I Dreamt of Jello

I know what you're thinking: "No way! Too far!"

They say that the raw material for one's dreams comes from everyday experience.

The night before I watched a bit too much of Jello, Ice-T and others on an Oprah episode from way back.

Jello was there with a vengeance in my dreams that night.

I knew it was a dream because Jello was listening to me.

We were at a bar and I was telling him how I credited him with part of my return to Christianity -- Catholicism in particular.

He took it really well.

I thought then (the late 1980s) and still stand by it: punk was asking the right kinds of questions. Sure, the questions generally don't ascend beyond the sociological, but still, in many ways DK was on the right track.

Here's but one example (on the nature of work): "Soup is Good Food"* treats the nature of work and the evils of treating people as disposable. It's a great song, but what's missing? Well, in a word or two: hope, transcendence, meaning. The negative is there (which is not nothing -- in an age where Original Sin is vilified or ignored), but what is the "ought" that ought to be there?

That's why punk ultimately fails. One needs not perpetual cheerfulness but reality. Neither optimism nor unbridled pessimism, but simply the whole truth of the human condition.

He will surely laugh and scoff, but I pray for Jello.

*CAUTION: The song has some naughty words.