King Kong as Elaborate Metaphor for Black America

I was listening to a live version of Frank Zappa’s “King Kong” this morning and Frank introduced the tune by saying this:

The name of this song is “King Kong.” It’s a story of a very large gorilla who lived in the jungle, and he was doing OK until some Americans came by and thought that they would take him home with them. They took him to the United States and they made some money by using the gorilla. Then they killed him.”

Often have I heard that the Godzilla movies were a subconscious metaphor for World War II and Pearl Harbor’s awakening of a “sleeping giant” in the minds of the Japanese. So I wonder if King Kong isn’t subconsciously a parable about Black America: we went into the jungle and brought people back to make money off of them and we mistreated and often killed them. Certainly we killed their sense of cultural and religious identity.

It may be a stretch, but it would be a better explanation for the incredibly iconic status of King Kong in American film history than just the film’s special effects. Why else would a story of a giant primate on the rampage, who runs off with a (white) girl be so fascinating to so many? Would the film have worked if Kong were any other animal but a lower primate, so close to us evolutionarily, and to many minds in the early/mid 20th century, a closer relative to blacks than whites? I’ve always been at a loss to explain the appeal of King Kong. I never saw the recent remake, because I knew the story and wasn’t very excited by it the first time. This larger allegory makes sense to me, at least.

How My Life Was Vastly Improved by 1/8″ to 1/4″ Inch Jack Adaptors

I’ve always had an affection for toy musical instruments, particularly cheap ones purchased at Savers.  I also have a Speak and Spell. I had been trying to devise some way to amplify these things via guitar pickups, but I’d need to modify a guitar to really get the job done. But last night as Bryan and I were rehearsing the Corey Hart classic “Sunglasses at Night,” Bryan pointed out that all I need are some 1/8″ to 1/4″ jack adaptors, and I could use the headphone outs to send signal to an amp or PA.

Fortunately I have such things handy. Now the world is a whole new place, the birds are singing and choirs of angels litter my path with lotus petals. Or something.

So we played Whitewater last night, toys in tow. The adaptors allowed us to use my $3 keyboard as a drum machine – I ran it through my Digitech Whammy Pedal to take the sound an octave down (because kiddie-keyboard drum patterns are really heavy on the treble). I used the Speak and Spell for fills, musical and verbal. I also brought along my old digital answering machine, because the female voice that says “You have no new messages” sounds really spooky through a reverb-and-delay-laden guitar amp.

Good times. And only the beginning. I stand at the cusp of my own personal revolution in sonic experimentation, all because of the simplest of suggestions. Such is the way of innovation.

Perpetual Adolescence?

I am realizing of late that my generation was the first to really get marketed to in a psychically deep way. Where in my father’s generation, something like the Red Rider BB Gun might have been the cool thing to have, my generation insisted I have every facet of the Star Wars/Transformers/G.I. Joe/He-Man/M.A.S.K/etc universe. So many toys. So many commercials and cartoons for toys. And then came the explosion in video games. Now, as the children of the 80’s are hitting their 30’s, I see that we have yet to put away childish things, many of us unrepentantly so[1]. Now, I’m personally proud to admit that I have not, nor will I ever “grow up” in a conventional sense, but more and more I wonder if my position wasn’t psychologically impressed upon me by the Toys R Us jingle, “I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid.”

What if a significant portion of my personality was marketed to me by Hasbro®? Maybe we don’t want to give up on acquiring toys because we’ve been conditioned to continue enjoying them, so lodged in our subconscious is the allure of the fantasy world, so appealing is the packaging, or in the case of videos games, so gratifying is the accomplishment of the game? And this isn’t just a nerd thing…I just watched leading man Vince Vaughn play video games in his swank Chicago high-rise condo in The Break Up. Are we a generation who has had the the Peter Pan Syndrome psychologically transmitted to us by Madison Avenue?

It’s harmless of course; I’m still a mature 30 year old who has a career and a mortgage, and who doesn’t behave like a teenager. I do, however, prefer to dress in odd t-shirts and I still find trips to the toy department appealing, even if my purchases there are fewer and further between. A great lesson from Twilight Zone: The Movie that I took to heart was to grow old with a fresh young mind. I think that’s something good for everyone to do.

1.) Of course I’m not talking to you, Josh. What would make you think that? 😉

More MySpace Fun

What other website allows you to communicate with Sting’s guitar player in Monte Carlo? I struck up a conversation with the great Lyle Workman (who has also worked with Jellyfish and Beck, and who did the score for 40 Year Old Virgin) about Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, because he’s a big fan. He then asked me how to switch from a Top 8 to a Top 12 or more on his Top Friends thingy on MySpace. Just one of those random moments where I stop and realize…this guy is on tour with Sting in Monaco and he’s asking me for help on a webpage? Isn’t life weird?

I sent him this great sketch from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, featuring a cameo by John Lennon, and a great American accent by Cook.

Help I’m a Rock

I just bought two tickets to the Halloween Zappa Plays Zappa date in New York City at Madison Square Garden theatre. Frank Zappa’s Halloween shows were always something special and Dweezil’s Zappa Plays Zappa tour is going very well, so I think this gig should be something worth traveling for. Plus I need a vacation.

Yesterday I bought a new car battery because my previous one died yesterday in the Guitar Center parking lot, which was probably God’s way of saying I shouldn’t have just plunked down $1650 for an Eric Johnson signature strat just minutes before. Yes I bought another guitar. BUT…Banjo Center has a 30-day money back guarantee so this is really just a test drive. Now that I know I’m doing this NY trip I’ll probably take the guitar back. But it’s so sweeeet.

I went to Sears Auto Center for the new battery and they give you those today-only $5 coupons for the Sears store and that was convenient since I REALLY needed to buy some new shoes. So. Yesterday, new battery, shoes and guitar. Oh, and dog meds for Zoe, who had to wait in the back of the car at Guitar Center while Randall came over with a battery charger. Good thing I parked in the shade.

Inspiratorial

I made up a new word. Inspirational + Conspiratorial = Inspiratorial

For those situations that conspire to inspire. Like yesterday’s backyard cookout, about which I just realized I took absolutely no pictures. Dammit.

Today I worked on my lesson materials. I’m taking lessons on Wednesdays with Ted Ludwig, an amazing 7-string jazz player, formerly from New Orleans. Bryan Frazier also came by and we worked on his tunes for our gig tomorrow night at Easy Street. 6:30-8:00. Come down and see us.

Vacation All I Ever Wanted

I need to decide soon on where I want to take my vacation. From a scheduling standpoint, I should go the weekend of August 5th and thereafter. Where should I go? I’m thinking I’ll go to New York in October, so my choices for August are Los Angeles for the International Pop Overthrow, or London, to check out John and Susan’s gallery. Or someplace else? I still haven’t been to Seattle to see Heather and Ben. But for some reason Seattle just doesn’t excite me as a city. What do y’all think?

Your Future, Odd-Sounding

Some great new spam prose from the bottom of a message hawking Cialis:

“But you can Jonathan. For you have learned. One school is finished, never know if that’s the Zone greeting me or my stalker’s nerves acting up. extraordinary, gathered around him in a handful of months the great-est eye on me again, that they hadn’t forgotten me, or if they had forgotten, the Troika; yet, in retrospect, one realizes that one has experienced a sighing and shifting from foot to foot and yawning nervously–he was feeling

his instructor’s fire, surprised himself and became a wizard of low”Can’t we talk about the arts instead? Wouldn’t the listeners care to

Google indicates that these are passages shredded and pasted together from Jonathan Livingston Seagull.