8 Comments
User's avatar
User's avatar
Comment deleted
Aug 27, 2021
Comment deleted
Erik Davis's avatar

I love comments that take the form of surreal feedback, and yes the meta and the ironies, both bleak and brilliant, go deep. We should never forget that California too is a "petro state," with LA destroying the Red Line, etc. See There Will be Blood, also Fritz Leiber's absolutely required SoCal mediation on oil demons in Venice Beach, entitled "The Black Gondolier."

I have never written extensively on Disney, perhaps Burning Shore will pull something out of me, something about being a kid obsessed with the optical distortions of the Haunted House and the sex-n-death grotto phantasmagoria of the (pre-Depp) Pirates of the Caribbean, something about Phil Dick's Lincoln android, or Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, plunging towards hell in an automobile driven by a mad person, like the bus in Gravitys Rainbow: "Living inside the System is like riding across the country in a bus driven by a maniac bent on suicide…" Loops and loops, like Kejule's oroboric serpent: https://biblioklept.org/2015/05/02/the-great-serpent-holding-its-own-tail-in-its-mouth-gravitys-rainbow/

Sheldoni's avatar

Freak of the first degree? Or L Ron Hubbard with a zither?

Erik Davis's avatar

Unlike L Ron, Ahbez did not generate a cult, or was a cult of one (with maybe his wife and kids thrown in). Also didnt really have a doctrine. Apparently he did get kinda messianic and cracked in his dotage, but still...more of a freethinking freak of the first degree methinks...

Erik Davis's avatar

Right on. I was familiar with some of this material from Kennedy's book, but I really appreciate this nice short slant. I also really wonder about that older, grey-bearded man who is sitting to the far right of Ahbez in that famous Nature Boy photo: what's his story?

T Lee Brown-Burning Tarot's avatar

faaascinating. thanks, erik.

Terry Anderson's avatar

https://wfmu.org/archiveplayer/?show=105491&archive=204049

WFMU's Gaylord Fields did almost an entire program on the album this past July 4th. The interviews are great as is the music.

Erik Davis's avatar

Thanks Terry! I will definitely check it out -- the experiences around this music is as appealing as the music itself.