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Tuesday , December 14, 2010
We Dream of Beatles, and of Stones: Rockstar Cameos in Our Nighttime Reveries
Not so many moons ago, a reader named Laney asked nogoodforme.com: "When you dream, do you dream of Beatles?" "Why yes!" we cried in unison. "We do dream of Beatles, and of other rockstars too!" And so for the third edition of our long-abandoned Dream Girls, we present the weirdest and wackiest rockstar dreams we ever done dreamt. Please oh please: analyze away!
KAT'S DREAM: PJ HARVEY MAKES A MEAN EGG SALAD
My favorite rockstar dream features probably my favorite rock star of all time, PJ Harvey. It can be said that I have worshipped at the altar of Polly Jean for many years of my life, and although this feeling may have waned a bit in recent years, she's such a part of my DNA that she's become an avatar of what it means to be a creatively fulfilled human being, which is very important to me.
My dream begins backstage at a concert hall of sorts. For some reason, it resembles the classroom of my first elementary school, even though I'm an adult in my dream. The room has an old piano, a zylophone and a set of bongo drums. I'm really nervous because I'm supposed to go onstage to sing some fucking aria and I've never sung in front of a crowd before. I can hear them from the other room, and I can see the crew setting up lights just outside the door. Polly bustles in, looking like she does during her Uh Huh Her years with the cool haircut and ironic clothing. "Kat!" she exclaims, both friendly and impatient. "What are you doing? You've got to start warming up!" I tell her that I've lost my voice. For some reason, in my dream, I have this weird vision flash to a tiny key in my throat in the shape of a bird (a la Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.) Polly just sighs, saying she's been there before. She runs back out, leaving me to glance out onto the stage area, which is dark and kind of foreboding. She comes back in, lugging a gigantic crate of hardboiled eggs. "I know just the thing," she says, and starts preparing an egg salad. "You need lots of protein to support your voice. Otherwise it won't be strong enough to reach to the back of the hall." She starts mixing in other random ingredients, telling me what the function of each one is. She's very friendly throughout, finally handing me the largest salad I've ever seen in my life. I start to panic, saying I have to go on in ten minutes and there's just not enough time to eat it all. She nods, knowingly, as if anticipating this response. "Trust me, it's magic salad." So I have a bite of the PJ Harvey egg salad, and the strangest thing happens: it's as if I can feel my throat expand. Not like it's getting physically bigger, but like the muscles are widening to make room for some big sound. Consequently, it makes eating huge amounts of the salad easier. Finally I finish it, and PJ rushes me along to the stage and I go onto it. I can't see anyone but then I let out the first note of the aria and it's GIGANTIC and I'm like, "Yay! Thank you, Polly Jean!" (Kat)
LIZ'S DREAMS: DAVID LEE ROTH AND MICK JAGGER SAVE THE WORLD, AT THE MALL
As it turns out, I had a Paul McCartney dream just the other night: I was going to see Paul play a show, and had seats right up against the side of the stage, and of course I was just pleased as punch. All I really remember is that between songs Paul kept wandering over to where I was standing, and he'd stare down at the crowd and smile and shake his head in this doting-grandfather kind of way, like: "Oh, you kids are just too adorable for words!" It was so nice of Paul to make us feel loved like that.
But yeah, I dream about famous people all the time; it's "my thing." Here's some of my fave rockstar dreams, or at least my faves of the dreams I can remember right now:
+ There's an intergalactic war on, and for some reason it's taking place entirely at Westfield Shoppingtown Topanga (which is a mall, FYI). I'm a little girl and John Krasinski's my guardian and I'm kind of in love with him. We're trying to get to safety and there's all this Star Wars-esque laser gunfire all around us and it's so scary but I feel really safe with my hero Jim Halpert. And then David Lee Roth magically appears, does many backflips down the length of the mall, and all of a sudden the war's over and intergalactic peace is achieved. Well done, Diamond Dave!
+ I'm in the mall again! But in Rhode Island. Everything in the world is sad but I can't remember why. And then 1972-ish Mick Jagger magically appears, grabs my hand and kisses my wrist, leaving an imprint of his mouth on my skin forever. All of a sudden the sadness is gone and worldwide happiness is achieved. Well done, Sir Michael Philip!
+ Flea and his beautiful bride Frankie Rayder have invited me and my friends over to their house. When we get there, Flea and Frankie tell us all: "You can hang out with us and stuff, but only if you answer the doorbell whenever it rings and do the dishes when everybody leaves." And then they put us in another room to watch movies on cable while they and all their friends have dinner. It's kind of a drag, but I'm not terribly bummed out, because I'm just happy to be there.
+ I'm in college again, which is also kind of a drag, because post-college life generally kicks college life's ass (IMHO). I'm living in the dorms with one of my BFFs, but she has to go home a lot since she's married and has a one-year-old baby and stuff. The dorm janitor is Peter Wolf from the J. Geils Band, but he has huuuuuge hair and wears tons of makeup and generally looks/dresses just like one of the New York Dolls. Actually, he talks just like one of the New York Dolls as well (David Johansen, to be exact), and it's so endearing. Whenever he comes into my room to empty the trash cans, he gives me love and life advice, really nonsensical but still inspiring stuff that I really wish I could remember. I'm sure it was all very wise! Now I'm in love with Peter Wolf a little.
+ I'm babysitting and the doorbell rings and I answer and Kurt Cobain is lying on the front steps in a heap and he needs my help. I drag him to my car and pull him into the front seat because he can't walk, and he can't talk either. He's just slumped over looking really helpless and small and I know I'm supposed to take him to a hospital. So I'm driving and I turn away for a second and when I turn back Kurt's gone, disappeared into thin air. That's all. (BTW, I had this dream in between that time he tried to kill himself in Rome and the time he actually killed himself, and it made me so sad. Probably because it is so sad. Poor Kurt.)
+ One time in college I had a sex dream about Polly Harvey. IT WAS HOT!!!!!!!!!! (Liz)
WOULDN'T IT BE WEIRD IF I DIDN'T WRITE ABOUT JOHN LENNON?
I am a terrible dreamer. My dreams are dreary and spiritless. Here is a dream I recently dreamed: I am checking Twitter, and all the green Iran protest userpics have turned ungreen again! I have trouble figuring out who is who on my Twitter feed. I also dream many stressful dreams about having to complete a nonsensical task that I am incapable of carrying out due to an aggro shitstorm of unforeseen obstacles, and then the taskmaster yells at me. But mostly, yes, I dream of Twitter.
I dream of Beatles infrequently. I have no recollection of ever dreaming about Paul McCartney, which I can only assume is because Sir Paul doesn't Twitter. Recently, I had a great dream wherein I lucked into a bunch of never-before-seen footage of 1964 Ringo & George. They were both very drunk. George Harrison was so wasted that his eyes kept rolling back into his head, which was troubling. Ringo was dancing wildly, and I could communicate with him through the video screen. He gave me a thumbs-up sign.
John Lennon is the Beatle I dream about most. I have a recurring John Lennon dream that I've been having about once per year since I was sixteen. When I was depressed and a stoner and living in Montreal two springs ago, I thought my John Lennon Dream might give me a boost, so I got into the habit of drawing hyper-detailed "DREAM ABOUT JOHN LENNON" doodles in my notebook every night before falling asleep. I hoped that by doing so, I would tip off my subconscious to the possibility of Having My John Lennon Dream, but it never worked. You can't force these things, you know?
I finally dreamed my John Lennon Dream again in December of last year, which was a very dark time in my life, and I really needed to have my John Lennon Dream, much more than I had in the spring. So this proves for once and for all that John Lennon and I are cosmically connected, probably. My John Lennon Dream is not very hilarious, but it is very sweet, and it is very important to me.
__
It is in the soccer field of the private elementary school I attended between fifth and eighth grades. It is overcast and wintery. In the middle of the field is a frozen-over pond and John Lennon and I are tying up our ice skates on a wood bench next to it. We are pumped to go ice-skating. He is Plagued by Dysmorphia-era John Lennon, wearing the brown suede jacket and little cap, but with hockey skates. We skate in circles and are enjoying ourselves. But then the sun comes out, very quickly, and the winter turns to spring. Dandelions come up around the pond, and the pond begins to melt. It turns to slush and mud. But Laura Jane and John Lennon want to ice-skate, and we are NOT taking no for an answer! We skate around the unfrozen pond, even though it is not ice, and we are tripping and falling and getting dirt all over our jeans. We won't stop. We are laughing so hard it hurts, which makes skating on slush even more difficult, and we can't stop laughing, and we won't stop skating, and we hold each other's shoulders and nothing has ever been so funny and fun and, in real life, I will never laugh so hard in my life.
__
I used to have a piece of paper taped to my bedroom wall reading "MUSIC MAKES YOU NOT ALONE". Mysteriously, it is no longer taped to my bedroom wall (it probably fell behind my bed), but that doesn't make it any less true. That statement, to me, represents the crux of why the Beatles are the Greatest Band of All Time: because they were the first band whose creative output was defined above all else by the identities of the people who made it, so when you hear them, you are directly interacting with the men, I mean, dudes, behind the magic. Beatlemaniacs talk about the Beatles like they are their best friends; you don't do that with the Zombies. And even if you know absolutely nothing about what Paul McCartney and John Lennon's personalities are/were like, you would still be able to listen to "Penny Lane" and figure out that Paul's a cutesy egomaniac who's got it all figured out, or hear "I Am The Walrus" and gather that John is an emotionally unstable lunatic wholly enslaved by the artistic temperament.
I listen to the Beatles a lot, but mostly I listen to Paul songs, because John songs make me feel too not alone, and often, I don't have it in me. If I am bopping along down the road, just smilin' and stylin' and havin' an okay time of it, I would never expose myself to "Strawberry Fields Forever"- I pull out that song when I need a dose of heavy-hearted self-reflection; I listen to that song when I feel so alone that all I can do is sit on my bed and stare really hard at nothing, my eyes open creepily wide, and so I may as well listen to "Strawberry Fields Forever" and exacerbate the misery at least. John Lennon is my hero and heroes are necessary because they can always be relied upon. You need them, for those times when all you want is to go ice-skating, but then the dumb ice melts and you can't. And by ice-skating I mean running away to Morocco or eating the thing I'm not allowed to eat today or going to the bookstore and seeing my book on the shelf. Or preferably on the display table at the front of the bookstore, because that's how big of a hit it is.
And when the ice melts, at least there is John Lennon. And I think maybe I suck at dreams because I use up all my dreaming during the day. (Laura Jane)
Tags: David Lee Roth, egg salad, Flea, ice skating, John Krasinski, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Laura Jane Faulds, Laura loves the Beatles, LJ ON JL, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, PJ Harvey, sex, Star Wars, the mall
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2 Comments!!
this is so so so so great.
By Rosie on November 3, 2009 9:53 PM
Laura Jane, your dream of John Lennon brought tears (of happiness!) to my eyes. I dream of him too ... but I can only remember wispy images when I wake up.
By Lori on July 31, 2010 6:48 PM