11.09.07
Wolves, Lower
Well, I’d rather be watching Pelle the Conquerer right now — but oh, catching-up, catching-up.
Seven days and the cold is just about over. First three days (and nights) were the worst; after that, simply felt like running a machine without any oil in it.
Funny: Today I sat down to the first proper meal of the day at around five, and had just encountered the actress and her formerly-pregnant friend (which was awkward; flakitude and faux friendliness are just so horrible), and nourishment was A-#1 top priority, and the food was before me…
…and suddenly, without so much as a How Do You Do?, the restaurant’s muzak-system began playing the Eagles’ lead-off “hit” (as if) single.
Like many people, when I’m on my own I receive environmental stimuli personally, so when the system followed up with “Losing My Religion” and “Take On Me,” it was like when some friend slaps you then begs, “We’re still friends, right?”
Muzak-system, nice try, but you’re going to have to do better than that.
I’m still recovering some strength, so I took a nap. The following dream:
I was inside an old theatre with many people, and it was pretty and kind of dark and a bit funky — like a real old, unrefurbished theatre in Europe, except that we were all spread out on blankets on the floor, which was a sloping lawn of green grass, as in an outdoor theatre for a rock concert. I had just done some technical modifications on the theatre and changed out of my business attire, donning a virtually shapeless green sweatshirt and khakis.
The “show” was actually a Q&A session, but an odd one to be sure: Stage right sat Steven Spielberg (about whom I had been thinking in the restaurant, as many people in there were wearing baseball caps, and I reasoned: “Baseball caps make people look stupid; they should be banned!”), and beside him sat a balding, bearded man, also bespectacled, whom I recognised as being Charles Martin Smith — perhaps best known onscreen as Terry “The Toad” Fields from American Graffiti and its sequel, but also featured in, say, Herbie Goes Bananas.
Thus far, none of this seemed weird to me. One of my friends handed me a Pepsi, and I thought: “What the hell, this is an Event!” and took a sip — subsequently dribbling it a bit because they hadn’t properly opened the can. Well, whatever. A casual evening.
Then Spielberg suddenly stood up and said: “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our host and moderator for the evening: Gregory Weinkauf!”
Now here’s the thing: I don’t even like my surname, and I say it as infrequently as possible, and I do my best to discourage people from calling me by it. I hate it, actually. Thus, there was a bit of hang-time between the billionaire Hollywood-owner enthusiastically shouting my name across the theatre and me realising that this had anything to do with me.
My friends nudged me. I was puzzled. Oh: He means me. Okay…
Certainly, there wasn’t any time to change back into my business attire — and the spotlight didn’t help any, either — so I stood and swept through one of those “modest wave at the crowd” gestures. There was an empty seat, to Charles Martin Smith’s direct right, which I hadn’t noticed. I picked my way through the lawn-revellers and put myself in the seat.
Fortunately, the lights were very bright, so I could only see people in the very front of the grassy floor. Spielberg reached across and handed me a microphone. I thanked him, and then noticed that both men were frowning at me. They weren’t joking, either: They were really frowning hard. As the phrase goes, they weren’t making any attempt to conceal their contempt. This vaulted me onto a whole new level of puzzlement – until I glanced down and noticed that I was wearing a very inappropriate green sweatshirt, down the front of which I had very obviously dribbled some sort of caramel-coloured beverage.
As a grace-note, the sweatshirt was also inside-out and backwards.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! How’s it going?”
Silence.
Steven Spielberg and Charles Martin Smith were now actively glaring at me with eyes full of hatred. They hated me. This was obvious.
(What to do?)
Adding even one more layer of puzzlement, for some reason (in my dream), Charles Martin Smith was the director of the evening’s entertainment (which, apparently, I had missed whilst tweaking the theatre’s technical bits) — even though in reality he had been the star of the film.
“So…Never Cry Wolf. Amazing film, huh?”
The audience made not a peep. They stared. Silently.
“I think everyone knows our guest on my far left, heh-heh!”
Silence.
Green sweatshirt.
Inside-out.
Pepsi dribble.
“And in between us, well — please everybody, give a warm welcome to Martin Cruz Smith!”
Silence.
(For the record: Martin Cruz Smith is the apparently vanished-from-the-scene author of Gorky Park and Nightwing — and definitely not the star of Never Cry Wolf — and absolutely certainly not the star of Never Cry Wolf pretending to be its director, who is actually Carroll Ballard, who was not present in physical form in my dream — although he may have been possessing Charles Martin Smith in terms of general attitude.)
Charles Martin Smith leered at me. This is particularly funny, as it’s really kind of difficult to imagine Charles Martin Smith leering at anybody.
He was hating me, though. He and Spielberg were both hating me. A lot.
“So…Mr. — um — Martin Smith…this film…is about…wolves…and–”
(You have to know what it feels like to have someone hanging on your words in front of a crowd and hoping that you’re going to say something halfway intelligent to understand the tension at this point — the tension being significantly magnified by the fact, in the dream, that these guys totally hated me at first sight.)
“–and, well, so…you have passion…for wolves…yes?…”
Silence.
(And then, desperately:)
“WHAT WAS IT THAT FIRST ATTRACTED YOU TO THIS PROJECT?”
(Oh…fuck.)
Charles Martin Smith — or perhaps the spirit of Carroll Ballard who was possessing his corporeal frame — reacted as if I had offered him a teacup filled with fresh dogshit. He turned his head away in utter disgust and refused to answer me.
The audience began to titter.
I glanced to Spielberg for help — and Spielberg hastily glanced away.
“Now, Mr. Cruz Smith — the Alaskan wilderness — um…”
At this point, as if to apply a tourniquet to the evening, Charles Martin Smith actually turned to face me. He faced me, he withdrew his microphone, and he spoke to me. This is what he said:
“No.”
Cold horror descended upon the scene: Here were two Industry veterans — one reasonably powerful (Hey, I liked Boris and Natasha — and Stone of Destiny sounds quite cool) and one insanely powerful (he owns everything) — and apparently they had summoned me to the stage in front of perhaps a couple thousand people (who had gathered en masse to enjoy 1983’s sleeper-sleeper Never Cry Wolf?) with the express purpose of not cooperating — not only with me, but with the standard process of a Q&A altogether.
Egad!
I looked Steven Spielberg in the eye. And then I looked Charles Martin Smith in the eye.
They both glared back as if to say, “Whatcha gonna do?”
I smeared the Pepsi into my sweatshirt and squinted through the blinding haze into the crowd. They offered no answers (or even questions!)
This was a make-or-break moment.
I ignored Spielberg completely, and turned my attention to Charles Martin Smith.
“WOLVES, HUH! WOLVES SURE ARE PRETTY GREAT, DON’T YOU AGREE? I MEAN, WOW! WOLVES!”
Both men’s eyes bugged out as I snapped awake to that feeling of having accidentally miscalculated a step off a very tall kerb.
Aren’t “blogs” great?
Beowulf! If they really had faith in it, they’d open it against The Golden Compass, wouldn’t they?
Bon week-end!
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