Saturday, May 31, 2014

A dream involving Spinal Tap, Thurston Moore, and the Subhumans

I'm on a cruise or a ferry trip and I keep noticing this fellow with a big black moustache. I keep thinking the same thought about him - is he who I think he is? Finally, I'm seated with a friend, and we're talking, and I look over and there he is again, just sitting there. So I say, "excuse me - are you Nigel Tufnel?"

Note: my dreaming brain has this wrong. Nigel Tufnel is the wrong member of Spinal Tap. The guy with the 'stache, the guy I thought I was addressing, is Derek Smalls, as played by Harry Shearer. To my dreaming brain's credit, I did keep thinking, "should I address him as Mr. Shearer?" once the conversation got underway.

Because indeed, a member of Spinal Tap he was, and - apparently ratifying my incorrect naming of him - he leapt into action, giving me a brand new Spinal Tap CD and saying hello in character. I looked away for a second - to tuck away the CD he'd given me and to reach for my tape recorder or such, then turned back. He was out of makeup now, presto-chango, but still sitting there, I presumed. I revealed that I was a music journalist, had just had my first review in Rolling Stone (not so) and that I would be happy to give the band press.

The guy was no longer the same one I'd been talking to. He chuckled at me and said that Nigel had left. I had not recognized this.

Later in the dream, I'm walking past a table, see Thurston Moore sitting at it, and, I think, identify him, too, as a member of Spinal Tap (sorry, Mr. Moore!). I overhear that they're talking about the Subhumans, listen long enough to determine that it's the British Subhumans, but decide to make my conversational entry into the table by asking, as I move towards an empty seat,  "so what about the Vancouver Subhumans?"

This works, and soon I am chatting with people at the table about the Subhumans, about Dimwit, and about how the band got their name ("Gerry told me!" and there's an ooh and an ahh. "I'm privileged to have interviewed him a couple of times"). I look up at some point and discover that in fact Thurston has snuck away now that a music journalist type is at the table but I'm enjoying myself so I don't really care.

I wonder if Gerry's moustache had anything to do with his popping up in the dream? Come to think of it, it is a bit of a Derek Smalls moustache. I don't think that there was a connection, though.

1 comment:

David M. said...

Christopher Guest made a comment about "Let's Put The 'Ist' Back Into Christmas" on YouTube last year. I saw it when we returned from a funeral-planning meeting.