Smells like dream spirit

Originally published October 2010

Pop stars both past and present have factored into my dreams since I was a little kid.

My older brother reported that when I was 10, he would often hear one-sided conversations that were obviously between me and David Lee Roth. When I asked him how he knew that’s who it was, he said, “Because you keep addressing him as David Lee Roth.”

Apparently, I never got close enough to Diamond Dave to use anything less than all three of his names, even in my sleeping state.

I have had dreams of Bob Marley, Biggie Smalls, Bruce Springsteen and Cyndi Lauper over the years. And those are just the ones I can remember without consulting the index of the dream diary that I kept and invested too much emotional weight in when I was unemployed right after college.

Anyway, the other night I had a very vivid dream about Kurt Cobain hosting “Saturday Night Live.” It was 2010 and it was in an alternate reality where he obviously hadn’t killed himself 16 years previously.

During the monologue, which I caught while he was in the middle of it, he was wearing the same outfit he had on in this photo shoot, and he addressed “suicide rumors from the ‘90s” as a joke that received some hearty laughs from the crowd.

He looked healthy and heavier in the face than he ever was, and I wondered what had happened with his career in the intervening years. Had Nirvana broken up, as was rumored around the time right before he died? Had he softened with age? Had he done any musical experiments that the passing of time would have treated more harshly than the small catalogue he actually left behind?

As he closed his monologue he said, “We’ve got a great show! I’m here!” As he stated the second sentiment — a light-hearted egotistical indication that not only would Kurt be the host and appear in sketches, but he would also be the musical guest — he extended his hands so the viewers could clearly see his thumb poking through the holes in his oversized sleeves.

“Man, this is cool,” I thought to myself, “I’m participating in an alternate reality, and getting to watch it on TV, so I can’t affect any ‘Back to the Future’-like changes.”

As I put my feet up on the table, and settled in to see what good old Kurt was up to, I was abruptly yanked out of the dream. I had been too cognitive of what was going on, and was forbidden to see any further, the way certain powers don’t let me continue flying and/or get it on if I’m aware that this is something cool that’s going on, and have any suspicion that I’m inside of a dream.

So dear readers, I cannot share with you any more information than that Kurt Cobain is alive and well and apparently still popular enough to host “SNL” in an alternate universe. I wish I could share some of the jokes with you though.

When I awoke though, I remembered this weird minor burst on the Internet from last year that I thought I’d re-share.

While I love the story, the music just isn’t quite good enough to be anywhere near real. But at least it is more real than Kurt Cobain doing a soft-rock version of “Frances Farmer Will Get Her Revenge on Seattle.”