The Church of Lou Diamond Phillips

My name is Scotty. I’d say I’m a pretty normal person, especially compared to a few other people in this strange world. However, lately I’ve been having some vivid and… let’s say abstract dreams. I’ve talked with four different therapists, but they don’t see anything in my life that can cause my dreams to be like this. Dr. Gabriel even asked if I’ve ever dropped acid, because of all the strange activity that that goes on in the dreams. I never have, but I’m starting to wonder if anyone is putting something in my drink whenever my friends and I go out.

I was getting ready for bed, brushing my teeth, taking a shower, all that good stuff. Only tonight, I decided to try something different. It wasn’t until recently that I started watching movies before I went to sleep. I guess I neglected to tell that to the doctors. It always helps me get to sleep faster. The sound of the TV lulls me to sleep for some reason, and I feel paralyzed, nearly numb, from the buzz that it emits. I wanted to find out if this was what’s been causing my dreams to occur. I put in a movie, got into bed, fell asleep immediately… and woke up.

“I guess that isn’t the problem. “ I thought to myself. “Oh well.” I got up, showered, got dressed, ate breakfast, and did what I always do in the morning. It was Sunday, so after getting ready, I headed to church. The sky was overcast, but there was a rainbow in the sky. No light was shining through the clouds and despite the overcast, there weren’t any puddles and the smell of rain wasn’t in the air. I wondered what was causing the rainbow, but it didn’t take long to figure it out. It was my imagination, my very vivid imagination.
I checked my watch. It went from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. in a matter of seconds. For some reason, this tricked me into thinking I was late, so I picked my pace up. I cut through the park to save time. Everyone had taken their pets out for a walk. Cats and dogs were all over, but there were also animals like rhinos, lions, elephants, tigers, and even a grizzly bear giving children piggy back rides. I wouldn’t let a bear anywhere near my kids, but the parents thought it was the most adorable thing. There was a man reading under an old, withered tree with squirrels gathered around him. They seemed to be listening intently.

The park smelled like the San Diego Zoo, so I hurried to the street. When I got there, a street band was playing. The drummer hit his kit and flung his head wildly, but the sounds of a xylophone took place of the regular crash and boom, and the singer only made trumpet noises. I kept going, because they didn’t play very well, or at least they weren’t making the right sounds. I got to church and saw statues of fishes and crabs all over. The sign read “The Church of Lou Diamond Phillips.” I opened the church door, braced myself, and stepped inside.

Everything seemed normal when I entered the church, giving me a huge sense of relief, which was much needed by this point. The mosaics, the church goers, and the way the church was set up all seemed to be in order, unlike everything going on outside the building. The nuns wore gas masks and Jesus was replaced with an astronaut on the cross, but other than that, everything seemed fine. The pastor walked out to deliver his sermon, but I was surprised to see who the pastor was.
It was none other than the man himself, Lou Diamond Phillips. He started playing “La Bamba”, the gospel version, and everyone in the church joined in, except me, because I don’t know the words. An elderly woman in one of the front row seats fainted when she saw I wasn’t singing, and a man next to her pointed at me and shouted “Blasphemy!!!”
Everybody was in an uproar, and all because I didn’t know the words to “La Bamba.” Father Diamond Phillips tried to get his followers to calm down, to no avail. They were angry church folk and when they wanted blood spilt, it happened one way or another. I
heard someone call out from within the crowd, over the bantering church goers,” Punish the non-believer!!!”
Everyone leaped at me with arms stretched out, with the intention of killing me, it seemed. The nuns threw smoke bombs (that’s where the masks came in handy) and rushed me. I was blind by the smoke, but so was everyone else (smoke bombs don’t discriminate). My eyes were still watering and I was running for the door, when someone grabbed my arm. “Come with me, quick!”
The nuns were right behind us as we ran down the street. We managed to find a hiding spot in an alley to catch our breath. “You should learn the words. Believe me; it’ll help a lot here.” I rubbed the water from my eyes and looked up. Father Diamond Phillips was offering me a lyrics sheet. My eyes still burned. I couldn’t make out the lettering at first. I gave Lou my thanks. He nodded, got a running start into the street, and took off flying into the air. I needed to get out of this crazy place, and back to my own life.
I decided to look for something to hide my face, so I could get out of this alley, and find a way to wake myself up. There was a clothes line with shirts that looked as if they were painted with water colors, and some would glow like they were made of neon. I put the neon shirt on and made a mask by tearing the painted one and wrapping it around my face. As I walked down the street, everyone else was dressed normally, but no one looked at me in a strange way.
“Hey, you, in the mask.” I heard come from behind me like a dog’s bark. It came from a cop that was dressed in a pink uniform. He held up a wanted sign with my picture on it. “Have you seen this man? He is wanted for crimes against Father Lou Diamond.” I said I hadn’t seen him. He narrowed his eyes. “Take that mask off for me son, would ya? I can’t understand you.”
I said I had a cold, and he got suspicious. He told me to sing “La Bamba” as a test for some reason, (they must really love Richie Valens here.) and I took the lyrics sheet out of my pocket. My eyes were better, and I now saw the lyrics were in Japanese.
End of part 1








The Church of Lou Diamond Phillips (Part 2)

“I’ve got him! Send back up to …”
I could hear the cop on his radio as I ran through the city. He was right behind me for 3 blocks, and I couldn’t have ran for much longer. I decided I could either make a move, or go to jail for crimes against the church. I thought the first option sounded better, but I had to think outside the box to stop him. I needed to do something that wouldn’t work in the real world. I stopped to grab a cup of coffee from the stand on the street corner. Instead of throwing it at him, I offered the cop a drink. He gladly accepted and chugged the whole thing. He looked at me after he finished it off and said, “You’re free to go. Sorry to take your time up.” I guess this coffee was something special. I had to find a place to rest, but I couldn’t stop unless I wanted to get caught. I kept running until I got to my house.

My house was exactly the way I left it. In fact, I saw myself sleeping in the bedroom. I looked out the window and nothing out of the ordinary was there. It was the way I remembered it being before all of this started happening. I opened the door to look outside. Big mistake. There was a mob of people ready to burn my house down. Some had torches, one guy held a few gallons of gasoline, I even saw somebody holding a battle axe. Several guys in front were putting on brass knuckles. They probably didn’t need them; they were towering over everything in sight. They could’ve easily been 350 pounds, no fat pounds. They all charged at once towards me, so I shut the door. I grabbed a bat from the back room and looked out the window, ready for anything. However, nothing was outside my window when I looked.

Needless to say, this puzzled me. I opened the door and the mob was there again, slightly closer than last time. I shut the door. I looked out the window. No one was out there. I let out a sigh of relief. I had some time to gather my thoughts, and figure out what I was going to do to get out of this dream. I noticed the movie was still on in my room. I sat down and watched for a little while. The movie was “La Bamba” which would explain why this world worships Lou Diamond so much.
I went to the kitchen to make myself some coffee while the movie played. I poured a cup, added some cream and sugar, and some cinnamon. Cinnamon is my little touch of magic. I sat down and drank my coffee, thinking of any possible way to wake myself up. I thought the movie had answers, but the closest I came to a solution was when Richie has a dream of crashing in a plane, and the shock wakes him up. I’ve had plenty of shocks so far, so that wasn’t going to work. I knew I had to go out to get my answers. I went out the back window and immediately heard the mob out in the front yard. I was able to sneak away, while the mob thrashed at my house.
Walking down the street, nobody was bothering me because I wore a ski mask and a cape. I was getting tired of playing dress up. I passed by the church, and a gang of people were being handed pitchforks from church officials. I still wasn’t safe from these people. I wondered why they were angry and Father Diamond Phillips wasn’t. I came to the coffee cart at the street corner, the one with the magic coffee, and got another cup. It tasted familiar. It tasted good, but not magical or mind altering. I asked what he put in the cup. He said he used cinnamon. A light bulb (literally) came over my head, fell, and broke. I asked him to come with me if he wanted some customers.
The coffee stand owner followed me back to my house, and the mob was still tearing it apart. We ran up to the house yelling for them to stop. It was weird that they were still attacking my house even though I wasn’t in it. Maybe they just haven’t noticed. We had to tell the mob one at a time that we were selling coffee, made with cinnamon. Whenever we said “made with cinnamon,” the person’s eyes would light up and they bought a cup immediately. When they finished drinking the coffee, they forgot about destroying my house and destroying me, and walked away. It was working, but we still had a ton of people in the mob to give coffee to, and some of the people up front were getting ready to set my house on fire.
The coffee stand owner and I were giving the coffee out as fast as we could. We were making some progress, but the fire was already started by this point. I thought about seeing myself asleep in bed inside the house, and suddenly I got worried. What if I’m burned alive inside that house? I thought that would make me either disappear or have to stay in this world forever, and I didn’t want either. We passed out the cups at a rapid rate. Eventually, we got everyone coffee and no one was in the way anymore. However, my house was still on fire, and I had to get myself out. I ran to go inside the burning house, but the coffee stand owner held me from going inside, saying it was too dangerous.
I felt helpless in this situation. I was watching my house burn to the ground, and I was going to be caught in the fire. So, I decided to do something that one of the people in this realm might do in time of need; I prayed to Lou Diamond Phillips. The coffee owner prayed with me.
Right after we said amen, Father Diamond Phillips came flying through the air. Chaves definitely knows the meaning of “pals” (Young Guns reference). He stopped right above the house and created an orb of water between his hands. The orb unleashed a giant wave over my house, putting the flames out right away. We ran up to Lou as he was landing and I gave him all of my thanks.
I asked Lou why he didn’t get angry when I didn’t know the words to “La Bamba.” He told me he knew I was from another world.
“The same thing happened to me. All of my movies are done by my body, but not me. I’m on auto-pilot out there.”
This came as a huge surprise to me.
“I don’t want to see the same thing happen to anyone else.”
I also asked about the Japanese lettering on the lyrics sheet. He apologized for that. He said he had to take care of business in Japan that afternoon. Despite Lou being trapped, I asked him if he knew how to get out of this place.
“I found out too late, but I do know how to get out of here.” Lou said.
“Please tell me how. I’ll do anything to get out of here.” I replied.
“Just hit stop on the movie before it ends.”
I ran into the half burned house, and into my room, where I was still sound asleep. It still smelled heavily of smoke. I hit stop right as the credits started to roll, and closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I was in my bed. No smell of smoke, no angry mob outside my door when I opened it. Everything was finally back to normal… or at least as normal as it could get.