I was going to let the shuffle session roll on over this
weekend. However, on Friday night I had
a dream. My dreams are usually colourful
(yes, I dream in colour) and can be quite surreal. They are often hilarious, at least to me; “M”
has reported she’s frequently heard me laughing in my sleep.
Some of the more bizarre dreams have involved major rock
stars intruding into my life. I have no
idea why. It can’t be that I have a
hidden desire to get up on stage with them as none of these actually involves
my playing music with them. I can only
guess as to the meaning of these dreams.
And so, as this is a music related blog, I have decided to
commit Friday night’s dream to writing along with some of the other, ahem, more
memorable ones I can remember. I’ve
decided to preface each one with a little title of my own and would like to
remind anybody reading these that my dreams and these transcriptions are
subject to copyright. My own interpretation
of each one follows at the end.
The Little Purple Ninja
Killer?
I am a member of Prince’s inner Melbourne circle of hard
core fans. He has come to our fair city
for a major live global telecast from Rod Laver Arena and has invited that inner
core for a pre gig “briefing”. We arrive
having no idea what he’s got in mind but it quickly becomes apparent that he
wants us all to participate during the show in some way. Tasks are allocated; I’m selected to be a Prince doppleganger that
he will “kill” during the gig. He demonstrates
what he has in mind with another member of the inner core who is upset to only
have the rehearsal gig. Prince asks him
to run; he’s half way down the general admission area when Prince produces a ninja
throwing star in the shape of his symbol and throws it in his direction. I’m horrified as I see it slash the poor guy’s
throat and he collapses. “He shouldn’t
be too disappointed”, Prince murmurs, “I’ll probably put that in as an extra on
the DVD.”
By the time he’s said that, I’ve decided to run. Prince giggles, and lets me have a head
start. I start to stumble through the
maze of passageways in the bowels of Rod Laver Arena as he mounts a silent hovercraft
and starts to hunt me down. As I flee, I
can see cameras filming every step of my flight. Eventually Prince corners me in front of a
poster for a long ago Billy Joel show at the venue. I plead for my life. He stands up and makes as if he going to
throw the star ……. and then yells “Cut”. He then explains that all he wanted was
realistic footage of someone fleeing for their life for inclusion as backscreen footage during I Would Die 4
U. The earlier “death” is explained as a
hoax and that the “victim” was actually one of his roadies. He informs me that as a reward, I will be “resurrected“
later in the gig to solo with him during
The Cross. I tell him I cannot play guitar
and he brushes that off as a minor detail, telling me that he’ll teach me how
to play like him……
My interpretation:
this dream reveals my greatest fear – being exposed to Billy Joel at the moment
of my death.
One More Cup Of
Coffee Before I Go
I am travelling around Europe on holiday by supersonic chairlift
when my father appears in a hologram message dressed like Obi wan Kenobi. He tells me that I need to return home
because my mother needs me. Just why he
couldn’t attend to this duty himself is not explained. Anyway, I dutifully get off at the chairlift interchange
in Frankfurt and hop on the next vacant chair home.
I get off at Melbourne about half a kilometre away from the
family home. It’s Midnight, but it’s
full moon and I see everything clearly.
Then I notice that in my absence an entire block of houses has been
demolished and a shopping centre erected in its place. I look at the board of occupants and notice
there is a nightclub. Underneath that is
a temporary sign, TONIGHT, IGGY POP (U.S.A), ONE NIGHT ONLY. I forget about my Mother; some things are
simply more important. I rush past a lot of closed shops and a 24 hour café,
find the venue, get a ticket, dive into the crowd and force my way to the
front.
I’m there just in time for the start of the gig. The band roars into Search And Destroy; Iggy
comes barrelling onto stage, naked torso glistening in the hot lights. He approaches the mic but something’s wrong
with his voice; it’s as though Bob Dylan is inhabiting his vocal cords. Most of the crowd doesn’t seem to care. Bottles, fluid, boots, underwear and artificial
limbs are flying everywhere. Amid the
chaos at the end of the number Iggy spots the concerned look on my face. He comes to me and says, “Oi, mate. My voice is a bit rough. Do you mind getting a cup of coffee to
lubricate the old voice?”
With that, I’m off, and head straight to the 24 hour café. I go inside and order a soy latte, regular
latte, cappuccino, mochachino, flat white and espresso. The barista goes about his task extremely
slowly, insisting on telling me the story of his miserable life condemning him
to work late shifts. But I don’t care. At several points of his story I tell him, “You
don’t understand, these are not for me.
They’re for Mr Pop ” but I’m
unsuccessful.
Eventually, laden with the coffees, I make my way back to
the venue. By now the gig has ended and
the audience has gone home. As I
carefully make my way through the debris on the dancefloor, I see Iggy sitting
on the lip of the stage. “Ah, thanks for
my coffee. But you sure took your time.”
He takes one and assumes a yoga position. I put the others down in front
of him, select one and start to tell him the story of my night…..
My interpretation:
this dream is a reminder to always put the interests of others ahead of
yours. After all, if I had asked Iggy
what type of coffee he wanted, I could have caught the encores.
No Sex Please Madonna,
I’m From Melbourne
I’m the manager of a successful bookshop in Carlton, near
the University of Melbourne. One day, a
visiting American enters the shop and rummages around. She doesn’t buy anything but asks me out for
a date. As she’s reasonably attractive I
agree and she leaves. One of my staff
tells me that I’ve just agreed to go on a date with Madonna. I respond with, “Funny, she doesn’t look like
Madonna”.
Things fast forward to the end of the date. We’re walking arm in arm having, apparently,
hit it off. I’m vaguely aware of a media
scrum behind us. She takes me to an
office building in Elgin Street with large windows at the front revealing the
interior of the building. She asks me
in for coffee. When she switches on the
lights, I can see she’s turned the entire office into a bedroom, the centrepiece
being a giant mega sized bed. The media
scrum set up outside the windows; I notice there are no curtains inside.
Madonna, starts to caress me. I ask her if she intends to do anything about
the media outside. She tells me that it’s
better to embrace the attention.
Increasing panicky, I tell her that I still have to live in this city. She dares me to be a man………….I wake up in a
cold sweat.
My interpretation:
I don’t care what my wife “M” thinks. I
throwing away our copy of Notting Hill.
My Boss, The Boss
Some men are born great.
Others have greatness thrust upon them.
And then there’s me. I’m on a
freighter headed for the South Atlantic Ocean island of Tristan de Cunha to
watch a special gig by Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band. On board is the ship’s crew, Bruce, the band,
roadies, a massive press corps and me. Most
of the press is not there to report on the gig.
Rather, they’ve become aware that Mrs Boss, Patti Scialfa, has not made
the trip with the band. They can smell
blood.
I’m working out in the ship’s tiny gymnasium. Bruce enters.
We exchange greetings and compare notes on our workout plans. I help him with his sit ups, we assist each
other in adjusting weights and attempt a one on one basketball drill that’s not
all that successful. (The swell of the
Atlantic makes it difficult to adjust one’s shot making.) He asks what I think of his then latest album
Working On A Dream.
I tell him it’s better than Magic but he really needs to drop Brendon O’Brien
as his producer. Impressed by my honesty, he
tells me that the media are spoiling his trip and would I mind facing them to
deny there’s any problems with his marriage.
He fills me in on the truth; there are no problems. Pattti just wanted to stay home.
I front the media and do a reasonable job, keeping the “no
comments” to a minimum but effectively telling the truth without disclosing
anything. Bruce is impressed. He offers me the gig as his media liaison man. I accept……
My interpretation: it’s a dream come true, beyond my wildest hopes….. I’m a gym junkie!
The Swedish
Antichrists (with sincere apologies to Joseph Conrad and Francis Ford
Coppolla)
I am a special operations soldier. I’m summoned to my Commanding Officer who
tells me that I’m to go on a one man trip to “destroy the enemy”. When I ask
him who it is, he responds, “You’ll know when you find them.”
And so I start on my trip.
I’m taken to an Inca pyramid with a difference. Each step level is effectively a moat; to
proceed upwards, I need to take a kayak and paddle to the opposite side. My kayak tows a sea trailer of giant lego
blocks; when I get to the designated landing point, I need to pull the trailer
towards me and assemble the blacks into a staircase that gets me to the next
level/moat. There sits another kayak and
trailer and the entire process must be repeated over and over to get to the
next level.
I ascend the first few levels and found nothing else. All the time I wondering, “Who is the enemy”. Eventually I arrive at the top of the
pyramid. There’s nothing but a
view. I hear a squeaking sound and I
spin around in time to see a trap door opening.
Two people get out, a man and a woman.
Immediately it dawns on me that the enemy is Roxette and I must destroy
them.
Per Gessle heads straight for me but is surprisingly easy to
beat. Marie Fredriksson turns out to a
true Amazon. With a masterful maneuverer,
she disarms me as I stepped back from Gessle’s lifeless corpse. This is going to entail man on amazon combat.
We start to trade blows but neither of us flinches. Eventually, she takes out my legs from
underneath me and jumps on top. I try to
get on top and we start rolling along the ground. Eventually we topple into the upper level
moat.
There it turns into a true battle of survival. I get in some
good blows and notice she doesn’t have the same water skills as myself. I get one arm around her neck and gradually position
my body underneath hers. Arching her
body backwards I start to reign in the blows; “This is for Dressed For Success”
, I gasp, “This is for It Must Have Been
Love”, (thump) “Joyride”, (thonk) “Dangerous”, (wack) “The Look”! Sufficiently
weakened, she surrenders.
At this moment, everything goes whoosh and I am
transported into a different reality. I’m
now at the beach in the South of France with Marie, blissfully in love, singing along to Dressed For
Success …………
My interpretation:
whilst this dream was meant to convey my hatred of blandly processed anonymous pop,
any solution that advocates violence on women is totally unacceptable and must
be punished by the infliction of the greatest amount of pain.
