Posted on

Jim Krakowski’s House of Mass Produced Trippy Shit for Stoned Teenagers

Howdy do, fellow duuuuuuuude!
You on druuuugs?
I know I am.
Are you tired of staring at the same old lava lamps and black light posters and other junk from Spencer’s while you’re on druuuuuugs?

Do those things no longer seem toooooootally trippy?

Well, maaan, have I got just the thing for you!

Hi, I’m Jim Krakowski!

Crow language educator, globe smasher, erotic author, and now, panderer to drug users!

Ha-ha!

If you crave new mass produced fake intellectual fake art to gaze upon, dead eyed and slack jawed, while you listen to terrible music, you need – NEED! – to come on down to Jim Krakowski’s House of Mass Produced Trippy Shit for Stoned Teenagers!

We’ve got it all!

Black light posters featuring new stoner favorites, like cats and whatever!

Lava lamps, but with a slightly different shape!

Incense burners made of clay crudely sculpted into something resembling the hideous noggin of David Matthews or whoever is his modern day equivalent!

Beads and junk!

Clothes with labels that say they are made with locally, organically sourced hemp but are probably some type of burlap!

Glass bongs so huge and elaborate that only Seth Rogan or a successful drug dealer can afford them!

Legal drugs that might make you feel like you might maybe feel a little weird somehow! In candy form!

You name it, we’ve got it!

So, shake the Utz potato chips crumbs out of your terrible beard and come on down to Jim Krakowski’s House of Mass Produced Trippy Shit for Stoned Teenagers, located in that building that used to be an ice cream place and then was a really sketchy looking daycare for a while before becoming a really sketchy looking car dealership and then was vacant for a decade and is now my store!

Come on! Up you go! You can do it, you lazy post-zelleniall, depression ravaged internet borg! Pornhub will still be there when you get back! Thaaaaat’s right, off your parents couch and right on over to Jim Krakowski’s House of Mass Produced Trippy Shit for Stoned Teenagers!

See you in a bit!

Posted on

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt

Hello, friends. Welcome to another very special episode of The Irrationally Exuberant. So, three or four weeks ago I sat in my kitchen and, under the watchful, semi-mocking eyes of my wife and children, spit into a tube until I could spit no more, then mailed it off to the good folks at 23andMe to be tipped and toppled and spunned and broken down, analyzed and digitized and turned into data in an easy to read e-document detailing the very building blocks of the meat machine that is Reid Messerschmidt, as well as some information on the meat machines that proceeded me, my ancestors.

It had never occurred to me to do this before. I’m an artist, goddamnit! A man of feelings and knowledge! What business of mine is my disgusting body? And god knows I love a good story, but my ancestors? I’ve known a good swath of them over the years and, while some of them are great and a few I really love, there’s not a one whose kinship is a matter of personal pride. Gratitude, sure, but not pride. Still, my wife, understandably, I suppose, wanted to know what horrible syndromes and diseases would ultimately kill us and our children.

“Listen,” I said. “I know I’ve probably given my beloved offspring Clinical Depression and Alcoholism, do we really need to delve further? They’re going to start resenting my building blocks.”

She believed we did, and I was not uncurious, so a kit was ordered. Everything that could be known about me would now be revealed for a paltry $125. I only hoped it wouldn’t ruin my life, send me spiraling down a depressive, dissociative abyss, ultimately leading to madness.

On the other hand, I’d heard of people finding out their father’s were not really their father’s, and that sounded appealing.

Well, all of that information is now here, in front of me, in an email that I have printed out, because I am old fashioned, even at the expense of our fragile ecosystem.

Some of the information – most of it – is unsurprising. The genetic scientists in their corporate laboratory have discovered that it is likely that I have dark brown hair, blue eyes, and a taste for sweets. Bullseye! These things are true. They also found it likely that I have a muscular, athletic build. This is slightly less true. They further determined that I am unlikely to transmit a propensity for any horrible syndrome or diseases to my kids. Aside from the Clinical Depression and Alcoholism, of course.

Lucky them!

The scientists have also discovered some relatives of mine who were also coerced into sending this deeply personal information through the mail to strangers. Some of them I am aware of. Others I am not, because they are third or fourth cousins and I could not care less about them or their building blocks.

There was no conclusive information regarding my paternity.

But, buried amid all of this semi depressing data about the fundamental makeup of myself – easily communicated in a medium length email and indicating no particular gifts or promise – is one surprising tidbit. A tidbit I had long suspected, and has now been confirmed.

I, it turns out – and you may want to be sitting down for this – come from the same genetic line as Franz Xaver Messerschmidt!

(dramatic sting)

If this doesn’t spin you into a tizzy of excitement and envy or even touch off a glint of recognition, allow me to tell you about my Uncle Franz: He was an eccentric 18th Century Austrian sculptor responsible for the famous “Character Heads”, a series of 64 tin-lead alloy and alabaster busts of his own head, each displaying a different, peculiar, often extreme facial expression.

There, you are now free to spin into that tizzy of excitement and envy.

I have known about Franz for many years. Messerschmidt is not the most common of names, and there are very few famous individuals who bear it. Really, there’s only the despicable Nazi inventor of the Messerschmitt, a German warplane prominent in WWII. The plane is spelled differently – with a tt at the end instead of the truly baffling dt concluding my surname. Doughy middle-aged men with terrible beards who are far too invested in Nazi trivia and mostly work at gas stations mostly don’t know this – the spelling difference – though, so I’m often forced into conversation with these degenerates, which has always been painful, and now, through both two masks and a half inch of plexiglass, is both painful and impractical.

Come to think of it, I don’t really know enough about this Messerschmitt fellow to call him despicable or a Nazi. It’s entirely possible that he was just a particularly gifted engineer and put together something he thought was wonderful and told his kids about and stayed up nights imagining all of the great things it could do and then it ended up a killing machine for a death cult army led by a lunatic with a memorably terrible mustache.

These things happen.

Regardless, his name is close enough that some Nazi association is to be expected, and has prevented much delving into the Messerschmidt past, as you’re sure to come across Nazis pretty quickly and nobody needs that in their life. I’m told my great grandmother had a Nazis flag in her home, and that’s about all I need.

A quick story about her, because this is my show and I’ll do what I want:

At my great grandma’s memorial service, after the funeral, the pastor – who had not known her – asked if anyone had any good memories of their time with her that they’d be willing to relate.
Nobody in a room of every living person she’d ever known said a word for a solid 3 minutes. She was an awful woman.
Finally my Dad – with his first and last selfless, heroic move – stood up, walked to the front and said, “She made good creamed peas.” Everyone solemnly nodded in agreement, sighed with relief and exited the memorial to maybe have a smoke or discuss more important things like the weather and football or how good they were at basketball in high school.

The moral of this story, like all stories with a moral, really, is don’t be an asshole.

Anyway, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt is different. First, he was not a Nazi. Maybe a Monarchist – he did some work for Austrian royalty – but that’s not so bad, in context. Second, and most importantly, he was a fucking artist, as am I. He made artistic heads by forcing earth to do his will and I make heady art by forcing words to make a podcast, which they couldn’t possibly want to do. “My god!” they must think. “Couldn’t he have made us into a beautiful poem on some paper in a book like respectable words instead of this hideous spoken nonsense broadcast into the void?”

Cram it, words, I’m in charge here, more or less.

Uncle Franz’s art has been immortalized more than mine, but I’ve no doubt that in 300 years from now someone will be creating a podcast about this show too, probably via a laudatory psychically transmitted, immersive futuristic tableaux or something. Or maybe the future is more dystopian and they’ll create the tableaux from sticks, rocks, and trash or crude drawings on the walls of a cave – the circle of life and all that. Either way, I’ve no doubt it will be a tableaux and I am honored and humbled by the gesture.

Also, Franz was a depressive recluse with a shaky hold on sanity and I’d bet dollars to donuts I’ll end up the same. I’m well on my way already, sitting in the dark, in my basement, alone, typing and doubting myself even while projecting bravado, staring into the glassy eyes of the taxidermic gator head on my desk, imagining the gator telling me that none of this is very good.

Kindred spirits, and, as it turns out, actually kin.

The moment I saw the first Character Head, as they’ve come to be called – Uncle Franz never put a name to them – I was smitten. They are deeply weird and weirdly modern. Out of context you’d assume they were an inspired conceptual project from some pre-Burroughs Bohemian of the 40s, maybe someone who made time with Buñuel or, probably more likely, given their shared nationality, Fritz Lang. One of the weird but not so weird as to be unpalatable pre-war outré art guys. A pre-irony guy with ironic leanings.

Their modernity comes from their simplicity and a very modern sense of humor, though I doubt the artist had humor in mind when he made them.

They are difficult to explain. If you want to see them, you know, the internet, obviously, but this show’s artwork also features two of the heads – the ones known as The Vexed Man (the brownish one in front with an aggressive frown), and The Yawner (the gray one in back that looks much more like he’s screaming in despair to me, but probably a lot of the power of the piece comes from the unification of existential terror and ennui or something).

The heads in the pictures are cheap, smallish imitations that I bought on Amazon – there are a few of the heads you can own for under $100, and I have all of them. I wanted them as the artwork for the show for obvious reasons – they look cool and have a personal meaning, but also as a gentle, winking siren song to anyone who actually knows who the fuck FXR is. So I set them among some plants in my yard to represent the complex relationship between man and nature and snapped some photos. I think they look nice. It’s probably some kind of Copywrite violation, but no one has caught on because, you know, who’s listening really, and besides, he’s family! And long dead.

I’ve never had the opportunity to see the real heads in person as that kind of thing doesn’t typically come anywhere near Fargo, North Dakota – at best we maybe get Norman Rockwell and Ansel Adams, at worst terrible stadium versions of long out of fashion Broadway shows and the occasional Vatican relic – but they are just over a foot tall, slightly bigger than a real head. Some are metallic, chromish – the tin/lead alloy – and some kind of an aged beige stone – the alabaster. Each is just a head and a neck – no shoulders and no detail in the eyes, giving them a kind of blank, hypnotized, disconcerting look. Some of the heads are entirely bald, with lines etched on the dome to indicate a couple days worth of hair growth. Some are only partially bald, with longish flowing hair circling the crown, pushed back behind delicate, realistic ears. The bald ones give an impression of musculature and health – almost youth, maybe some vigor – but the others are an older man, thin and deeply lined, with more birdlike features. All of their necks are excruciatingly tensed, veins and tendons and Adams Apples, sometimes an impression of a second chin, bulging as though reacting to an electric shock – which they might be, as Uncle Franz was rumored to have been good friends with Anton Mesmer – namesake of mesmerism and purveyor of a crude form of early shock therapy. That’s probably not the case, though.

The story of Messerschmidt and his heads, like any good story, is riddled in mythology and speculation, and, as with most things, I prefer the mythology. It’s more fun.

The mythology is, basically, that Franz Xaver Messerschmidt was an accomplished sculptor and benefactee of royals in 18th century Austria before going insane, losing all employment, attempting to become well via Mesmer’s new methods, failing, moving to the country, living as a recluse and sculpting head after head of his own visage in various forms of distress to ward off the evil spirits that tormented him, specifically something he called The Spirit of Proportion, and ultimately dying by his own hand in an institution, the heads all but unseen, until his brother began to sell them off to various collectors and traveling exhibitions of oddities, to be scattered across the world, then reassembled and given the names they bare today and slowly discovered and even more slowly recognized for their brilliance and kinship to modern semi-absurdist art.

It’s a good story. The fact is that many of the heads seem to be of different people – experts can only agree that one is really the artist, the one whimsically titled “The Artist As He Imagined Himself Laughing”, which depicts an aging man in a fez with a semi-mad, dead eyed smile. But the more I look at them – and I look at them a lot – the more it seems to me that they are all of the same guy, in different peaks and valleys of mental health. My image of myself varies drastically depending on my mood, it was probably the same for my dear Uncle. And artistic license – even with oneself – is to be expected.

Anyway, I don’t particularly care what the real story is. Every character in that story is long dead and why not go with the good story over the true one? I’m not, as I think I have mentioned here before, fucking Tom Brokaw, after all. This is, theoretically a comedy podcast, even if there hasn’t really been a joke in a while.

Here’s a funny story to justify my genre.

My six-year-old son and I often do would you rathers before bed. The other night he came up with, “Who would you rather eat, Hulk Hogan or a regular old man?” I think he might be a genius.

Back to Franz.

As I said, there were originally 64 heads, but only 49 are still known to exist. There’s A Strong Man, A Hypocrite and A Slanderer – his head hung low with regret, The Ultimate Simpleton – the only one with a torso connected to the head, Inflicted with Constipation, and An Intentional Wag, among others. The names may not be what the artist intended, but you have to admit that they are pretty solid, even when they don’t really describe what I see at all. Any one of them would make a tremendous band name. I imagine the heads were created in a spirit of distress, in contrast to the light hearted posthumous names which were applied to the heads by the organizer of a traveling exhibit featuring them. The traveling exhibitors – glorified carnies – were probably a fair bit more mirthful than the reclusive, insane genius.

And I don’t really have to imagine them being created in a spirit of distress. There’s some documentation that this was the case. One man – I forget his name, and it’s not important, let’s call him Kent Butnickel – made a pilgrimage of sorts to Franz’s humble home, partly out of admiration, partly out of morbid curiosity. Rumors were, he’d lost his mind.

Butnickel’s visit did, in fact, confirm that Franz had lost his mind, at least to some degree. He spent his time jabbing and pinching himself while looking in a mirror, said it was to assuage the evil spirit that was assailing him – The Spirit of Proportion. He was also up to his ears in the heads, which, as an art piece are brilliant, but to find a shut-ins cottage filled with them would be alarming. We don’t know how long Butnickel stuck around, but I can’t imagine he spent the night.

And, really, that’s all we know for sure. There’s some record of him possibly selling miniatures of the heads, and the next thing we hear is that, after his death, his brother – my great great and so on Grandfather, perhaps? – took possession of the heads.

Or did they take possession of him?!

(dramatic sting)

No, they did not, or, anyway, we have no reason to believe that they did. He eventually sold them off and went about his life, continuing the genetic line that, ultimately, would lead to me and my children, just after my Grandpa Roy, who I once tried to show a book about Franz – he did the thing he used to do where he kind of grunted and then ignored you – and who knows who else. Perhaps a future librarian or some such noble being.

Next time on The Irrationally Exuberant, we’ll delve into my first experience with psychotropic mushrooms, meeting my Uncle Franz, and realizing that I have Clinical Depression and am just not really a drug guy after all.

Don’t miss it!

Posted on

The Tom Waits Institute of Lucid Dreaming

The piano has been drinking, the piano has been drinking, not me . . .


Oh, hello. I didn’t hear you come in. I was busy writing a new hit song and preparing my brain for tonight’s, ah, lurid lucid dreams.

Name’s Tom, by the way, Tom Waits – I’m the owner of this glistening institute.

And you are?


Uh-huh. Well, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. You’re a comely one, aren’t you?


Why don’t you pour yourself a drink, help yourself to a cigarette or two, and fold into that arm-chair under the portrait of Schlitzie the Pinhead Girl while I tell you what The Tom Waits Institute of Lucid Dreaming is all about.


Well, you’re probably asking yourself why Tom Waits, the man responsible for such landmark albums as Swordfishtrombone and Mule Variations has any interest in opening a Lucid Dreaming Institute in the first place.

A fair enough question.

You’re very astute.

The answer is simple as JoJo the Idiot Circus Clown. I’ve been a lucid dreamer since my parents left me at an abandoned bus depot in Atlantic City to live with the hobos and tramps when I was 7 years old. A tattered, one-legged bum on the lam from the law, name of Shitmouth Charlie, The Rail-yard Privateer, taught me how to do it. And I want to share the gift that Shitmouth Charlie, The Rail-yard Privateer gave me with as many folks as’d care to listen.


So, when you’re here at the Tom Waits Institute of Lucid Dreaming you’ll learn how to slide into a deep, active sleep using the music of me, Tom Waits.

I’ve been known as both a whiskey soaked beat troubadour and a rail riding industrial carnival barker, but all along the mission of my music has been to induce lucid dreams and there have been subliminal messages in these tunes starting with Closing Time.

Like my song, The Earth Died Screaming, for instance. It may seem to the untrained ear like nothing more than your typical nightmare environmentalist screed, shrieked by a drink and drug addled lunatic great grandpa, but listen closely. There’s a constant whisper behind all of that madness, telling you to be mindful and relax.


(Earth Died Screaming)


Did you here it? No? Your subconscious did.


Try this one on for size. It’s called Singapore. It was on my platinum selling album, Rain Dogs. At first listen, all you’ll hear is a hell circus hosted by a blood spitting wino with post traumatic stress disorder. But there’s more to the song than meets the eardrum, so to speak. See if you can hear the underlying message that you are safe and secure and should feel free to fully enter your dreams and experience true beauty for the first time in you life.


(Singapore)


Yeeaaah. Now you’re getting it.


Here at T-WILD we’ve created the perfect environment in which to tumble into slumber and finally know what it feels like to live without boundaries. To experience all of the enlightenment and serenity that lucid dreaming has to offer. You’ll nestle into a dusty bed of burlap and horse hair as you’re coaxed to sleep by the flashing of dozens of strobe lights and the perpetual spinning of our neverending Poe themed Merry-go-round, while my dream inducing music plays at deafening volumes.


Or, if that doesn’t suit you, you can drift into your own unconsciousness in our room of carnival freaks and clowns, now stocked with 75% more clowns, who will jump about and groan encouragement over songs such as Tango Till They’re Sore and Cemetery Polka.


It’s a real scene, let me tell you.


So, don’t waste any more time passively sleeping your life away. Awaken to the miracle of lucid dreams at the Tom Waits Institute of Lucid Dreaming. Sign up by finding me and asking about it.


Thanks for stopping by.

Posted on

Lucid Dreaming

Intro: Dream

It is light.
It is dark.
It is light again.
It is very dark.
Dusk settles - something like dusk - a queasy, night vision green, stamped with a throbbing amber moon.
It is my backyard, but it isn’t.  Josh is there and Ben and Ryan, but he’s very young, and then not Josh, and me, and Tony, and Brian Lauers, from high school, and Jake, and then Josh.
They are golfing, and then not Josh, hitting balls, and it is light, silent, and I am watching, and it is dark, and I am not me, but I am watching me, and then Josh.
And there are pigs in the yard - first the impression of pigs, followed by pulsing pig representations - and it is yellow dusk, and the pulsing pig representations are too big, and then Josh, and there is a baby that is not mine, that I need to take care of, that looks like me, and then not Josh, and then Josh, and then not Ben, and Josh is going into the neighbor’s house to take a piss and they aren’t home but the lights are on and I am furious, and then not Josh, and the pulsing pig representations are again just the impressions of pigs and they are many, and the pigs are in danger, I can feel it, and then Josh, and it is light, and the pigs are pigs now - tangible pigs - and have green eyes, and then Ben, and then not Josh, and Marshall is in the house, and I am in the house, and Josh is in the house, and then not Josh, and Kelly wafts through, blinking her eyes wildly, and it is very bright, and then Josh - and where is the baby? - and then not Josh, and I can hear an uncle in the other room, and it is very bright, and then Josh and Ben and Marshall and Tony and my brother and me and a pig and the baby and then not Josh and this doesn’t make sense,  I realize this doesn’t make sense, and I realize I’m dreaming and then it is light and everything slows down, comes into focus.  Everything is focused and still. Lucid.
The house is mine and I am lucid.
I am dreaming.  I say this aloud and the words pulse through the air in concentric circles.  I am in my kitchen.  Everything is there.  It is my kitchen, but more - ethereal, maybe.  And Josh and Ben and Tony and Ryan and Jake and Marshall and Brian Lauers and the green eyed pig are just standing still, staring at me, waiting for me to do something.  So I put a hat on the pig, with my mind.  A beautiful deep brown bowler.           Everyone smiles.
I breath.  This is my dream and I can do literally anything I want.  The laws of physics and morality do not apply to me.  I could fly through the air like a crow.  I could make Josh do things to the pig.  I could combine Josh with the pig to make a pig-Josh and have Ben do things with pig-Josh.  I could punch pig-Josh into a billion smaller pigs with spaghetti knuckles.  I don’t know what that means, exactly, but I could do it.  I could make them all perform an elaborate three part very special episode of Charles In Charge, where the pig plays Charles and Tony plays Buddy, and Buddy is experimenting with PCP, and Charles has to help him and hide it from the kids. It could be brilliant and disgusting.  And I could play Mr. Belvedere, hell, I could be Mr. Belvedere, even though he’s not even in Charles In Charge.  I could make Mr. Belvedere a member of the Charles in charge universe with my mind. Anything.  This world, as they say, is my oyster.  I could literally make this world into an oyster.
Instead, I retreat to my studio to record - this - podcast . . .

Part I: Lucid Dreaming
In 1902, Willis Carrier recorded a remarkable dream in his dream journal. Two dream descriptions in a row might be a bit much, but bare with me.

July 16th, 1902

Dearest diary,
Last night I dreamt the most remarkable dream.  To call it a dream, in fact, does it no justice.  It was more than a dream, I believe.  Vision may be the word.  Revelation, perhaps.
It began ordinarily enough. I was trudging through the disgusting streets of Brooklyn on yet another punishingly hot day, stinking to high heaven as everybody does all of the time , cursing the three piece wool suit that people of this particular point in history are cursed to wear, no matter the weather.  My god, life is a nightmare!  Good lord, the stench!  Heavens to Betsy - the rashes!  Oh, the rashes! It’s a wonder that a person ever accomplishes even the most menial of tasks whilst drenched head to toe in sticky, hot sweat, his crotch dappled and scarlet red, itching like the dickens, his olfactory sense barraged from all corners each and every moment of each and every hellish day with the ghastly odor of three million retched, reeking New Yorkers, barely holding on to consciousness as they teeter on the precipice of of heatstroke or wage a futile battle against retching from the pungency.
I was contemplating all of this, praying for the sweet relief of the Reapers refreshingly cold, gnarled touch, when a curious storefront caught my eye.  One I hadn’t noticed before, though I have made this walk innumerable times.  It was called, “Breezy Jeff’s Emporium”.  
“What kind of name is Jeff?” I thought. 
I felt compelled to step inside, so I pushed through its unornamented door.
The most wonderful thing happened as the door opened.  I was enveloped by cool, soothing air, the likes of which I have never felt before.  It was as if God himself had exhaled upon me!  I began to weep with joy.  
When I had regained my composure, I looked about myself to ascertain the nature of the establishment, but there was little to see.  The walls stood bare, and I appeared to be alone.
That is when it struck me: This must be a dream.
Surprised to find myself so aware of this fact while still in the dream state, I nearly awoke.  The store began to fade.  Not wishing to ever leave this icy paradise, I willed it back into solidity with great effort and found that I was able to move about of my own free will.
I heard a loud humming noise from the back of the store, but was unable to see its source.  I went to investigate and found, around a corner, a strange contraption which seemed to be the source of the noise and, to my amazement, the cool air.
“My God,”  I thought. “A machine that cools the air.  This could change everything!”
I had to bring this miracle to the real world!  A dipped quill and paper materialized in my hands, and I began to make sketches and notes pertaining to its construction.
Upon awakening, I immediately transcribed my dream notes. And I’ll be McKinley’s old mother if I don’t believe this thing can actually work!

I must retreat now to my laboratory to assemble a prototype.  This invention, if I am not sorrowfully mistaken, could be our cool savior from the oppressive god of heat and I must waste no time in building it!

Willis Carriers vision was not the first lucid dream recorded in history, but it very well may be the most significant, and is a fine introduction to the topic.  The invention of the air conditioner ushered in the modern age, making life bearable for the first time in human history.
How does a man discover something so consequential and practical in the non-dream world while in the dream world?  How does he gain the ability to understand that he is dreaming and act proactively within the dream?
The answers are elusive, highly controversial, and, in this podcast, wildly simplified and occasionally misrepresented.
Lucid dreaming is essentially a dream in which one becomes impassive, conscious of the dream state and able to control ones actions and surroundings within the dream.  To really understand lucid dreaming you must first understand dreaming, which no one does for sure.  You’ll get different explanations for why we dream and what, if anything, dreams mean from scientists, psychologist, religious fanatics, psychics, your mother, or the quiet guys you work with who, when they do finally talk, reveal themselves to be profoundly unpleasant.  There is very little agreement even within these groups.  One unnerving guy at the office might say that dreams are visions from god while another insists that they are representations of repressed sexual desires.  Back slowly away from both of these men.  They are the ones who make that horrible mess in the bathroom, probably.
I’m talking about you, Kurt!
A dream is essentially a hallucination - a creation of your mind.  You see things in your dreams, but not with your eyes - a real stoner mind-fuck. There’s no particular portion of the brain that these images arise from - that anyone knows of, anyway.  It’s kind of biological ocean whose depths are completely unknown to us despite its relative nearness.  
There is one theory, variations of which are currently the most pervasive, that dreams are a kind of informational sieve, a way for our brain to filter out useless information and sort the things we need, resulting in a kind of free associative hodgepodge of thoughts and images that really only seem to make sense because of our conscious tendency to string miscellaneous information into a kind of narrative.  Sort of like how if you watch a movie on mute, any music you play will seem to sync up with it.  The Dark Side of Oz phenomenon, if you will.  
It is nearly impossible to talk about dreams, apparently, without sounding like you just took a bong rip.
I have to ask, though:  If it is  truly the case that dreams are a mechanism for sorting and filtering information, why have I retained such a vast store of knowledge about the Golden Girls and Sha Na Na, but couldn’t, under any circumstance, tell you my wife’s phone number?
Either this theory is bunk or my sieve is broken.
Freud was somewhat a proponent of this explanation, though he added that dreams were a means of latent wish fulfillment and deeper revelations about oneself could be sussed out through analysis.  Those deeper revelations tended to be sex stuff.
I’d really like to get his take on which wish I was fulfilling in the dream I had where a group of monks marched into my room to tell me that Jeff Goldblum had died.
Jung largely concurred with Freud, but was much less phallocentric and posited that the existence of common dreams, which he called archetypes - flying, unpreparedness, secret rooms, Jeff Goldblum - were an expression of a unified human consciousness. 
L. Ron Hubbard, a lunatic, said that "Dreams are crazy house mirrors by which the analyzer looks down into

the engram bank.” I have no idea what that means and don’t care to find out.
There are a few things we know absolutely about dreams, specifically, which parts of the brain aren’t active during sleep. The motor cortex, for instance. It is responsible for musculoskeletal control – moving your body. When the motor cortex is stimulated during sleep – as is the case with a sleep disorder called “violent sleep”, which has been recreated in animal experiments – the dreamer will act out their dreams. Dogs will dig at the air, cats roam around, aimless and ominous, and humans have been known to attack whoever happens to be in bed with them. A prostitute named Fancy, for example.
Activity also decreases in the prefrontal regions of the brain responsible for episodic memory and integrating information. It’s the reason dreams don’t usually make a lot of sense.
I could go on – about REM sleep, neurological theories, wet dreams – but this is supposed to be about lucid dreaming, so let’s talk about that.
Here’s the thing – We don’t really know whether lucid dreaming is real. Dreams are notoriously difficult, if not impossible to monitor, so the specifics of dreams are kind of beyond us. There’s a very real chance that lucid dreams are just dreams of being lucid, not actual lucidity within a dream. The study most often cited in its favor basically consisted of a researcher telling a subject to move his eyes in a certain way in his sleep. Apparently he did, but it was just side to side.
So we are left with personal testimony, and there is certainly a lot of it.
Lucid dreamers love talking about lucid dreaming. If you begin a conversation with one, it won’t end until you’ve heard all of their tales of flying over psychedelic meadows, chatting with their dead grandpappy about the tofu situation in heaven, and bedding Khaleesi, The Mother of Dragons, and agreed that they are highly evolved mystical super-people. What they won’t tell you is that even their sweet Aunt Kathy won’t return their calls anymore. Avoid them at all costs. In fact, avoid everyone at all costs, just to be safe.
They’ll also tell you how you can become one of them. “Oh my god, you don’t meditate? You have to meditate!” They’ll tell you about looking at your hands, or flipping light switches on and off, or reading a digital clock several times a day. These are what’s known as reality checks. The idea is that if you get used to confirming that you’re not dreaming during your waking hours, the habit will persist into your dreams and you will become lucid when you realize you are dreaming.
They’ll tell you about binaural beats, beats of two different frequencies, one being fed into each ear, which create a third frequency in your brain that, theoretically, produces relaxation, concentration, and, when you’re sleeping, lucid dreams. It’s sometimes called brainwave entertainment – which may or may not also be the title of a Skirlex album, another thing I don’t care to find out – and sounds like a computer attempting Peruvian Pan Flute music.
They’ll tell you about taking B vitamins before you go to bed, as well as an exhaustive list of additional supplements that have not been approved by the FDA.
They’ll encourage you to keep a dream journal, make your own dream pillow, eat cheese before bed to have what they call, horrifyingly, “cheese dreams”, set an alarm to wake you up every 90 minutes, and wear a REM inducing mask, none of which seem conducive to any kind of sleep, let alone a deep one.
They’ll tell you that, if you do become lucid, you should “ask the dream” to let you become lucid more easily next time.
They’ll continue shouting these things at you as you slowly back away from them and they’ll chase after you when you turn and break into a dead sprint.
These people are relentless and will stop at nothing to share their inner peace.

And goddamn if I don’t want to BE one of these people. I’ve tried a good number of their methods, not as an ironic experiment, but in earnest.
I would very much like to lucid dream. It sounds amazing. Passive sleep feels like a necessary waste of time, but conscious sleep eliminates that burden. You never have to stop doing. And I want to pause that recurring dream I have where I’m lost and half nude in a massive hotel with a random assortment of acquaintances and dream people while reports of an alien invasion blast from unseen speakers and finally find that Morrissey concert in the lobby that I’ve been trying to get to for all these years. I want to explore the room in the house that I grew up in that no one knew was there. I want to hear and remember music that doesn’t exist in the real world, music that evidently lives inside me that I don’t have access to. I want to be a whale for a little while and goddammit I want to have consequence free dream sex with Ferris Bueller’s girlfriend Sloan!
Not to mention that the implications or Lucid Dreaming are pretty wild. If you are able actively alter the projections of your Id and Ego, what does that mean? Something, I’m sure of it.
So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to binge eat some cheese, strap on my dream goggles, and take a brief, hopeful nap.

Posted on

Hell

Bad news, friends. I died.

I was trudging along the banks of the Red River, as you do during an unseasonably warm North Dakota Winter. With the trees gone and the prairie grass tamped down by deer, you can get much closer to the water than in the Summer, but usually it’s colder ‘n the heart of a Saskatoon Psychopath and there’s liable to be a foot or two of snow on the ground, so you’re mostly stuck indoors, gaining winter weight.

Not this winter, though. This was a couple days after the anniversary of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and it was still in the high 40s. Heaven on earth.

So, I was trudging along, tossing rocks and kicking out rotted stumps when I came upon a peculiar sight. There was something wedged between two bare elm trees not ten feet from where I stood. It was red and green and, this being the Holiday season, I assumed it was some kind of out of the way Christmas decoration. But I pushed on to investigate, and, to my surprise, saw three words printed in big block letters on the mystery object.

The words were these: The Phoenix Lights.

I was taken aback. Why, that very morning I’d cracked open a book on The Phoenix Lights, the most famous UFO sighting in the Americas, maybe the world.

I whispered, “Synchronicity,” because that’s what UFO weirdos do.

Convinced that I’d stumbled upon some sort of cache of secret information, finally, or, at the very least, some sort of incoherent message from The Phenomenon – I rushed toward whatever it was, and this is where I died.

My foot caught on an exposed root. I put out my hands to grab hold of a branch, and the branch snapped like a box of angel hair pasta over a bubbling pot of water. I tumbled, foot over fedora, down the river bank and on to the icy surface of the mighty Red. Shaken but okay, I stood up, brushed the dirt and cockleburs from my body, lifted a foot to ascend the bank and heard another crack – too many cracks for one day, if you ask me – felt the ice give way below me, fell backward again, and crashed through the thin ice, into the frigid, mud dark water. I felt a jolt of unspeakable cold, gasped, filled myself with water that tasted of clay, and was sucked Northward and to the bottom of Fargo’s preeminent body of water.

Next thing I remember, I was completely dry, which struck me as odd. I was back on land, in a dense green wood, ominous in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Poetical, somehow. The ground was rocky and inclined. This wasn’t North Dakota. What was it?

I heard a low growl. Not good. Low growls are almost never good. Even high growls aren’t great. I heard a low growl and saw an enormous black bear slowly approaching me, snout wet, eyes wild with malice or hunger or both. I looked about for somewhere to run. There was a clearing! I started in that direction, but – Alas!- coming through the clearing was a guy I went to high school with who I’d blocked on Facebook. REALLY didn’t want to talk to him.

But it was this guy or the bear. I was frozen in indecision.

Then, from above, an urgent whisper.

I looked up. There was a man in the branches of a large Sycamore Tree, partially obscured. He looked older. Well dressed. A stranger. Not ideal, but better than the other two options. I briefly hoped he wouldn’t be the chatty kind of stranger and then ascended the tree as quickly as I could.

There in the branches of the Sycamore was a man I immediately recognized. He was Kurt Vonnegut.

“You’re Kurt Vonnegut!” I whispered.

“Guilty as charged,” said he.

“But your d-d-d-dead!” I hissed.

“You and me both, kid.” He smiled kindly.

“Huh. I’m . . . dead? I guess that adds up. Why does your voice sound so weird?”

“Never mind that. Poo-tee-weet.”

We heard a roar and a scream, and both looked down to see my highschool acquaintance being devoured by the enormous bear.

“What in the hell is going on here?!” I asked, no longer whispering.

“You said it, son. You kicked the bucket. Passed on to your great reward. So it goes. You’re just outside of hell, bucko.”

“Adds up. What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to lead you through. Like a spirit guide, kind of thing. Lucky you.”

“It’s an honor. What are we waiting for?”

“The bloodthirsty bear.”

“Right, the bloodthirsty bear.”

Hours passed, and we sat in silence, watching the bear devour my classmate, whose political opinions justified this fate.

I had questions, but realized this was all most likely a product of my own imagination, the firing of the last few neurons in my brain, a quick dopamine dump before lights out, and didn’t want to look foolish in front of imaginary Kurt Vonnegut.

When the bear had finished its meal and shambled off, Kurt suggested we do the same.

We passed through a ragged gap in a stone wall. There was a sign above it which read, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”

“Yikes,” I said. “Is this safe? Will we be able to get out of here?”

“Sure”, replied Kurt Vonnegut. “Just stick by me, kid, and we’ll be out of here faster than you can say Kilgore Trout.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Vonnegut tilted his head and gave me a wry smile.

“Aaaaah. You got me! All right, abandoning hope, starting . . . NOW!”

We passed though the entrance of Hell and into it’s first circle, Limbo.

“This is Limbo,” Vonnegut told me. “Unbaptized souls and all that. You don’t really believe in a literal heaven and hell, though, so it’s mostly just people you have no opinion about.”

“So this IS just a projection of my dying brain then? I was kind of hoping I was wrong.”

“It feels real, right?” Vonnegut asked. “So what’s the difference?”

He had a point.

Through the entrance, as my guide had said there would be, were thousands of people I felt nothing for, milling about, looking bored. I hardly recognized most of them, but a few looked vaguely familiar – half forgotten teachers staring into the middle distance, people I’d worked with pacing about, the entire cast of Leave It to Beaver, perpetually fighting off naps.

Soon we came to a river, kind of like the Red but more sulphureous and fiery, and with exponentially more damned souls waiting at it’s bank and shrieking in its bubbling waters.

“This is going to be a lot like Dante’s Inferno, huh?” I asked Vonnegut.

“It’s going to be whatever’s going on in the secret recesses of that idea machine in your skull. Probably your limited understanding of Inferno based on dozens of half readings with a bunch of random personal memories tossed in.”

“Cool, cool. Where’s the ferryman, I wonder?”

And there he was, suddenly, materializing in the sulfur mist, Sharon. Ch-aron? I’m not sure how to pronounce it.

The ghastly oarsman docked his boat, and bid us aboard.

“How do you pronounce your name?” I asked.

“Sharon, or Ch-aron. I’m not sure,” he said.

“Checks out,” I said to Vonnegut.

We hopped on the boat and headed for whatever I thought the second circle of hell would be like.

Turns out, we had to deal with Minos first, a hideous half man, half octopus, with the face of HP Lovecraft, who determines which circle of hell the damned will be relegated to.
“Let me handle this guy,” Vonnegut said. “He’s a real son-of-a-bitch.”

Minos’s greedy tentacles reached for me, but Vonnegut slapped them away.

“Not so fast, Jack,” he said. “We’re just going to scootch on by you, if you don’t mind.”

Chiron didn’t seem to mind. He shrugged what I assumed were his shoulders, wrapped a tentacle around Charlie Daniels, screamed, “Circle Three: Glutony!” and tossed the husky troubadour behind him like a spent can of Tiki Punch Shasta, fiddle and all.

Vonnegut and I kind of awkwardly edged past him, through the thin crack between his grotesque, slimy body and the stony outcrop at his side. He smelled like an old tin of sardines.

To get to the second circle of hell, we had to walk down a very steep flight of stairs with no hand rail. There was an elevator, but it was constantly nearly full of talkative strangers with poor personal boundaries. Horrific.

The second circle was for the lusty – sexed up men and women who couldn’t get enough of fucking and sucking, and were now condemned to be blown about by a terrible wind, symbolic of how in life they allowed themselves to be led by their penises and vaginas and buttholes and what not.

Still trying to catch our breaths from the long descent down the stairs, we were buffeted by the sexy gale, nearly swept off of our feet. Hugh Hefner blew past us, stupid robe flapping, his bony frame unable to keep him attached to the ground.

To combat the wind, to keep from blowing around in circles like that lecherous old wrinkled dick and the strong scent of cologne, talcum powder, and sex musk he left in his wake, Kurt Vonnegut hopped on my shoulders, and I piggy backed him through the wind-worn expanse, toward the next staircase.

On our way we encountered some of the most celebrated musicians and actors who ever lived:

Jim Morrison, still trying to write terrible poetry, even as the sheet of paper he was holding kept blowing out of his hand, only to be replaced by another piece which would invariably blow away before the pen in his right hand could reach it’s surface.

Noted rapist Errol Flynn, forced to perpetually sword fight the wind, which kept blowing the prop sword back at him, poking him in the eye.

Pope John XII was there, as were Janis Joplin, Lord Byron, and Wendy the Snapple Lady – a bit of a surprise – all struggling against the dastardly cyclone blasts in ways unique to their particular dirty deeds.

After what seemed like hours of struggle, we reached the staircase and Kurt Vonnegut alit from my back.

“Thanks for the lift, Hoss,” Vonnegut said. “You’d make one hell of a pack mule.”

“Thanks,” I said, “I have kids. You’re an excellent backpack.”

Down the stairs we went, toward Tier 3, for the gluttonous.

I assumed we’d meet Charlie Daniels there, and wasn’t wrong. He was being pelted by the icy rain, already beginning to melt into the blob of jelly that all residents of Tier Three must become. As such, I wasn’t able to identify any of the other denizens – it’s hard to put a name to a what looks like a pupa filled with lime jello – but I assume former President Howard Taff – namesake of taffy – was down there somewhere.

It’s hard to know what to do in an icy rain. Do you run or does that just cause the rain to hit you at a higher velocity? Do you walk, or does that result in being hit with more rain?

We chose to run, and it hurt like . . . well, hell. Cerberus the three headed hound waited for us at the other side. Thinking fast, I picked up one of the screaming blobs and hurled it at the vicious hellbeast, leaving my upper body looking like I’d just been a guest on Nickelodeon’s You Can’t Do That On Television.

It worked. While Cerberus tore into the damned soul, we hurdled past him and down the stairs, two at a time, like hyper active junior high school students.

“Way to use your old meat computer, kid,” Vonnegut said. “You’re really getting the hang of hell.”

Circle four is a massive hill surrounded by huge, perfectly round boulders. It’s inhabited by two categories of the greedy: Misers and spendthrifts, who begin their terrible chore at separate sides of the towering mound. Each cursed soul is assigned to a boulder and must push it up the hill, Sisyphus style. When they get to the top, they are inevitably met by someone from the opposite side and argue about whether it is better to spend one’s wealth extravagantly or to horde it. Obviously the spendthrifts are right, it’s not even a question. Anyway, the argument gets heated and somebody slaps a boulder and it goes careening back down the hill and then the other guy pushes the other boulder and then the whole thing starts over.

You can imagine who inhabits this place, I don’t need to tell you. A bunch of assholes on one side and some cool dudes on the other, mostly.

As we walked around the hill, Henry Ford told us we looked like a couple of Jews, and Vonnegut told him to go take a flying fuck at a donut. We high fived, and then looked kind of embarrassed about the high five and got on our way.

The fifth circle of hell is the most fun. It’s for the wrathful.

“You’re going to go just nuts for this circle,” Vonnegut told me. “As a figment of your imagination, I know you love celebrity feuds and spite – who doesn’t? – and this circle is chock full of those, but in a bubbling, boiling swamp of human waste.”

He was right, of course. There, sunk to their chins in what looked like a massive, hot sewage treatment tank, were every argumentative dingus I’d ever known or known of, all yelling at and grappling with each other. The din and odor were almost unbearable, but the sight was absolutely beautiful.

There was William F. Buckley, earlobes dipped in shit, screaming at a guy I’d blocked on Twitter last year. And Rush Limbaugh, new to the place, choking on the murk while being manhandled by my Great Grandmother.

It seemed to go on forever, each combative duo more satisfying than the last.

“My father is going to spend eternity here, I’m sure of it,” I said.

“So it goes,” replied Vonnegut.

“How are we going to get through this shit?” I asked Vonnegut.

“Probably some sort of boatman,” Vonnegut replied.

No sooner had he said this, than a hideous manbeast in a rowboat materialized from the hazy mire. He nodded at us and we hopped aboard.

Crossing the festering swamp, I saw ever more pleasing conflicts.

Richard Nixon with John Lennon in a full nelson.

Buddy Rich giving Huey Long the business.

As the boat neared the far shore, it began to shake. Someone was grabbing its edge, trying to pull us into the horrid muck.

We looked to the side and saw a feces splattered man with his hand on our craft.

“Jim Morrison! I thought you were in the second circle!”

“In life I was so shitty that they put me in two circles simultaneously!”

“Well, get off our boat, you wretched goofball, we’ve got more circles to see!”

I stomped on Morrison’s hand and he want flailing back into the gurgling waste, where he belonged. It felt good.

We arrived at the steps down to the sixth circle of hell, or so I thought. I’d forgotten that the circles of hell were divided into two categories: the first five circles for those who sinned through judgement and the next four for those who were actively malicious.

Dividing the two were the river Styx and the City of Dis.

Obviously I hadn’t totally forgotten it, or it wouldn’t be here. But I’d forgotten it in the moment.

“Listen. We’re just going to kind of skip over this whole business, if that suits you,” Vonnegut said. “There’s a lot of symbolism here that you really haven’t delved into and it’s just going to be a mess. This is already dragging a bit, don’t you think?”

“I do,” I said. “Let’s skip it.”

And so we did.

Upon further discussion, we just skipped the sixth, seventh, and eighth circles as well. Too bleak. Those guys that killed themselves and then become trees? Yeah, no thanks. Not getting into that.

And so we entered the frozen center of hell, steeled ourselves against its frigid winds.

All the expected no-goodnicks were frozen in it’s icy depths: Hitler, Stalin, Pol-Pot, Mussolini, Aleister Crowley, like two thirds of the Popes, GG Allin, and the entire bloodline that led up to the 45th president of the United States.

At the center was the Great Beast himself, the fallen angel, Satan, a massive three headed monster. In my hell, all of the faces looked like the worst president in history, the aforementioned Donald Trump, which is to say they looked like Jim Belushi wearing a Musollini mask made from ham fat after he’s been bobbing for apples in marmalade. Horrifying, but not unexpected.

Each head had a massive set of flapping wings, which were the source of the frigid wind.

In each of its mouths were cheeseburgers made from the bodies of slave owners and Puritans and former Presidents and slave owning former Presidents.

“Quick,” I said. “Let’s get out of here before he finishes his burgers and starts talking.”

“You got it, kid,” Vonnegut replied. “The bum news is we’ve got to go down his leg to get out. It’s going to be just awful.”

We did it anyway, and it was awful. I don’t want to talk about it. Halfway down, reality did a loop-de-loop and we were climbing up again, toward a light.

“Is that purgatory?” I asked.

“No, you haven’t read The Purgatorio. Pretty much no one has. That’s the end of the line for us. It’s been good knowin’ you, Messerschmidt.”

“Same to you, imaginary Kurt Vonnegut. Maybe I’ll slip in the shower one day and we’ll meet again.”

“Poo-tee-weet,” he said.

So I climbed into the light and out of hell.

Next thing I knew, I was was back on the muddy shore of the Red River, wet, cold, and shivering, but no worse for the wear, as they say. I grabbed the bag that said “The Phoenix Lights”. It was just a tent. But I needed a tent, so I took it, and headed home.

The end.

Posted on

Flat Earth

flat earth

No script this time, because I wrote this a long time ago and don’t know where it is.

References and allusions include, but are not limited to: God, Jesus, Mork and Mindy, NASA, Armageddon (movie), Aerosmith, American Idol, the United Nations, Freemasons, Bill Nye, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Degrasse Tyson, the New World Order, Satan, New York, Lutherans, Facebook, YouTube, PIZZA HUT, Disney, Metallica, Isaac Newton, “God Bless the U.S.A.”, Pokemon Go, Feminism, the Coriolis Effect, Admiral Byrd, Red Bull Stratos Felix, Apollo 8, Strawberry Kiwi Shasta, Carl Sagan, Albert Eistein, Apple, Reptilians, and Mole People.

Posted on

Depression

Depression

Hello, friend. Welcome back to The Irrationally Exuberant. I hope you’re taking care of yourself in these troubled times. Which brings me to our topic: Self Care, specifically, dealing with depression. I have it, you, I assume, have it, since you’re listening to this show. Your Mom’s probably got it. Your Dad’s in denial about his, has never done the work needed to overcome it and has instead repressed the deep sadness he feels intrinsically, but also about dreams unfulfilled, potential untapped, relationships irrevocably harmed, and maybe expressed that hurt as anger and resentment over some perceived change in the world that has left him behind, a victim of some ambiguous other.

Little Timmy Messerschmidt: Dis isn’t funny, Weid. Dis is pwetentious pwojection and not neewy as cweve as you fink it is. Why do you even botha? Does anybody even listen to this widiculous show?

Oh, hello Little Timmy Messerschmidt. Ladies and gentleman and ungendered friends, this is Little Timmy Messerschmidt, a little boy/physical manifestation of my depression. Timmy, I thought you were sleeping?

LTM: I don’t neva sweep, I jus west. Isn’t dis show just a futile attempt to mask the meaningless of wife wif artistic pwetensions wifout actuwawy physicawy exposing youself to the outside wold? Isn’t dat just a wittle pafetic? Yo a gwown man doing goofy voices in his basement.

God, Little Timmy, you’re just awful, but also painfully insightful. You know, that may be somewhat true, but that’s what everybody does, or just about everyone. I understand that life is meaningless, probably, but that’s fine. There’s literally nothing you can do to give it meaning, so why worry about it? Even if I were somehow performing this show in front of thousands of people and effusively praised and rewarded, you wouldn’t go away, right? You’d still have negative things to say about it – probably something about selling out or being an imposter or whatever, right?

LTM: Hey wememba all dose times wen you were wiwy dwunk and you cawed wike evwyone you know and just wambled on wike an asshole? You fink they forgot about dat? Or do they just constantly have in da back a der mind how widicuwous you weawy a?

Uh. Timmy, I’m trying to do an episode here. I don’t have time for this. Why are you a little boy, by the way?

LTM: Dunno. I fink you jus had dis dumb voice and fot it would be funny to make it say depwessing fings. So owiginal.

You know what? Since I’ve got you here, and this show’s about depression, why don’t you just plop down in that chair and I’ll ask you some questions. You’re going to be here whether I want you to be or not, so you may as well make yourself useful.

LTM: Weawy? You wusuawy jus igno me. Wew . . . okay. Dis is all jus a finly veiwed and gimmicky pwemise dat you have aweady done befo wif Foam Chomsky.

Great. How old are you?

LTM: I’m dis many!

He’s flashed all ten fingers three times and then held up eight of them, so thirty-eight. Same as me. Makes sense.

Let’s try this another way. Can you think of any reason you might look like a little boy?

LTM: Wew, maybe I’m da age you were when you stahted to wealize dat maybe wife wasn’t pewfect and yo pawents wasn’t pewfect and evewyfing didn’t wevolve awound you.

I assumed I was a bit older when that realization came. You seem like, three, maybe an immature four.

LTM: Wew, I guess you assumed wong. You pwetty dense awot of da time, even do you fink yo soooooo smart, or act wike you do, anyway.

Great. Okay. I feel like we’re making progress. Hey! you spilled my water all over the desk!

LTM: YOU spiwed yo watow aw ove the desk.

God, you’re impossible. Why is clumsiness seem to be such an intrinsic part of depression, for me anyway?

LTM: Because you can’t do anyfing wight! Yo not a gwown up you know. Yo basicallwy and ol child and a burden to dose awound you and evewything you fink is good about yoself is an iwussion.

Why do you do this? Why do YOU exist? What’s your, like, evolutionary function?

LTM: Wew, it’s pwetty compwicated and you’ve only wead one aticow about it, but some scientists fink that depwession is the bwains attempt to sov weal, compwicated pwobwems by focusing it’s attention. You don’t want to eat or tak to peopow or anyfing and you onwy fink about you pwobwems, so if you just fowoed fwew and did somefing about dem you’d be fine, but noooooo, youw too wazy or stupid o whatevo, so you just take piws to twy to suppwess me o watch widicuwous shows wike Ancient Awiens to distwact yoself fwom me, and I nevow nevow go away until you jus do the wok but you neva wiw and so yo stuck wif me! I’m yo fault!

Or, it could just be an evolutionary fluke.

LTM: Ooooooow, evowution isn’t even weal and you don’t weawy know anyfing.

Yeah, that’s possible too.

Okay, so you’re telling me that maybe if I confront you and work out your obsessions like meaninglessness and shame and ineptitude and what-if kind of bullshit, and solve those things, you’ll go away?

LTM: (Laughs) Good wuck wif dat! And don’t foget body image, you fat asshole! (laughs)

Your right, that’s a tall order, but some of it’s doable. The ineptitude thing could probably realistically be addressed and worked out. And some of the what-if and shame stuff could probably be at least mitigated with some good old fashioned mindfulness. And the body image thing just requires exercise and healthy eating

LTM: Oh, shua. Youw get wight on dat. Wet’s say you did somehow finawy after awwwwww these yeahs, manage to actuawy consistently wok out and pwactice mindfulness – whatever dat means – and all the other stuff. Then you jus weft wif meaninglessness? Wike, the ultimate pwobwem dat de mos bwilliant finkers of aw time have been twying to tacko since fowevo? And the onwy sowution anyone has come up wif is wewigion? Yo a hiwawious. But not if da way you fink.

Okay, you have a point. But how about the days when you’re not around or barely around? Maybe if I can hone in on what I’m thinking and how I’m feeling on those days I can more often replicate that experience and see less of you.

LTM: Dose days yo jus wying to yosef or not paying attention. How many times do I haf to tell you that? Besides, you wove me. You wouldn’t know what to do wif yoself if you didn’t have me.

I have learned to kind of like you sometimes. But that’s not going to stop me from trying to kill you. I just started taking buproprion, that should do the trick.

LTM: Wisten, you’ve been on dat stuff fo a few weeks and we awe sitting hew having dis convasation, so fogive me if I’m not wowied.

Ah, you little scamp. One of these days! But seriously, thanks for chatting with me.

LTM: My pweasure!

Okay, well, that’s all the time we have. . .

LTM: Weid?

Yes, Little Timmy Messerschmidt

LTM: Do you fink I could sing a song to end da show? It’s weawy gooood.

Oh, sure that sounds great.

LTM: Awight. Dis is called, “

Jesus, Little Timmy. What the fuck was that?

LTM: I suppose you could do betta?

You have a point. Well anyway,Thank you for listening, and take care of yourself.

Goodbye.

Posted on

Klaus Nomi

Listen. I’m well aware that the last thing the world needs is another biography of Klaus Nomi. He’s already a household name on par with James Polk, young John Cusack, and the Andrews Sisters. What could I – a humble podcast magnate – possibly add to the reams upon reams of information already available to you via your home library, public library, magazine subscriptions, nightly newscasts, corner newsstand, and pocket super computer? Everywhere one looks, his angular, alien features – slathered in pancake make-up, and cartoonish brow, accented by plastic three pronged hair, are emblazoned upon baseball caps, halter tops, and business casual velveteen capes. It’s tattooed to the ankles of desperate baristas, crudely scotch taped to the bedroom walls and locker doors of lovesick tweenagers. Cover bands with names like No Means Nomi and Klaus Kall bogart stage time at VFW Posts in every American town. His ghostly counter-tenor fills sporting stadiums, dank bars, dusk tinged city streets, massage parlors, opium dens, and Subarus. His songs soundtrack what sometimes feels like every third movie preview and gingersnap commercial.
“Enough is enough!” you may be shouting. “Yes, he is a gift – a jewel in humanity’s crown, recognized and beloved by all. But have we not reached the point of saturation? The man has been dead for a score and ten – perhaps it’s time we move on?”
We will, in time, dear listener. I’m sure of it. After this recording, perhaps.Wait? What’s that? You’ve never heard of Klaus Nomi? Could it be true? Excuse me? They don’t make advertisements for gingersnaps? Since when? Oh, well, please accept my apologies. It seems I’ve just woken from the most beautiful dream.
In that case, allow me to fill in some holes.

Posted on

Tiny Tim

There’s this anecdote about Tiny Tim which, like all anecdotes, may or may not be true.

Tiny Tim, if you don’t know him, was a musician popular in the late 60s and early 70s, mostly known for his falsetto and ukulele rendition of this old 1920s song, Tiptoe Through the Tulips as well as his many TV appearances on shows like, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson – which he appeared on a total of 22 times – he famously got married on air – as well as Laugh In and Hollywood Squares, among others.

He was a character.

Anyway, as the story goes, in 1971, just as Tiny’s popularity was really beginning to wane, his management was desperately searching for ways to reignite public interest. Their solution, one of them, anyway, was to hold a Tiny Tim look alike contest.

Now, again, in case you’re not aware of him, Tiny had a very distinctive look. Long curly hair parted on the side – dirty and tangled, although he bathed many times a day. A notably large, exquisitely arched nose, with these exceptionally long nostrils. A large mouth just stuffed with teeth. More than is normal, you’d think, by the looks of it. The teeth were pushed out by these huge gums. And then he had this flaccid, Cheeto shaped body that he held with the confidence of a chubby, polio struck kid on roller skates, balancing a triple scoop ice cream cone. He’d started perilously, upsettingly thin, but had expanded with his fame, so that he looked like he’d been stung by a wasp and desperately needed a shot from an epi pen. And he would have been conspicuous just based on all of this, but he also slathered his face in pancake makeup, filled in his eyebrows, and wore ill fitting, out of date, wrinkled suits in patterns that bumped up against each other like delirious bums fighting over a street corner in a bad neighborhood. Sometimes he wore a velvet cape. He came off like, royalty – genteel – but of the inbred, anemic variety.

Like I said, he was a character.

So they decide to put on this contest to revitalize his career. It will be held in Brooklyn, where Tiny is from, at a VFW hall, and it will be judged by Tiny, his soon to be ex-wife Miss Vicki – the one he married on the Tonight Show, and Isadore Fertel, Tiny’s friend and protégé, who was pretty close to blind. He wore these giant coke bottle glasses and sang songs about women’s lib. They alert the national and local media. They hand out flyers. They put up posters. This is going to be a BIG event.

And then – on the big day – just about no one comes . . . and literally no one enters. No one. There is literally not one person at this moment in all of New York or seemingly the world that wants to be Tiny Tim – who was, only a few years before, one of the biggest names in show business.

It’s kind of tragic, really.

But, eventually, someone would come along who DID want to be Tiny Tim – still does – or at least he felt and feels compelled to be. His name is Lyman Sundry. He’s a Tiny Tim impersonator. Has been since 1996 – the year the real Tiny died.

On today’s episode of The Irrationally Exuberant, we have his story, told in his own words.

It’s called, Good Things In Tiny Packages. Enjoy.

(sound collage)
(Fade into: Crowd/bar noises)
Voice Over: My name is Lyman Sundry.

Hello my dear, wonderful friends! (Feedback. Yelling. Booing)

VO: I’m 56 years old.

Oh. Ah, can we ah, can we get the levels, ah . . . no?

VO: And I’m a professional Tiny Tim impersonator.

Well, let’s begin (uke strumming)

Fuck you! (Bottle smash)

OK, I’m done.

(Crowd/bar fades into uke strumming, into song)

You want me to play a tune? Alright um . . . “They Always Pick On Me”

The first time I saw Tiny Tim was the same way everyone else saw him – on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1968.

(Tonight Show clip)

And , you know, I didn’t think much of it at the time, I guess. I was 17 and I had other things on my mind, as you do. I thought he was kind of odd, but also kind of funny and nice and then I didn’t think much beyond that.

I was living with my parents in Dilworth, Minnesota – we just didn’t have any connection to all of that Hollywood business beyond Johnny, and even then it felt like it was being beamed in from another planet, like Pubetron Fergleven or something.

And then I saw him on Laugh In – and I really thought that was great.

(Laugh In Clip)

But again – I had my life to live. I was getting ready to go to college. I had all of these friends. Girls. I didn’t dwell on it too much. And of course I’d see him around on the television here and there from time to time doing this and that, but then he kind of just, you know, disappeared.

And I went about building a life. I became a lawyer. I was pretty good at it. I married the love of my life, Jeanie, my ex-wife – she was so beautiful – and we had 2 kids, Terrell and Ashley – great kids. I was in excellent shape – I ran in those Iron Man marathons where you have to swim and bike in addition to running the 26 miles. We had a good life. We were comfortable, bordering on affluent.

(I’m A Lonesome Little Raindrop or Bunny Nose)
(Bowling alley sounds)

And then . . . and then one day in 1994 I was at the bowling alley, Lucky Strikes – for league night. I was on a team with some of my lawyer friends and my brother in law, Nick. We called ourselves Striker, Striker, and Spare, Attorneys At Ball. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was on fire. We were in the 8th frame and I had a perfect game going. Everybody was ecstatic. That doesn’t happen very often. We were all right, but no professionals, you know? And just after I’d rolled that 8th strike and had slapped everyone’s hand, I excused myself to go get another beer. And the bar – it was attached to the bowling alley but you had to go through a door to get to it. And I opened that door, and there was Tiny Tim, like a vision, singing Mickey the Monkey by ________ on this kind of makeshift stage to maybe seven people.

(Mickey the Monkey)

And it knocked me on my ass. He was older, of course, and fatter than I remembered, but he was dressed just the same. And he looked so . . . so sad, even though he was smiling, like in his eyes. He looked sad. And it was transfixing. I couldn’t believe he was still doing it. I was transfixed, that’s the only word for it. Each song bled into the next without a pause, these wonderful old songs – so innocent, just like him.

(song)

I sat down maybe four feet in front of him and I must have been sitting there for 15 minutes before he noticed me, and then he just kind of winked and smiled at me and kept going and I kept sitting there. Eventually my brother in law came into the bar to find out what was taking me so long. It had been my turn to bowl for awhile. And I wouldn’t come. He was laughing and talking to loud and kind of disrupting the show since we were so close to Tiny. Nick didn’t even know who he was. And I was just trying to get him to be quiet. I wouldn’t even look at him. And eventually Tiny became agitated and stormed off. I went back to my game and rolled 8 gutter balls in a row. Nick said it was like I was in a trance, and I suppose I was.

Tiny had triggered something inside of me. When I looked at him it felt like I was looking into a mirror and seeing my true self for the first time. It was horrifying and deeply confusing. But also wonderful. From that day on, I was a Tiny Head, though I didn’t know that term yet.

Interviewer: Can you play another song?

Oh, of course Mr. Reid.

(song)

So, after that, everything changed pretty quickly. I significantly cut back on my hours at the law firm and kind of retreated from my family in my pursuit of all things Tiny. It wasn’t easy to find the records and posters and articles and what not in those days, because personal access to the Internet was pretty new, so I spent a lot of time in libraries and on the phone and travelling to Tiny Tim concerts. Eventually I got connected with the Tiny Heads – they were a group of about 18 people who were totally dedicated to Tiny, and they were a huge help. Here let me show you some of the things in my collection.

(Shuffling)

Here is a first pressing of the God Bless Tiny Tim! LP. That was his first album. Just an absolute classic. I’ll play you a song, the fidelity is amazing.

(On The Old Front Porch)

That’s Tiny duetting with himself.

And this is the second album, called Tiny Tim’s Second Album.

Let’s see, we’ve got very rare copies of the controversial Santa Claus Has Got the Aids single. They only made like 1000 of these and nobody wanted them, so there are really probably only two left.

Just so many singles . . . they were all issued either independently by Tiny or various other kind of fly by night labels over the years, he’d basically just record with whoever would have him.

Oh, here’s the split EP he did with GG Allin. That one’s kind of interesting. GG was a huge Tiny fan and Tiny, I guess, didn’t really know who GG was and was sort of horrified when he actually heard the music.

Let’s see – a VHS copy of Blood Harvest – the horror movie that Tiny starred in in 1987.

A video of Tiny getting married to Miss Vickie on the Tonight show, of course.

Here’s a poster for Tiny’s show at Luna Park in Australia where he beat the all time continuous singing record when he sang continuously for 2 hours and 18 minutes, and here’s a bootleg copy of that performance.

I’ve got magazines, and photocopies of newspaper articles – I had the Howard Stern interviews, but I threw those away out of respect for Tiny. Howard was so rude to him, it was terrible.

I’d say I probably have the world’s biggest Tiny Tim collection, really. I’m not sure I really have competition even.

(song)

Anyway, so I was spending all this time collecting Tiny stuff and all I talked about was Tiny and I played his music constantly and at the same time my appearance was really starting to change, like, almost immediately. It was very concerning to my friends and family. I gained an enormous amount of weight very quickly, like 100 pounds in three months. I started to grow my hair out – it had always been very trim and neat before and I started to just kind of let it do it’s thing aside from that patented Tiny Tim side part.

And I began wearing these colorful suits that didn’t fit so well even though they were very expensive to have made. Like the one I’m wearing now – the theme of this one is The Love Guru. It has pictures from the Mike Myers film The Love Guru all over it.

Isn’t it beautiful?

Reid: Yeah.

I went in – without telling anyone – and got this experimental dental procedure done – reverse braces. A dentist had come up with it because he thought that, like, Anglophiles would want it or something, but, of course, no one did, so I was the first. The braces went behind my teeth and pushed them out. It was very painful – still is actually. It kind of destroyed the structure of my jaw. But, you know, it makes the look more authentic.

And that same day I went in and got my nose elongated and had my hairline lazed backward.

When I came home, it was like, my family treated me like some kind of monster. And I realized that they were strangers to me and that this was natural. I WAS a monster and they should have been treating me this way all along. You know, I’d never really been judged and persecuted before and it was exhilarating, especially at the hands of these people who supposedly loved and cared about me.

So, I had to move out, obviously, and into one of those weekly rate hotels, just like Tiny lived in.

It was kind of like – you know that movie The Santa Clause? With Tim Allen? It was kind of like that – that rapid – except at the end of it I wasn’t this beloved, gift bearing, mythical man. I was Tiny Tim.

(song)

And I lost my job, of course. There was no way a jury was going to take my side looking like that.

Reid: How is your relationship with your family now?

Well, I only really saw them once after that. I convinced my wife to take a family vacation with me . . . this was just a couple of months after I moved out. I was feeling intense guilt about how things were working out and I thought I should just give this – my family – one more chance.

So, we agreed to meet at Spooky World in Rhode Island. My idea. It’s this Halloween themed theme park. We – the family – we’d always loved Halloween – had really gone all out with decorations and costumes, so it seemed like it was a good place to start patching things up and getting them used to the new me.

And when we got there – I met them there – everything was going . . . fine? I guess. As fine as it could until they found out that Tiny was playing three shows a day at the parks Scareoke stage and that was that. They left immediately and the divorce papers were waiting for me when I got back to the hotel I was living at.

(song)

But, you know, before that, at the park by myself – that was incredible. I got to see three Tiny Tim shows a day for three days. I even got mistaken for him a few times, which was a real thrill.

And then, then I came face to face with the man himself. Just for a minute. I got his autograph – had to stand in line for almost an hour to get it, that’s how popular he was at the park – and when I stood in front of him he looked at me and smiled – and I swear I could see recognition in his eyes. I don’t know if he recognized himself in me or if he remembered me from the bowling alley, but he recognized me. And he said – I’ll never forget it – he said.

“Try switching to Retinal Moisturizing Cream for face in the white and black container, that Oil of Olay Regenerist stuff will dry out your skin.”

He knew exactly which kind of face cream I was using! Just incredible.

So that really strengthened my resolve. That was a real sign that I was doing the right thing. And the next day I bought a ukulele.

(song)

Well, it didn’t feel right to impersonate Tiny while he was alive. But I’d heard – and he said himself – that his health was fading because of the diabetes and his – just his lifestyle. As much as he took care of his skin and worried about germs, his diet was terrible. So, I kind of just hunkered down and spent my time learning the songs.

(song)

And then, a year and a half later, on November 30, 1996, Tiny Tim died. He was playing Tip Toe Through the Tulips, believe it or not, at the Women’s Club in Minneapolis and had his second heart attack and that was it. It was a real tragedy and I really excpected to cry – to really take it hard, but you know what? The minute his death was announce I just felt a sense of purpose. I felt the Holy Spirit entered me. I hadn’t been religious before, but Tiny sure had, and I can only believe that his spirit entered me and brought Jesus with it, and he’s been in my heart ever since, thanks be to God.

So I said a prayer, picked up my ukulele and walked out onto the street, and that’s when I performed as Tiny Tim for the first time.

The response was . . .mixed. The few people that knew he had died kind of gave me sad smiles and nods and the people that didn’t either ignored me or scowled at me. One guy called me a faggot.

And the next day they had an open mic night at a bowling alley, The Pin Pad, which I thought was appropriate since a bowling alley was where this all started, in a way. And I went and I played some songs as Tiny and – thanks be to Jesus – the response was just incredible. The news of his death had gotten around and people were just so nice. They were cheering and – oh, I just can’t help but smile thinking about it.

So that gave me the confidence I needed to take the next step. A week later I was on a Greyhound headed for Los Angeles.

(song)

I had . . . some money. Maybe $15,000. Jeannie took the rest – I didn’t fight her. I figured that and whatever money I earned performing as Tiny Tim would be enough to live on. Which, you know, live is probably too strong a word.

I moved into the Oakwood II, which is basically just a cheaper, worse version of the Oakwood – that hotel where all the aspiring kids and their parents stay – and it’s in North Hollywood, which is a good stretch away from, you know, real Hollywood. It’s mostly filled with people that couldn’t afford to stay at the Oakwood anymore. Kids that are no longer kids and still holding onto the dream.

On the plus side, junkies are a captive audience.

And I met my manager there. Irwin Grendel. He runs Ape Magnet Productions and calls himself The Ape Tamer. He specializes in celebrity impersonators, which I guess is what I am.

It feels like more than that, though. Like I’m a continuation, not an imitation.

(song)

I met Irwin after a couple of months at the OakII and, listen, is he the most upright fella I’ve ever met? No. Is he, in fact, kind of a weasel? Yes. Does he have my best interests at heart? No. Does he wear exactly the right amount of hair jelly and not a drop more? Also no.

But, I’ll tell you, I don’t know what I’d do without him. Nobody else would touch me. It was brutal in those months before him. I had no idea where to start. I just walked around outside, strumming and singing and I don’t think I came across one person that was happy to see me. I was depressed.

And then I thought, “What would Tiny do?”

And the answer to that was obviously to sign a ridiculously exploitative contract with a shifty manager. He did it a million times in his career. I mean, Roy Radin got murdered and chopped up and nobody shed a tear. They all figured he had it coming, and they weren’t wrong.

I could definitely see Irwin getting chopped up.

Anyway, he was staying at the Oakwood II . . . too. I saw him in the hall with a guy who looked to be a white Steve Urkel impersonator with a black eye. And when I walked by he yelled, “Tiny Tim! Tip Toe Through the Fuckin’ Tulips!”

And that just set me off. I started weeping. It had been so long since anyone had shown me anything but disdain.

So he took me by the arm and led me into his apartment – told white Urkel to get fucked – and he explained who he is and what he does. He has this massive roster of celebrity impersonators . He’s got a Peter Criss, a Mr. Belvedere, a Toucan Sam, a Dennis DeYoung, ah, a Ronald McDonald that he has to call Red Donald the Hamburger Clown to avoid a law suit, um, Mary Todd Lincoln, a John Cougar Mellencamp, a Johnny Cougar, and a John Mellancamp . . . Chris Gaines, Delta Burke, the list goes on and on. He figures if he has enough people he doesn’t have to rely on any one of them getting consistent work, which they don’t. Did I mention that he has a Delta Burke?

So I signed his standard contract – 50 dollar a month retainer regardless of whether he gets me any gigs and 30% of anything I make. I also made him write in a clause that he’d try to get me a record deal.

That’s the goal. Like I said, I don’t want to just be a tiny impersonator, I want to continue what he started.
These aren’t easy shoes to fill. They’re not shoes you’d probably want to fill even if it was easy. They’re old and the soles are wore out. The seams are barely holding together. And they stink like any number of foot powders. They don’t even have laces. It’s like . . . they’ve been sitting in a bin by the front door of a Goodwill marked “Free” but they’ve been there for years and nobody’ll take ‘em.

Interviewer: So . . .why do you do it?

I guess . . . I mean, sometimes I don’t know. But I guess in the same way that God called Herbert Khaury to become Tiny Tim . . . I got that same call. And does it complicate matters that my call came late and kind of secondhand? Sure. But the Lord . . . you know how the saying goes. And that goes for Tiny Tim as well. The lord and Tiny work in mysterious ways . . . yes they do. Mysterious and sad and tiresome ways.

Posted on

Christmas Special: The Caganer

It’s a classic episode of The Irrationally Exuberant! This beloved Christmas episode is about The Caganer, a pooping man the Catalonians hide in their Nativity Scenes, for some reason. It’s fascinating, hilarious, features the first appearance of Foam Chomsky, and . . . there’s a beloved Christmas song, “Oh, Caganer”!

Listen, if you can watch the same five Christmas movies every year, you can damn well revisit this old chestnut.

Enjoy! And may god bless us everyone, everywhere!

Posted on

Platytudes: A Song

Parent: Listen up boys and girls! Can I have your attention, please? Gertrude, honey, can you lay off your birthday tapas for a second and come here? Alright. Unfortunately, the Existential Magician we had booked for the party came down with a case of the Mondays, but he was nice enough to send a replacement who’s going to sing us some songs. Doesn’t that sound fun?

Children: (quiet)

Parent: Well. (clears throat) Um, lets have a big hand for, um, I’m sorry, what was your name sir?

Roger: Roger. Roger Toledo. I sing kids songs.

Parent: Right. Let’s hear it for Roger Toledo. The one man band!

Platypus don’t need your platitude
He’s gonna
Swim around and eat bugs and shit
If it’s all the same to you

He’s got
Lots of fur
no teeth
Poison spur on the back of his feet
so the

Platypus don’t need your platitude
He’s gonna
Forcibly penetrate a mate
If it’s all the same to you.

He’s got
Fatty tail
Electric beak
Platypus is a fucking freak

But the
Platypus don’t need your platitudes.

Platypus comin’ out of the water
Gonna have
A son or a daughter
But it don’t come out a pussy or pouch
Platypus gonna shit an egg out
And the

Platypus don’t need your platitudes
Sing it with me!
Platypus don’t need your platitudes
One more time!
Platypus don’t need your fu-cking platituuuuuuuuuuuuuuudes.

(Children cheer)

Roger: Thank you and goodnight.

Narrator: The song was a hit, and Roger Toledo went on to become the most successful children’s entertainer in the history of time, earning 8 platinum records, 14 Grammies, 32 Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice awards, a Presidential Medal of Honor, and hundreds upon thousands of millions of dollars before being gunned down by police outside of a record store after a Crystal Methamphetamine fueled robbery that would have netted him a total of $12 and a Captain Beefheart album.

Posted on

Roy Orbison

Script

What do you think of when you hear the name Roy Orbison? Black glasses? A bad haircut? A soaring, operatic voice? A partially shaved bear in a Dracula costume? Pretty Woman? The Travelling Willburys? Maybe even David Lynch movies?

Perhaps nothing at all. Certainly not pimping or writing books about pimping or inventing rap music.

Of all of the founding fathers of Rock ‘N Roll – Elvis, Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis – Roy Orbison is the most anonymous – a figure that most know, but few know much about.

We know his music. He had 22 songs in the Billboard Top 40 between 1960 and 1964, many of which remain firmly entrenched in the cultural zeitgeist. Only the Lonely. Crying. Blue Bayou. It’s Over. Pretty Woman. You Got It.

The music can be ethereal, enchanting. Other-worldly. Heartbreaking. Many other adjectives. The songs often defy the rules of the craft, ignore traditional structure. Typical early rock filtered through a unique mind, tweaked with strings and an emo sensibility – endearing innocence and vulnerability.

And that voice. Equal parts Pavarotti, Dean Martin, and hysterical grandmother, it soars above everything else, twists and turns and crescendos. It holds you in its grip.

There’s a suspense to it all. How does this work? Will it keep working? Every song seems like it’s on the verge falling apart, every note on the verge of breaking.

But it doesn’t. They don’t.

He’s no James Brown, though. Man, can you imagine that episode. Anyway . . .

We also know the look. Two looks really – the early years and the later years.

The early years, starting from the top: Thick, goth black hair, drowning in mousse and wrangled into a helmet tight pompadour perched above a pale, southern, weak chinned, nerd face; Small, close set, wonky eyes barely visible under thick lensed, black framed, prescription sunglasses, over a small-mouthed, dopey, slightly down-turned smile, all coming together and looking better than it had any right to – greater than the sum of its parts and sitting atop a thin, normal style body in a classic black and white suit.

In the later years, the pompadour had fallen, long and still stiff, outlining the contours of an increasingly doughy face, like a black candle melted over a peeled potato. He grew chubby and favored the least flattering outfit possible for this development – a polyester jumpsuit or, alternately, a more flattering suit, bolo tie combo.

Roy Orbison was a dark, homely, beardless wizard. A conjurer of sadness. A fascinating, important, weird figure in the birth of rock and in the decades after, and it’s time he got his due: the white guilt replacement topic of a solitary, three-fourths episode of a little loved, little listened to, brilliant podcast.

An anecdote, to begin, told by Tom Waits to Charlie Rose. For reference, the concert referred to is the Black And White Night, a kind of victory lap show, where Roy Orbison was backed by some of the artists that count him as an influence, including Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt, KD Lang, Elvis Costello, Jackson Brown, T-Bone Burnett, and Waits:

“This is an odd story. It was after the concert, The Black and White Thing, it was a few hours after that and some of us were still hanging out back at Roy’s hotel room, drinking and, you know, um, imbibing in some other, uh, potent potables, if you will – only a few men left standing. Me, Roy, and Jackson, but I think Jackson was kind of teetering on the edge of the abyss at that point, so I suppose he probably doesn’t remember. Anyway, Roy’s perched on his bed and I’m there and Jackson’s slumped in a chair and Roy says in that quiet voice of his, he says, uh, kind of out of nowhere, “If you play all of the songs I’ve written backwards and at half speed, in the order I wrote them in, it’s an incantion from the Egyptian book of the dead in the original Egyptian.” And I laughed, you know, because I thought it was a joke, but Roy wasn’t laughing and, he’s got those glasses, right, so it’s hard to see his eyes, but from what I could see he was staring right at me and I just, uh, you know, I stopped. Stopped laughing. And then he started singing, kind of, intoning lower and slower than his usual thing, and it sounds like language but it’s not any language I know, right, but it sure as hell could have been Egyptian, and he goes on for, must have been an hour. I swear it, an hour. Jackson fell asleep but Roy was staring into my eyes, man, the whole time and I didn’t dare blink. And then he finished and he said time for bed, and he nodded to the door, and I, uh, I hit the bricks,man, and that’s the last time I ever saw Roy Orbison. He died about a year later.”

Roy Orbison, aka The Big O, aka The Caruso of Rock, aka The Spookiest Man In Showbiz, was born on April 23rd, 1936 to Orbie Lee Orbison, a disgraced magician, known professionally as The Black Orb and ousted from the magic union for dabbling too deeply into the black arts and his refusal to grow a moustache, a requirement for the magic union at the time, and Nadine Vesta Shults, Orbie’s gloomy assistant, who he had lured from a band of American Gypsies when she was but 12 years old.

The small family lived in relative isolation in Vernon, Texas, hunkered down through the Great Depression doing god-knows-what, but moved to Wink, Texas when Roy was seven after Orbie inherited his great uncle’s estate – a grim, dark, supposedly haunted mansion, looming over desolate oil fields.

It has since been razed and the hill it sat upon leveled to make way for a strip mall housing a Papa John’s Pizza, J. Appleseed’s Family Restaurant and Cider Brewery that used to be a Benigan’s, and the lonely remains of an abandoned Blockbuster Video, still unoccupied due to purported paranormal activity. A mute, albino boy strumming an invisible guitar has been spotted on multiple occasions, wandering the video racks, hopelessly searching, perhaps, for a VHS copy of The Fastest Guitar In the World, the ill-fated 1967 comedic western starring none other than Roy Orbison.

This is most of what we know of Orbison’s childhood, as he refused to speak of those days or much of anything really – he was renowned for his mute gloominess – but there is one additional item of interest. Until his seventeenth year Roy’s hair was bone white, not the deep black that would later become such a prominent aspect of his signature, unsettling style. The black hue came from hot tar, which he would run through his mane each morning with a steal comb and also accounted for the acrid, eye watering smell which filled any room he entered.

And we know that a young Roy Orbison played music, of course. From the day he was born he was singing. Legend has it that instead of crying, an infant Roy would wail a soul rending Bolero melody in perfect pitch. His father gave him his first guitar at six years old – conjured the instrument from another realm, if you believe the rumors, but it’s also possible he just bought it from a store. Either way, Roy took to it immediately, with no training, and would wander the oil fields below his family’s estate, strumming Spanish rhythms and crooning – always crooning – a tiny, pale boy leaving a swath of weeping roughnecks in his wake.

Which begs the question – is the ghost of a young Roy Orbison haunting an abandoned Blockbuster Video on the grounds of his family’s former estate? I’m not sure that’s how ghosts work, but it can’t just be a coincidence.

By the time he was a teenager, Roy Orbison was known and feared across West Texas, as a powerful musician and maybe more. His solo performances, mostly held in dirty, rowdy honky-tonks, were more séance than concert. The gloomy, nearly translucent kid would get on the stage with his guitar and the whole place would go quiet. Where there had been western swing and fights and whooping and hollering just a moment before, there was now only silence, occasionally interrupted by weeping, while he played his haunting tunes, songs which haven’t survived to this day, but were, according to the few accounts we have, closer to funeral dirges than country songs.

There was plenty of work for a while – there are innumerable dives in West Texas and at the time they’d let just about anybody play – but eventually Roy’s reputation for hypnotizing an audience became a detriment. The owners of the establishments couldn’t sell booze if their customers were in a weepy trance. They stopped hiring him.

So he retreated back to his family’s mansion.

And then he saw Elvis perform on Ed Sullivan and everything clicked into place. If he was going to be a musician, he’d have to channel whatever it was inside him into something more commercial.

So he changed his look – used the tar in his hair because it was close at hand and he liked the way it burned – put a band together, The Wink Westerners (later changed to the Teen Kings) names so ambiguous as to rouse no possible feelings of discomfort in potential booking agents or audience members, a plan of deceptive ambiguity that he would stick to his entire career.

They played covers, mostly – country tunes by Lefty Frizell and Bob Wills as well as rock stuff from Elvis and Johnny Cash. They were a sensation, packing them in from to _______ with their unique blend of standard youth music as filtered through the other-worldly voice of their front man.

And then Roy wrote the first song of his career. What, if Tom Waits is to be trusted, and he is, would, when played backwards, make up the final lines of the Egyptian incantation. The song was ominously titled, “Ooby Dooby”.

And, shockingly, it took off.

Everybody in America was doing the Ooby Dooby, wiggling to both the left and the right, shaking like a big rattle snack, unaware that they had fallen under the spell of devious mesmerist, whose ultimate goal we can only guess at, but was probably the legalization of . . . something, and, thus, uh, the ushering in of the end times.

Stop the podcast. This is going nowhere. Roy Orbison wasn’t a dark wizard. That was all lies. I admit it. He was a pretty nice, kind of boring guy with a killer voice and some great tunes.

Let me try this again. A show about bees, maybe? Okay, let’s try a show about bees.

Posted on

Chris Gaines

References and allusions include, but are not limited to:  Bono, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Paul McCartney, Steve Erkel, Screech, Jim Morrison, Patrick Ewing, Buzz Aldrin, Verne Troyer,  Chris Gaines, Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, Bilbo Baggins, Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, Scottie Pippen, Oprah Winfrey, Janet Reno, Emeril Lagasse, Steven Spielberg, coyotes, Garth Brooks, Saturday Night Live,  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Clark Kent, Tony Clifton, Mrs. Doubtfire, Sasha Fierce, Lady Bugs Bunny, Stephan Erkel, Big Mama, Hannah Montana, Richard Bachman, Larry “Grandmama” Johnson, Larry the Cable Guy, Barak Obama, the New York Mets, the San Diego Padres, Kent Hrbek, the Philadelphia Phillies, the Kansas City Royals, VH1, Behind the Music, NBC, YouTube, the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart, Trisha Yearwood, Don Was, Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds, Matchbox 20, Eagle Eye Cherry, Tom Robbins, Bryan Adams, Richard Marx, Don Henley, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Lite Rock 105, Ryan Adams, Stevie Wonder, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel, “Get Together” by The Youngbloods, Kenny Chesney, Pornograffitti by Extreme,  Chris Angel, Pubetron Fergleven, Kentucky, Donald T***p, the KFC Yum! Center, AC/DC, Prince, “Friends In Low Places” by Garth Brooks, Rolling Stone, The Rolling Stones, Kanye West, Green Day, Michael Bolton, Western style shirts, Halloween, bolo ties, Randy Travis, cocaine, and Scrooge McDuck.