1/12/2024 –
As I drift into liminal oblivion I’m floating in the passenger seat of a car as we’re driving around an unspecified city. I quickly note that the only thing of significance here seems to be how mundane the cityscape environment I’m exploring is. It’s just a normal ass city and typically I’m accustomed to more exotic fare in these sitches. In fact, it’s not just the city that’s boring, we’re in intentionally bland parts of the city. The one place we linger in reminds me very much of this nondescript highway offramp near Greenlake. Into the blandness.
Now I’m sitting next to Lars Ulrich at this large black extended dining room table and it feels like we’re here for breakfast. I take a seat and Lars sits at the head of the table next to me. Before diving into his food he twirls his spoon like a drum stick above his head for a while, then reaches behind me and high fives his two sons sitting down the table, twirling his spoon the entire time. I must say that I’m impressed. Being able to twirl your spoon like a drumstick while doling out high fives with the same hand like it’s nothing is in fact pretty sweet.
Down the road I’m in a dark yet white walled man cave condo situation. Just a gaggle of bros drinking liquor late at night and quite spontaneously the topic of the greatest guitar players of all time or some variation thereof comes up. I don’t remember what the first bro’s take is, but the second dude is all:
“I’m almost embarrassed to say it man, but Eddie Van Halen!”
He then gets very animated and his explanation of why EVH is one of his guitar heroes is accurately mimicking the bombasity of his playing, which is entirely the point. It’s right in your face just like his exaggerated explanation for why he loves the style. Now it’s my turn and I’m all:
“David Gilmour. The way he calculatedly takes the simplest blues riffs in the universe and turns them into pure gold. The absolutely hypnotic precision with all the bended notes designed to maximize impact. The writing.”
Then I pause for a second and elaborate:
“Oh yeah, and just the overall sound obviously. The clean combination of reverb, wah, and delay. Classic shit.”
I wake up and contemplate how David Gilmour and Eddie Van Halen might as well be at polar opposite Yin/Yang sides of the guitar playing spectrum. It’s like I chose Gilmour after that guy’s answer on purpose as a counterbalance. Something to think on involving my own playing as well. Try to be showy and in your face but also calculated and precise. Interesting.
One more thing. After I wrote the first part of this entry and then pieced together some dream journal blogs I threw my iPod on shuffle for over 3 hours while working on various projects. I kept meaning to put on something else but an intuitive feeling kept stopping me. I rarely use shuffle this long and right when I was about finally shut it off after wrapping up everything, what band came up? Metallica. I thought Lars Ulrich was the most random person to show up in my dream life imaginable but there you go. Non-sequitur precog for the win.
One other thing, later that same day I was looking at my Google feed on my phone and not only did articles about both Eddie Van Halen and David Gilmour come up, but an ad for a David Gilmour guitar pedal came up quite specifically. I’m not sure if I’d even chalk this up to precog synchronicity or constant advertising patterns infiltrating my head. In this instance it’s a fine line.
1/13/2024 –
I’m drifting into the ether deep into a forest in the winter. At first it seems mostly deciduous and midwestern but the second this occurs to me there’s a switch. Now it’s conifer city. Just standard pacific northwest forest scenes in the middle of winter with a light dusting of snow. The only odd thing is that it feels like I’m driving around in a car but there is no car. There are no roads.
This leads into a vision where I’m with my wife at the dockside restaurant where we ate the prior evening. When we get up to leave I put my arm firmly around her shoulder and we walk out embracing. I pull out of this experience finding it a bit odd because my wife’s not a super huge fan of PDA, neither am I. A little here and there wouldn’t hurt though, I suppose. Also, I’m realizing that the strangeness I’m feeling partially has to with my pug who’s sleeping in my arm in the exact same way I was embracing my wife in the vision.
The next thing I know we’re back home. We’ve already had sex and are sitting on the couch on the second floor watching television. She wants to go back upstairs to have another go at it and what’s funny is that I don’t really want to if I’m being honest. I’m old and it can take a bit longer to recover than it used to. I’ll put in my best effort though I suppose.
In a liminal state I’m now told that I saved her life. She would have drank herself to death without me and truthfully, I probably would have done the same. None of this is new information to me but I suppose a quick refresher never hurts.
Now I’m watching the making of Geri Halliwell’s new music video (Ginger Spice, I had to look it up too). It’s a song that sounds a hell of a lot like Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega and I’m noting what a blatant rip off it is. Then I’m looking at the video shoot set up and am like:
“Wait. It’s even set in a diner on purpose. It’s just her sitting at a table and drinking a cup of coffee in a diner.”
Shameless.
1/14/2024 –
Before going to bed I’m infiltrating a rooftop Cyberpunk party in a video game, then while drifting into a trance I’m doing the same thing. The art direction is slightly altered here but other than that, pretty much the same experience except my mind is immersed in it here.
The other thing that’s different is that I go outside on one of the balconies surrounding the main ballroom area and my perspective shifts outside of me and over my head. I’m looking at myself from above and beneath the platforms of the red metal deck I’m standing on are these 3 huge cylindrical dark energy contraptions, which I immediately associated with the Master Control Program in Tron. This association is made without my actually remembering what the Master Control Program in Tron even is. I just looked it up but yeah, that’s what I immediately associate these cylindrical dark energy constructs beneath me with for intuitive reasons.
Now I’m working on some video game project. When you reach various achievement points in the game, this prototypical aging 80’s metal looking dude with clearly died slightly poofy jet black hair and round black rimmed sunglasses pops up on video to give you bitchin’ guitar tutorials. I gotta admit, this guy was a great choice because he’s just so goddamn ridiculous. Like an exaggerated version of Vito Bratta and cocky as hell. Your prototypical condescending guitar nerd, who’s clearly kind of a loser but in an awesome way. Anyway, where should these lesson plans interject themselves in the game? They all seem pre-recorded so we’re just sorting out which gameplay milestones will trigger them. That’s the project.
In the next scenario I’m at what feels like this charity fundraiser of some sort at either Michael Jordan’s mansion or his private restaurant or some shit. The point is that we’re eating in this fancy huge window filled dinning room at sunset and Michael Jordan’s right over there eating his meal at the same time. Everybody’s sort of low key freaking out and trying to not be super obvious about taking pictures and stuff but still doing it anyway. One little kid comes over to say hi and he’s dressed up in a super fancy suit. None of the other people there are dressed that fancy so MJ asks him why he went so big. The kid tells him something to the effect of:
“You just mean so much to me, me dressing up is an expression of how much you mean to me.”
This is obviously adorable and after dinner we’re all just sort of waiting around doing a cocktail hour sort of thing. There’s another part of the event that’s supposed to happen and it’s taking longer than we expected but when his Airness returns we understand why. Guy’s dressed up in his most over the top fancy suit imaginable, and one of the kinds that only people with professional athlete type bodies can even attempt. MJ now looks over the top flashy as hell as he has kids on his lap and hands out gifts. It’s like he’s Santa Claus or some shit and the whole thing really is endlessly precious.
I’m hanging out in the hallway when I run into my family. Uhhh, yeah, I was cool with heading out a while ago now that you mention it. Let’s jet.
Also, while you're here, do you like psychedelic industrial noise rock? Of course you do!
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