Wednesday, June 6, 2012

THESE DREAMS OF ME (SO REAL AND SO TRUE?)

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Are you ready, Steve?
Uh-Huh.
Andy?
Yeah.
Mick?
OK.
Alright, fellas, let’s GO-ooooooo! . . .

I suppose you’re all wondering why I called you here. Well, it WASN’T to tell you this:

I recently went on a short trip with my Sister Bonehead and my Brother Napoleon. Here’s the two of them having a drink together at the famous Rock star hangout bar ‘The Rainbow’ on the Sunset Strip . . .


For two nights we stayed in this Santa Monica motel . . .


Let me tell ya something . . . I’ve stayed in some scuzzy motels in my life (two in Buena Park come immediately to mind) but this little rattrap on Ocean Park Boulevard took the prize. Anytime you see a sign like this . . .


. . . posted on the wall near the motel office, it’s probably a good indication that you should “Go! Don’t look back, just GO!”
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But I didn’t call this meeting to tell you that.
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The other night, Brother Nappy and I watched a Western movie that we’d never seen before. ‘From Noon Till Three’ (1976) starring Charles Bronson and Jill Ireland came recommended to me by my friend Sheboyganboy Sixgun. This was a really fun (and funny) movie that Nappy and I thoroughly enjoyed. (Good call, Sheboyganboy!)

At one point in the movie, this heavyset woman in a bit part appears on the screen and I shouted out, “Look! It’s W.C. Fields!” (Y’all know who W.C. Fields was, right? The comedian that Leo Rosten was speaking about when he reportedly said, “Anyone who hates small dogs and children can’t be all bad.”)

So Nappy starts laughing, and then referring to another bit part character on the screen at the same time, he says, “And Look behind W.C. Fields. It’s Kurt Russell playing the part of Wyatt Earp!”

We had to pause the movie there so I could take a picture of the TV screen . . .

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But I didn’t call y’all here to tell you that either.
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The real reason I called this meeting is to tell you that tomorrow – Thursday, June 7th – I will be making a special guest appearance on one of Arlee Bird’s blogs. This is the first time I’ve ever been invited to post on someone else’s blog so it’s kind of exciting 'n' stuffs.
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Arlee Bird is one of my bloggin’ buddies, we’ve known each other for years now, and his interesting blog ‘A Faraway View’ is devoted entirely to analyzing, discussing, and ruminating on the mysterious nature of dreams. And the “Boidman” (as I call him) asked me to write down and submit an unusual dream-related experience that I was sort of a participant to back in the mid and late 1990s. The dream wasn’t my own, but I played a part in it, and it had quite a pronounced spiritual theme. I think y’all might find it somewhat intriguing (and perhaps weird).  

Here, hopefully this will put you in the mood . . .

Van Morrison - These Dreams Of You (Original)


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And hush-a-bye
Don't ever think about it
Go to sleep, don't ever say one word
Close your eyes, you are an angel
Sent here from above

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Mmmm, these dreams of you
So real and so true
These dreams of you
So real and so true

I guess I’d better add this second video also because I know it’s only a matter of time before Van Morrison makes YouTube remove that first one . . .

Van Halen-Little Dreamer (lyrics in description) 1978



A little dreamer . . .
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And then they went and they voted you
Least likely to succeed
I had to tell ‘em, baby, you were armed with
All you'd need
Seems no one's talkin' 'bout those
Crazy days gone past
Weren't they amazed when you
Appeared at last!

[Hokey-Smoke! Does that have a great guitar riff or what?] 

Well, I hope to see some of you at Arlee Bird’s blog tomorrow (Thursday). To get there from here, just click on the title: 
A  FARAWAY  VIEW

~ Stephen T. McCarthy 

YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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6 comments:

  1. I'll try to stop on by.

    Br'er Marc

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's a darn good post and it ain't goin' nowhere. If you're reading this and missed Stephen's post get on other and check it out.


    Lee
    A Faraway View

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks, Brother Boid!

    ~ D-FensDogg
    'Loyal American Underground'

    ReplyDelete
  4. A little late commenting (like NINE months!!), but I'm glad you liked "From Noon Til Three." I'd be interested in know a bit more about what you thought... if you can remember back that far. I realize that our advanced ages we are not as sharp as we once were, so you may confuse "From Noon Til Three" with "High Noon," or even "Bugles in the Afternoon" or "Paper Moon."

    I've not seen FNTT in decades, so my own memory about it has faded. I remember I liked it pretty well, I loved the theme song, and I think I was unhappy with the ending.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SHEBOYGANBROTHER SIX ~
      You're right, I don't remember the movie very clearly now (at the age of fuckty-three), but I can assure you I would NEVER (even at the age of suckty-three) confuse 'From Noon Til Three' with 'High Noon'.

      'From Noon Til Three' I enjoyed quite a bit; 'High Noon' is without a doubt one of the very most overrated Westerns of all time. (I have written a fairly lengthy piece about that fact.)

      I can't even recall now exactly how FNTT ended, therefore I know it did not disappoint me. (Otherwise, my memory would look like this: I really liked FNTT, except for the ending... whatever it was.)

      I read somewhere that someone said Charles Bronson should NEVER have been cast in a comedy. I disagree. He was excellent in this part.

      What I DO remember is that the beginning portion of the movie - maybe the first third of it - did not seem like a comedy, except for a couple of "light", mildly amusing moments.

      Then, at the point where Bronson's character learns what has happened to his fellow outlaws who rode into town, and he flees (essentially falsifying his own death), and his lover/captive then writes a romance book about their affair, it suddenly turns into a full-on comedy, which Nappy and I both thought was very funny.

      Later, Bronson's character is trying to prove that he is both alive AND the outlaw described in the now-famous romance novel, but no one will believe him. Very funny! And Bronson's tough-guy persona worked PERFECTLY in this movie.

      The humor of the movie was not based so much on a comedic-timing delivery of lines, but on the humorous situation (i.e., Bronson's frustrated character presenting everything very straight, telling the truth, which no one wants to accept because the "myth" is preferable and much more "romantic").

      In a way, it was like taking that famous quote from 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' and building a whole comedic movie based on that concept. Shall we believe the truth or the myth, when the myth is much more entertaining?

      I thank you, again, for recommending this Western (can't believe I'd never even heard of it before), and now I recommend it to YOU. You should rent it again, because the person who recommended it to me knew what he was yakkin' about.

      ~ D-FensDogg
      'Loyal American Underground'

      Delete

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