AUSTIN CITY LIMITS MUSIC FESTIVAL

I`m actually going to ACL this year, and having a blast. Friday`s highlight was Manu Chao. I got their CD. They`re from Spain and have a very full sound with two percussionists. Yesterday I saw John Foferty and Robert Plant & Allison Craus and could not believe how good it was. Please refer back to my review of Raising Sand). We`ll see what`s good today, & I`ll provide a complete report soon.

FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID

IN FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID PHILIP K. DICK IS A NOUVEAU-NOSTRADAMUS PAINTING OUR FUTURE WITH SUCH TRENDS AS IDENTITY THEFT, GOVERNMENT SURVELLANCE, AND THE REVIVAL OF VINYL RECORDS. By John G. Kays

“The exclusiveness of space, we`ve learned, is only a function of the brain as it handles perception. It regulates data in terms of mutually restrictive space units. Millions of them. Trillions, theoretically, in fact. But in itself, space is not exclusive. In fact, in itself, space does not exist at all.” Phil Westerburg-LA Police Agency Coroner

It is suddenly the year 1988, (fourteen years into the future from the publishing date of 1974), October 11th to be exact, and Jason Taverner, a television star and pop singer with 30 million viewers is casually cruising home in his Rolls flyship, after taping his show, with his present girlfriend, Heather Hart, a starlet in her own right. Oddly enough, the very next day on October 12th, Jason awakens natty-eyed in a shabby, bug-riddled shack-of-a-hotel, and nobody knows him anymore, whatsoever. Zilch, nada, caputski, nie one living soul has so much as even heard of him. He is now a living zero, and neither his business agent, his girlfriend, nor any of his 30 million fans have any clue as to who he really is? The rest of this Science Fiction novel, penned by Philip K. Dick, is the curvilinear journey of this ‘nobody’ scrapping vapidly for his former famous self.

The frame for this story is a United States that has transformed into a totalitarian state after emerging from a “Second Civil War.” Traces of democracy emerge ever so latently, but a most sturdy police infrastructure is in place, with the National Guard (“Nats”) and US police force (“pols”), identity checkpoints, and national data banks operating smoothly to monitor its citizens for transgressions. Previously, the black population has been pruned voraciously via sterilization and the student population is burrowed like gophers, entrenched that is, in sub-terrestrial kibbutz units `neath most major universities. Furthermore, other so deemed dissidents are incarcerated in forced-labor camps, that have in recent memory witnessed altering states of liberation and oppression, depending on prevailing political winds. In the current decade (mid 1980s) society is chilling ever so slightly as hints of democracy sprout up shyly. Blacks are more respected now a days yet public affairs are laced with indiscretions, such as incestuous relations and flagrant drug abuse. The residing government is a dictatorship with a “Director” and police marshals and generals in place to owl-eye any iota of civil discord.

The machinations of plot are, in design, the journey of Jason Taverner to retrieve his frittered identity. Also, the Police Academy in LA, and especially the Police General Felix Buckman, are utterly confounded by the fact that they have no info on Jason in their central data banks. The Police General is convinced that the data has been misplaced. “Somewhere, some obscure place, he`s overlooked a microdocument of a minor nature. We`ll keep searching until we find it.” Much of this SF novel provides vivid descriptions of the police surveillance apparatus in all its refinement. A specific fact in chapter one, that piqued my interest, was when Marilyn Mason, a jilted lover, hurled the Callisto cuddle sponge on Jason, for his womanizing ways. Did this in some way contribute to his loss of identity that appears in chapter two? I sense that there is a connection, but am not able to draw a line between the dots.

One thing I liked most about this book was the assortment of flaky characters that pop up in the story. Kathy Nelson comes to mind; she`s an expert forger who creates some docs for Mister Taverner to aid him in clearing checkpoints. “Most of it called for pol-nat standard postcurfew tags, with thumbprints and photographs and holographic signatures, and everything with short expiration dates.” Kathy is a state-of-the-art forger alright, and she is only nineteen years old, but she is also an informer for the state police and can`t be trusted. When Jason takes her to a tacky restaurant she freaks out and commences to scream. This results in her being thrown out by the management. Then there is Inspector McNulty; he is a yes man to Felix Buckman, but does much of the dirty work in terms of investigating the case. Later I`ll touch on some of the other big players.

I love Philip K. Dick`s style, in spite of its awkwardness, for he is a brazen ‘paperback writer’ that is not afraid to slap down some words on his trusty typewriter and let them exist on parchment. He uses a lot of snappy, corny dialogue and one may think of hard boiler stuff, such as Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett, but come to think of it, they may be a mite more arty than PKD. I had much to choose from, but I`ll give you this quote `cuz it will no doubt flip you out (from chapter 27)! “Someday your story, the ritual and shape of your downfall, may be made public, at a remote future time when it no longer matters. When there no more forced-labor camps and no more campuses surrounded by rings of police carrying rapid-fire submachine guns and wearing gas masks that make them look like great-snouted, huge-eyed root-eaters, some kind of noxious lower animal.” Images of the 1968 Democratic Convention immediately popped into my head!

Anachronisms are welcome weeds in Flow My Tears, a round peg in a square hole is a good fit in this case. As you mull over the leaflets you get a surreal sensation; is this the ‘Disco Era’ of the 1970s or a ‘Brave New World’ of the future? A little of both essentially. Citations of vinyl records herein are mondo. “Carrying the enormous record albums he ran back to the house.” And: “He lifted at the lid of the phonograph but it wouldn`t open.” Wisely, PKD is prophesizing the revival of vinyl record albums! Here`s another hoot for pasé-isimoniciousness. “Does she still read the Book-of-the-Month?” And good old reel-to-reel tapes still peek (or rotate) from the pages. “Moodily, General Buckman opened the third drawer of the large desk and placed a tape-reel in the small transport he kept there.” Let`s not leave out the trusty retro-video conferencing that pops up here and there. The out-of-time ephemera that occupy this landscape are comic conundrums that tax our linear perceptions of history.

Jason Taverner is a genetically engineered six, an older model, a crooner, TV star, and a womanizer. I picture him looking like say a Pat Boone or Glen Campbell during the 1970s. White shoes, curly golden locks, a glassy smile, he pipes pop songs through a microphone to 30 millions viewers. PKD uses him as a conduit to channel theories of identity loss. Taverner is a breathing torso of Andy Warhol`s fleeting fifteen minutes of fame. It is noticeable, Jason`s robotic and predictable, a cartoon for Dick`s imaginative playland. Heather Hart is a six also, a cool movie starlet who digs Jason, and yet she is the object of a plot twist that could well be the crux of the matter. This must be coveted at this ink spot. Mary Ann Dominic is a suburban unknown soldier who café-hops with Jason through some troubling moments and is a skilled potter whose ceramic vases become cherished ware for the museums of the future.

Paranoia is the primary mood or tone of this paperback. Jason spends most of his time attempting to evade the police. And losing your identity is not such a pretty thing. The state apparatus is geared towards universal surveillance of society. The fruits of technology are recycled into maintaining a well oiled state. The spirit of George Orwell`s 1984 oozes out of every page. During the bust on Ruth Rae`s apartment the pols nonchalantly perform their duties. “Parked in one of the slots was a police van, with several pols standing idly around it, weapons held loosely. They looked inert and bored.” One gets the feeling that PKD knew that the paranoia factor within our society, manifold in all its tentacles, would do nothing but increase as we move through time.

A body pert near naturally seeks out data on the life of PKD, a passionate pursuit of proof for his quirky oracles and phantasms of the future, his on-the-mark predictions that echo through the nearly half dozen decades since his typewriter first clattered. The volume Divine Invasions-A Life of Philip K. Dick by Lawrence Sutin is a handy tool for Dickian dogma as well as biographical tidbits that helps to fill in the potholes. An example would be the need of info about Science Fiction publishing and how PKD fits into that bigger picture. Furthermore, it is mandatory that you view the documentary The Gospel According To Philip K. Dick with its funky animation of PKD pecking at his trusty typewriter; oh, so this is what a real writer looks like. Brain storm! Facts about his personal story are friendly bookends to the telltale upshot of his weird novels.

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said would make a stunning movie, visuals out of this world, air-bound quibbles, yellow or orange in color, that look like VW bugs with Mr. Natural decals. The checkpoints would resemble the border bridges of Nuevo Laredo or Ciudad Juarez, but pols in spacesuits inspect IDs-fingerprints, voiceprints, EEG prints appear on the monitor. The wardrobe people will be making whoopee with Alys Buckman, her tight black-belled patent leather pants, gold chains, beaucoup blue eyeliner, black wig long and wavy, witchy fairy boots, and a bag of potions as big as Cleveland. Another good one would be the raid by the pols on Ruth Rae`s snazzy Las Vegas apartment to arrest Jason Taverner; think a low key, intergalactic-like ATF raid on the Branch Davidians in Waco (that`s outer space-like already).

The Epilogue is a new feature in Flow My Tears for PKD as his MO is to usually leave loose-ends pertaining to outcome of his kinetically-charged SF novels. Fully fifty-nine years are telescoped with such flagrant ironies, that prediction of destinies for characters are floating debris in some foamy waves of uncertainty. Those outcomes are hazy mist for your eyes here, but the police state endures and many artifacts are preserved in museums such as pottery and the delicate collection of S & M art of the basket case lesbian twin of Felix Buckman. Dick telescopes aftereffects of the story: a thawing of the police state, liberation of the subterranean student population, new constructs of politically correct, yet impudent and lame universities; seventies déjà vu in the twenty-first century? A mother of all police manuals? Huh?

While reading Flow My Tears, the word parody will rear its homely head. Gulliver`s Travels by Jonathan Swift comes to mind, for when Gulliver arrives in the land of the Lilliputians they are at war with the Blefuscudians. This is a parody of the wars between England and France. PKD spuffs the Nixonian Era where the ‘student movement’ had to be dealt with by undercover agents of Nixon. Recall the fate of the students in this US of 1988. Another comparison is that Swift`s world is first a land of mini-people, then a land of giants-sharp contrasts keep coming up. PKD`s world is similar; one time Jason is famous then the next he is a nobody. In one moment he is in a swinging Las Vegas lounge with a synthetic old flame, then in the next he is under the hot lamp of an pol interrogator, sweating like a possum in a pot destined for the evening vitals. This composition (the pristine manuscript was in tact in 1970) predates the exposure of the Watergate break-in, thus reinforcing a vision of parody of a secret police state before all the facts were revealed.

A significant arsenal of brain cells have been expended (both by myself and other PKD aficionados) by way of theories for the brassy loss of identity of said Mister Taverner. One explanation for his sudden anonymity is that Alys Buckman took the powerful drug KR-3 and she uses a most mysterious mutation of mind control ever fathomed by mortal coil; she, with the craft of a wizard, projects him in a parallel world where he is unknown. Alys is a replicant police agent for her brother/lover (another odd theory of mine). The drug itself dictates how the atoms of reality will be assembled. I don`t know exactly how this works, but I believe that whatever her will is then becomes the prevailing corporeal model, and physical matter rearranges to simulate her mindset. As such, data in info banks vanishes, Heather Hart`s memory of Jason disappears, and Alys can abduct him (as she stealthily does so) to a vestibule as a silly toy to play with; she morphs to a black-burned skeleton, like a puff of smoke (an inside joke for lost comrades), when the poisonous KR-3 fries her system to a crispy critter. My theory here would be that she strains her mind to the outer limits and the KR-3 turns on her and makes her identity-less instead of Jason. The spell is broken-then he returns to his old universe-it goes without saying, though, this is an ify-at best-return to reality.

And then it could be political. Think of the Great Purge of Joseph Stalin. People were erased from the face of the earth. Felix suspects that Jason is getting a green light from higher ups. He`s not at the top of the pyramid and is expendable. Paranoia reigns. How could the file have been purged? Is Jason an agent of the state with a clearance to perform strategic intelligence? Think of Lee Oswald`s waiver to stay in the Soviet Union. Was the parallel world manufactured by Alys political in nature? People that perished in Russia during the Great Purge were whited out completely-photographs, personal records, families too scared, did they ever really exist? Kathy and Jason are afraid of deportment to forced labor camps. Who is really manipulating them? Is the mind control of Alys an early form of ‘identity theft’? Cults do this too. Jim Jones and Charles Manson-need I say more? Devotee are reduced to zombies who kill and worship, kill and worship-zealots with empty promises and brainwashing destroys free will. David Koresh did it too. Die for me! Felix Buckman was the architect of a seamless, efficient state. Taverner was used in conspiracy of Alys to confound her paramour-a spell on socity for reasons unknown.

Dick is commenting on fame too. Is it not an illusion? A Maya-here today, gone tomorrow. This happens all the time. Celebrities crash and burn. Britney Spears, Fatty Arbuckle, Tiny Tim (no, he not fade away). In Sutin`s biography PKD`s philosophy is revealed. Orthogonal time is real time. Linear time is a Maya. The two types of time run parallel to one another. An example would be a vinyl phonograph record. When it is played it is exactly the same every time-same cracks and pops, but your perception alters. Once an event becomes history it is a permanent record. It can be played back over and over again. Once it happens it is permanent through eternity. It is not linear, but rather rotary. It stands still but is time nonetheless. Jason enters a time/warp, a forgotten memory of when he is unknown. This is a valid rotary record, but just has never been played before. Alys taps into the lost memory and makes it a living experience. Have you ever gone to a cut-out-bin and purchased a platter and played it when you got home? Say the Purple People Strings that Ruth Rae so loved? All records are valid evidence of history. Yet some get more playback. Some are never played even once. This was a first for the playback of the anonymous Jason. If no one ever reads what I am writing right now, that doesn`t mean that it`s not part of the collective record of the current chronicle.

Much has been made of the humanity of Felix Buckman when he visits the self-service quibble gas station. Yea, he goes back and hugs the black man after he had given him a sketch of a heart with an arrow through it. I thought this was but a sidebar to a novel about cruelty and paranoia in a totalitarian state. One could see this as parody also. Buckman is giving a token salute to a black man who he has helped to oppress in the past. It was a nice touch, but not really a conversion or anything. He was just feeling sorry for himself, and his twin sister had just ODed in an embarrassing way. A cover up was in place to marginalize the mess up. It is interesting though, that PKD had a similar thing happen to him after he wrote the book. The bit about the John Dowland song is just some gentle ribbing, I thought. “I`ll play it on that big new quad phonograph of mine when I get home.”

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU is the real theme of Flow My Tears. Every page, nearly, oozes fear and confusion. Some funny stuff is on every page too. This is comic relief when butterflies dance in your stomach. But make no mistake, this is Orwellian in nature. Recently I saw on the news that when you show your passport at the border a file will be created by Homeland Security. Eerie chills trickle down my spine. It was implied that HS could use items in your file thereafter. PKD is weeping upstairs as he sees his predictions come true.

Identity loss can result from multiple consequences. It could be the result of disturbing political manipulation. It most certainly will result from mind some form of mind control. Sometimes drugs will play a role, as they did in this case. And best of all identity loss can be a function of quirp in the time/space matrix that sensitive to slight gyrations. The outcome of history can change with any alteration in the sequencing of events. PKD plays with these themes and urges us, vicariously I suppose, to contemplate the tenuousness of our existence. *I do hope my piece is granted a clearance certificate from you readers, then the electronic gates shall open to millions of Science Fiction devotees who have memorized every word of Philip K. Dick.

The best fan page for Philip K. Dick is right here. There is a wealth of information about his life and writings here, and tender loving care is present in abundance. You can find the article “The True Stories of Philip K. Dick” on that web page too. This was a very groovy Rolling Stone piece by Paul Williams that appeared in the November 6, 1975 issue.

AN EARLY VERSION OF IDENTITY THEFT FROM PKD

This is my very favorite photograph of Philip K. Dick! I have added some color pencil to it to give it my own touch. I know that`s kind of stupid, but I like to doddle a little with art supplies like color pencils; maybe it`s a nervous habit or a juvenile form of kicks, sort of like some of the zany characters in a groovy PKD SF novel. He is actually holding a copy of Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, & he`s dressed sorta funky like he`s a celebrity. This would be true, I should think. My latest theory as to why Jason Taverner lost his identity, is that Alys Buckman sorta stole his celebrity identity, she put a curse on him by using mind control & with the aid of PK-3, the drug that ended up zapping her & turning her into a skeleton. I`m thinking of this metamorphosis to obscurity, including eradication from all government data banks, as an early version of identity theft. The same thing happens with totalitarian regimes such as the Nazis or the chilly Stalin communist regime. They steal peoples identities or reduce them to non-existing entities. Cults do this too, such as Jim Jones People`s Temple or The Manson Family. Devotees are reduced to zombies who worship their crazy leaders & are willing to die or to kill at the zeolot`s command. This is identity theft also. Jason Taverner goes from popularity to obscurity in the wink of an eye! This is very strange indeed!

Philip K. Dick characters in Flow My Tears...

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said would make a stunning movie, a feast for the eyes, with flying quibbles as air-bound VW bugs, cloned movie stars, free-thinking, erudite cops (but nonetheless corrupt), & drug overdoses so severe that that the victim is reduced to charred skeleton remains. The ID checkpoints are chilly reminders that this is a thawing totalitarian state where the government police have complete records on every living person. One exception is Jason Taverner, who has been mysteriously de-identified from the data banks of this 1988 U.S. The characters that Taverner comes across in this science fiction novel are interesting, to say the least. He picks up Ruth Rae in a Las Vegas nightclub and gets involved with her, even to the point the police can trace him to her luxury condo because of an electronic bug that is on his body. Ruth Rae`s main personality traits are that she`s a lush, a sex pot, and a gold-digger. In the epilogue PKD reveals that she had married 52 times and dies of an alcohol/drug overdose. Like Alys Buckman she too had used the phone-grid sex network, a futuristic kicks addiction that has permanent metabolic side effects . Alys Buckman herself, an important pivotal character in the plot, was exceedingly eccentric. She was an expert on S & M art and her collection was committed to a museum of popular culture. If this book is ever made into a movie, the wardrobe people can do much with her costumes giving her tight black paten leather pants and metal chains, blue eyeliner and long wavy hair with a dark tan! Alys is not really evil, but she has the key to much valuable information that she uses to her advantage. Her undoing is drug addiction to KR-3, a concoction even stronger than heroin or crack cocaine.

The break in of PKD`s apartment in November 1971 is of much interest for the color it lends to PKD`s writing. Theories are provided in the 1975 article in Rolling Stone by Paul Williams. I believe I had this Stone at the time because I remember the cover with Rod Stewart. Lawrence Sutin discusses these theories in his PKD biography: “Divine Invasions-A Life Of Philip K. Dick.” He suggests the plausibility that PKD actually did it himself, but I am not inclined to believe this. There were many strung-out hang-abouts that could have easily done it. The documentary (the title escapes me at the moment, but it`s really cool...) hints that there may have been heroin in the file cabinets and this would provide an ideal motive for a bunch of junkies to snag-up some horse. The theories that it was the CIA or the Black Panthers are fairly far-fetched, but it was, after all, the Watergate era. Sutin does not rule out that it was an illegal search and seizure by the local San Rafael police. To say the least, this mishap haunted PKD for the remainder of his days and fueled his paranoia more, if that is even possible. He did clean up his act though and managed to write “A Scanner Darkly” without the crutch of amphetamines. Aspects of the break-in may be detected in some of his last novels such as Scanner. It may be in “Flow My Tears…”. But I couldn`t give you an exact citation. When they bust him in Ruth Rae`s condo though, & had traced him with the electronic bug, a Watergate chill came over me, ala the Democratic Headquarter burglers!

The character of Felix Buckman is perhaps the most important in this SF novel. In the epilogue he apparently penned an authoritative manual entitled: “The Law and Order Mentality”, that chronicles an efficient planet-wide police bureaucracy that functions properly and keeps society in order. He is somewhat more tolerant than some police marshals and in the day eased some of the restraints on the inmates of forced labor camps. Tensions are easing somewhat as the U.S. society comes out of the Second Civil War, but the students are still on the lam. These seems to reflect the freeing up of tensions in the U.S. when the Sixties became the Seventies and the Vietnam War ever gradually... wound down and people morphed to a ‘pleasure principle’ life style philosophy, as relief from the all-consuming war. Theories can abound as reasons for Jason Taverner`s sudden lost identity, but it seems to be tied-in with an occult drug called KR-3 and mind control can be induced by its use. But gee wiz, the side effects are too harsh-turning into a smoking skeleton is a little over-the-top, if you ask me!



An interesting little approach to the SF novel would be to dig up some of the items of technology and of popular culture. For instance, what did the quibbles look like? How did they operate? What did the juke box look like when Jason Taverner and Mary Anne Dominic were conversing in that quasi-greezy spoon? And what did some of Taverner`s records sound like, such as Taverner and the Blue, Blue Blues or his hit single, 'Nowhere Nothun` Fuck-Up'? Did it sound like Iggy Pop in the late seventies? ...Probably not...I thought that Bladerunner did a good job of visualizing PKD`s zany, futuristic world, but I`d like to see this one with more of a 70s disco sheen in a SF wrapper, of course! I envision much of this to look like the art work on a 70s juke box or say a pinball machine, or a semi-truck mud flap with a curvaceous dame; as much retro as futuristic panorama! And can you imagine what Ruth Rae would look like? If you had been married 52 times you might look rather disheveled, like Linda Blair in the Exorcist! Boy am I glad I never took KR-3, but would like to watch the experience remotely as a simulation of some sort!

PKD plays with a number of intriguing ideas in Flow My Tears..., & being an idea man by nature, he spoofs his current culture & packages his U.S.A. of 1988 with the foibles of a 1970 U.S. The youth movement is squashed, but the police apparatus flourishes and grows, due in part to the wisdom of Felix Buckman, a sort of Erasmus of the cop culture. Another theme is that dispite the totalitarian presence of Big Brother, society at large is loose & inundated with drug use and free living. Buckman himself practices incest with his own sister Alys Buckman, who is a shadowy figure that leads a hedonistic life and beyond. Technology florishes but the oil companies are nationalized like in Mexico or Venezuela. Radicals, intellectuals and minorities have either eliminated or parked in forced labor camps to rot. Felix Buckman himself is an architect of these camps and favors a more tolerant approach, believe it or not. The police control the data banks and thus can keep a tight control over the people. This gave me a creepy sensation with I thought of the new found authority of Homeland Security, a new institution whose reach is just now being defined. PKD would shutter at the thought of this new age of electronic surveillance.

PHILIP K. DICK-FLOW MY TEARS, THE POLICEMAN SAID

I continue to be fascinated by Philip K. Dick. And there are still so many of his books that I can read. This is a warmup for Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, so I can start to shape some theories about what the book is about. As usual, much of this is about drugs and a totalitarian state that resides in the future. Jason Taverner, a television star with 30 million viewers, is suddenly whited-out. That is, he finds himself unknown, without any data on him in the state data banks. When he calls an old girlfriend, Heather Hart, she has no idea who he is. Jason gets some fake identity cards made by a crafty forger, Kathy Nelson, but he is picked up at stop point for questioning. It seems that the students from the universities are in rebellion and this future US is just coming out of a Civil War, so things are still very tense.

It`s my understanding that Mister Dick wrote this SF novel in 1970, then edited it for a 1974 publication. This got the John W. Campbell award for best novel in 1974. I won`t reveal the resolution to the lost identity of Jason Taverner, but I will say it has a lesbian S & M queen at its core, and the consciousness that she embraces. I have two essential articles that are a great aid in getting familiar with Philip K. One is in The New Yorker, The Return of Philip K. Dick by Adam Gopnik. The other one is The True Stories of Philip K. Dick by Paul Williams, that was in Rolling Stone, November 6, 1975. These are required pieces to have around when probing the mysterious world of Philip K. Dick. Much of this is about the break in of Dick`s crash pad where file cabinets with pristine documents were blown up. Many theories were postulated as to who the culprits were, and apparently this fueled the imagination of Dick (not a very hard thing to achieve) and he put this spice into his writing. I`m sending you the biblical web page for Philip K. Dick for you to start to study, if you find yourself moving in the direction of Dickian worship! I will continue tomarrow with some observations on the novel and the mystique Dick himself....

The main bullet to this story is how did Jason Taverner lose his identity? My best theory is that it was through the mind control of Alys Buckman. She controlled him with the drug KR-3 and put him in a parrallel world-a sort of space/time warp where everyone had x him out of existence. I too have experienced subliminally of course...in my earlier frontier days. Mind control is a strange thing...but such things really do happen. By way of analogy, think of when Stalin would eliminate supposed ememies...then their identities would completely erased from the face of the earth! They would even be whited-out of photos...yea, completely gone. Soviet Union memories are coming quickly lately with the invasion of Georgia, me thinks. Well, got to get ready for the factory...more tomarrow for sure!

THE NEW DELHI DERVISHES

This is one of my works of art. For several years I`ve been meaning to return to it and try to finish it; you know polish it up a bit. The New Delhi Dervishes are vague spirits that linger in the atmosphere nurturing us with subconscious dreams and wonder. Their vague contours are suggested by Cycladic marble figurines, that I have often marveled at. When I mixed the photo just now I turned down the tones and made the Indian reds subdued earthen colors that don`t violate the eye with brightness. This is enables the eye to meditate on the image and to channel subtexture memories that sooth and heal the latent dharma of the mind. I used much sandpaper to give an antique or rusty lustre to the oils around the dervishes. This might be a relic that you find out by a dumpster, for instance, and you pick it up and later discover that it`s a long-lost pearl that was in the hands of a big collector of art at one time. I know this is tomfoolery, but you need to use your imagination a little and project this piece out to a more significant nitch in the World of Art! As such it is just gathering dust in my closet and I bang my foot on it every time I I try to grab some dirty socks in the closet. Now it will be seen by millions on the internet and its true value will be recognized for all time and my immortality is guaranteed. Go get another cup of strong Sulawesi Toraja, Mister John! Here is what I came up with when I googled punk art, Matt Stokes? I`m leaning in the direction, like The Leaning Tower of Pizza, of seeing this piece as a model for punk art? It`s unassuming, non-professional, unpolished, intuitive, humble, guttoral, and simplistic, like a three-chord garage rock classic...It`s Wild Thing! Is this junk or is this art, you decide (you don`t have to say junk, asshole)?

VIVA LA VIDA or DEATH AND ALL HIS FRIENDS

ON VIVA LA VIDA COLDPLAY REINVENTS THEMSELVES AND SHEDS THEIR ARENA ROCK SKIN, WITH ‘A LITTLE HELP FROM THEIR FRIEND’ (BRIAN ENO)! By John G. Kays

“All in all you`re just another brick in the wall.” -The Wall-Pink Floyd

Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends (Capitol) is a very, very clever, well-crafted, long-playing record. Coldplay employed Brian Eno, as a suggestion from Gwyneth Paltrow, to help them out of the sand trap they were mired in with their 2005 release, X & Y; namely repetitive melodies, lukewarm lyrics, and inordinate ‘borrowing’ from other bands. Brian Eno is a savior here, and acts as the Pied-Piper for Viva La Vida. He brings in his stalwart gimmicks, his rabbit-in-the-hat Oblique Strategies, where oracles on playing cards dictate where a song will go in terms of rhythm, melody, and lyrics. This worked superbly on this record-Viva La Vida is a meticulously woven patchwork quilt, a string of multi-colored mardi-gras beads of every size and shape imaginable, strung together with leery, museum-case precision.

Viva La Viva is a concept record, and as such it`s a good idea to listen to the whole in one sitting. When I say it`s a concept album, you must think of antecedents such as Tommy, Sergeant Pepper, but conspicuously Abbey Road (side two), a majestic model of seamless song fragments that bespeaks the daily life of ‘Swinging London’ in the `60s. Coldplay`s new studio is an old bakery in London that Chris Martin pegs as a “a beaten-up little place, down a drunken alleyway.” A new voice was found by Coldplay in this bakery with Brian Eno as their spiritual guide, acting as a George Martin surrogate-guru for the lads. Do not ever forget that The Beatles once saved EMI and made them profitable, and now Coldplay has the same task before them in this generation of entertainment!

The business angle for this new release is of the utmost importance for EMI (Electric and Musical Industries Limited), the struggling label that holds the contract for Coldplay. This is a British institution that retains the intellectual property of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and even Frank Sinatra. EMI was recently purchased by Terra Firma, and it seems as if the new boss, Guy Hands, is better versed in reviving pubs and gas stations, than making a proper go at the music business. Moreover, with the banking industry going south, he has been rubbing some big acts, such as The Stones and Radiohead, the wrong way.

Fortunately, Coldplay has seized control of their own marketing and promotion this go `round, and this certainly has been working for them. Their album is currently number one on the Billboard charts (today is July 12th ) and on iTunes also. So it appears to be exclusively the job of Coldplay to keep the aging giant EMI a float; it is exciting to track the sales of the album as they are reported. In an age when the music business is whistling pass the graveyard new heroes are welcome visitors!

Let`s take a stroll through this British bakery and inspect the enticing “Viva” tarts displayed in the dessert case! There`s a nice apple tart, “Life In Technicolor”! Let`s grab a piece of coconut fudge, “42”! A coffee dessert (“Violet Hill”) will lift you up from my patisserie of mixed metaphors (my life is a mixed metaphor). Hey there`s a creme tangerine and over there a montelimat. I hope George Harrison is not frownin` down on me as I raid the cub bards of “Savoy Truffle” from the White Album. Our satellite photos from NASA`s Messenger show Coldplay creating our Generation Y truffles to save EMI. Let`s study the ingredients of these saving songs from the new Mayan Lords that walk these jungles. The treble clef notes are cascading in swirls on our ears and harkenin` us back to the London bakery!

“Life In Technicolor” has a mercurial canticle that rolls through it; it is an instrumental that acts as an overture to the entire project. The bass gradually comes up in counter distinction to the high-frequency range of the round sampled through. The rhythm is peppy and marching (one two, one two), and the sphinx-like guiding hand of Brian Eno pushes the plastic `round on the turntable (think of the hand of God on the Sistine Chapel).

“Cemeteries Of London” is a haunting sea chantey with a wall of sound splashing echo and reverb at the end of each measure; a great monsoon wave of noise. Some characters, it seems, are hovering `round the streets of spirit-soaked London searching for lost souls, encountering ghosts and witches on the way, and even getting a few glimpses of God himself. “There are ghost towns in the ocean,” recalls the chilly mariner legend of The Flying Dutchman. This one has a Pogues bite to it, with a punchy, crunching pace to it, and is the best of the lot.

“Lost” has a slow 4/4 rhythm with it and is accented with hand claps at the end of each measure. It was partially recorded in a church and uses sweltering organs and piano that disguise the vocal of Chris Martin, who is “Waiting till the shine wears off.” Apparently, this means that you will shrink back down to size; this is idle wordplay that`s letting the air out of his ego. `Tis a seahorse-float shooting through the sky that then tumbles like Phaethon, son of Helios, in his chariot. “You might be a big fish in a little pond,” but I suppose a prominent flounder can come along and shuck you off in a wink of the eye! The mix of “Lost” sends you into outer space; as I hear it I think of Alan Shepard pickin` up genesis lunar rocks on a casual moonwalk.

“42” is two songs in one; the first half is reflective and recalls John Lennon`s two-handed piano chording with some witty word play: “Those who are dead are not dead they`re just living in my head,” a crackerjack sliver of limerick that suggests that the memory of the dead can keep them alive. The second section is faster and brighter with some Lewis Carroll, non-sensical verse about the existence of a ghost that nearly makes his way to the pearly gates. “You thought you might be a ghost (repeat), you didn`t get to heaven but you made it close (repeat).” The first time I heard this song (June 17th) I was channeling unstintingly back in time to Brian Eno`s 1973 premiere pop album Hear Come The Warm Jets, it was a breath of fresh air.

“Lovers In Japan” has a Martian sonic drone over a catchy, repeating organ-grinderish melody. These hypnotic spaceship effusions will make the dogs howl through a full-moon witching hour, and Martin`s vocals are slightly tucked in underneath these ‘close encounter’ shenanigans, and `tis interesting. The lyrics are muffled, and thus are lacking anything real, or pithy, or even subliminal for that matter; Chris merely randomly references some such lovers, runners, and soldiers, with no specifics. Is it pro-war or anti-war? Clouds hover o`er our blue skies here, but ambiguity is often the kinder, gentler yellow brick road to follow, and it`s better for sales too!

The B section of “Lovers In Japan” is about the fans of Coldplay analyzing the band for meaning and direction for their own lives. The poor Mister Martin is placed under a microscope by people all over the world and even by myself, for his rapturous revelations. Instead, all we`re getting is a few parrot beak banterings, some choice chipperings of Chris against a space-rock moon tune, a U2ish blast of high frequency Martian squeal with a ice cream truck ditty in sampled loop. “Reign Of Love” acts as a pillowy couplet to ‘Japan’ and has splashes or miniature flourishes of piano echo with a lullaby melody and lyrics `bout the slavery of love, me thinks.

The first half of the title, Viva La Vida, comes from a painting by Frida Kahlo which is just a still life of cheerful melons. The whole title, (Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends), I have heard, is inspired by Stanley Kubrick`s scathing satire on the Cold War, Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. This moniker suggests a kind of yin-yang dialectic, quarried from tipsy pipedreams of the I-Ching, where life and death is in balance. This would, of course, be symbolic for the good and bad vibes contained in the songs on the album. But it does seem that the bad vibes are mostly wimpy, and may be construed as whining or pouting on the part of Coldplay. Nonetheless and oddly enough, this has been a saving grace, an integral part of the band`s M.O. from the get go!

The cover itself is a Eugene Delacroix painting, Liberty Leading the People, executed in 1830, which has been whitewashed with graffiti plopped on the surface. The painting itself is a depiction from the French Revolution showing Lady Liberty leading Parisians on a zealous rampage for freedom. To tie this in with Coldplay, one has to study the lyrics of “Viva La Vida”; it appears that Coldplay is on the wrong side of the fence? “Revolutionaries wait for my head on a silver platter;” they are the bad guys, the ruling elite or kings disguised as bic-flickering arena rocker debutantes, if you get my drift. Not that they have really changed, but at least they are cognizant of their politically incorrect quagmires; their social standing of bigwiggedness. And it even looks as if Chris Martin is not going to make it to heaven-“I know Saint Peter won`t call my name.” Boy they really blew it!

The artwork in the CD booklet is mostly just homegrown doodles of lyrics from Coldplay with a bit of paint slapped on too. The center page has just a few lines of each song. It would have been preferable if they included the complete lyrics in the booklet. Hopefully they weren`t trying to hide anything, but simply were downplaying the importance of the words. The title, cover painting, and lyrics only come together cloudily in my head, but that`s perfectly legal in pop music. Just to be blunt, I will say, “the cover doesn`t mean nothing`, that`s what it means.” I can just picture Coldplay fans all around the world twistin` and turnin` the CD cover `bout and puttin` it under a magnifying glass just to glean an inner sanctum of pansophy from the cardboard. This is pure ballyhoo, my fair weathered friends, but is exactly the ritual that I practice in the solitude of my condo!

“Yes” opens with four bars of exotic Middle Eastern strings, provided by Davide Rossi; this suggested the aura of “# 9 Dream,” which is the best song on John Lennon`s Walls And Bridges, released in September of 1974. Chris Martin sings in a lower register here, talking in defiance to loneliness, but certainly under the spell of fleshly temptation. After two verses there`s a refreshing barrage of Jonny Buckland guitars that jump in like falling stars (or red-hot meteor metals) to spice it up a bit. Then after two further verses the violin and cello strings are rippling piquantly again.

The lyrics to “Yes,” are encoded with secrets, and address the issue of breaking out of the moldy doldrums that plagued Coldplay after X & Y, whereby jettisoning the old tortoise shell is in order and cooking up an original project can be a nice change of pace. “So, up they picked me by the big toe.” This is code for the thrashing that they`ve taken from the press. To be more specific, this is a grim reminder of Jon Pareles` scathing article, “The Case Against Coldplay,” that appeared in The New York Times on June 5, 2005, a brutal hack-job on X & Y.

“Chinese Sleep Chant,” a hidden track, is fully a blitzkrieg of treated guitars overdubbed superbly by Jonny Buckland. This put me in a trance as the Sandman be dappled my eyelids with blissful slumber. “Good Night,” the last song on The White Album, likewise cured me of insomnia some forty years ago. At this very moment my glassy eyeballs are peering out at you from your flat panel monitor, where you beady-eyed internet geeks are surfing my lines lazily in real time. I`m using a branding iron to burn these letters into this scroll, so watch out!

“Viva La Vida,” the main single from the album, begins with a gorgeous staccato string quartet provided by Davide Rossi, and tells the tale of fallen kings; these diminished lords are Zen-Masters of arena rock who are whittled down to size, and are now teeming with humility and self-degradation. The narrator hears some type of ineffable vocational calling, “I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing, Roman Cavalry choirs are singing, be my mirror my sword and shield.” I am envisioning this as a quasi-medieval Sir Lancelot, Knights of the Round Table beckoning, a return to virtue and Christian wholesomeness; furthermore, it`s a boomerang uturn to the Cinderella working-class bubble of street- sweeper magnanimity.

The abdication of power and the loss of the crown results in admission to the gates of heaven with the gift of the keys of Saint Peter. (You may want to give this a close listening, but sometimes it sounds like ‘Saint Peter won`t call my name.’) This song conceals such vagaries as a trip to the confession booth might do, which then lifts the storyteller (Chris Martin) back to his majestic position. After all he has confessed his sins and is ready to resume his throne in the stadium for another rock show. “Sexy Sadie, you`ll get yours yet, however big you think you are.” I`ll buy that; catchy little pop song?

“Violet Hill” has a pungent video single that you can get on iTunes. The boys are dressed in Salvation Army looking gear (or scruffy Sergeant Pepper threads), and are fooling around in a mansion and in some fields. This brings to mind the bleedin` Be-a-tles in an early version of music video, the castles in the air of “Strawberry Fields,” with band members rotating rapidly at an upright piano or hacking away on marching band instruments. The lyrics are frothy as usual, but seem to refer to a need for affection in the snowy settings of Violet Hill, a street in St John`s Wood, London. There are a few allusions (or illusions) here to the Crusades, God again, and how the future is carved by fools, “when the future`s architectured by a carnival of idiots on show.” Is this Coldplay themselves? As confusing as this is, the combination of music, words, and images makes perfect sense in a big picture, forest for trees (or maybe better yet icebergs for snow) kind of way!

“Strawberry Swing” is an ‘afternoon delight;’ just chugs along idly, a happy-go-lucky nursery rhyme that chimes like a `sicle truck amblin` down the lane in a slowpoke suburb of anywheresville. This is the “Yellow” of the record and is just the prescribed medicine to hatch another golden egg; `tis charged with feel-good positive ions. Golden lines (would you believe copper penny pennings?) roll off my fingertips like sausage through a meat-grinder!

“Death And All His Friends” starts out as an innocent, Mary Poppins` morsel of advice to not worry ; just do the Peter Pan thing and fly away o`er rooftops! Two minutes into the piece it takes a high-tempo uturn that morphs into a Pink Floydish chant about defying gloomy death; the Brian Eno inspired phrase is finally bleated out: “I don`t want to cycle a recycled revenge.” Okay, he wants things to be cheery, don`t we all!

The coda, “The Escapist” repeats the opening melody of the record, a calliope muzak loop, thus coming full circle. This was actually written by John Hopkins, a colleague of Brian Eno. The lyrics were written by Chris Martin, “In the end we dream of making our escape;” this is the main theme of the album, escaping the stigma of brainless arena rock! I couldn`t help but remember the coda to Abbey Road: “And in the end the love you make, is equal to the love you take.” I suspect that others are making this connection as well! Mister Bucks?

I caught a snap of Ringo extending the peace sign for his sixty-eighth birthday and was whiffed with a measure of muse to polish off these billows. I listened to all their old records and solidly concluded that “Vida” shows marked improvement over their three previous releases. “Parachutes” is really trudging; I speculated that Coldplay didn`t get enough coffee before they entered the studio. Chris Martin`s use of falsetto is not as good as Thorn Yorke`s of Radiohead who warbles like a Martian on a whoopee cushion! And the diadem of Art Rock still rests on the moptops of Radiohead. Coldplay sports the Arty Arena Rock crown! I barb in jest, Coldplay Curmudgeons! My measuring rods of rock were begot on another day. I must recalibrate for Generation Y!

I chip away at granite with chisel and hammer, the final inscriptions; Brian Eno`s Another Day On Earth wafts through the flat space! Surfin` for clues as his process unfolds. By the time I finish this moronic word puzzle the top of my head will be fried, my eyeballs will pop out of their sockets, coffee grinds will be oozing out of the side of my mouth, and the record itself will be lodged in my forehead, protruding out like a swordfish and won`t disengage, even with the jaws of life! “I`ve got blisters on my fingers.”


Half of what I wrote won`t see the light of day for fear of retribution! *(Two examples: Coldplay sounds more like the Archies in Jettson gear. Or: Much of this is the obligatory tears and flapdoodle [Mark Twain`s words] of Chris Martin. I better leave off on this squawkin` papyrus before I get tarred and feathered and run outta town by Coldplay groupies.) Newsblaze people, please listen to the record a few more times then come back to visit me (reread my review) one more time! Indignities ya utter, pasty brainies, Queen Mab on an agate stone, so why not split my skull one more time, I casually walk o`er the turntable with vinyl between fingers, so as not to smudge the plastic, put the record on the chasse, and hear Tibetan monks chanting between the grooves whilst Coldplay rises skyward on Stratocumulus perlucidus Grammy clouds!

*Thanks to Bertha for turning me on to Coldplay; I had never heard them before May of this year.