Tarantula 12:  More Mixed Up Confusion and 13: Oval Faubus

 

• 1: Tarantula
• 2: The Tarantula Crawls Across The Circus Floor and 3: Arachnida Is Dead
• 4: The Bride and 5: The Return of Tarantula
• 6: Everybody loves a critic and  7: Hopalong Bob
• 8: Mad, Bad, And A Stranger To Know and 9: Miss Lucy And Mr. Jinx
• 10: A Madder Piece From Ginsberg Street and 11: The Long Dark Stranger

12:  More Mixed Up Confusion

by Larry Fyffe

A William Blake-influenced, postmodernist poet joins artist-pilgrims on their way along the Yellow Brick Road.

This time, meets up with a land-dwelling Tarantula:

(A)nd molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and
may came home with a smooth round stone
a small as the world and large as a stone
For whatever we lose (like you or me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea
(EE Cummings: Maggie And Milly And Molly And May)

No Artemis she, the Moon Goddess below is not that crazy about Cummings’ poetry; prefers muscle-bound movie stars instead:

Mona - she resembles a sexy Buddah
& always looks like she's standing over the Golden Gate
she don't dig e.e. cummings - she digs Fernando Lamas
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

Fernando stars in “Dangerous When Wet” with swimmer/actress Esther Williams, along with cartoon cat and mouse Tom and Jerry:

Lady Esther is the cleaning lady
& she was mopping up the floor
when I woke up
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

Allegory and satire, open to more than one interpretation, be good literary devices to use when a writer is out to question the sacred beliefs of a strongly-bound mother land ~ be warned, the gates of Hades are guarded by a three-headed dog called Cerberus  – stops souls condemned thereto from escaping.

Thus spake Taranthustra:

& Cupid can now kick over the kerosene lamp
Bob Dylan, killed by a discarded Oedipus
who turned around to investigate a ghost
& discovered that the ghost too
was more than one person
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

Cupid forbids mortal Psyche from looking at him, she lights a candle, and off flies the God of Desire into the night.

Oedipus unknowingly screws his own mother.

The (holy) ghost, part of a Trinity, with father God and son Jesus.

Blasphemy! above ~ Christianity equated with Ancient Roman/Greek mythology.

Might say God is compared to a Dog, goodness me.

Better to kick out the lamp, blow out the candle, and remain blind, than be sent down  to the hot pits of Hell.

Marksist Twain is at the gate!

The Tarantula orders some Fried Rich; Old Testament Yahweh gets it too:

Oh, God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe said, "Man, you must be putting me on"
God said, "No"; Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want, Abe, but
The next time you see me coming, you better run"
(Bob Dylan: Highway Sixty-One)

Lord Buckley drops by holding a slave-driver’s whip while Christ, and some black Muslims, protest for civil rights, and against the Vietnam War:

(B)lack betty, black betty, blam de lam
betty had a loser, blam de lam
i spied him on the ocean
with a long string of muslims
blam de lam, going quack quack
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

God, He say " Don't bame me, blame Adam":
Nothing can hold you down, nothing that you lack
Temptations not an easy thing, Adam given the devil reign
Because he sinned, I got no choice, it run in my vein
(Bob Dylan: Pressing On)

Blame it on the stones.

13: Oval Faubus

It’s not all over between Al Capp, and Li’l Abner’s Dog Patch:

(Y)esterday I talked to Abner for forty minutes
he Abner cursed out East Texas, tomatoes
&  tin pan alley, he didn't talk to me 
he talked in a mirror
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

You don’t need a weatherman to know that East Texas is humid and rainy; and besides Patty’s from there:

Born in 'Liz Texas timber
Up where the eagles fly
Then makes him tell'im never
But she don't cry

(Tony Attwood: Patty’s Gone To Laredo ~ Bob Dylan)

Films like ‘Ace In The Hole’ and ‘Little Foxes’ are just too dark, you see.

So Sandy Bob’s keeps on looking for a balance between Fatty Aphrodite and Sandy Slim.

But he just can’t find it:

I never could guess your weight baby
Never needed to call you my whore
I always thought you were straight baby
But you're drifting too from shore
(Bob Dylan: Drifting Too Far From Shore)

Already questioned in “Tarantula”, is the cozy relationship of the cowboy angels Hopalong Cassidy with Topper, and Roy Rogers with Trigger:

(M)ore or less like a roy rogers
& trigger relationship of which
under present standards is an impossibility
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

Before this a flood has wiped out the Witchita falls; Tennessee Williams writes about dead-end “Camino Real”.

Sings Sands on the Sullivan Show:

More than you'll know, more than you know
Girl of my heart, I love you so
Lately I find, you're on my mind
More than you'll know
Whether you're right, whether you're wrong
Girl of my heart, I'll string along
(Tommy Sands: More Than You'll Ever Know ~ Elisu, et. al.)

The  Rolling Stones appear on the Sullivan Show, and Jack-Be-Nimble so not to be censored.

Back from the Mad House on Castle Street returns Sandy Bob ~ on a mission to save the day for the peewee music stations of Babylon America.

Peewee the Ear, whose mouth looks like a credit card
him and Jake the Flesh
along with Sandy Bob from Pecos
they're leading the white elephant to water
somewhere between witchita falls & el camino real
it's late in the day & no word from Saigon is in yet
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

It’s all more than enough to want the scales of justice to tip all the way over to the other side ~ to make a red-blooded man want to rule in hell, rather than serve in heaven.

To find an Eve before she’s kicked out of Eden, to find one with a Nietzschean “slave morality”:

I am so Sick of Biblical people
they are like castor oil
like rabies
& now I wish for
Your eyes - you who doesn't talk business
& supplies my eyes with blankness
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

Ah, there must be some way outta here ~ a middle path between the two extremes of earthy materialism and heavenly spiritualism.

But nay, the strict sexual teachings of the oh-so popular Christian televangelist Oral Roberts get in the way:

(O)ne of the men, he asks, "anything bothering you?"
jenny replies,  "yes - whatever happened to Oval Faubus?"
& the man quickly drops the subject
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)