I’m in a high school parking lot on a beautiful New York day. There are cheerleaders atop a school bus doing routines. Flips, splits and pom-pom’s everywhere, major routines beyond anything I’ve seen in any of the six Bring It On movies…yes, I’ve seen all six. They’re defying gravity (this is a dream after all) as they fly off the bus to dismount.
Next a video billboard on the roof of a nearby high-rise comes alive with a video of Cher from 1980 (the screen says so but so does the big hair and shoulder pads) singing a song about a woman’s right to choose that she did for charity, then it morphs into the 1981 remake, and finally into the world premiere of this year’s video. The song isn’t good but, hello it’s Cher, she could be screeching the alphabet in Latin while riding a John Deere mowing over puppies and I’d be all ears…who am I kidding, that’s so not true….Cher would never be caught dead on a riding lawn mower.
I walk by the high-rise when out of the revolving door comes Cher, wearing her see-through “If I Could Turn Back Time” butt-baring outfit and her “Believe” fiber-optic wig…it’s nice that Cher is not only for women’s rights but also recycles outfits (proof this is a dream). She’s walking in the same direction, so I approach, since I’m smoother in dreams than in real life. In real life I’d be crying, shaking and crapping my pants.
I tell her what a fan I am of her shitty charity single (got to stroke Cher’s ego) and ask if I can buy a copy off of her, like Cher is going to have bootleg copies in the trunk of her limo. She tells me that I’m in luck because she’s on the way to check-in with her sales guy. As we jay-walk across the street (crosswalks are too pedestrian for Cher), she tells me that her guy has been run over twice by taxis (couldn’t that wait until we’re safely on the sidewalk) but that hasn’t stopped him from maintaining his corner store. As we step safely to the sidewalk, there’s a regal brownstone on the corner.
We walk past a few food vendors and the building’s entrance. Instead we approach a homeless man and sprawled out on his ratty blanket, among the dumpster dove treasure trove of last month’s creased magazines, lettuce stained paperbacks, and stolen purses are Cher’s CDs. Cher is very grass roots with her sales team or she doesn’t pay well. I ask if I buy her new single if she’ll autograph it. I get an eye roll and a hair flip but before I get rejected I throw in that I’ll pay double and it’s for charity. Cher, no longer talking to me, huffs and pulls out a silver Sharpie (it’s ink is probably real silver) as she scrawls her name on the outside cellophane wrapper of the opened CD.
The cellophane’s barely holding on and bunching up which ruins the autograph and triggers my OCD. The dream turns nightmarish quickly. I don’t know if there’s a CD inside the opened package. I just committed to paying double and I don’t know how much it costs. I don’t remember how much room I have on my credit card. This guy lives in a cardboard box, does he even accept credit cards.
I bolt awake in a bed of sweaty sheets, grabbing out for my imaginary signed Cher CD, only to find a pissed off cat glaring at me, not amused for being rudely awoken.
Damn you Cher!
