...and in this dream I was at a party thrown by my company. And President Bush and his Cabinet were there. And as we watched a tape of his inauguration on a TV monitor, I gave the sieg heil... not in the best taste, true, but it got a laugh, even in my dream...
...and it just so happened that Bush was right there and saw me do this. And he walked up to me and tried to scold me somewhat. And I pretended like I didn't see the harm in giving a Nazi salute to a person of his stature.
In the dream, he was 5' 3". I towered over him. In real life, he's probably taller than me, but in my dream he was a snively pipsqueak.
And in this dream, I got Bush so mad and riled up that he cursed at me in front of dozens of reporters, who were consequentally forced (by their lust for the journalistic scoop and their building resentment over having to hold their mealy tongues concerning Bush and his team) to report the facts for once in their lives.
I was on the front page of the papers the next day. Right-wingers tried to excoriate me: Ann Coulter blasted me for hailing Hitler, and I told her that she was just mad because she has been trying to paint the erroneous picture that Hitler was a left-leaning fascist dictator for some time now, and that my little PR stunt just landed Hitler back in the right-wing camps for good; Bill O'Reilly had me on his show to call me "sick" and "unpatriotic", and I retaliated by pulling out a cel phone in the middle of the interview and pretending to have phone sex with someone on the other line.
O'Reilly was furious for two seconds... then he got word that his ratings went through the roof, and he thanked me profusely.
Rush Limbaugh tried to roast me, until I went on Al Franken's Air America show and brought up the fact that, back when he was much younger and known as "Jeff Christie" on the air, Mr. Limbaugh was arrested during a sting at a popular gay cruising zone in Pittsburgh (or was it Philly? My memory fails me)...
I became the Democratic Nominee for President against Jeb Bush, but I declined the offer, citing a disgust with the Democrats and their middle-of-the-road putzing. I ran as an Independent and won by a landslide against both major parties.
I was assassinated by at least six different special interest groups within weeks of my own inauguration celebration.
What a dream! Now, if only I could get my life to go like that...
*/*
A SOMETHING'S EXTRA
Gangsters and musicians have always mixed.
My boy Lay Low (not to be confused with Down Low) is dating a girl from Hoover Street, a Long Beach Bloods set. I know, Long Beach is more popularly known as the LBC for those who are Snoop Dogg fans, and the C in LBC don't stand for "blood". But there he was, letting a fine-ass bona-fide gangsta bitch clear her schedule of murder, mayhem and money-making to pursue one of the best young jazz drummers that I have had the privilege of knowing and jamming with on occasion.
We talked about getting physically hurt and how it could affect our playing. Lay Low revealed to me that it wasn't until he dislocated his shoulder as a teenager that he was able to "swing" on the drums.
"I just couldn't hit certain parts," he told me as we smoked a joint at The Garage, "and when that accident occurred it was like 'hey, I can hit that ride the way I always wanted to'... I was never happy with my drumming until my shoulder done got loosened up, man."
"Dude," I said, exhaling chronic smoke, "Jerry Garcia used to play with a finger missing on his right hand. Hey, Paulie!" I called across the shop over to him. "Which finger did Jerry Garcia lose when he was younger?"
"Hmmmm..... I think it was his pinky. Not sure."
"He lost them all now," someone said jokingly.
Matty Baratto, Paulie's custom guitar go-to man, happened to be in attendance. "Hey, Matty, do you know?"
"No, I never heard that about Jerry," he said, as he tuned a banjo he had brought for Paulie to peruse. "I know Toni Iommi from Black Sabbath had rubber fingertips..."
"What the fuck... Are you serious?" I was flabbergasted.
"Yeah. Right before they got their redord deal, he was still working in somemetal shearing plant in Birmingham, and he accidentally ccut off all of his fingertips. At first he had rubber replacements made up for him, but after a while he made them himself... or maybe it's the other way around. Anyway, he had to re-learn how to play his leads," Matty recounted, matter-of-factly.
Ironic, I thought, that Tony Iommi worked in ametal shop... then ended up in a metal band...
"And what an effect that had on his sound!" I remarked. For anyone who really does not know, Toni Iommi singlehandedly invented heavy metal with his lead lines from classic Sabbath tunes as "Iron Man", "Paranoid" and "War Pigs". There isn't a metal guitarist alive that doesn't owe Iommi their eternal gratitude for writing the book on heavy metal riffage.
And now I know how he did it.
I'm thinking of having my thumb dipped in chrome, so that I can slap bass like a maniac. How's that sound? Maybe I'll have some Crips from Avalon break my hands for touching one of their girlfriends... hey, I like to live dangerously.
*/*
AND ONE LAST THING...
Love is a burning thing
And it makes a fiery ring
Bound by wild desire
I fell in to a ring of fire
I fell in to a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire
The ring of fire...
The taste of love is sweet
When hearts like ours meet
I fell for you like a child
Oh, but the fire went wild
I fell in to a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
And the flames went higher
And it burns, burns, burns
The ring of fire
The ring of fire...
--JOHNNY CASH "Ring Of Fire"
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