By David Glenn Cox
When Alvin Lee says, “I’m going home by helicopter” in the YouTube video. If you don’t know it’s from Woodstock and don’t know about Woodstock. You might think, what an odd thing to say? The original film, “The Planet of the Apes”, had a screenplay written by Rod Serling. In fact, the film had Rod Serling written all over it. It was actually a two-hour episode of the Twilight Zone. But if you didn’t grow up with the Twilight Zone, you might have missed those cues and nuances.
Astronauts returning from outer space to find an altered reality was a favorite Serling theme. Space was still new and scary. But the film was made in 1968. What were the burning social issues in the United States in the 1960’s? Race and Vietnam. So, Serling creates this simian world so subtly as to have the theme missed entirely by a modern and allegedly, not racist audience. And then screen washed beyond all meaning from all future reboots and projects. Charleton Heston said, “You may have replaced us, but you’re no better than us!” BOOM! A Serling burn!
You really should have been there. All the important jobs on the Planet of the Apes were held by chimps and orangutans. Gorillas were forced into lower paying support positions and often had poor educational opportunities in under-funded segregated schools. Because the prejudiced opinion of the apes at that time said, Gorillas naturally weren’t very bright. A film about racism. All Apes are created equal…remember? The best art is the art you don’t see right off.
Oh no! [Spoiler alert!] It’s the Statue of Liberty! We’ve been on earth all along. How could you possibly know? But the original generation grew up practicing nuclear annihilation drills in school. So, when we saw a wasteland, the apocalypse thought was never far off. Class! I want everyone to climb under your desk and quietly think nice thoughts, until the end comes. Every kid knew, whether he or she, faced instant incineration. Or were destined to become a part of an army of irradiated zombies of the apocalypse, denoted by pins on the map. Or by colored circles drawn around major metropolitan areas.
“Duck and cover!” Seeing the nuclear flash, you have just mere nanoseconds to curl into a fetal position and wait for the inevitable 4,000-degree fireball to pass harmlessly over you. Cover your head to protect it from any flying debris or falling automobiles. They told us children shit like that in school back in the day, and we believed them!
We’d visit the state fair and drop in on the local Civil Defense shelter, just to see what’s new. Complete with an eight-ton steel door. Take a hint if the door is closed when you get here, you ain’t getting in. Rows of lockers and army cots. Casks of drinking water in containers which when empty, could double as commodes. Aren’t you glad someone was thinking about your future? To have the foresight to plan public toilets in the event of a nuclear apocalypse. That’s their motto; In Apocalypse, Utility! It probably sounds better in the original Latin, “In Apocolypsi, Utilitas!”
We played whole albums, not single songs. Turntables and vinyl records were a pain. Three dollars of my hard-earned money and a year later, snap crackle pop. I’m not changing the record every three minutes. We dropped the needle and let the record spin. At the end of Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is a strange repetitive little ditty. It was joke! It was meant to make you get up and change the album. Of course, listening on a CD or streaming and the joke has no meaning.
While we’re on the subject of Beatles, at the end of their song “I Am the Walrus.” The chorus in the background is singing something. If I tell you what they are singing you must promise never to tell, it’s a secret. And once I tell you, you can never unhear it. You will always hear it. I warn you now! Last Warning! Juba, Juba…juba! “Everybodysmokespot, Everybodysmokespot, Everybodysmokespot, Everybodysmokespot, Everybodysmokespot, Everybodysmokespot! Juba, Juba…Juba!” The things your parents never told you! ”Roll up for the Mystery Tour!”
There will never be another Beatles, computers and accountants won’t allow it. We didn’t invent computer programs just so a bunch of self-taught creatives could waste valuable studio time messing around. What’s all this “Picture yourself in a boat on a river crap?” Tell em about your big car or your sleazy girlfriend or how much money you got or how many bitches you got on the side! Do you own a gun? Have you ever been in jail? Have you ever shot it out with the cops?
They never played “Sympathy for the Devil” on the radio or Pink Floyd either, besides “Money.” The End got The Doors fired from the Whiskey, A go, go. It was revolutionary and was considered vile and obscene. Like all classics are in their day. No record company today would dare even attempt it. Never make it through the executive review process. Today, if a record company wanted to know what you wanted to hear in popular music, they’d tell you.
Record songs written by a 17-year-old kid from Lubbock, Texas? Are you crazy? Peggy What? I paid a hundred thousand dollars for this computer program, and it writes three hit songs an hour. Hire some studio musicians, give them some coke and a bottle of wine and hook up the auto tune. Now all we have to do is produce it and keep adding more and more and more, until there isn’t a single drop of authentic humanity left. Do you own a bikini? You’ll need to go out on tour.
We have it all planned. A 64-piece orchestra will accompany you with a ten-million-dollar laser light show spectacular. One hundred and eight cities in sixty-eight days. Sixteen sequined dancers, six backup singers and two Pom pom girls and a Labrador retriever named Gus. You’ll stop the show halfway thru and tearfully appeal to people paying hundreds of dollars for a ticket. To feed the hungry and care for the disadvantaged around the world. Then immediately, you go back to the gaudy schmaltz and (tin) tasteless fluff. If that sounds too tiring for you, we can put the whole thing on tape, and you can lip sync it!
On YouTube they rave! Glory to our newly discovered king and long-lost messiah. Can you believe it? This cat was rapping back in the stone age! That cats got barzz! He’s the father of Hip Hop! Rapping in 1965! It’s unbelievable, it’s truly amazing! “It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding.” You really should have been there. It was a lot of fun. You just had to make sure to keep Bobby and Pete Seegar separated.
It’s so much easier for a computer to create talent these days than it is to go out find it organically. But back in the day, it was the only method we had. You really should have been there. And we were stoned most of the time. So, there’s no telling what else we might have missed.
“Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.”
― Frank Zappa
Support: This Carbon Based Life
