10/25/04

Lying down. The restraints on my arms and legs do not appear to be either superficial or fetishistic, nor are they punitive. The straps are velcro, the covers are padded, the fabric plain cotton. White cotton sheets, faint smell of bleach, rubbing alcohol. Is this a hospital?

I move my head cautiously. Something is attached to my scalp.

The attendant appears suddenly, almost like an apparition. He too is dressed in white, a doctor's ritual garb. He is thin, dark featured, congenial, professional. "Good morning," he greets me. "How are you feeling?"

"Where am I?" I ask.

"Don't worry about that just yet, sir. We'll fill you in soon. Just let me take a few measurements." He skillfully maneuvers several peculiar tools in and around my head. They make a pleasant clucking noise. I have a momentary surge of sensations, colors, sounds, smells swirling around me, acute flashes of memory. They pass.

I try to be more assertive. "Why am I here? Was I in some sort of accident?" I test the restraints.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir, let me help you." The attendant quickly releases me from the straps. The velcro is silent as he detaches it. I see that it isn't velcro, but some sort of magnetic stripping. He sits me on the side of the bed. A wire harness dangles from the back of my head, leading to a blanched console nearby studded with buttons and lights. No sign of life-assistance equipment, no ventilators or saline drip -- only a catheter.

A sudden horror grips me, cold in the pit of my stomach. I'm not a patient. I'm a test subject.

I reach up to the wires, trying to determine their purpose. The attendant grabs my hand, pulls it down gently. I'm weaker than I expect. "Please, sir, don't touch the apparatus, you could hurt yourself. We'll explain everything in a moment. Just relax, sir, everything is all right, you're in no danger. It's all right, sir."

His tone is soothing, nonthreatening. I acquiesce. He shines a light into each of my eyes, tests my reflexes, listens to my chest with something that isn't quite a stethoscope. Makes notes on a handheld unit. The lights in the room shimmer.

"I really need to know what's going on," I insist. The attendant sighs. "Just a moment more, sir, and I'll fetch the director. I'm sure he'll fill you in. Just a moment." He completes one final measurement, notes it, and turns away. The shimmer increases for a moment and when he turns back, I see a different figure, older, gray at the temples, a high forehead, piercing eyes, a dark conservative suit.

"Hello, I'm the director. How are you?" he greets me. "Sorry for all the confusion, but there's a lot going on." His voice is deeper, more commanding than the attendant's. "Everything will be straightened out soon and you'll be back on track."

"On track?" I ask. "On track where? What is this place?"

The director smiles. "Not really a place, actually. More of a soundstage or perhaps a computer simulation. It's neither of those actually, of course, but do understand that we're not being fully candid about your surroundings only to ensure your safety and well-being."

"I kinda figured. Should I assume that the life I ordinarily live, the one I remember, is also a simulation?"

"Well, yes and no. And I know that sounds like doubletalk. I'm sorry. There's not a lot of time and we can't risk contaminating your sensorium with too much contradictory data. Part of the problem we're having, that you're having, is corrupt data. Remember the squirrel with no tail you saw yesterday?"

Yesterday. The other side, where I work as a handyman fixing the little problems of little householders, where I'm a tiny cog in a vast world. The tail-challenged squirrel was scrounging outside the house where my latest project, a deck rail rebuild, was sited. I felt sorry for it -- a squirrel without a tail is not only no good on a tree limb, it's also functionally mute. "Yes, I remember."

"That was the tipoff. When we monitored that, we knew there was enough trouble with the, uh, program that we would have to take you out to make the repairs."

"Repairs, eh? My not-a-simulation simulation is crashing?"

"Don't worry, it's all going to be fine."

"If you're going to be doing a remodel on my reality, there's a buncha stuff I'd really like to see happen. For instance --"

"No." The director looks grave. "We can't do that. Despite any evidence to the contrary, this is a very precise experiment. We need to maintain the boundries. If we let you get involved, there are feedback loops that could develop, potentially even worse than what we're cleaning up now." He smiles suddenly. "Like I said, don't worry."

"Seems to be the motto around here."

"I think we know some of your concerns, and let me reassure you, you'll be very pleasantly surprised by how it all turns out in the coming weeks and months. Things have gotten rather out of hand, but they'll be coming back to normal soon."

"Well, great. Better than my last horoscope, anyways. Does that mean--?"

"No, no, no more. Just relax. We have to prepare you." He helps me lie back down, adjusts the padded restraints. He blurs, the lights shimmer again, I have a vague sense of falling, of the smell of flowers, of vast shapes turning in an immeasurable void. Then dark, silence.

Nothing's changed that I can spot. Things are things, work is work, the world wags on. I suppose if anything's different, it's too soon to tell. Assuming that the whole thing wasn't just another stupid dream.

But I haven't seen the tailless squirrel since.

10/18/04

10/11/04

Caught between the desire to sing and the yuck in my throat, I had to settle for staying in the lower third of my range and concentrate more on hitting notes on pitch than on nuance. Despite that, I managed to hold on to the material and even have a few bright moments. After all, what's scat about if not funny noises?

Normally, my ability to sing on an Amber Tide gig isn't all that big an issue. S has always done the heavy lifting in the vocal department, and without her, I generally revert to sullen instrumentalism. But in the face of her recent extended absence, I've been forced to come out of the shirt-mumbling closet and actually warble a little, and to my surprise, I'm not bad.

I generally liken my voice to mashed potatoes. It's okay, not especially distinctive, could never be mistaken for a main course, but it's pleasant and goes with everything and makes a dandy sidedish. I have a musical history of blending well with other voices, and having an accurate ear and a good sense of harmony helps.

Of late, though, I've been finding more and more uses for mashed potatoes, chiefly in the area of standards. While S was lost in the Hospital Zone, I started seriously developing a solo act centered around my own version of the American Songbook -- not just the lovely old swing and show tunes so beloved of jazz and cabaret performers but also sturdier recent works from the tidal wave of singer-songwriters that crashed onto the scene in the late 60's and still shows no sign of abating. These are songs that stand on their own merits. They work just as well with one guitar and a voice as they do with oceans of oily strings from The Milton Muldish Orchestra. They're the musical equivalent of a fashion model with good bones.

For these tunes, my voice is actually not too bad. I may not be the liposuctioned body of the year tearing up the catwalk, but I have good bones too. In truth, my inspiration for doing this stuff is Tony Bennett, who, while never mashed potatoes, is likewise no highly evolved vocal promontory. He sounds a lot like Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin or a half dozen other vaguely Eyetalian baritones with good intonation and a modicum of swing -- in short, a pro, through and through. He has nothing to prove, no stones to turn. He just sings the song. For a while I was calling what I was doing my Phony Bennett Act, but that got old quick.

I didn't always have an appreciation for the classic voices of pop, Frankie and Bing and all their kin and ilk. Critics rhapsodising over Sinatra's phrasing or his supposed ability to tell a song's story or deliver its emotional content left me scratching my head -- all I ever heard was a bunch of white guys singing the scales. I was equally baffled by the melismatic acrobatics of rhythm and blues artists. It took years of listening, and living, for me to decode any of the feelings conveyed by a whole range of vocal techniques, from Sinatra's stoic monotone to Aretha's ecstatic wails.

One of the themes of 20th century performing arts was the desire to pierce the 4th wall separating the artist from the audience, to allow the entertainer's personality to supersede the restraints of the style within which they labored. Certainly, emotional communication has always been one of the goals of performance, from the Greek tragedies right on down, but that communication has always been limited by whatever emotional language the audience understood. It's hard to indicate nuance with a raised eyebrow if you're wearing a mask. This is why talents like Sinatra and Louis Armstrong were lionized in their time. Within their context they seemed brave and nakedly honest, even shocking in their ability to impart deeper feelings and ideas than the regular run of blackface bumpkins and cardboard crooners.

But in art as in technology, today's innovation is tomorrow's obsolescence. Each generation of fans finds new icons of stirring emotion, each one building on the successes of the previous model, and each rendering that former version irrelevant. Two or three iterations of the process and Satchmo's innocent joyous laugh decays to a grating Uncle Tom shuck and jive, while the young Sinatra's lovelorn directness, so in contrast to the typical megaphone-voiced mechanic of the period, fades to self-parodying charade, another slick seduction come-on from another heartless prick.

Perhaps all attempts to pierce the veil and reveal a piece of your heart through music are doomed -- victims of the necessity of encasing social mannerisms to carry what cannot be spoken, and of the inevitable decay of those mannerisms into dead letters. Maybe, like hot sexual fantasies or clever plot devices, such mannerisms are only useful for a short time before they reach their expiration date.

My own take, though, is a little more optimistic. The strength of the classic tunes and their classic interpreters lies as much in their universality as their venerable history, a universality reflected in a world-wide popularity matched only by that King Kong of American music, The Stars and Stripes Forever. We might take the conclusion for the premise here: the very fact that a style has such a wide appeal may point to something ubiquitous in the human spirit, a commonality of the family of man.

At the very least, it's a direction for me to take with my mashed potatoes. Or whatever they are.

10/4/04

Okay, let's get down to it. You mind cigars? I adore cigars. Best thing I ever invented. Nearly as good as lungs. Got a light? Thanks. Ahh, that's good. You like smoke rings? Watch this. Pretty good, huh?

Just a sec, pardon Me. Yeah? Uh huh. Send an angel. They're fireproof, stupid. Of course you're stupid, I made you that way. Stupid. Look, if you think you can't handle the job, let me know now, because -- uh huh. Yeah. Well, okay. Fine. Yeah, best to your wife. No, you're still married, this is Heaven, remember? Yeah, who could forget! Ha! Bye-bye.

Well bless it, cigar's out. Thanks. Okay. Interview. I got your question list around here somewhere, I printed it out, lemme see...Okay, I'll just get it up on the email. By the way, "god@heaven.com" isn't good anymore. Naw. Too much spam. Try "creator@paradise.org" next time, it'll get through quicker.

Hm? Look bub, this is like when the programs start bargaining with each other in the Matrix, mkay? Place looks the way you expect it to, how you experience your world. Somebody else might see harps and clouds and guys with halos and wings or pools and fountains and a lotta hottie virgins. I don't do that, you do. Sure you do. I made you in My image, bucko -- you make up things just like I do.

Which reminds Me -- you won't get any answers about the future here, so don't bother asking. Oh wait, you already did. Look, if I told you what was going to happen and you went back and started trying to take advantage of it, it wouldn't happen anyways. It's like when you invent the machine that predicts the future. Oh, sure, you've done it bunches of times. Problem is, when you make the machine that tells you what's going to happen and then you start using that info, machine starts to predict what's going to happen based on what it predicted was going to happen, and it's a vicious circle and pretty soon blooie! -- time paradox and you're back to square one again. You don't remember all this, do you? Good. I'd hate to have people unhappy over that.

Yeah, I used to have guys who predicted. Back when, I had guys that threw lightning and walked on the water and flew through the sky and fought injustice and everything. Regular living comic book was what it was. About as useful, too. I don't do that anymore, no margin. Easier to leave you guys alone, less messy. Besides, somebody begins to act like that, he gets a big head, thinks he's some kinda god himself, y'know? Like I said, no margin. Easier to just leave you be.

Oh, that's rough? That's rough? Try being the Creator of the Universe, the all-powerful Almighty ground zero the buck stops here head honcho. You think you got problems? You ain't got problems. Wanna decide where all the neutrinos go? Huh? Didn't think so. And that's just the neutrinos. Wait til you get to the protons, meatbag!

Hang on. What? It's what? Where? Listen, I'm doing an interview here, can't those guys take care of it themselves? Whadya mean, not fireproof enough? Fireproof is fireproof. Oh. In that case, tell him to wear asbestos underwear. Little joke. Listen, he'll be fine, he just needs to remember who he is. Get him a couple weeks of tai chi classes, that'll snap him up. Sure. You too. Bye.

Sure, sure, okay, the list. Lessee. Why are we born to suffer and die? Whatcha mean we, paleface? Ha ha! Look, it's complicated, all right? Building a universe isn't like putting up a shopping mall, there's factors, considerations, tradeoffs, all kinds of stuff that has to balance out. Stuff you never heard of and never will. Look, I'm communicating to you here with these pathetic modulated sound vibrations and I have no idea if you even hear them and don't just make up whatever you please and pretend I said it. How do you expect Me to convey anything important?

Siddown, siddown, it ain't over til the guy with the big white beard sez. What else we got here? Oh, yeah, that one. Which religion is the one true faith? Okay, let's back up a minute or eon or something here. First off, religion isn't My thing. You guys did that. You wanna know what the one true faith is, ask yourselves that. I'm in the creator biz here, I make stuff, I put it in motion, I tweak it til it's running right, then I watch. What you do with it is up to you. You wanna make stuff up about how I love this people or that country or some other idea, you wanna invent a bunch of rules and claim I gave em to you, you wanna kill things and make out like I said it was good, or bad for that matter, you go right ahead, I won't stop you. Just don't expect any big endorsement deals, y'know? I don't work like that. Naw, no blessed way. Yeah, I know about all those stories. But ask yourself this: why aren't there any magic bunnies out turning stones into wonderbread now? You ever see a miracle? I don't mean unlikely, I mean impossible. No? No. So which one of these ten zillion different Sunday schools is the real deal? Ask the question right, it answers itself.

That's how you know it's the truth, by the way. That's the trademark, that's My very own personal signature right there: ask the question right, it answers itself. But don't tell nobody I told you that. And for My sake, don't go starting any religions behind it. Look, you wanna commandment? How's about this: take care of each other. Okay? Now get outta here -- I got paperwork to do.