Wednesday, May 29, 2019

I was at a pub in England somewhere with my dad and a few others. Three guys who had been friends of my older sister and I had just recently met. One of them lit up a bowl and passed it to my dad, who smoked it a little self-consciously, as it was his first time, but without much hesitation. He held it out over me for the person to my right and I intercepted it, a little annoyed. I drew deeply and exhaled. The smoke didn’t taste like normal pot smoke, and I remarked so to someone, who agreed. It was time to get more pints, at least as many as I could carry. When I returned to the table Julia Child was there. In the dream she had known my parents a bit, so it was normal for her to say hello, but I was quite proud that there she was, sitting with us. I tried to explain to her how we knew these other people, what their connection was to my sister, long story short, etc.

Thursday, May 23, 2019

We were watching practice for a Grand Prix in Macau. Various local drivers were in the mix just for that session. One of them turned around, drove the wrong way and forced another car off the track. The other driver was ejected as his car crashed and tumbled. A spectator went to see and found the driver moving, alive. It was Lewis Hamilton. In the pits everyone was shaming the errant driver. Someone grabbed him and delivered him to the Mercedes pit to get yelled at.

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

I went to a bar alone and ordered a beer. People there were dressed funny, in suits, but not formal ones, whimsical ones. I lost my phone. Actually it was replaced by a different phone, an old flip phone. I stood up and addressed the entire room: “Please check your phones. Make sure it’s your phone. I lost my phone and I might have yours.” I realized the old phone was in fact one of my old phones, with my call history on it. Eventually I did find my phone again, on the floor somewhere.

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

A dissident free-thinker from some dark Middle Eastern place and his wife were about to have a child. They entered a kind of medical complex run by their native country, though it was in the U.S. She was allowed to give birth but they were separated and he was detained in more and more horrible circumstances. He knew he was to move to a floor where he’d be tortured and kept indefinitely. There were different areas of the facility—a floor for the privileged and a floor for those like him. Now this all was a documentary I was watching on TV. When the man was moved to the torture floor I wanted to stop watching. I had a powerful sense that all civilization was reverting to barbarism.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Donald Fagen was at the center of some kind of intrigue. I’d been invited to play on his new album. This involved traveling to his house, where all the musicians were congregating.

Thursday, May 09, 2019

We were on vacation in Mexico, floating on inflatable toys in the shallow surf. It was very crowded with mainly young people, maybe on spring break. There was a bar in the water and I was drinking a beer. I worried about the sun, about whether I’d put on enough sunscreen. I examined my arm, which had a blotchy tan but revealed a burn when I pressed it with my finger.

Tuesday, May 07, 2019

J. K. had met Miles Davis by chance and had recorded their conversation, and somehow I was able to step into it, to be present in it. Miles was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the railing, of a little elevated place, like a terrace, to the side of a wide hallway of what seemed like a high school or office building. At first I was only witnessing this, like a ghost, but then I became a participant and was able to talk to Miles. There was another young man there asking questions. Miles was unusually chatty—even “affable,” I said to J., a word you don’t associate with him. At one point he stepped away to go to the bathroom and as he moved through the crowd in the hallway I examined the faces of the people coming the other way. I expected them to be amazed at who was in their midst but none were. I made a remark to the others that this goes to show how ignorant people are. When Miles got back he was telling a story about a boy and a girl and something the boy did that impressed the girl and I said, “That kid’s gonna get some tonight.” I was hoping to get a laugh out of Miles, and also afraid he’d just think I was stupid. His reaction was a little cold, suggesting he disapproved of the innuendo or maybe just disapproved of it coming from me. Classic Miles. After a while we all got up and moved on. We came to the apartment door of our friends the B’s. Surely they’d like to have a drink with Miles Davis. I knocked on the door but C. B. answered it bleary-eyed, like they all were sleeping. Then we went to a music studio with instruments lying around. Miles picked up a fretless bass and played it a little, absentmindedly. There were people asleep next door so we had to be kind of quiet. I really wanted to start a jam with Miles so I made a beat by clapping and slapping my leg. It was simple but steady and I hoped it would earn his approval. For a long time he did nothing. There was a little microphone on a stand between us, raised just two or three feet off the ground. Finally he brought something small in his hand close to the mic. It made a percussive sound. It was a pair of tweezers that he was opening and closing to the beat. At some point J. K. admitted to me that this entire scene didn’t really happen like this in real life. It had been a briefer encounter. This was his fictionalization of it.

Monday, May 06, 2019

We were in LA at a park. A great Cuban band was playing right on the lawn. When they took a set break I wanted to tell P. C. or J. L., “What if I went up to the leader and said, ‘You guys are really terrible’”? I thought this was the funniest thing in the world.