I was outside somewhere with a large group of people. We were having fun and I think it had something to do with music. At some point, I looked down and noticed that my forearms were really red and I commented that I’d gotten sunburned. The people closest to me told me that I hadn’t actually gotten sunburned and that I shouldn’t worry about it.
I was having a conversation with Dallas. He was very alive and very healthy. I knew some time had gone by since he’d been out of the military and in the back of my mind, I wanted to know why he wasn’t dead but I felt it wasn’t appropriate to ask him. He seemed so happy and full of life. We conversed about music and about life in general and it was so good to just be talking with him.
That sounds like a band name but it’s not. I recall being in Zimbabwe. I was in a village and I was looking for the place that I was to compose music. The people I was with were trying to get me to follow them. I was preoccupied with where I was and investigating the area and observing the people. Someone from the village talked me into following him. He led me by this area where there were mbiras that had been taken apart or in disrepair and no one knew how to fix them. It was kinda sad because I wanted to go look at them but I was being led along.
Suddenly, I was in some sort of giant open flea market, standing at a wall with a young African man. He was asking me what a phrase meant that was carved on a wall. I was telling him that it meant that you always have a choice to do something or not. That choice makes us who we are. Someone walked up too me and told me to come with them. I did. We walked downhill and to the right thru a large causeway and another guy with long blonde hair told me that Jason Mawl wanted to see me. I asked who he was and what he wanted and they told me it was a great opportunity and that I should just go see him. I was led to a room and when I walked into it, I saw a very shiny microphone and a man, tall, heavy set, and bald.
Two different houses from dreamland co-mingled. The first house was the one that sits on the boulevard but has the enormous acreage in back that looks over rolling hills, creek and the divided up lots with fruit trees. The other was the haunted house with the really creepy second floor. Both of the houses are white, but in the dream, I was talking with a girl about painting a room in another place, and remarking that I had let over purple and magenta paint from another house I’d painted and I knew exactly where it was stored. What I remembered was that at the front of the haunted house was a large closet where I’d stored the paint. But I wasn’t thinking that the house was haunted when I was thinking about the paint. I only made the connection when I woke up.
Then, I was in the boulevard house, in the upper room to the back left, upstairs. There’s a rounding staircase that goes up 3 floors with an atrium ascending up thru the middle. Someone was holding Kevin M. by the ankles, upside down over the atrium.
I was driving my dad’s old Cadillac El Dorado down the street, looking for an address. I knew I didn’t nee to be at this destination for quite a while but I figured I would like for parking early because I was expecting a lot of people. The address was a large building where two street intersected, that resembled a live-in work environment with a large parking lot for tenants. I pulled into the parking lot but couldn’t find guest parking spaces so I drove out. I noticed that there was a building sitting directly on the corner. It was a single apartment with large windows, and open on all four sides. You could see the people that lived there thru the windows and I was thinking that it looked like a fish bowl, living like that. I drove around the block and found a parking space.
Suddenly, I was in a car with Eric R. and someone else. They were driving me past the fishbowl apartment and to a club. They wanted me to hear the music that had on their stereo. When we got to the club, Erik O. was there from work. He was arranging tables or something and there was a huge group of people there. They were doing some sort of karaoke to original songs. This guy got up and started singing this song that I’d never heard. At first I couldn’t decide whether he was any good, but when he hit the chorus, the song really opened up and so did his voice. He was singing something about being skinned and a cross. I remembered the melody and the sound of the chord progression when I woke and recorded it. I couldn’t remember the lyrics tho.
I was walking along in a school parking lot when I noticed a really large white Cadillac backing out of a parking space. I looked to see who was driving and I noticed it was my friend David B. I walked up to say hello. His hair was really unusual, even for him. It had grown out and was long and straight, hanging down almost to his shoulders. It was parted down the middle, and one side was bleached white and the other side was dark gray. His wife was in the passenger seat and her hair was gingery, and cut in a similar fashion. They said they were going to a concert and invited me to go. The only caveat was that you had to have your hair parted down the middle. I said I’d like to go but hadn’t had my hair parted down the middle since I was about 14. I looked at myself in the window of the car and tried pushing my hair over and made a mess of it. Was it really worth it? I wasn’t sure.
I went to this elevator ATM with two guys. Basically, you press the button to the elevator and the doors open. Once inside, the doors close behind you and you can use the ATM in privacy. I think we had figured out a way to extract money illegally from the ATM because not long later, we went back for more money. This time, there was a security guard and a front-desk clerk. They eyed us suspiciously as we requested to enter the ATM elevator. Instead of letting all three of us in, only one of us could enter. I sat outside chatting with them and attempting to act as comfortable as possible.
I don’t know why I had Jen’s car, nor have I ever seen Jen with a car. But, she had one and I borrowed it. It was dark brown, and reminded me a Chevy Cavalier.  I know I had driven over 300 miles tho I don’t know where I was coming from and I don’t know where I was going. But I do know that I overheated. I wasn’t to thrilled with having someone else’ car break down on me and wasn’t sure what to do about it.
I ended up in a department store tho I don’t know why.  I was walking down the aisle and suddenly I realized that one of my sandals wasn’t on my foot anymore. I looked behind me and there is was laying on the floor. The strap had snapped off and the whole thing had just slid off my foot. I figured it couldn’t be that bad since I was already in a department store, so I went to the front counter and asked them if they had any more sandals. She told me that the sandals had already been on clearance and the remainder of them was downstairs boxed away. I’m like, “Oh great, what am I gonna do now?”
I decided to walk to a local surf shop and buy some new sandals, but there wasn’t a lot of sidewalk where I was so walking barefoot didn’t seem like a great idea so I rummaged thru Jen’s car and found a pair of Mary Janes in her trunk. They didn’t even fit me but I stuffed them onto my feet and started walking. As I was walking, I ran into a small Mexican family who were traveling the same way. I recognized them as people my Dad knew and wondered if they recognized me. I hoped not because I looked pretty silly but wasn’t sure. As I was passing them along the side of the road, I started hearing this voice asking me if I’d checked the water in the car. Well… I hadn’t. I just assumed that Jen had put water and oil in it. I started feeling rather foolish and self conscious because I had driven the car a long way and not done any maintenance too it.
I was walking around in Mervyns… You know, the average American family store that was bought you by Kole’s, or they went bankrupt, I’m not sure. It’s a pretty familiar store too me because I’ve been shopping there since I was a kid. It was never chic or hip, but that had good durable clothing, the kind that my dad used to wear when he was fishing or working on the car.
So, I come upon a sales clerk and I ask him, “Will you shred my wallet for me?” He assures me that they don’t have any such service. Now, this wallet is pretty new. I’ve only owned it for a little over a year, and buying it was a very big deal because I had the previous wallet for about 18 years. Yes, it was old. Yes, it was falling apart. It was made of brown leather and it said Harley Davidson on it. It actually had holes in it and I’d re-stitched it more than once to keep things from falling out of it. Don’t ask me why I kept it for so long, but I did. The fact that I’m actually asking this guy to shred my new wallet is odd, but what’s more odd is that I want him to shred it’s contents as well; driver’s license, credit cards, you name it. I have to do a little convincing but I finally get him to agree and I hand him my wallet and he walks off.
I’m walking around trying on clothes and it doesn’t take me long to realize that I don’t have any money to buy anything because I’ve just given my entire and wallet complete with contents to a sales clerk. I decide to leave but walk over to the cash register just in time to see the cashier pushing my wallet thru this massive shredder that looks like the end/beginning of an escalator. Sho’ nuf, the wallet goes right thru and it shred into a bazillion pieces. Here’s where I just go off the deep end. Just for kicks, I start screaming at the cashier, waving my arms and pounding on the counter, telling him what an imbecile he is for shredding my wallet and berating him for having no intelligence, and “How could anyone be so stupid to shred someone’s wallet?” He’s really nervous at this point, probably ready to pee himself, but he’s able to squeak out, “There’s a security camera and the guard will be arriving shortly.” I take this as a signal to end my charade and leave the store, exit stage right.
When I get out to the parking lot, I realize that my truck is parked REALLY far away. So, I start running as fast as I can, not because I’m running from anything, but simply because I have this huge amount of energy to burn. I’m sprinting thru this parking lot and I’m running up on ramps and dodging people, looking out for cars, and enjoying this freedom and strength that I have. I see my truck up in the distance…
I was put into some sort of concentration camp or slave trade in India. I don’t know how I got there but I had nothing but the clothes on my back, what little there were of them. I was forced to work from sun-up to sun-down picking out of the fields. One day, there was a large group of workers that would be going to an alternate field and I was at the tail end of the group which meant that I would be finishing up the previous job and have a little time to relax in the shade of a large storage building. As I was doing so, someone I knew suggested that I follow him to a location where I might be able to escape with him. He led me to the shore of a subterranean lake or river and told me to get in. I soon realized that this was some sort of septic system and as we floated along, flotsam and jetsam from humanity flowed along with us. I kept my head above water so as not to co-mingle my intake with the waste. It got darker and darker and I had expected that I would be able to keep my friend near me but we didn’t tether together and I soon realized that I was alone and rushing faster with the current toward the center of the current. This turned out to be a sort of spring that came up about 4 feet from the surface of the water. I could tell that there was a lot of sewage spewed up thru this thing and I would be wise to avoid it. I somehow was able to will myself away from this strange fecal fountain and as I did, I was thrust onto the shore of this strange subterranean land. To my astonishment, there was an elevator. I was wet, and probably a bit soiled, but I got into the elevator and went to the other floor that it stopped at, there were only two apparently. I stepped out into a round room in a building. There were tourists and some tables where sales people were peddling their wares. One of the booths was for American tourists, especially those of the younger party set, so I went over there to see if I could get some information on how I might retrieve my identity and proceed when I had absolutely nothing, no money, no identification. I remember feeling a bit self conscious about my appearance but knew that there was nothing I could do about it and I needed to make the most of it.
I was a some sort of gathering of people and I left on someone’s scooter. I was riding thru this little industrial area on a curve and it felt like the breaks were failing and I was going too fast. It made me nervous since I was on a curve and there were quite a number of people around so I decided to stop and take a look at the breaks. Next thing I remember, I was talking to the woman who owned the scooter and she was remarking that she too had a bad experience with the breaks.
I went to one of the warehouses in the area and people were being moved from one warehouse to another, some sort of accommodation. I went inside one to see how the arrangements were working out and when a stepped back outside, I saw a huge trail of smoke ascend into the sky. I followed the trail and saw that it had become a demon of some sort. It wasn’t too intimidating until another trail of black smoke ascended in into the sky after it. This culminated into a huge ferocious demon that looked like a gargoyle. It swallowed the first demon and as it did so, a huge rope of fire ascended into the air and encircled the demon. I wondered if this had anything to do with the harboring of the people.
This took place in dreamland by the wash behind Ventura Blvd. I remember ending up there at the end of things.
