Dream XII

I was filling out some cards for a person I knew, as a favor. I presented them to him to see if they were done correctly, and then while he was looking them over, I absent-mindedly crumpled up the sheet of stamps he was going to use to mail them. I carefully smoothed them out, and asked if this was all the stamps he needed; he looked over the stamps (which were fine now) and responded that he would need five stamps, and the sheet only had four. I told him that I had some extra stamps in my car, and I went to get them.

My car was parked in a huge, deserted lot that had a Burger King right in the center. There were no cars other than mine, and that of a friend of mine. His car was about 75 yards away, and I saw that he was approaching it. He saw me at the same time, waved, and called to me, "How come we ended up with four arm positions?" (This was in reference to a video we had worked on together, and something of a shared joke.)

I yelled out, "Because you are gay!" as a joke. I was afraid he was going to take that the wrong way, and come over and be angry with me. I saw, though, that he went to his car instead, because it was hidden behind a small hill, and I saw the telltale sign of car headlights going on (a group of trees were suddenly illuminated).

I got into my own car and started it up and put it into gear; when I reached down to turn on the headlights, I saw that the fabric from the ceiling had become pulled down over the windshield, and over most of the interior controls.

Oh, thank you, God, I thought sarcastically as I tried to roll the fabric back up into the ceiling; however, it was very stubborn and I wasn't making any progress. Aware that I was in a moving, uncontrolled car, I just ripped all the fabric down to see where I was going.

My car was travelling rapidly backwards down the right lane of the street. Fortunately, most of the other traffic was in the left lane, and was doing a good job of avoiding me and my jerking car. The only other car in the right lane was behind me, and it seemed to be going backwards as well, probably out of fear of colliding with me.

Dream XI

I was living in a large, single floor house, along with my uncle, my cousin, and my cousin's daughter and her husband. They had graciously allowed me to stay there, and even given me the use of the den, where I set up a music workshop.

Jim Nabors was also staying there. He was a very untrustworthy character, but he had a kind of charm that could have you agreeing with him, no matter what the proposal; however, once he was done talking, you realized you'd been had, and you never helped him follow through on his schemes.

Today, everyone was out execpt for me, my cousin's daughter, and Jim Nabors. He had already spoken to me about something, and I had agreed with it, only coming to my senses when he had gone off, whistling. He was now trying to convince my cousin's daughter to something about Amazon.com, the bookseller. As I recall, he was trying to get her to buy guns from them, or to convince them that they ought to sell guns. She was hesitant.

For my part, I was moving some of my equipment around, wondering if the Acid software would run on a DOS computer, since the screen was just DOS anyway. I had printed something out, and was sorting through the various print jobs that were still in the output bay. Some of them were on special paper (holes punched, glue areas, etc) and I was putting each kind into a pile. I heard something of Jim Nabor's conversation and I called him over.

"I'm on to your plan," I told him, and continued sorting. He made all kinds of protestations of innocense, saying that he was always being misunderstood and having bad purposes assigned to him. He asked me how I would like this, but I had stopped listening some time ago and was still sorting paper. Distracted, I agreed with him, and when he went off whistling again, I cursed myself for not paying more attention.

He then tried to convince Captain Picard that an 80-page photography magazine was superior to a 128-page one, because the latter was more "work" to read. This sent Picard into a rage, and he said that the 128 page one was better because, even though it was the product of "work," it was done by people who loved photography, and thus it was not work. The 80-page version he condemned as being a "product" to be sold, made by people who didn't care about photography, and could, in fact, be doing almost anything else.

Dream X

I was involved in the making of Team America. I was one of the technicians who was working on a scene where an "Earthshake" destroys Mulder's expensive tuxedo, and turns it into the rumpled suit he usually wears. Everyone knew it wasn't much of a joke, but I was glad to be working on the film.

For the main villain, the film-makers wanted to get some famous hockey player, but he was unavailable, so they got the Fonze instead.

Filming the ending scene, Trey Parker wasn't there so I took his place. Matt Stone and I fought Jason Voorhees as well as the Fonze, and our only weapon was a baby in a plastic stroller. We wanted to bounce the baby off Jason, but we missed; fortunately, Jason swung anyway, also missed, flung himself across the room, bounced back and crashed through a window.

We swung the baby at Fonzie and he turned into a baby, then crashed through the window as well. Matt and I felt bad about that, but reasoned that he shouldn't be hurt, as we were only 275 feet up.

The holes in the window created a tremendous vacuum, which began drawing out all the paper and loose objects. We put a board across the hole and that stopped it. There was some humorous quip about it all, and the film was finished.

Later, I was walking along the beach toward the boat that would be taking us to the premier party. I met the hockey player who was to be the villain, and he was disappointed to know he hadn't gotten the role (the messages never got to him). He named several other hockey players, and asked if they had played the part; I had to profess ignorance at each name, and finally told him that we had gotten the Fonze.

We got to the boat together. It was actually several cafeteria chairs strung together in rows, and lashed to some outrigger-type things that kept it afloat, but only to the point where the seat part of the chairs were an inch below the surface. Another, smaller boat acted as tug, and we took our seats. Our legs dangled underwater. The hockey player made a point of not sitting next to me, which made me feel bad. Then the boat started toward the island where the wrap party was being held.

I noted the tape (like Police Tape) criss-crossing around our structure, and quipped, "Look, it's the International Date Line!" Everyone thought this was amusing, and someone told the story that whenever Bill Cosby wanted to fire someone, he told them they had crossed the International Date Line.

On the way, the person in charge of our boat told us of many things the resort had to offer, and noted that there were lots of sharks in the water. We all laughed nervously at that. He went on to say that "shark riding" was very popular, and showed a brief film. We then saw someone riding a shark not far from the boat. I felt something cold brush the bottom of my feet, and raised my legs as much as I could. We docked at the island without incident.

Several wrap parties were being held on the island, under some old tents. I nearly went to the wrong party at least once, until finally I saw the Team America one. The Fonze was the greeter, giving his trademark "Ayyy..." to let people know where the party was.

The food was mostly fried things, like burritos and chicken, along with pork barbecue and things like that. Scully was there, congratulating everyone on the film. Ian Anderson, of Jethro Tull, asked her where Mulder was. She said he should already be here.

Just then he showed up, in a rumpled leather jacket. Smiling, Ian Anderson asked him where he (Ian Anderson) could get a cup of coffee, and Mulder told him he wasn't interested in answering.

Scully, smiling very widely in alarm, wanted to know why Mulder was being so rude. Ian Anderson answered that this was a routine that he and Mulder did regularly whenever they met; Mulder would ask Anderson for coffee, and Anderson would make some rude remark. This time, they decided to switch just for the party, but Mulder had to type each letter of his response into a small keypad, and it just depressed him, so he decided not to do it.

Dream IX

There was a floating house in a swampy lake area, and the area was infused with a kind of air-borne spore, or fungus.

We had to pilot a boat to the floating house, match it for spin, and then dock; this would allow one of the folks in the house (a rather attractive young woman) to use our boat to climb to the roof of the house, where the fungus could be given a kind of radiant spray which would cleanse the air, and make it safe for humans to return to the area.

The effect of the fungus was rather vague, but there were hints that it took you over, somehow.

The docking procedure went well until the last moment, when the young woman was supposed to grasp the house and the boat at the same time in a complicated movement. She failed to execute it properly; as a result, she was unable to get to the roof of the house.

There was a momentary panic as our results were evaluated. We had successfully docked, and were matching the house spin for spin in the water, but no one from the house could get to the roof. Our success was in jeaopardy.

I was able to get to the roof, however. So I climbed on up the boat and onto the roof, where the anti-fungal spray (several silvery torpedo shapes) could be released. One by one I turned the devices on, and released the anti-fungal spray.

The green haze that filled the air floated down to the swamp, where it merged with the water, and continued down toward the lake bed. We all knew the fungus was not destroyed, just temporarily defeated; it would be back some day.

In the meantime, however, word of the success of the operation spread quickly, and families and other groups soon came to the swamp to hold picnics. We took satisfaction in a job well done, and when we were offered the chance to attend one of the picnics, we did so.

Dream VIII

Bill Warren, author of "Keep Watching the Skies" was giving a lecture about the Three Stooges. He mentioned, jovially, that he was not a fan, but he thought their career was an interesting one. When their first contract expired, they were without another for nineteen and three-quarters years. He then read a series of smaller spans of time (four months, two and a half months, etc) between their other contracts, until the present day.

Then, they went through several "Curly" substitutes until they found Curly Joe DeRita. He was thought to be the perfect complement to the existing team.

Mr. Warren continued to say that the class was going to be allowed to watch the filming of the Stooges' latest short feature, which took place in a large marble swimming pool. So, we all put on our trunks and stood in the other end of the pool (behind the cameras) while the Three Stooges did their antics for the film.

For at least this short, Curly was the aggressive one, and Moe was very meek and deferential. Curly kept yanking on Moe's hair, and I could see where the wig was beginning to come loose. At one point, the wig came completely off in the water when Curly accidentally flung it, and it landed (and sank) near me. I reached into the water, fished around a moment and caught it, then gave it back to Moe, and the Stooges were very thankful. Moe was particularly friendly, and wanted to show me a cat who could swim underwater.

Someone handed him a tabby cat, and he plunged it underwater, then released it and waved toward me. The cat started pumping its legs and slowly swam underwater toward me. It surfaced in front of me and climbed into my arms. Moe told me I could keep the cat.

I wrapped the cat and myself in a bathrobe and made my way to an outdoor meeting we were having at work. The meeting was dull, and I don't remember anything that was said. I was waiting for an opportunity to show off the new cat, but one never came.

The assistant to the president of the company was there, with two pre-teen boys who were her children (in November of 04 she had her first child, a daughter). They were interested in the swimming cat I had. "Are cats difficult?" one of them asked her.

"Yes," my wife answered, before I could say the same.