Generally, the Gospel Truth

My roommate Nathan is gifted; he can play the guitar from any position. Some times he will play it sitting down. Sometimes he will play it standing up. My favorite times are those when he plays will dancing, which I think would be very hard.

Several weeks ago Nathan formed a band named General Lee and the Gospel Truth in our living room. Basically what happens is on nights that I have to study, he will invite all his friends over to play music. Bingo plays the banjo, Laurie plays the fiddle, and Moffett plays a bass guitar he made out of a wash basin and a broom handle.

(Don't you love those names? I feel like this could be a band of muppets, like Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.)

Nathan plays some of his own songs, and some covers. The band will practice on our porch or in our living room, and Blanton, my other roommate, and I will sit and listen, because we cannot play instruments. I've always been frustrated by that - not that I can't play an instrument, but more that I can't join a band. I don't care much about playing instruments; I have other skills, many of which I can't tell you about. Yet I often wish I could be in a band, because that seems to be an easy conversation starter.

Two Saturdays ago, watching General Lee grow their bluegrass, I really felt the need for a steady, grating percussion instrument like a washboard. I said this, and as it turned out, I was sitting directly beneath a washboard that had been hung on the wall (I think it may have come from a dumpster - Nathan brings home a lot of knick knacks). Since it was my idea, I was given the position of washboard player.

Playing the washboard is a lot like running your fingernails across a chalkboard - in fact, if the chalkboard was preforated, that would be exactly what playing the washboard is. The only trick is making a scratching sound rhythmic. This is a trick I possess.

The pinnacle of the night (and my life) came at midnight - having mastered the oft celebrated washboard, I suggested we go to Dickson Street and peddle our wares. Thus we did, and in two hours we stole ten dollars from people who thought we were homeless. After that, I (literally) hung up my washboard, and retired from professional music.

This Type of Dream is the Best Dream

Last night, there was one brief section of my dream that elevated it from forgettable to legendary. It did not last very long (truthfully, how can I tell how long it really lasted - dream time is entirely relative), but it was magnificent.

I was involved in a worldwide adventure race, competing with scores of other contestants in an attempt to reach first whatever treasure stood at the end of the world. In my haste to win, I teamed up with five other challengers in a Roaring Twenties era chaffuer driven car, in order to make it past Juice Garner, who in real life was a matinence worker at Camp War Eagle this past summer.

I sat in the back with three others; I sat next to a beatiful, small girl with a gunshot wound in her thigh that would soon become fatal (I'm not really sure why; maybe it hit an artery). Feeling enormous sympathy for such a sad situation, I offered to hold her while she died, so that she would not feel alone.

As I held her, her voice changed, becoming heavily accented, and she revealed that she was actually a Russian spy, who had been deep undercover in the adventure race for several years. Since she was dying, she saw no point in continuing the ruse, and she wanted to go out as her own self.

She began to tell me all about her early life in a post-Soviet country, about her mother and father, and all her siblings. She told me that since I knew more about her than any other person, I technically loved her. Then we kissed, and she died, and the car arrived at some sort of carnival, at which point the dream shifted into another scenario not worth mentioning.

I told my roommate Nathan about this dream, and he said that the absolute best dreams are the ones you wake up sad from. Not sad that you're awake, and can't get back to the paradise you were once in - that's simply vulgar desire. The best dreams are the ones that stick a hand out of your brain and reach down your throat and tug at the tendons that connect your heart to your ribs, so that when you wake up, you want to cry for that beautiful, small Russian spy who in fact is not real.