We Should Have Walked But We Ran

For a lot of people, talking about dreams is a deal breaker.  I love dreams.  Even the really dark ones spark a deep wonder in me.  I enjoy hearing about other’s dreams and am fascinated with the mystery of them.  My interest doesn’t go so far as deep diving into trying to interpret them, but it can be an enjoyable conversation.    I’ve never been a good sleeper, but have always been a good dreamer.  After experiencing a couple of creepy in hospital sleep clinics, I’ve been told by the professionals that I do not delve into all of the stages of sleep, but instead only drift into the first stage - a semiconscious state, which can provide incredibly lucid dreams.  Clearly, I have not done a lot of intensive research of this phenomenon, but I can confirm that I do, and always have had vivid and memorable dreams.

A  couple of years ago I stopped working due to medical disability, yet my mind seems to want to continue work, because I continue to frequently have restless dreams involving work, which generally include not being able to accomplish tasks and finding myself overwhelmed.  Because I’m not currently employed these dreams generally are a strange mishmash of many of my previous jobs, which give them an added stress due to their incongruity. 

All through my high school years, which was an unbelievable amount of years ago, I worked at a small town pizza joint.  While working there, my fellow co-workers and I often discussed our shared dreams caused by working long hours there.  It turned out that many of us had similar nightmares about falling behind during the crazy busy stretches.  One that still haunts me is being afraid to fall asleep because of the danger of burning an oven full of pizzas.  Several times, I remember waking up in my bed actually physically trying to use a pizza paddle to remove finished pizzas from my headboard.  Aside from those moments, the job was mostly fun.  The place was run by teenagers and my co-workers were also friends and confidants.  We had our own lingo and our shared experiences made us a tight family of sorts.  Our stripes were made up of bleach stained jeans and rotten sneakers.

I still occasionally dream about that place.  Recently, as usual, I was having a restless night trying to sleep.  I gave up several times, got out of bed, and managed to accomplish some chores and watch TV to try to settle my thoughts before attempting sleep again.  Next thing I knew i was standing with my cane next to that pizza place’s salad bar, which stood across from the beverage bar.  It was all there: the ice packed around a couple of dozen plastic canisters of salad toppings, adorned with kale fronds, both stained with beet juice and dribbles of various dressings freckled with strange rust colored bacon bits.  

The layout of that place consists of two side entrances – one on each side of the restaurant, an upper balcony of booths that run along three quarters of the rectangle that makes up the seating area, an open lower area offers large group sized tables behind the salad bar and beneath the upper level, and it’s designed so that customers order their meal at one counter fronting the open kitchen, and then order beverages at a different counter further into the building.

 

In the dream, my cousin Nikki and her husband Brett (cousin-in-law?), who are successful purveyors of hospitality businesses in Moscow, ID, had purchased this long-time pizzeria and were holding a grand opening of sorts.  They were there near where I was standing, along with three of my old friends/former co-workers: Ken, Eric, and Jamie – all of us filled out and decaying at various stages from age.  Apparently, Sylvester Stallone was sitting in a booth above us, surrounded by a small posse of security.  He was a celebrity guest of honor.  The biggest celebrity invite since Annette Funicello had been a confirmed no show for a high school dance that was held in the restaurant back in 1987.

 

At that point, I noticed that the front counter was empty of customers and the pizza maker and oven runner were folding pizza box flats into their finished state.  They were creating an impossibly tall stack, so that anyone trying to access one to put a finished pizza into will most likely knock the entire stack over.  This had been common practice back in my days of employment.  I decided to go stand at the counter and let the two teenagers know about my approval of their shenanigans.

 

As I approached the counter, the teenage girl who was there to take food orders, kind of made eye contact with me, before ducking down the hallway that takes one to the back are of the restaurant.

“Hey guys!” I stammered loudly, without warning, “Nice job with the Mega-Stack!”  I leaned into my cane with my right hand and waved my uncontrollable left hand in a useless effort to indicate that giant stack of folded pizza boxes.  “Just like we used to do!” I added, for unnecessary emphasis.  I hated every word that I had shouted.

The two guys looked at each other across the work table that divided them, instead of looking back at me, and after a pause, the pizza maker on the right, after a pause, while still maintaining eye contact with the oven guy, replied: “Thank you SIR.  I bet you got some tall stacks back in those days” 

The acerbity in his voice was exactly as it should’ve been and exactly how Ken, Eric, Jamie and I would have responded to such an invasion 30-40 years ago.  I spun slowly around and scooted back towards the small gathering of people standing on the main level below where Sylvester Stallone was holding court.  My cousin Nikki made eye contact with me, and as I approached, she asked me if the two guys had been rude to me, and looked prepared to scold them. 

“Not at all,” I responded.  They treated me, exactly as they should have, I looked back at the kitchen and the oven runner was tossing three pizza cutters into the air over the work table, as the pizza maker shouted out random instructions about how to juggle.

 

Scars Still LInger

 

Memories are strange things.  Each of us observes and perceives things differently, so shared memories can vary wildly.  Plus those occurrences have differing importance for each of us, so what might become a vivid memory for one observant, will become a forgotten memory for another.  It’s incomprehensible to me how memory works, or in many cases, doesn’t work.  Why do I remember very specific information about one hit wonder Canadian band, Glass Tiger, who I regard as one of the worst bands to ever have been professionally recorded, but can’t remember if I took my daily medications this morning.  I’m sure this is likely a worrisome sign of my on-setting dementia.  Why do some memories come flooding in with amazing detail at random times, while others languish in obscurity just out of reach? 

 

Glass Tiger "Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone"

I’ve heard that most women who have given birth, cannot recall exactly how painful the experience was.  That would explain people who give birth more than once, but something tells me that this is fiction created by some male, to feel better about himself.  During my multiple hospital stays over the past 40 years or so, I have experienced some pretty intense pain, and I can recall the experiences very clearly, if I choose to.  I generally do not choose to.  If I ever find myself in similar situations my fight and then flight mechanisms activate quickly.  I’ve had some embarrassing scenes in recent years because of my fear of re-experiencing medical pains from the past.

 

The numbing of past pain for me has generally occurred from emotional pain – not so much physical pain, although I do not deny that they can be deeply intertwined.  However, like so many of us, I get those random late night memories thinking about a past relationship that had run afoul years ago.  Sometimes those memories are positive ones, and those good memories can be tricky.  For example, this happened to me recently.  I was looking back at a past relationship fondly, and believe it or not, could not for the life of me, remember why the relationship ended.  In this case, the very next day, I pulled some random papers from a file that had bits of past writing inside, and there it was: evidence of why that particular relationship failed.  It astounded me that it all so easily slipped my mind.  There was plenty of solid proof as to why that shit needed to end for both parties involved.  I feel like an idiot typing this!  I know, I know, but it’s these lapses in memory that can get us into trouble. 

Aren’t we supposed to learn from our experiences?  Like the old example of a child burning their fingers on a hot stove.  Next time they’ll know better.  That gets socked away into the memory banks, and for most of us, stays there forever.  I wonder why our brains selectively choose what memories to lock away for future reference, and what to discard.  Obviously, some of us are better at learning lessons from past mistakes, or remembering how to avoid pain.   

I guess I’m a little stunned at reading about a past failed relationship from the perspective of when it had still been fresh, and discovering that I had pushed those negative feelings so far aside that I wasn’t really certain of the validity of what I was reading. I immediately began to make excuses.  I allowed the obvious: the failure part of the relationship was at least mine as much as it was hers. I could only remember those good times – the comforting times.  I envisioned how we have both changed over the past several years.  Forgiveness is one thing, but foolishness is another.  Light up that stove top!  Maybe I can stick my face on there. 

 

David & David "Welcome to the Boomtown"

I find memories, whether accurate or not, incredibly important and endlessly intriguing.  Memories are made up of all of our individual experiences.  I am fascinated by people’s stories, or their collection of memories – scars and all.  To me, these are what make us all unique and interesting.  Why does the memory of first hearing David & David’s “Welcome to the Boomtown” stick with me?  Why do I remember that more so than my high school graduation?  Maybe one day that specific memory will serve me.  Maybe not, but it does tell a small story about who I am and what I’m made of.  It’s these things that I want to know about others.  It concerns me that I know fictional characters from novels, television shows, or movies better than some people I’ve known for thirty years.  Why do so many of us keep our experiences so close to the vest?  I suppose that most of us simply don’t trust each other with this personal information or we don’t care.  Perhaps, if we were more willing to share our memories with each other, we might collectively learn more life lessons.  Or perhaps not.

The Light

 

He wrapped the sleeve of his jacket around his right fist and used the fabric to dry off a circle of condensation on the inside window of the bus so he could see out.  It was dark – really dark.  It was deep into Fall, when the darkness comes early, and we’re all still kind of used to the daylight lasting well into the evening.  He liked watching the lights coming from the buildings this particular bus passed along its path.  Its path was a long one.  It helped pass the time.  This was a commuter bus from downtown, through SW Portland surface streets, all the way out to the suburbs and ending finally in the countryside.  He enjoyed looking at the shops along the way.  He always noticed shops that he would not see during the day.  These intrigued him and made him think that maybe he would one day stop off and uncover some sort of Daniel Pinkwater world, where he would meet strange characters in a mysterious coffee shop or all night bookstore and go on adventures.  He was also intrigued by the seemingly endless number of apartment complexes along the way.  They were all much like his own.  He was fascinated by how few lights emanated from them.  He wondered if they were filled with lonely people, like himself, who while away their time at home, alone, mostly in the dark.  He never particularly liked light.  He liked the darkness.  His eyes were generally pretty sensitive to brightness.  He began to try to discern the lights that were coming from windows of the apartments.  There were many different shades, colors, and levels of brightness.  A strong wave of sadness enveloped him.  He began to imagine internal crises going on inside those boxes.  All of those people so close together, yet all living completely separate.  

His mind drifted back to a long-ago memory of him and his father visiting some young family’s home.  It was a home on one of those streets that has a grass covered island down the middle of the street.  On the end of that island was a covered half basketball court with one hoop.  It was dusk.  Mostly dark, but there were still faint hints of pale pink and urine yellow washes in the western sky.  Bright buzzing lights were already blaring from tall poles in and around the court.  He spent his time shooting baskets, because he used to enjoy that.  The constant bouncing of the ball, only broken by brief moments of silence for shots, echoed through the neighborhood, but did not stir any attention.  The echo of the dribbles – a simultaneous thwip/thud – were beginning to give him a headache, yet he continued on.  He was hyper aware of his surroundings.  He couldn’t really see outside the covered barrier due to the intensity of the lights, which were above and posted at each corner of the court.  These lights created those weird four-part shadows that show in every direction.  Only darkness lay beyond.  These intense and stark lights, along with the complete lack of activity throughout the neighborhood, made him feel incredibly lonely.  As he thought about this memory, he began to question it.  He couldn’t pin down when this was, approximately how old he was, who the people were, why they were there – wherever they were, why the rest of his family weren’t there, or if this was a completely invented memory.  He was not very old, so this stuff should’ve been much clearer.

He was certain that his Mom would’ve turned every light in the house on day and night, if she had the option, but no one else wanted that.  She loved light.  He started to understand, as he looked at all of the dark residences.  He longed for a window with light and life coming out.  Sure, each apartment complex had street lighting and strategic light posts in and around each pathway, the parking lots, and the doors of each unit, but those only highlighted the sheer stillness.  No activity could be seen.  He began to imagine birthday parties inside, or other fun memories and moments, but could not conjure anything, but empty spaces, or people alone, motionless, in front of a TV.  He decided that it couldn’t be all that bleak.  He remembered how he used to sit for hours staring into the lights of his stereo, as he listened to the radio stations fade in and out, afraid to turn it off, in case he might miss that one important song that would change his life. 

 

He had other basketball memories.  When he played on the High School team, the two best teams in their league were also the two biggest schools.  Both of them had weird lighting in their gyms.  It’s no surprise his teams’ had little chance of victory.  One of the gyms had strange blue-ish lights that made everyone look like a corpse.  It actually made everyone’s lips look blue, and everyone felt sluggish and weighed down with heavy limbs.  The other looked like an old cabin in the forest, which was lit by about a dozen bare 40-watt light bulbs.  It was dark and creepy like the old slasher movies that he had been exposed to far too early in life.

He drifted off into more thought.  There is probably some sort of science to how lighting dictates mood and entire communities who are hyper-aware of how different lighting effects them, and do their best to control it.  If only he cared enough to look it up on his phone, but he only got so far as pulling it out of his pocket.  Then he started thinking about lights in the classrooms he grew up attending in school and in his workplace.  Upsetting at best.  Then he started thinking about those who are into controlling their lighting environments – it must be be exhausting.  He guessed that being too aware of how light can affect mood could make one too sensitive, so in effect cancelling the entire point.  We cannot control most lighting we’re exposed to and it can truly be disconcerting and uncomfortable at times.  For example, the lighting on this bus is startling and disturbing.  It makes everyone look weird.  It’s set for night driving, it’s a dark red near the driver, but bright in the rear to a point where you can see everyone’s blood vessels.  He decided to open his phone to social media to pass the time.  Isolated with about 30 other people nearby.

Overkill

 

Apparently, I’m a very nostalgic person.  I was thinking about how during the fall of 1988, my senior year of high school, I made a melancholy mix tape made up of songs from my earliest purchased records, so we’re talking stuff from like 81-83.  I remember being a huge Men at Work fan in 5^th & 6^th grade and digging their goofy schtick.  By 1988, I was fully immersed in the darkness of a lot of postpunk, gothic rock and industrial, so I was pleased to choose songs like the hyper reflective and nostalgic “I Can See it Your Eyes” and the underrated “Overkill” as choices for my mix.  It was fun rediscovering these things from my then distant past.  It seems silly now, because that was only five or so years prior, but it was almost a third of my life at the time.  Now that I am officially old, five years is a blink of an eye in an ever-unchanging lifestyle.

 

Men At Work "I Can See it in Your Eyes"

I realize that it is quite meta to be reminiscing about a time that I was reminiscing about songs about reminiscing, but that’s how I seem to be built.  Besides, if one listens to these two songs closely, they will tell my story here much better and more eloquently than I can.

 

Men At Work "Overkill"

As summer turned into fall in 2004, I was sick.  I was really sick.  I’ve written about it before, so I won’t dive too far into it here, but I had been on kidney dialysis for almost three years, I was going through treatments to kill my immune system, and my skeleton was withering away.  I was dying.  I hadn’t given up, but unconsciously, I think I knew my time was coming.  I had stopped sleeping, so every night I would weed through all of my stuff and box most of it up to get rid of.  I began perusing through old stuff like all of my comic books from the early 80s and all of those old mixtapes I used to make for car rides.  Before getting rid of these things, I read the comic books and listened to the tapes.  Both would transport me not only into the world’s within, but to the times that I originally encountered them.  It was pretty powerful.  It was a slow-cooked version of having much of my isolated life pass before my eyes.  There was a particular mix tape from 1987 that blossomed a very powerful flashback to a very particular day.  It included the song by the Cure, “Why Can’t I Be You?”  I think the fact that the tape had been put together when that song was brand new, took me back to that time.  When I say “took me back,” the memory became so vivid and real that it became a powerful beacon that I began to strive for. 

 

The Cure "Why Can't I Be You?"

The flashback was from a day in 1987, likely June, just after school had ended (sophomore year).  It was a rare bright sunny and warm Saturday on the Oregon coast and I was blasting music in my bedroom, and I remember feeling antsy and likely bored.  My dad told me he was driving to Salem to drop off some commercial art he had done for a client.  I asked him if I could ride along as long as he dropped me off at a record store.  He did and I purchased the Cure’s wild new double album Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me and Concrete Blonde’s debut.  When we got home, I put on the Cure’s new album, and my headphones and was completely drawn in.  The album was epic and more than I could’ve ever hoped for.  It was everything!  Not long afterwards, I got a ride to the south end of town for a dance at our city’s Masonic Temple.  It was there that I hit the dance floor for the first time in my life (to “Why Can’t I Be You?” and Depeche Mode’s “Strangelove”) and later sort of tried my first clove cigarette (so 80s).  It was a good day!   As a memory, in 2004, it was so real – so tangible, I began to feel like I was living that day again.  I’m not sure of the significance of that day, but I wanted those feelings again.  I loved that Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me felt like it was brand new again, that I had not yet heard “Just Like Heaven” 40,000 times and had developed a dislike of the final LP single “Hot Hot Hot!!!”  Not long after this recurring flashback began to dominate all of my thoughts, I got a call for my life saving kidney transplant. 

Like a lot of people, my memories are generally tied to the music I remember from those times.  It’s an old cliché, but it is truly a soundtrack to our life stories.  Personally, I am fascinated by stories.  A lot of the old stories I’ve shared on this page, are moments in time with some deep significance for the narrator/character.  This is why I’ve been so thankful and excited about the handful of Song Stories people have sent in.  It’s these personal attachments to important songs that can sadly get lost when we go. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to some Northern Picture Library and Field Mice songs in my car, as I was stuck in traffic.  I became overwhelmed by the emotion behind some of those songs.  Old wounds from heartbreak bubbled up to the surface, as did an intense longing.  I began to think about how important, not only those songs are to me, but those feelings that they still bring to the surface, which are tied to moments from my life that are only meaningful to me, and hopefully to the other players from those moments.  Then I began to think about how fleeting those moments are and how easily they disappear.  When I finally do pass, all those important moments that make up what and who I am will be gone. 

It brings up all of those old questions everyone asks themselves: “what is all of this for?”  Believe me, I’m not just now asking these things, but for some reason, it has been on my mind a lot lately.  Perhaps it’s because I’m older, wildly unhealthy, and feeling a lot lost.  There is a strong sense of purposelessness happening in my life right now.  I do not feel like I’m contributing, but instead just taking up room and valuable resources.  Perhaps it’s because I don’t feel like I used to.  I’ve reached a point in my life where I am too numb – too calloused from past physical and emotional distress.  Most news is bad news, so when I get positive news, I don’t trust it!  That life soundtrack is getting old and outdated.  New memories are rare and rarely as affecting as they used to be.  I kind of miss feeling dramatic and alive!  Am I alone on this? 

This is a long-winded call for more Song Stories!  Please share them here (tangledrec@hotmail.com).  Every story is important and I’m personally interested in why it’s important.  It can be any song and it can be anonymous.  Let’s explore these hidden moments together.

Thank you Alexandra Smith for sending me the "Overkill" video.

Song Stories: Not Too Soon

When Wil and I started the This Wreckage ‘zine over 30 years ago now, the idea is that we would have people submit material that we would throw in each issue as is and put it out to the world.  What we didn’t realize going in is that most people do not want to actually share things like that.  We struggled in finding material to achieve our albeit ambitious goal of a monthly issue. 

However, in a small way, I’d like to float out a similar request we used to do every issue, but with more of a singular focus.  I am hoping that anyone who reads this would be willing to send some kind of story of a certain song that means something to them.  This could mean a short story, an essay, a drawing, a photograph, a poem, a few words, I don’t know.  One of my favorite things is to tie music to pretty much every waking minute of my life.  It’s a problem really.  There are hundreds of songs that evoke a lot of emotions for me for a variety of reasons based on their being nearby at the time.  I absolutely love hearing and reading other people’s stories along these lines.  I don’t care the genre or the artist, or my personal history, if any, with the song, I find these stories endlessly fascinating.

I’m hoping to encourage any and every one who might be willing to send some of their stories to me via messenger, or via email: tangledrec@hotmail.com.  I would like to share them here, on this site, if given the permission.

Please ask any questions you may have.

I'll start:

Not Too Soon

Sometime during the summer of 1992, I found myself at an impromptu gathering during a sunny afternoon out in the forests in the Otis / Rose Lodge west of my home town of Lincoln City.  I don’t remember the circumstances surrounding this, but a few of my childhood friends were there, along with a few older people who knew through school growing up, as well as a few younger ones.  I vividly remember the environment.  It was incredibly relaxed and comfortable.  I remember The Cult’s third album Electric was playing quietly and it sounded good to me, even though I remember hating the album when it was new.  I was never a Cult fan, but them overtly trying to sound like AC/DC bothered me.  It was later that I truly began to appreciate its singled-mindedness.  I remember hearing it at a music venue between an opening band and the headliner one time and it sounded like the best album ever made!

That afternoon / early evening I had fun being a stupid goofball with my old friends and getting to know some of the others that I didn’t know very well previously.  Even though we were all young.  It felt very adult.  We were all drinking beer, but no one to excess, or making a show of it, the music was quiet, the conversations were about life and felt non-judgmental, and all was calm.  I remember thinking to myself that I liked this.  All of my anxiety floated away, I felt accepted, the dark fog of the previous year had faded some, and I was beginning to sense possibilities again.  At that time, I had confirmed that I was going to returning to college.  It was a dawning of new beginnings and this was what being an adult felt like.

Of course, school that fall didn’t work out, my health went south again, I never saw many of those people again, all kinds of weird drama wound through my head making me feel like I was constantly on an emotional roller coaster, one tinged with a constant heartbreak and a strange desperation.  Normal stuff.  Not very adult.  I guess that just comes with age, not a state of mind. 

At any rate, that very adult and way too brief gathering ended while the sun was still out.  I will never forget climbing into my car, and driving home toward the sunset.  I had the windows down and the stereo blasting Throwing Muses’ “Not Too Soon.”  The song was so tight and sparkly and sounded so amazing at that moment.  I remember feeling genuinely good! 

Throwing Muses had always been hit and miss with me, so I hadn’t purchased any of their music since their first album.  I had thrown “Not Too Soon” onto a mixtape after I had found it on one of those Sire Records label samplers they released back in those days.  Not only is the song super catchy and bright, but I will always remember it for that pleasant moment in time.  Even the music video harkens to that day, as it was shot in a barn.  It looks and feels like the scene of that gathering.  The lyrics are a mystery to me.  Seems to be a kiss off to some older dude who plays with the hearts of young women, so no, I do not identify with it on that level, but it may be the first time I truly realized how much I love a good pop tune and this one is addictive.  I never get tired of it and it always makes me think of that long ago evening.

Throwing Muses "Not Too Soon" 1991