It was around 1969 when I began experimenting with a drug that would change my life forever — unfiltered hatred of hippies. My travels found me abroad where I met a mystic in the then Soviet Union. He was a strange, silent, bearded man, that refused to speak, and communicated only through drawings and sign language. He recommended a man of my personality type would best seek enlightenment in the mountainous regions of northern India. After a few hours contemplation and a long distance, over-the-phone divorce from my loving wife, I was on my way.
My travels lead me bare foot (you try to get leather sandals in India) across desert sands, jungles, swamps, and lakes. Aside from the threats of mosquitoes, deadly snakes, and hypothermia, my trip was generally successful and without peril — after I killed the seventeen bears inhabiting the cave I was destined to call my home. Don't worry, the bear children were spared and only slaughtered for feast once they were of age (R.I.P. Bobo Jr.).
This isolation stirred my spirit and sparked lucid dreams. Yet, I wasn't wholly alone. There were other gurus, journeymen, musicians and mad scientists hanging about in the nearby caves. It was like an apartment complex for pseudo-enlightened posers. Occasionally we'd socialize and share wives and beers, but for the most part, nights in the mountain-caves were cold and lonely. All of us went on to do great things. One of the wives became a prominent witch in West Africa. Tool Time's Al Borland got his start in construction there. The man next door's home was filled with bats, which later inspired an immensely popular comic book superhero, "Guy Who Hates Bats."
Back to isolation. So yes, I was mostly isolated and shit, eating grass and local wildlife to survive when not contemplating matter, crystals, and the life-force. The deafening silence cleared my thoughts to an eerie point. All television's brainwashing was undone. All of my schooling done gone unlearned. All the hippies were out of sight and mind. And within that silence, came the sounds.
Music is what began to play in my ears. Like the later works of Bach and Beethoven, only pretty, it played and mated with like-minded musical textures inside my domespace. Instruments and sounds meshed together, blending and blooming like the most beautiful, erotic, fat-assed roses. Those initial moments of inner growth were the highlight of my life — before witnessing Sister Act in 1997. Only in this isolation and quiet could the magnificent sounds manifest, and I began to write them down in boar's blood on a nearby wall. It was exciting to receive this gift from God. It's as if all the sounds from my past had been sifted, and lifted from that were the C.R.E.A.M. of the crop. After a week and all that jazz, I got tired of using animal blood and contacted my artist friend — who dubbed himself "Quagnon vem Bario" — to borrow some paper and charcoal. Writing the music down became an obsession. Meanwhile, my dreams were becoming more lucid than before, and the ones about strangling cats stopped. Instead, they were replaced with dreams of my power animal, a short-necked giraffe with tiger stripes. There was only one thing I needed to do before leaving India: finally attain true enlightenment.
To celebrate my successful and more frequent lucid dreams, I began blood-letting. I also stopped hanging out with the Guru Gang, drinking their cavebrew, and abstained from self-touching for at least several weeks. In addition to all this jazz, I boxed the rocky walls like Rocky, practiced punting nearby swans, cooked stews made primarily from water and wallflowers, and meditated from a bed of flaming coals. This led to what I believe was my permanent bout of enlightenment.
On one peculiar night — after heavy meditation, song-writing and swan-kicking — it came in the most lucid wet dream. My power animal ran up to me and mouthed the words "Yeon Xes Zorbis." The giraffe then cleared his throat, and added, "That, my son, is the keystone — the rite of passage toward conquering your own being, gaining stability on the narrow but true path, and tagging lots of hot pussycat." Bewildered, I did not let my poppin' nerves get to me. "You must bathe in the blood of lamb and stop kicking swan," he continued, "That is what my words mean, in addition to their several other definitions, and then there are interpretations and yadda yadda etcetera. You know how that bulljazz goes, my loving son." Through telepathy, I let him know that I understood, and gave thanks. Only a couple days later, I left to the States.
Upon arriving home to my castle in California, I snubbed my music friends Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Arvo Part, who were all doing some benefit gig for — not against — breast cancer. Their music is petty, indulgent drivel, I thought, compared to the opuses and poetry retained in — and later written from — my spirit-soul. Over the next few years, I began to experiment by playing these delightful songs and anthems, both with preexisting and self-made instruments. I sent an early tape to my then best friend Old Charlie Manson, who quoted, "These joints are pretty rockin', dog." He went on to do great things... with music.
There was one small problem. The songs were too good. It was like God came down from the heavens and shat his inconceivable holiness upon mankind. The masses weren't ready for it, but who can prepare for such a revolutionary, intelligent, and truly transcendental work of art? They were made on makeshift instruments, including all the four elements. Burning wood chips, hammers, controlled fires, exploding automobiles, pistol-whipped cats, cocaine, jugs of water, a flux capacitor, and boxing nun puppet covered in mud, were all used to transfer the sounds in my head into audio. Innovation was the backbone of the sound. Naturally, I knew exactly what to call the band when the final print was pressed — Yeon Xes Zorbis.
Von Bon-Bon Quak Yabbo was the title for the debut effort. The album stayed at the top of the charts for years in America, besting Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. The public reaction and praise was dopeloco. The recordings caused John Lennon to recant and admit he now believed in God. He also reportedly whispered, "I'm a hack, please shoot me," constantly to himself after hearing ...Quak Yabbo. The Beatles broke up shortly thereafter.
The album that changed the world.
At the height of our fame, the backing band and I played live shows all over the place. We would improvise. Some nights we'd just chop wood on stage and while humming. Others, we'd strum violin strings with vintage holy ornaments to hear the sound it would produce. One concert in Rio, our sound comprised nothing other than mic'd foosball tables, with panhandling wiccans furiously playing them in exchange for lunch. The crowd went ape-crazy for it. Typically, we included our fan-favorite single, "Does a Brain Cry?" during the encore.
Yet good things often come to an end. The band was banned. Kids listening to the impossibly great work stopped abusing drugs, and listened to this record instead. It's said the music was so incomprehensibly good, it took three listens before you actually heard anything. The audio was so intricately layered, it induced relaxation and euphoria amongst listeners, akin to that of heroin. Others simply couldn't handle the complexity and turned into vegetables. Kids dropped out of school per their audio addiction. In the coming years, cassettes proved dangerous, as people would crash into 7-11s and trains while strung out on this divine music of hope and transcendence.
This started my depression. I wondered how great a band could really be. The purpose of a music made better to me, meant to go above and beyond; to defy limits; to blend calculated intelligence and unconscious honesty; to comfort and satiate the audience by maintaining high art, in the context of time and modern life; to create the brightest, most vibrant art of which my soul is humanly possible; to bring the funk so bodaciously, young teenage girls would drench themselves upon hearing the bassline.
The few who didn't become zealously attached to the music, didn't get it or protested it. Amongst fans, Yeon were treated as the auditory equivalent of God. Others held an aversion, denouncing the sound as the work of Satan. With the banning, riots began between the fans and the government. Eventually, it was declared illegal to even mention Yeon Xes Zorbis, and that's why you won't find it on Google. All recordings were burned or trashed.
Since then, isolation is all I've known. Much like my time in India's mountainous regions, I've returned to world without peril, and with a pessimistic view toward society and projecting a positive influence upon it. This injustice perpetuates my confusion in regards to human understanding, paralyzing any ability to write or create new ideas. Left with me is only the knowledge that the world isn't ready for high art, as mo'fuckas never get it, anyway.
There's nothing left to show from this fallen empire. No records, no pictures, no ticket stubs. A guru friend of mine is still in prison for having a rare copy of the album (I'll find a way to free you, Mumia Abu-Jamal). Nothing exists but millions of dollars and this gargantuan island. Aside from the album cover, only medical records prove my role in the greatest band that ever existed. 6,000 groupies and every STD in the book later, this man's managed to still stand, broken spirit and all.
originally posted 10.12.2009
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