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Ya just gotta love 'em.
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Four nights ago, I put on some Rogan Fight Companion podcasts for playing me to sleep. Got the volume just right and got in bed. I do this, just like in the old days with Henrik and certain of his guests, because it smoothes out the clash of white noise and electric frequencies that are part of my circus of sleep disorders.
Used to be I'd look for any long audio with suitable sound levels for mumbling in the background like this, but nowadays I usually do Rogan podcasts, especially the ones with his buddies, because it harks me back to my toddlertude, sounds like my father and his friends off in the other room after I'd been put to bed.
This is optimal for getting to sleep. If I can't have silence, I can have my dad and his buddies played by Joe Rogan and his buddies. I was at his house again. Much less claustrophobic this time, but he was again off talking with his buddies. I'd just bought some cool PJs from my favorite Etsy vendor, and was napping on my bed in the middle of his house. He was moving his podcast from across the living room out onto the deck and so I got up to follow.
I was standing out there, looking at the view, mildly distressed about the smoggy cast to everything LA, noticing there were quite a lot of people there and I was asking some of them what was with the satellite hovering so low, just maybe a couple hundred feet off the deck and maybe only, say, fifty feet higher up than us. Nobody was interested in hazarding a guess, and they remained untroubled by it. It was worrying me.
I mean, satellites are supposed to be up there in low earth orbit, not hovering over some chic LA neighborhood. Still, I tried to ignore it... well, or more like just not be alarmed about it with them while I tried to think what could be up with it. I looked again as it was getting darker out, and now there was a second, smaller one, just to its lower left, and a bunch of fading neon multicolored runes glowing between them hovering out there, now maybe only a hundred feet off the deck and about twenty feet higher than us.
This got me excited, but everyone who'd been sitting near where I was standing was going to the kitchen for something. I went with them, but wanted to go back out. When I did, it was almost full dark, Joe still off talking with his buddies at the end of the deck, the atmosphere where the satellites had just been was ripped open and there was a pristine utopian mountain looming up through the torn LA smog. Finally, people were impressed. So — naturally? — everyone, Joe and his buddies included, moved back inside.
Bewildered, I followed. After some milling about from room to room, and Joe finding me some mild edible pot, we were back in the living room. Some nerdy guy came and sat next to me on the couch, trying to hit on me, pfeh. Then another one came to take his place, but this new one immediately skipped the preliminaries and put his big slobber mouth over mine, and my nose, thinking, I guess, this would thaw me some, but it grossed me out and I ran over to the other side of the room in the corner, trying to get Joe's attention without screwing up his podcast, to see if I couldn't get some protection from these nerdy gross sex fiends.
Suddenly, he was with me, and I'm about to explain my problem, when, he's taking me in his arms and kissing me. Not the gross kind of kissing me. The kind where my entire body and all the buddhas are, full on, going to be toast. We're all going to vanish into his cosmos in approximately a tenth of a second, and like a bolt of lightning, I'm pushing him away and protesting that he's married and I can't, can't, can't... not just married even but wife just around the corner... OMG... and my cosmic alarm sucked me right outta there.
So then I'm back here with all my buddhas yelling WTF at me... it's only a harmless dream, you stupid prude, and I'm not much happier with me than they are, but, I'm not getting back into that one now for sure.
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Two nights ago, more Rogan podcasts. This time we were at his studio, his office, his business. I'm not just me there. I'm me his sidekick, his assistant, his friend, someone supposed to be there... for no particular reason... just a puzzle part in his universe.
Lots of activity, and phone calls about scheduling guests and attending to this that and the other. I'm not just me there, and not just a puzzle piece, but also partially Joe... we're both each and dreaming the office slash man cave here. Lots is getting accomplished. We're busy as heck. It feels good. It feels right. It's very satisfying.
We're leaving. No, I'm not getting in my car. I'm going with him. We just have to clear out the junk first. It's an old beater, with old beater junk in it everywhere. He's swiping his side of it clear and I'm swiping mine. We're in this together. We're going to drive off....
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I am sure I've been doing this my whole life, but the first time I knew for sure I was doing it was from the night before my first day in high school. The radio was playing Surrealistic Pillow cuts and I was dreaming along to the music. I was the White Rabbit and the guy I'd meet for the first time the next day was chasing me through the park in a janitor's suit, singing these words to me as we ran.
always and any time....
