A Dream from 2005

I have tried, at various attempts in my life, to keep a journal. It never works out. Mostly I just don't have the kind of discipline to keep it up. I have started and stopped numerous times, and usually I start with a great amount of diligence and enthusiasm, but, eventually, it just peters out. 


In any case, I found an old notebook this morning while looking for my keys (which I have still not found), and came across an entry from 2005.  I had just woken up and written down the dream I had just had. I am going to transcribe that journal entry in its entirety her, with no edits or changes whatsover.  I have no recollection of ever having written this. It's like a found a stranger's journal.

Dec 30, 2005
Okay, so how's this for a dream? I am supposed to go to the Neil Young concert with Annie. We are walking there. Along the way of whatever crowded urban street we are on, I fall way behind. I am too tired. I stop to sleep. So there I am sleeping right on the sidewalk, with some kind of a musty old blanket - and then all of a sudden I resemble and am mistaken by some as a street person. Various people look at me as they walk by and I am approached by a few questionable-looking guys as a kindred spirit, or maybe somebody they can easily rob.

But I somehow rally myself back up, get a couple anxious text messages from Annie letting me know that Bob Dylan has already finished playing, that Neil Young has begun, and where am I?

I am on my way. Somehow I end up in a long line with Dave Salvator [Ed note: a fellow former editor at CGW magazine], and he and I shuffle into the stadium.  Our seats are a mile away. One of us says, "Well these sure are nosebleed seats." I sit down next to Dave and someone else says the seats aren't so bad. I look again and somehow Neil Young and the two female singers look very close indeed.

They are playing a little bit when all of a sudden Sammy Davis Jr. walks out onto the field and we all laugh at the absurdity of it until he starts singing and his deep baritone sounds great as he belts out some kind of Americana song of Neil's.

Then we are all on a train and the train begins to roll forward, looping around the coliseum as if it were suddenly part of a Disneyland ride and this was a scheduled part of the show. We are all happy and excited. Sammy is still singing to us as the train makes its slow loop.

Then, in the train car from the rear, Tom Waits suddenly appears, scruffy, in a flannel shirt, singing to us as he makes his way down the aisles, looking at each of us like the conductor asking us for our tickets. He stops at each person and says something nice or witty, giving them a moment of his attention, this famous star.

And when he gets to Dave and I, he looks for a second, giving me somewhat of a blank look, like, what could I do for this guy? And he reaches into a bag and hands each of us a box of Jujubees, and it seems like the most perfect, generous gift. But I am still desperate to make an impression with him, so in response to some question of his, I respond with an unexpectedly witty answer that genuinely makes him laugh, that I am proud of, and that he is going to remember and share with others and possibly means we may even be friends now. And that's when I woke up.

Tom Waits gave me a box of Jujubees. I don't even like Jujubees. What does your brain go through to come up with stuff like this?

That's the end of my dream.  I think I need to start keeping a journal again.
--Jeff