This one is kind of like that "slacker" movie, pointless and taking random turns along the way. The only background information you need is the various blog names used (which are linked). Edited for clarity, but not content.
In the dream, a female friend (nobody I know in real life, I'll call her Jenny) and I were leaving from another friend's house in a northwest suburb of Houston. She was planning to drop me off at my house a couple of hours north, then go home, somewhere near Dallas. Unfortunately, just a couple of miles down the road, her Saturn sedan started having problems.
We coasted in to a (national chain) repair shop, which was getting ready to close for the Saturday evening. The salesman was professional and didn't make an issue of it, but it was clear that the shop workers did not want to delay their weekend plans for one last repair. However, they went ahead and pulled the car into a repair bay and plugged it into their diagnostic computers. About five minutes later, the computer printed its report, and a mechanic brought it up to the sales counter. The salesman pressed a few buttons at the register, then told Jenny what the problem was and how much it would cost.
A brake job, with replacement front rotors. FORTY-EIGHT HUNDRED dollars, using generic parts. Over SEVENTY-TWO HUNDRED dollars, using factory original parts.
Jenny wasn't fazed by that number, and pulled out her checkbook. I stopped her, and whispered to her that the price was "just a little bit steep". Then I made some excuses to the salesman, and got her out of the shop.
As I was explaining to her just how much brake jobs should cost, and trying to figure out how we could get her car to another less expensive shop, we started walking towards a Chinese restaurant in a small, less than half occupied, shopping center across the street. It smelled really good, and we were getting hungry, but as soon as I opened the door for her, I saw a shop next door with several people I thought I recognized, but couldn't quite place the faces. Jenny was too hungry, so she went on in to get us a table. I went in to the other shop which had no signs, except for some small white vinyl letters on the door showing a phone number under the name "I Love Jet Noise".
There were five people in the front room, sitting around a glass dining room table, having a friendly discussion over several small piles of official-looking papers. I also heard a couple of other voices in a back room. They were all twenty-something guys, all with short dark hair, and dressed very casually. Without introducing myself, I asked what they were doing. They began talking about the band they had formed while in college, and were excited about the prospect of a big tour they were going to start, opening for Flying Space Monkey.
I asked what style of music they played, and they all looked at each other for a second, started laughing, and said "well, it's difficult to describe". Two of them began listing the bands that influenced them, including Scrappleface, Blue Goldfish, and A Little Aardvark.
As I noticed that many of the other (non-blog named) bands were the same ones that influenced me, it occured to me that they might have heard my music, so I finally introduced myself by saying "Hi, I'm Hatless". They all looked at each other in surprise, and stood up to shake my hand. One of them had my first CD, and asked if I had any others. I told them I had a couple in my car, and got up to get them, but once I saw the parking lot I remembered that my car was not there. The guys also got up to leave, turned off the lights and locked the doors to their place. Standing in the parking lot, we discussed the possibility of recording together, and exchanged email addresses. Looking at the address, it slowly dawned on me that they had just stolen their names from other blogs, and I made a mental note to mention it to the respective blog owners that someone else was using their blog names.
Remember, I did say it was pointless...
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