lucid dreams and works in progress...

My brain is always be working on story ideas. I think a few of my best ideas have just come to me in the early hours of weekends when I can lie there and leisurely lucid dream. Some ideas make perfect sense and have parlayed themselves into actual short stories. Others are just downright weird and I just lie there and let my subconscious entertain myself.

Take this morning for instance.

I was dreaming about a possible reunion show of the Fat Albert Show. Kind of like the Brady Bunch reunion, only in cartoon form. So all of the kids have grown up and they are now talking about their experiences on the show/set as kids. My brain gave me all kinds of little details that must have had me laughing in my sleep.

We find that the straight-laced Bill went on to get a sports scholarship to Virginia Tech, eventually becoming a professor there. In his spare time he works on a charity organization he founded to keep children in Mexico from scavenging in junkyards. He is married and has three kids.

Russell went on to live in Hollywood to pursue a successful career in comedy. "It all started with my ad-libbed line to Rudy on the show: 'You're like school in the summertime--no class!'" Russell was even pegged to do the Kings of Comedy tour a few years back, but he had a scheduling conflict he couldn't work out with Caroline's. The guys talk about all of the practical jokes Russell would play on set including one notorious prank in which he dons a fuzzy green wig and pops out of Bill's garbage can drum kit a la Oscar the Grouch.

Weird Harold started his own clothing line for women. The dressmaker dummy he played in the Junkyard Band was actually his grandmothers and he used it to create his first dress for a friend. He lives in Milan with his partner of twelve years.

Bucky, the quiet member on the set, could not be located for the reunion.

Dumb Donald ended up going to MIT where he is currently working on his PhD in life sciences and biomedicine. He was on the Nobel prize shortlist in 1994 and in 2006.

Mush Mouth went on to become a speech therapist and youth counselor after receiving treatment for his own speech impediment. He occasionally works the motivational speaker circuit, encouraging others to overcome their "disabilities" and turn them into "abilities".

Rudy went on tour with Rick James as his bassist after the final Fat Albert episode. He has also toured with a number of funk bands from George Clinton to a short stint in the NPG with Prince. He is currently in a relationship with Edna Krabappel, actress on the Simpsons AND with Meg Griffin, actress on Family Guy. The other guys roast him about dating white women and his own album that has been in the works for the past 20 years now.

Fat Albert finally comes on looking slim and fit. After the show closed, he underwent the then brand new gastric bypass surgery for morbid obesity. After losing 249 lbs, he went on to open his own gym in San Diego that caters to larger people who still like to be active. "I always loved sports. The episode that dealt with obesity and Fat Albert winning the football game was an idea I pitched to Bill Cosby at an all-you-can-eat buffet outside of San Jose."

And that's as far as my lucid dreaming got me as I suddenly realized there was a cat walking on me. It's the first time he's ever been in my bed and it startled me that the dog wasn't freaking out about it. Anyhoo...these are the thoughts that hit me super early in the AM. Sometimes they're good stories, other times, like today, they're pure madness...

Hey, hey, heyyyy!