beautiful, funny, sad & true

This month is effing crazy.

First twelve days of the month, I have only one day with nothing extracurricular planned. Then I have a few blissful days of nothing–besides work, that is–before the craziness starts in again. From the 16th on, I have only four ‘me’ days.

It’s like, play rehearsal, play rehearsal, gig, play rehearsal, play rehearsal, actual play, nothingnothingnothing, gig, out of town to mix a CD, friend’s birthday, gig, gig, gig, out of town to be best man in friend’s wedding, nothingnothingnothing.

So that’s why I’ve been a little more scarce lately. I’ve been traveling at close to light speed for this whole month.

OneYearAgo

At rehearsal today, the director told us about this series of videos where a guy took each cartoon strip of Garfield and turned it into a live-action video, and then they have a remixed song or a little video after it too.

Well, I was intrigued, so I came home and found a few. I started watching them and found that they are completely strange and mesmerizing. They’re some of the weirdest things I’ve seen in a long time, but they’re done as a tribute to Jim Davis, out of love. See for yourself:

See what I mean? They’re crazy, but you can tell that the filmmaker isn’t making fun of the strip. This seems to be a bit of an obsession, but then isn’t that where all the best things come from? I’ve said it many times before; the worst crime of all is to be boring.

Check out the web site for all the videos you can handle, and then some.

Last night, I actually had two dreams that I remember.

The first was a car crash dream, but it was different from the countless others that I’ve had, by virtue of the fact that it involved my car.

* * * * *

I’m in Yakima, and I’m driving on 54th Avenue. I’m stopped at a stop sign, and attempting to turn right onto Lincoln Avenue. Justin B. is riding in the passenger seat, and we notice that there have been quite a few accidents already. There’s one wreck to our left, and three or four groups of totaled cars to our right. We pull out to look past the wreck on our left, when a blue Chevy pickup comes racing past all the wrecks. We see him, and have only enough time to say, in unison, “We’re screwed,” before the truck hits my fender and sends my car spinning to the side of the road. We’re not hurt, but the fender goes sliding up the road, and suddenly my car’s interior is all white and padded with cloth. I get out and walk up the street to retrieve the fender. The back side of it is painted a sort of olive-green abalone color, and as it reflects in the sun, I think, ‘Wow, that’s really pretty. I wonder why they didn’t paint the car that color instead?’

* * * * *

And then here’s the second dream.

* * * * *

I’m on vacation, and I’ve brought a couple of friends with me; EngagedFriendChris (though he’s not engaged in the dream) and a woman he is on his first date with. We are on a tropical island in the Caribbean called Tuva. [No, it's not the real Tuva, and yes, I know where the real Tuva is, and that it's not an island.]

Anyway. I’m riding an old bicycle around, and Chris and his woman friend are walking. I’ve been to this island before, so I tell them that we “HAVE to go to the little village that’s just up the road. It’s really beautiful.” We continue on to a place where the road forks, and we can choose between going down the hill toward the water, where the town is, and up the hill toward the forest. The sun is starting to set, so we decide to go to the town. Once we get there, Chris and his friend go off on their own, and I decide to explore the town by bicycle. The town has narrow, cobblestone streets, and there are lots of little shops and restaurants. I ride down an alley, and I’m surprised to find that after a few sharp turns, it comes to an end in a tiny courtyard restaurant. I turn back, so as not to disturb the patrons.

I head back toward the waterfront, and come to a hotel where my family is staying. I don’t go meet them, but instead go down to the large basement room of the hotel, where there are a bunch of other bicycles parked in a rack, and a bunch of little kids down there playing. I leave my bike there, and walk to the other side of the room, to find a few shirts that appear to have been left there. I take them and walk upstairs to the room with my family. We visit for a while, and then I realize that I need to take the shirts back. I go back downstairs and hand the shirts to the man–also an American–who is supervising the children. I go to pick up my bike, but it isn’t where I’d left it. I look everywhere in the room, but it’s nowhere to be found.

* * * * *

Oh yeah, and I just remembered: One Year Ago

At some point yesterday, the conversation turned to Dumb or Funny Things We Said When We Were Kids.

You know, the old standards like, ‘I know you are, but what am I?’ or ‘Same to YOU but more OF it.’ And who could forget the time-honored older brother classic, ‘Why are you always hitting yourself?’ As an older brother myself, I have to say that no one tells you about that one. It’s not as if there’s a group of Freemasons who roam the streets looking for young boys, and when they find you, they pull you aside and whisper the joke to you. Nope, it just pops into your head one day–as if by divine intervention–and you realize that you alone have just created the newest, funniest joke in the history of jokes. You’re not hitting him, he’s actually doing it to himself. You’re just trying to figure out why, and ‘glean what afflicts him’, as Tom Stoppard would say.

‘I’m rubber and you’re glue; bounces off me and sticks to you’ was another great one, and then later in the evening, as I was thinking about this conversation, I remembered a childrens’ song that seems to be sung slightly differently in different regions of the country. You’ll know it, so I’m not even going to name it, but I’m interested to know if you know a different version of it.

Growing up in Yakima, Washington, we all used to sing it this way:

Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts

Mutilated monkey meat

Chopped-up baby parakeet

Lukewarm vomit floatin’ down the street

And me without my spoon (but I’ve got a straw!)

I’ve heard it a bunch of different ways, but as I’m writing this, I can’t remember any of the variations. Maybe you can help me remember some?

Then, of course, there was the infamous F.A.G./M.A.G. scenario, which I’ve already written about. I half-expect that one to turn up in a movie.

When you’re a teenager, all bets are off. You never know WHAT is going to come flying out of your mouth at any given time. My favorite example (and I use the word ‘favorite’ loosely) is when I came home one day to find my brother and his friend were playing a video game; I believe it was Baseball on the Sega Genesis. The score was some ridiculously high number to nothing, and to the person who was losing, I laughed and said, “Man, you’re getting your butt fuckin’ slaughtered.” Both my brother and his friend burst out laughing. They still remember that vividly, by the way, and they like to remind me about it to this day, all these twenty-some years later.

How the heck did I end up telling that?

Well, I guess if you liked that one, then you’ll be glad to know that there are plenty more like it. If you didn’t. . .well. . .there are still plenty more like it.

And I really would like to know if you can remember some other variation of Gopher Guts, and if you remember some of those other dumb phrases that we all thought were so brilliant back in the day.

Oh yeah. . .and here’s one more category I ask you to also be thinking about; Changed Acronyms. For example, when my brother and I would see commercials for TCBY–which stood for “The Country’s Best Yogurt” or something equally innocuous–we’d say, “Too Crusty Butt Yogurt,” and laugh like hyenas. And not just once, either, but multiple times.

So yeah. . .just be thinking about those things, if you would, please. Thank you.

And now I’m going to change my laundry loads, take a nap, and then play the cello for a while, to warm up a bit before the show tonight.

A couple of weeks ago, I made a passing reference to the fact that the BMW 2002 is my favorite car. Since then, this blog has gotten an incredible number of hits from people who are doing Google searches for “BMW 2002″. I mean, it makes sense, but if I’d known how many hits I’d get, I would’ve included that little tidbit a long time ago, along with others like music, sex, the Beatles, Japan, France, Ralph Nader, guitars, Oriental rugs, sushi, Mellotrons, Chamberlins, Haruki Murakami, Jon Brion, cuddling, This American Life, and countless other references to things that I’m interested in.

Who knew that such an innocuous reference would generate so much traffic?

Word to the wise, fellow bloggers. . .word to the wise.