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Dream Journal

Two Events at the Whybrary, Directions to Lizard Milk Lab

Remembering the occasion when I signed up for a fundraiser of pesto dinner during the pandemic (pesto spaghetti is still one of my favorite meals and has been since I discovered it at she 4). It was served at the Whybrary — perhaps even my first time there. A folding wall separated it into an audience area and backstage.

What reminded me is that I’m at a Dr. Hal Show at the same space, current era. I’m getting to hang out on couches with my friend Laurie O. who happened to also come to the show also; we were friends together in 8th grade. The couches face each other and we each spread out lengthwise, heads to feet. I lean my arm over onto her couch when it gets tippy in order to balance it. The host, Chicken John, notices me do this and immediately ends the show. It’s as if he can tolerate no more of me enjoying my life and being helpful in his presence. Or existing perhaps.

Looking through the front window of a house like Mickey’s to observe a person using a computer with their back to the window. The computer and all the accessories are color themed purple. Sounds like the 90s which is when I meet Mickey. I ring the doorbell there and soon realize (before they arrive at the door) that I have the wrong address here — 3068, when the cream carton i found it on shows 4068. I quickly have to explain my mistake, keeping up a momentary charade of letting them explain the directions to 4068 when I do already know.

When I get to address it’s inside a development organized like a ring. Businesses and labs face the inside. In the center of what looks like a corral, its wooden posts wiggling in the ground. The address is some sort of lab, making a kind of experimental milk. Curved terrariums line the front. Maybe it’s lizard milk? If there was more, I don’t remember.

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Dream Journal

John Waters Stage Show

Reflecting on that time I went to jail for 7 months when I was 19 or 20. As I remember it, the District Attorney needlessly chose to prosecute me for fraud because I received three free college credits. Such a waste… just impulsively interrupting a vulnerable young person’s life at such an important age. I’m remembering it now because in the dream I’m now going back to school later in life. It’s different than it used to be: sometimes I pass classes, sometimes I don’t, but I sense that you just have to accrue the credits over time and not sweat it.

Then again… I recall a different occasion when I was very distraught and held up a LensCrafters at gunpoint. Serving jail for this sort of thing makes more sense, but I no longer have the paperwork. Turns out I can’t even remember what I went to jail for!


A John Waters stage show, hosted by the man himself. He takes a break for the sake of the televised audience and cuts to commercial. But as I’m actually present I get to witness all the wild behind-the-scenes action — performers exploding into rants, random blowjobs on/off stage, many different hijinks. Those of us there in the room are treated to Waters twirling around on stage during a costume change. His look is a stylized foil cutout of a multi-faceted paper doll, framed between two panes of glass, made in the likeness of the musician Prince. I’m very excited for the next portion and want to video-record it for myself. It’ll be a big file as I’m betting it’ll be a long segment, but at this point I’m certain I’ll actually want to watch it again. I try to wedge my phone upright against some bulky theater equipment and hope for the best as the countdown to re-air begins.

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Dream Journal

Interesting TV! Twin or Doppelganger?

We have a few aquariums, arranged in an L shape, and I’m taking care them. The small one (the oldest) is packed with fish and plants, like one currently in our actual kitchen. The other two are big ones savaged from the streets of Chinatown (maybe 55 gallons each) but hold only a single beloved fish each. As I go about their maintenance, I realize we’ve had them a while and at this point they’re probably underutilized. The personable pufferfish living there gets scritches as I consider what company to get him.

A few potted plants have been on automatic watering for a while, and I decide to check on them. At the base of a stem rests a big moss ball that’s somehow been watered only on top and bottom. I take care to soak the entire thing, knowing that I’m still in time to rescue the almost dirt-brown middle.

On TV, I randomly discover that SNL now has a department making short Public Service Announcements for kids. Tough subject matter, too; the one I catch is on understanding and dealing with horrible traumas from the news like genocide and death. There’s one shot in particular that really sticks out for being so well done: small plastic toy horses filmed from below in black and white. Inexpensive to make, as I also appreciate.

Idly watching a show starring Jon Hamm (as a Don Draper character) who has a twin he didn’t know about. There’s some discussion over whether the twin is a doppelganger. Intrigued, I rewind to before he found out. Karen Gillan is filling a role similar to Peggy on Mad Men, serving also as a judge/mediator. There’s such a strangely amusing dragged-out scene where Don is standing in front of a mirror where his twin is visible, but he keeps looking downward or elsewhere in the room. The tension and entire situation are so oddly surreal, and I watch having no idea if I rewound even close to the pivotal reveal.

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Dream Journal

Cacophony Fair Complications

A Cacophony Society event, tents covertly set up in an elementary school playground — my elementary school, as it happens (the side parking lot where I fell on my ass rollerskating). I’m there helping John Law, Mikl Em, and others break down from the event, but there’s soo much stuff, taking soo long. All while remaining undetected.

A search ensues to find a place to safely leave 3 pet guinea pigs. Eventually I settle on a small, almost cubby-size room in a sheltered school hallway, room 17D, while I return to pack up the rest.

Sitting on a stairway watching a show as the event continues during our breakdown, a lethargically drunk Robin Williams slumps directly ahead of me. He lurches awake and insists he has to get his friend water, knocking down and shattering a glass water pitcher that happened to be in front of him. I start cleaning up the broken glass, and a very diligent 5-year-old joins me to help. Their parent then asks me to help put them to bed. The parent mentions “the sandman” needing to put sand in their eye, and I quite unstrategically ask if the kid if they know about sandman… a.k.a. boogeyman. Immediately I cringe at my mistake, but manage to still get the kid to bed.

For awhile I’m sitting watching another show (maybe put on by my friend Spy) and a guy sitting next to me informs me that my palm is covered in blood. I’ve known the whole time of course, ignoring the injury as I just don’t care, but thank him by saying “oh yeah mate” — somehow being Australian makes it both funny and apropos. But i still make to go clean it up, while dropping my blood in big wet patches on the ground.

Later, I’m positioned in front of a tall row of lockers. I’m confronted by a pair of blonde, white supremacist twins (akin to the racist teen musical duo Prussian Blue perhaps) who are trying to make me jealous. This is almost certainly on account of my rejecting them for their regressive ideology. Two guys I know they recently met brag with bluster of their heavy makeouts with the twins. With a keen eye though, I can tell that the red on the twin’s cheeks isn’t flushing, only rouge. Not makeouts, but makeup. They seem crestfallen.

I finally go to retrieve the guinea pigs from the petsitter in 17D. When I get there, though, he’s not disposed to have us open the door. It seems he just got the three guinea pigs down for a nap together in a cute little shopping bag. Smiling, I say I’m fine to come back.

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Dream Journal

Fragment of Music Show/Airliner

A buried airliner under snow, caught in a pipe.


The Pepper’s ghost illusion on stage for half a show, but it’s no illusion. A folk singer starts into a spare song and I idly hope ends it with huge brass band.

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Dream Journal

Logs in a Tree, Hip Ground Floor Squat

Tree logs stored high up across two trees. A ladder is up there too, blocking access. I look up and point out to my companion that there’s a hawk sitting on a branch directly above us.

The self-appointed minder of this open plot of land is a creepy psychiatrist, a young man who is clueless enough to stand staring at you from behind a couch to “observe” you. I point this out to Lynae, or whoever is with me. Someone escapes out the front door and into the music store across the other side of the mall (they don’t get far).

Behind the tree with the logs is a water chute leading back to a mill pond with a lovely population of loons (ha!). There are inscriptions in concrete, familiar yet written in some Southeast Asian language,

I sign up for a documentary show with Ricky Gervais, and as part of the contract we have to record banter to be played over the footage for at least 9½ minutes. We record it in the back of a car and then I’m told, jokingly, that the rental lasts another 120 minutes. My old friends Chicken and Kelly are in the front seat, smoking, and making out with the smoke.


Driving with my dad, early morning around 4 am, on the streets of our desert home that looks covered in a sheen of smooth white snow. I have a stapled-together packet of printed papers that’s about fighting others’ belief in mental illness, something I’d planned to read on the drive. Dad gets me to close it with a frustrated “really?”


Weird cheap flat on the first floor of a dirty yet hip ghetto. A side street near the heart of the city, clumped-up forgotten backyards and trash gathered in the dead-ends. My friends are thinking of buying this place — or maybe they already have? But that could just be a cover story for a squat, I think. They’ve converted a windowless room in the middle into an “orgy space”, which I guess means stuffing in a ton of pillows and chairs. Bafflingly, there’s only a heavy sheet separating it from a front patio area packed with couches. Ghetto but very cozy.

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Dream Journal

Paul Addis on SNL

Paul Addis is hosting SNL. He has a lot of comedy chops, but it’s still a rough show.


Exploring the far west side of Palm Springs, near where I grew up, huddled around the side of the mountain, a building from the 1700s — something similar to the 16th century fort of Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida.

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Dream Journal

Crash at Monterey.com/’91

Jon Snow has been killed off. He’s brought back (necromancy) and now has magic powers. Guards rush at him standing on stone steps, and the visual effects are lame-looking drawn on stars, four of them, which fly out and teleport the guards about to attack him. Looks like the flag of Chicago. Ugh, the show really stopped trying.


Watching motorbikes race in a slope-walled mud course — reminds me of running the hose when playing in the sand as a kid. One scooter-looking motorbike driving round a curve gets it’s throttle stuck; the rider loses control and it jumps the fence into the neighborhood nearby. It runs up a hill street and hits a couple cars along the way, smashing into the side of one, which causes the Buick behind it to flip backwards down the hill. Seems expensive, and I’ve no idea who will pay for it. I read the web address monterey.com/’91 (with the apostrophe) and understand this to be a historical event at Monterey, California.


A circular redwood half-height room with Lynae lying in a bathtub in the center. I’m telling a story of some kind.

Fixing the glue on some top floor gutters, trying not to get caught by landlord. Watching buildings next door tumble into place. Buying four oranges out of a vending machine with quarters for someone else, before a trip. Serving a pie baked with a top layer of elegant crinkled-edge blue felt.