I had a strange dream that a large and very capitalist cult had grown up around the song “Me and Bobby McGee.” There was a conference room guru who had taken the song from its humble roots and made it about marketing. This included writing different versions of the song which would be helpful to people in advertising, personnel, management, entrepreneurs, and the like. I was assigned to make the changes in the song, through some favor called in by a friend long ago. This friend, who made a casual appearance in the dream, was played by an even older friend.
I received five versions of the song which I was supposed to rewrite and turn around in order for the big “Me and Bobby McGee” conference happening in Irvine that weekend. Having to retell the story of the drifter, Bobby, was, for whatever reason, totally objectionable to me, and I was incredibly critical of my employers over the most banal details. I got mad at them for making Bobby a pawn in their sick and twisted achievement oriented game. Drifter was a once respected albeit earthy profession. The term has outlived the practical use as a job description, like a ploughman or a draughtsman.
For some reason, Ben and Jerry, the ice cream magnates, were part of the system of events, and they made me the angriest, possibly because I had thought that they would be above co-opting the hippie anthem for the evil corporate machine. Anyway, I woke up furious with the question burning a hole in my head, “Would you rather be right, or happy?”
I really hate people who come forward and tell you about their dreams in great detail but I felt this was worthy of sharing. I think I just wanted to use the words ploughman and draughtsman and couldn’t think of a more graceful way of doing so.