In a morning / before-waking dream, I was on stage at a small theater venue, like an art-house movie theater, a full house for a poetry slam.  I was to read from my collection “Bad Poetry For James Franco”, and was giving my spiel / intro…that the writing of these poems kept me from punching James Franco in the throat for his seeming overall mission to make the world safe for the straight white male by inserting himself into so many marginalized roles [such as, photographically replicating Cindy Sherman in her iconic feminist body of work “Untitled Film Stills 1977 - 80”, mimicking her poses, clothing and locations though not shaving his own iconic facial hair — and providing bad and patronizing poetry to accompany her own photos); by playing two known homosexual poets on film, Ginsberg and Hart Crane; playing a wigga gangster with gold front and cornrows in Harmony Korine’s “Springbreakers”; pretty much lifting Kenneth Anger’s whole film “Fireworks”, in which a young man sexually fantasizes about being beaten up by a group of more macho boys; and his selfies project, and his own panned poetry…why would he do all this?  What compelled him to make the world safe for the SWM?…etc…THEN he stands up from the seated crowd and says to me, walking towards me in the aisle, “c’mon, I’m right here…punch me” and I explain that oh, I don’t need to now as through this poetry project I worked it out…and he is still walking, this time onto the stage with me, “come on, punch me I’m Right Here.”  And I explain more that in writing about him, in his voice, I sort of got him, all his need to get 7 MFAs and read poetry for MoMA…that it’s a thing to do, because he can, it’s a new thing, a way to expand because he can, and I get it and I don’t need to punch him anymore.  And he says “oh..”. And his shoulders relax.  And he says “well now that I’m up here, I realize you don’t have anyone to sign for the crowd during your reading.  I know ASL, American Sign Language, and would be happy to sign for you.”  So I said sure, great, have at!  Thanks!  And he stood on the edge of the stage and signed with his hands as I read from my book.  Then I woke up.

I dreamed I was visiting with Trevor Moffat, the lead guitarist of my first teenage rock band. I had agreed to plastic surgery in which we would switch appearances entirely: faces, hair, etc. I was very sad about it, but sure I must have agreed for some good reason which I couldn’t remember. At different points in the dream, I also told various people I met that Trevor and I had exchanged names. People still seemed to recognize me.

Early in the dream, I got out of Trevor’s car at his modernist house and went to a Soviet pub. The place was full of brutish workers. I left my seat to ask the indifferent server for some French fries, and when I got back, a guy was sitting in my chair and had drank all my beer. I sat next to him, refusing to be intimidated. His friend, a guy across the table started talking to me. They were German. He was talking about people in northern British Columbia, mostly holed up little cabins, and I mentioned that yes, I knew the man he called The Master; I revealed that I knew his name to be Richard Teitelbaum. He corrected my pronunciation, but accepted what I was saying. We discovered we had other people in common. They were a little warmer to me after that.

At a late point in the dream, I forgot a woman’s name who recognized me even with Trevor’s face. I can’t remember if her name was Ruth or if that was the name I incorrectly called her. At her house, I got a look at myself in the mirror and who I actually looked like was Chris Batting (the lead guitarist of my second band). Outside her place, the Fraser River was flooding ominously—almost right up to her door.