Stealing the Spotlight / Amsterdam / New Guy

Thursday night

Dream 1: Stealing the Spotlight

Nat King Cole was standing in his home, looking at a sleeveless record, and he was considerably unhappy. He and Frank Sinatra had been planning on recording a duet, with Nat taking the lead and Frank singing harmony in the background. Frank had sent Nat an acetate featuring the song with his proposed arrangement, and Nat was chagrined to hear that Frank would be far louder and more "out front" than they had planned.

Dream 2: Amsterdam

I was vacationing in Amsterdam, and it happened that Bono and George Harrison were there too. In fact, word was getting around that the two of them were signing items at a small local book shop, as a favor to the owner. I saw one person walk by carrying a blue plastic bag emblazoned with Harrison's neat cursive signature, signed boldly in black. After walking for a few minutes in the downtown area I came upon a shop which was elevated from the street, as if it was built on stilts. It was covered in wooden siding, and seemed to be longer than it was tall. The front entrance was reachable by climbing a metal stairway that had holes in it, for drainage, so it wouldn't be slippery when it rained. I glanced up at the porch at the top of the stairs. Bono was standing outside. A young male fan, not yet a teenager, ran up to greet him. Bono bent down in time to give him a hug.

Dream 3: New Guy

I had traveled to Virginia for the poker tournament, and had made it to the third and final round, which was hosted by my friend, Eddie M. Several of the regulars were there, including my brother Andrew, but there was one guy that I didn't recognize. Ed said, "This is one of my old college buddies, and I told him he could play, too." Drew and I were outraged. We had already put money on the line in two rounds; it's against tourney rules for someone to join in the third round and compete for the plaque. Any new person is required to play in rounds 1 and 2, and end up in the top 6 to compete in the 3rd round. I hadn't driven over 600 miles for this guy to disqualify the round. Drew said, "I'm Out," meaning that he wouldn't play under those circumstances. I balked, too.

*****

Dream 1: Stealing the Spotlight

One of my coworkers recently lent me a 4-disc box set of Nat King Cole's recordings, and I read the enclosed booklet from cover to cover. This dream was conjured up from a photo of Cole and his Capitol Records label mate, Sinatra, from that book. From all appearances, they got along great. I don't recall any duets between Cole and Sinatra, but Cole sang one with Dean Martin in 1954 called "Open up the Doghouse (Two Cats Are Comin' In)" which was pretty funny. [I listened to this song more closely later, and found that it contains really nasty lyrics about how men should treat women. Nat sings, "You've got to treat 'em rough," and Dean says, "You gotta smack 'em." I think that's disgusting. There's nothing funny about that at all.]

Dream 2: My coworker Maureen and I were discussing Amsterdam last week. Her boyfriend is studying in Europe for awhile, and he was planning on stopping in Amsterdam before going on to Italy. I told her that my neighbors were there a few years ago, and I've always wanted to see the city. Mo has been there, too, and told me about the canal, the flowers, the architecture, everybody smoking...

Dream 3: Andrew and I played the second round of the poker tournament recently at Eddie M.'s house. Drew graduated to the third round, later this year; I did not. There were no "crashers."