The Midnight Diaries of Catty Wampus

(note: From time to time, I’ve decided to post short descriptions of dreams I have. I’m certain that every one I describe will sound weird, and may even elicit comments such as “Hey Eric, that is a WEIRD dream.” But I don’t think that most people have “normal” dreams anyway, so I don’t mind if you think mine are a little off-the-wall)

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I dreamed that I had gone to Las Vegas to visit family and friends.

I had arrived a few days early, so I decided to hang out on the strip and check out what was happening at the casinos. I don’t gamble, but I like to watch people and the games being played. So I put on my headphones, hit “play” on my walkman, and walked from the airport down to one of the bigger casinos (this is actually possible in real life), a big yellow one that towered over the others in the bright morning sun.

As soon as I entered the casino, I saw rows and rows of pool tables. I love watching pool–there’s something about the flat felt surface, and the elegance of the pool balls, the colors, the physics of the game… and something else I can’t quite explain, but I’ve always been drawn to billiards.

I found an empty table and sat down on it to watch the games. I still had my headphones on; I was listening to an audiobook, and it made for nice background noise while watching the players play. However, it wasn’t long before a pit boss approached me and asked me to turn off my walkman and give it to him along with my headphones. I had forgotten that this sort of thing is not allowed on the casino floor. (This may have also been inspired from real life. I was once watching my brother play blackjack, and I took out my palm pilot to check the time. My brother nearly smacked it out of my hands, for fear that a security guard would come over to confiscate it and kick him out of the game. You see, you’re not allowed to have any electronic devices out at the tables–you could be using them to help you cheat.)

I apologized and handed over my walkman. The pit boss was very kind about it, and said that I could retrieve it when I was ready to exit, and he pointed out the location of his desk. At his desk I could see a rack filled with other peoples’ walkmans, each in their own plastic bag with a label on it. It made me feel better knowing I wasn’t the only one foolish enough to try to listen to my headphones on the floor.

I began to walk around the tables. Something interesting was going on.

At one table, a woman had climbed up to the playing surface and was having her feet strapped to two oversized cue balls. The balls were about the size of a small cantaloupe melon. The players, dressed in Japanese business suits, were going to use her legs as some kind of croquet-wicket obstacle.

At another table off in the distance, two players were dressed as surgeons. They had covered their pool table with a white bedsheet, and were performing surgery on their pool balls, which were also oversized, by using scalpels and acid. I could see the surface of the enamel bubbling under the acid they were applying to it.

The more I looked around, I realized that each table was using these balls of unusual size, and each table was doing something unusual to enhance their game.

I glanced up at a banner hanging over the room that announced, in fancy lettering with a gold, blue, and black logo: “An Evening With Pixar.” And suddenly it all made sense: The artists who work at Pixar never do anything conventionally. They were marking each of their pool tables with their own personal style and artistic vision.

I walked between the tables taking in the sights of more and more varieties of pool table design and game play.

My favorite was the team that was using a giant white cue ball. Each time the cue ball was hit, the chalk from the cue stick would mark where the ball had been hit, and would stay there for the rest of the game. They had invented a rule that every time a player would strike the cue ball, they needed to strike the ball adjacent to where the previous player had struck it. In this way, the chalk marks connected to make a line that curved all over the surface of the cue ball. The players had the option of using regular blue chalk, or using black chalk, or white chalk to chalk their cue sticks. Using these different colors, they not only drew a continuous line on the ball, but they were able to craft this line into the image of a panda bear. They explained that once the game was over, the winner would keep the ball and display it at work.

I looked around the room, but didn’t recognize any faces from the few Pixar animators I’d seen from school. I figured that these must be the men and women of the other departments, and continued watching the panda table build a picture before my eyes, one stroke at a time.

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At this point I woke up.

(note: From time to time, I’ve decided to post short descriptions of dreams I have. I’m certain that every one I describe will sound weird, and may even elicit comments such as “Hey Eric, that is a WEIRD dream.” But I don’t think that most people have “normal” dreams anyway, so I don’t mind if you think mine are a little off-the-wall)

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I don’t get to see either of my brothers very often. In this dream, I was together with my middle brother, Scott. We went to play a game I can only call Poker Baseball, though in the dream it did not have a name.

Poker Baseball shares commonalities with, in addition to poker and baseball, bingo and model railroading.

There is one Dealer. The Dealer wears a mask, a la The Phantom of the Opera. You know that he’s hiding a pretty nasty face underneath there. The rest of his costume and attitude, however, remind me of if The Phantom of the Opera were playing the role of The Arftul Dodger transposed to the aristocracy.

The game is held in a large hall. Any number of people may play along, but the most important players ride on the train which circles on a track throughout the hall. The spectators occupy galleries that are stacked on top of each other, with archways cut out of them, allowing the train to be visible. It looks like what the Roman Colosseum looks like from the outside. Another comparison would be the opening of the Muppet Show by way of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

The players on the train play against the Dealer. (presumably, the spectator-players have some other automatic, and less glamorous way of acquiring their cards)

The rules are simple: The Dealer lays down his card, and the Player lays down theirs. If the Player’s card is lower, the Player has earned an Out for that Inning. If the Player’s card is higher than the Dealer’s, that is a Hit–and depending upon the difference in value between the two cards, any number of points may be awarded, in addition to other interactive elements taking effect. The train remains immobile, for example, until a certain Hit is achieved at which point the train speeds through the galleries, with the motion of the train making the Players more unhinged and likely to make poor card-playing decisions.

I watched my brother play. In real life, Scott is a moderately talented Blackjack player, and I always enjoy watching him at the table. In Poker Baseball, however, he was distracted by the crowds shouting recommendations for his card-playing. He still did well, but probably not as well as he would have done if he had been left in silence to think first.

I was also a Player. My turn at bat came just after the train had finished a race through the crowds, and so my heart was pounding pretty fast. The Dealer announced me, and also lamented that we had lost our Umpire. He invited me to fill the role. I said that I would love to, but was it okay that I batted against the Dealer as well as called my own Strikes, Outs, and Hits. The Dealer said it would be fine……… as long as I played fairly. There was a certain menace in his tone when he suggested this.

My three turns at bat came and went quickly. A four to the Dealer’s Queen. A Jack to the Dealer’s ace. An eight to the Dealer’s King. I had earned three Outs, and called them as such. I was having a great time as an Umpire.

But it was, apparently, too good of a time. I earned, from the Dealer, a penalty for enjoying a Player’s misfortune too much. It was right there in the rulebook: Umpires must be impartial. Even though it was my own misfortune, and the sense of play, that I was gleeful about.

The penalty, assigned by the Dealer, was that the Dealer would reveal his face to the audience. He sang a short poem about his mask before taking it off. When he did, the face was revealed to be that of a man with a tall head, long and thin gray muttonchop sideburns, and a visage riddled with pockmarks, warts, and acne.

The audience reacted in disgust; some verbally, some merely groaning, and some only turning away.

But the game was not over. There was still more to play, and the train began moving again…

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At this point I woke up.