To sleep or not to sleep, that is the question with only one answer.
I am, or was for a few of my randomly sleepless days, literally embedded in an associate, or is it assimilated, my assistant living facility (just kidding) as the best number of sleep maxes I could grab maybe was a couple at a time, occasionally and randomly, hours … now, wait a minute … zzz for the moment only. So bring me more Xanax or such. (My pharmacist would explain to me how when having the disparate energy of ADHD, at varied times sleep is blocked physically and as far as electrical impulse by the very drug action that’s supposed to cause it.) Head-checked by Henry, who also has not slept, so he headed first to Osceola to oscalate his brain on a trip out with his girlfriend.
Now, newly discovered on the sill of a window showing the full moon, I think, then a full sun, then a slightly lesser moon, then the sun again … was the on and off again green glow, from just under a second to just over it, from a small device — and not the orb from the movie Heavy Metal — of unknown origin. Which also means I don’t know where I got it. (From the mean streets? Or a really mean fireworks shop, on the edge of town.)
— This is a case of mega-musicianship that’s made its mark, much musical mask-makeup making up the comparison to a less traveled, but still traveling band stopping off locally.
The Dead Cowboys, playing Big Guys BBQ Roadhouse this coming Saturday, could be the Cowboys From Hell, or taking after their guitarist into the Dead Kennedy’s, or Ghost or Cradle of Filth, with their image of a player or maybe the whole band with white skull mask complete with zippers, real or just painted-on motif.
Cain and Co. opens, and they will not share the stage company of Brother Cain, but it’s still fitting since on the night before it’s the Non-Prophets. On the day after, it’s just your luck to have Inside Straight, or is the name flipped as SI, thus abbreviated, and name in long form bringing them in. Either will work.
All this on the heels of shows such as GRave, a play on words for an outer area electro-pop deejay-based act rather than death metal — fitting since I just saw another shirt in mid-New Richmond about Rave In Paradise, for its maker who passed on a couple of years ago. With those things, word has it that a jazz club, of all things, may start up in the southern end of Hudson’s downtown, in an existing bricks and mortar venue that’s actually no stranger to swinging, if you go back far enough. And wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the best group with its first gig still coming up, but before last call, The Happy Hour Band, which is delightfully Grateful Dead. —
Or what is it? The not-quite inch high barrel-shape is striped sideways red and white with what looks like a dark green fuse, complete with slight and light green spark at the end. And it went on and off, and on and off. Should I look at it to check for — I hope not — a possible growing flame not gleam, rather than roll over to look the other direction and ignore until throwing it away in the morning what could be a fire hazard. Watch the dumpster for a few seconds to ensure no burn. Was this object a battery? (Not the Metallica song.)
Or did I imagine all this? Sleep med delusion?
Then I reached for a book, reading about how to sleep I thought could put me asleep, and spilled a bottle of pills, and not the sleep form, twice into an open drawer with all kinds of socks and such. As many as pages. Damn, I kept on eventually finding in my fog, that there was always another capsule or two that scooted, and thus were hidden, under one of those many flaps in my underwear. Maybe this is why people wear thongs. Or buy the easily viewable, as in big, form of drug, what my family called “horse pills.” Bigger than Shetlands.
Damn, last pill went where? So get up and figure what more to put into that chili, still on the stove from the previous day, something like a million poppies to make me sleep. Peppers can be just as bad, or good, if you can stand your mouth and even nose burning so your brain can sleep.
But my cayenne powder subscription — at this point I would need more than one bottle — had been cancelled due to lack of payment, as it had gone to drowse-or-die ghost-style pepper, so I had to try to find something else to do.
Check my phone calls that may have come in; turns out I had butt dialed while tossing and turning. That woman I had met at the bar two nights ago — after which the last time I slept.
So now, finally, get dressed, but still middle of the night. Get out some of those same underwear and literally, get hopping into them. Damn, can’t reach up my foot that high! So balance yourself with your right hand on the countertop, and your left pulling up your big toe and the waist band, remember that from the piils, at the same time.
In the morning at 5 a.m. there was what appeared to be DJ music emmemating from somewhere in the block, or so thought my boggled mind. This was not the first time I’d heard such seemed background noise, which could include the buzz of electrical machinery, construction workers starting very early, so industrial music aided, (maybe sounding the same if on sleeping pills, like Nine-Inch Nails,) and including times when I wasn’t the least bit loopy, starting off during the pandemic as private parties when most other events were shut down. There have been known to be band rehearsals during off hours, (usually well AFTER the sun comes up,) and this was a mid-week Wednesday, so if there is no beer or such flowing … The band plays on. And no one’s watching, so … Just kidding. If you can’t sleep.
The block caters to a pair of large bar and grills, other big and small retail business that include staid law firms, upstairs apartments, the Phipps Center for the Arts, and a street-strangled corner for elderly (dosing much) and disabled apartment building where still, stereo tunage is sometimes played well into the night, at moderate level, and not just Golden Oldies. Think classic rock, and what it entails, if only sorta on my side. A vague, distant noise in the back of my head positioned near the wall.
Across the street is, among other things, a coffee shop and an urban church, where the bells rang before six, tolling the bell for dead sleepers/sinners. Or at this time I’m more sure of things, as the sleep meds were working their way out of my system by working my way out of my butt.
No total sleep. So over to that coffee shop. Extra expresso fast, before I do finally fall asleep.