To all you true blue followers, hope you enjoy the following run-on expanse as humorous and very warped and a little redneck. It is all true, except for the dream part, which was dreamt. Welcome to Halloween early!
Drank a couple of energy drinks and pulled an all-nighter typing somewhat late-dropped-into-my-lap advertorials and carried on my sleeplessness into the next morning and afternoon, all the while walking around the downtown and delivering draft copies and even picked up another assignment. Was at the light by Agave and for some reason there was my bartender friend Sara in a different setting standing behind me, looking stunningly Asian (is that racist?) in her shades and jeans and boots and I didn’t even recognize her right away, then shared pleasantries while crossing the sidewalk and she said she was going to the “pink” place or house or set of apartments presumably for a job interview with one of the three officially proclaimed wildest spots in town, and I told her to have fun and we agreed it is a given, and then on my way back home I dropped by the Hudson art gallery to say hello to my gallery-manager-ladyfriend but they were closed and she was not in, damn the luck, and I made one more stop at the drug store to pick up a prescription and then took one of those Xanax and crashed at 5 p.m. for a long time running.
The dreams followed, oh you long-lost followers.
Up again at midnight, gathered in some 5 alarm chili (with four bell peppers and some hot ones too) then crashed until the next morn, during which time I had a dream about playing a few holes, not 18, of golf in my transformed childhood playground of a backyard, chipping rattlesnakes toward inches from the holes and also for some reason lighting two worms shaped like eels on fire by their heads (ouch!), ending with the long last hole, not 18th, all along the west side/wing of the ranch house that started amongst a whole collection of shrubby, scrubby bushes and ended by a couple last ones.
Maybe this entered in because of the tale that was told to me of my (hair in a bun) niece having at her newly bought old house the Halloween before, a holiday party where my tall nephew showed up dressed as a hot dog. Not a brat like the Brew Crew in the World Series through like the rest of the month. With a whole lotta mustard? Golden. Relish optional. Onions ain’t.
So I did now want to give a plug to Brook Fleetwood and her wildest house (even trim and siding) ever and its wildest parties ever (locally), after all, since Halloween is coming sooner than the veil between here and there is thinning. And also a show at The Phipps Center For The Arts near my apartment, in gallery two and gallery three with an overlook of the gallery and of the riverview gallery, like an arena overhang, by Chris Mars, who also had a career well across the Mississippi River with the rock band The Replacements, a retrospective in oil painting, pencil, pastel, scratchboard, acrylic and film and maybe skins. An Evening with Chris Mars, a screening of his award-winning short films followed by a Q and A with the artist is Saturday, Oct. 24 from 7-8:30 p.m. Mars was The Replacements drummer, percussionist and co-founder, and played on all seven of the band’s studio albums during their run, from their 1981 debut Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash through All Shook Down in 1990. He left the band in 1990 due to growing tensions and frustration with frontman Paul Westerberg’s increasing control over the band’s creative direction. He pursued a solo music career and transitioned into a full-time, acclaimed career as a visual artist and painter.Â
The Hudson art gallery manager turned me on to the Mars show. And I blame the rest on the energy drinks and their caffeine that so addled my dreams, not the chili with one too many peppers and the, prescription mind you, Xanax.