by Rob Brezsny
This I know for certain: The superdream was the Grail I’ve been stalking all these years. It allowed me to inhabit the other side of the veil with a piercing lucidity that I have not been able to muster since I gave up drugs.
There is also another delightful prospect the superdream has inspired me to fantasize about: What if it is a prophecy, or at least a foreshadowing, of an encounter with the Menstrual Temple that will actually happen in my waking life? What if Rapunzel transmitted or incited this scenario as a way to dramatize what awaits me when I receive the “menarche for men” she promised?
When I finally ended my ruminations on the dream and got out of bed, it was to find William Blake’s A Vision of the Last Judgment on my bookshelf and reread one of my favorite passages.
This world of Imagination is the world of Eternity; it is the divine bosom into which we shall go after the death of the Vegetated body. This World of Imagination is Infinite and Eternal, whereas the world of Generation, or Vegetation, is Finite and Temporal. There exists in that Eternal World the Permanent Realities of Every Thing which we see reflected in this Vegetable Glass of Nature. All Things are comprehended in their Eternal Forms in the divine body of the Saviour, the True Vine of Eternity, the Human Imagination.
In the wake of my landmark incursion into the paradisiacal enclave of the Dreamtime, greedy fantasies have been welling up in me. Do I dare imagine it’s possible to drench myself in this deliverance at will? That I might gorge on this orgiastic catechism nightly? Could it be Rapunzel has established some telepathic link to my subconscious mind—a link that will allow me to drink deep draughts of this rapture again and again?
I am achingly tempted to do the unthinkable—if that’s what it would take to earn this gift. Not to sell my soul, which is too expensive even for the devil to buy, but to sell my ego. To unload a big chunk of my megalomania. To dissolve my band World Entertainment War and quit the rock music business.
The joyous feast of the superdream, after all, is not the only offer on the table. How did Rapunzel put it when she made her visitation to my abode? She implied that my romance with World Entertainment War would seem like a crush in kindergarten compared to the mysterious love that awaits me if I renounce my precious band. “It would not be a lie,” were her exact words as she shimmered like a vestal virgin next to my Wailing Wall, “to say that you have been freshly delivered into the presence of a watered-down version of the majestic gift.” What else could that mean besides a relationship with Rapunzel herself, which was also strongly implied in the superdream? At the moment she spoke those words, nothing new besides her auroral splendor and its cathartic effect on me had freshly penetrated my sanctuary.
Take the promise of regular dips in the enchanted precincts of the Dreamtime, and add to it the hope of becoming betrothed to the embodiment of beauty and truth who has already broken my heart open with scary blessings, and there’s a temptation so blindingly irresistible that I can’t possibly indulge any fears that it would destroy me.
That last thing I said is oozing so much childlike idealism and romantic bombast—typical, typical—that I’m blushing. If I ever stage another “Lousy Poetry Reading,” as I did once in my bad-boy days as a performance artist, it’ll be statements like that which will deserve the spotlight.
The fact is, though, when you take into consideration the disenfranchised part of myself the Jungians call the “shadow,” I’m too complex a schemer to actually live up to my childlike idealism and romantic bombast. That’s why I’ve decided to be realistic in my response to Rapunzel’s challenge.
I’ve concocted a covert strategy that I believe will allow me to gobble up my cake and maybe possibly hopefully have it too.
At the very least, it’s such an evocative prank that it’ll no doubt inspire an entire album’s worth of songs.
It wasn’t easy to convince the band we should risk my scheme. In fact, when I called them all together at my house last night, they were initially aghast. They gave me the same kind of mushy resistance I’ve met in the past when I’ve proposed other radical experiments designed to mutate our course. But in the end they bought it. Did they have a choice? My mind was made up. And besides, they’ve seen ample examples of the successful outcome of other loony inspirations of mine.
This is what I proposed. We’ll carry out an extended performance art experiment which will appear to signal the demise of World Entertainment War, but which will ultimately multiply our mystique a thousand-fold—and pave the way for an explosive rebirth.
The first step is for the five of them to send a press release to all the newspapers.
“World Entertainment War’s lead singer and conceptual mastermind,” the blurb’ll say, “has announced he’s leaving the band in order to devote himself full-time to his role as a member of a radical feminist religious cult.
“Though he has indicated he’s not at liberty to reveal the complete picture of his new mission, he has allowed us to divulge these facts: 1) The name of the cult is the Yo Mama Brigade. 2) His work there will consist of mastering the arts of the ‘Lesbian Man’ through ascetic service to the neo-matriarchy and by pursuing a hands-on study of the tantric version of chaos theory. 3) His ‘ascetic service’ will consist mostly of cleaning the toilets and washing the dishes of Goddess-worshipers, as well as a host of other janitorial tasks. 4) He has renounced all further contact with the media, which he dismisses as ‘universally infected by the entertainment criminals’ conspiracy to genocide the global imagination.’
“We regret that this transition means,” the press release will go on to say, “we must abandon World Entertainment War’s good fight. As of today, the band is no more. Its founder’s departure breaks our hearts too badly to try to salvage a wounded version of our former selves.
“Perhaps when the dust clears and the rest of us have had some time to think, we’ll formulate a new cadre of musical freedom fighters and return to the battle. But for now we must grieve the decision of our inspirational leader, and hope that this difficult and courageous move brings him closer to the core of his quest to become the ultimate prayer warrior. It has always been his unflinching devotion to his soul’s truth that has fueled World Entertainment War’s mission, and we can only admire him for upholding his tradition, even if in the short run it derails our highest ambitions.
“On the other hand, having whispered all those sweet nothings, we now have to be honest and confess the rest of what we feel. Goddamn him. Goddamn that moody, whimsical narcissist. How dare he fling himself off our muscular young stallion in mid-race? Is there something we’re missing here? Some essential fact he’s not telling us? Far be it from us to question His Worshipfulness’ inscrutable fate, but what the hell is he thinking? We can’t believe his new friends are so eager to psychically castrate a masculine role model who does so much good for the world. And we cannot fathom how this proudly independent thinker could have been so utterly brainwashed as to go along with their program for his life.
“To our fans—our extended family—we apologize with the biggest shit-eating mournful frown we can summon. We hope to hold a wake for World Entertainment War in the near future. Stay tuned for an announcement.”
In my heart of hearts, of course, I have no intention of euthanizing my beautiful offspring, World Entertainment War. Just the opposite. I intend for this maneuver to up the ante of our fans’ emotional investment in our fate, and to seduce thousands of new melodrama addicts into our sphere. A couple of months down the line, when I come out of retirement and reconvene the band, newly invigorated by my sojourn with the Menstrual Temple, World Entertainment War’s Mythic Quotient will have skyrocketed. If I know the way my creative process works, I’ll also have conjured a whole rock opera’s worth of new material based on the twisty tales I’ve just lived through. We’ll go into the studio and record an irresistible new CD.
Granted, it’s not as grandiose a publicity stunt as blowing my brains out with a shotgun like some rock stars I’ve known;
nor is it as titillating (if hackneyed) as punching out a journalist or overdosing on heroin or romancing a naughty supermodel. What it lacks in predigested gossip-worthiness, however, is compensated for by its stark originality. No rock star, not even a semi-famous one like me, has ever abdicated the throne to take on the monastic life—let alone a radical feminist monastic life. If I do say so myself, it has fair potential as a storyline for a Hollywood movie.
I don’t regard this as being deceitful towards our fans. For one thing, I really am suspending the band’s operations for a while. For another, I sincerely want to hook up with Rapunzel and her crowd, and the truth is that she has made the dissolution of the band and a job as janitor conditions for accepting me.
Beyond that, I have for a long time regarded my art as consisting in part of translating the themes of my complex inner life into a relatively accurate, if simplified, public image. My job, in other words, has definitely NOT been to let my public image be sculpted by the one-size-fits-all machinery of the rock business; NOT to leech off a fake version of myself by fitting into the generic archetype of the famous rock star.
Rather, I’ve wanted to lend my creativity and spiritual awareness to the task of revolutionizing the whole act of persona-making. My hypothesis has been that maybe a celebrity’s public image can be more than a hyped pack of pretty lies; that maybe I could shape, through artistry, an outer package that quite precisely reflects the spiritual intentions that lie inside.
One upshot of this line of thought is that I’ve concluded I sometimes have to fudge a little on the specific details in order to tell the bigger truth. Another implication is that my life really is, essentially, a story. It is not an assemblage of objective, incontrovertible data. It is a swarming fiction composed of endlessly permuting levels of truth (often contradictory), any one of which I can choose to highlight or downplay at any moment to create an entirely novel version of my history. There’s no difference between my life and the story I proclaim to be my life. In the end, I am a performance art project.
I’m reminded of the children’s picture book that consists of three groups of pages assembled vertically. The top group of pages has thirty different heads, the middle has thirty different bodies, and the lower has thirty different legs. At any one time the mongrel personage you have before you can be built from, say, the clown face on page one of the top group plus the soldier body on page eleven of the middle group plus the ballet dancer’s legs from page twenty-seven of the bottom group.
The story—or rather the stories—of my life resemble that children’s book.
So I’ve rationalized with exquisitely lyrical logic why our performance art experiment is not deceitful towards our fans. Can I manage the same feat in relation to Rapunzel?
Well, she specifically said I didn’t have to leave the music business forever. And she did not say exactly how long it might take for me to, quote, untangle my divine motivations for singing from the diseased motivations, unquote. Two months might be enough, for all I or she knows. And I figure I want to let the first part of my prank simmer at least two months before launching it into its next phase. Besides, I really do want to be free of the day-to-day demands of the band for now so I can make myself abundantly available for whatever Rapunzel and company have in store for me. I can’t imagine any feistier fun. And after having had to reconnoiter the music accountants’ and music bureaucrats’ sections of hell in the last few months, I richly deserve to indulge in such feisty fun. An artist needs regular doses of fertile chaos.
Best of all, it’s one hundred percent guaranteed that my imminent adventures with the gorgeous sphinx trickster will generate a spate of killer works of art.
I am as sure of that as I am of the solidity of the bedraggled mop and bucket full of slopwater I am gazing at here in the kitchen of India Joze restaurant in downtown Santa Cruz at 1:30 in the morning.
It’s my third night on the job as a janitor. Shreds of moldy tomatoes dangle from my hair. Dirty cake frosting clings to the sleeve of my khaki Sears work shirt, as well as rotting eggplant pulp blended with the pulverized fragments of a dead insect. My matching khaki pants, new just a few days ago, have already absorbed so much grunge that the cuffs have permanently turned the color of crud.
I’m ecstatic. Maybe I won’t be in a week, but for now, I’m awash in infatuation with my role as a total nonentity. I’m living the dream of any egomaniac who has ever loved the Buddha: to be as empty as the moment between the ticks of the clock; to be stone-cold, dead-dumb, flat-out unimportant, the biggest nobody in a world full of nobodies.
For years I’ve allowed my ego to sway and groove to the rhythm of its cute hallucinations of grandiosity. I am, after all, the spiritually savvy rockstar fueled by feminist lust, right? I am a hip philosopher for the proletariat of geniuses, the postmodern bard who channels the most entertaining brand of crazy wisdom that’s ever held down a regular spot on the periphery of the mass media.
And oh the crushing weight of it all. To be chronically teetering with top-heavy self-importance yet pretend that I’m naught but a humble seeker. What sublime guilt! What messianic sneakiness! What ineffable tomfoolery! What lousy stinkin’ graceful fragrant logic!
Now, though, for going-on-three nirvana-crammed nights, I have been scoured of all such bullpuckie. With each used tampon I’ve had to fish out of the clogged toilet with my mini-roto rooter, my innate hubris shrinks. With each crop of shattered drinking glass fragments I gingerly harvest from the sink, my treasured invisibility grows.
Tonight I wept with unironic joy as I scraped away years-old gunk with a putty knife from a corner behind the bread table. “I am nothing!” I laughed aloud as I marveled at the perfect gnosis. Not a single soul will ever know I carried out this secret act! And even if they did, they wouldn’t be in the least impressed by it! I did it, indeed, because there was absolutely no reason to do it. And in that moment, as the gummy green-black slag responded to my earnest ministrations, a liquid thunderbolt of love blasted through me—I mean a tangible elixir of blessing from the Grandmother of Us All. The Goddess saw! And rewarded me! I felt it! I swear I sensed Her nectared presence! Her fiercely sweet touch! And hallelujah I deserved it! Because for once in my life I was wildly free of all lust for results. I had lived, if only for an instant, outside of karma.
Here’s the best part: I’m not even being paid for busting my ass six hours a night. In fact, I’m spending money to earn the privilege. In carrying out Rapunzel’s assignment to get a job as a janitor, I wanted to be as free of attachments as possible. I didn’t want to give anyone the false impression I was interested in a long-term commitment. Nor did I particularly want to call attention to my new role from someone who might know someone who knew me.
My solution was to stroll over to my favorite restaurant in the wee hours a few nights ago. When the janitor came out to the street at about 2:45 to hose down the rubber mats in the gutter, I engaged him in conversation.
“How’d you like a little paid vacation?” I offered.
“Huh?”
“I’ve got a proposition for you.”
“Listen, I ain’t into gay sex.”
“It’s nothing like that. What’s your name?”
“Dave.”
“Well, Dave, my friends call me Rockstar. And there’s a little performance art project I want to try which involves doing exactly the kind of work you’re doing. Thing of it is, it’s important that I do the job completely off the books.”
“You’re fuckin’ crazy.”
“No, Dave, I assure you I’ve never felt more lucid in my life. Here’s what I propose. Do you work here every night?”
“Five nights a week.”
“Here’s what I propose. You let me do your job every night for, I don’t know, let’s say your next fifteen nights. And in return I will pay you five dollars an hour for every hour I work. So in other words you’ll get to collect your regular salary from India Joze plus what I provide.”
�
�I still think you’re fuckin’ nuts. But I’d think about it if maybe I knew you better. I mean, what’s to stop you from stealing stuff from the restaurant and then my boss’ll blame me?”
“I’m perfectly willing to make you feel totally comfortable about that, Dave. If you want, you can hang around during my entire shift and monitor me as I work. You can sit back and watch TV or read while I slave away.”
“Well. I don’t know. I mean I guess so. You want to start now?”
“Perfect. You can show me everything you do so I can take over full-time tomorrow.”
I became Dave’s apprentice for the next four hours, and as we parted at dawn I handed him twenty dollars. I met him here last night and gave him his thirty dollars right away. He hung around for an hour before giving me the keys and taking off. Tonight before I came to work I got a call from him saying to start without him, that he’d come by at dawn to pick up his nightly wage. So here I am alone, blissing out on the stench of the fermenting meat littering the stove I’ll be cleaning next.
Or should I stack the chairs on the tables in the dining areas and sweep and mop the floor? Or maybe ply my craft on the sinks and urinals in the men’s bathroom? There are so many thrilling acts of self-abnegation, I’m almost paralyzed with my freedom of choice.
For now I think I’ll just kick back, chill out, and meditate on how pleased I am with my fascinating life. All is proceeding with sweet synchronicity. The band’s press releases should be arriving en masse at media outlets later today. No doubt there’ll be a flurry of inquiries on the World Entertainment War hotline by nightfall. Despite the bit in the press release about me refusing all further contact with the media, I just might get back to a couple of journalists if I think they’re capable of helping me promote the mythic angle of this experiment.