I dreamed that I was back
in Puerto Rico with the Vivian Girls. They asked me to work on a new song with them. We decided to set up a rehearsal space at my aunt’s beach house. It was taking us awhile to get the instruments properly set up, and Katy was becoming anxious, but I soothed her nerves with a stunning spread of snacks and candies: finger sandwiches, kiwis, grapes, pomegranates, baskets of popcorn, bowls of pretzels and chips, towers of Twizzlers, tall pyramids of Almond Joy…
I didn’t even know that she liked Almond Joy.
Katy took a handful of popcorn and tossed it at me, playfully. She smiled her smile. I laughed. Everything was cool. The girls admired my guitar. It was a vintage Stratocaster, painted across the back with gold and white stripes and with psychedelic flowers all over the front. I plugged in and we were ready to play. Then I woke up.
I wonder what the song would’ve sounded like.
***
I dreamed we were
at the Monkeyhaus. John DeVore handed me a Budweiser and asked if I’d like to be in his band. We would be a stripped-down, rocking two-piece: Just guitar and drums, like the White Stripes or the Black Keys or Doo Rag or Talk Normal. I was like, “Yeah!”
We left the Monkeyhaus and got on a bus and headed to my mom’s house where we would build a practice space. I don't know why we didn't just practice at the Monkeyhaus; John was adamant about practicing in my mom’s basement. The bus ride took forever. My mom apparently lived in some bombed-out town that was like a cross between Patterson and Brussels, all these hilly streets with once-grand mansions left to rot, and puddles and potholes everywhere.
We got off the bus at the wrong stop and had to walk through the rain for what seemed like hours. I was totally lost, but I told John that I knew where I was going. I was feeling bad about this. John got hungry and stopped in a place that looked like Katz’s Deli. Then I woke up.
***
I was walking down Newark Avenue, on my way to the Grove Street PATH station, on my way to my mom’s house for Thanksgiving, when I ran into New Jersey rocker,
Tris McCall. He gave me a high-five.
“The new album arrived,” he said.
“That’s so exciting,” I replied.
“I thought about asking you to play on it,” he admitted.
“Oh, man, I would’ve really loved that!”
“Would you have liked that?”
“Yeah!”
“Would you want to play a few shows with me, maybe sometime early next year?”
“Yeah! That would be so much fun!”
“Okay, early 2010.”
“Cool!”
This really happened; it wasn’t a dream or anything. So, we’ll see how it goes. (I am dying to play music with people.)
