Whenever I hear the word dream - my mind almost always jumps to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's I have a dream speech and also, to William Shakespeare, specifically to Hamlet's soliloquy that begins, To Be or Not To Be. And this year - given all the recent race baiting and crying wolf over a poor choice of words and downright silliness related to race, I wonder how Dr. King might be resting in peace, to sleep, perchance to dream. And as Hamlet continues, ah there's the rub. For those not versed in Hamlet, he has just learned that his uncle has killed his father. Worse, his mother will be marrying him shortly. It is just an awful situation and he wonders whether life is worth living, hence to be or not to be is Hamlet considering whether he should live or die by his own hand. As he muses about being dead, he says:
to die, to sleep, To sleep perchance to dream, ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause.
And so i found myself wondering, Was the great Dr. King resting in peace, or was Dr King having bizarre dreams related to what was unfolding at present in the election process. How some old hippies who were there in the Civil Rights days, were now tweaking the race issue for their own ambitions. How sad. And how, a black man can run for President without a lot of concern about the color of his skin with one exception. It sometimes seems like many people want to vote for Obama because he is black. I do not know anyone who is not planning to vote for Obama because he is black.
At this point in history, not many people really care about a person's skin color. I remember Bob Marley's song, War, and think, we are almost there. We are almost at a time in history when the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. Yikes, my mind teleports... to visions of Sinnead O'Connor with a buzzhead and a bluetooth microphone on SNL singing War, really really angry.... and Britney Spears juxtaposed doing a duet with Sinnead. War? I think not. My perchancey dreams are scary enough. Give me Peace.
So - here's some content you might consider this weekend. Check out Vincent Price in Theater of Blood as a murderous Shakespearean actor. Yes, he even does Hamlet's to be or not to be speech. And Johnny Carson does a spoof of Hamlet here - very funny stuff, followed by a somewhat tawdry section featuring Jane Fonda. And by all means check out short video of Dr. Martin Luther King and the I have a Dream Speech. And in case you wondered where i found that picture of Dr. King as the Jack of Spades, I just searched google images using these words - liketelevision martin luther king and found a nifty deck of cards. And if all these emotional and mental gyrations are too much for you - well just disappear, Somewhere in Dreamland.
