Apocrypha Now!

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Well, I didn't scan "Born in Flames" by Howard Hampton
---and if you want to check it out "in the flesh", so to speak,
hop on down to your local "Borders", they'll probably have 
it, mine does---but I did read all of two articles and tried to
take on a few others, and it really didn't seem worth the
effort. His essays strike me as the sort of stuff one finds 
these days in the free weeklys produced in major metropolitan
regions, like the San Francisco Bay area, and like Bob 
Brezney's horoscopes or the (admittedly superior) ravings
of Cintra Wilson, the prose style is strictly OTT. Which is
bothersome enough in and of itself. There's word mash-ups
everywhere---why have a single meaning for your modifier, 
when you can shove two words together, pretend they
are one and congratulate youself for your cleverness?
Of course, if you're James Joyce, then you can get as toploftical
as you like, but Mr Hampton is no Joyce.

In "Apocrypha Now!" Mr. Hampton is spinning out the Paranoids
post-Oedipal future, where they end up looking like an all-male 
"Shaggs" as produced by Joe Meek. But presenting this group
as the "unknown" band behind Captain Beefheart's "Tarot-plane", 
then proceeding to place them in increasingly hysterical, degenerate
and paranoid contexts in no way echos the shallow young 
dudes we encounter at Echo Courts and other environs.
Sorry, can't help it but between the lazy lyricsism of their
"Serenade" and six degrees of, I can't help think of the Byrds.
Back in '64 they were still doing demos at World Pacific and
coming up with sublimely innocent tunes like the "Airport
Song" and "You Don't Have To Cry". I could imagine 
Pynchon's Paranoids practicing "Here Without You"
on Lake Inverarity, but I can't imagine Pynchon's 
Paranoids practicing "Plastic Curtain" anywhere. So I'll 
forever be out of the time-loop Howard Hampton's created in 
"Apocrypha Now!" 

Note to Dave Monroe: Roger McGuinn plays "Jesu
Joy of Man's Desiring" in the bridge of "She Don't
Care About Time".