groundhogs, Sid and the Dreaming

Sid Vicious died 31 years ago today, and it looks as though the anniversaries have become an opportunity for me so sing paeans of happenstance to his passing. a year ago, this took the form of a trip to the library. this time it came to me in a dream:

3:22am

dream of a recording studio on the border between the United States and Canada. i'm there with my yin, except that she is not herself. we're there to visit an art gallery on the second floor, but wait in the studio.

we wait. we wait. we wait.

the room - which is a courtyard - begins to fill up with unsavory types. a pair of men are smoking cigarettes in front of us. one of them asks:

"are you a baghead."

"no."

the scene is growing grim.

a man fires up a butane torch.

the man inhales.

i tell my yin:

"we need to go."

as we get up to leave,
a slight distance emerges between us.

all of a sudden, metal shutters collapse down blockading the courtyard and locking her inside. i am on the outside, and she is trapped with the dangerous characters from the asylum. i look around: the streets are empty, and a subdued panicked terror grips the air. i run towards a better section of town - but there is none.
i find instead that the drawbridge leading out of the United States has lifted, leaving me stranded.

a terror attack has shut down the nation, and i wonder if this is the Armageddon i dreamed of as a child. the streets are full of black people, the good people of the neighborhood trying to get out.
they stare at the bridge across the divide. it is New Orleans all over again, except this time New Orleans is all of America:

unknown Louisianans, 2005

i have two table knives and one steak knife.
i wonder what will happen if i am discovered;

my parole is nearly reinstated.

i rush through the streets before the anarchy takes hold. there is the feeling of Renoir's La grande illusion, and i dart into a building and discover it is a state-run detox or work farm. the junkies and madmen are being turned onto the streets. people with only three and four days away from the horrors of the asphalt. i see beautiful whorish girls wrapped in towels, about to be turned back out.

i go outside and run into a muscled white guy with styled hair. i tell him i need help. he tells me he works nights, that i don't want in because i can't handle it. i realize this man is a pimp who has come to the asylum looking for product.

as i start falling from the dreamscape, i realize that the orders to shanghai the nation came through while my yin and i were waiting to see the art, and the bums who enveloped our gathering were a result of this decision. it is Reagan's Manhattan all over again, and i know i must i act. i must find a way to save my yin, whose very being has become unstable and compromised. it is a crisis of ontology, and i hear her singing in Chan Marshall's voice:

Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power

it is already beginning, and in my panic i run into Thurston Moore who was there to produce an album. we speak of Chapel Hill and Sorry About Dresden. i tell him of my yin. he agrees to help:

Thurston Moore, aka Sonic Youth's guitar player

...the dream ends as i start to regain a sense of hope.