Blythe Bomber

What a night. Strange dreams, strange dreams. They kept waking me up, so these dreams stuck to me in my waking moments this morning. One dream had to do with a terrorists threatening to blow up a vast, old-fashioned movie palace (like the Paramount in Oakland) with a bomb hidden in the head of a Blythe doll. It wasn't an angry Hamas or Al Quaeda terrorist, just your garden variety crazed American maniac terrorist--the kind we all know from movies, a la Travis Bickle.

This may sound far-fetched, but if you've ever seen a Blythe doll, you know how creepy they look, and how the huge head of one could easily house a bomb. I think all you aspiring screenwriters out there should pick up on this, as it would be a great element in your latest Harrison Ford-starring espionage script.

Another dream had to do with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, because I woke up trying to remember their names. I made it as far as Leonardo, Michaelangelo, and Donatello...but the last turtle? I could picture the paintings by the eponymous artist, but not his name. This really drove me nuts, because when I was younger, I was into renaissance art the way some kids are into--oh, I don't know, shitty bands like My Chemical Romance or Good Charlotte. I went to college wanting to major in art history and specialize in Christian iconography of the 15th to 17th centuries. What the hell was that all about?

Finally I remembered. Raphael, the 4th turtle. I think Donatello is not a very good name for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, because Raphael, Leonardo, and Michaelangelo were all contemporaries...Donatello was a bit earlier. Maybe they could have named him Veronese instead, but Veronese came after Leonardo et. al.

Last night I went to see Mr. Bir Toujour's band play a show at Bottom of the Hill. I'm not very fond of that venue, but the parking is excellent. I arrived there and was feeling draggish. I kind of wanted to stay home and watch Bubble, but I have a feeling that I should see Joe's band now while I can; someday I may regret not attending more of their performances. I was a fan of the band before I was a fan of Joe, so to speak. In the early days I would see their band play and it was always amazing to me, exciting and musically challenging and beautiful. Then something changed--probably because Joe and I started dating, and I would never be able to hear the band in the same way again. This spark of magic was lost.

I sort of feel that way about every band I see live these days. I wonder what part of me is missing that can't get the magic back. I'm musically frigid now, perhaps.

These things were running through my mind at the club; they made me feel like I didn't belong there. I stood around acting detached and snobby--just the kind of attitude that I observe in other clubgoers and grow sickened at. Joe's band played, and it was amazing, and most of it passed right by me. Then they started their last song, which Joe had told me would be a reworking of an older song of theirs that I never much cared for. I still didn't care for it much--I just thunk it's kind of boring. But at the end they did an accelerando and it got crazy. I love shit like that--loud, fast, repetitious. It's a tough thing to keep up, but they went on and on, faster and louder, and it began to get tense in a thrilling way out in the audience.

Then Schuyler's smaller crash cymball fell over, and Schuyler got up and started ripping shit up. He began hammering on Joe's cymballs; he knocked over drums; he knocked over more drums. I've never seen Schuyler do stuff like that before. It was spontaneous and wonderful. The show ended in a heap of bandmembers and equipment, and it was all completely without calculation.

I left right after that, because I wanted things to end on a high note. Joe came home much later that night and told me that Schuyler had hurt his knee very badly up there and was unable to walk. What a drag. The one time he decided to bust out onstage and he hurts himself. I think his hust knee had something to do with those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle dreams. Well, I enjoyed the spectacle/debacle onstage that night, but I'm not sure if it's worth Schuyler's physical harm. The myth is that rocker types love to inflict pain upon themselves for the sake of art, but the truth is no one was around to pay Iggy Pop workman's comp back in his Stooges days.