Zee German Part II

The German man came into the store again a few weeks later.

"I am looking for a book about American music. I would like to learn more about American music, since I live in America."

I showed him where the books about music were. "Uhh… this one is about Jazz… and this one is about Blues."

"No, no. I need a book about all of American music."

There was a huge book on the shelf entitled MUSIC. I got it down from the shelf and opened it.

"This is a book about all music, from classical to the present day."

He took the book from me and looked through it, rapidly shuffling the pages. "No, no. I need a book about just American music."

"I-- uhh, guess we don't have what you're looking for."

He sighed, irritably, and slumped his shoulders.

A round hippie lady with close-cropped, bleached hair, who had been browsing nearby, offered her own suggestion. "How about that?" pointing toward the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll.

"Oh yeah," I brightened. "How about that?"

He frowned, "Rock and Roll? No. I want a book about American music."

"Well, it has all kinds of music in it, not just Rock. Jazz, Blues, Folk, Country, Electr--"

"No, thank you." He trundled toward the front entrance.

I shrugged. "Thanks," I said to the hippie lady.

"Oh, no problem," she smiled over her shoulder as I started back for the register, and went back to looking at whatever it was she was looking at.

Mama Tell Your Babies They Live In Real-Time (2012): a review of the greatest movie ever made *SPOILERS* *ENTIRE PLOT REVEALED IN EXPLICIT DETAIL*

It was touted as the greatest film ever made, a multi-media experience that went beyond film into the realm of something not completely understood. I was skeptical.

The curtain comes up. A man staring out to sea. He is about to say something.

Flash back to his childhood. A skinny, sad kid who is going to a snobby school. He has to deliver a speech in front of the whole class, even though he suffers from spasms that afflict his arms and legs, the result of a congenital neuro-muscular condition. He practices day and night to get everything right, but still, he is afraid. To be contorted by his disease, to have his limbs turn to serpents, his tongue to inert clay, in front of the whole class, would be devastating.

He begs the headmaster to let him do something else, anything else. The headmaster, slowly and sadly, shakes his head. His mother finds him crying underneath a desk, his arms and legs are strangling him. Finally his mother tells the headmaster that he cannot give the speech because it is killing him. (The music is very sad during this portion.)

They do eventually let him graduate and he grows out of his condition. He gets a degree in some kind of advanced biochemistry which enables him to get a job with the military. The young scientist is put to work in an underground bunker, testing cultures that have developed over thousands of years in huge vats of milk.

He wanders off from the lab one day into a hallway he never noticed before. Sculptures of the heads of aliens and monsters from the movies hang on the walls. He meets a tall alien who takes him to the "magic workshop" where the movies are made. He meets "the wizard" who shows him, step-by-step, the craft of creating special effects. Finally, the wizard shows him a montage of his greatest films. Of course the boy has seen all of this footage before, but it is suffused with new meaning because he understands the magic that went into its creation. It all culminates in the scene from "King Arthur" where the Great Tower rises into view.

I start crying because it's so powerful. An actor comes from behind me and takes me by the hand and leads me to another section of the audience where I am spoken to by old women about small town gossip. They whisper into my ears and I close my eyes because I don't know what else to do.

Spotlights come up on several people scattered throughout the audience, myself included. We are accused of crimes and told to rise. I come to the front of the theater and stand next to Lewis, a local celebrity. Lewis is accused of pandering to his audience and sentenced to sit in the dungeon for the remainder of the film. Grinning, he saunters off to serve his sentence and nudges me as he goes past. "This is great, huh?"

The light falls on me. "Ian Smith, you are accused of Incorrect Opinions. We sentence you to sit in... The BALCONY." I am led through a side passage through a baroque series of stairways built in the adjoining theaters, hollowed out and rebuilt for the occasion, above the theater, below the theater, spiraling all around it, finally emerging in the balcony.

I am ushered into a side area of the balcony that faces not the movie, but the entrance to a kitchen. Someone says "Look! it's all six of the hot nurses from TV's 'Dream Hospital'. They're getting a burger at Nick's!" I look to my right and, sure enough, all six of the "Night-Shift Girls" are sitting next to me. They look at me suggestively, simultaneously bending to reveal their similarly proportioned breasts.

"Oh waiter! We want to order six similarly-proportioned burgers!" 

Nick, the Greek, himself, comes out of the kitchen and buttonholes me. "Ian! what the hell man, you've got to refill the ketchup bottles dude! We've got the Night-Shift Girls here!"

"But Nick, I don't know where the ketchup is!"

"Jeez, I don't have time for this. Come with me. I'll show you the way to the pantry."

Nick goes out the back of the theater, back into the baroque maze. I follow him through all of the twists and turns. He is like a father to me. He moves really fast and it's hard to keep up. I lose track of him. I hear his voice calling to me, but the wood-paneled hallway turns into a dead-end. 

Just then, I notice a passage about half my height to the left. I bend over and venture on until I come to another dead-end. Again, I hear his voice calling. After examining my surroundings I can only conclude he wants me to follow him into the half-inch gap between the molding and the floor. I hold my breath and walk into it, while my height somehow adjusts itself.

>>walk forward

"I walk along for a while until I come to yet another dead-end. After examining my surroundings, I can only conclude he wants me to follow him into the half-inch gap between the molding and the floor. I hold my breath and walk into it, while my height somehow adjusts itself."

I hear him calling, from behind me this time, and look back out into the vastness of the passage I came from and see a proportionately vast Nick looking down at me. He wrings his massive hands in frustration, his incomprehensibly slow and gigantic voice booming plaintively, but I can't return to my previous size, no matter how hard I try. I am filled with the sense of a deep loss.

Someone changes the channel. They cycle through a variety of different situations. Some of them are domestic dramas, some of them are screwball comedies, some of them are news reports, some of them are advertising situations. I am dismayed at being taken away from my movie experience. The people who stage the situations fine-tune them to create an ambient feeling of longing.

They settle on a documentary about the Caballero Boys, a rock band from Texas. They are rude, they are crude, they are overweight. They languish for years in the bar circuit, banging out their particular brand of loud, crass rock noise. The ups and downs of the careers of bassist/vocalist Don Caballero and drummer Jon Caballero are chronicled. Finally they make a breakthrough and move to Paris.

They stride down quaint, old-world streets as the opening chords of their first big hit "Tex-Mex Mama" blares. They ransack a cafe and steal all the wine and cigarettes. A neon sign: NO BUSKING. They kick over a table.

It's revealed that they're just filming a video.

The channel changes. Apparently the movie has been playing out this whole time and is nearing the end. The melancholy scientist is walking on the beach. I'm a bit disappointed that I have to leave the fun atmosphere of the Cabs' video, but soon, again I'm captivated as he begins to speak.

He gives the speech he was about to deliver all those years ago, alone, to the crashing waves, and it's a knockout. It ties all of the themes of the film together really well and is a suitably emotional finale to the immense experience that is this movie. Though there are a lot of allusions I didn't quite get, and I don't remember exactly what was said all that well... I guess I'll have to see it again on video. I can't begin to imagine how it will suffer with the interactive portion taken out.

His final line is, "if you leave it alone, it will go away."

The credits crawl to the strains of The Caballero Boys' ballad: "Mama, Tell Your Babies They Live in Real-Time."

The curtain comes down.