Wakey-Wakey: Where Dreams Hang Out

I studied the Russian language in college. The Spanish and French classes were more popular, so I chose the language class with the fewest number of students. That would be Russian. My teacher was a little spit-fire from Moscow named Irene Trofimova. I loved her. She hated me. She called me “Kee-van” and told me frequently, “You vill go into the vorld, and you vill die.” One day, when only the two of us attended class, she said to me, “Kee-van, vhat is this vord, this ‘hanging-out’”. As she said the word, she threw her hands in front of herself like a farmer sowing seed. I said, “It just means to spend time together. Like you and me, right now, we are ‘hanging out’”. She blushed and waved her hands in the air. “Stop it, Kee-van. Don’t say such things!” I asked where she had heard this phrase - this “hanging out”. After more blushing and hand-waving, she finally said she’d heard it in a movie. A prostitute had said it to a client. She invited him to more prostituting. They could “hang out” again. She ended class early that day. She often ended class early. I spent three years and six semesters with Mrs. Trofimova. I earned a Minor in Russian language. And today I speak as much Russian as I did when I graduated: none. 

My first year in Russian class was my best. I spent long hours in the dorm laundry room across from my own room, away from my roommates VHS marathons of Linda Carter’s Wonder Woman, memorizing and translating and listening to pronunciation tapes. Learning a language requires obsession as much as smarts, and I at least possessed the former. And then, half way through my second semester, something strange occurred. I began dreaming in Russian. I woke often having had long, elaborate Russian language conversations in my dreams that I could not have in real life. I told this to Mrs. Trofimova. She said, “It means you are learning!” She had hope for me. I had hope for me. But the Russian language dreams stopped when summer hit and I stopped studying. Trofimova lost her hope in me after that. I never dreamed in Russian again my second and third years in her class. 

I tell you this story because I want to understand why I so often wake with music playing loudly in my head. After all, I am not a musician. Michael Scarborough kindly attempted to make me a musician. He loaned me a bass a few years ago. Told me to learn the entirety of AC/DC’s Back In Black or Highway to Hell. Maybe both. I started good and strong. Found YouTube videos with practice tips for strengthening my wispy tulip stem fingers. But it wasn’t long before I would grab the bass, pluck for 20 or so minutes, and then get interrupted by an idea for a poem. That spring when Michael gave me the bass I wrote a ton of poems. Mostly bad. Most of them written with his bass guitar sitting across my lap, my skinny arms reaching over the neck and body to scrawl out some nonsense about dying on a hill in some state where I’d never even bought a cup of coffee. Eventually, realizing he was earning no royalties off of me anytime soon, Michael asked for his bass back. I wrote more poems. Most of them terrible. And most of them still about dying young out of the gaze of the universe. 

As many nights as I wake hearing music in the silent dark I also wake with the need to write down words and images. Here’s something I wrote a few nights ago -- “the mind wanders on feet made of spider silk until it catches up with itself.” WTF, melatonin! But that same night I woke with Ronnie James Dio warning me “Don’t go the edge of rainbows!” You got it, RJD! I don’t feel so bad about my random midnight musings after considering Dio’s lyrics. 

I call it my “Wakey Wakey” playlist: the place where I collect the songs streaming through my mind in the predawn. Most of the songs are not surprising. The list below reveals my recent kicks with Khruangbin, the Ramones, Iron Maiden, and Dio. But there’s also a few random bits thrown in as well. White Lion? Haven’t heard them since last summer. The Go-Gos? I had forgotten “Vacation” was even their song. Trisha Yearwood? Lord, I think that song followed me to three different HEB grocery stores in the course of a single week. Nothing much surprised me here except that I only woke to 20 unique songs over the course of 30 days. (I woke to Sade’s “Smooth Operator” nearly every morning for a whole week. And that is not a bad thing.) Here’s the past month of mornings faithfully recorded.

The “Wakey-Wakey” playlist from June 1-June 30:

1. “Lady and Man” -- Khruangbin
2. “Bastard Steel” -- Smoulder
3. “Vacation” -- The Go-Gos
4. “All is Quiet on the Easter Front” -- Ramones
5. “Midnight” -- Khruangbin / Leon Bridges
6. “7-11” -- Ramones
7. “Wait” -- White Lion
8. “Smooth Operator” -- Sade
9. “Die With Your Boots On” -- Iron Maiden
10. “She’s In Love With The Boy” -- Trisha Yearwood
11. “I Want You Around” -- Ramones
12. “Still Life” -- Iron Maiden
13. “I Want It All” -- Colony House
14. “Dream Evil” -- Dio
15. “Bodies” -- Smashing Pumpkins
16. “Foreverman” -- Traveler
17. “Naked In The Rain” -- Dio
18. “Breakaway” -- Kelly Clarkson
19. “Holy Diver” -- Dio
20. “Time (You and I)” -- Khruangbin

July finds me excited about the new Ex-Ops seven inch, the new collaboration between Bell Witch and Ariel Ruin, the new album with actual vocals from Khruangbin, and the arrival of Haunt’s If Icarus Could Fly recently purchased on splattered vinyl. I’m predicting heavy doses of each in my July “Wakey-Wakey”. But, then again, yesterday a Jeep Wrangler passed by blasting a Vince Gill ballad and a driver playing solo karaoke. He sounded terrible, but I loved his heart, spilling out like a drunken shrill off the coasts of Nashville. Wait, you say, Nashville doesn’t have a coast! Buddy, you haven’t seen Nashville in my dreams.