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Friday, February 16, 2007
The Road To "BOB"- Swaggert!
I AM NOT AN ATHEIST BECAUSE OF HYPOCRISY IN RELIGION. I AM AN ATHEIST BECAUSE I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD.
Penn Jillette on his radio show to Michael Goudeau.
It was 1988. Subgenius preachers were in shock. Jimmy Swaggert, cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley, had been caught in a sleazy motel with a hooker.
It hit the Church like a ton of bricks. Early preachers like Janor Hypercleates and the Pope of New York had patterned themselves in a fashion after him. After Gene Scott he was the second most influential earth preacher on the Church of the Subgenius.
He was real. He had to have the demons that haunted Jerry Lee Lewis, yet he controlled them.
Or so we thought.
It actually hit the Church harder than his own church, we had come to see him as the yin to Jerry Lee's yang.
Turns out, they both live in the shadows.
How do I know? In 1991 he was pulled over by police, and he had a hooker he had just picked up in his car. The press didn't make a big deal out of this because by this time he had faded.
But at his prime......
Swaggert had taken over his church after the head (Marvin) was caught in an affair. It was a hostile take over. When the Bakers and their PTL Club fell apart he was happy, and called them a cancer on Christianity! The guy who exposed him for going to hookers- was the one he had replaced. He paid the guy money until he got tired of it, and the guy went public.
"In March 89, some woman named Catherine Campen gave an interview to Penthouse magazine, in which she claimed to have had an extramarital affair with the preacher. Between July 87 and January 88, they had met up on ten separate occasions. She mentioned beating him with a riding crop, but only after Swaggart convinced her to do it.
Then in July, Penthouse ran an exclusive interview with the prostitute, Debra Murphree. She claimed that Jimmy once inquired whether he could fuck her child:
He'd ask me if I'd ever let anyone screw my daughter when she was that young, and I said, "No, She's only nine years old." He asked me if she started developing or if she had any hair down there. [...] "I can picture my cock going in and out of a pussy like that," he said.
These revelations were a sales and marketing bonanza for Penthouse magazine" http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/televangelists/jimmy-swaggart/
It was a sad day when Swaggert revealed himself. We had grown to like the guy. I know I had. Now I'd rather drink with his cousin Jerry Lee. If you are gonna whore, shouldn't you be in a religion that condones whoring?
Now before I get to "Bob" and close this chapter, I have to move. I'll be back in a couple of weeks.
Posted at 11:37 am by Psychomike
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Sunday, March 04, 2007
THE FIRESIGN THEATRE
From the moment CIA agent Albert Hubbard began handing LSD out to people he deemed worthy bypassing the middle man, psychiatrists, the perception of the world began to shift. Within one generation the common knowledge would go from us conquering earth to wanting to help it, from being masters of the animal kingdom to vegetarians, from segregation and race laws to integrated police forces and today a Black man running for President.
Hubbard passed it out to Aldous Huxley, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, many others, not street quality LSD but military proof LSD. Half the CIA thought LSD would be great to use in warfare and half thought it could change the universe.
The half that thought it could do good went out of their way to convince the squares to try it. Hubbard himself would dose the coffee machine at the CIA cafeteria.
Imagine that. The CIA cafeteria you might see the same person everyday for years, and never know their real name or what they do. Here you are in your crewcut thinking about killing Castro when you suddenly notice a ray of light hitting your coffee and you see the texture of the liquid as you never have before and your cream! What is happening to your cream? So you pour some into the cup and look at the pattern. Hey wait a second..... I'm dosed! You look up and there is Hubbard, laughing his ass off.
Our tax dollars at work.
The squares kept trying to turn it into a weapon. They had a whore house in San Francisco and would dose the john (customer) and then film the person having sex with a hooker employed by the government. I'm sure this idea looked good on paper.
It seemed like each person who tried the drug at this time went on to become promoters of the drug and a creative lifestyle.
There were problems. No one in those days understood depression. If you had problems with depression, couldn't get out of bed or had crying spells, doctors would tell you to snap out of it and maybe prescribe speed, amphetamines.
People who years later would be diagnosed as bi-polar or suffering from depression in those days had no idea LSD was not a good idea for them.
LSD would change movies, TV, clothes, music, art by 1970- the crewcuts would give way to at least longer sideburns. LSD would also change comedy.
THE FIRESIGN THEATRE saga begins in 1966 when the comedy team did a three hour long form radio improvisation that left the hippies listening on KPFK radio stunned. LSD consciousness had hit Los Angeles and it was on the radio. These weren't jokes ala ROWAN AND MARTIN'S LAUGH IN this was a long form psychedelic trip into the heart of radio and media. This was genius, and tapes circulating spread the word to comedians all over the nation. The rules of comedy had just been changed.
By 1968 when the first album came out, WAITING FOR THE ELECTRICIAN OR SOMEONE LIKE HIM every hippie in America was waiting for this album. It lived up to the hype, not only were these guys hip enough to know about tripping, the album sounded great tripping!
Hippies had their own form of comedy, and Vegas comedians suddenly seemed very square.
This album was followed by HOW CAN YOU BE TWO PLACES AT ONCE WHEN YOU'RE NOT ANYWHERE AT ALL? and the masterpiece, DON'T CRUSH THAT DWARF HAND ME THE PLIERS we had all begun memorizing entire chunks off the albums.
LSD had also changed Del's comedy. Del had heard about the wonders of LSD, so when he discovered the Army was doing REM tests he jumped at the chance to try it. The Army didn't wait for you to go to sleep to try the tests on rapid eye movement. They injected you with LSD and had you lie down and close your eyes! Del was up for three tests, but by the second test wanted to do more than just lie on a table with his eyes closed. And he wanted to go to New York and try his hand at fame.... so he didn't show up for the third test.
He did however, send a letter to the Army with his new address and a request for payment on the two tests.
The Army replied with a letter that he had only completed two of the requirements to receive payment, and that he owed the U.S. Army one dream.
The monolog continues with the Discordians and a writing movement from France which launched the long form improv movement.....
Posted at 07:08 am by Psychomike
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Sunday, March 11, 2007
Nothing is forbidden......
If organized religion is the opium of the masses, then disorganized religion is the marijuana of the lunatic fringe.
Principia Discordia
There are no rules anywhere. The Goddess Prevails" -The Discordian Society, page 00032
"To choose order over disorder, or disorder over order, is to accept a trip composed of both the creative and the destructive. But to choose the creative over the destructive is an all-creative trip composed of both order and disorder. To accomplish this, one need only accept creative disorder along with, and equal to, creative order, and also willing to reject destructive order as an undesirable equal to destructive disorder." -Greyface and Negativism, page 00063
"Erisians seldom pray, it is much too dangerous." -On prayer, page 00012
"[The Ancient Greeks] cannot be trusted with historic matters. 'They were,' She added, 'Victims of indigestion, you know.'" -Eris - What We Know about Eris (not much), page 00015
"The tendency for entropy to increase in isolated systems is expressed in the second law of thermodynamics -- perhaps the most pessimistic and amoral formulation in all human thought." -On Norbert Weiner, page 00047
"There is serenity in Chaos. Seek ye the Eye of the Hurricane." -Page 00059
I'm not sure when Del came upon PRINCIPIA DISCORDIA.... it might have been when he was with Ken Kesey and the Acid Test.
Now this brings up several issues best dealt with in the monolog chapter. Which is this one.
First, how on earth can you, the reader believe the stories written of here?
There was a great hillbilly bar in the loop at 54 West Randolph Street, where the Psychotronic Film Society was based as was the Woods grindhouse movie theater. The hillbilly bar was where the working class whites would go and listen to the SUNDOWNERS play cool old school country (including a great version of GHOST RIDERS IN THE SKY one of my top five favorite songs).
I had discovered the bar when I was living downtown illegally after Art Girl (more on that later) and even tried many of the over 50 kinds of chili they had there. The Woods showed Black films and the Bar Double R catered to transplanted southern whites. Quite a mix passed each other every day.
The bar itself was caked in tobacco residue which gave everything country and western on the walls a yellow hue. The jukebox was a country music fans dream machine.
So Del and I are sitting in the bar, I'm drinking beer and he's talking to me about doing GET SMART! and what that show was like to work on when all of a sudden a redneck looked up and said, "He's kiddin' ya kid" and I saw at least two episodes he was on but as the comments came up from the patrons sitting at the bar I watched as Del was disbelieved. He laughed it off, said he had more fun doing his scene with Sean Connery in THE UNTOUCHABLES and the bar was having none of that.
No one believed him!
Biographers have had problems sorting out the myth from the mythtakes to the point where one author I knew had his editor strike a portion of an article that mentioned Del running the light show for the Ken Kesey Acid Tests while blasted on speed. When the bus came to town those "in the know" would get ready for an LSD party. There was no corroborating evidence so it couldn't be written about.
I got a bootleg video from eBay of Acid Test footage and watched it before setting up my play THE ACID TEST 1966 ( I played Albert Hubbard the CIA agent that turned on a nation as well as directed that show) with musical genius Mark Mothersbaugh and lo and behold in the middle of the footage- was Del. Doing the light show and speeding his brains out. That editor was wrong. So were the people at the bar.
How do you know Del had L. Ron Hubbard for a therapist, was in GET SMART or THE UNTOUCHABLES with Sean Connery or anything else for that matter?
Because I fucking say so, that's why. Frankly my life has been far too interesting to have to make up anything. It simply isn't necessary.
Del is even more so.
Got it?
Now where was I, oh yes, the Discordians.
Here was the chain of counter culture command for the baby boomer crowd, in order of appearance after World War 2:
OUTLAWS/ DELINQUENTS/PARTY TILL YOU PUKE -
favorite drugs: Booze
BEATS aka BEATNIK a play on the Russian word Sputnik and a putdown.
Favorite drugs: booze, coffee, speed, heroin. More speed.
DIGGERS - believed that everything should be free, and made me many a great meal!
Between the Beats and the hippies- favorite drugs- what you got?
HIPPIES -
How the 60's rebels shaped today's world
14 Apr 2005 40 min To understand what really went down in the 60's, DML shows clips from the documentary "Les Diggers de San Francisco", "The Great Debate - Yippie Vs. Yuppie" (Abbie Hoffman debating Jerry Rubin in 1986 in Vancouver), George Carlin's "Back in Town" (2003) and David's interview with Noam Chomsky from 1995. Be warned - this show has naked hippies dancing and smoking drugs.
http://www.pot-tv.net/archive/series/pottvseries-12-6.html
FAVORITE DRUGS: High man!
The Discordians came out sometime between the beats and the Diggers and saw order in chaos. Or at least, in the book stated that chaos was as important as order and has its own unique emerging order- about 50 years before physicists said the same thing and centuries after Zen Buddhists made much the same argument.
After the war men had enough of order. The founders of the Hell's Angels had been in the military! Men began to wonder if they should rush into marriage after high school and PLAYBOY arrived on the scene to tell those men there was fun to be had before settling down. Beats broke from the order of the day- practicing free loving and free drugging, with their minds wrapped around poetry and Buddhism and heroin and anything to be different from the L7's, the squares. The Diggers had survived the downers and uppers, and enjoyed watching one American style dying out as a new one emerged.
Of course women would respond in kind and begin wondering about their place as the men did as well.
Principia Discordia was a written drug high, a blast that began with five copies made of it and was reprinted, added to, quoted from and built over the years. It would lead to the ILLUMINTUS TRILOGY http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Illuminatus%21_Trilogy which is well worth wrapping your brain around.
World War 2 had many effects on the people of the time- but the vast majority were "with the program". There weren't a lot of beats, yet their influence continues to this day. There weren't but five potential Discordians, and it grew as hipsters discovered it.
Del had discovered that when you went with improv and just a few rules, from chaos scenes would emerge. Could a structure be devised that would lend itself to long form improvisations?
Some French authors writing to a very small audience, held the key .
Posted at 11:51 am by Psychomike
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Sunday, April 01, 2007
Del Close was inspired by the French Oulipo writing movement to create and build on improvisation.
Oulipo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oulipo stands for "Ouvroir de littérature potentielle", which translates roughly as "workshop of potential literature". It is a loose gathering of (mainly) French-speaking writers and mathematicians, and seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau
and François Le Lionnais.
Other notable members include novelists like Georges Perec and Italo Calvino, poets like Oskar Pastior or Jacques Roubaud, also known as a mathematician.
The group defines the term 'littérature potentielle' as (rough translation): "the seeking of new structures and patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy".
Constraints are used as a means of triggering ideas and inspiration, most notably Perec's "story-making machine" which he used in the construction of Life: A User's Manual. As well as established techniques, such as lipograms (Perec's novel A Void) and palindromes, the group devises new techniques, often based on mathematical problems such as the Knight's Tour of the chess-board and permutations
Oulipian works
Some examples of Oulipian writing:
Roubaud's La Belle Hortense, a whimsical detective story, in which six princes, all brothers, are suspects. All six appear in turn, in a different sequence each time. One of the six breaks the pattern: this is a clue that he is the culprit.
Queneau's Exercices de Style (Exercises in Style ), in which he tells the same simple story ninety-nine times, each in a different style.
Queneau's Cent Mille Milliards de Poèmes (Hundred Thousand Billion Poems) is inspired by children's picture books in which each page is cut into horizontal strips which can be turned independently, allowing different pictures (usually of people) to be combined in many ways. Queneau applies this technique to poetry: the book contains 10 sonnets, each on a page. Each page is split into 14 strips, one for each line. The author estimates in the introductory explanation that it would take approximately 200 million years to read all possible combinations.
Constraints
Some Oulipian constraints:
The "N+7" method: Replace every noun in a text with the noun seven entries after it in a dictionary. For example, "Call me Ishmael. Some years ago..." (from Moby Dick) becomes "Call me islander. Some yeggs ago...". Results will vary depending upon the dictionary used. This technique can also be performed on other lexical classes, such as verbs.
Snowball: a poem in which each line is a single word, and each successive word is one letter longer.
Lipogram: Writing that excludes one or more letters. The previous sentence is a lipogram in B, F, H, J, K, Q, V, Y, and Z (it doesn't contain any of those letters.)
The prisoner's constraint (a.k.a the "macao" constraint) is a type of lipogram that omits letters with ascenders and descenders (b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, p, q, t, and y).
Palindromes
In 1960 Del was at Second City when he discovered the writing revolution going on in France. The vast majority of French readers had never heard of it, let alone Americans, but in those days science fiction geeks could sense ripples world wide. In the stifling world of America in the late 1950's, they searched for creativity everywhere.
Imagine writing a story in which every sentence begins with the same first word. This is Oulipian. All the websites, books, articles I've ever seen on Del never mention how Del got the idea to go from ad lib, to improv, to oulipian constraints which would lead to the Harold. Perhaps I was the only person who ever asked him what his inspiration was.
All comedians already live with the law of threes- vaudeville comedians discovered a joke would work three times to the same audience and passed the info down for decades. But how to create a form of comedy that was a group activity, on stage, in which the individual would shine? Del, a fan of Ayn Rand, wanted to create a group activity that would allow the individual to shine. A contradiction? Not if he made it work.
And from Bill Murray to John Belushi to Chris Farley- he certainly would.
The idea that a group would be given the same constraints and create a wonderful, fragile environment in which individual creativity would shine became his goal.
But there are many, many constraints possible. Del always wanted the Harold form, the name he would years later give to his long form improv style, to grow and be used not only in comedy but drama, science fiction, horror, mystery ( oh yeah- don't even tell me that wouldn't be a great mystery), romance- every narrative form.
Sadly the people he worked with in the end lacked such vision, and now Harold ( also the slang term for heroin in the UK ) is strictly a improvisation exercise for middle class kids who want to be famous.
As opposed to wanting, needing to create.
And Del needed to create. Anyone who has done improvisation can now spot the constraints. When I did improv comedy with THE WRECKING CREW** around 2000 instead of having the audience yell out subject matter- we would have them yell out constraints!
Today almost all improv schools follow the same formula- put students through different levels while dangling a carrot that 1 or 2 people might be hired by SNL and became famous.
Because being famous today is seen as the goal.
It was not always so.
Del years later from 1960 at Crosscurrents, a bar that he would work from after being fired by Second City, would need to have a show up by the weekend to make his rent. Working with students he could teach novices long form in just 4 hours! So can I.
But there is no money in that. Levels of improv were introduced, and students wishing a lottery ticket like chance at fame would go through classes until they were "ready" for long form.
How long does it take to learn a fucking game?
The first chapter of this saga was written in the style of the Harold. This chapter has been the monolog.
I'll bet you can guess what style the next chapter will be written in!
END OF CHAPTER 2: THE MONOLOG
Cyber footnotes
Would you like to try your hand at a Oulipian constraints exercise? Go here: http://home.earthlink.net/~eater/oulipo/index.html
Here is the French website for the movement. http://www.oulipo.net/ To translate from the French go to the almighty Google (TM) search page
http://google.com and you will notice to the right of the search box are the words LANGUAGE TOOLS. Click on that to enter the above website and translate it from French to English!
**The Wrecking Crew never played comedy clubs. We did however do midnight shows at the Biograph, the Music Box movie theaters in front of audiences of anywhere from 80 to several hundred people. From Rogers Park coffee shops to near northside art galleries. The way improv schools work, audiences are usually composed of comedy teams who leave when they are done, parents and friends of the team There is rarely pay. Doing long form comedy in front of punk rockers, horror film fans (we even did a horror movie convention!), midnight stoners remains in my memory quite a peak.
However, there is such a glut of improv in Chicago- the press long ago decided to only cover a few schools. And Reader critics weren't going to stay awake to midnight to review us! It was difficult to get the press to understand what we were doing, and what made it different.
Posted at 09:11 am by Psychomike
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Monday, April 09, 2007
INTERMISSION
Before I move on to the next chapter, thought this would be a good time to print some of the responses this blog has generated.
Nice to see you on the net and writing well. Check out myspace page:
Thanks!
Who are you?
I'm a holy man.
What do you do?
DJ. Write, produce and direct theatre and film.
What is this all about?- CR
Beats me. We'll both find out as the work progresses.
Your holiness,
Ok, that's better!
Did this shit really happen or is this taken from an old issue of Hustler?- Mike Woloshin
It really happened, it really is happening, those letters in HUSTLER were made up by the way!
More Del please! - Name
Plenty more coming.
I have never read anything like this before. One part of the second chapter I followed the links to, for example. I watched a 45 minute long documentary on hippies and diggers, read pages of text and before I knew it, one section of one chapter had me involved for over 2 hours. This makes books look very old. A biography written as a blog with full use of the web is just as impressive as you writing in the different comedy forms. Some brave book company should put this on a disc! - Patrick Rogers
Thanks.
This should be a book. I'm not kidding. There are enough references already to so many different people who would be interested even if they didn't know about Del, this could really be huge. - Bryan Wendorf, Chicago Underground Film Festival
Thanks.
The Oulipo section was really good. - Geoff Plitt, Improv Teacher
Thanks.
A great read. Nice to see "our" history get recorded. - Jeremiadist
Well it is a different way of looking at it. Thanks.
Are you an apologist for Scientology?
No. As an atheist, all religions look equal to me. If they serve as a community, fulfill basic requirements they are not a cult. Scientology is as much a religion as Catholicism. And can be just as expensive! And I can't wait to get to the untold story of the 1982 Subgenius Convention- think the craziest scene Hunter S. Thompson ever concocted- on peyote! I don't apologize for that either.
CLICK ON WORD NEXT IN RIGHT HAND CORNER TO CONTINUE TO NEW POSTS
Posted at 11:52 am by Psychomike
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Thursday, April 12, 2007
Music Mayhem@SubGenius Slack!
CHAPTER THREE:
Cause I'm N Luv Wit a Stripper
There's a man going around taking names and he decides
Can you hear me when I call
And at my feet eternity tries ever sweeter plans for me
But the Early Mornin, Stoned Pimp is here
"Baby don't walk away from me (oh no, no,no)"
'cause that's my woman there
"I'm sorry for what she's done."
Dont take your love to town
And I'm the one who cares
I Fell Into A Burning Ring Of Fire
Don't go promising the skies tonight
When the stars fall from the sky, when the world cannot make me cry
How do you speak to the prettiest girl
On the day after forever I'll just begin again
Do I worry `cause you're stepping out
You've got your own way of looking at it baby
Maybe I'll understand why you had to leave
It's been the ruin of many a poor girl
Picture it if you will, heaven right here on earth
I used to be a dancer at the local strip club
You can't get money for blood
Money for rope
She's like heroin
There are plenty of ways you can hurt a man
Tell me quick, ain't love a kick in the head?
The above song is made of a line taken from existing songs. 25 songs total. How many songs do you recognize?
END OF CHAPTER 3
Posted at 10:10 am by Psychomike
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Thursday, April 19, 2007
What Was In Music Mayhem!
CHAPTER 4
Don't know how many of the songs you could identify in my experiment, but here is the list. Now if I had time to mix this.......
Cause I'm N Luv Wit a Stripper-- I'M IN LOVE WIT A STRIPPER by T Pain
There's a man going around taking names and he decides - THE MAN COMES AROUND By Johnny Cash
Can you hear me when I call - Can You Hear Me By Renaissance
And at my feet eternity tries ever sweeter plans for me - Ship Of Fools By Robert Plant
But the Early Mornin, Stoned Pimp is here - Early Mornin' Stoned Pimp By Kid Rock
"Baby don't walk away from me (oh no, no,no)" - Don't Walk Away By Jhean
'cause that's my woman there - Gimmie Three Steps By Lynryd Skynyrd
"I'm sorry for what she's done." - As I Went Out One Morning By Bob Dylan
Dont take your love to town - Ruby By Kenny Rogers
And I'm the one who cares - The Only One Who Cares By Reeba McIntire
I Fell Into A Burning Ring Of Fire - Ring Of Fire By Johnny Cash
Don't go promising the skies tonight - Crazy Beautiful By Hanson
When the stars fall from the sky, when the world cannot make me cry- By When The Stars Fall From The Sky By Stiff Little Fingers
How do you speak to the prettiest girl - How Do You Speak To An Angel By Lou Reed
On the day after forever I'll just begin again - Day After Forever By Bing Crosby
Do I worry `cause you're stepping out - Do I Worry By Frank Sinatra
You've got your own way of looking at it baby - The Hard Way By Keith Urban
Maybe I'll understand why you had to leave - I wish You'd Stay By Brad Paisley
It's been the ruin of many a poor girl - House Of The Rising Sun By Traditional
Picture it if you will, heaven right here on earth - Love Can Change Your Mind By Lonestar
I used to be a dancer at the local strip club - Volvo Driving Soccer Mom By Everclear
You can't get money for blood - Love For Tender By Elvis Costello
Money for rope - Gimmie Some Truth By John Lennon
She's like heroin -She's Like Heroin By System Of A Down
There are plenty of ways you can hurt a man - Another One Bites The Dust By Queen
Tell me quick, ain't love a kick in the head? - Ain't That A Kick In The Head By Dean Martin
Posted at 04:08 pm by Psychomike
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Monday, April 23, 2007
THE CARNY
Del was quiet in the corner, surrounded by the carny folk that had taken him in. He looked over the people who had worked the carny and tried to keep up with what they were saying but couldn't. He was hearing words he'd never heard before. Beans and Fireball and a girl said her gadget was broke and lugen and talker what the hell were they talking about?
One girl chewing gum turned to him and said, "Who is the gazoonie?" , and Del panicked. Was he being asked a question to answer? Was a gazoonie some name, or an object, or was she asking him about someone else?
Red said, " I think he's a Backyard Boy, unless he screws the carny".
The girl eyed Del and said, " You a gazoonie kid?" and Del was paralyzed. Am I? Could I be a gazoonie? Is that good or bad or-
"Hey Red tell us a jackpot", said the girl taking a swig from the bottle of wine and then handing it to Del who took a swig and decided the thing to do was pass the bottle on. Del had already been told not to ask anyone their names, or where they were from, or anything else for that matter. So he'd met Chuckles, Baby Doll, Red and Happy earlier. He was the only one, he realized, actually going by his real name.
Red had taken him under his wing, which was great because he could skip the hard work of setting up and breaking down the show. He was going to work as talent in the carny! Running away from home to join the carny was looking like a smart move. Red had been with the carny 20 years and seemed like a great guy. Red's hands were wrinkled, his hair had parted leaving a bald spot on top, but he still slicked down the sides, for the ladies.
Red puffed on his cigar and let the smoke escape from his mouth. " I saw her while I was working the A & S." he noticed Del looked surprised. "That's age and scale kid, you guess the marks age and weight. Always undercut the girls age and she'll still say you're right" he laughed as the carny folk laughed along.
"She wore a yellow dress".
The room suddenly went quiet. Herc, the strongman, visibly let his shoulders drop, and he stared ahead into some unknown void. The others waited, hanging on every word.
What the hell is the big deal about a yellow dress Del wondered.
" I guess she was a size 2. Every wallet on the grounds was staring at her, even the family men. Her dress clung to her body. Her skin was like cream and the dress length stopped at the knees so you could see her legs. She had it all. I saw the dress, I saw the color, but I couldn't take my eyes off her. Her red hair touched her shoulders and she wore a matching yellow hat. The yellow color was there, but I couldn't not talk to her.
" So I walked up to her, and offered to show her around". Red took a drag on the gar, and watched the smoke go into the air. No one said a word.
"Her voice was sexy, a raspy voice like Lauren Bacall and all of a sudden I hear a talker yell out to me so I yell back, With it and he stops and we walk on". Del thought, 'with it'- that must mean he's with the carny so don't waste your spiel. Your talk.
" It was the last night and I had no time to wine and dine, so I told her I'd like to kiss her and she said ok and I kissed her and as I did I felt a hand on my shoulder. I stopped and turned around and here was a big truck driver of a guy, all muscle looking me square in the eyes.
"He asked me what I was doing with his wife".
Red took a draw from his gar and looked around the spellbound room.
Chuckles, who never chuckled or laughed as far as Del could tell leaned in, "What you do Red?" he almost whispered.
" I had to think fast. I liked my teeth in my mouth, so I started talking the talk. I told him I was sorry, I didn't know and didn't notice her ring. His hand clamped down on my shoulder. It was starting to hurt. So I says, I think you two have a great act!" Red said with a smile.
"This big galoot of a guy released his grip. What act he asked? I told him we needed a Key Girl. He asked what that was.
"I said we needed a girl to tell guys she would sleep with them but they have to buy a key from me, and the last night we are here they can go to the local hotel and sleep with her. He grabs my shoulder again and asks me what kind of girl do I think she is and I quickly tell him she won't be there because we leave the town after the last show. These guys show up to an empty room. We give the hotel guy juice before we leave to humor all the guys when they show up to an empty room! The three of us split the dough.
"Now if the guy is a mark with a lotta dough and married we have the guy show up and the girl is there. But you come running in see, and threaten the guy. Unless he pays you some dough, you are calling the papers or his wife or whatever works. So this big galoot starts smiling at me. I can tell he likes the idea. So he looks up at me and says, Sounds ok. By the way, she's really my sister!" and Red starts laughing and everyone starts laughing except Chuckles who smiles for the first time and even Del starts laughing though he isn't sure why.
" He screwed the carny after two months and left with all our dough, so she and me we started doing the key girl routine ourselves. Tonight is the anniversary of when we met, stand up baby".
Everyone oooed and awed as she rose, more of a size 8 now than a 2 but her face was beet red from the story and she ran over and hugged Red.
Red just smiled with the gar in his hand. "I told you I'd always remember baby doll."
Happy held up the bottle of wine "That's the first yellow story I ever heard with a happy ending! Cheers!", and he took a swig and passed it on as everyone congratulated Red and Baby Doll. The bottle passed to Del and he started to pass it on but Red looked over to him and said, "Hey kid, take a swig. No work tonight, and tomorrow is your first day of school. So lets break out more bottles and drink up!" and Del took a sip and thought to himself, "I have found home".
Posted at 11:54 am by Psychomike
Permalink
Friday, April 27, 2007
FIRST SPEED
Del woke up to the sound of the carny. Hammers and nails, shouts and hollers, laughs and jeers. Del tried to open his eyes but couldn't, tried to sit up but fell back. Where was he? One eye peeked open to see a tent. He was in a tent but how did he get here? Red poked his head through the tent and hollered, "Get up! Work to do!", and Del tried sitting up.
His head throbbed from the wine and the light in the tent wasn't helping.
"Here, take these", said Red handing Del a handful of pills.
Del looked at his hand and saw about 15 pills, "All of 'em? I don't think I can hold them down".
Red laughed, "Just take 2 to start with. You'll be wide awake in minutes. Then take 1 every time you start to feel run down".
"But when they hired me", Del protested, " they said I was talent. I wouldn't have to do any work".
Red laughed. "We all do everything around here kid, they were just having fun with ya. We got three beans in this burg so those pills will carry ya through".
"Beans? What do you mean by beans?, asked Del, still fumbling to get up.
Red stepped into the tent, " A bean is a job that lasts around 20 hours kid. We got three long days ahead of us. I forgot you don't know our lingo".
Del sat up squinting. "I had no idea what you were all talking about last night".
"I'll give you the kayfabe kid, just ask", Red said.
"Ok, what's a kayfabe?", Del started, trying to get his mouth and lips wet.
"Kayfabe is the straight dope, so what'd you wanna know?", said Red trying to be mindful of Del's hangover, "Let me get you some water for those pills".
Del sat up and noticed his suitcase next to him. He was on a pile of clothes with a lone blanket on top of him. The clothes were his. He put on his underwear and pants as Red entered, "Here's some water. Those pills will help you today".
Del placed the pills on his suitcase and took two of them. The water instantly refreshed him. It was the first time he ever had speed.
"So, when do I learn to bark?", Del asked.
"Why? Are you a damn dog?", asked Red.
"I thought I was to be a barker", Del protested.
Red looked at him sternly, " We don't use that term around here cause we ain't dogs. Talker. You're gonna be a talker".
Talker. That sounded good to Del.
Red burst into his chatter, " Ladies and gentlemen, no geeks or freaks on our walk this is wonderful family fare, and you military men will want to visit our internationally renowned hootchie cootchie show- sorry, no ladies or children allowed!".
"No geeks?", asked Del.
" A geek is someone who'll eat anything. Nails, live chickens, anything gross. A freak is someone deformed or born weird who sits and lets people look at them. Our con is the games and the girlie show", said Red, "the girls come and go but we can usually find a lot lizard working between the stands to take their place".
" A lot lizard?", asked Del.
"A hooker. We find them at every show", Red replied. Del tossed on his T-Shirt and started to get ready. He wondered when the pills would take effect.
Posted at 12:58 pm by Psychomike
Permalink
Friday, May 04, 2007
I joined the Atlanta Science Fiction and Fantasy Organization as the youngest member at 10. I lied about my age, and still don't know if they believed me, but that would begin a lifetime of lying about my age. I had discovered FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine edited by Forrest J. Ackerman and suddenly began learning the background to the films I loved so much. BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, THE WOLFMAN, DRACULA, THE WEREWOLF OF LONDON, DRACULA, had been shown on our Atlanta horror movie show hosted by Bestoink Dooley.
I waited for my parents to fall asleep and would sneak downstairs to watch the late night Friday horror film. Bestoink would appear often during the news broadcast, interrupting the weather to promote the film that night. He would joke, kid and ad lib and I would try to keep from laughing out loud. But I wanted more, and had heard about ASFO somehow and decided I had to go to a meeting. Maybe I would find people like me that liked the old horror movies.
I also loved comic books, DR. STRANGE, MAD MAGAZINE, SPIDER-MAN, THE FANTASTIC FOUR. I heard they were into comic books, too.
In those days there weren't enough comic book collectors to have their own group, so ASFO consisted of comic book fans, science fiction fans and movie fans. My first meeting I would meet Mensa member Joe Celko, with his owl like glasses and already balding head, Gordon Flagg whom I would come to know off and on for over 40 years, and there was no one remotely near my age. Yet they believed me when I lied about my age, and I began to be introduced to science fiction authors in a cross pollination that I guess doesn't happen anymore.
Superman #1 reached $100 in value and no one, and I mean no one ever thought it would get much higher than that. The used book stores and junk shops that had stacks of old comic books for dirt cheap were the place to find old titles like TALES FROM THE CRYPT and WEIRD SCIENCE for next to nothing. There really weren't comic book stores then, and none of the shop owners had any idea the collectors had already figured out they were going up in value.
So if a comic book dealer ever nailed you on a deal- rest assured knowing that for several years we made out like bandits scooping up titles worth loads of money for next to nothing from shop owners.
I had so much fun at ASFO because it was the first time adults had talked to me as an equal. And I kept up with them. Joe told me about Lovecraft, I went out and read Lovecraft before the next meeting. There were many science fiction monthly magazines then too, available at drug stores with writers like Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein and many more. I absorbed these stories like a sponge, and when I discovered that before TV radio had shows like X MINUS 1 with the same writers adapted for radio plays, I began searching out reel to reel copies.
My search for exciting things to read, however, would lead me to magazines that in many ways would change my life. The first was called EVERGREEN REVIEW.
Evergreen Review had something I hadn't run into in a magazine before. Coolness. Most people who saw us reading science fiction or comic books thought we were nerds, but this magazine scared people, especially in the south. Art, counter culture, sex, all in a seemingly subversive context so the Southern Baptists kept the magazine off most magazine racks. Everytime I found one I would forego my comic books and science fiction magazines and buy it. Hiding it under the bed to read late at night with a flashlight under my sheets.
This would lead to Avant Guarde Magazine, which my mom would have had a stroke if she had found out I was reading it. It was about art, and a brand new blossoming culture.
But this was not southern culture. My mom had been in the Navy when she met my dad, also in the Navy, and I don't think they would have cared for the message in the magazine. My mother was southern Irish, my father was Mexican. I would not find out until years later that when they married it was against the law for different races to marry. Then I realized why the south allowed it. I LOVE LUCY was America's hit show, and southerners had decided Desi Arnez was alright, and Lucy did love him. The law hadn't changed. But people watching TV had.
My mom had since remarried, but the stepdad was also strict. Up until then kids liked the music, films and movies of their parents. While they read LOOK however, I was reading AVANT GUARDE, throwing the issues away as I finished them.
I ran into an article on the Marquis de Sade, arguing that his work was art. Who was the Marquis de Sade? I had to find out.
I walked over to the Peachtree Mall and entered the bookstore. Keep in mind, I was just a kid.
As my small hand opened the door I marched right up to the bookstore clerk and requested "any book by the Marquis de Sade". The bookstore owner looked stunned.
" What do you want to read that for, kid?", he asked sizing me up.
"School", was my reply.
He wasn't buying that one.
"What school?", he asked looking down at me.
"Catholic School!", was my quick response.
He rolled his eyes, came from around the desk and got me a book. You could tell I had just confirmed everything this Southern Baptist had heard about Catholics!
Justine I saw on the cover, and I paid for it and ran home to read it.
That night, under the covers, I began to read.
"Form flecked his lips as he spoke these words interspersed with revolting oaths and blasphemies. The hand, which had been prying open the shrine he seemed to want to attack, now strayed over all the adjacent parts; he scratched them, he did as much to my breast, he clawed me so badly I was not to get over the pain for a forthnight. Next, he placed me on the edge of the couch, rubbed alcohol upon that mossy tonsure with which Nature ornaments the altar wherein our species finds regeneration; he set it afire and burned it. His fingers closed upon the fleshy protuberance which surmounts this same altar, he snatched at it and scraped roughly, then he inserted his fingers within and his nails ripped the membrane which lines it. Losing all control over himself, he told me that, since he had me in his lair, I might just as well not leave it, for that would spare him the nuisance of bringing me back down again; I fell to my knees and dared remind him again of what I had done in his behalf.... I observed I but further excited him by harping again upon the rights to his pity I fancies were mine; he told me to be silent, bringing up his knee and giving me a tremendous blow in the pit of the stomach which sent me sprawling on the flagstones. He seize a handful of my hair and jerked me erect. "Very well!" he said, "come now! prepare yourself; it is a certainty, I am going to kill you...."
I have no idea how much of this I understood, but I couldn't put it down. I carefully placed the book under the bed and went to sleep. When I awoke it was time to go to school. There was no one I could to about this book. But I couldn't wait to get back to it and see how really strange it was getting.
That night I went to bed, and when I heard my parents do the same got up to grab it and my flashlight and head for under the covers.
I took the flashlight and shown it under the bed..
OH NO
OH GOD NO
THE BOOK WAS GONE!
It couldn't be. It had to be there. It wasn't.
Two weeks passed, but no one had mentioned it. Did my younger brother find it? Naw, he would have ratted on me. So, what happened to the book?
Two weeks later my mom approached me when stepdad wasn't around.
"I found that book under your bed", she said.
OH NO HERE IT COMES.
"And it was the filthiest book I ever read twice in my life. Don't bring books like that home". That was it. It was never mentioned again.
Vietnam was starting to creep into the culture and magazines reflected this.
But there was also in city after city a local printing movement that was beginning, too. Underground newspapers. They weren't speculating on the war, if it was right or wrong. These papers took a stand- against. Atlanta had the Great Speckled Bird.
That wasn't allowed in the house either, so I would have to read them and give them back to the seller so they could resell them. Learning to collect comic books had taught me to read without wearing out them out, so the next person to buy it never knew, and the hippie was glad to get an extra copy to sell.
The more I read, the more I watched the news, the more I started to hear about something else.
LSD.
The negative thing I heard was that it offered a roller coaster ride into an alternative reality.
This definition was not the kind to use to convince someone not to take the drug. Somehow I had to get some, but how?
There was one kid in my school that had been rumored to have smoked pot, so I decided to ask him.
I was ready. I had read interviews and articles, knew not to take it without planning my trip first with fruits and wine and records, or if I was depressed. And I needed a guide the first time, someone with experience to help out as the trip progressed.
I wasn't just a kid taking dope. I was a nerd who had studied it before I tried it.
This scene from my play THE ACID TEST 1966 that I did with music by Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo and the guitarist from Steely Dan years later recreates what happened next. When you see the name Randy, that's me as a kid, trying to find cool. And acid.
RADIO ANNOUNCER
President Johnson led a prayer for the astronaughts who died on the launch pad of the Apollo Test rocket killing Chaffe, Grissom and White.
300 of the flower people held a love in at the park cheering when a half dozen men burned their draft cards to protest the draft.
Speaking of the long haired freaky people, I saw a hippie in the Piggly Wiggly saying, "Hey man, I
got these banana peels- can I get a refill?" (drum roll) What talks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and
smells like Cheetah? A hippie! Now here's the latest from Gary Lewis and The Playboys THIS
DIAMOND RING or, now that our engagement is cancelled, can I get my ring back? (sound of
horn) It's another WQXI hot time with Dr. Don Rose!
WILD BILL
Wow man Apollo is broken.
RANDY
Apollo? Oh you mean the rocket. That was awful.
WILD BILL
Well I mean that, but I mean the age. Apollo.
RANDY
I'm sorry. I'm not following you.
WILD BILL
Every age has to choose, dig, between Apollo who was this cat that was all about knowledge and
order and rules. And the Dionysian path. Total party until you die live every second anything goes
everything is permitted! And Apollo is broke. So that leaves-
RANDY
Umm. This party?
WILD BILL
Groovy man you dig.
RANDY
I'm not sure.
WILD BILL
You can't close us down man because we have to celebrate this new age. It's part of our religion.
RANDY
I'm here for the party. I'm not here to stop it.
WILD BILL
Far out man!
RANDY
Why did you think I'd shut you down?
WILD BILL
Because you came in wearing a tie and brown shoes man. I thought you were the man.
RANDY
Ok. This is the part I'm confused by. Which man did you think I was?
WILD BILL
You don't dig?
RANDY
Do you mean digging a hole?
WILD BILL
Dig, the man can be the man who sells you your stash, or he can be the man who busts you for
buying from the man. Dig just means understand, dig?
RANDY
Ok. I dig.
WILD BILL
That's groovy man! You got it.
RANDY
This is never going to work.
WILD BILL
What isn't going to work?
RANDY
Me being here. I got this flyer at the beach about an acid test here so I thought I'd drop by.
But now I have to learn a new language and I'm not dressed for this and-
WILD BILL
Whoa, whoa right there partner. Ok, what can we do for you? Let me see.
RANDY
Maybe I should leave before women get here.
WILD BILL
The tie has to go.
RANDY
I can't lose the tie. My mom gave it to me and-
WILD BILL
Ok, ok we won't lose it. Tie it around your head.
RANDY
My head?
WILD BILL
Well its better than around your neck. The brown shoes and socks have to go.
RANDY
But I don't have any other shoes with me and-
WILD BILL
Barefoot is cool man.
&nb | | |
