A Dream

I had originally composed this back on January 8th of 2012 and posted it on my Facebook page. It was during a brief time that I recall having a series of really strange and bizarre dreams but this one I managed to gather my wits in time and jump out of bed and compose it before it faded away. I recently pulled it from the archives of my Facebook page and read it to my mother about a week and a half ago and decided to transfer it to this website, with a little grammatical and punctuational editing 

"I just woke up about 20 minutes ago and was having this dream. I'm gonna try and remember as much detail as possible:

I was at a funeral here in Albuquerque with my mom. They were burying two different people in the same grave. I suspect that I knew who they were but don't recall exactly who. I remember one casket being loaded into the ground and pallbearers carrying the next casket to be placed in the same hole. My grandmother was there too. I remember peering into the hole before the 2nd casket was to be placed into it. It turned out though, that this grave was merely an opening, that this grave was actually like a giant underground family crypt or mausoleum and after the caskets were placed into it we all entered it through this separate entrance. There were other people in there, as in people that were in attendance at this double funeral. I went in there with my mom. My grandma had already gone down there before us. Everything was seemingly normal and people were just quietly chatting among themselves. My mom confirmed to me that it was an old final resting place of the family that had been around for years. It was very large and cavernous with two large sections and one small one. There was other caskets and containers (assuming that they contained ashes) everywhere, not exactly cluttered but not exactly organized either. I remember walking around exploring and looking at everything, wondering who these people(the deceased) were. I don't recall reading any names that seemed familiar. As I was exploring, no one seemed to be paying me much mind. I remember being tempted to open random caskets just to peak at who was in them and see what they looked like but I didn't though. At one point I wandered over and sat near to where my mom was chatting with someone. Suddenly to my left, there was a little pudgy girl that was looking at me kinda angrily. She said to me, "I hate you!" in a bratty, little girl kinda way. I wasn't scared, just kinda surprised I guess... then she was gone and there was a man and this woman who I wasn't familiar with but I'm assuming we were related somehow (by the way, everyone there, I assume I was of some relation to only I wasn't familiar with anyone other than my mom and grandma). They were tending to a glass box which contained the well preserved remains of the same little girl I had just encountered! They seemed sad as they were dusting it off. They were talking to me but I don't recall what they were saying. I remember I really felt for them, so much that I hid my face in a nearby curtain and began to weep. After that I noticed other containers that had old black and white portraits of whoever's (I assume) remains were in them. They were kind of odd shaped, like nothing I've seen before. I wanted to go look at them but my mom was saying something to me, what, I don't know, I wasn't really paying close attention, distracted by the portraits. There were names and dates on some of the containers but I don't recall what any of them said...

It was at this point that I started to wake and the dream faded away. This was one of the most fascinating dreams I've ever had! It wasn't a nightmare at all. I know it sounds kind of morbid and creepy and I could see how others might see it that way, but it wasn't scary. I awoke feeling peaceful, not to mention, SO intrigued by it! This is something I want to remember, which is why I'm taking the time to transcribe it at this time. There's still many small details in it but I'm trying to rush through this before things fade away."

Music, rebellion, shock value:ABQ

Rebellion comes in many forms and there are numerous ways to go about it and express it when you're young. One of the most common ways is through music, which is one that I embraced whole heartedly. I feel fortunate that I was around in a time when the concept of "shock value" still had an impact in American society, and with me living in a place like fucking Albuquerque, NM  in the 1980s, where exposure to things like punk rock was limited and more underground. Basically it was here, you just had to try a lot harder to find it, and if you found it, and you flaunted it, you had to expect a pretty extremem recation probably even more so then the meccas where much of the stuff was being produced.

For me , it all started in the summer of 1980 when my 14 year old uncle Frankie came to stay with us and introduced me to a band  called AC/DC, who's singer Bon Scott had just died after a night of heavy drinking and had been replaced by a new singer and just released a new album called "Back In Black" that was about to sell millions. Along with that album, he had gotten me into "Highway To Hell" as well as some of their other albums. He also introduced me to a band called Van Halen and another called Pink Floyd, although I was never a big fan of Pink Floyd, I do think that "The Wall" is a great album, both musically and conceptually. I also got to see both AC/DC and Van Halen in concert a few years later, both were amazing! I should mention, I've seen thousands of concerts and shows since my first and to this day, Van Halen with David Lee Roth in 1984 ranks in the top 5 best performances I've EVER seen!

So anyway, although I've listened to music pretty much all my life, I would mark that summer of 1980 as the starting point of where my own personal exploration began. Looking back, I realize that many of the bands that I was drawn to had a tendency to have a certain quality about them, something that stood out, whether it was visually or lyrically or something in their music. I was 12 years old, I remember waking up one morning watching MTV before school with my younger brother when Motley Crue's "Live Wire" video came on. I remember thinking the song fucking rocked, and the visuals were awesome, but who the fuck were these guys?!? or girls?!? Motley Crue ended up becoming one of my favorite bands down the road. Same year I saw that Crue video, Ozzy bit the head off that bat, needless to say, I was intrigued! 

Yeah, the early to mid 1980's were a great time for shock value in music. Parents, schools and religious figures were freaked out by it, it was pretty awesome, and the bands seemed endless, with Motley Crue, and Ozzy, and Twisted Sister, WASP, Iron Maiden and their scary dead Mascot "eddie",  and they all wore black leather and studs and spikes and scary make up and looked tough and did crazy outrageous shit, it seemed like an endless list! Then something happened... They all went soft... they all went "bitch" it seemed... It was like when it was time to put out new albums they all came back wearing pink and white lace ensembles, fluffy teased hair, singing love ballads... And yeah, all the hot heavy metal rocker chicks were creaming their panties over it, and a good chunk of the once cool rocker scene was following suit because of that, but basically shit got fucking LAME!!! However, I did notice that there was a few of us left that were still wearing our denim vests and not really hanging out with these with these teased headed poseurs so I started hanging with them, and got introduced to the early music of Metallica and Slayer(Both bands 1st albums are my faves by them) back when they were just getting started, as well as Exodus, Destruction, Kreator and Overkill. I started flirting with some of the total satanic metal stuff of Mercyful Fate, because, musically it was really good, but mostly cause I really enjoyed the shock value aspect, I mean it would freak people out, haha! I remember one time, I was bored in math class and I was sitting their writing the lyrics to one of their songs down and my teacher snatched it out of my hands thinking I was writing notes and in an attempt to embarrass me, began reading it aloud in front of the class, needless to say, he didn't get too far before he stopped reading it and left me alone, hahaha!

The problem with the Satan metal thing was it got old pretty fucking fast. Actually, in retrospect, a lot of the metal thing, or maybe it was just the people I was around, were starting to suck, or maybe a combo of both, but regardless, as far as the Satan metal thing, realistically, I couldn't relate. I mean, none of that stuff, demons, brimstones, bloody crosses, etc., had anything to do with my day to day existence. And these singers, with their voices, if I was to meet them and they introduced themselves and their voice sounded like that, you know, all loud, deep, evil and scary, then sure okay, legit, but chances are they sounded more or less like me. 

Fortunately around that time, I was living on the border of two different school districts, and on weekends, I'd hang with my friend Eric who was really into thrash metal and hardcore punk. He went to another school but lived just a couple blocks away. Eric had an amazing record collection and would introduce me to all these great bands. We'd pretty much just listen to records, drink beer and sometimes go to parties. Eric's turned me on to a lot of great bands including punk rock, although he preferred bands on the more thrashier side of things like the DRI's and MDC's, but he took me to my first punk rock shows. He didn't care much for too punk bands that weren't super fast (there were exceptions of course)so I was on my own as far as anything less than DRI speed, but Eric was a good guy nonetheless. I had gotten pretty bored with metal by 1986, like I said I just couldn't relate. I had shaved off my long hair and was hanging out one day and I met a girl name Suzie with a blonde mohawk. We hung out for a little while and she gave me a D.O.A cassette and when I played it later, the first song I heard was the song, "Fuck You", and I have to say, from that moment, I was "officially" sold on punk. I finally found what I'd been looking for, the singer sang with a voice that sounded real, with lyrics that I could relate with, with music that fucking rocked and made me wanna tear shit up! Yeah, I'd been dabbling with and exploring punk for about a year, but yes, I was sold, and D.O.A. is still one of my favorite bands and I've been fortunate enough to see them a few times and good lord, I've been in and around this hardcore punk scene for almost 30 years now...

Is it still rebellion? Toward the society and the system, not so much. I've learned to choose my battles, and that's a lost cause. Most of my rebellion these days is usually directed toward my peers and that's when I can even be bothered. I like to see it more as "constructive motivation" when it come to them and calling them on their bullshit.

Is it still shocking? Depends on where you are. At the same time it's not that important to me either, I can take it or leave it. I will say one thing though. Today's youth that try to recreate do a really shitty job of it