Tarantula 25: Velly Solly and 26: Rain

By Larry Fyffe

Tarantula 25: Velly Solly

by Larry Fyffe

& into the march now where tab hunter
leads with his thunderbird
(Bob Tarantula)

‘Chubbie’ Clementine is mentioned by Bobby Darin in song lyrics; and ‘Fatty’ Aphrodite is mentioned in the novelette “Tarantula” by Bob Dylan:

The old bridge trembled
and disassembled
(Bobby Darin: Clementine ~ traditional/P. Montrose,  et.al.)

There’s no overweight woman in the song below.

A pregnant one perhaps:

The bridge at midnight trembles
The country doctor rambles
(Bob Dylan: Love Minus Zero)

Nor be there “fatties” in the western movie “My Darling Clementine” about lawman Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda), along with Doc Holiday, and Clementine Carter.

Obverse bubbles come to the surface of the plasmatic sea as it grows darker in the lines below.

No possibility of a happy ending in the offing in ‘Tarantula’; things just go from bad to worse:

& anointed into the shelves of a live hell
the unimaginative sleep, repetition without change
& fat sheriffs who watch for doom in the mattress
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

Happier the following song lyrics:

They say for every boy and girl
There's just one love in this whole world
And I know I've found mine
(Tab Hunter: Young Love ~ Cartey/Joyner)

Likewise, the movie “Pleasure Of His Company” starring Tab Hunter, Debbie Reynolds, and Fred Astaire. Rancher Roger with wife Jessica drive off in a sports car while her father Pogo, still thinking of himself as a playboy, flies off to Europe with Toy, the happy-go-lucky Chinese ‘house boy’.

Toy talks thusly as below, and Debbie’s cultured father in the movie apes him:

"(V)ery sorry - velly solly"
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

Similarly, black actors and actresses were often told to speak in dialects of slavery days (the grandfather in the above-mentioned movie looks like Colonel Saunders).

Seems the likes of pretty white-faced actors like Hunter receive no marks for advancing the cause of civil rights:

(P)earl bailey stomps him up against a buick
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

In the Tennessee Williams’ play “The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore”, Hunter takes on a serious role; nicknamed the “Angel Of Death”, Tab attempts to spiritually guide an elderly actress to a peaceful death though she thinks he’s just after her money.

“We all live in a house that is on fire”, he says to the little old lady, “no fire department to call”.

Not at all Zen-like be the narrator in the following song lyrics:

Yes, I'm leaving this morning
Just as soon as the dark clouds lift
I'll break in the roof
Set fire to the place as a parting gift
(Bob Dylan: Summer Days)

26: Rain

by Larry Fyffe

The parade of talking pilgrims continues on down Tarantula Road:

(B)ut I asked him anyway
"whatever happened to gregory corso?"
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

Dramatic irony ~ we readers know for sure that Corso writes the poem below:

O Bomb, I love you
I want to kiss your clank, eat your boom
You are a paean, an acme of scream
(Gregory Corso: The Bomb)

The burlesquer above, burlesqued below:

& Nuclear Beethoven screaming
"oh aretha - i shall be your voodoo doll
- oh prick me - let's make somebody hurt"
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

The narrator’s satire continues:

(H)e replied " wanna play some cards?"
to which I answered "no but what ever happened to jane russell?"
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

The lyrics of the following song contains a hint about what happens to Jane:

And over in the corner
Much to my surprise
Mr. Hughes hid in Dylan shoes
Wearing his disguise
(Ricky Nelson: Garden Party)

Howard Hughes casts Jane Russell in the funny-filled movie “The Outlaw”, a burlesque film the location of which is supposedly New Mexico. Two gunslingers fight over a horse named ‘Red’. In the end, the gal Rio rides off with Billy the Kid (she’s packing a couple of busty weapons of her own) after Doc Holiday (played by Canadian-born Walter Huston) gets shot by jealous marshal Pat Garrett because the two ‘softie’ outlaws become pals.

In this western movie, the Apaches are coming:

"Now whatta we do, make a stand, or run for it?"
(Pat Garrett: 'The Outlaw')

From a later song:

I didn't know whether to duck or to run, so I ran
(Bob Dylan: Brownsville Girl ~ Dylan/Shephard)

Then an American playwright arrives on the scene disguised as an Armenian:

& curiously belonging to the armen ian hunchback
resembling arthur miller who's very turned off
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

Mixing up the medicine:

"He reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something 
cold and ruthless ..."

(Ian Fleming: "Casino Royale")

Arthur Miller’s “Death of A Salesman” depicts Willie Loman as a victim of the ‘American Dream’.

Walter Huston of “The Outlaw” is the father of movie director John Marcellas

Huston:

(W)e get stoned on joan crawford
& form teeming colonies
& die of masculine conversation
...Marcellus, wearing khaki
when madness struck him immediately
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

In the movie “Rain”, directed by Lewis Milestone, Joan Crawford stars as Sadie; she a prostitute that a brimstone missionary (Walter Huston) is determined to ‘save’ while native drums beat in the background:

I was nothing, I was nobody
Now I'm something
I'm somebody
(Joan Crawford: "Rain")

Converted, Sadie’s eyes glaze over. Shaken by the power of the devil, and unable to resist her, the narrow-minded preacher enters Sadie’s bedroom, and rapes ‘one of the daughters of the king’.

The next morning, Sadie puts on a frapper dress ~ plays the “Wabash Blues” to blow the hypocrisy away.

The missionary, be dead by suicide.

Tarantula 25: Velly Solly and 26: Rain

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