The Supermarket

So, in this dream you are running supermarket isles in first person view. As you take corners, the world swings left-to-right, right-to-left, and then scrolls beneath your feet. You see a store clerk stocking melons and immediately a rusty crowbar floats into your field of vision. You Half-life 2 the store clerk in the head with the crowbar, hear a digitized scream as his face explodes into a pixilated cloud of red, and keep on moving.

Behind you, following you, is a woman carrying two very full grocery bags. When you stop, she stops; when you move, she moves. She is relentless in her pursuit, and every time you swivel your vision to see her, her face becomes a mask of Hurry-Up-I-Don’t-Have-All-Day.

Another clerk spawns beside you, just inside your peripheral vision. He is holding a plate with little tooth-picked cheese samples. You swivel, pound him with the crowbar, and watch in high resolution as his body slumps against the far wall. The little cheese samples roll on the floor in a pleasingly realistic fashion. The woman behind you stares blankly ahead. Clearly she is unimpressed.

Once the deli isles are cleared of riffraff, you head toward the front doors of the marketplace. They open as you draw near, allowing you passage to a misty street that leads to nowhere. Nothing breaks the hazy horizon. The store is gone. You are left alone in a blank world with the woman carrying two very full grocery bags. This time when you move forward, she does not follow.

Turning to face her, you see her give a polite smile. Her face becomes a mask of Thank-You-For-Helping-Me-Out-Of-The-Store-Now-Go-Away. Her eyes are closed as she smiles, and all at once she is the sweetest and least sincere person you have ever known in your entire life.

In your dream, this realization scares you awake.

My Last Day at the Rodeo

I craved a Snickers bar and a Sundrop,
But I only had one quarter and five dimes
And three pennies in my wallet.

My last day at the rodeo
Was all of six seconds
Give or take a tenth or two.
Holding my rope
My gloved hand straining
Fit to burst.

I remember checking my office drawer for spare change
Only to discover an old red pen
That I used to love to calculate with.

Use your body or use your mind:
Both are physical enough to stress.
Both can feel the pressure of the rope.
Six point one seconds lets say...
He passed that six seconds mark lets say...
Not bad for his last day at the rodeo.

My need for chocolate and sugary water
Was perhaps symbolism for something deeper?

My desire to ride the eight-hundred pound monster
Was perhaps foreshadowing of my eventual destruction?

All the Ooohs and Aaahs of the crowd
Slowed and slurred through my arcing decent
Satisfy my hunger.
The snapping of bones and joints,
The ripping of tendons and muscle:
All audible proof that I existed.

My last day at the rodeo
Was all of six seconds.
But to a bug, a wave,
A thought, a dreamer,
Six seconds can be a lifetime.

For your listening enjoyment...

Here is the hurricane tribute song recorded by The Michaels, entitled "You Can't Drown My Heart". It is a 20 minute long song, and it is encoded in the Apple .m4a format (it's the only way I could rip it... sorry!) but it DOES play in Winamp if you don't have I-Tunes. Your best bet will be to right click on the link and "Save Target As" the song, then open it in your music software. It's a 20.1 Meg file, so for those of you on dial-up, it may take you up to twenty minutes to grab the thing. It may be well worth it though!

You Can't Drown My Heart

Michael A. does Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Electric-Violin-Bass, Jazz Bass, Moog, Mandolin, Slide-Guitar, Honky Tonk Piano, and discovered and edited sound samples.

Michael M. does Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Acoustic Bass, Violin, Drums, Electro-Jazz-Flute, Moog, Banjo, and laughed at edited sound samples.

EDIT:
Produced by the Michaels and recorded at Michael A's Octopoidland Studio, Austin, TX, October 2005.

We would like to thank the makers of cheap instruments and musical equipment everywhere.

DISCLAIMER: if you have a heart you will be offended by this song. We apologize in advance for the hardcoreness of this project...but we felt it had to be done. Enjoy the rock.

A poem about Texas.

Texas, you are a very big state. It takes forever to drive across you, and your gas stations are a bit scary.

Austin, you are a good city in Texas. Your skyline is beautiful in the evenings, and you have bats.

Dallas is dumb and chaffs my bum. Dallas, you go to hell and you die.