"Hold On, Puppy!": A Dream Fragment

I found myself at this art event in San Francisco
an art event sponsored by Macy's in a part of town so familiar, yet not immediately recognizable
the theme was "innovation"

I found it laughable: Macy's sponsoring an art event about innovation? (What about the 100-plus year-old retail brand has anything to do with innovation?)
I was there, somehow and without explanation, as can only happen in dreams
and I wasn't taking it seriously

For some reason this stance of mine, my behavior, was a novelty
to those working the event and even to some of the artists (mainly photogs) who wanted to get response shots of me, of my irreverent face, being less than reverent (more than irreverent?)

"Show me 'My life is filled with satisfying accomplishments.'" one of them said and I couldn't help but roll my eyes and scrunch my face in ridicule, as I would never think that

So I'm wandering around this expensive location
filled with the rich and the curious
corralled behind velvet-wrapped stanchions and velvet ropes

I'm eating free gourmet finger foods and being absolutely amazed
by the appropriateness, the seriousness and the distance of the monied
watchers, hungry for a drip of the blood of the hip, the cool
those who don't have their fingers on the pulse, but who ARE the pulse
the edge, the bleeding edge, of popular creativity

Hustling casually and smiling over there, isn't that Merkley
and maybe some others I vaguely know from my duties at the nightclub?
They're surrounded by so many furs and pearls around the necks of the society women, jewels glimmering from behind the glass wall where they wait for their chance with these youthful geniuses

But then, before I know it, someone has noticed that I just don't belong
There's a rude request for an invitation that everyone knows I do not have
My tiny plate of seafood, crackers and endive is ripped from my hands
as I am carefully manhandled past the wealthy buyers and their artsy friends

Apparently the dream and the party were over