
Recurring Dream and Portland Story by Orville Neeley
A few years ago I dated a girl who would talk in her sleep. I had trouble sleeping at her place for various other reasons, but her talking was one of them. So, after a few times of this happening, I wanted to see if I could communicate with her while she dreamt. She'd be blabbing gibberish, facing the other way, and when I grabbed her hand, she turned toward me, said my name and went back to gibbering. She ripped her hand out of mine and went back to talking to the other person in her dream. Later she told me she never had so many awful nightmares except when I stayed over, a few of them in which I died. Nice girl.
There was another girl from out of town that stayed with me one time. We hit it off quick and I was excited to have her over, but I kinda ruined my chances of ever making that happen again. Some time in the night, I started dreaming that I was fighting. I was in a boxing ring opposite someone I truly hated. I threw one quick jab and a hard left that knocked the guy out. Then I woke up. She was gasping for air. Immediately I started apologizing profusely, massaging her back. Tried to explain that the dream made me do it. At first, she gave me this look of pure hate and fear. To my surprise, she accepted my apology once she got her breath back. Didn't quite keep in touch after that though. Nice girl.
I don't dream every night although I wish I did. When I stopped smoking weed every day a couple of years ago, I started to have really intense dreams. This was after a long spell of no dreams at all! That is unless you count daydreaming. Usually the most vivid ones occur after about three days after the last time I smoked any. The less frequently I smoked, the more often I started having wild dreams. Dreaming is fun, even when it's a nightmare. It's like watching a movie Several of my dreams are recurring and play out in different yet similar ways each time.
One night in July this year, OBN III's played with Frustrations (Detroit) at my second home: Beerland (Austin, TX). I feel bad for them knowing that it was probably one of their best attended shows on tour. I saw them a few times over the next couple weeks when Bad Sports and Wax Museums toured together in August. Each time we ran into them, even the night that we played with them in Columbus, the shows were kinda weak. Don't get me wrong. I still had stupid fun in Columbus, but these guys were broke and going with it. They didn't have any spectacular shows to report. I salute their dedication. Anyway, the night that they stayed with me in Austin, I had a dream about decapitation. In a freak accident, my head was lopped off by a stray support cable that was ripped out of the ground by a construction crew. I heard the workers yell, I turned and looked at them confused, I turned back and walked straight into the quarter inch thick cable flying at me with rapid speed. When it hit my neck, I felt nothing. WHACK! My eyes watched as my head flew back from my bloodless neck.
Whiteness everywhere. I thought I was dead, but the doctors said I would live. A new head started to form and over the course of a couple months grew back. Some time during this period my mind started to work again. The doctors kept my old head refrigerated. When I was ready to venture out of the hospital, I tried to proceed with business as usual. I couldn't help feeling the change. My mind didn't work the same. I had a new outlook on life with new eyes. My new head grew back slightly deformed. Although it looked a lot like me, the top of my skull was indented in weird places, my mouth was smaller. I carried my old head around in a bag with me at all times, occasionally opening the bag to check the condition of my deteriorating former self. But the old head didn't rot, it just turned white, no blood leaked out of the paper bag. Just as everything in my life seemed to be coming back together, a cyclist snatched the bag out of my arms in passing. Infuriated, I chased him screaming at the top of my lungs. Freaked out that I would be so careless as to lose this artifact of my former self, this trophy of conquered death, I kept chasing. I ran and ran into the whiteness until I could no longer see, scream or cry. My new brain was frying. Then I woke up with a jolt, sat up in bed and the dudes from Frustrations were standing in my doorway waving good bye.
Earlier this year I was flown to Portland, Oregon to play my first show with a band from Texas I had joined just a month before. Interesting dudes, but I still barely knew a couple of them at that point. Typical airport problems delayed our flights and we had to switch to a much later one. Hanging out at DFW is not very cool. Airports in general suck. I appreciate the fact that all of my food and beers were paid for, but our main guy was stressed the fuck out. Never again, will we book flights the day of the show. Miraculously, however, we made it to Portland just an hour before our set time. I did my best not to drink any before we played because it makes fast drumming a lot harder. The set went over fine and the guys in my band who are all at least ten years older than me were carousing with old west coast friends. I'm the kid in the band and the butt of many a joke, but whatever, it's fun. Soon as we were done, I started drinking as much free booze as I could get. There was a lot. A friend of mine gave me a touch of drugs and things got even better. I hung around with her for awhile, but there was a dude there too. Are you dating this guy? I had to say as he walked ahead of us. She gave me a very disappointed. A little later while some other band playing, I went outside to smoke and the drip started getting to me. Luckily, nobody was talking to me \'d4cause the drip in the back of my throat was making for unsavory loogies.
Lots of whiskey and beer and cigarettes and of course, I gotta clear my throat. Then I got one that wouldn\'d5t come loose. A little gag and I knew what was up. I walked around the corner to puke with tremendous audible volume in front of someone\'d5s kitchen window. Revived, I went back to partying. Probably drank about ten more beers and some more shots, whatever. Above the club was an apartment with some kids who put on after hours shows. Pretty cool place, actually.
By that time I was fucked up and the band that played was pretty cool, decent punk band, but the singer just kinda stood there, ya know? I didn't get it, stage fright in your own apartment. My buddy and I were making fun of them, yelling rude shit etc. Then I noticed the guy's ass crack was showing. He kept bending over, often not even facing the audience. There was an excess of beer from god-knows-where and I kept pouring it down the back of his pants. The few times that he got up in anyone\'d5s face, I would knock him onto the floor. Nobody was stopping me either. I thought someone would kick my ass, but it just didn't happen. Eventually we, the band, got tired of the party. One of guys was already passed out in the hotel room. The wagon faller and I picked up some girls and scored a ride back to the hotel.
One of them seemed cool and looked really good, the other was kinda gross and talked too much. We invited them up in hopes of sex or at least some making out, but that didn't happen in the room. Passed out guitar player was very unhappy with our guests. He tried to ignore it, but one of them was a loud talker. She kept shooting video with her little digital camera, which was pointless. It would have been another boring video had she not tried to awaken the beast in the bed. He let it slide for a couple minutes. She kept prodding him What's the matter, you sleepy? C'mon don't be a pussy and wake up! He could take the insults, until she started making lewd suggestions. Then she started pushing and slapping him on the back with the camera still rolling, mind you. BAM, he popped up out of the bed and grabbed her by the hair ye}'d you want this bitch? She was so startled, she didn't even scream, he forced her to the ground and waved his dick in her face still yelling suck my fucking dick, bitch!! I'm trying to sleep. I think the end result of the video was kinda blurry, but if you watched if, you'd get the point. The rest of us watched and laughed, including this girl's friend, with whom I later made out in her car. Buddy boy wagon-faller didn't have as much luck with video girl as she was pretty upset after dick-waver guitar player assaulted her. She had it coming.
Bad Sports- All The Time
OBN III's - Runnin on Fumes



































