Yes We Can Can

Inca From Peru's 115th Dream

I awoke with a start this morning, at 6:15. I’d been having the strangest dreams. This happens to me sometimes. I have never really talked to anyone about it, or read up much on dreaming. I suspect my dream life is pretty normal. I sure hope so.

I do know we all dream every night, multiple times, and this dreaming is a mechanism for allowing us to work out subconscious conflicts in a relatively harmless way. Most of our dreams, we never remember. The only ones we do are the dreams we wake up in the middle of. But even those we only remember fleetingly, unless we immediately rehash the dream in our mind several times, or go to the trouble of writing the details down.

There are probably ten dreams I have had during my lifetime that I can still recall vividly. They were just so bizarre I kept thinking of them long after they occurred. I have never had a dream that foretold anything, as far as I know. And I am skeptical about the concept of interpreting dreams. You either end up with the explanation that the underlying meaning is explicitly sexual, like Freud did (some of them are sexual in some way, but not all of them, darn it); or you get interpretations which are so vague they might as well be a quatrain from Nostradamus. In this case, your dreams can seem to mean anything you want them to. Though in reality, there is no practical meaning to them at all.

I tend to look at dreams primarily as a way for my mind to ‘clean up its room’, to throw out the garbage that has accumulated there. Beyond that, any interpretation is dubious.

Dreams do seem to have a refreshing effect. If I’ve had a night of particularly disturbing dreams, once I have awakened completely and realized I can let go of my mental distress because it was only some dreams I was having, I feel suddenly refreshed, and unburdened. It is a pleasant sensation.

Who knows? Maybe this has something to do with the common phenomenon of immediate post-somnolent sexual arousal. Which is the most technical way I can think of describing the, you know. . . the crude term used to describe the aroused state some males find themselves in, just after waking up in the morning. Some females, too. There has to be a scientific reason why two people, at the point in the day they are likely at their least attractive – hair all disheveled, no makeup, face needing washing and/or a shave, morning breath – are possessed by the strong desire to engage each other intimately, in the Biblical sense; to tear up the bedding a little bit before they must get ready for work and/or the kids wake up.

I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Freud about this, next time I see him. In my dreams.

*****

In my dream last night, I was in Iraq for some reason, and eventually I was captured and placed in a prison camp with several others. The camp was physically typical, or maybe stereotypical; dirt floors, stone walls, tiny slits for windows. It was uncomfortable for a freedom-loving American, but we weren’t treated badly at all by the guards.

In fact, the camp we were held in was not far from an American military base, and our guards would go out at night and raid the base’s commissary, and steal American canned goods. They would bring the ill-gotten booty back to our camp and give it to us captives to divvy up amongst ourselves. The guards wanted us to have something to eat we would enjoy and be familiar with, instead of the featureless stuff they would otherwise be feeding us, some kind of porridge made of water and semolina flour cooked to a mush-like consistency.

We were pleased and thankful for the canned goods. My favorite was Chef Boy-ar-dee™ Overstuffed Italian Sausage Ravioli, in a 40 oz. family-size can. When I got it, I would bury all but one of the cans in various places around the floor of my cell, for future meals. We prisoners were allowed to keep one Chicago Cutlery® 8-inch slicing/carving knife (with a high-carbon stainless steel blade) in our cell – well, this was a dream, after all – and I would use mine to cut open the top of my can of ravioli. Let me tell you something – if you have been deprived of the basic culinary pleasures for awhile, a cold can of Chef Boy-ar-dee™ Overstuffed Italian Sausage Ravioli can taste as good as the homemade ravioli-manicotti-cannelloni plate at Villa Mosconi in Greenwich Village. A little tinny, okay; but it really hits the spot.

I found out how good “The Chef” could be this past September, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. My family had fled east, into Louisiana, in search of the nearest electricity; but because I had to work, I stayed home – me and the beagle and a couple of box fans and a small generator. After several nights of Vienna sausage with crackers or bland cheese sandwiches for dinner, I dug around in the pantry and found a 15 oz. can of Chef Boy-ar-dee™ Overstuffed Italian Sausage Ravioli. One of my kids’ choices, no doubt. Anyway, I fished it out and opened it (with a big kitchen knife), and I ate the ravioli straight from the can. I was just amazed at how good it tasted. Heavenly. The already odd-tasting sugo (gravy), enhanced with a faint metallic aftertaste; the mushy ravioli wrapper; the stuffing made of the mildest Italian sausage I have ever come across; these had all melded together into a nearly orgasmic palette of flavors. God, I thought; I’ll never go back to Vienna sausage and crackers.

Chef Boy-ar-dee™ helped get me through the post-Hurricane Ike maelstrom, and I will be forever grateful to him for that.

*****

Anyway, that was the entirety of my dream last night, more or less. No sexual conquests of impossible-to-get women. No hitting a home run in the bottom of the ninth to win the big game. No island-hopping the Caribbean on my 57-ft. yacht, various bikini-clad lovelies laying about the deck. Nope. Just me, a humble prisoner of war, enjoying to a ridiculous extent my dinner of American processed food, straight from the can.

Hey, Sigmund. When you get some time, figure that one out for me, my man.

*****

Drinking It All In

Making Hay In The New Age

In case you had not heard, former Saturday Night Live cast member and comedic actor Dan Ackroyd has developed and released a new spirit on the market, Crystal Head Vodka. This promotional ad, chock full of new age nonsense and quasi-spiritual mumbo-jumbo, explains (sort of) Ackroyd’s philosophy behind making a new vodka and putting it on the market, in specially made bottles which supposedly resemble the thirteen legendary and mystical crystal skulls dug up in Mexico, the American Southwest, and elsewhere over the years. These skulls were buried here by aliens sometime back, and possess mystical powers and knowledge. I believe I have that right.

Dan Ackroyd has clearly lost his mind, by the way.

One of the claims Ackroyd makes for the uniqueness of his vodka, aside from it being made from the purest Newfoundland water, and then “quadruple distilled”, and then filtered through Herkimer diamonds for the utmost “neutrality” and purity, is that it is derived from a mash made of fermented creamed corn. Yep, creamed corn. Apparently they took all the creamed corn left over from lunch trays all over the world because nobody eats that nasty crap and why do they serve it anyway? And they dumped it and a bunch of cans of Del Monte™ into a big vat and then let it sit out for awhile. Hence, Crystal Head Vodka, possessing a “unique, sweet and creamy taste.” Lovely.

*****

I doubt I will be purchasing and/or consuming any Crystal Head Vodka anytime soon, or anything else having to do with creamed corn, which is right up there with cauliflower and toxic waste as some of the nastiest shit ever invented by man. But I think Ackroyd, crazy as he is, may be onto something. I am thinking of developing and marketing my own line of distilled spirits, based on various paranormal and mystical-spiritual ooga-booga New Age icons.

•Alien Ale™. Brewed in the Nevada desert, glowing reviews attribute this fine ale with an out of this world taste.

•Bermuda Triangle Rum™ Produced on Walker’s Cay in the Abacos Islands, Bahamas, this tasteful rum possesses a kick that will cause your interior navigational instruments to malfunction; drink enough of it, and you might even disappear entirely, at least for awhile.

•Bigfoot Beer™. Brewed in the American Northwest, the heart of Bigfoot country, and filtered through. . . well, you don’t want to know what it is filtered through.

•Chupacabra Tequila™. A cheap mescal made from surplus maguey cactus plants, and distilled at a refinery outside of El Paso, Texas; drink enough of this “tequila”, and you will believe in the legendary Mexican goat-sucker, and just about anything else anyone tells you.

•Mothman Moonshine™. A rough tasting “white lightning”, 190 proof and distilled in a hollow somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains (we cannot divulge the exact location, for legal reasons), this stuff may not be the smoothest to cross the palate, but it does the trick. . . in addition to causing visions of a giant moth with red eyes, it will assuage the pain of living in a crappy house trailer in West Virginia somewhere, sans teeth.

•Tunguska Vodka™. Distilled in the legendary Tunguska region of Siberia, where the alien spaceship crashed in 1908; this vodka will not only give you an inner glow, but will also set off any Geiger counter in the vicinity, a sure indicator of a quality spirit.

*****

I am excited about my new line of distilled spirits. I think I can get rich off of this idea. Thank you, Dan Ackroyd. All I need to do is persuade some bank to lend me the start-up capital for this venture. That should not be any problem at all right now, should it?

(Special thanks to Gizzmonic and JackAstro)

*****

Big Feets Don't Fail Me Now

Monkey To Man

Two guys say they recently found the remains of a bigfoot in the woods.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

This was in rural north Georgia.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

The remains of a 7+ foot tall, 500 pound ape-like creature were pretty far along in the rotting process, so the fellas dragged it home and threw it into the deep freeze, right next to the ice cream sandwiches and the Totino’s® Pizza Rolls. Of course. The story didn’t say, but these guys are obviously not living with women.

The discoverers, a cop on administrative leave and a former corrections officer, released a photograph on the Internet of their find. Judge for yourself.

I know the people from History Channel’s Monster Quest are supremely pissed off about right now. All that painstaking climbing through the forest and putting out bait and putting up camera traps, etc., and nothing. Then two good old boys out for a walk in the woods down south trip over a carcass and cart it home and cause an Internet sensation.

This whole scenario has so many juicy and compelling aspects that I think I will quit now, and pick up the story again later on, after it has had time to “ripen” some more.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Double Trouble

I And I

Me and my doppelgänger
Were walking down the road
When a man walked up
Who neither one of us knowed

I said, “Hey there, stranger”
He said, “You know me, friend”
I said, “No, not me, gov’nor”
“Maybe you know him”

He and my ghost commenced to talking
And it was plain to see
My ghost didn’t know him
Any better than me

That’s the trouble these days
When you’re out walking with yourself
There is always someone
Who thinks you’re somebody else.

********

Me and my doppelgänger
Were out taking a ride
In my big four-fifty-four
Electric power glide

When the cop pulled us over
I got a nervous blink
He walked up to the window
And said, “Are you who I think?”

I said, “No sir, I’m not
“And neither is he
“We are someone else altogether
“As anyone can see”

He ran a check, anyway
But there was nothing to be found
He said, “You boys can just go”
So I put the hammer down.

********

Me and my doppelgänger, we’re pretty tight, you know
Wherever he wanders, that’s where I go
We don’t take no crap, we don’t take no hell
We just head on down the road, moving parallel

********

Me and my doppelgänger are beyond the pale

We were born to wander and to live alone
Put together in time and dimensionally
We are proud to be out here all on our own

We make our own rules when we're out on the road
We don't pay no fines, we don't pay no toll

We laugh at thunder and dance in the lightning
When the weather gets too heavy, we hop a freight and roll

We’ve met a lot of great men who weren’t so great
We’ve met modern day saviors who couldn’t even stop the rain
We’ve heard the word of God from a surface-to-air missle
And felt the hand of Allah from a hijacked plane

We’ve seen the fire in the sky in the morning light
We’ve seen the buildings tumble into the maw of the city
And when the dust cleared and there was nothing left
We saw the sun setting down on the horizon so pretty

********

Me and my doppelgänger, we think alike, you know
Wherever I wander, that’s where he goes
We don’t take no crap, we don’t pay no mind
We just thank sweet Jesus for the sweet sunshine.

_____________________________________________


I saw myself walking alongside myself, I believe in June or July of 1984.

I was staying at a weekend farm my family has in SE Texas, located in the Big Thicket, a relative sliver of indigenous hardwood forest land, the remains of a vast aboreal forest that once stretched from Texas to the Atlantic Coast of the US. There were three other people staying with me at the farm that weekend.

The farmhouse sat in a large cleared area, amidst 40 acres of land in all. The rest of the acreage was heavily wooded, and the back property line bordered on millions of acres of replanted pine forest owned by one of the large paper/lumber corporations; but the property was not really isolated or secluded. A farm-to-market road ran in front of it, about 1/4 mile from the house. Three miles down the farm road was a four lane state highway.

Around 10:00 or so that evening, I announced that I was going to walk down to close the front gate to the property, along that farm road. This was something that was normally done in the evenings, and no one paid me any mind. I walked out the back door of the house, then down along a driveway to the open pasture, toward the gate. I was following the outline of the dirt driveway across the open land in front of the house. I had a flashlight but was not using it. The farm was far enough away from "civilization" that there was very little if any ambient light, and I was trying to see how far I could get in the dark without using artificial light. On this night there was a half moon, and once my eyes adjusted I could see fairly well.

About two-thirds of the way from the house to the front gate, the cleared area ended, and the rest of the way down the driveway was through thick woods on both sides and a heavy canopy overhead. It was sort of a tunnel effect, and I knew it would be too dark for me to see anything once I got in there. So I was reaching to my back pocket for my flashlight, when I had the distinct sensation someone or something was walking nearby. I immediately thought of a wolf, or a bobcat or a feral hog, all of which I had seen running around those woods at one time another, and none of which I particularly wanted to encounter in the dark. I stopped suddenly to see if I could hear a footfall. I could not. I was still about forty feet from the woods, out in the open, so I looked around in the moonlight, but could not see an outline of anything. I started walking again, and immediately had the same sensation of not being alone. This time, I kept walking but glanced to my right, and that is when I saw myself.

It was an exact copy of me, clothes, hair, gait, everything. I stopped, and so did it. I did not feel fear, but did not turn to face the apparition full on, either, for fear of somehow losing it if I did. We stood and looked at each other (an awkward way of putting it) for several seconds, though it seemed longer. My spirit wraith never spoke (and neither did I), but somehow I got the sense it was trying to tell me, "Do not worry too much. Everything will be fine." Then I felt the strong compulsion to start walking again. I was right up to the edge of the woods by then, so I looked over to my right once again. And it was gone.

I should say at the time I had just been through the breakup of a long-term relationship and some setbacks otherwise, and was fairly depressed and had been drinking a lot recently, including that night. I am certain whatever I saw was not a drug- or alcohol-induced appariton, however. Either my desperate need at the time for some positive reassurance caused me to imagine this second me, or it was some other external stimulus that caused me to see myself, walking with myself, that night. I can say that at the time all my instincts were that what I saw was entirely outside myself, but somehow connected to me. And unlike many doppelgänger stories I've read, I sensed no malevolence at all. I felt quite calm and somehow reassured, not only at what I think my twin was trying to convey to me, but also at the thought that there was another me out there, with another agenda entirely, but also concerned for my well-being. Something like that.

I have had my share of bad times since, along with the good. I had other periods of excessive alcohol consumption, as well. However, this is the only experience I have ever had involving anything that could even remotely be considered paranormal.

In addition, I have never discussed this incident seriously with anyone.

I don't believe in ghosts, or aliens, or any of the other standard paranormal things one thinks of. But to this day I am sure I saw something that night.