In the beginning there was a guy named Moses, and he was delicious. Everyone wanted a piece of him. At least all the people who were Somebody.
Moses had long hair and a beard, and was prone to wearing white, clingy robes, very similarly, in fact, to the Western depiction of the Biblical version of that prophet by the same name. The difference, of course, was that this hipster version of Moses did not have direct access to God, although some of the music and lyrics he and his expansive band came up with suggested so, and also, he was much more Conscious – dare we venture Deliberate? But that would defeat all his magnanimous efforts at Apathy, so let’s not do that to him until he Learns - of the image he was setting forth, or imitating, than that original purveyor of the same. The similarities were: both these Moseses had a lot of Followers.
But this is not a story about Moses comparisons. This is a story of a long, deep dive down truth lane, a story of searching, and perhaps, in the end, finding a Promised Land. Which is still so Moses from the Old Testament. But that isn’t the point as I just said, at least I don’t think it is. Perhaps we shall find that that is the whole point. But let’s tell the story, or what there is of a Story, first.
Moses lived a life of creative variations on the art of indolence and indifference. He was a perfecter, a purveyor, a propheteer if you will, of Nothing. He did Nothing so well, in fact, that he began to attract a Family of followers, curiouseers of his craft.
“Why does he look so good when he doesn’t try?” they whispered within their own minds, too afraid to share their observation with another who might tell them the answer, which would be exceedingly embarrassing never mind exposing to their efforts to replicate the same.
“Let’s do something with him,” they said to one another, and Moses agreed, yes, let’s do something, and so they did, in their robes and starched white shirts and angular black blazers and rusty ascots and ‘kerchiefs. They tossed their tangled dark locks ‘to and fro’ and warbled around the sound of their own beating drums, and people began to listen, and people began to flock, and they began to sing, ‘Let my people go,” and the people seemed to agree, because, they went.
They went to their shows, and they came to their book signings – broad, black-and-white volumes depicting the wanton winsomeness of their efforts, that publishers published because Moses was Moses and he had that IT factor, and Echo Park was only a few streets from Hollywood and so he had that kind of Pull.
All was good in the land of productive indolence, and music was made and poses were poased and lovers were loved for their lovability both by lovers and observers without lovers, who would have loved to have been loved themselves, but settled for observing, and then. One. Day.
She.
Dark. Thin. Frail even. And full of fire.
She alighted on the curtain of His desire like a spark, she walked through a golden field of wheat in His direction and from beneath her heels there flowed an ocean of milk and honey and his walls came tumbling down, walls he hadn’t known were separate from his city of Perfect Nothingness, and he found, within the inner sanctums of the city there was Something, and she was circling it, every shuddering footstep beneath her feather feet drawing cracks in the foundation, the milk-and-honey eating his Something alive like pirannas in quicksand, and he had to Think Fast, which did not go with the whole rest of his Thing.
Moses ran for the mountains and found himself in the desert. An alkaline desert of crags and crooks, borne on the wings of the shrieking hawk and the black branches of eternity, and he fell upon his back and reached upwards, upwards, upwards, and found in his hand a passion fruit and of course, he took a bite, because if he didn’t, we wouldn’t really have a story would we, because there is no story if He doesn’t take a bite and She doesn’t have something to do with it, is there?
Not really.
So of course, this is where our story really begins, because while He was sliding downwards, downwards, downwards, into the abyss of What Really Is, she was Taking Over, showing his Family that what was really In Order were the noise-makers, the percussion, the beads and bows of the Fathers, the African originators, whose zebra warpaint and leopard cloaks beat to the beat of an ever-beating beat, beat, beat.
And as the fools howled at the golden moon, and crowds gathered to watch, and asked no more what had become of Moses but instead watched Miriam, this dainty goddess of all that is Deliberately Unaware. And they cheered, and they danced, and they let sweat fall and limbs swings, and observers became lovers and lovers observers, and all was shaken, shaken, shaken.
And Moses knew not a whit.
The fruit was sweet and pungent, rancor and revival rousting in its seeds, and he thought of Miriam and wept and then forgot, and when he plunged down, down, down onto all fours the ground gave way beneath him and sank into an ocean of Regret, which was Curious, because Moses was the leader of Nothing, so what was there to think over here? Nothing, duh.
Nothing.
And yet, there was so much Something that he had no choice but to move his indolent, beautiful limbs, his tangled hair streaming behind him into clean, smooth lines, and he moved with the current, willingly, and up, up, upwards again, he burst forth, and all was as it had been before and yet So Very Different.
And then he went back to Echo Park, drying on the way there, and said hi to the Family, and they looked askance because he had muscles, new, from strokes and hair clean and straight, and he did not look like them, but She saw. She saw, and she knew, and Now was all that mattered for Them.
And Miriam took Moses and begat a new acceptance in the Family, and then they moved to Topanga Canyon and someone else came along and started a band and claimed to Bursting that they invented Popular Nothingnesss, and then they fell in love, and discovered Something, and someone else came along, and so on and so forth, and then Jesus came back, with long hair and another white robe, and there was a whole ‘nother round of bands, and everyone did coke and cried and laughed and quit, and made something artistic from the whole debangle.
They’re still doing it, by the way, right now, it doesn’t stop, that’s how it works.
Youth. Passion. Begets Passion, then Youth.
Throw some paint on that and a hair bow and sing about it.
The End.
