Does anyone know anyone who likes to make banana bread? I will give them like four bananas a week, because I will fucking forget to eat my bananas before they turn disgusting and mushy, and then I will give them my bananas so they can make banana bread. Then they can give me some banana bread, but I will fucking forget to eat it before it turns disgusting and moldy. Then maybe I will think, it's not too moldy, and I will eat it, and it will have ergot in there, and then people will think I am a witch. Or I guess a Warlock, as they call witches who have balls.
Figure 12: Bitchez been eatin' too much tainted rye
If I become a Warlock, I will name my balls Gandalf and Dumbledore. However, this is unlikely.
A great wrong was righted on Saturday, when a friend hipped me to this video I had somehow never seen before:
I've been thinking about it a lot since then. What the fuck is going on in this video? I'm not one to enforce some rule that things have to make sense. I could be happy enough just thinking of it as the "leftover cantina band," which is how it was described to me (we're talkin' Star Wars here). But I'm a naturally curious, analytical person. So let's probe.
Like anyone trying to understand some weird-ass video to a tune they don't know very well, I first looked at the lyrics. They seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with the video, except for the fact that they are about someone wanting to be someone's lover, which is presumably the sort of thing that could happen on any given planet, in any given solar system, and so even moreso on what appears to be an Earth-like planet, with a breathable atmosphere, liquid water, and several humanoid and reptilian looking creatures coexisting in a bar-room environment.
As the video begins, Billy Ocean seems to be folded up into a floating, shiny, prismatic pyramid, kinda reminiscent of that mirror-plane thing Ursa, Non, & Zod, those bad guys from Superman, got exiled in. As the beat begins in earnest, there is some sort of space explosion high above some planet, and then we cut in to a view of a fast-moving horse on a beach (maybe it is that same planet that had the explosion?). Wait, the horse looks like a pony, and the rider looks like a little person with a wizard hat. Wait again-- it's a god-damned lizard man! Now he dismounts and enters what looks from the outside to be some kind of natural cave. But on the inside it's a rolicking, dark, smoky bar-room party. In the center of the dance floor is another prism thing, only this one looks like an octahedron or a dodecahedron. Is it where the music is coming from? I don't know, but here comes the Billy Ocean prism, and now it's floating above the dodeca-prism, it seems like they are interfacing in some way.
Wow, that looks just like the chick from Dark Crystal talking to that alien.
Now the Billy Ocean pyramid unfolds, and here's Billy Ocean. Except he's not here. I mean, he's in his own world, in the same scene he was in before. I don't think he literally comes out of the prism, I think maybe his music does, though. But not for long-- now Billy Ocean is in space again, and for a second I could swear he was playing drums. Did Billy Ocean play drums? Anyhow, next thing I know, he folds up again, only now instead of a pyramid, he folds into a prismatic cube. Why?
Back in the cantina, the lizard-man plays a few hot synth licks, and gets some dirty looks from some people, including a TV-headed robot, someone who looks like Jaba the Hut, and someone who looks like Uncle Travelling Matt.
Holy shit! Lizard dude shot the dude Dark Crystal chick was talking to, and now he's kidnapping her! Wait, she is going willingly. I think she likes him. She must be the one who Billy Ocean is talking about when he says "I wanna be your lover," only Billy Ocean is talking from the point of view of the lizard-man.
As the lovebirds flee the cantina, the prism box is floating around and three Jawas are on their knees like they are praising it, like they are testifying, like maybe Billy Ocean is their God. Now the lizard and the girl ride off into the sun on the same pony, on the same beach.
What in the fuck?
Well, let's think. Prisms. Prisms show many facets. Maybe the video is about how the universe has many facets, and it is showing how in one corner of the universe there is this dramatic scene unfolding, but when looked at from another angle, that is exactly what happens when Billy Ocean sings in that dark room. Born in Trinidad, raised in England, his influence is truly universal.
Maybe Billy Ocean is that lizard-dude, but in disguise, you say? Then how come the prism comes in there, too? I don't think he is the same as the lizard guy.
Maybe it is planet Earth, only way in the future, and Billy Ocean travelled through time in that prism, and is continuing to rock the party even after he should have been long dead. This, I think, doesn't matter. Different planet, our planet in the future, whatever-- that trick can never work again after Planet of the Apes.
Here's what I think-- I think Billy Ocean is some sort of God. Like a hero-god, though. He is there to see that this lizard-guy gets his lover. He is like an angel. He busts in on the planet just in time to help out. How does he help? I don't know, he sets up a sweet groove, maybe, and that makes it easier for the lizard. Maybe the Dark Crystal chick loves the groove. In any event, he somehow watches over the process, and then his godliness is supported by those Jawas all testifying outside.
How about this-- in the future, or in space, maybe instead of angels getting their wings when they do good deeds (you know, like in It's a Wonderful Life), they get to advance to a shape with one more side. Maybe they start as a tetrahedron, then they become a cube when they do some good. So maybe that other prism in the cantina was even more advanced, since it seemed to have maybe 8 or 12 sides. Clearly, the final goal for these angels would be to have infinitely many sides, which if you know a little calculus makes them all but spheres. It's all kind of like the social structure in that book Flatland, only 3-D.
How about this-- George Lucas and Jim Henson had some leftover sets, props, and costumes from Star Wars and Dark Crystal, and the director got a deal on them.
How about this-- it's autobiographical, metaphorically. Billy Ocean came from Trinidad, via England, to make people in the U.S. fall in love. He is an outsider who makes insiders hook up. Maybe it is a cry for help. Maybe it is a statement of purpose.
How about this-- it's autobiographical, literally. These things happened, in just this sequence, to the real Billy Ocean. He's seen things that would blow our minds. He's been places we can't imagine. Nobody believes him when he talks about it, so he made a video. It's ok, Billy, I believe you. I mean, come on, is this the smile of a guy who's crazy?
Through a series of strange coincidences beginning the December before last, I have become obsessed with rock and roll music from Philadelphia. That Christmas I received from my brothers no less than five albums of Philly-born rock. In chronological order: The Delfonics' La La Means I Love You and The Delfonics, Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, a True Star, and Dr. Dog's Easy Beat and Toothbrush. I can't think of a single song I don't like on these five albums. The Delfonic's version of A Lover's Concerto rivals both the Toys' original and the Supreme's version. Though he later turned to a-bit-too-smooth pop stylings, earlier Todd Rundgren is all over the place and really exciting. Dr. Dog will give you the dreaded "Dog Fever," which renders you incapable of listening to anything but Dr. Dog, and from which I am just now recovering two years later.
The Delfonics idoolized Little Anthony & the Imperials, who in turn were inspired by Frankie Lymon, a big part of the inspiration behind both Motown records and Len Berry's manufactured group you might have heard of, the Jackson Five. Their producer, Thom Bell, might be the one who invented those soulful, sliding French Horn lines that became so popular in later R&B. You know the ones I'm talking about-- those ones like at the beginning of "Didn't I blow your mind this time" that sound like they're calling out straight to you from the land of soul.
Right before A Wizard . . ., Todd Rundgren's Something/Anything was like a compenium of all the best rock hooks and tricks of its day. I wouldn't say many of the songs on it are great, but they are without a doubt perfect in every way. A Wizard, A True Star is much more scattered and disconnected, with ethereal moments popping out whenever you start to get sick of what else is going on: ADHD rock at its finest.
Dr. Dog is intertwined via shared members with two other Philadlphia bands of similar ilk: the now-defunct Raccoon and The Teeth, both of whom I've been enjoying the hell out of lately and using as a treatment for my Dog Fever, the way a recovering heroin addict switches to methodone on the way back down.
