CodeBase

He'd seen her twice, several years ago on her first world tour: once in his hometown of Kansas City and the next night in St. Louis.  He felt that it was a memorable time for both of them.  She'd specifically written about it in her first book.  It was sort of an autobiography but, in part, it was a journal, chronicling her 'adventures' while on her first world tour.  She wrote a passage about a nameless man that seemed to possibly fit his description, though it was pretty off base.  He chalked it up to her adding a portion of the story that she didn't know.  She was wrong about a number of her impressions though, but knew it, assuming incorrectly that he'd never know she had actually written about him.

He'd tried to do something with his music but lacked the conviction to stand behind his beliefs of what he was capable of.  Occasionally he would break free and let the flow of energy be released purely; when he was in a zone.  It seemed rare that he was ever in that zone, like he was when he'd been programming Dylan.

Philip thought back to a few dreams he'd had of Sally.  One of the first ones came from a picture that he'd seen once, of her sitting on a serene grass-covered plateau overlooking the ocean.  In the dream, the two of them sat and talked for a while and it was very peaceful and nice.  It felt normal and very comfortable, and when he woke up, he felt energized and full of ideas, feeling that the possibilities before him were limitless.

There was another dream he'd had where they were at a nightclub and she was dancing up to him very seductively.  It was sensual but not sexual.  It felt natural and he awoke from that dream hearing the music ringing in his ears.

There were quite a few more, but...

He sat in front of Dylan, surfing Sally's website, looking at some pictures.  He looked at the still frames of her in some of her videos and what it would look like if certain photos of her were in motion.  Of course he had seen most of her videos and even had a couple of her videos that she'd released through her record label.  One was of an entire show and the other was a companion DVD to her first book.  He let his imagination run wild.  He assumed he knew her every pose, and in his soul he did, though he'd never admit it out loud, at least not at this juncture.

What were some of her lyrics' real meanings?  He had to assume some of them held multiple meanings.  He liked doing that in some of his songs, to add a more universal appeal, allowing a listener to extract their own meanings from the lyrics of a song.  Creating a song that is a string of multiple meaning phrases could result in a song that gave you a multitude of combinations that present different dimensions every time it's heard. 

The problem was, that even though he would do this in some of his own songs, he'd never compiled them onto a CD and had never promoted any of them.  Therefore, no one might ever know what he was really capable of as a songwriter and even as a performer.  He felt that unless he had the time to play more, and really hone his craft, that he'd never get much better and would certainly never be at a point where he would do more than open for another local or, at best, regional act, at a local bar.  At least, that's what he believed at this particular moment.

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Philip walked into the computer room and sat down in front of Dylan, having taken a shower and brewed himself some strong, morning coffee. 

"Do you want to see the video I did?"

"Sure, Dylan.  Let's see what you've got, shall we?"

"Let's."  With that, the video began to play full screen on the monitor.  He watched, as the video played, impressed by what appeared to be a 'broadcast' quality of video, even though the video had been only captured from consumer quality MiniDV tapes.  Philip knew that some of the clips had to have been enhanced, because there were some shots that looked like they were shot with a camera that only professionals can afford to use.  He was impressed with how the action seemed to be expertly synced up with the lyrics and how the tone of the music was reflected by the use of certain filters and color enhancement and/or manipulation.  He also enjoyed viewing the song, artist and label info at the beginning and end of the video.  Actually, his 'label' was little more than a name that he gave to the room he had his computer and music equipment in.  He called it "Phil's Recording Studio".  Still, it looked like a real video, complete with MTV logo graphics, which Dylan had downloaded from the mtv.com website.