, as I am assuming it is, since it is bright with multiple neon signs.

[Kristin Chenoweth]
By the time I get out of the car, all my pals have run off to the play, as we are approaching being late. Meanwhile, I’m not even sure which of the multiple theaters I am supposed to be in, as my friends have my ticket. I see an usher and walk over to her. Seems the attendant is Kristin Chenoweth. There is even more confusion on my part to the whole experience wondering why the star of the show Wicked, and television programs like The Left Wing and Pushing Daisies is working as an usher, but I don’t’ have the time to ask; instead I tell her of my plight of being lost. She tells me to wait and she will see if she can find out where I should be. Kristin is highly energized and bubbly in the dream-state.

[Susan Lucci]
Shortly (both in time and stature), she comes back happily stating that she now knows what show I’m supposed to be seeing. It is a one-woman musical show staring Susan Lucci. Truthfully, I never watched General Hospital and Lucci does not really mean anything to me, but theater is theater.

As we approach the space, Kristen leaves me in the hands of two ushers attached to the specific performance. They tell me to wait outside in the lobby until there is a break when it is okay to go in, but they seem confused about when, the procedure to enter. I’m thinking, “Surely I’m not the first person to arrive lake to this show; how could they not?”

I’m standing in the back, with the ushers on either side to make sure I don’t enter without permission. The doors into the theater proper look like the twin swinging doors into a restaurant kitchen, with windows in each about head high. Looking through the glass, I see the theater is pretty small, holding around 50 people; it is set up something like a church with rows of pews with a single aisle down the center, but there is a long table in front of everyone, rather than where the hymnal books would go. At the head of the aisle on the wall is a large stained glass “window,” and in the front of it, in preacher’s robes and a tall chef’s hat, is not Susan Lucci, but rather Andie McDowell! Again, I’m not a fan of hers, though she was okay in Groundhog Day.

[Andie McDowell]
McDowell is singing standards in a chanteuse style (and not altogether on key), though I don’t remember which songs., while serving food to the audience. Each dish ties in with what she is singing. There I am stuck outside, looking in, feeling resentful. I can see the one empty seat where I shout be sitting, but the ushers will not let me in until they deem it is okay to do so.

After around three songs/courses, McDowell goes off the stage to get the next food group, and I think, “Now is the time!” and look around to see the ushers are nowhere to be found. Damn!

I’m about to push the door open, when I see a side door open and a burly man sneaks into the theater and takes my seat, just as McDowell returns with her arms full of food, and singing a cheering song.

“Shit, I am so screwed,” I’m thinking and am ready to go ask for my money back, but realize it may be a problem as I still do not have my ticket on me.

That is the point when I wake up.

Any ideas?

Two Dreams About Musicians

Text (c) Robert Barry Francos

Both of these dreams happened in the same night, between July 21 and 22. Also, both memories of them are fragments recalled 12 hours later...

In the first, I am the older brother of Jaqueline Blownaparte, the lead singer of the New York proto-horror-punk band Chesty Morgan and the Slice 'Em Ups. In real life, I've seen her perform thrice, the first two times in her previous band, Lady Unluck, and one in the SEUs, as reported on this blog in early November 2008 (look it up! It's about a Halloween show at Hank's.). The latter was the only time I actually spoke to her. In the dream, however, for whatever reason, we are siblings. It seems, unbeknown to me, she is angry with me, and I'm not sure why. Her partner in both real life and in the dream, Anthony Allen Van Hoek, pulls me aside to fill me in with what is happening: I had a couple of tickets to go see a show at a the convention center that is sort of like the car or boat show, but the subject of this one is wood, and she wanted to go as she likes wood for some reason. Yes, wood. And yes, I understand the inevitable connection it brings up, but she's my sister in the dream, remember?! Anyway, my conversation with him continues and I'm feeling contrite, when I awoke.

The second dream was much longer, but I remember less details. Essentially, I start traveling around with Paul Simon. For a large part of the '60s and '70s, I was a huge Simon & Garfunkel fan (even during my early punk years), including Simon's early solo efforts like Paul Simon and Still Crazy After All These Years. He started to peter out for me around "Late in the Evening," and even though I liked some material from Graceland; his work started to feel derivative and, well, "borrowed." In my dream, Paul and I were about to same age, I'm guessing around 40, and he had a jovial personality similar to Bernie Kugel (of course, that doesn't help if you don't know Bernie...). But in the dream, as we traveled about around the countryside, it was not a luxurious-limo-rock-star meandering, but rather hobo-bumming style; as I'm thinking about it, like Hank Morgan and King Arthur in Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. At one point, we snuck into a closed elementary school cafeteria and ate some dry breakfast cereal. In another part of our adventure, we slept on a golf cart at some course we found our way into. Paul lay on the bench in the front, and I was on the one in the back. Just before I awoke, as we were ironically falling asleep in the dream, Paul mentioned that I was a good friend. We had done a lot of things in the dream that I would not have dreamt - pun intended - of doing in real life.

I don't have a clue what these dreams mean, but they were fun to have, and I just accept them on that level.

A Dream on May 24, 2009

Text © Robert Barry Francos

When the part of the dream starts that I remember I am sitting at a table in a darkened restaurant in a huge room. At the front of the room is an unlit stage. Sitting at the table are a few members of the Media Ecology Association, and Terence M– (one of my professors at New York University when I went for my Masters), and some friends/ex-coworkers, including Cindy.

The waitress comes over for drink orders. I try to tell her I want one drink for myself, one for Cindy, and a shot for Terry, and that I’ll treat. She is an expressionless Russian-looking woman who is in the later ‘50s or early ‘60s. I get into an argument with her about the order, and eventually tell her I’m going to get the drinks directly from the bar, so she doesn’t get the order or the tip.

The L-shaped bar in the back has a line of about 6-7 people ahead of me. It takes a while, but I finally get the three drinks on a tray, and come back to the table. Cindy has already left by that point, and Terry is leaving, not wanting his drink. I down all three, but am surprised I don’t “feel” them.

In dream logic, I realize I am wearing only boxers and a t-shirt (which is what I am wearing while having this dream). While not embarrassed, I am annoyed when I see that my clothes are not at the table, and I wonder if the waitress has taken them.

I walk over to the cloak room at the left side of the stage, and see if they are in there, but all they have is my black, puffy down jacket. After putting it on over the t-shirt, I notice that my friend Dermot is sitting on a bench at the rear of the cloakroom, reading a magazine. I say hello to him, and tell him about everything that has happened, while he is quite bemused by it all.

When I emerge from the cloakroom, there is a comedian on the still unlit stage, who keeps talking through the rest of the time I am in the room, but nobody – including myself – pays any attention to him. It is just a droning background noise.

I head back to the table, which is now an L-shaped booth. There are many MEA faces I recognize (not real-life people), and their families, including children. I think I see Thom G–, but it ends up being someone else I know, and I ask him if he had found my clothes, and he replies negatively.

Figuring it is time to see if there is a Lost and Found, I walk to an ascending staircase just before the bar, and walk up into the lobby of a hotel to which the restaurant is part.

Disgusted, I walk to the front desk, which is located near the top of the stairs. There are two male hotel employees behind the marble desk. An older one is familiar to me within the dream; either I dreamed him in an earlier part that I don’t remember, or it is just dream logic. He avoids me because of our previous encounter, and I start asking about the Lost and Found, and telling him the story of what happened.

That’s when I woke up.