Ya ever have that dream where you're perched on the edge of a forest fire and can't move. You know, where you look down to find the news van you're standing on is sitting on four flat tires. Then you realize you're all alone, parked atop some rusted-out live truck on a lonesome road as a tower of smoke chokes out half the horizon. Most times I try to flee, but wouldn't you know it that damn camera is locked to the 'pod! No matter how I wrestle with the knob to loosen it it either refuses to budgee or breaks off in my hand. Either way it doesn't matter 'cause just then a huge fireball starts rolling down the mountain above me and on instinct I point the camera at it. That's when everything goes all slo-mo and my eyeballs burst into flames. That or I wake up, depending on many take-out enchiladas I ate. URP!
Then there's the Soundtrack Episode. I don't how exactly it seeped into my lid, but every once in a while I get that crazy language dream that always leaves me scratching my pillow's forehead. Often, I'll just pop into consciousness mid-live shot; my right eye buried in some strange viewfinder. Then I notice little warning lights on the tiny screen are flashing weird symbols. They're vaguely familiar yet totally unreadable, and as I squint repeatedly at them I realize the words bleeding through my earpiece are indecipherable as well, just a jumble of split-lip syllables and uncommon consonants. Still, the guy with the microphones yammers on happily and I give him a hearty thumbs up, even if he does sound like Charlie Brown's teacher after a few Whip-Its. From there it usually just peters out, but once I woke up on the phone, rattling off something in pig-latin to an overseas operator. It-Shay!
Or maybe you're an age-shifter. That happens to alot of people. Mostly, folks dream they're back in high school at their current age, walking upstream through soem crowded hallway with outdated clothes and a mid-thirties perspective. Not me. I dream I'm eight years old again and trying to shoot a press conference. I do pretty well until the question and answer period, when all the TV News ladies bum-rush the podium and I'm left a screen full of anchor-butt. You ever seen anchor-butt? Not something you wanna twitch yer eyelids at all night. The only worse dream is when I wake up eighty with a whole list of dog and pony shows to shoot. Come to think of it, I have that nightmare all the time: during the morning meeting, back in the edit bay, over at the courthouse, on the side of the highway, at that last groundbreaking, in the Dollar Menu drive-thru...Most everywhere.
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