Ulysses Speaks
Contents:
- Historical Situation Timeline for Context Of The
Nation Of Ulysses
- On Menudo
- Critique and Response
- C.L. Thomson's Testimony on the Ulysses Phenomenon
Historical Situation Timeline for Context Of The Nation Of Ulysses
1) 1950 - "Gun Crazy" released through MGM and starring Peggy Cummins and
John Dall, premieres. A Bonnie and Clyde-type story about two lovers who
rob banks and fetishize guns. Echoes Ulysses philosophy, "What are you
waiting for? Take the Kingdom of Heaven by storm."
2) 1879 - Little Big Horn, 7th cavalry massacred by Sioux tribe. "I'd
like to shake the hand of the Indian brave who lay General Custer in his
grave." -Billy Childish.
3) 1850 - Nat Turner revolt; with glorious futility Nat T. echoes Chuck
Dukowski'd Black Flag proclamation, "We're fighting a war, a war we can't
win. They hate us, we hate them, we can't win - no way."
4) 4th Century B.C. - When sneaking past his Cyclopean guard, and asked
to identify himself in the dark, Ulysses outwits his captor by responding
that he is, in fact, "No Man." In doing so, he has denied his humanity,
nationalized himself, and effectively changed history forever.
5) 1991 - The Nation of Ulysses proclaims its secession from the United
States, recognizes youth as a class, creates the incendiary Fruit of
Ulysses, announces that for political reasons their age will not change
from 18, and declares their intent of, "Total annihilation of the U.S.
and all of its weak and infernal pawns, until our boundaries are
limitless." While the hopeful remark, "The Nation of Ulysses Must
Prevail," the children chant "Ulysses, Ulysses, little flower, beloved by
all the Youth."
ULYSSES SPEAKS...On Menudo...
Menudo's potential for infinitude through member replacement has so
impressed the Nation, that a rotation of new and fresh faced youths, each
more beautiful than the last, shall be commenced with nation members upon
the first signs of commercial compromise, so as to ensure permanent
revolution and everlasting musical ineptitude.
The Critique: "They aren't grungy or funky or long-haired. Thus, I
cannot like them."
The Response: "The stupidity of their reaction goes hand-in-hand with
the decadence of their world."
The Critique: "Like the hard bop of the 50's, as typified by the likes
of Miles Davis or John Coltrane, it is difficult to understand."
The Response: "The difficulty lies not in our sound, but in your supine
head. Our noise is no more difficult than its epoch."
The Critique: "By remaining obstinately underground, you marginalize
your work and damn yourself to "ghetto music," simultaneously limiting
your effectiveness."
The Response: "We prefer to remain in obscurity together with the masses
rather than harangue them in the artificial illumination which is
manipulated by those who hypnotize them. We shall not contribute to the
adulteration of our own nation by bowing to pragmatic economic concerns.
Let the bloated burst, choke on cynicism, be strangled by supplicating
corporate arms. Let us watch their corpse be consumed by slugs and
snails, while we blubber, The Nation of Ulysses Must Prevail."
There is only one Nation of Ulysses: the seriously unserious, reverently
irreverent, amoral moralists whose iconoclastic assault on the received
pieties of America place them in the front ranks of social critics. What
went into the making of the legend? There was their erudition, their
stock of language, their lore in urban sagas, their ransacking of every
literature, their knowledge of archaeology and racial history- of kitchen
midden and skull measurements. There was the precision with which they
knew the homely and workday details of culture as well as the big
abstraction, the ease with which they moved about in history from
neolithic times to the report of the latest congressional committee.
They were, as has been said, "The last group who knew everything"- and if
they did not know quite everything they could distract your attention
from the gap by a wry witticism. There were their strange songs, any one
of which could have made a lesser band's career and each of which had the
knack of standing the accepted doctrines on their head. There was their
polysyllabic language and their slow acid style that corroded the
sanctities. There were their concerts, with their mumbled messages which
only the better souls understood. There was the way they looked: shaggy
eyebrows, ashen faces with unforgettable eyes, rough clothes that hung
too loosely on their shrunken bodies, a shell of silence into which they
seemed to have retreated for good and from which only the most persistent
strategy could draw them. They refused to be patronized or dismissed,
turned into a cult or giggled at. The important thing was to build a
social analysis that would encompass modern culture and make humankind
reckon with it.
-C.L. "Chamaco" Thomson
The Circus Lupus Nation
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