beautiful, funny, sad & true

This is going to be one of those dreams that makes less and less sense as it goes along.  You’ve been warned.

* * * * *

I’m in Portland, and I’m hanging out with Justin and Lara, two musician friends who are also from Portland.  I’m driving the three of us to see the Dandy Warhols in a little tiny club that is in the upstairs of a weathered three-story house, above a tax place and a living space.  I have my huge cello case in the front seat, and Justin and Lara are sitting in the back seat.  I park the car outside a nearby house, and we run into a drummer friend (not anyone I know in real life) who lives in the building.  We talk for a while, and I ask him, “Is it okay if I bring my cello inside?”  He agrees, and I take the cello out of the front seat, put the seat back into its normal position, and shut the car door.  DrummerGuy unlocks the front door of the building and leads us upstairs into his apartment.

The apartment is a very clean old three-bedroom place with hardwood floors, a sofa and chair that are olive green and look extremely comfortable, and a large bookshelf filled with books and CD’s and various other things.  He shares the apartment with four other people, one of whom is a drummer too, because when we walk in, the door to the bedroom on the right is open, and the light is on, despite the fact that no one is home.  A set of drums is clearly visible in the middle of the room.  The guy leads us to the left, into his enormous room.  His drums are in the middle of the room, and he has about ten little tiny splash cymbals of different sizes.  I’ve never seen someone use so many (one or maybe two is what most people use) so I set my cello case down, grab a drum stick and start playing them all to find out what they sound like.  He says he’s thinking about selling some of them, and asks if I’m interested in buying one.  I say I might be.  Lara says she wants to get going, so she and Justin and I say our goodbyes to the drummer and go for a walk through the neighborhood.

The so-called neighborhood is really an insular collection of houses and tiny businesses.  [It’s similar to the real-life clump of houses and apartments in southwest Portland that is on the hillside across Interstate 405 from the university, and is only accessible from one street.]  We are a bit early for the show, so we step into a record store and look around for a while.  I walk to one of the corners of the room, to find that the room actually connects to a larger department store, so I walk through the small door and step into the store.

This appears to be an employees’ entrance or a fire escape route or something, since it puts me into the very back corner of the department store.  There are rugs and bath towels, and various home decorations on the shelves.  I’m taking a look around at the layout of the store, when someone calls me by my middle name.  I turn and see a man in his fifties pushing a sort of homemade wheelchair, which is a large, gray plastic milk crate on wheels.  It is stuffed with pillows and blankets, and there is a small, slightly deformed black and white cat who is propped up vertically, reclining on a pillow against the side of the crate.  The man gestures toward the cat, to let me know that the cat is the one who had spoken to me.  I walk over to where they are.

The cat repeats my middle name and says, “Do you remember me?  Andrew Fischer.  We were in middle school together.  I have Down’s Syndrome.”  [For the record, I did know someone by that name when I was in school, but he didn’t have Down’s Syndrome, and he most assuredly was not a talking cat.]  I tell him it’s good to meet him, but that I don’t remember him from school, and that to my knowledge, no one in my school had Down’s Syndrome.  He seems quite certain that he knows me, though, so I decide to stay.  He has a sweetness about him that is apparent from the first moment I meet him.  His wheeled crate is large enough for me to sit in, so I climb into it, facing him.  His blue cat eyes are extremely large, and one of them is quite misshapen, and looks very different than the other eye.  He has mucus dripping from a place on his forehead, and looks a bit grotesque.  It seems that movement is quite difficult for him.

He has a very clear speaking voice, and he asks how I’ve been, and what I’ve been up to “since middle school.”  He is particularly interested in hearing about my musical endeavors, and when I tell him that I’m with a couple of my musician friends to see the Dandy Warhols, he mistakenly assumes that I am a member of the band, and he gets very excited.  I ask how he’s been.  I forget his name and call him Ross by accident.  He gives me a strange look and says, “It’s Andrew.”  “Sorry,” I say uncomfortably, “I know someone named Ross, and it just slipped out.”  He smiles and says, “That’s okay.”  He starts to become tired, and I look at his caretaker and ask if I should leave.  The man doesn’t answer, but I can see that Andrew the cat is becoming very weary from the effort and excitement of a conversation.  His eyes are almost closed; poor little guy.  I tell him I’d love to have his address, and I reach into my shoulder bag for a pen and notepad.  I can’t find them, so I stand up and climb out of the crate.  His caretaker asks me something, and I find the notepad.  I turn back toward Andrew and say, uncharacteristically loudly, “Okay, buddy, lemme have your address.”  He had fallen asleep, and when I spoke so loudly, I startled him awake.  I lean in closer and say quietly, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry to scare you.  But I want your address so that we can write to each other.”  He smiles slightly, and says, “That’d be really nice,”  and then falls back asleep.  I turn to his caretaker, with the notebook open and the pen ready.

Lara and Justin return at that moment, and I introduce them to my new friends.  We all stand and look at the sleeping cat, and that’s when I wake up.

I’m spending the weekend in the beautiful town of Port Townsend, Washington, which is right across Puget Sound from Seattle, right on the tip of the peninsula.  IrishBand is going up there to play a show tonight.  The other two guys in the band actually grew up in PT, so ‘homecoming’ shows like this are always fun, and unexpected things are sure to happen.

Here’s the entry from our last visit, which you can enjoy in the meantime.

See you when I get back!

OneYearAgo

Friday night was a gig with Breanna and Justin down in Salem.  Every time we play there, we play at a place called the Blue Pepper, which is a brilliant little music venue/coffee shop/lounge/internet cafe/art gallery where we love to play.  I arrived with my cello at a little bit before seven o’clock, put the cello inside, and went outside to talk on the phone.  I didn’t see Justin or Breanna, but there were two guitars set up on stage, so I didn’t think much about it.  I went back out to make a quick phone call, and a guy with bleached blonde hair came out and said, “Is that a cello in the case?”

‘Yup.”

“Are you playing tonight?”

“Yeah, with Justin and Breanna.”

“That’s interesting, because I’M playing from seven til nine.”

“Oh really?”  I laughed.  “Looks like I have some phone calls to make, then.”  I called Justin and said, “I’m at the Blue Pepper.  Are we playing elsewhere this time?”

“Yeah,” he said.  “We’ll drive around and meet you, and show you where the place is.”

So we caravanned over to a cool new venue called The Space, which wasn’t open when we arrived.  Turned out we were almost an hour early, so Justin & Breanna got out their guitars and sat on the sidewalk to sing and play.  I called J, and we talked on the phone for about half an hour, then I walked over to eat (since JustBre had already eaten) at McMenamin’s.  I had a surprisingly awesome combination of salad, tater tots and red wine.  Incidentally, that seems to have been a good recipe for better-than-average cello playing, because I really felt like my playing was ‘on’ all night, which happens every once in a while.

Inside, the Space is what I imagine the love child would look like if the Blue Pepper and Seattle’s Sunset Tavern ever hooked up for a steamy night of forbidden passion.  The walls are painted red with white trim, there’s a cobalt blue curtain covering the window behind the stage area, and there are large, colorful paintings everywhere.

Insted of playing until nine like we normally do, we finished at almost eleven.  The three of us were invited to get taken out somewhere afterwards, but I’d come straight from work, and I had an early morning on Saturday (more to come about that later), so I decided to ‘peace out’ and drive back up to Portland.

Suffice it to say that at first the evening seemed like a bit of a disaster, but it ended up being really great.

I woke up yesterday to find that my phone had been shut off. Yesterday I took the day off from work to play a noontime gig with Breanna and the band down in Pioneer Courthouse Square.

I decided to take the MAX commuter train downtown, because Pioneer Square is one of its stops, and parking downtown can be tricky and expensive. So I drove to the stop and carried the cello and accordion on board the train. Two stops later, we all had to exit the train and cram onto a waiting bus, because the bridge over which the train travels is closed this month for repairs. It wasn’t fun trying to get two large instruments onto an already crowded bus, let me tell you. Not to mention the screaming kids and obnoxious people. When we arrived across the river, we all exited the bus and got back on a MAX train to follow its regular route. The exhausting trip took forty-five minutes, and it normally takes fifteen.

So then we played our gig, which was great. It was well-attended, and we sold a whole bunch of CD’s.

Came home afterwards via the exhausting and circuitous train-bus-train route. By this time, it was about ninety degrees outside. I finally got home, drenched in sweat. I had an e-mail waiting for me from J saying that PhoneCompany’s service was down for a while yesterday, so it wasn’t my phone after all. What a relief!

I took a nap and then went to meet J for sushi. She came over afterwards, and we watched an episode of Planet Earth; it was the episode about how the climate is changing drastically and rapidly, and how we are losing species (sometimes in as little as ten or fifteen years) and completely destroying the natural environment. It was very informative and influential, and it was good to be reminded about many of those things, which we tend to forget about in our daily lives.

Incidentally. . .for the record. . .I try to do my part by living near enough to where I work that I don’t need to drive, and where I can easily ride my bike, walk, or take public transportation to the places that I need to go. There have been many years where I didn’t own a car. I’ve always owned economical cars, including the one I have now. I don’t eat very much meat. I choose to live in a small apartment in the city, as opposed to a sprawling suburb. I don’t intend to have children. I try not to use disposable things when I have permanent options. These are all choices that I feel make a big difference in both the quality of life, and minimize the effects of my existence on this planet, but I still have a long way to go, and there are plenty of things that I can still do to make a difference for this little and unique planet.

So. After that, I got a call from JBJ saying that Jaime and Becky (whose CD I played on) were playing an impromptu show, so I texted Becky to say that I was going to be there, and it would be very easy for me to bring my cello with me. She thought that sounded great, so I ended up going down to join them at eight o’clock. The show was awesome, and the two other performers, Galveston and Justin Power, were amazing as well. I recommend that you check all of them out

I have another daytime gig with Breanna today, actually, so I’m going downtown again in an hour to load our equipment onto the Portland Spirit cruise ship. This is going to be a really fun gig; I’ve played it once before, last summer. It’s a lot of work, and it’s an all-day affair, but it’s just. . .totally great. I’m really honored to have such good opportunities to play with such good people.

Tonight the plan is for more J time, and then I need to do laundry and pack for the annual trip to Cannon Beach with Mom, Stepdad, and Brother and his family tomorrow morning. I’ll be staying for the weekend, until Sunday afternoon, when I’m driving back and then going to see a play at night.

SoOoOoO, it’s all a bit of a blur, but at least now you know why things have been a little quieter than usual around here lately. I’ll have my computer with me at the beach, so I should be able to check in from there too.

But now, it’s time to take a shower and get downtown to the boat.

OneYearAgo

This morning, I had a dream that I kept waking out of (thank you, alarm clock!) and going right back into every time I hit the ‘snooze’ button (thank you, brain!).

* * * * * *

My friend Andrea, one of her female friends and I are hanging out and walking around downtown Portland somewhere, late at night. We walk into a mall, which is closed. There is a huge, lighted fountain in one section of the mall, and there is a grand piano in the section that is located behind the fountain.

We walk to the piano, and Andrea starts to play something totally random and cool, with lots of banging and dissonance mixed with beauty (in A minor!). Then she steps on one of the pedals, and it repeats the phrase that she ended with. She stands up and smiles, and her friend and I start laughing and clapping. The piano is still making sound, and I sit down and play octave A’s up high, kinda slowly and rhythmically around Andrea’s loop. Then the loop fades out, and I morph the piece into a little something in A minor, and then change it into 7/8 time. I have a little cello exercise I made up, and it was based on that exercise.

After I finish, the sound of the fountain sounds like a crowd of people clapping, so I laugh, stand up from the bench, face the fountain and say, “Thank you! Everyone! Thank you!” The three of us laugh, and then turn away and walk out of the mall.

The setting for the dream changes, and we are now standing in a short line of people waiting to get into a movie theater. Once we walk through the door, however, we realize that it is actually a movie set. It is a large, wooden room, with bright lights in the ceiling. The filmmaker (who, incidentally is DrummerScotty, who I play with in IrishBand in real life) is shooting a scene involving a guy and girl making out on a chaise longue. The two are doing their thing valiantly, and Andrea seems exasperated with the whole thing. She says something like, “I hate acting. It seems like anybody could just be making out with anybody else.”