May 29, 2004

• This whole weird sleep schedule thing is really helping my dream life.

  Tonight it was less Scorcese and more Fellini. All that was missing was a mentalist writing 'Asa Nisi Masa' on a blackboard. Special guest appearance by MarcoPolo.

  I'm with my friend Marco, and he's performing in the Cirque Du Soliel. The venue is a huge hall, configured like a fancy shopping mall, with a giagantic swimming pool in the middle of it. The pool has figured in to the show thus far as a place for performers to swim around in synchronized water ballet.

  Now Marco is doing a lip-sync to some kind of strange Cirque show tune parody. He's dressed in a green skin-tight outfit, not unlike Jim Carrey as The Riddler.

  Slowly, it dawns on me that the place I've been sitting on the floor has become part of the stage. Everyone around me is a performer in costume, idling before they start their dance or whatever.

  I discreetly get up and move out of range, trying to maintain anonymity. The farther I go, the more distracted away from Marco's performance I become. Eventually, the path I'm walking on, next to the pool, turns into a rock-climbing challenge, clinging to the moulded fiberglass shapes in the wall. I turn back around.

  Now, instead of a mall, the venue is more like a big park with a pond in it. It's still nighttime, however, and I can see the spotlights moving around on the performance around the bend. Occasionally, they silhouette against the the trees in front of me; I've managed to climb up the wooded hill next to the pond/pool, where there's a sort of overlook. It's paved in brick, has a cement handrail and benches.

  Suddenly the spotlight is on me. Marco: "There he is!" Marco is now moving through the crowd, doing his lounge lizard-y Cirque-y act with the audience. They all look up at me on top of the hill. Suddenly, Marco is climbing up into the overview perch, and some Cirque clowns materialize around me.

  I wave to the spotlight, to the audience. They respond with a delighted titter.

  Marco mentions me by name: "Homer's a hacker. He's hacked a backdoor into enlightenment." (This is something Marco's actually said about me.) The audience, milling about around the pond/pool gives a half-hearted applause, like they're not sure what that means.

  The show continues and Marco and one of the clowns do some business up there, involving juggling or something. I slip away, trying again to remain anonymous.

  I make it to the bottom of the hill before the spotlight finds me again. I keep walking, and Marco and his friend are following me down the hill, over the path, through the trees.

  We get to the bottom and now my little entourage includes a TV cameraman and sound crew. Marco is doing some sleight-of-hand with some random folks, while telling in-jokes only I would get. The camera is focused on me, however. I have resigned myself to it.

  One of the Cirque people is an intensely attractive woman, short in stature, who leads us all into an antique shop. She breezes us through, past some really lovely furniture and musical instruments to what looks like the back door. She opens it up, and the crowd pours in. An alarm goes off, so she rushes to a little microphone stand and talks to someone who shuts it off.

  We're in the room that has all the really nice stuff in it. A few display cases full of exquisite jewelry and collectibles.

  We're all looking at the stuff, and then the film crew starts setting up a film projector and screen. Everyone's become involved in that, except for one woman who looks to be in her mid 40s. She's what you might call a tough dame, with a little too much makeup and dyed hair. She comes to me and says, "I need for you to sign this legal document."

  "What?"

  "A waiver. A disclaimer. I'm with MTV."

  "Oh, the cameras."

  "Yeah."

  "What if I don't sign it?"

  "Well, then all that great material will be wasted."

  "But I don't want to look like an asshole."

  "Signing this document won't make you look like an asshole."

  "But you guys can make me look like an asshole in post. If I sign it, that means you'll be able to defend your position that I am an asshole in a court of law. So basically I have all the power here, since, as you say, so much would be wasted otherwise."

  She sits down in a convenient Louis XIV chaise, a bemused and exhausted look on her face. "You know, most people don't get that."

  I notice the display case next to her. Inside, there's a remote-controlled Space: 1999 Eagle space ship toy that actually hovers! I start humming the Space: 1999 theme song.

  Finally, I say to her: "I'll sign if you buy me that Space: 1999 toy."

  A big smile of delight crosses her face.

  (Here's a link to a geeky internet archive of Space:1999 theme songs. Like, a zillion different ones. You for sure want to listen to this version, which is said to be an Ennio Morricone cover, and includes the Nino Rota/Fellini-esque electric organ, for conceptual completeness. The rock covers are pretty good, too, particularly The Rocket Scientists.)

  • 3:59 am
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