Dream of George Bush (and Clinton)
I had a dream (1/3/96) where I was at my grandparents’ house. And we were going to have a business meeting to discuss GLP’s innovative new project: a global engineering resource on the internet run by a small company, us, started on a shoestring.
Apparently news of this project attracted the attention of higher-ups because George Bush was going to sit in on the meeting. He’d heard that small companies were competing on a large scale on the Net and in classic industries and he picked us to look in on. Sure enough, I wandered out to the side yard driveway and there was a big white limosine. And I wasn’t even dressed yet! “Hurry,” everyone said, “we’re going out to lunch for a business meeting at a real fancy place downtown in just a half hour!”
Well, I musta got dressed on time, coz there we were, strolling into this fine old club in downtown Wherever. It had oak panelling. Tall ceilings. We were to meet with George in a special side room. I was already respecting him. He seemed like he would be an intense powerperson who was honestly prepared to be friendly and listen to us with hi-octane judgment, with whipsharp acuity. He was going to be very good and very smart. He’d look full of life. Ready to hear some real innovation and ready to offer advice, contacts and support.
I got a bit of the nerves, so took a seat in the bar before going in. A fellow there told me that his job was to attend special meetings and to drink and smoke for people who didn’t want to. He’d sit off to the side and ritually indulge for them, so they wouldn’t offend whoever was their host. (“I’ll have the club’s drinker drink for me. And a cigar.” “As you wish, sir.”) Quite a fancy club, that.
All of a sudden I stepped outside myself. I wasn’t going in to the meeting. But why? All of a sudden I realized that I was embarrassed. That I didn’t want to be around while my Dad and brother and others made fools of themselves with wild ideas and no notion of how to implement them or what they really meant. George would think: “This is a little firm that’s up to something big? They don’t know what they’re talking about!” Basically we wouldn’t be able to pull it off. Fancy folk were thinking we’d talk business, but all they’d hear was foolery. (I suppose this was inspired by our meeting with Charles Eisendrath and my never hearing back from him again despite repeated letters.)
Then I thought that I was also doing something else. Here I was getting the great chance to meet someone powerful and famous, a celebrity. And it occured to me that perhaps the best way to get his attention and respect would be to ignore him. That even better than meeting the Vice President (that’s what he was in this dream) was waiting outside the room and not even going in to see him at all. I’d always rushed for what was good. Now I saw that it might sometimes be even better to snub it, wreck it. That no good would come of it anyway, so why pretend. Don’t kiss up to the wealthy; they’ll never give you anything anyway, so tell em to screw off from the start. I’d never intentionally wrecked anything. Now here we were going to get our moment of national fame and I was blowing it. I’m not exactly sure why, those ideas were kinda in my head, along with others, but there I sat. Everyone waiting, then probably going on without me. Kinda like finally daring to screw up your own wedding. I thought “Look at you just sitting there. Not going in. You don’t know what you’re doing! You’re a nut!” (Maybe some of this had something to do with Pathetic Doug blowing off the New York Times interview. I really don’t know. I was just looking down and watching.)
***
The Clinton Presidency
I had a dream about President Clinton, also, and his whole scene. They were really folksy. Hillary was there and Al Gore, too. Plus a bunch of campaign people. They were kind of running the country out of their house. I mean, it really looked just like someone’s house. There was an air of We’re just plain folks, going on. Bill and everyone seemed happy to listen to other people’s ideas. Kinda like they were making it up as they went. It was a friendly, ad hoc scene. We all pitched in.
