(royal trux/purple mountains essay “Untitled” like the byrds album)

 (royal trux/purple mountains essay

“Untitled” like the byrds album)

Plagiarism is necessary, progress implies it!

I’ve drawn up all my findings, I warn you they are candid

-purple mountains

     People clapped at the end of the movie even though there was no one to respond to the applause. They were celebrating an inanimate object, or they were clapping to signify that they were in the crowd. That they were altogether NOW.

      David Berman meets Thoth in the land of the Dead. Like the author of “The Wasteland” Thoth smokes Kools while he records the illustrated catalog of your crimes. Berman is shuffling back and forth while Thoth ruffles papers. He exhales a crisp ring of white smoke and asks a question telepathically.

      “How’s Royal Trux doin? They gettin’ along? How’s the new single downloading? Who is this Aerial Pink guy anyway?”

      Berman gave up drugs for this? He hung himself after making the album of the year and arrives in the Western Lands only to be asked about Royal Trux. Aw mama can this really be the end?

     Like a seventies’ homicide detective show Royal Trux returned. But he’s Dead, He’s Gone like a Dash Snow polaroid shoved under a motel doorway. Berman poor guy. Like Denton Welch like Dash Snow like Sean Flynn he couldn’t escape his own publicity. Only a subtle God would bring back Royal Trux. Suckers to the side.

     All my happiness is gone. Looking at a broken window hinge and feeling a profound sadness. Park Slope slopes to the side. “friends are warmer than gold when you’re old,” sings Berman.

                  Do members of the Falun Gong get hangovers? Do scientologists leave love notes in ex-girlfriends mailboxes? Do Dead Heads go straight? Is straight a relative proposition?

         Like the drug references on the new Royal Trux album Berman couldn’t get away from the despair. he couldn’t get away from creating this chirpy soundtrack of his depression. Uptown top ranking. In the video he uses a dustpan to sweep up debris. Looking into the heart of darkness means you ain’t goin’ nowhere.  The absurd or incomprehensible behavior is exactly that, incomprehensible and absurd.

     The set rocks off with Moroccan music; Keef pipes Kif, joujouka strolling ruin.

        what happened to all the purple mountains tour mersch??? Like discarded Superbowl hats with the name of the loser “buffalo bills 92” donated to the Hottenntots.

    Get usta to this? Perhaps Berman heard this and realized that it’s about accepting the next plateau of your life, get usta to this-I mean I ain’t superstitious or nothing park slope park park slope I’m the holder of a folder. A dossier based on transparent memories.

      Fucking a star is born the guy that looks like Berman hangs himself with a big Ford pickup in the shot. Found On Road Dead. Drinking from noon until noon again. High noon. Indeed. Dynamite gangja: King Sunny Ade. I got a message from the action man. Berman points at you, he points at me; he says our past troubles are just yardsticks. Then Berman dead pans: you know.

    I never met him. I was told we’d get along. I was looking forward to meeting him this tour. Scenes of victory.  I put up an Icelandic sigil. A digitally discovered rune that purported to conjure ghosts and evil spirits. It was brightly decorated and it hung near my desk for about ten days while I listened to the Purple Mountains. He began to appear in my dreams; like Denton Welch or sumthin’.

     If I just crumpled up the sigil it wouldn’t occlude the portal. I pasted stock graphics of dark heavy chains over the bands of the rune. Sure ‘nuff, yes I do. Celebrity skin suicide. Y’wanna get on social media and “share” a false sense of community and intimacy-an urge a pathological need for self-expression on the bones of others, self-esteem through vicarious living. Can the world be as sad as it seems?

    Trux has a presence; their will and vibe just transmit absolute certainty-history will vindicate them but they exist in spite of the history. The way they carried themselves was always royalty getting off a plane somewhere. A subtle word from god was the way Royal Trux dared you. They were always so provocative. They always dared you to live up to them.

      I can understand being frightened about where the world is going. I can understand being overwhelmed but people that kill themselves don’t become symbols for the downtrodden they just become dead.  A message to you Rudy. Tennessee Tuxedo will not fail. Rudy can’t fail. This is what you want, this is what you get. Is that a fucking question? Poor Berman. Royal trux was always about astral projection-whatcha need bro? Royal Trux was always practical magick perhaps Berman knew it too well. But when you listen to Berman you just start drinking yourself into oblivion.

      Oh yeah I heard that Berman hadn’t used drugs in years. Okay. Good for him. Neither has Trux. Good for everybody. Jim Morrison pointed out how going into the liquor store was just upfront and not with the sleazy sexual connotations of buying drugs and I get that. I haven’t used drugs in years either. Problem with being an elderly rock critick is that your contemporaries never do anything but put a great reissue out. You don’t love me, no no no.  I was using a dustbin and I felt like Berman.

     Listening to Purple Mountains while watching cookie cutter Lifetime movies. Break out the violins here comes the real weepy part. The whole worlds’ th’devil.  Boys and girls danced around the fire to the music from a violin.

   I was pretty drunk I ordered a delivery. The kid was cranking “margaritas at the mall” when he dropped off my pizza. You like Purple Mountains? He said oh yeah, I dig this shit. this guy’s great; he hung himself y’know? I said yes, I know. I know indeed.

     The only thing purple mountains is good for is getting a case of beer and just drinking. Matter of fact the thing about getting older means you go to more funerals. And going to funerals is just a drag.

     The screens flicker. Everyone you’ve ever loved looks at the same moon. Satellite of love. I like to watch things on TV, on screens, on Psychic TV. Everything is on a screen now. When people walk they carry a screen. A private screening of an underground legend.

     The last Silver Jews show was in a Tennessee cave 333 feet below the earth. Occult enthusiasts know that is the number of the demon of dispersion. Berman crossed the abyss and became a master of the temple with the release of his last mountain. Purple majesty dyed with tuxedo feathers a top a Brooks Brothers suit. 

     What you can’t see, you can’t touch. When Royal Trux fans meet they do a variation on the Thelemic greeting. Royal Trux fans say: tea kettle hot. The response: champion pizza. Their presence makes the candles on the table flicker. The grateful dead of bad vibes. Quien es? Quien es? Berman in the land of Nod.

      Boom shacka lacka boom shacka lacka. The artificial intimacy, the diseased and permanently misshapen residue of the 90’s speaks and orders drinks. Gets drunk and plays Black Flag songs and upturns their baseball hats in some sort of mute nostril agony. Christ, 30 years ago I had the number of some house Metallica was staying at in East LA. I called up and the whole answering machine was in Spanish. Clever. I left a message saying I was Steve Albini from Chicago and I really wanted to produce them.

-Jim Hayes

Winter Solstice 2019: Sun in Capricorn Moon in Libra

 Marietta, Georgia: United States of America.