Dream Weaver, Make-Believer

I really wish that somebody would up and build a Land Of Make Believe for adults....there was that rinky-dink amusement park that I went to a handful of times as a wee lad, but I mean something where us grown folk can go and bask in the glory of non-reality. You know, shit like employers who don't jerk you left and right and move at turtles' speeds giving raises....the hottest chick in the bar immediately hones in on you and throws herself at you, no strings attached, no questions or requests asked....you can eat all the apple pie, cheeseburgers, ice cream, and mozzarella sticks that your digestive system can stomach, and you wouldn't gain an ounce of fat; rather, such high-calorie cuisine would actually add muscle to your physique. Imagine that shit, huh? That's the stuff that pipe-dreams are made of, if you ask me.

The reason I bring all this up is that fantasy and non-reality has been interesting me so much more than reality lately. In the sense of, I'm all about reading fiction novels and watching genre-bending cinema, shit that transports me miles beyond Hoboken and into some far-off areas that I'd otherwise never experience. And I'm loving every second of it.

If I had my way, I'd be driving a white Dodge Challenger, Vanishing Point style, with a three gals riding with me (Rosario Dawson, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Tracie Thoms). We'd be on our way to the Monroeville Mall, to do battle with some 1970s-era zombies, and Peter and Fran would high-five me after I emptied a few bullet-rounds in some undead head(s). Then Mary Elizabeth Winstead and I would branch off and go do our thing-thang elsewhere, making a pit-stop at the Corova Milkbar to say "What up" to Alex and his droogs. Rod Serling would interrupt our chit-chat session, turning the room into black-and-white, and he'd send Mary Elizabeth and I into another dimension--a dimension of sight (*crash*), a dimension of mind. Then there'd be a signpost up ahead, and we'd arrive at our next stop---Spooner Street, where I'd take Brian for a walk as Glen Q. shouted cat-calls at Mary Elizabeth, which wouldn't piss me off because Glen Q. is my dude, of course.
Once away from Spooner Street, Mary Elizabeth and I would then get a room at the Bates Motel, only Norman and his "mother" would take a liking to us and we'd be out of harm's way. Door closed, lights dimmed....Mary Elizabeth, still wearing her yellow cheerleader outfit, would begin disrobing to the sweet sounds of Tamia's "So Into You," and then she'd get on top of me, straddling my.....

Mary El =


...and then, unfortunately, my alarm clock would go off, because this is reality I'm in, confined to against my will. But shit, what a fuckin' great dream that would be. [major cool points to whomever can name every pop culture reference found within the previous paragraph]

See, I've always spent loads of my days mentally somewhere else. It all traces back to when I was a kid. I used to draw up fake movie posters for fake movies---faux cinematic gems such as Suburb of the Dead, and The Wolfman of Fair Lawn (both were actually dreamt up by yours truly, btw, in addition to like 30 or 40 more, all saved in my parents' attic somewhere, on looseleaf paper). As I got older, I started writing short supernatural and horror stories, eventually evolving into 80-90 page "books" I'd scribe up in marble notepads. One was about a crazy zombie apocalypse, and the other was a gory slasher in the vein of Friday the 13th. Neither was upbeat at all, and both had dreary, dark, far-from-happy endings. And keep in mind, I was like 13 years old at the time.

In my even-earlier years, I used to sleep (true story) with a rusty old tire-iron under my bed, swiped from my dad's toolchest. The reason why: that's what Ben used as his main weapon of defense against the zombies in Night of the Living Dead, and there was no hero greater than dear Ben at that time. I also carried around a toy rifle--the old-school variety. You know, the ones where you had cock the underneath connector before disengaging. Because, you guessed it, Ben switched from the tire-iron to said rifle midway during Night.

Ben =


It's a bit odd to say, but I'd really love for there to be an actual zombie apocalypse....like, the undead marauding around Hoboken on one routine Saturday night, eating the flesh of whatever unlucky twentysomething drunkards they could get their decaying hands on....I'd surely save the day, and I'd take out hordes of the living dead with ease. No one on any corner of zombie-infest Hoboken would have swagger like Matt, swagger like Matt, swagg-swagger like Matt.

That's for damn sure.