Epilogue

For several reasons, one being that I need to take it up a notch at work, I am shutting down Daydream Vaccination indefinitely. "Shutting down" isn't really accurate. You come by blogs out there that are colorful, carefully written, tons of links and comments, but the last post is two years ago--Jacko acquitted? It's kind of sad, like a haunted house. I don't want anyone to feel that way about Daydream Vaccination. This epilogue puts a cap on it, keeping evertything fresh until my triumphant come back in...2009!

I want to thank everyone for commenting and being nice to me--I'll still read all your blogs, you just wont know it. Ha.




Then again I could be making this all up and drop like four posts tomorow. Maybe I'm the Celine Dion of the Blogosphere.

She's right by the way

I have this thing where I think people will appreciate a sleek and officious manner over unnecessary pleasentries. Sometimes I'm wrong. This is an email from my boss. She's right by the way:

Peter,
You need to give them some kind of explanation as to what you are sending and what it is that you want.

They know good and well what I want. I want six-weeks paid and a flat screen in my cubicle. motherfucker.

Sending just the doc. is not only confusing, it is cold and impersonal.

So is your face.

We work as a team and we communicate with each other.

OK, Coach.

Having to guess what colleagues want from us in not only time consuming, it is frustrating.

Why don't you write a how-to book about bumming-out ones underpaid assistants on perfectly lovely thursday mornings when their cars are making a funny noise and soldiers are dying every day in Iraq...

The staff who run our programs do not have the time or extra energy it takes blah blah thhhhhp...

Please send F--k Hed and Other-Dude a follow up email.

Sincerely,

Peter's--should take a chill pill and be still--Boss

Sims

"We have to do it tonight," Trabout says, slapping the table again for emphasis. "It's just the two of them in that nice big house.


"Look at the diagram."

They're alone now but they wont be for much longer; the Russians don't hardly trust these two. The safe is behind the picture of the old lady. If my information's right (and I know it is) it's full of cash and uranium. These are bad people."
"That wall looks about five inches thick. Where would they put a safe?" Asks Scott.
"It's just a mock-up retard, don't dispute me. I'm going to the store for some eggs. We need eggs."
Donny calls out to Trabout, who's half way down the stairs, "Pick me up some scratch-offs? And an orange gatorade?" and is ignored. Donny goes to the window and watches Trabout turn the corner.
"Pillow Fight!" Donny cries out.
Scott's head dips to the table slowly. In a tone of exasperation and bewilderment he says, "Donny, what happens when you forget to take your meds? Did you take your pills today, Donny?"
"The doctor says I get exited and I talk too fast and PILLOW FIGHT!"
"Donny, you put that pillow down now! And take off that stupid hat--for the last time! Trabout will be back and you're gonna be in big trouble..." Donny is closing in, tip-toeing, swinging the pillow. His eyes appear foggy and he flashes Scott a crooked smile.
"Scotty, look behind you!" Whomp!

How am I supposed to get any work done with Stayin' Alive playing in the background?

I'm kind of on the fence about the Bee-Gees but not about the song Stayin' Alive. It's an amazing dance track, with one of the top three bass grooves of all time. If you want to take your stiff-ass dreary cocktail party from zero to sixty in no time flat Stayin' Alive is the song that can make it happen.

So why is it playing on Sherryl from Finance's clock radio? It's like having a limbo contest at a wake. I've learned to tune-out the rest of her crappy lite-station music--Walking in Memphis, Forever Young (Rod Stewart, not Dylan) and whatever that calling all angels song is. Yuch! it all gives me heebie jeebies--but when such a righteous dance track comes on I get confused. I have to stop everything and reboot my brain.

There is a crack in everything

In my senior year of highschool I experienced the near total breakdown of my signature. I owe it to the fact that I was applying to colleges. Up until that point all I ever had to sign was math homework and birthday cards, nothing as imposing as a loan application. Aside from the weighty matter of the documents, the sheer volume of dotted lines was overwhelming.

I think it sarted when I found myself unable to decide when in the sequence of signing I was supposed to cross the "t" in Peter. After the r or before the second e? This sudden feeling of amnesia made me anxious which caused my hand to spazz.

What I didn't realize was that my understanding of what a signature was was changing. A signature is ones mark. It need only be partially legible, if at all. The important thing is that it be yours.

The "eter" of Peter was just a mess of tangled loops at the end. I remember feeling real panic about it. Of course, once I gave up on my signature ever being readable again, it became beautiful.

ID4

Do you remember a movie trailer that featured Catherine Zeta-Jones' ass, dipping, ever so slowly, under a laser beam? Now nearly a decade old, it is a modern American classic. It has inspired fine works of art like this one which I ripped off from some artist through Google Images:


What movie it was from, I'll probably never know. But it doesn't matter.

They say that the book is always better than the movie. Well, sometimes the trailer is better than the movie and the book. Take Independence Day, staring a young Will Smith...(it was Will Smith, right?)the trailer for that film was unforgettable: ash colored space ships the size of small continents, floods and fire and shit, and the most convincing exploding White House TO DATE! But what was really revolutionary about Independance Day was it's rad nickname, ID4.

ID4: The only movie title that was better than the trailer-better-than-the-movie that was better than the book. You can't even find Independence Day in book stores or on Amazon anymore. It was so bad!

My love for good trailers and cleverly abbreviated movie titles is unconditional. But there is a newer cinematic form which seeks to sully my affections: The DVD menu montage.

Why are images from the movie we are moments away from watching, maybe for the first time, forced upon us? People should be outraged by this. What if you had never seen Jaws, and while fumbling with the remote, you look up and there's Quint getting chomped in half?!? That's an extreme example, and I'm sure, at least I hope, that the idiots who design DVD's would have the sense and discretion to exclude such key scenes. But they are guilty of giving away the aesthetic of films. They show people hugging and slapping eachother. They give away costume changes. They show buildings on fire.

I like to go in fresh.

Kangaroos Boxing

I saw a pack of fully uniformed nuns rollerblading along the cross island parkway on my way into work. I thought it an odd, sort of fantastic, sight--something to write a blog post about.

As i'm sitting down to write I'm realizing that, while an odd sight, "nuns rollerblading" is not merely so. There is something familiar there.

I couldn't say for sure, but I think there are some nuns rollerblading in the parade scene in Ferris Beuler's Day Off.

In the language of film a shot of "nun's rollerblading" signifies a rare but acheivable harmony among individuals in a community. A kind of groovy playfulness celebrating the child within us all.

Here's a scene:
(A brilliant, sunny afternoon in early fall.)

Corduroy-jacketed protagonist is sitting alone on a park bench, thinking hard, trying to gain some perspective on "the big picture". He studies his shoes, drops his head in his hands. A toddler throws her arms around the neck of a golden retreiver. (Latest Natalie Imbruglia featured-single starts up.) Two elderly men--one black, one vaguely European--with canes, smoke pipes, play chess. Giggling teenage girls eat ice cream cones and share the latest Natalie Imbruglia single playing on their head phones. Spiky haired Asian boys breakdance while children run through a sprinkler in the background. Protagonist lifts his head from his lap and his eyes are hooked to a pack of nuns rollerblading past him. They are close enough that he feels the breeze from their habits.

It all comes clear.

"The world is in perfect harmony. I'm going to go tell her I love her right now, and then I'm going to soak my boss in kerosene and burn him alive."

(Scene)

Daydream #44

...a fierce headwind nearly blows the Ray Bans off my face as I outmaneuvere Petrocelli's buttonmen for what I pray might be the final time. By tomorow Chelsea and I will be in San Luis, ordering room service, wearing bathrobes embroidered with some other couples initials.

The 38-foot cigarette boat we "borrowed" from the good people at Olsen's Marina is nearly out of gas. (I'll be sure to pin a c-note to the seat when I return her--maybe a thank you card.) The Golden Gate Bridge is violet as sundown approaches. Chelsea hands me an Orange Fresca from the wet bar. I touch her pregnant belly and we both smile. "Two million in each bag. That's six million total, babe. We did it."

The cell phone starts buzzing in the empty cup-holder it's occupied since Tuesday, when the whole thing started. We've been waiting for one call and one call only: "It's Dad.", she says "He wishes to speak with you."

"I promise to have her home by ten, Sir...(laughter)...well, who knew a president's daughter would have such a natural affinity for an AK-47?..."

The Lighter Side of Celebrity Meltdowns

David Hasselhoff has served as glorious bufoon since before the Berlin Wall came down. A perpetually contented bottom-feeder in show business, Hasselhoff spent 11 joyous years playing second fiddle to a revolving cast of glorified strippers on Baywatch. He was world famous, well paid, and having way too much fun to stop and consider what other acting roles might lie beyond Mitch Baywatch. (That's why I don't feel bad about ranking on him.)

Like William Shatner, Hasselhoff is fully aware, and embracing, of his status as a cultural punchline. If the money is right(even if it's not) Hasselhoff is delighted to lampoon himself with complete disregard for his own public image. That's why I think he had to be aware, on some level, of what he was doing when he showed up to Wimbledon a few weeks ago.

Reports tell it, "Initially he showed up without a ticket, and then once he had one, guards escorted him -- politely, of course -- off the grounds after being 'steaming drunk.'"

What time does Wimbledon start, one, two in the afternoon? Do you know how visibly drunk you have to be to get escorted out of a tenis match? They're like Dead shows! People tailgate for hours with boxes of cheap, headache-wine before stumbling to their seats.

So, Hasselhoff says to the guards, "You should let me in. Do you know who I am? I'm The Hoff."

The Hoff! I'm convinced, somewhere in his soggy brain, Hasselhoff knew he was nabbed and he knew "The Hoff" would be a hit and take off in the tabloids and on blogs--genius.


If I was one of the guards at Wimbledon, I would have fuckin' high-fived The Hoff right there on the spot, busted out some Johnny Walker Blue from the club house, and made him sing his greatest hits, in German, over the loud speaker.

It's officially Christopher Plummer Day here at Daydream Vaccination

Christopher Plummer is arguably the finest actor of the post-World War II period never to be nominated for an Academy Award--That's the first line of his IMDB biography.

He's a born leading man who almost never plays the lead. They mention his aristocratic Canadian lineage and European tendencies as possible reasons he's been overlooked for so long. I think if you asked Mr. Plummer if he's upset about never getting the Oscar-nod he'd say, "Pfff, what-evuh."

The guy's a slugger, a work horse, a laborer--the best kind of artist. At 77 years old, with film, stage and tv credits (at least two every year since 1975) going back to the 50's, he's only getting better.
While Deniro is doing Meet the Parents II (sucked balls) and Pacino can't seem to find a decent vehicle, Chris Plummer is taking supporting roles in killer movies like A Beautiful Mind, Syriana, and Terrance Mallick's latest The New World, and knocking them out of the park. Did you see him as Mike Wallace in The Insider? Dope. And by the way, no living American actor does Shakespeare or O'Neil better--he makes Kevin Spacey look like Hasselhoff.

I was saddenend to learn that he "despises" The Sound of Music. (Is the Sound of Music considered light weight material?) It's a classic amongst classics and he should be proud. But maybe that's what has kept him so hungry. Captain Von Trapp is, no doubt, Mr. Plummer's Kramer, Captain Kirk, Norm Peterson...etc. There's no role he can possibly play that would eclipse it in the public consciousness. So, maybe he's going a different route? Can the sum of all character roles outshine the whole of one legendary lead?

Send Me Your Love

I send an Error Report every time. I've been sending error reports for five years now, and I'm fairly certain that they are being received by no one.

The problem is, I've been sending them for so long, that now, I'm afraid to stop. It's like the "step on a crack and break your mother's back" thing. I know it's meaningless, but if my mother ever broke her back and died I don't think I could live with the guilt.

I mean, isn't it the responsible thing to do? Shouldn't Microsoft be alerted of a malfunctioning dealie-bob in one of their seven-hundred-billion PC's? Fuck, I'm flattered that, after all these years, they're still taking the time to ask me.

Maybe I'll let the next one go. You know what, "Don't Send" this time. Have the day off fellas. We'll manage just fine out here in PC land. Bill Gates is a busy man and after five years of hearing from Peter he deserves a break.

Heather Locklear

Some people get tattoos for all the wrong reasons. If I ever get a tattoo it will be on my forehead, in block letters:

THIS IS HOW BORED I AM.

There was a woman who used to come into the quicky-mart where I worked. She was beautiful, like Heather Locklear with a swimmers body. She was about thirty-five with a son and no wedding ring. She wore nice clothes and her son was very well behaved.

She had one tattoo (I know this because she used to come in dressed in workout clothes from time to time. Of course, she could have had others, but you get the idea). It was on the back of her hand, along the fleshy part between the thumb and forefinger. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

Usually, if you get one tattoo, you get it on an ankle or a shoulder or something. I know people with ten tattoos who would never dream of putting one on their hand.

Eventually I found the right moment to compliment her on it. She sort of laughed under her breath and said thank you. That was odd, I thought.

As it turns out, a tatto on the back of someones hand is a gang tattoo. I had no idea. I thought she was even cooler after I found that out.