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Sydney Hipple always believed that there was a twin soul, a female counterpart, who would be somebody that would be an ideal companion. Deep down inside something in him knew about the planet Oomph and Mal Function. Let me refresh your memory from a past story.

Once upon a time in a plane of existence that you could call Oomph were beings called Flugnoids. A flugnoid is a person or an object that is totally content with what it has. That would be the term that would used in the earth dimension. The beings on Oomph didn’t have bodies, they were soulless beings without developed emotions or feelings. They were high on life. You could say they were naturally buzzed. They didn’t know about war or feelings or emotions or possessions or so many of those ugly human characteristics. You could say they were fields of energy high on life. Except one – Mal Function. He was always asking, in a telepathic thought-transfer kind of way, which was the only means of communication they had, about something that no one ever knew about or talked about. This was Love. No one on Oomph knew anything about love, but something in Mal Function created a deep impression in his being to find out about this emotion. It got to the point that it was disturbing the natural flow on Oomph. The elder beings decided to get together to remedy the situation before it got out of control. What if other beings on Oomph asked about Love – what would happen? What was Love? They didn’t even know themselves, or care, for that matter. But they knew that this craving would never leave Mal Function. Mal Function was a little quirky anyways, an oddball – some might call him a revolutionary, because he was always looking for something deeper in life.

So the elders of Oomph decided the best plan of action was to send Mal’s astral body – because in actuality that’s all he was – to a planet called Earth. Mal Function was ready for this adventure. He considered himself a seeker after truth. The elders told him of the conditions of his transference into the physical plane of the earth through the astral plane. He would be going to earth as an observer. He would have no influence on the bodies that he would inhabit. Because his astral force was so, you could say powerful, his astral body would have to enter two human beings. He would be able to feel the emotions and the life situations of these two individuals. He would not have anay controlling influences. All the impressions that these two earth beings would have would be sent back to Oomph for the elders and the populace to see, because this was an education. Besides being an interesting experiment and getting Mal out of the way for a while.

Our astral history books are vague on the year of Mal’s arrival, but it is believed to be around the year 1978. The big day arose when Mal was to leave Oomph to embark on his journey as a research investigator for Oomph to find out about this emotion. That’s what they called it, and they didn’t even know what emotions were yet. Now this cheered up the beings on Oomph because they knew this experiment would be seen back on their planet. It’s like a BBC channel of a documentary, but there’s only one program.

Mal arrives on the planet Earth and inhabits the bodies of two people. Oh, I forgot to tell you, that one way that Mal can get back to Oomph is through the astral plane, if these two people meet, and something has to happen, something about Love has to happen between these two people before Mal’s mission is complete.

The male host – and I say host as a nurturing condition, as opposed to a parasitic condition – is very important. His name was Sidney Hipple. At that time he was around 21 or 22 years old and living in Lowell, Massachusetts. He was what you would call nowadays a beatnic kind of character – or at least, he liked to think he was – and his life in 1977 was as follows. It was one of the lowest points in Sidney’s life. He had just gotten out of a mental institution for the third and last time. He was living in one room, and was living on welfare. Someone stole his foodstamps. He used to sneak into the lunch line at the local mental health center three miles from where he lived every once in a while for lunch. They just thought he was a day patient. Sometimes he would go to a place called the Renaissance Club where people, mostly ex-patients from the mental hospital, would gather. They had free donuts and coffee for a nickel. He’d go there and have some coffee – that’s all he could afford – and a couple of donuts. Sometimes he would get a food voucher for 15 or 20 dollars from a local church. One day, being broke and at the lowest point in his life, he took all his past recordings of his music, which he kept in his refrigerator for safekeeping, and threw them in the dumpster, along with all of his clothes. Sidney had gotten to know the other tenants in his building, and a friend of one of them bought his albums – a lot of imports and rare albums – for $20. He went to the Puerto Rican section of Lowell called Adams Street, where they sold joints, and bought 12 for $10.

Eventually he moved into an apartment that a friend had had, that he had met in the mental institution, called Frank Tedder. Eventually he would move in with a friend of his named Roger Monu and another friend of Roger’s and his named Dennis. He was getting his welfare check – I think it was $89 every two weeks – and he would help Roger with the rent whenever he could. One day Roger said that the landlord was going to kick him out because he had not paid his rent. The next day – we later found out – Roger disappeared and checked into the local psychiatric facility. When you’re broke and have nowhere to go, sometimes, that’s what you do, and that’s what Roger did. Dennis, the other person, left, and Sidney had to move again. Someone at the Renaissance Club said there was a room in his building for $19 a week, and Sidney took it. Very very many of the underclass lived in this building: bathroom in the hallway, tons of cockroaches, the smell of urine all around, and neighbors that were far from savory.

His luck changed. He got a job at a local hospital called Saint Joseph’s as a pot washer. Sidney was always a very hard worker, very meticulous and impeccable in his workmanship. The first year he was there he still saw a psychiatrist at the mental health facility, just to chat. He was no longer taking the medication Haldol. He stopped taking it soon after leaving. Something in Sidney realized that a crucial part of psychiatry or rather psychology is having a sounding board, someone you can trust who thinks the way that you do, or at least, will listen. Now Sidney Hipple stuttered, so he didn’t talk that well or articulate too well. But this would change over time. He moved into another building after getting the job, another rooming house, and eventually he moved to a rooming house at 231 Appleton Street, where he remained for over 17 years. At the hospital, he soon became the stock clerk for the kitchen, and after four years transferred to the supply room. After three more years, he transferred to the receiving area, the loading dock, where it is believed he still works today, in a much scaled down capacity than in the past.

After Sidney started to overcome his stuttering completely, it was easier for him to communicate with people. Nobody had ever wanted to listen to him or take the time to listen to him in the past. Overcoming fear was a major component in eliminating Sidney’s stuttering. He continued to play music as he had done in the past, and started to record again. He played at a club called the Front Page on talent night, open mike. Distorted guitar and ad-libbed words. Eventually he would move on to a drum machine and an Arp Ax synthesizer, and would have set words for his songs.

Sidney had adapted to his environment in Lowell, Massachusetts, and had become better in phase with his reality. That’s a little background on Sidney Hipple.

Now you would think that it would be easy for two people to meet. But the female when Mal Function arrived in the two bodies, had just been born, so you see it wasn’t going to be like meeting your next door neighbor, or an easy task for Mal to get back to Oomph.

The female counterpart for now must be called the Queen of Reality. And we’ll find out more about that in continuing chapters. Let’s move ahead to how and when Sidney Hipple and the Queen of Reality met.

Sidney had always been attracted to, or managed to get involved with, women with a somewhat needy nature. So he had learned not to expect anything from anyone, as he had always received very little for his considerations. Or that he would even meet a compatible female. Sidney had a continuing mantra which his brain would signal whenever he’d get too close or had expectations about any women. It was: “Expect nothing and you’ll never be disappointed.”

He first met the Queen of Reality during a summer production of a play he was involved in as an understudy. At first Sidney saw her as a regular person like him: down-to-earth, but a lot of oomph. He had mentioned his music to other people in the cast, and he had given her some, a tape of his recent recordings. She gave everyone in the cast a card that she had made, with a poem, and she said that she was going to move and mostly like would never see them again. Sidney put that postcard on the wall in his room to remember her by, because she seemed so genuine. He never thought that he would even see her again. He never even thought about her. And certainly never thought about the possibility of spending any time with her. Sidney was in his mid-forties, and she was in her early twenties. But she seemed like a genuine, down-to-earth person, but way out of Sidney Hipple’s league. She was young and had a life. Not that Sidney didn’t have a life, but a much different life than her. He knew from the beginning that they were from two different worlds – different acquaintances, much different upbringing, contrasting levels of the choices they made, and the priorities in their lives.

The next year he auditioned for a part in the summer production of the play that was being put on at the acting studio where he belonged. He wanted the part of the sewer man, and he had prepared like he had never prepared before. It was his dream role, and he got it. As it turned out, the Queen of Reality hadn’t moved, and the director of the play had suggested that another player contact her to audition for a role she was perfect for. She came and she got the role, and Sidney got the role as the sewer man. She had said that she enjoyed the tape, so obviously Sidney gave her another tape. Someone with a genuine interest, and a genuine personality, and a real down-to-earth person, was what Sidney Hipple found. Eventually they would chat. He knew she had a boyfriend – she had said that. But Sidney had developed the capacity to be friends with women without developing any anticipated attachments. As rehearsal went on and they were together there, they would chat, and since they both smoked cigarettes, they would smoke outside. They got to know each other a little bit more. She treated Sidney like a human being. They were both so unpretentious that they could say anything to each other and chat with each other.

Sidney Hipple’s car was always having mechanical problems. After looking at the cast list and where people lived, he found that the Queen lived in a town in New Hampshire not far from Lowell. He asked her if they could carpool together. She said of course. There was an instant friendship bond between them anyways. So they would meet in Lowell and drive in together. They felt so comfortable with each other that they would chat all the way down and all the way back and listen to music in the car she drove. Sometimes he’d play his new music, overjoyed that someone would take such an interest, and she would play music that she liked from the Beach Boys to Dolls in Toyland and some stuff that Sidney Hipple wouldn’t normally listen to, but he did, and enjoyed it, because she enjoyed it. Because they had chatted so much and gotten to know each other so much, they had become good friends, and each other’s confidants. It was nice for Sidney to have a sounding board, and so it was for her. Sidney looked forward to driving in and chatting with her, as she did with him. She had so much energy, and Sidney for his age, had so much energy. He’d tell her about his ideas, his music, his webpage, his dreams, the Bakery Princess (which is another story). They could say anything to each other. But Sidney never expected anything. She was young, had a boyfriend, but she loved to go out and have a good time. He boyfriend didn’t care to go out that much, and allowed her to go out, and trusted her judgment. One day driving home from rehearsal, he asked her if she and her boyfriend would like to go to a party that a friend was having, which might be good connections because they talked about improvisation, acting, music, poetry, painting, stories. She wanted to get out there and be creative as much as Sidney did, which turned out to be a pretty strong bond. Sidney started to consider her his creative counterpart. There was no one in this world whose opinion Sidney would trust more than hers. So when he asked her to go to the party, she said yes, but that her boyfriend more than likely wouldn’t like to go, but she would, and it was no problem. The nicest thing about the Queen of Reality was that she was always on time. And she was on time that Saturday of the party when Sidney met her. So many women had let him down in the past that he was overjoyed when she came. They went to the party, which turned out to be only a few people, to Sidney’s surprised, and she seemed uncomfortable, although Sidney’s friends were regular people like Sidney. One of Sidney’s friends, he found out after the party – which was a viewing of film clips with music played along – was a friend who had a foot fetish. Most women would be shocked, but the Queen of Reality was into it, into hearing about the friend’s fetish, which Sidney had found he was really, really, really, really into. They left the party and went back to Sidney’s. She liked vodka and had had a couple of drinks and the party and a couple when she got back to Sidney’s place. Sidney had some too, although he rarely drank, and they chatted for hours about themselves. There was nothing that they couldn’t tell each other, no secrets. This wasn’t how they acted around everybody that they met, but between the two of them there were no boundaries. It was probably after 2 a.m. when she finally left. He drove his car in front of hers to get her back to the highway and made sure that she was going in the right direction. He went home. Sidney had found the perfect sounding board, and so had the Queen. They continued to drive in together to rehearsals, and their friendship and bond became stronger and stronger. Sidney had no expectations, and why should he? What was the possibility of him spending more time with the Queen of Reality? But it didn’t matter to him. Any time they spent together was wonderful and so enjoyable to him. Sidney saw in her the perfect creative partner. She had so many possibilities. She acted, he showed her some drawings, she did poetry, which he still has not seen till this day, and shared in his creative view of developing a performance company with music and acting.

He got to know her quite well before the end of the play, and he felt quite close to her, as she did to him. They were buddies. There were no limitations to what they could talk about and no boundaries to their imagination of how creative they wanted to be together. Sidney Hipple always felt that he loved the Queen of Reality. He had loved all his friends, but he never felt such a connection to anyone as strong as he did now with her. Now there’s love, and then there’s being in love. Sidney refused to believe that he was in love with her. He considered her like his sister, a younger sister. That was safe. No chance of getting hurt, no chance of hurting her. They could never get enough of each other, is the only way to put it. It was hard for them to see the ugly side of each other, and when they did, it didn’t matter, because the good qualities always outshined the bad. Sidney had great plans, and she was interested in every one of them, and wanted to be involved.

After the last show of the play had ended, and they broke down the set, and had a cast party, Sidney Hipple assumed he would never see any of the cast members until the following year, which was usual, unless sometimes he would see the other cast members in classes during the year, but he never got to see any of them again. The cast party started to break up, and Sidney decided to leave. The Queen of Reality was leaving at the same time. Sidney said goodbye to a few of remaining the cast members, and to her, as he left. Cast parties are special, because it’s the end of a show, and people get kind of sad because some people you may never see again. Sidney embraced the Queen and said to another cast member, “She’s like my little sister,” and started to leave. She had moved from north of Lowell and was living in the Boston area, but said she was going to her boyfriend’s house up north, and asked if he would like to have a drink or get together. He said yes. He wasn’t sure where to get on the highway, and she was following him. As it turned out, he went in the wrong direction on the Mass Pike and she was behind him. He went to the toll booth, put in his two quarters, looked behind to tell her that he had two quarters for her, and saw that her vehicle was not behind him. He drove slowly away from the toll booth, toward Boston, waiting for her to catch up. He had lost her. The traffic was moving so fast, he couldn’t stop and wait. So he made his way back to Lowell and thought, “Maybe I’ll see her again.” He stopped at the place where they were supposed to meet and have a drink, the “99”, when he got back to Lowell, just in case she had decided to stop and see if he was there. He waited a couple of minutes and thought it was very improbable, and drove home. He had had a wonderful time with her, and had learned a lot about himself and about someone else. He was going to be playing his new music, some of which he had played for her, at an open mike in Lowell the next week on Wednesday. She called him on that Monday to ask where it was. He was surprised and overjoyed that he would get to see her again. Maybe. She had always been on time, but since she lived in Boston, would it be practical? He didn’t think so, but who knows? The atmosphere of that open mike on that Wednesday was unusual for Sidney. He brought his new Korg Karma keyboard workstation and his amp and was prepared to play the music that he had wanted to play all his life. Most of the people at the open mike were young college students, and although he had met the M.C. “Rat” before, it didn’t make him any more comfortable. He signed up third, and listened to other people play before he went on. He was sitting there taking notes when in walked the Queen of Reality. Now the Queen of Reality is a very genuine regular person, but Sidney and most of the other world recognized her outstanding physical beauty. They always felt comfortable with each other, no matter where they were, and they sat down and chatted, took a walk outside and had a cigarette before Sidney went on. Then Sidney went on to play his music. Since everybody was playing acoustic guitar, the other artists were a bit astounded by Sidney’s performance and capabilities. He had a one-man band in this workstation. People applauded his songs, some more than others. He only did four quick ones, instrumental songs. A couple of musicians came up afterwords to ask about him, and being very humble and low key he said he was just a regular guy with a job and a side-job, who enjoyed creating music. She had heard Sidney’s music before, and had always been a strong supporter of his music and his creativity and any other thing that he had spoken about that he had hoped to do in the future. She tried to call her boyfriend after that to see if she could stay with him instead of driving back to Boston. She had been trying to get ahold of him all day, but couldn’t. She ended up driving all the way back from Lowell to Boston. Sidney felt that he had really found a creative production partner, a female counterpart. But still – what was the possibility of anything else developing? She was the only woman in the world he had ever met that could never get enough of him, or him of her. She said she might come again next week, but he doubted it. It was unusual in his life for her to take this much interest. And what was her interest in Sidney Hipple? This person knew more about Sidney Hipple than anyone else in the world, and he would never forget her. A chance to have a chance.

Next week he played again at the open mike. She hadn’t called to tell him that she would be there, so he didn’t expect her. He signed up to be the first one to play, so he could have his equipment set up and ready to go. He played, and he was listening to one or two of the bands after him, when she walked in the door. They had talked the week before about her doing some of her poetry there. He had said, in the beginning, when he told her about it during the play, that it was a perfect atmosphere for him and her to present their creativity. She was sorry that she missed his performance, and doodled a small drawing of herself while they were listening to another performer. She asked the owner if it would be possible to still do poetry. It was very busy that night and many people had showed up to play. She was told that it might be possible, after everyone else had played. She tried to convince him, but he was not moved. After hearing two or three more acoustic players, they decided to leave. Sidney grabbed his equipment on his way out, and they put it in Sidney’s car. They drove to the only other club in Lowell that had music, the Old Worthen. He wanted to show her where the place was where Edgar Allen Poe had slept upstairs, and where they had the jazz jammed he hoped to play in. They shared everything equally, they were both broke in life. They sat at the bar. She had two cigarettes left, she had two dollars, she had four. He bought her a drink, he had a coke, and they smoked her last two cigarettes. The band was a funk band, and they stayed only a short time. They went back to Sidney’s apartment to drop off his equipment, before he drove her back to her car. This week she could drive up north of Lowell and not have to drive to Boston. He had never played many of his vocal songs for her, and he played a few. She loved them, as she had loved all his other music that he had played for her. He said he would make a tape recording of his favorite of vocal songs that he had been working on, and have it for her the next week. They left and he dropped her at her vehicle. They chatted incessantly as they always did, until she left.

He told her that if she had decided to go again next week, to just show up, and he would put her name down as a participant so she could get in the open mike, and he could finally hear one of her poems, which she kept on referring to as bizarre or something that was far from mainstream as he understood it. If she wasn’t going to go, call him on Monday before that Wednesday.

Sidney was finding himself falling in love with the Queen of Reality, and he continued to ignore it. They were friends. She was like his best friend. That was it. Why should he expect any more?

That weekend he made the tape for her, of songs of his that she had never heard. Monday came around and she didn’t call, so he assumed that she would be there as usual. Wednesday came around and he make his way to the open mike. She was working as a waitress in Boston until 8:30 in the evening, so it was hard for her to get there when the show started at 9:00. But her signed her name below his, because she felt uncomfortable doing her poetry, but possibly would be less uncomfortable if he did his act first. He had decided to do poetry that week like her. He had a feeling she wasn’t going to be there, and she wasn’t. It didn’t disappoint Sidney. She had gone out of her way the past two weeks anyway. He did his poetry, and when the M.C. called her name after his, he said she wasn’t there.

A chance to have a chance. That’s all Sidney wanted, and he was happy to have that. He wanted to send her the tape, so she would have it, but he didn’t have her address. He called her home, where she was now living with her parents, and asked for her. She wasn’t home and he left his name. He knew she had other activities, other commitments, other possibilities. So he waited to see if maybe she would call back. Friday rolled around, the end of the week. He left work, and headed home.

He had to stop at his friend Virginia’s – and old girlfriend from 15 years back – to tell her of his financial situation, because her present boyfriend had helped him out getting his workstation. He got there around 2:30 and was supposed to be home by 3 to call his friend Bradley back. He was chatting with Virginia about his friend the Queen of Reality, and ended up not leaving till after 5. When he got home and checked his messages, the Queen of Reality had called and left a message. She said she was sorry that she couldn’t make it, that she was working a lot, and called herself a selfish bitch. She asked if he would like to get together to go out to eat, because she had got paid from her new job. She said she’d be home because she wasn’t working, and he called immediately. Another chance to have a chance. A chance of what? I don’t know right now. When he called back, she was not home, and he left a message saying that he just got in and it was 5:30. She called him at 1, and assumed he’d be home by 3, so when she wasn’t home, he wasn’t surprised, but he left a message saying he’d be home all that night and the next day.

Later on in the evening he decided to sit down and play some music on his workstation. It was easy for him to improvise words and instrumental compositions right off the top of his head. Somehow it was like being a medium. It came from his soul. As it started to record, he found himself creating many songs telling how he felt about the Queen of Reality. He found he was in love with her after all. He knew she loved him as much as he loved her, but was she in love?

She never called that weekend. Probably dealing with life at home or off on another adventure with someone else. Maybe he would hear from her again, maybe she would come to the open mike the next week. When he called her about the tape earlier in the week, he wanted to tell her about a play that was having auditions in Lowell. And if they got together ever again, he was going to try to find out if he would get the wish that he had wished for after getting to know her so well – which was to spend more time with her, as much time with her as was reasonably possible, considering both their life situations. Only time will tell, but even if nothing becomes of him and her, Sidney will always remember the Queen of Reality, and the joy he found being with her. Well, if there’s one out there, there might be another. And he knew what he’d be looking for now. A chance to have a chance.

Because of her beauty and openness, some men would take this as a sign of more than mere interest when the Queen of Reality was just being friendly. One thing that the Queen of Reality and Sidney Hipple had in common was that when they were friendly to the opposite sex, they would take it as a sign of them wanting to have sex, or to be romantic, which was hardly ever the sex with either one of them. Some men would treat the Queen of Reality like a trophy-princess. A trophy-princess tends to use her appearance and charm as a device to capture a man’s attention and sometimes his affection and desire for her. This is not necessarily a bad thing, if deep inner aspects of her inner essence are also revealed. Most of the time this is not the case.

Vanity overload can be the result after an extended period of focussing on this limited style of presenting oneself to the world. A trophy-princess may have many genuine moments while not engaging in this activity. She may have genuine companions, who see and appreciate her inner beauty and real worth without her having to resort to attention-grabbing tactics. They often and most likely are drawn to men who are of a needy character, as deep inside they are needy themselves.

It may not always be the trophy-princess’s fault for behaving in such a manner, as it is the low level thinking of the interested male, which provides the initiative – the man makes the woman act that way because he’s such an asshole.

Sidney Hipple on the other hand never considered himself handsome. Maybe average looking. At times he considered himself homely. So it was more difficult for him to express himself eloquently to other women without them thinking that he had ulterior motives. But the good thing was, when women could – and there were many – although they’d be married or just friends – they could see inside of his soul the sincerity and genuine interest of someone attempting to mingle with humanity.

After that Friday that Sidney had gotten the message from the Queen of Reality, he did not know when he would see her again. He wanted to let her know of his continuing interest, so he called her to let her know about a play that was happening in Lowell, and to see if she had her copy of the play, which he needed to refresh his memory and prepare for the audition. He felt awkward calling her family’s home. He disliked leaving messages if he could help it. Luckily her mother answered. He said he was a friend of the Queen’s, and that a production of the play the Queen had been in the previous year was having auditions for roles in Lowell. If he could leave a message for the Queen, to borrow her copy of the play as he could not find his. Leave a message to give her an excuse to call. Besides, his objective was to give her that tape he had recorded of his favorite vocal compositions. He had said to himself the week before that it was going to be his third and last performance at the Sugar Shack, but he had decided to play there one more time. Expect nothing and you’ll never be disappointed. At 6:30 on Wednesday evening, a rare thing happened: the Queen of Reality called and asked if he was going to be playing again at the Sugar Shack. He said yes. She said she would like to go again. They chatted a little bit, and said they’d meet at the Sugar Shack around nine. Sidney got there as usual at 8:30 to set up. The place was deserted, which was unusual, as there are usually a few people waiting to perform each night. He brought in his equipment from his car, brought it inside, and went out to have a cigarette out front. The owner Tom, the MC Rat, and another person were outside chatting, when the Queen walked up in all her casual elegance. Sidney asked her if she would videotape the performance, and she agreed. Sidney had not seen her in two weeks – he had been seeing her almost every week all through the summer.

Sidney decided to play first that evening, as the Queen of Reality was not working and was able to get there early to see him perform. It was a little past nine o’clock when Sidney went on to perform. He played four quick musical compositions. A comfortable applause was heard after each piece. Sidney told the Queen of Reality that he saw her as the Queen of Reality because of her ability to see through the bullshit of life.

She told him of a dream that she had had that included him. The most significant part of the dream was that she was in the market, and they were having a raffle for a hundred pound turkey, and she put in a slip with his name, for him. Some other things happened in the dream that weren’t as significant as that, so I won’t include them. The last part of the dream was: she was at the grocery store again. Sidney shows up and she tells him that she is putting his name in for the raffle, and he laughed. Sidney laughed after being told that he laughed. The next thing that she said stood out, was that she was walking and she came to a bench. These details are not remembered precisely, but are generally of this description: She was walking past a park bench. She saw something sitting on the bench, which didn’t appear to be a person, but was. If I remember correctly, it was a person that had been cast aside by humanity. Next to the bench she saw what I believe I remember her saying, was a paper bag. When she investigated the bag, there turned out to be a child in the bag, which she found out was the woman’s little boy. In her dream, as is her nature in real life, she gathered up the woman and the child, and brought them to Sidney Hipple’s home, which was a place that in the dream she had been living there with him. One of the last moments that she remembers of the dream is the feeling she got when the woman was bathing the child.

They both chatted that evening. Every time they got together, they felt more and more comfortable with each other. They were buddies. They chatted with a poet who also played that night, after Sidney played. His name was Jim. He had heard of Sidney in the past in Lowell, and of his music, but had never put a face with the name Sidney Hipple. The Queen videotaped the interchange between the poet Jim and Sidney, and later on in the evening, Sidney videotaped the poet. Sidney gave the Queen the tape he had been waiting to give her, and another tape of songs inspired by her. Soon she would have to head back home to Boston, and they said their usual goodbyes.