Crack Is No Ordinary Killer
Well. For those of you who thought I was sane, I am about to disabuse you of that notion.
Ever since I can remember, I have had extremely vivid dreams, and fairly good recall of most dreams. When they are good dreams, this is a really cool thing. But when they are bad dreams, or disturbing dreams, they can REALLY get to me. Last night, I had a particularly disturbing dream.
I dreamt that my son Paul and I were at our family computer, searching for something, and this music video came on called "Crack Is No Ordinary Killer." It had been designed to show, in a metaphorical way, what happens to people when they get hooked on drugs. It was a rap song, but in the way of dreams you could actually hear the words clearly.
The video begins with someone at a party taking crack for the first time (not really knowing anything about crack myself, my dream showed the person injecting the crack. I don't know if that would be appropriate, but from a visual perspective you will see why it was done that way). As the person went to shoot the crack into their arm, instead of a liquid coming out of the needle, this huge spider-like creature emerged from the needle - impossibly large for the space involved, it's body was about the size of a human skull. It skittered up the person's arm and over their head, and bit into the back of their neck, while coiling its legs around the person's neck.
Then, the person's hands started turning into huge cockroahes that are attached to his wrists, to simulate the way that people have to scurry around and steal to get money to buy more drugs. Eventually, the person just turns into one big bug, crawling around; mindlessly looking for what he can't even remember, just a huge empty need driving him on.
Now, if you recall, I had said that both I AND my ten-year-old son were watching this video. Paul and I were not complacently "ho-hum" watching this. Ass soon as the spider thing crawled up the person's arm, Paul said, "Mommy, I don't like this song, Please turn it off." And I had to agree: in normal life, I would NOT watch such a video. I tried going to another website; the computer wouldn't let me. I tried shutting it down; it wouldn't let me. Nothing I tried worked (short of unplugging the darned thing, which I couldn't do because the plug was stuck back behind the deck where i couldn't get to it), so we ended up watching the whole thing whether or not we wanted to.
From a purely subjective, "art for art's sake" viewpoint, it was very well done. The bugs looked VERY real (WETA Digital probably had a hand in it, I'm sure). I have to say that I stopped following the words because my mind was overcome by the sheer visual impact; I could just tell that the music was still going on in the background. One interesting point about the music that did intrude itself into my consciousness was that, when the song started, it was just doing the fairly simplistic "heartbeat" type of rhythm. But as the song progressed, the rhythm got more and more complex and disjointed, until at the end there was no discernable pattern.
It did an extrememly good job, in my opinion, of showing the plight of poor people who get hooked on drugs. This is not say that they cannot be held responsible for their actions; the first "hit" is almost always a free choice. But the insidious and escalating nature of addiction is very real, just the same. Whether it is a decision or a disease, it is still a tragedy. Please say a prayer for those addicted to drugs - or any other thing that controls someone's life - for freedom from that tyranny.
Ever since I can remember, I have had extremely vivid dreams, and fairly good recall of most dreams. When they are good dreams, this is a really cool thing. But when they are bad dreams, or disturbing dreams, they can REALLY get to me. Last night, I had a particularly disturbing dream.
I dreamt that my son Paul and I were at our family computer, searching for something, and this music video came on called "Crack Is No Ordinary Killer." It had been designed to show, in a metaphorical way, what happens to people when they get hooked on drugs. It was a rap song, but in the way of dreams you could actually hear the words clearly.
The video begins with someone at a party taking crack for the first time (not really knowing anything about crack myself, my dream showed the person injecting the crack. I don't know if that would be appropriate, but from a visual perspective you will see why it was done that way). As the person went to shoot the crack into their arm, instead of a liquid coming out of the needle, this huge spider-like creature emerged from the needle - impossibly large for the space involved, it's body was about the size of a human skull. It skittered up the person's arm and over their head, and bit into the back of their neck, while coiling its legs around the person's neck.
Then, the person's hands started turning into huge cockroahes that are attached to his wrists, to simulate the way that people have to scurry around and steal to get money to buy more drugs. Eventually, the person just turns into one big bug, crawling around; mindlessly looking for what he can't even remember, just a huge empty need driving him on.
Now, if you recall, I had said that both I AND my ten-year-old son were watching this video. Paul and I were not complacently "ho-hum" watching this. Ass soon as the spider thing crawled up the person's arm, Paul said, "Mommy, I don't like this song, Please turn it off." And I had to agree: in normal life, I would NOT watch such a video. I tried going to another website; the computer wouldn't let me. I tried shutting it down; it wouldn't let me. Nothing I tried worked (short of unplugging the darned thing, which I couldn't do because the plug was stuck back behind the deck where i couldn't get to it), so we ended up watching the whole thing whether or not we wanted to.
From a purely subjective, "art for art's sake" viewpoint, it was very well done. The bugs looked VERY real (WETA Digital probably had a hand in it, I'm sure). I have to say that I stopped following the words because my mind was overcome by the sheer visual impact; I could just tell that the music was still going on in the background. One interesting point about the music that did intrude itself into my consciousness was that, when the song started, it was just doing the fairly simplistic "heartbeat" type of rhythm. But as the song progressed, the rhythm got more and more complex and disjointed, until at the end there was no discernable pattern.
It did an extrememly good job, in my opinion, of showing the plight of poor people who get hooked on drugs. This is not say that they cannot be held responsible for their actions; the first "hit" is almost always a free choice. But the insidious and escalating nature of addiction is very real, just the same. Whether it is a decision or a disease, it is still a tragedy. Please say a prayer for those addicted to drugs - or any other thing that controls someone's life - for freedom from that tyranny.
posted by Kathy Romer | 7:15 AM
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