Last month I released Nukular Hula Coast, a selection of nihilistic bug-out tunes for the zombie apocalypse. Since then, I have made a handful of colorful music videos based on (or inspired by) the experimental short films of Len Lye, who died in 1980. Even though they were made in the 1930s, these films were obviously intended to be projected on the windshield of a stolen taco truck, fleeing a scene of apocalyptical destruction. A taco truck driven by a panicked, tripping recipient of hypersonic Russian brimstone. A taco truck driving too fast for its frame, swaying on plastic cartoon shocks as it swerves around the zombie roadblocks in a desperate attempt to flee the screeching wasteland of smoking, endless fire, flames spooning skyscrapers like deadly burning lovers, broken-down incubus and succubus and autobuses licking pitchforks of judgment and desire in the parking lot, soft-serve quicksand skyscrapers melting with all the zombies inside screeching, scrambling desperately to back up their sex drives and upload them to the cloud, the gathering virtual vape-storm of realistic doom, even as they are sucked like screaming milkshake material into the smoking maw of endless pain, the eternal vape cartridge of sulfur, hissing like a snake, an undead pipe bomb at their feet.
The video "Trade Tattoo (taco truck waltz)" depicts this desperate escape, this colorful attempt to flee the molten core of furious destruction, the tenement of woke mediocrity rubbing its hands together like a demon in the heart of the idiotic city.
Complete with flashbacks of the good old days on working on the dock and in the post office, "Trade Tattoo (taco truck waltz)" shows us how it's going to look for the lucky few who subjugate their woke food-truck zombie co-workers with defensive blasts of high-velocity Sriracha, find the keys, manage to stoke the wheels of the hi-octane BBQ hamsters sleeping under the hood, and who can somehow find an on-ramp, and therefore manage to escape.
Will they make it out of the demon lair alive? Will they break out of the city, through the roadblocks like a rash? Will victorious guitar music be audible, blaring through the bulletholes in their skulls, the drug-vents in their door frames? Or will they be consumed, condemned to drink from the glowing river of radioactive popsicle, flowing at their feet?
If it was me, we're gonna make it. If I'm not there though, hitch a ride with Jonah. He's a master of riding the whales. A veteran whale-hopper, Jonah knows how to find the right whales at the whale yard. The throws his pack into the plankton filter before the guards at the mouth of the great, submersible beast are even aware he's there. He'll show you how to do it, if you let him. But be ye not afraid: The chances of being digested in The Stomach Lounge are low. The bamboo scanners in the teeth machine know the difference between food and a friend. Kick back, pour yourself some pineapple juice, and enjoy the ride. Before you know it, you're enroute to Shanghai, or San Diego.
Even if you didn't want to go there.
But in the event you miss the boat, or the boat has been devoured by piranhas, and you have to hitch a ride with the weird guy on the taco truck, divert thy path unto the lonely road. It's the safer, more-colorful option, by far.
However, be ye careful not to look back. Do not neglect to keep your focus on the path ahead, and to pay attention to whatever's in your headlights, as they presume to illuminate the future floating just before your grillwork, or falling at your feet. Those aren't police lights flashing in your mirror. It isn't a party, or a bonfire, begging the God they hate for mercy. The blinding strobe inferno that will turn you into a pillar of dog food if you turn around to face it, is the famous Wax Museum of Friends, going up in flames. It is the history of the world, told in candlewax and hellfire. The late-night terminus of civilization, from which everyone is forced at bomb-point to depart. There are no bums sleeping hangovers off on this train. There is no need for a conductor to wake them. The raucousness of the moment, will rouse them soon enough, from the carousel of failure, the denial-trip of dreams.
But if you just can't help yourself, this is what it's going to look and sound like. An improvised fountain of splattering noise from a show in Chicago in the year 2000, hyper-imposed upon a patchwork of smoke and butterflies, monochromatic, 2-bit mountains etched directly into flame:
However,
If none of these options present themselves...
If you miss the chance to hop the whales,
And walking's not an option...
If the circus is on strike,
and the alpine funicular is broken...
If The Great Taco-Truck Bug-Out passes you by in a scared and psychedelic rage,
And you find yourself stuck in the city, sitting at the bus stop as the monsters from the LaBrea BBQ Pits come to life like the predictive Halloween cooking programs told you they would, blend in as best you can. When the cauldron of fake blood spews forth the destructive Muppets of the great cartoon apocalypse, and you're standing there helpless like a giant bumblebee, assume a posture of comical, yet unironic hostility, and attack the nearest uninformed, uniformed authority figure. Uniformed is not enough. They must be uninformed as well.
Well, that just about does it for the psychedelic rockabilly lightshow, projected on the windshield of your stolen taco truck, as you barrel out of town on a freeway paved with melted fire. When you get to the end of the sickly, irradiated rainbow, perform a dance of gratitude. Not as an act of ritual worship, or to force the hands of the non-existent, lowercase gods to bless you. But rather, because you're simply happy. Happy cuz you made it. Happy cuz even if the cloud of smoke did swallow you, even if only kinda, and the eternal sulfur vape-pen thought it was gonna get you, you realized that God actually loves you, and so as the blast frontier approached, you abandoned all your pride, and made it out alive. Your soul, if not your wasted plastic body. Alive, unwasted, free. Bailar conmigo, mi amigo. Dance because you have been spared, and saved. Dance because, while the diamond of earthly love may have proven to be a fake, and perhaps was always wasted,
Love as God defines it is never wasted. Not on me, not on them, and not on you.
Good luck.
