Originally published on Facebook March 5 2014.
My pal George Peterson informs me that narrative dreams are not dreams, but actually tales we come up with in a semi-waking state based on the unconnected frag…ments of the night before.
I absolutely buy this. It makes sense. And it dovetails with personal experience.
It still *feels* like I’m dreaming this stuff.
Like last night, and I apologize for this in advance. It’s gross.
I dream what I am aware is a SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE skit. I am aware throughout that what I am watching is late night comedy, and it turns out to be a very low humor but a very extended joke indeed.
We get an establishing shot of a marquee at Shea Stadium. THE KNICKERS! SUNDAY APRIL 12th SOLD OUT!
Then an aging rocker in his dressing room, looking depressed. A stagehand opens the door and shouts, “Forty minutes to showtime!” Our rocker waves him off.
Another rocker dressed the same way comes in and says, “’Ey, we got word, mate, Scarlett Johannsen’s in the front row. She wants to come backstage afterward and party with us.”
Our rocker says, “Whatever.”
He is SERIOUSLY jaded and depressed.
We establish that these guys are bonafide legends. I mean, in the sixties, it was the Beatles, the Stones, and the Knickers. But something’s wrong with this guy, the lead singer and bass player.
“I just…don’t feel like doing it tonight.”
“Like doin’ what? Mandy? We can’t skip our number one song, mate?”
“No, the song’s okay…I just don’t want to…”
“Want to what?”
You get the sense this is a discussion they have had before.
“I don’t want to…shit my pants tonight.”
“What you talkin’ about? We can’t have a Knickers show without you shitting your pants! Two hundred dates a year, for forty years, ten grammies, a place in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, you’ve ALWAYS shit your pants during the second encore! It’s what people come for!”
It transpires — and I mean, I saw all this dramatically, coming out in dialogue — that this act of pants-shitting is the thing that made the act famous. They sing soulful ballads, they sing power anthems, their music defines a generation, but it always ends, where it ends. The few times he refrained, like in the notorious Melbourne show of ’76, the audience nearly rioted. And the lead singer has been doing it from his twenties to his seventies, and he’s had enough of it. They bring in the manager, (“ere, what’s all this then? Mr. High and Mighty don’t want to shit his pants?”). They bring in the promoter, they argue and cajole and wheedle, they show him the new tour t-shirts with a graphic of soiled pants, they tell him to think of the fans. Turns out that when he lets go, the most loyal of them do too — thousands of them in a show like this, and many of them have so physically prepped themselves that they suffer the torments of the damned holding it in for the proper moment.
The singer finally laments,
“Seven years we played those clubs and dives, looking for our big break! ONE friggin’ NIGHT I have a bad burrito and I have to pay for it for the rest of my BLOODY career!”
“We’ve talked about this before, buddy boy! The GREATEST inspiration always arrives by accident! Your burrito fifty years ago was what put us over the top, and you are NOT going to go out in front of those twenty thousand fans and not give them what they expect!”
More. He tried to branch out once. Turns out he has a fine operatic voice. Agreed to play the lead in a production of Faust, at the met. Even there, the audience rebelled when he failed to deliver as expected. All his music, all the heart he pours into every song, is just the buildup to what he does during the second encore. Honestly one of the greatest songwriters of his or any generation, a guy whose lyrics and bass playing can break your heart, he’s in a hell of his own making. He’s defined by a moment of incontinence, decades ago.
We hear the stadium crowd chanting their names. “KNICKERS! KNICKERS! KNICKERS!”
“Come on, pally. Think of the crowd.”
“I’m trying to,” he says. “But I just don’t think I have it in me anymore…”
At which point I woke up.
Comment By: Greg Bossert
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
yup
Comment By: Chris McCubbin
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
Post is good. Link is good.
Comment By: Katherine Walsh
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
It’s heeeeerrrrrrreeeeeee!!
Comment By: Laura Graf
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
Groan……………… Does that answer your question?
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
Okay, some recent website posts have not been as visible.
Comment By: David Gerrold
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
I can see it.
Comment By: Terri Donawell
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
I can see it.
Comment By: Robert Fleck
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
Heck, even I can see it and we’re not “friends” for some reason. 😉
Comment By: Debra Wallace Day
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
Yes
Comment By: Gef Fox
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
Comment By: Bill Warren
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
There it is.
Comment By: Lori Coulson
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
Acquisition achieved — no trouble at this end!
Comment By: David Vineyard
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
Post and link fine.
As for the dream I’m obviously on the wrong meds.
Comment By: Ken Schneyer
August 1st, 2015 at 6:23 pm
Confirmed.
Comment By: Joanne Merriam
August 1st, 2015 at 7:21 pm
I can see it.
Comment By: Bob Brown
August 1st, 2015 at 7:21 pm
See in in Washington
Comment By: Carl Dershem
August 1st, 2015 at 7:21 pm
I see it.
Comment By: Stacy Grover
August 1st, 2015 at 7:21 pm
confirmed
Comment By: Brent Collins
August 1st, 2015 at 7:21 pm
Affirmative.
Comment By: Samuel Delany
August 1st, 2015 at 7:21 pm
Seen in NY. That one may be a definition of popular success, Adam.
Comment By: Paul Dellinger
August 1st, 2015 at 7:21 pm
Seen
Comment By: Dennis Lynch
August 1st, 2015 at 7:21 pm
Yep.
Comment By: Sarah Hendrix
August 1st, 2015 at 8:24 pm
confirmed
Comment By: Eric Simonson
August 1st, 2015 at 8:24 pm
Seen
Comment By: James Cole
August 1st, 2015 at 8:24 pm
I see it.
Comment By: Mark Fuller Dillon
August 1st, 2015 at 8:24 pm
Confirmed.
Comment By: Russ Weasel Laughlin
August 1st, 2015 at 8:24 pm
I have lain mine otchkies upon it, my chellovek!
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
August 1st, 2015 at 8:24 pm
Okay, that is a weird definition of success: Samuel Delany saw my pants-shitting dream.
Comment By: Barb Padgett
August 1st, 2015 at 9:18 pm
I saw it. I read it. Now I’m wishing I wasn’t Facebooking while eating dinner.
Comment By: Arne Starr
August 1st, 2015 at 9:18 pm
Confoimed!
Comment By: Linda Robinson
August 1st, 2015 at 9:18 pm
Coming in 4×4
Comment By: Starshadow
August 1st, 2015 at 9:18 pm
I can’t see this post. /ducks and runs
Comment By: Arthur Dale
August 1st, 2015 at 10:24 pm
Yes Often wonder if anyone sees mine
Comment By: Melody Ghormley
August 1st, 2015 at 10:24 pm
I can see it, I read it, so glad I don’t dream your dreams!
Comment By: Adam-Troy Castro
August 1st, 2015 at 10:24 pm
Aw, I have some better dreams than that!
Comment By: Elaine Bagley
August 1st, 2015 at 11:19 pm
good here.
Comment By: Paul Dale Anderson
August 1st, 2015 at 11:19 pm
I see you
Comment By: Gill Avila
August 1st, 2015 at 11:19 pm
So do I.
Comment By: Patricia Williams-King
August 2nd, 2015 at 12:21 am
I see your post…..ha,ha!
Comment By: Jeff Deischer
August 2nd, 2015 at 12:21 am
I see it.
Comment By: Becky Kyle
August 2nd, 2015 at 1:19 am
Yes
Comment By: June E Vigil-Storm
August 2nd, 2015 at 3:20 am
Confirm, Aug 2nd, 12:31am. PDT
Comment By: David R. Palmer
August 2nd, 2015 at 7:50 am
Yep, I see what you did here…
Comment By: Ginjer Buchanan
August 2nd, 2015 at 1:39 pm
see it…
Comment By: Samaire Provost
August 2nd, 2015 at 2:22 pm
I see you!