tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-364732732024-02-20T08:46:21.569-08:00Bears With CigarsMatt's DreamsMatthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-52790163469666497572013-03-16T15:20:00.002-07:002013-03-16T15:20:21.937-07:00CoachI have been hired by an upscale gym to write weekly fitness tips for their newsletter. I know very little about fitness, so run out of ideas quickly. One of my ideas is to keep a football in your underwear at all times.
A reader in Japan complains about my lack of qualifications. I am called into the office to discuss the complaint. The office is only accessible by way of a miles-long, undeveloped backcountry road. I am driving an Oldsmobile, and my mother and brother are in the car with me. It's getting dark. My brother and I are discussing how to properly contextualize 9/11 when SUDDENLY THERE IS A WOLF.
Then the wolf is gone. I'm sad because I wanted to look at the wolf some more.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-20382680540489847972012-01-24T11:49:00.001-08:002012-01-24T11:50:04.757-08:00Man vs. WildI am trapped on a trail high up Mt. Everest. Luckily, I know the old survivalist trick of stuffing my pockets with beef jerky and having a shotgun.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-32752378599818791532012-01-23T12:12:00.000-08:002012-01-23T12:12:52.470-08:00Agent of ChaosI am in a public bathroom, at the last urinal in a long row of empty urinals. A guy walks up to the urinal right next to me, dressed like the Joker. As he begins to pee he says, in a bad Heath Ledger growl, "Why...so...ser"<br />
<br />
"PLEASE DO NOT DO A JOKER IMPRESSION WHILE STANDING NEXT TO ME AT A URINAL."<br />
<br />
"Hey, whoa, uh..."<br />
<br />
"PLEASE DO NOT PRETEND TO BE THE JOKER WHILE STANDING NEXT TO ME IN THE MEN'S ROOM."<br />
<br />
"Jeez man, alright..."<br />
<br />
He zips up and skulks away.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-88687275154306717692012-01-19T10:45:00.000-08:002012-01-19T10:51:14.182-08:00TroubadourI am walking along a beach trail, and there is a guy, walking about ten feet behind me, playing an acoustic guitar song about how there are 500 galaxies which is sort of like love. I turn around, place my hand on the strings so that they are muted, and say, "Stop doing that." He is offended but says nothing, and sullenly walks away. A friend of his runs up to me and says "Hey man, that was really wrong, what you did." And I say, "Are you going to do something about it?" And he says no, and walks off. Then a second friend of the guitarist (whose tousled hair is sticking out of a canvas hat) walks up and says "Hey, I don't appreciate what you did. Do you play music?" <br />
<br />
"No." <br />
<br />
"Well..." And then he makes a combination handwave-and-nod, as if to say, "Get in here and let's fix this together."<br />
<br />
"That's your threat?!"<br />
<br />
"Nah man, forget about it," He says goodnaturedly as he trots away in the sand.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-33026945575068798222011-10-20T21:51:00.000-07:002011-10-20T21:51:54.828-07:00PoltergeistSleeping in a haunted movie theater. Ghosts are knocking things off the walls. In the middle of this dream I am seized by real sleep paralysis, but do not wake up. My brain narrates the feeling as what it is to be a ghost. Tethered by the feet to something ethereal, hanging, thrashing and screaming, a half-thing, screaming, a rage stronger than anything I've ever felt. I resent the living, knock things off the walls into their heads. I want to damage. I am pure pain.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-45567384842541814462011-07-20T02:24:00.001-07:002011-07-20T02:24:07.379-07:00Civil ServiceThere is a new cult for middle-aged people that combines the Tea Party with the Secret. The logo is a slightly distorted, inverted pentagram with a robed woman standing at the bottom vertex. They are marching into the city and we trick them all into entering a mausoleum, where we seal them in.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-72417910005321324512011-06-08T11:18:00.000-07:002011-06-08T11:18:25.077-07:00ContrarianThree goats are playing soccer. Christopher Hitchens, driving an armored car with a huge, blunt lance attached to the front, chases them off the field while chuckling eruditely to himself.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-51352795445793110982011-05-28T12:43:00.000-07:002011-05-28T12:43:40.392-07:00Du HastA girl tells me that I "look too soft." I buy a Rammstein jacket and combat boots, give myself a mohawk and slide down paved hills on a garbage can lid.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-81533728924444021772011-05-20T13:48:00.001-07:002011-05-20T14:07:51.320-07:00The Happiest Place On EarthI cry the entire way down the Palestine-themed water slide at Disneyland.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-72112471200267895572011-05-19T10:21:00.000-07:002011-05-19T10:21:33.994-07:00Play Him OffAn Armenian man who loads trucks is looking for someone to sing a duet with his cat. I volunteer, and find out that it is to be an improvised comedy song, and the cat and I will be judged on who is funniest. During the first rehearsal, I realize I cannot play piano and am not as funny as the cat. I graciously drop out of the competition.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-22021815876979525382011-05-18T12:42:00.000-07:002011-05-18T12:43:19.370-07:00Wu-HaulI returned with a group of people from a trip to a rainforest. I had driven a U-Haul to the departure point, and when I walked out to check on the truck, I heard, to my embarrassment, that I had left my 8Ball & MJG CD had been playing the whole time. But then I realized that it was coming from a different U-Haul, full of bros. It was still my CD; they had switched the trucks attached to our trailers because they thought mine was nicer. I called The GZA to ask him what to do but he didn't pick up. When I went back outside to check again, both U-Hauls were gone.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-38259958075037633912011-05-02T11:24:00.000-07:002011-05-02T11:25:21.987-07:00SupercopI'm asking Jackie Chan if he gets all the ladies. He tells me to stop making such a big deal out of his celebrity, since we're friends. I say, "Sorry, Jackie," and put my hand on his shoulder.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-38533123121077599222011-04-30T12:28:00.001-07:002011-04-30T12:28:50.133-07:00Rock the Mic Like a VandalI am Vanilla Ice. Not early, parachute pants Vanilla Ice. Late-career, county fair, sideburns and tattoos Vanilla Ice. I am sitting in a bathtub with the shower running, singing Ice Ice Baby. I know that I am no longer relevant, but that if I can sing the song to myself and enjoy it, that's the only success that matters.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-48985323939058306682011-04-28T14:48:00.000-07:002011-04-28T14:48:48.748-07:00The Shadow Out of RhymeI'm reading a pop-up Lovecraft book in my living room at night. Somehow, whether it came from inside the book or not, I grab a large snake behind its head. It's dark green, monochrome, and about 3 feet long. It is tremendously strong, and it takes all my strength and both hands to hang on to it. I remember that there's a herpetology convention in town. I look on the internet and there is no herpetology convention. But the snake is Anorexic, so to neutralize the danger of having it around I make fun of it for being fat.<br />
<br />
After a while, it stops struggling, and I carry it around the house for a bit. I accidentally lose it when I dress up like Mike D from the Beastie Boys and dance in front of a mirror.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-10589058504310483482011-04-21T19:45:00.000-07:002011-04-21T23:54:04.569-07:00These Colors Don't RunThe Joker has kidnapped me and two other guys, and is forcing me to drive all of us to a cliff where we will be held hostage. He is talking calmly about how deserters in the Vietnam War joined the military deliberately to "disgrace the flag." After a tense silence of disagreement, we start listening to John Denver. The Joker says, "I remember when I didn't need these stupid hearing aids to listen to this." He has a wistful little chuckle, remembering his youth. I ask everyone how old they are. Two people, including Joker, say they're 38; I couldn't hear the third's answer, who says, "Looks like you're the youngest!" Self-deprecatingly, I yell, "Hey, who loves Justin Bieber?! Isn't Pokemon cool?!" We all laugh, and then, remembering that he is a supervillain, The Joker sings a 'menacing' song with a 'villainous' lisp.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-16045036790879367352011-04-20T03:30:00.000-07:002011-04-20T03:31:12.989-07:00Cornucopia of Wrong<b>I have been keeping an irregular dream journal for a couple of weeks, and these are the best passages, unaltered from their original, half-awake composition.</b><br />
<br />
<br />
For some reason, I end up wrestling with an old man to remove his socks. In the course of wrestling, he steals $10 from my wallet. We laugh about this, I tell him I "respect the hell out of him" and he gives me three wet cheek-kisses with his old mouth.<br />
<br />
<center>•</center><br />
<br />
I am at somebody's house, staying as a guest. In the night, I wake up to find Binkley [the cat I had while growing up] nestling into my arms (I'm sitting up). Binkley presses himself hard against my chest and nuzzles his face right under my chin. I'm looking down at his face, all black with the little white chin, and I realize that it's actually the face of a Juggalo who has snuck into my room. We fly apart and both begin freestyle rapping.<br />
<br />
<center>•</center><br />
<br />
Superman, parking lot at night. Get into car, man in car. Get out, fight man + 2 others. Hit 1st man w/ piece of wood in face, nail in wood gouges eye, blood everywhere. They do not relent for a while. Long standoff, few punches. They leave, people walking by watching.<br />
<br />
Earlier, some manatees.<br />
<br />
<center>•</center><br />
<br />
I'm playing SNES with an 8th grader, the game is a Mortal Kombat-style fighter, and all of the characters are racist Mexican stereotypes. I'm playing as a Mexican mother with too many children.<br />
<br />
<center>•</center><br />
<br />
Watching a movie about a guy who joins an S&M "cult" who meet at the beach, where they all wear bondage gear and robes and hoods/masks, and are each given a snake to care for. But they're too preoccupied with S&M to pay attention to the snakes, which get into the water and precipitate shark attacks.<br />
<br />
<center>•</center><br />
<br />
In Scripps Ranch, I became aware that there was a potential terrorist attack looming. It was late afternoon and raining lightly. I was on Red Cedar, by Miramar Ranch, scooting along in my "neighborhood watch" wooden rolling desk chair, making sure the gates to the soccer field were all locked.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-62747088225920601872011-04-20T02:57:00.000-07:002011-04-20T03:34:29.854-07:00Paper, TigersMyself and a group of people are camping on the outer steppes of Hell; the sky is the same black as the slate ground, with a band of red along the horizon. Nothing moves but the air.<br />
<br />
On a walk I find a tunnel, leading down into the ground at a steep angle. I emerge at the other end into a space even more barren than the steppes. We are all in a book of paintings of Hell, and I have arrived at the last pages, which are a solid maroon, blank except for tiny white credits typed along the pages' bottoms. I return to the campsite to fetch the others, but they refuse to follow me because they are too afraid of monsters.<br />
<br />
<center>•</center><br />
<br />
I am in a jungle, training a group of children how to be brave. We are surrounded by tigers, all of whom are named Sasha Baron Cohen.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-46025855283712249002010-11-26T01:18:00.001-08:002010-11-26T01:20:09.509-08:00HitchChristopher Hitchens and I are crying because magic is real and everything is beautiful after all.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-7429044902880370022009-11-16T23:22:00.000-08:002009-11-16T23:30:03.925-08:00Wolves, TrollsI have left the home of my high school media teacher with a stern warning to beware the ghost wolf. I came to his house, hidden in enchanted forest, to play poker. It is late; I did not bring a flashlight.<br /><br />The wolf is luminous. It approaches me on the path, aglow. Then I wake up.<br /><br /><center>•</center><br /><br />I am reading a book titled "In the Valley of the Trolls." It is beautiful and I make a note to myself to write down the very clever first line upon awaking. Illustrations of trolls, heavy brown ink on parchment, move on the page. I touch a world of mystery. I do not remember the line.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-72893001308513863442009-02-17T15:30:00.000-08:002009-02-17T21:41:32.597-08:00Strange BreezesA storm at night. I walk into my back yard to feel the wind. It is enormous; clouds speed by overhead, morphing rapidly. There is a large screen erected around the yard and overhead, protecting me from debris.<br /><br />I muse about the symbolic meaning of the storm, the wind representing the paternal energy fundamental to every family. A father's fierce egotism that must be appeased.<br /><br />A large poster with pictures of young girls and old women stapled to it hovers by. Somebody has fashioned it with the intention of setting it on the wind. It catches in a trellis and I am excited to retrieve it. Kanye West, who has a ladder, claims it before I can. As I am complaining, he turns into M.I.A.<br /><br />I am recounting the story to my brother, but I embellish it by claiming the poster was sent from "Sao Paolo, Venezuela."<br /><br /><center>•</center><br /><br />I am in an apartment, alone, about sixty stories above Central Park. There is nobody anywhere and everything glows with sickly, ochre light. I write letters to distant friends while watching birds of prey hunt outside. I look down and see a crowd below a nearby building, catching objects someone is throwing down to them. I learn by reading a mysteriously obtained invitation card that an orchestral musician is committing suicide after tossing his belongings out of his window. I am filled with melancholy, and question the legality of printing invitations to a suicide.<br /><br /><center>•</center><br /><br />I am treading water in a deep swimming pool, one I know to be popular for punk rock concerts. Attendants would dive to the bottom and have subaquatic mosh pits while bands also played underwater.<br /><br /><center>•</center><br /><br />I am an assassin. Nathan Statham has just been injected with a hundred doses of the Chinese poison. He is taken to a doctor's house, where they are preparing to conduct brain surgery in the living room. They are preparing to saw the top of his skull off when I rush out of the house. On the driveway I fall to my knees, weeping, lamenting in Spanish at the top of my lungs the frailties of mortality.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-68078624823780294452009-02-17T02:43:00.000-08:002009-02-17T03:30:24.938-08:00SeasideThere is a grotto on a cliff, in the neighborhood where I grew up, and it looks over a bay. Sharks slowly patrol the edges of the water in small schools. It is sunset and I call her house. Her father tells me she is in Europe. I had forgotten. I imagine her there, sitting with me, watching the sun set over the waves. Then she is gone.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-90866763508605327942008-08-11T16:13:00.000-07:002008-08-11T16:36:56.764-07:00SpheresMy family had driven many miles to visit the place where we had grown up together - in the early, pre-dawn years that memory makes glossy, like dolls behind smeared glass. This place does not exist in body, in the world, but its mental frontiers are vast.<br /><br />My brother led us down a dirt path lined with houses, little chain-link fences and pleasantly decrepit yards on either side. We were drowning in late-afternoon sunlight, only supercharged; everything was painted in glowing yellow. Bits of pollen suspended luminously in the air. <br /><br />He mounted the porch of a home I vaguely recognized. Some old matron of my youth (who does not exist in body, but in mind) whom I didn't remember. Sadness filled me, lacking the energy to be adored, to participate in the mourning of time with someone I should love but whose page in the narrative had moldered into illegibility.<br /><br />I kept walking down the path, alone. Everything moved like it was drowning in ethereal molasses. Looking up, three rainbows arced towards one another, making colorful traceries in the clouds. Nobody else saw.<br /><br />Perfectly framed, I continued towards my nowhere destination, plodding impossibly slowly, wrapped in amber. Music welled - first a low chant, emanating from everything around me. Then drums, angelic voices, a toneless rumble that was the vast knocking-together of celestial rubble. It was all music, all sound, restored to its unified totality. This song had always been playing, would always play, was the divine symphony of life, keeping rhythm to every movement, every thought, every mote of conscious and unconscious beingness in its passage through the universe. I lifted up into the air, hair flowing out behind me as if underwater, cradled by God. The moment lasted forever while I cried.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-1171272809344981642007-02-12T01:32:00.000-08:002007-02-12T01:33:29.350-08:00A couple nights ago I had a dream that I went to get my ears pierced by Eddie Murphy. He was very accomodating and patient, and spent many minutes dissuading me from going through with it.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-1171096254194723692007-02-10T00:23:00.000-08:002007-02-10T00:30:54.203-08:00From 2/1:<br /><br />• I was at the salad bar in the Greenery [the cafeteria at my school], standing in front of John Leguizamo. I was talking to him and he gave me a vial of pink liquid. I poured some of it into a glass of water. It fizzed up and became strawberry soda. I walked away from the salad bar and then thought, regretfully, "I should have complimented him on Super Mario Brothers the Movie."<br /><br />• I was in an upscale suburban home that may have been mine. I was in Doom - doors were opening of their own volition, little flying robots hovered around shooting me and I could sense monsters lurking around. I had expended most of my ammo so I was down to my infinite-ammo blaster. I crept around corners targeting the robots and destroying them.<br /><br />I walked up the stairs and found a little girl in one of the rooms. I was apparently her mother, though I had temporarily turned into David, the long-haired, bearded metal fan from the dorm. I awkwardly consoled her, wondering when she was going to figure out I wasn't her mom.<br /><br />• I was watching comic movie shorts called "Doom." In the first one, a small, black dog (a poodle, I think) was swimming through a pool. Wacky music was playing. A female dog appeared in the water in front of him to distract him but he bypassed her. Laughter. The dog made it to his goal: a giant, female poodle five times his size whom he immediately started mating with. Laughter. Credits.<br /><br />The next one was a film of Dwayne from Little Miss Sunshine in the form of a giant, black and yellow amorphous creature who spewed amiable catchphrases.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36473273.post-1171008949862925492007-02-09T00:11:00.000-08:002007-02-09T00:15:50.003-08:00From 1/30:<br /><br />I was with friends in a very dark forest at night. I walked off into the darkness with David [Mebane] with a great sense of mischief.<br /><br />I was climbing up a spiral staircase. When I reached the top, I was at the top of a tower overlooking a vast swath of forest far, far below.<br /><br />Above me was the entrance to a room containing many books. There was a gap in the floor, through which I could see the distant tops of trees. I tried to reach the room but was too frightened by the height to make it. In my aborted attempt to jump the gap, I somehow brought many of the books tumbling to the floor in disarray. An older woman in glasses nimbly climbed her way into the room and politely began rearranging the books. I thought of her as a librarian.<br /><br />I left the scene, going back to the forest where friends communed in a joyous, wild spirit. That's not a euphemism for sex - it's just a feeling.Matthew Louvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13633262702736695016noreply@blogger.com0