SDJ:7 - ceremonial robes; "You must find the god of the moment" (April 7th)

4/7 -

"All I know is that addicts are constantly trying to refine their ability to have experiences with people, and I find that incredibly hopeful... and sad."  

The statement comes from a man on the television.  I'm listening to the TV, but not watching.  He's referring to an addict who claims to have magical powers. 

On the sidewalk outside the front doors of a church, I find a golden cloth in the shape of a cross.  I pick it up and go inside, hoping to locate the person from whose ceremonial robes the cloth must have fallen.  Upon entering, I realize that this will be a difficult task: the lobby is filled with perhaps 50 young people whose gold-and-white robes this cloth could have fallen from.  

Looking around, I make eye contact with an old bald man who is standing next to a middle-aged woman with short, blonde hair.  He looks at the cloth in my hand and my baffled expression, and his eyes quickly register an understanding of the situation.  With a stoic expression on his face, he reaches out his hand in a gesture that says "Give it to me, son.  I'll take care of it."

Now the boys in their gold-and-white robes are beginning their procession into the church from the lobby.  Off in the corner, I see an official behind a desk and a roughshod-looking Asian man with Fu Manchu facial-hair standing across from him.  I understand that this man is either being booked on a charge of False Imprisonment or else is being released after having served a sentence on this charge.

Back outside the church, Biggs is talking to a girl.  Behind them I see an enormous campaign poster from Ross Perot's last presidential campaign. 

Earlier -

I'm outside walking through an urban area with a guy I've been practicing vocal harmonies with.  We pass three dudes on bicycles who I recognize from the band that did that viral-video cover of "Somebody That I Used to Know" (The one in which five musicians share one guitar).  We turn around to catch up with them.  They are interested in utilizing a piece of video-game equipment that I own but don't use, and I say that I'll gladly lend it to them.

A group of people focus their attention on a clock-timer to see what will happen to them based on the actions of a cat that has jumped onto a bed I'm sitting on.  I pet it; and just as the timer is about to go off, the cat flops on it's side - Velvet-style  - and begins purring.  Everyone let's out a collective sigh of relief.

Later -

Disneyland.  Messages in the sky refer to things in the new Star Wars movie.  A witch flies across the sky as well.  Everyone stands around looking up at the sky, trying to look for messages.  Words begin to form in the clouds.

I'm in a bed upon which are stacked boxes filled with items from someone's workplace... they aren't mine, anyway.  I'm sure that, at some point, some alarm clock or something is going to start making noise in one of these boxes and then I'll be forced to dump the contents to find the thing that is making noise and shut it off.

Velvet starts exploring around some of the boxes.  Her ears are abnormally large.  Gabby is asleep in a nearby room that is filled with even more boxes.  

Before we came here I had been petting Velvet; then I saw Isobel over on a small bridge that an asphalt road became as it passed over a small stream.  Isobel was rolling on her side, like Velvet does, to beckon me.  

I go over to Isobel.  She is interested in my glass of whiskey, and so I set it in front of her.  Isobel looks the way I remember her, except that she now appears to be an albino.  Her coat is entirely white instead of black-and-white.  She still has the same yellow eyes and pink nose, but there is more pinkness in her face that shows behind all that white fur.

Max and I walk West on Pier Ave. in Hermosa.  We stop at a place where a building is being erected, which will be the business of a psychic named Keysha.  A blue awning forms an entryway on all sides leading to the front door.  On the front of the awning, over the entrance, Keysha's name is written in a Renaissance Faire-style font.  Beneath her name is an image of a key.

Inside, rows of folding chairs are set up, and Max and I take a seat on a couple of the chairs in the front row.  The chairs face a stage on which a panel of speakers are seated.  A man up there on the panel makes eye contact with me.  He is in his early 50's and has flowing grey hair.  His eyes widen and seem to glow, and I wonder if this is some kind of cult-leader-ish magic he's developed.  

Max gets up to go speak with him.  He is still staring intensely at me, so I say "Oh... me too?"  He nods.  I realize that maybe Max and I are being singled out because this is an event that you had to register for, and we just walked in off the street.

I sit back down next to another 50-something man who I somehow identify as a Jewish writer.  He asks if I can drive him somewhere after the event.  "We'll see," I tell him, "I have to give my friend a ride home as well."  Max is still working things out with the guy who called us up to the podium.
 

The Jewish writer gets up and walks onto the stage.  He reads a couple of poems, then discusses some ideas with a Native American man.  They agree that, instead of focusing on cultural and National injustices of the past, we must focus our energies on what can be done now.  The Jewish man then makes a simple, profound statement that feels really powerful, and so I decide to write down:

"You must find the god of the moment."

He sits back down in the chair next to me, to my left.  Max is now seated in the chair at the end of our row, to the right.  The writer gives me a large, yellow, laminated page; larger than an 8 1/2 by 11-inch piece of notebook paper.  Printed on this sheet are the poems he read onstage scattered around the page in black type along with other writings - perhaps even the exchange with the Native American man (who resembled Damo Suzuki, the Japanese singer from the Krautrock band, Can).

Now I'm in the "nosebleeds" at a large, outdoor stadium.  There are rows of seats folded up, and each folded-up seat secures an extra folding chair between the seat-back and folded-up bottom.  These folding chairs can be removed to accommodate extra people if there aren't enough seats in the stadium.  There are so many people standing that I move a few times to offer my seat to various women who are standing.

At one point, I'm sitting on the concrete step at the edge of the ramp between rows of seats.  Across the isle from me, up here in the nosebleeds, is the current speaker at this event.  He is speaking on the subject of pain.  He describes all the different kinds of pain in his body due to injuries or other factors; I'm not exactly sure.  He doesn't seem to be in agony as he speaks, so he must have come up with ways to manage his pain.

At first he is a young man, in a thick denim hoodie that is mostly white with a few thin, blue vertical stripes.  He has some light stubble on his face.  Later on in his speech, he is an extremely tan man in his late 40's, and I wonder whether skin cancer is one thing contributing to his pain.  

A lady near me asks him whether she's seen him on the beach volleyball courts.  "Probably," he says, "I'm there every day."  I consider telling him that he looks like the guy who used to be the football coach at my old Community College and who also taught a volleyball class that I took there one Summer... but I don't.

At Disneyland with my parents and Warren.  We are going to go see an outdoor show depicting scenes from the new, re-imagined Star Wars movie.  Characters names have been altered ever-so-slightly... they still look the same and have names that can be recognized from the originals.  Warren is expressing a lot of cynicism about the whole thing.

We only watch the show momentarily; certainly not long enough to get a good grasp of it.  Then we go to see what appears in the clouds, where I see the witch, etc.