JK Keller

I got to this performance space, and was going to play a show. My first show in fact. I was preparing my equipment, and singing some of my set. Just getting ready. It was dark, though people were gathering. I had piles of papers on stage with me, including an 8×10 headshot and an old Johnny Cash (?) record and various other little things. I was trying to arrange it all so it would be of use after I had finished. At some point when I thought I would be going on soon, someone popped his head through the curtains.

When they finally opened up, I found that I was situated way behind the main stage that had the Cowboy Junkies playing. They were just finishing up a tune. Apparently I was supposed to just jam with them. I had the guitar on my back and I worried that swinging it around to the front would make me look stupid. I didn’t know how to jam! What the hell would they be playing anyway? It was seriously cool to be in front of all these people, as it was a stadium’s worth of people screaming. And they played, and I tried to look like I was doing something but really not.

And then it was like they were singing openers for the MTV Video Music Awards. We kind of just sat there as the nominees were played on some screen. I walked up to the main stage. I was getting mad at this point, and then the scene changed.

I was on my way out of the performance space. As I gathered my things I could hear this mouse squeaking (or whatever that sound is). And I looked over and saw a large mouse/small rat at the baseboard. I tried to shoo it away, but it didn’t really seem to have anywhere to go but around the baseboard. Somehow it got into this large plastic container with another mouse. It was now a small white lab mouse. The container was like one of those bulk mayonaise jugs, filled with some sort of grain, and the lid had all these slits so the mouse’s foot clws came out. I guess I had caught them? Anyway, one tried to squeeze its way out of the lid, and I commented on how they can squeeze through just about anything.

So I ran over to the stairwell where I dropped the container down the center shaft. There were two girls on their way down and the container bounced off the stairwell railing near them. I would retrieve the container as I left. When I was down there I saw this beautiful rocker that I was apparently giving the cold shoulder. She said something about the container (which was now filled with a nasty liquid, two presumably dead mice, and was made of glass). I merely walked over, grabbed the container by the lid and walked cooly out the building with it. Yeah, way to not try and get a date with the pretty lady.

I walked out of a large building with large concrete columns. The city was in a police state due to the president’s manuevering. Barricades all over the place, police cars blocking traffic, people mad because of the delays. It was a mess. As I walked by a biker locking up his bike, a guy was making fun of his lock. It was one of those seemingly flat thin metal locks. Actually quite strong. The guy made some stupid comment, the biker didn’t really hear, and the guy repeated something about it. The biker was all “whatev’s dude”, but noticed he left a little bag of things on the handlbars. He grabbed it as a woman checked him out as she walked on by and the city remained chaotic.