We're Just Bones in the Clockwork, Man

Ah, so where are we here? Jeff? Jeff, are you there? I can’t see you. What? You want to Zoom? What the fuck is that? The last thing I recall was going headwind into a three day bender upon the ascension, a veritable-vainglorious-scatological shambling…2017...people were worried...yes, that was a while ago. The meantime? Well, I don’t know…i guess I I was working and then I wasn’t, then I started working again, etc., and in the midst of it all there was Mexican and Thai food. Polish food, too. More than a couple of hamburgers. At many points there-in Laura told me to change out of my pajamas, where-upon I usually did and sat back down in jeans.  We moved around a lot, especially after we relinquished the Austin pad last May. Another season on Block Island and then we went criss-crossing this great land, camping and staying in many a motel/hotel accommodation. Yeah, a weird juxtaposition of cheap hotels and American natural splendor. Niagara Falls; Vermont, New York & New Hampshire en route back down to Texas. Toured Falling Water, the famous Frank Lloyd Wright dwelling. Met up with our Wright and stayed at the Joshua Tree Inn in the room next door to the one Gram faded into oblivion in. Carlsbad Caverns (word to the wise, Daugoyevsky- steer clear of New Mexican breakfast fare before descending into an enormous, totally silent cavern.); Joshua Tree again and- sea to shining bullshit sea!- All the way up the 101 through Big Sur and up along the Oregon coast. Lived in Portland  for a hot second. Arches National Park en route back to the DFW. A whole lot of driving, man. Went to The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, Meow Wolf in Santa Fe to get exposed to the finer things.  Hell, I even drove up to the top of Mt. Washington with Laura and my folks. Have you heard about that shit? Fucking terrifying, the kind of experience they give you a bumper sticker saying you survived it. 

All that winding around just to end right back in the ol' ancestral seat here in bland-ass Southlake. A reluctant boomerang plowing through a whiskey-humid American fever-dream.

So yeah, after we elected The Beast into office, I had a bad feeling for the future, yes. Definitely yes. I went on an angst-fueled bender for a couple of days. It felt like we crossed a Rubicon, a place of no going back. A certain state of cognitive dissonance followed. And thus, that last entry. But, I wake up to a new morn and holy shit, Jeff! What the fuck happened? 

A goddamned worldwide lockdown, that’s what! So now my dissonance is the US of A's dissonance. Same feeling as after 9-11, but this time there's no one to declare vengeance upon to forge a 'national unity.' More about that later. Forgive me if I mix a drink. What drink, you ask? Well, how about some absinthe? Yes, Jeff, I know that it is 10:55 am, Texas time, but it didn’t stop me then, and it will not prove to be a barrier now. Why? When? Where? (Getting agitated) Because all barriers fall, for fuck’s sake! Look at the (lighting the sugar in a spoon) Great Barrier Reef! Bleached to the core! Sorry, sorry…please bare with me here, friend…this is leading into a memory. A memory that involves you and myself and great city of Prague, circa 1998. A Good Times Gang sort of affair, right here up in my brain; this boozed-out, beleaguered head organ. 

It’s a sad scene up there- all the copper wiring is dangling all haphazardly outside four or five busted holes in the walls.  Two or three squatters on what looks to be a worn out couch huddled around a couple of burning cd towers. What’s that top one? Is that a Manic Street Preachers cd? This Is My Truth? That must be Jay’s old CD. Crap, what is Jay’s old cd clutter doing up here? Oh well- his were mine, mine were his for awhile. This was before The Space Needle ate the Moray Eels, before DJ Shadow and the refined fare you brought into the picture. But hey- I’ll bet the MSP thought they were changing the world, eh? No doubt the same for ye ol’ Space Needle. Lob the stone, wait and watch for the ripples. "We are young and we have something to say!" Why is William Basinski talking to Tori Amos in the corner? Is this the right time for J. Spaceman to have a conversation with Alex Lifeson? Why are they all subsisting on a diet of dog food and warm Lone star tall boys up there? 

Oh well, they're all old news, right?  Fuck 'em. "Get out of here, brain vagrants! That's right, get!" (Inspecting the burning rubble.) Ah, yes. Here’s a couple of shitty one’s I used to listen to- Sting’s Soul Cages, all smoldering and crusty on the ground here. (Grabbing hold of the burning tower, melting into my flesh) "Fuck it! I will hold onto it all! I am a proud product of my past! I will...never be the person who listened to Sonic Youth in high School or even in my mid-20's. I...l even had a Dave Mathews'a faze! Oh, here's a Peter Gabriel cd I used to love. "I'm holding onto all of it!" Jesus, is post-history reverse dialetically unwinding into vast expanse of scratched and discarded cd's, with no high and no low to judge it by? 

But who am I kidding? You were already listening to Can when I was into 311. And anyway, History is dead, says Fukuyama. MTV, Natalie Merchant and Cobain have disappeared, two figuratively the other literally.  The dialectic ran out and here we are. And now I am inclined to agree with him. In plague times, time feels suspended. Everyday is the same day, and we are just lucky to exist in circumstances that permit ennui. Indeed, we can all don berets and finally feel an affinity for the French. We have time to ruminate. We have time, as it were, to breathe. To breathe and get essentially hammered. So let's grab the Green Fairy and take a wobbly flaneur, eh?

More absinthe! What does any of this have to with Prague, you ask? Well, hold on a second! Proust didn’t hurry about his recollections! Tame that American Exceptionalism, Stanfield!. After-all, we have no outer frontiers to get to at the moment…might as well set your sights to the interior. And that takes tranquility and calm. Breathe, Jeff. Look around Garland. Conjure in your mind the delicious chicken wings we feasted on while watching the Cowboys lose, once again, on that beautiful Fall day. Those wings came from Wing Stop. Breathe. Look into your soul. Wing Stop is still open for take-out.

(In the corner, heating up another spoon) What? Don’t look at me like that! I thought you were sitting cross-legged in chicken-winged tranquility up in your brain at home in Garland a couple of years ago! What? But the Cowboys lost? Goddamnit Jeff, we didn’t even know each other the last time the Cowboys won a play-off game. How am I supposed to take you back to a time I myself can barely remember? Ah, fuck it. Here, have this absinthe. I’ll cook up another. No use in putting up a fight. This shit is beyond whack. 

(Deep bong hit.) Yeah, definitely a Restless Nation. Tocqueville would be fascinated to behold this. The US temperament put to the ultimate test- to idle. I mean, this is happening everywhere so this is a test of national character for every country, right? But for us, staying still is not part of life. No, we have to do. God is watching! Judging…Well, at least in the minds of a lot us anyway. The equivocation of "doing" and American Greatness is a vital link in the minds of many a citizen here. Proof: When you see a Viagara commercial on TV are those guys just laying around crying into their beers? No. They handle it, American-style. That cowboy hooks his phallus to his pickup truck and drags that dick right out of the dirt and into the grace of God Almighty. And we'll be right there- as a nation- to bear witness, tears streaming down our cheeks and pride glowing in our soul. All of God and American Greatness lies within that glorious vessel, and lo, It shall mount the world. Anything less is a Judeo/Christian dereliction of patriotic Dick Duty.

But let’s face it, my socially-distant compadre- we are not plowing any fields these days. Most of us were putting in eight hours a day in order to afford shelter and Wing Stop. The Economy is the new religion. Prosperity, once relinquished, lays bare a basic truth- that we aren’t bound to existence by anything concrete- nope, it’s all a centrifugal mass delusion of “culture.” And our national temperament is not suited to getting this truck out of this particular puddle of mud.

And that’s fine. We needed it, this pause. Nietzsche diagnosed it, and since then we have been informed that we’ve been moving through the death of God. God understood as a cultural center, mind you.  Have you read the Parable of the Lantern Dude? I think it was in The Gay Science. Anyhoo, this guy wanders into this town in the middle of the day swinging a lantern, freaking out that all the lights are out. Everyone rightly assumes he’s a dumb-ass and tells him as much. At that point, he takes a step back, looks around and basically says “Huh. Well damn. Y’all don’t get it. The thing keeping your day-to-day bullshit going is gone. Your religion is the last light from a dead star. You don’t know it yet, ‘cause your walking around in your present. Myself? I am a crazy dude from future times who is just now wondering why I’m having this conversation in the first place. Pray tell, where is the privy?  And oh- before I forget- You guys were the one’s who offed Him…stopped taking Him seriously and what-not. So (looking around anxiously for a toilet) So you might as well stop wringing your hands and get to work on something pretty fucking awesome to take His place. Until then, I’ll just chill out with this lantern and catch up on Tiger King”.

So shit duly filled the void, as shit is wont to do. We went from Baudelaire taking his fancy walks at the fin de siecle to our present day pandemic-riddled "globalized" globe. But one thing always stays the same: everyone has some gospel or another that they subscribe to. Nietzsche was hoping that we’d find something up on high, a manufactured “noble” goal, a ‘la Greece back in the day. An ideal, if you will. Personal excellence, the elevation of the individual. The Ubermensch. His diagnoses, though unfortunately taken as a challenge and justification for many historical agents (Hitler) nonetheless remains true. After thinking on it for a quarter of a century I have come to think that Nietzsche was a right about the disease but naive about the cure. 

Because the hard truth here is that there isn’t a cure. There isn’t a center. It’s all a bunch of bullshit. That syphilitic genius/dipshit had no idea what the rest of us could agree on. Bound by his illness, his inexperience (no women, no age, no stabilizing vices) and having no taste for beer or even Wing Stop, all he had was the philological past, which he decided should be the future as well. But there is no going back, am I right? No, there was only the steamroller into two world wars and all the rest of it. Once again, he accurately diagnosed the problem, but sadly, even tragically, exacerbated the whole shit show. Nope. It was always going to be downhill from God. Those that attempt to "rise" up as super people do so without mystique, investment banker douchebag types..Peloton Folk, in short. And those of us that hang out by our '78 Pontiac Firebirds will be content in being marginally, sexually amazing. And that will be enough. 

Hm. Where can I steal a '78 Firebird here in Southlake? I know there are a lot of Hummers to be had, but vintage Firebirds? Might be time to don a loincloth, brandish a spear and begin The Hunt. We are literally surrounded by castles, practically begging to be stormed. Probably better dig out a tape to listen to while I'm at it. I think I have RATT's "Out of the Cellar" buried somewhere in my parent's attic. If I can't dictate the tunes than I can't determine the tone and then what's the point of the whole endeavor? 

Exactly. So what, then? Why do we even feign a shit here? What keeps this whole shebang going? I have no idea. We are on thin ice and, as a species, and it is glaringly obvious that we need a tribe to fight. This virus is exactly the wrong kind of enemy to deal with right now. What we need are aliens in spinning orbs descending on us from unfathomable distances, the solution eventually launching Randy Quaid sacrificially into the womb of the hive, The Mothership. 

That’s the kind of shit that will bind us, as a people. Not some “invisible enemy.” Hm. (Sadly shaking my head) Where is he these days? Hell, I’ll pour two fresh absinthes in his honor. Now Jeff, stop it. You can’t say no. I insist. What the hell is there to stay sane for anymore? Don’t worry, your kids will just think you’re being a little weird today. And besides, they have their own inner lives to attend to. Remember- dip the sugar into the potion and then light it. Gotta remember to blow it out before putting back in though! Around the third drink absinthe drinking gets tricky. This (lifting glass) is for Randy and his rascally patriotic heroics. 

Ah, that was good. Weird texture, though. The hot sugar down the back of the throat is an odd aspect to it all. But hey, it’s all in the name of nostalgia, right? What? When am I going to get to Prague? You mean Praha? (chuckles) Soon enough, Jeff, soon enough. More immediately pertinent though, The Quaids ruled back in the 80’s and 90’s did they not? Dennis and world savin’ Randy. Dennis himself battled a third iteration of Jaws, another foe we could all agree on. (Albeit too late, thus DQ, the hero of the hour.) Fuckin’ saved Sea World, man! Clearly, the example of the Quaid Brothers proves that American solidarity requires a concrete, easily discerned foe, one that requires spunk and spontaneity to defeat. American White Spunk, specifically. How we fight: We mount the enemy and then proceed to thrust unto it until it releases and repents! But because God is dead, this virus does not give us that option. We can’t go all-American on it. No, we have to be dormant, the most un-American thing there is in the Universe to do. We have to relinquish the role of action-hero in our own heads. We have to feel insignificant; powerless. There is no Brukheimer solution. 

Which is why I feel like the man for this moment. Jeff, I always feel insignificant. Nothing to see here! So let us go back in time, shall we? Let’s go back to Prague. The ol’ Clown & Bard Hostel. Besides the obvious hazy recollections, the in's and outs' of drinking and reveling and all those dimly-lit, youthfully naive conversations in strange corners of that wonderful bar, I remember taking a tour that one of the regulars there offered. On said tour, we stopped in front of The Astronomical Clock right by Wenceslas Square and he told us about the legend of clock maker. According to legend, upon finishing the clock, the king blinded him so he could never build another. Whereupon, out of revenge the clock-dude flung himself into the rigging, stopping the clockwork for nigh on a hundred years. Symbolically, time stood still. Now, this metaphor probably is not a new one for the Czech people, what with all the communism and what-not they endured. But I feel like it’s an apt one for our current situation as well. What? Well, there isn't a literal connection, Jeff. Well shit, now that I think about it doesn't really add up at all. What's the clock, who's bones, you ask? Jeff! Stop asking these infernal questions! Here, take a a good rip off this bong, okay? All right then, now. Let's just back up a little. We're the bones, man, humanity. We're just bones jamming up the rigging of the economy. And Covid-19 was the masked bandit that kidnapped us all in the middle of a delicious meal at Wing Stop...and summarily hoisted us all up, as a species, and threw us down into the rigging of post-modernity. Hell, he even threw the boneyard in there as well, simply for kicks. So here we all are, mired up in this metaphorical clockwork, all chopped, screwed and intermingled with tiny chicken bones. 

“Let them drink bleach!” bellows our leader. Well, I’m glad that we’re getting closer to the truth of it all. Might as well get down to the marrow of his real sentiments for us fellow citizens. A vast field of strewn wreckage boiled down to it’s essential elements. “Drink bleach!” Good God, even the Soviet leadership never devolved this low. And believe it, he’s probably spewing a new bunch brain-stem ramblings as I type this. Fine enough! More gasoline for the Great Blaze of 2020! Wait…wrong paragraph. “Drink bleach and get back to work!” For the truth of the matter is that because there is no center, because civilization is based on The Absurd, because The Historical Dialectic has gone out to sea to reveal us as a bunch of dumb-struck fish flopping around wildly on this fresh new beach- because of all these things we are in the awkward position of having to make an arbitrary or ridiculously reasoned argument pertaining to why we should put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Cue the Lungfish, because we have finally hit the edge of mind/body split, where the mind has run out of ideas but our bodies keep on doing their biological thing. Yeah, that’s it in a nutshell: a bunch of fish flopping around in slow-motion to Lungfish. But hey, aren’t the robots supposed to take it all over? Where are those assholes? This is a perfect time for AI to seize the reins. If we program them correctly, it's even a time for them to seize the moral authority. 

Wait, did Kim Jong Un just die? Well shit, why not? Might as well really douse this pyre in gasoline to add a bit of flare to this eschatological dumpster fire, right? Wait, he didn't? Hm. Here to believe, I guess. But hey, why get into all that stuff? The future might still have a few aces up it’s sleeve, and I for one don’t want to squander whatever grotesque magic that lies ahead. And besides, it’s a remarkably tranquil day here at the Wirtala Manor. The birds are fluttering about, the “fuck-yeah let’s do this!” Spring-green foliage is bursting forth in Tartovskyian dimensions and one could very well be forgiven for forgetting that anything, good or bad, is going on at all out there. Plus, there’s this goddamned cat that we all love inside that couldn’t care less about all my ecclesiastical rumination that requires me to entertain it through “play.” 

The fool must earn his keep, after-all. And it's about time The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion bumped shoulders with Toad the Wet Sprocket on this playlist.