Nothing, just small talk

Megane 2022-02-16 08:03:06

3 points.

If this movie can only be described in two words, you must guess that it is: boring!

What the hell is this? I endure every second I watch. It's like a year. Perhaps one of the sentences is quite reasonable. If this is the case, then it is better to read an abstract like "Appreciation of Beautiful Sentences". It reminds me of a dialogue between the hero and the hero at the beginning of "Love Before Dawn":

Nothing, just chatting with

men-listen well, I have an idea about TV shows. Some of my friends are cable TV producers. , Do you know what it is? That is, anyone can make a very cheap program, and then they broadcast it on TV. My idea is to make a show that will be broadcast 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The producer finds 365 people from all over the world to make a 24-hour live-action documentary to capture their real lives. The beginning of the film is probably, a man gets up early in the morning, takes a shower, eats breakfast, makes coffee, reads the newspaper...

Female-wait, is it so plain and boring? Everyone’s everyday life?

Male-What I think is, "the poetic life day after day", you have your way of expression, and I have mine. Think about it.

Female-who would watch it!

Male-Think about it this way, why is the dog sleeping lazily in the warm sun under the camera, giving people a very beautiful feeling, yeah, what a beautiful picture. But if one person goes to a bank ATM to withdraw money, does it feel so stupid?

Female-It's like a National Geographic show, but the protagonist is replaced by a human.

Male-yes. what do you think?

Female-I understand what you mean, it is boring 24 hours, sorry, and then as soon as the three-minute sex scene ends, he can immediately fall asleep.

Male-Yeah, that episode will definitely be great. People will talk about it. If you and your friends want to, you can make an episode. I actually don't know. The key is that the scope of the world is a headache. It is necessary to obtain movies from different cities so that they can be played continuously, because the program must be played continuously, otherwise the program is meaningless.

It's really appropriate. I think this is the director's ridicule of his naive thoughts in the past through the heroine.

=======

This article about director Richard Linklater’s debut experience is based on the "Long Nails, Microphones, Slacks, and Lesbians: Leading You Through the Decades of American Independent Film. Professor John Pearson is also the former producer representative, creator and host of the Independent Film Channel (IFC, Independent Film Channel) TV series "Split Screen". In order to cope with the release of Blu-ray Discs, this article is included as part of the director's profile.

The next article was written in 1995. It has been 4 years since "Urban Ronin" was officially released nationwide, just before the release of "Love Before Dawn". Therefore, these words are not pretentious, but more real. Now that 18 years have passed, "Love Before Midnight" once again shows the richness and maturity of Richard Linklater's work. In his 16 works, he has always been the very recognizable original self. Whether it is studio work or independent production, low budget or high expenditure, live or animation, star or rookie starred, based on adaptation or original script, his films are always fresh and full of life. The debut of "Urban Ronin" is no different from the appearances of hundreds of other DIY independent films, such as the most famous "Crazy Staff". It also started from scratch, but it opened up a situation of continuous development for Austin's local film industry.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Richard Linklater lives and works in Austin, Texas, but he doesn't like being labelled as a regional filmmaker. By 1995, by shooting 3 feature films (and an epic film on super 8mm film), he was able to purchase a building on the edge of the intercontinental highway to house his production company Detour, and put himself in an astonishing number of Polish movie posters Hung on the wall. The company name Detour is to commemorate director Edgar G. Ummer, a noir film about the fate of a tragically and unfortunately suffering from a downward spiral. In reality (such as the role he played when he jumped out of the bus at the beginning of "Urban Ronin"), Richard may indeed experience a similar fate like the hapless guy, or at least be unknown. In reality, however, Richard is a piece of buried gold that is about to shine.

In 1989, while Richard was filming "Urban Ronin", Steven Soderbergh was busy conquering the world of the generation born in the baby boom era. Although Steven Soderbergh seemed to have made good gains in the independent film market that year, winning a $35,000 order from a German TV station, it is still too early to say that he will become famous overnight. A year later, in July 1990, Richard independently successfully released "Urban Ronin" in his hometown of Austin. Local audiences accepted the film, but audiences in other parts of the United States may not be ready to accept it. This is because Austin is a very casual college town. It has good food, great music, and excellent non-mainstream weekly magazines; especially around the West Campus, there are a large group of people in their twenties. Young people who like to talk about their time. But a year later, in the summer of 1991, when the film was distributed nationwide through OrionClassics, the audience was ready to identify with Generation X, and media reviews were also ready to go. This is how Richard's career unfolded-at that time, he himself was in his early twenties.

"Urban Ronin" made Richard Linklater the vocal representative of Generation X, but he is not one of them. Just when these nasty boys—like Kevin Smith like Richard's twin brothers—gathered toward this door, Richard was indeed the last Mohican of them. For example, Richard's creative inspiration came from Max Opheles' "Rondo" and Luis Bunuel's "The Prudent Charm of the Bourgeoisie". Moreover, you will find posters of Michelangelo Antonioni and Rainer Werner Fassbender on his wall; and he will be more willing to talk about Robert Bresson’s "Warrior Lansnow" and Not "Jaws" or "Offline Family". All in all, he is a self-taught top-notch art film good material-still the type I like.

The semi-finished "Urban Ronin" was auditioned in the independent film market dominated by "Roger Mania" (Mike Moore's "Roger and Me"). At the same time, Mike Moore is using his return to fuel the rise of the next wave of filmmakers. Ironically, I didn't notice any of them at the time because I was busy promoting Mike Moore's work. Fortunately, "Urban Ronin" did not fall silent at the Sundance Film Festival later, which gave me a chance to examine it again.

In July 1990, I returned to teach at the Maine Photography Studio in Rockport. When I left New York, I threw the latest issue of "Movie Review" in the car. Later, I found in the magazine an interesting comment made by Robert Horton after watching this film without plot at the Seattle Film Festival. He said: "The people in the film are constantly moving, blindly upstream like a fish." This is "Urban Ronin", and the message from its author is very clear. And I quickly obtained the first-hand information of the film, because Richard found me on the phone a day later-it seems that I am the person who has nothing to do. During the conversation, Richard clearly realized the challenges faced by his works. He anticipated that he would be rejected by certain film festivals (such as Sundance), so he was unwilling to accept invitations from film festivals full of mediocre reviews (such as the Dallas American Film Festival), and only fully participated in a moderately exposed work exhibition platform ( Seattle Film Festival). In Seattle, John Hartle's comments after watching "Urban Ronin" involved the sensational work at the time. He said: "The Town of Twin Peaks (in contrast to "Urban Ronin") has no place at all. "More fortunately, this insight was heard by Michael Buck of "Orion Classics" and I.

Richard explained that he was actually preparing for the release of Austin Dolby Theater, but promised to send his film to us. Two weeks later, just four days before the release date, he finally sent the film with a letter of apology. I thought at first that maybe he was a ronin himself, but I found that he cut and pasted all the media's comments on the film for our reference. In Texas that summer, his work costing only $23,000 won more attention than the mediocre work "Supreme Detective", which cost as much as 50 million at the time. Maybe it's because there is only Madonna's song in Warren Beatty's movie, but "Urban Ronin" claims to have her own Pap smear. At the right time, Richard appeared on the cover story of 8 pages of Time magazine on July 16 of that year: "Twenties", with the subtitle: Lazy, Late Blooming, or Only Is it lost? Obviously there is still a lot to do in this film, but the film itself cannot be just a retreat. So looking for one night, I put the roll of film into the video recorder and began to pray.

Unexpectedly, "Urban Ronin" immediately gave me an exciting 24-hour parade. It traveled through every corner of the university city, magically bringing hundreds of Luther and bullshit, conspiracy theorists, and angry romantics. Hidden poets and weird philosophers gathered in front of me. As night fell in the film, the film gradually became a little dull and boring. I almost switch to my dream state. However, I watched it again the next day, but suddenly keenly felt the absolute genius of film architecture design. The witty connection shown by the skillful and dexterous production touch in dozens of different plots is really worthy of admiration. Not to mention, this movie, which was produced by credit cards and funded by family members but is still refrigerated, deployed a boom and Steadicam in the early two key overtures in order to show a more grand scene. This is definitely not a movie that a few heads can make behind closed doors.

While "Urban Ronin" started its full expedition in Austin for several weeks, Michael Buck ran to Maine to help me teach. So he knew about the movie. He even found some spies to attend a screening meeting for actors and staff in Texas to inquire about the situation. Although I haven't talked to Richard after the film was released, I decided to invite Buck to watch the film after careful consideration and a great lobster meal. The plan was successful, and Michael Buck took the bait. The next day I broadcast the film to the classmates, and the result was not surprising: the younger classmates were very moved, but the older classmates thought it was too dull and indulgent. Of course I feel that I tend to lean more towards the younger group, even though I was in my 30s by then.

It stands to reason that I can no longer use this film to contact OrionClassics without telling Richard. I got his phone number and left a message: "Call me back, something is up." When he called back, I told him that I wanted to endorse "Urban Ronin". Then I added that I believe there is a bigger market for the film. So he authorized me to ask Buck to show the film to Buck’s friends Tom Bernard and Marcy Bronn in New York. They are ready to buy the work they are about to meet—an American independent film that was still a rarity in 1990. Considering a 16mm low-cost movie that they had tried hard to push, they decided to use "My Beautiful Laundry in 1985" as a case reference. This means that they will pay a full $100,000 in advance, and then use about $50,000 to pay for the production cost of the 35mm film version.

Richard was very excited about obtaining the quotations from the first-tier companies. But after he calculated it carefully, he felt that it would be much better if he could take a little more money to cover the extra cost of the production delay. But OrionClassics is unwilling to pay the money. So although Richard and I have basically reached a consensus, I suggest contacting a few more distributors and telling them the success of the film at Dolby Theater, and at the same time cleverly hinting that they can intervene at any time. NewLine sent a few employees to investigate. Alison Brandt of Avenue Pictures flew over, and Mark Tusk of Miramax asked for a copy of the film from the middleman or actor Steve Bushemina. Then there was no sound. In the end, no one took the bait.

While dragging with OrionClassics, we submitted "Urban Ronin" to three film festivals to be held in September. Telluride and the Toronto Film Festival rejected us without saying anything. The New York Film Festival proposed that the "New Director/New Film" session hosted by the Museum of Modern Art might be more suitable for us. And Orion Classics, as they have always done, did not despair, abandon the agreement or lose interest because of this. Their business philosophy is the same as mine: if they like something, they assume that others will like it too—even if not everyone. Similarly, even though the film’s hometown Dolby Theater is still full, some criticism still surfaced. For example, there is a letter saying: "Why are these low-powered, artificial, and boring people recorded in the movie? This movie has no meaning." However, the documentary film statement is suggestive. Through the personality and hard work of the actors, Richard has created a film that is true to reality. "Urban Ronin" is very real.

Although Orion Classics and I continued our efforts at the Sundance Film Festival, "Urban Ronin" seemed to be sinking for a while. To put it simply, Alberto Garcia, director of the Sundance Film Festival, just doesn't like the movie very much—even if he is only in his twenties—he hesitates. Of course I know that he doesn't want me to be satisfied, because everyone knows that I once satirized him from a nameless person to a conductor too fast. But in the end, Alberto gave "Urban Ronin" a ticket.

The experience of "Urban Ronin" in Sundance has its ups and downs, or it has fallen behind first. At the beginning, the movie was shown in the best theater, Egypt, and it seemed to be a great time: Saturday night at 10 o'clock. But the late opening time created trouble for this 97-minute chattering movie. The audience was finally divided into three, one-third of the audience loved it, one-third of the audience ran away, and the remaining third fell asleep. So I came to my own point, that is, nap while watching "Urban Ronin" is not a bad thing. However, the usually calm CleinandWhite commentator Kara White couldn't sit still facing such a result. Fortunately, the following week, as the screening time got earlier, the situation slowly improved. Although Richard failed to win an award in the end, the judge Gus Van Sant told Richard that he had voted for him.

From the beginning of the Sundance Film Festival, "Urban Ronin" took a very similar path to the previous year's "Big Citizen": they both persuaded Alberto Garcia's doubts and broke into the Sundance Film Festival, and started from St. Dans then began to grow up. Two months later, in order to increase its popularity, "Big Citizen" pioneered the strategy of moving from the Sundance Film Festival in January to the "new director/new film" link of the Museum of Modern Art. The film was completely affirmed by the New York Times. Moreover, the newspaper is almost the only newspaper that makes serious comments on the "New Director" platform. "Urban Ronin" now has OrionClassics as its distributor; and in the previous year, through the praise of Vincent Camby, "Big Citizen" and NewLine also reached an agreement.

Regrettably, Camby didn't stop laughing while watching the movie this time; what made him laugh all the time was the short film before the start of "Urban Ronin", a comedy that mocked the old lady after falling into a rocking chair. After "Urban Ronin" started, he watched it intently and finally fell silent. When Richard and I lobbied the New York Times as usual, the comment was that his talented cameraman Lee Daniel also rushed over with a hidden camera. The people in The New York Times were 20 minutes late, so Lee Daniel was able to visit some New York City Ronin, the kind of freaks I saw every time I went to the first version of a movie. As a result, the "New York Times" comment is a synthesis of the word "freak", which may have destroyed the film's distribution prospects. However, Bernard and Buck always said that they cannot put all their eggs in the basket of the New York Times. Over the years, they have encountered some really bad reviews from The New York Times, the most stinking ones are for "Night of San Lorenzo" and "Under the Sky in Berlin." By comparison, the situation is not too bad this time. In fact, we are still trying to see if we can get them to remove the comment that "a fourteen-course dinner is made up of dim sum"-it is a pity that Richard is not the big director Tavia One of the Ni brothers or Wim Wenders.

Unexpectedly, the audience in the "New Director/New Movie" section gobbled up all fourteen desserts. Larry Cadiz of the Museum of Modern Art is a big fan of this movie. After stuttering the name of the movie when introducing the movie, he showed me why he is not part of the world of commercial marketing. He said: "Everything in "Urban Ronin" is the best, except for it. Terrible name." Mike Moore also ran up, but he was the first person to admit that he had fallen asleep during the movie. He said, "I slept for a while, but it was really good." For his mother Without going to the scene to support him, Richard explained that he needed the same amount of money his mother gave to his sister when she got married in order to invite her-based on the assumption that he would not get married.

One way to reduce the influence of the New York Times’ strong but not lasting comment is to let it fly for a while. "Urban Ronin" is scheduled to be released in early July-exactly three months later-at the Anglica Film Center Film Center in New York-the most perfect location. There were some significant changes in my life that spring, and there were also many surprises in American independent films. You have to know that this mode of film distribution through self-distribution and release in hometown theaters is very risky. If it fails, the major distributors will never choose your movie; even if it succeeds, they will discount your success.

At the same time, "Urban Ronin" is getting ready. The postponed release time bought time for CleinandWhite. At that time, they had written an excellent media manual, which provided various viewing angles for other media. At the same time, this also gave OrionClassics more time to perfect the posters and trailers. Although Richard has the right to "valuable inquiries" to these marketing materials, he is not happy about the lack of detailed materials in the trailer.

Both the trailer and the poster emphasize the most conspicuous and cheapest joke: the Madonna "Pap smear" girl. It is true that whether it is cutting off an ear, eating shit, or listening to Bob Eubanks telling dirty jokes, movies are always remembered for its most disgusting moments. The difference is that Madonna herself happened to be sitting at the Nuart Theater in Los Angeles watching the trailer that was just launched. When the character in the film tried to promote the "Pap smear" and only half of the pubic hair was left, she said: "This is a bit like Madonna." It is said that when the audience tried to observe the reaction of the rock goddess, she found that She has slipped away.

When it was released in New York on July 5th, Austin also re-released the film at the same time-"Urban Ronin" was reproduced in Dolby with a burst of scenes, and at the same time formed a loyal fan base at the Anglica Film Center. One year after the cover story of Gen X, "Newsweek" commented Richard's film as "a glamorous comedy with a hit." "Urban Ronin" has performed steadily for several consecutive weeks. This is very fortunate, because Jeffrey Jacobs, the tricky buyer of the Anglica Film Center, was a little bit obstructed in the movie booking. In addition, after some unsightly comments, Los Angeles’s criticism has softened a lot. So I was able to clearly express my feelings about this movie in the Los Angeles Times. I said: "At a cost of 20,000 U.S. dollars, "Urban Ronin" has been the best, not to mention it is the most original film I have seen last year." Mike Moore in the independent film market in 1990 The King returns, and the same story happened to Richard in 1991. Amy Tao Bing wrote in "Voice of the Country": "Richard Linklater is the kind of person most filmmakers want to be." So, throughout the fall, OrionClassics has been in every possible university. The market pushed this movie vigorously, and finally gained a lot of money, the income continued to rise, and the final profit reached 1.2 million US dollars.

The dramatic release of "Urban Ronin" finally achieved a good and quantifiable success, but from a cultural perspective, its influence was even greater: "Slacker" became a household word. Richard may not have coined the word, but he made it popular. A related book published by St. Martin's Publishing House has even sold more than 20,000 copies.

In July 1992, three years after the production of "Urban Ronin", two years after I first saw the film, and one year after OrionClassics released it, Richard began to produce "Young and Crazy" in Austin. For an aggressive director like Richard, the interval between each film has decreased year by year, and the opportunities that follow have increased year by year. "Youth and Frivolity" is such a typical example, and this comes from the temperament of his artistic film. On the one hand, Richard walked on the way to reach mainstream audiences through such a juvenile comedy; on the other hand, like "Urban Ronin" (which would make Tom Pollock very worried), his second film The feature film also has many plots, 78 characters, and an open ending without any preaching effect. The protagonist Pinker, with Richard’s hair style and inner conflict with sports, is played by the rookie actor Willie Wiggins to show Richard in 1976—Richard’s dual agency..., At least "Young and Crazy" has a happy home video ending. Although it has not received the recognition it deserves in the film market, its video tapes have been a great success and have been sought after by many young Americans. A few months after its release, its original soundtrack album was pushed to the forefront of the charts. .

Richard and his Doug Plan, who resembles Generation X twins, may never completely avoid being talked about together. But if this generation of young people who do nothing to change channels and watch TV all day long will only brag about "no faith in anything"-in Richard's words-then they can only be swallowed up by the times and cannot become the times. dominate. In contrast, Richard is still writing film notes for his beloved Austin Film Society; on a schedule, he claimed that Vincent Minnelli's "Soul Love" was his favorite at the time. . I believe that this era still has something we can believe in.

==========

The urban ronin has no plot, and the content of the film is that some people come and go on the street, publishing or hearing various high-level opinions. Because it’s on-site framing and simultaneous recording, the sense of the scene is very strong, but the characters often have unexpected behaviors. For example, in a place similar to a TV station, a person is carrying a small stool on his back, and the back of the stool is a TV screen, in front of him There were two rows of TV sets up and down. He nagged and said, "I like TV. What is TV..." Then it showed some different TV screens, including pornographic videos. Obviously this is a surreal scene, and the irony effect can be easily achieved at a very low cost. The characters in the film are diverse. The first one is played by the director himself. He fell asleep on the train. Then he got off the train and got into the taxi. He told the driver the strange dream he had just made, saying, "For example, a person Now like this, who knows what will happen to him next (to the effect).” After talking about Chase, got off the car and went to the street. Suddenly, a car accident happened. A woman was hit and killed on the street, and the perpetrator escaped. The camera was aimed at the scene of the accident, pulled back slowly, and stopped. The car involved in the accident came back from behind and stopped a few meters from the scene of the accident. A young man got out of the car and walked into a house next to it. There was a large bright yellow corner in the corner of the house. Finger sign, that means, the surreal scene has begun.

It shows an ordinary day of some wanderers in Austin and Texas, using straight-line photography to present a state of non-adaptation to the environment and no domination, with no specific plot. The characters in the film come and go on the street, express or hear all kinds of high opinions, and they often have unexpected behaviors. For example, in a place similar to a TV station, a person is carrying a small stool on his back. On the back of the stool is a TV screen. There are two rows of TVs in front of him. He nags, "I like TV. What is TV? What..." Then it showed some different TV screens, including pornographic videos. There are many different characters in the film. The first one is played by the director himself. He fell asleep on the train. Then he got off the train and got into the taxi. He told the driver the strange dream he had just now, saying, "For example, a person is like this now. , Who knows what will happen to him next.” After talking about Chase, got off the car and went to the street. Suddenly, a car accident happened. A woman was hit and killed on the street. The perpetrator escaped...

A movie like this is very difficult to evaluate. There is no plot, from a non-simple point of view, it can be the most exciting plot; from a simple point of view, it just has no plot. Therefore, after watching such a movie, some people said that it covered nearly ten classic movies at the time, as if "Listening to a king is better than reading ten years of books" suddenly became clear; others said that it is simply not straightforward, so rough, Beggars can also engage in performance art. In fact, in people’s consistent impressions, surreal movies used to rely on exaggeration to attract audiences. Luxurious artwork, weird characters and obscure plots have become the only way to win. But this movie completely subverted the rules of the ancestors. It satirized reality with reality and counterattacked with low-key high-key, but it achieved a kind of surreal feeling. In addition, the film is so maverick and the evaluation is so extreme, so no matter whether it is really desirable or not, it has the value of taking a look.

=========

Regarding this movie, the moment I watched it was very confused. Except for the fascinating beginning, I actually can't understand what the director wants to express in this movie.

But life is so interesting. With the recent experiences, watching movies, and thinking about this movie, I suddenly thought about this movie at noon today, and I felt a sense of openness. This movie is actually similar to the "smoking, no smoking" I watched recently. The concept of "Song of Opportunity" is quite similar.

They are all talking about what kind of results can be achieved because of different choices. Aaron Resnay presents this subject in a quite philosophical and humorous way, while Kislaski’s "Song of Opportunity" is here. On the subject matter, he faces this unknown choice in a way that is very personal to him.

What about RichardLinklater?

He chose the most experimental and naughty way to present this concept. In the movie, except for the strange concept that the boy talked about at the beginning, he walked in the city without a goal in almost no chapters.

In the movie, it can be said that there is a script or there is no script, because his main perspective is constantly changing. Maybe this street painting couple passed the corner while the camera was switched to another person on the corner to continue. His way of expression is a shooting method that I have never thought of so far. It is both experimental and full of creativity.

(Think about the writing methods in novels, but there are thousands of ways to tell stories in movies, but due to various visible and invisible obstacles, the presentation methods are quite standard, and it is also the method of storytelling. Why? So much difference!)

What did RichardLinklater do in this movie?

First, his narrative technique is completely broken, the narrative technique of the certain main line in the past, and he is not anti-hero or something, he has no protagonist at all, hahaha.

Second, when we look at this script farther away, we It can be found that it seems that what he wants to express is not the thoughts of single-faced young people and middle-aged people. After all, everyone in that era has their own and different ideas and values, and there are continuous fragments and fragmented pairs in the movie. Putting together the talks, they found many similarities in common, and that common point may have won the hearts of teenagers and young people in that era, the wonderful X generation!

It's no wonder that this low-cost independent film created a whirlwind in the American independent film industry, not only affecting many young independent producers, but also the thinking of many young people at the time. (As for who he affected, the most conspicuous example is probably KevinSmith's super salesclerk Clerks. He became the encouragement of the urban ronin on many occasions to his movie. After all, he has watched this movie. After breaking the previous frame of the film, it seems that as long as you have an idea, you can present it!!)

This film was collected by the American Film Library in 2012 for its cultural history and unique influential aesthetics! Haha

Speaking of here, how do you understand this movie?

I think, if you can think about it, the young people's interesting nonsense (crank thinking)

at the beginning, you can understand at least half of this movie, hahaha

View more about Slacker reviews

Extended Reading
  • Norberto 2022-03-17 09:01:06

    The lens falls in love with every person who appears "next" and follows him away. Life didn't want to give up any possibility, but lost all the possibilities. Delayed to watch Linklater's debut until now, I think it is the most original and rocky one. And the last 8mm camera segment has a hallucinogenic effect.

  • Helen 2022-03-20 09:02:26

    Director Richard Linklater, one of the most successful independent filmmakers in the American film industry, went out of the country to take taxis and slashed with drivers from the very beginning. This is a movie without a specific plot and a specific protagonist. When you watch it, you don't know where your mind wanders, and then you will find that you have empathy for the dialogues of the characters in the film, and it seems familiar. The power of independent films is always reassuring.

Slacker quotes

  • Traumatized Yacht Owner: Quit... quit... you should quit... YOU should quit... you should... you should...

    [to "Happy go lucky guy"]

    Traumatized Yacht Owner: You should- You should quit traumatizing women with sexual intercourse... I should know... I'm a medical doctor... I own a mansion and a yacht... You should quit traumatizing women with sexual intercourse... I should know... I'm a medical doctor...

  • [first lines]

    Should Have Stayed at Bus Station: [babbling to silent cab driver] Man, I just had the weirdest dream - back on the bus there? Did you ever have one of those dreams that are completely real. I mean they're so vivid. It's just like completely real. It's like, there's always something bizarre going on, though. I have one about every 2 years or something. I always remember 'em real good. Like there's always someone getting run over, or something really weird. Um, one time I had lunch with Tolstoy. Another time I was a roadie for Frank Zappa. Anyway, so this dream I just had was just like that, except instead of anything bizarre going on, I mean, there was just nothing going on at all. Man. It was like the Omega Man. It was just nobody around. I was just traveling around, you know, staring out the windows of buses, and trains, and cars. When I was at home, I was like flipping through the TV stations endlessly. Reading. How dreams do you have when you read in a dream, you know?