"I keep my visions to myself..."

Now here I go again,

I see the crystal visions

I keep my visions to myself

It's only me

Who wants to wrap around your dreams and ...

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?

You have to love Fleetwood Mac and Steevie Nick's pretty flowy dresses. Ahh. The 70's. Everytime I hear this song, I can remember going down to the Eastern Townchips in my father's shit brown 78 Impalla, the radio turned up high, me in the back seat, stretching my mouth wide open and sticking fingers up my nose as the other drivers whizzed by. But that folks was not a dream, but something that really happened (I actually developed a whole sketch where my hand puppets were singing and dancing to the song "Maria" from West Side Story in the backseat window of the car). But this blog is about a dream I had. It was just too outrageous not to share. So sit back as my warped mind unfolds and spews incoherent rantings your way ;-) Boy! If I could get a dime for every wacked out dream that I wrote down, I would be a millionaire (well, maybe not a millionaire, a hundreds of thousands - aire).

I went to bed last night (God!) this morning at 4am! Its horrible, but my time clock has been set and I have to go to great lengths to re-set it. Going to bed at such an ungodly hour has me waking up later in the afternoon. This is not only a problem because I waste most of my day, only to try to fit everything in before 5am (vacuuming and washing the dishes does not go over well past 3:30am so I have found out...) but I also have some really trippy 'freak me out for the rest of the day' dreams. I think it has something to do with REM sleep states and that after the final REM state of the morning (lets say, you wake up at 7am, you probably have had quite a few REM states during the night, perhaps one before you woke up, lets say 6am), if you go back to sleep after that, your body cycles again through what thinks is night, hence the dream cycle continues - waking up mid afternoon = disturbance is your state of really really far out into la la land sleep.

Here is a concise definition:

Rapid Eye Movement Sleep (REM) sleep is a sleep period during which your brain is very active, and your eyes move in a sharp, back and forth motion as opposed to a slower, more rolling fashion that occurs in other stages of sleep. In addition, during a "normal" night of sleep, people have REM periods every 60-90 minutes throughout the night. These REM periods start off very light and short, but increase in intensity and duration as the night goes on. Your first REM period might be a minute or only a few minutes, but your fourth REM period could last 30 minutes or longer.

It's part and parcel that my anti-depressants might casue some really vivid dreams (see this post) but some experts say that dreams might just be therapeutic. Whatever the case, I just find them too outrageous not to post. So here goes.

(Sorry but blogger is making me run out of space and I cant seem to skip lines!)

Some friends of mine and I were in some barracks outside in the desert (I guess watching too much CNN live coverage from Baghdad will seep into your brain somehow). The sun was pounding on the tarp of the tent that we were sitting in. Mid afternoon, high sun, dry and uncomfortable. I was waiting for someone, I can't remember who, but I had some sort of appointment. I was going to be judged. A swirly mass of stomach acid churned behind my belly button; anxious and disturbed, trying to calm my nerves I sat down in a euro-techno plastic seat next to a woman in a dome/chair hairdryer. She was reading Vogue but the inside of the magazine was filled with photos of food and little children in snow suits running around with blocks and/or wheels of different kinds of cheeze in their hands.

A man who looked like Tobias on Arrested Development (An amazing show. Perhaps the most brilliant sit-com on tv so far, but I digress...) came up to me in a business suit and a belt of bullets over his shoulder. He opened his little granny plastic shopping bag and pulled out a curly and long red haired wig.

This is for you, and you have to run this show. Without you, we are nothing. It cant go on without you.

I felt so indebted to him (was it because I wanted to buy another wig in real life and he beat me to the punch?) and knew that saying no would break his heart. Smiling and taking the wig from his hands, I walked out the tarp covered tent and into the darkness of a nightclub. This club was called Chez Mado. (sorry if I am going link happy on you...)

Now this is a wild club - its in the gay village, so you know right away that it's going to be colorful, but this place is home to all the drag queens and transvestites in the city. They all flock here to watch and participate in the crazy Karaoke nights. I went there on Halloween and the place was packed. I mean PACKED! And the clientele was as varied as the people who shop at Wal Mart. And these performers, so completly over the top, you can't help but get into the insanity and outrageousness of the atmosphere. Enough info there, back to my dream.

BACK TO THE DREAM:

The room still smelled of smoke and floors waxed in cold beer from the night before. It was not quite opening time yet, but a few patrons were lingering at the bar, laughing loudly and clanging their glasses together after every 'wheee!" which seemed to happen about every 5 seconds. Scanning the room for the owner, my eyes adjusted to the darkness. The "Dressing Rooms" sign was hung precariously over a doorway that led down a flight of gold steps. I thought to myself:

Could this be OZ? Not the HBO TV show or the prison in the show, but the spot where tornadoes in Kansas pick you up and drop you off into a land of tiny fat people who wear funny shoes if you visit on a rainy stormy day?

I walked down the steps (I was wearing some beach flip flops which made wet sslapping noises as I descended) and reached a black door. I opened it and by some mode of circular logic, ended up back where I began - entering the club for the first time, but this time I was in costume.

To my horror and bewilderment, I looked down and saw myself wearing this God awful tacky and outrageous fire engine red sequined dress with beaded Calla Lilies near my ankles. I stuck out my toe.

God please don't freak me out even more!

My toenails were painted glossy Porsche-mid-life-crisis red. The plastic strap that lay across my foot was cutting off the circulation from my toes which were bone white.

Wonderful - red white and blue. How patriotic.

How psychotic.

I took a step and felt my weight shift forward. These heels were 7 inches high - stripper shoes by all accounts.

And the headlines screamed - Tammy Baker performs lap dances for a living!

I needed to find a mirror fast.

What the hell was I in for? What the hell was going on?

As I attempted to pound my head for dramatic effect, it hit the first layer of my crusty coif. Crunch, crunch.

My wig had been sprayed and teased so much it even the synthetic fibres were on strike. There was a mirror in the distance. The reflection of blurry figure gradually came into focus. A high pitched voice with a tawdry French accent shouted my way:

Darrrrling you looook so gorgeous! Mon Dieu! Hi* could ave not hasked for a more beautiful queen!

A tsunami wave of heat washed over my body. I began to feel like I was trying to digest a tire. I looked like Dame Edna after a heroine overdose. I was staring into the pit of hell, and hell looked back at me, equally stunned.

Oh!! Dey promised me you would come! You ave saved da show! Now come, it's going to be time for da show.

Without warning, I was greeted by and whisked away by the short little bald man who's "Where's Waldo' glasses almost covered his entire face. The black and white striped t-shirt fitted tightly around his tiny yet developed physique. Before I have time to blink again, I am standing backstage to the club. The sounds of people laughing and bad 80's disco began to gradually get louder. My painted and hideous 4 inch long fingernails clutched the velvet curtain tightly.

What the hell am I doing here?

Offstage, the little man waved me into the spotlight in the middle of the stage. Me and my plastic 'break your neck' stripper heels, and my 100 pound sequined dress began to sway. I was hoping and praying that I was not going to be sick.

The little man bounced from behind the curtain and began to talk to the crowd in a language so incomprehensible to me, it could have been Klingon. A hushed silence welcomed my entrance. Little Pumped up Waldo man smiled at me - looked toward the crowd and began to clap. A few claps to the right of me, then some more from the back, anxious claps. Get this show on the road claps. I cleared my throat and at that instant, it all hit me. I now remembered what I had to do, and in a similar broken english/french accent (lets call it Frenglish), I began to speak:

Can someone please tell me wat is the problem wit da national hanthem? Some are so beautiful while hothers sound like dem funeral marches! Who died? You hare celebrating your country no? Den why are you so sad? C'mon, lets get appy!

A few giggles from the peanut gallery, a few claps of acknowledgement. . They were warming up.

Hi tell you, some hanthem are so long - Hi mean come on dere! Like please don't take de hoffence to you my neighbours of da sout - my fellow Hamericans, but - ALLO?!?! Can your hanthem be hany longer hand more complex? Hi mean, hits beautiful hand hall, but eider hi will fall hasleep mid way trou, or hi will just ave to move my lips to pretend that hi know the word hafter da first 15 minutes!

A roar of laughter swept through the crowd. I looked down to see a bunch of older men with their brown beer bottles clink their glasses together. Laughing at the irony of the truth.

But you know dere my friends, hour hanthem his not hany better! Heverytime hi ear it, hit remind me of ha cartoon - you know, where da little men wit rockets har hall marching to da spaceship? Hi tink hits time dat hi change da words ha little bit no? Ere we go!

Ho Canada

hour ome and big bland land

true compatriots love

da fact da we are mad.

Wit smelly farts

we see you run

hour Labatt Blue

wont taste like pee

We stand hon guard

Ho Canada

we tink that we are free

God take that man

ooo runs dis contree

put im away

so we can sleep heasy,

Please take dat ma

so we can sleep heasy!

(music midi file)

The room exploded with cheers and laughter. My throat felt like it had been scraped down by sandpaper. The wig's heinous synthetic cap began to cook my scalp. The layers of foundation began to fall off my face in flecks - worn paint from an old barn. A steady stream of sweat ran down my back and into my control top panty hose (which were doing a good job at baking other parts of my body...) Pumped up Waldo man ran up to me, wrapping his freakishly huge arms around my waist. The crowd cheered. People began to hand me martini glasses with fancy little umbrellas in them. I felt the soft thud of a white rose as it was flung towards my boob.

I saved the show.

I saved the show.

I radiated 1000 kilowatts of glee. And as I leaned over to take a bow, I was woken up by my cat, who while smelling my eye, purring loudly opened her mouth to yawn and expelled the most horrible morning breath this side of a McDonald's dumpster in the desert!!

So my meds? Partially to blame I guess, but I'm not really complaining. I guess what it really comes down to is that I am not alone in my Willy Wonka Land of dreams!

* Many of the people that speak little english here (who are mostly french) have some difficulty pronouncing the letter 'h' - so hair would sound like 'air'. The other phonetic problem lies in the phantom addition of the letter 'h' when words like 'eye' or 'ear' are spoken, which are then pronounced as "I like da color of your heyes" and "you ave really big hears'. Notice the addition of the letter 'h' in 'eyes'.