Resonating dream

I awoke this morning with a dream that would not have particular significance except for it's connection with a much earlier one. The previous dream, which I called something like "Chained to the psychotic policeman," made powerful impression on me when I dreamt it sometime in the early 1970's during the time I was reading Jung and recording all my dreams in a notebook (which I believe I still have here).

In this morning's dream, I was going to a much anticipated movie with Mary Lou and some others. I think there was a prelude but I don't remember it. I arrived at the theater and encountered a ticket taker/gatekeeper at a booth or desk in front of the doors to the auditorium. I thought perhaps the movie was sold out but this guy indicated there were still a few seats available. However, he wasn't allowing more people in because they would disturb the seated patrons by opening the doors. He told me that I could go up to an upstairs room "next to the clock" where I could look down into the theater and spot the empty seats. Instead of doing that, I started watching the movie on some kind of external screen while sitting with the gatekeeper while having a casual conversation with him. Mary Lou arrived a little while later and joined me. The gatekeeper disappeared and now Mary Lou and I were sitting in the person's car (?). I'm in the driver's seat. Another vehicle approaches from the front threatening to crash into us. I manage to move the car out of the way but I end up unable to stop it from running into a wall at low speed, probably causing minimal damage, if any. I'm a bit worried that the gatekeeper will be angry.

That's all I remember. The significance of the dream is the gatekeeper represents my sense of guilt and extreme tendency to be considerate of other people, to the extent that it impairs me as times. It also has been a key factor in my developing the ability to feel and express empathy.

The gatekeeper strikes me as a much milder version of the "psychotic policeman," the element of my psyche I used to call my "Catholic unconscious." It's the part that sees me as bad and selfish, an internalized black-and-white Christian shame image.

Memory exercise

Over the past few days, I've been mildly obsessed with a Yard Barker quiz that gives you 10 minutes to type the last names of all 148 NFL players whose numbers have been retired by a team they played for. This morning, I finally got them all in the within the allotted times. Woo hoo!

Want me to list them below? All right, then:

Armstrong
Atkins
Andrews
Alworth (Lance)
Baugh (Sammy)
Bartkowski (Steve)
Bethea (Elvin)
Berry (Eric)
Bednarik
Bell
Blozis (my favorite name in the group)
Brown (x 2) (Jim)
Bruce
Brodie (John)
Brooks
Brookshier
Butkus (Dick)
Buchanan (Willie)
Byrd
Cain
Campbell (Earl)
Canadeo
Cappelletti (Gino)
Carter (Cris)
Clark (x2)
Conerly (Charlie)
Csonka (Larry)
Cuff
Davis (Ernie)
Dawson (Len)
Dawkins
Dee
Dickerson (Eric)
Ditka (Mike)
Donovan
Elway (Jon)
Favre (Brett)
Faulk (Marshall)
Fouts (Dan)
Fleming
Flaherty
George
Gifford (Frank)
Galimore
Goldberg
Grange (Red)
Groza (Lou)
Graham (Otto)
Griese (Bob)
Greene
Haynes ( 2)
Hewitt
Halas (George)
Hannah
Hill
Hein
Hunt
Hutson
Hughes
Jones
Johnson (x3)
Klecko
Kelly (Jim)
Kennedy
Krueger
Lanier
Layne (Bobby)
Largent (Steve)
Leemans
Little (Floyd)
Lott (Ron)
Luckman
Marchetti (Gino)
Manning (Peyton)
Marino (Dan)
Martin
Mauldin
Maynard (Don)
Marshall
Matthews
McAfee
McElhenny
McNabb (Donovan)
Mills (Sam)
Moon (Warren)
Moore
Montana (Joe)
Morrison
Munchak
Nagurski
Namath (Joe)
Nelson
Nitschke (Ray)
Nobis (Tommy)
Nomellini
Norton
Olsen (Merlin)
Page
Parker
Payton (Walter)
Perry
Piccolo (Brian)
Rice
Retzlaff (Pete)
Sanders (Barry)
Sayers (Gale)
Sapp (Warren)
Schmidt
Selmon (Leroy)
Seau (Junior)
Simms (Phil)
Smith (Bruce)
St. Clair
Starr (Bart)
Stenerud (Jan)
Strong
Slater
Stringer
Stautner
Taylor (x2) (Jim)
Tarkenton (Fran)
Thomas (x 2)
Tillman
Tingelhoff
Tittle (Y.A.)
Tomlinson
Tripucka
Turner
Unitas (Johnny)
Van Buren
Van Note (Jeff)
Walker
White
Wistert
Waterfield
Wilson
Young
Youngblood

In recent times I've felt

my major life work is over and what's left is a postscript. It reminds me of my mother, at a much later time in her life, saying of the people living at Iris Place, "We're all just here waiting to die."

A person may put any number of interpretations on his or her life. For my mother, she was being frank about the end phase of her life. For me, that's not a healthy way to think at this point in time- it's better to say "it is what it is" than to put a morbid spin on things.

Open mike at ONO (Old New Orleans Bar and Grill)

Mary Lou and I made a spur of the moment decision to go to Billy Calloway's open mike event after dinner on Mother's Day. Billy hosted and opened with some very fine original songs. I went third and played these songs:

Making a stand
Dynaflow Club
Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat (with Louie from the Blues Festival playing harp)
The road only passes one way; and,
The Outsider.

Next time, I'm thinking in terms of:

Dust my flying saucer,
Teeth of the Wind
You don't know my heart,
Don't mess with Jesus; and,
Ain't that a man?

But that's just hat I'm thinking right now.

Other possibilities now come to mind:

The Tale of the Scroungy Cat
Cold Dead Hands
Successful professional white guy

Free to be creative

In a rapid series of events, on Wednesday evening I found myself leaving Rockin' Rouge, the cover band I've played with in various incarnations for the past 6 years. Back then, I was recruited by Rudy Hirschheim and a drummer named Tom to play in a band they were putting together. The band worked hard and started coming together; but the keyboard player quit and Tom left because he was finding it too much trouble to haul equipment to our practices. These initially took place in a big room at the LSU Music School and later at the keyboard player's home in Pontchatoula. Rudy and I then reached out to Steve Bordelon, a good friend, fine drummer and social worker, who in turn brought his brother, Phil, a talented keyboard player, and his nephew and niece who sang, and we again had a strong lineup. The niece came up with the name "Rockin' Rouge" and once more we worked up a good repertoire until we were ready to go out and perform.  About the time we had our first gig, Phil went off on me for making a critical comment about his tending to play too many notes after already refusing to play songs by Madonna or Lady Gaga on religious grounds.  The Bordelon family members all left the group when Phil pushed Rudy and myself one too many times but the name Rockin' Rouge remained with us.  In what turned out to be a bad idea, we brought Tom back and found new singers, including Holly Hutchinson, Lilli Lewis and Tyler Dickerson, as well as a keyboard player, Susan Duncan, who lacked Phil's musical accomplishment but was sweet, fun and eccentric, my kind of person. After a significant amount of practice, Tom's overbearing personality and intimidation of the singers led to a confrontation with me and his leaving the band. In a major upgrade, we brought in Sam Robique, another excellent drummer and a very pleasant person. More months of practice ensued and we began to find some opportunities to play. Then all the singers left one at a time. At some point, we invited Jerry Hotard to join. Things were going well and then his significant other gave him an ultimatum to quit the group.  We got Tyler to come back, then he quit again and Susan left with him to move to Nashville.  I suggested getting Rusty Weaver to come in as rhythm guitarist. We recruited Katie Sills to sing and Holly came back, as did Jerry. Then someone found a saxophonist, Bruce Williams, who was about 70 years old when he joined the band a year ago. This was probably the beginning of the end for me. Holly and Sam started seeing one another which was an upbeat development but Holly decided to quit again, apparently because she didn't like sharing singing with Katie, whose voice has Robert Plant-like power. Although the band, kept going and made progress in playing well as a unit, I began to become subtly marginalized.  This was compounded by the addition Steve, of a substitute guitarist who filled in for Rusty, who underwent gastric reduction surgery and was unable to play for several months. The more I saw of Steve, the less I liked him, both as a musician and a person. (Clarksdale 2 incident).

Steve's offensive attitude toward me was the tipping point; but, I realize now I don't enjoy some 80% of the songs Rockin' Rouge plays. To learn a song and play it well takes a lot of work. I typically review the songs in our set list before each gig and refresh my memory by playing along with the originals. After I decided to quit, I felt relief and began to realize the band forced me to make too many compromises and made it very difficult for me to pursue creative projects.

People who stomp around in minefields are likely to get blown up.

Steve,

On further consideration, it’s clear I can’t work with you in a musical or personal context. Therefore, I will not have any future involvement with you of any sort. My decision is final and I will have nothing further to say about it.

 OS