Summary: Randy Blazak joins us to talk about his fresh new novel The Dream Police. Have you ever wanted to go back in time to fix something in your life? The Dream Police rejoins the characters from Blazak's 2011 novel, The Mission of the Sacred Heart, fifteen years later. Zak and Lenny are in rapidly gentrifying Portland, Oregon, connected my their mistakes, one horribly tragic. They stumble upon lucid dreaming as a way to visit their favorite moments in rock and roll history, and maybe find alternate routes their own lives should have taken. Like Mission, The Dream Police is a rock novel. The story is built on the 1979 Cheap Trick album, using its songs to guide the musical fiction. The book tackles weighty issues, like gentrification, the commercialization of music, and the sexual politics of higher education, with humor and the energy that comes from a great song. He is the director of the Hate Crime Research Network and is the co-founder of Oregon Spotlight, which monitors hate groups in Oregon and is chair of the OregonCoalition Against Hate Crimes. Theme music for Madame Perry's Salon composed and performed by Denton Perry.
