Nowadays, here in America, there is a deluge of
metaphysical paranoia constantly flowing out of the
new, smart, radical, fanatical, hippie, drug culture
underground. It almost always centers around the
exaggerated evil powers of George W. Bush and the
exaggerated benevolent benefits of psychedelic
drugs... mostly Ecstasy and L.S.D. And, inevitably,
the speculative conversations suggest that perhaps
some of the (spoiled, radical, hippie, enfant
terrible) sons and daughters of the most influential
power lobbyist pals of the Bush administration should
somehow infiltrate a Camp David assemblage (or any
secret meeting) and give them all a large dosing of
Ecstasy or L.S.D. or both. (I believe it was to be
administered by those blue, disinfectant urinal
deodorizer cakes... The idea being that you cant
resist peeing into one of these and it splashes up on
your dick and hands... Youll probably wash your hands
but no one washes off their dick... right??) All this
in hopes of a more cosmically sympathetic
government...Could it happen??... And I say (if
anything can explain how things got the way they
are)...It already has. Only it didnt do what the
spikers had hoped. It did what most people fear can
happen to the unprepared mind when confronting an
intense psychotic experience........ It made them
insane. But it didnt affect them as individuals...
they were a group made insane by some overpowering,
unexplainable presence. To them (not knowing theyd
been zapped) it was a religious revelation. God
himself had spoken to them.They emerged from their
trip more powerful, more evil and more convinced
they were right. They were no longer elected
officials. They had, in their own minds,
become...mystics.
When we began to make, what has become,At War With
The Mystics,we could not have foreseen the battle
(which seems more relevant and more unwinnable as time
goes by) between the rational minds and the mindless
fanaticals. We really hadnt considered the impact
that world politics, religious freaks, grandiose liars
and this horrible war were having on our sound and
songs. We had been creating an atmosphere and mood (I
dont believe it was a whole concept) around a story
where a wizard goes into outer space searching for a
supernova galaxy cluster that has formed in the exact
dimensions of a naked star queen with her legs spread
open. It was the wizards desire to propel his
spaceship into her undulating, celestial vagina where
he would enter into a different dimension and be
radiantly transformed into the chemical son of
God...Yes...it is stupidly absurd... But the
imagination goes where it wants to and we,
haphazardly, try to be its gracious vehicle. Though it
could seem like our minds were trying to escape into
some fantastical, interstellar dream, we were still
hypnotized by reality. We could not look away from
Bushs reelection. We couldnt ignore the frat-boy
arrogance of Cheney and Rove or the sad, strange,
brave behavior of Cindy Sheehan. There were (and
continue to be) so many days when the sickening news
of yet another suicide bomber would shock us away from
our exploration of a new mega-flanger guitar
effect...We often talked about how unspeakably insane
someone must be to willingly obliterate themselves in
the middle of a crowd of already devastated families
mourning at a funeral... We felt... or...we
reacted...as if we should say something...?
I would love to be able to make Radical-Protest-
Rock-Anthems that enlightened the masses. But I know
that, after all, our music (like all art) is just us
fumbling in the dark...trying to give some shape and
meaning to internal expressions. And so, for every
anti-war slogan we created, we always felt, somehow,
that we were just adding to the fanatical screaming
that was already drowning itself out...So, as always,
we sided with the plight of the individual. You see,
my mother died during the making of this record...But
also Stevens son Daniel was born...Life is never one
thing for very long...there are a lot of Wars of the
World - outward and inward. And I believe we sing,
perhaps for the first time, about a kind of
existential acceptance... not acceptance because of
defeat..It is acceptance because there are no easy
answers. True transcendence and defiance is personal
and subjective. No group (The Flaming Lips, the Bush
administration, the left, the right, the Islamics, the
Christians) ever speaks louder than the quiet flame of
the inner life that burns in solitude within all of
us.
I understand that each one of us, individually,
decides for ourselves a solution. But I cant help
cheering on these new, smart--but drug
damaged--radical hippies. Their answer is simply to
chemically change the minds of the corrupt evil doers
out there. They dont want to destroy them or kill
them...So, yes...A chemical change. But dont just
dose the Bush administration, dose the Taliban too,
Fox News and half of America and half of the Middle
East...Maybe its not too late to believe in some new
dimension of magic where psychedelic drugs are the
hammer of galactic justice... where peaceful
super-hero warriors are able to slay their malignant,
war-mongering government. A kind of Star Wars without
weapons where Luke Skywalker cuts off the head of
Darth Vader with an invisible light saber....
Could it happen?? I dont know...maybe it already
has...
On November 22, 1963 Aldous Huxley was in the last
stages of terminal cancer. He asked his wife to inject
him with a hundred milligrams of mescaline and L.S.D.
and six hours later he died in his home in Los
Angeles... That same day, Fifteen Hundred miles away
in Dallas, Texas, John F. Kennedy was assassinated...
What does this mean?? Nothing to me... But to a
paranoid, spaced-out , self proclaimed mystic who
wants to save the world...Its all the proof he needs.
Wayne.....2006
Whether in a Khaki suit or a pimped stripe. I'm a G for G and nuttin' else for life. You can bet your bottom biscuit. You get twisted if you dwellin' in my felon intuition (what up).