“Too hot to handle” and “Lucien’s Tarantula”

by Larry Fyffe

Too Hot To Handle

Further unfolding of the Untold movie script for the film production (tentatively titled “Tarantula Road”) of the book “Tarantula”.

Narrator: Sandy Bob

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{To wit}

Speaking of the (Fran)cisco Kid:

"Do you know San Francisco?"
"I've been there to a party once"
(Kirk Douglas & Robert Mitchum speaking from: Out Of The Past)

A quip that pops up in the following song lyrics:

You said you were going to Frisco, stay a couple of months
I always liked San Francisco, I was there for a party once
(Bob Dylan: Maybe Someday)

Maybe Someday the Untold Edit

A movie entitled ‘Too Hot To Handle’ stars well-endowed Jayne Mansfield (whom singer/songwriter Dylan actually meets in New York City).

An American, she plays Frankie Midnight in the amusing British gangster film.

Alluded to in the song lyrics beneath:

I guess I was too hot to handle, not sentimental enough
Maybe someday, you'll believe me when I say
That I wanted you, baby, in every kind of way
(Bob Dylan: Maybe Someday)

Sex-symbol Jayne mentioned outright by name in the lines below ~ by the advice-giving Justine:

"(I) mean like if you wanna be some kind of charles atlas
go right ahead .... but you better head off for muscle beach
- i mean you just might as well snatch jayne mansfield
- become king of your kind and start some kind of secret gymnasium"
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

In the following song lyrics, the narrator seemingly pretends that he’s a tough guy; says he can’t even recall the times he and his former girlfriend had when in San Francisco:

Oh, must I fall into this sadness
Do I look like Charles Atlas
Do you think I still got
What you still got, baby
(Bob Dylan: She's Your Lover Now)

Out of the black-magic, hot-fluid plasma spewed forth from the pages of the postmodern book cools the Jungian Universe composed by singer/writer Bob Dylan.

Out gallops the crystal cowboy angel:
(I) am gazing into the big dipper with
with a silver buttoned blouse in my nostrils
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

And there too, lo and behold:

(A)lice toklas lays on the grassy knoll
& blesses a flower
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

Lucien’s Tarantula

(A) girl with her back
full of ink
raises her hand
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

Creatively said it is that jealous is the tarantula, a seeker of vengeance against those with power and authority ~ in a nutshell, the big poisonous spider is Christian-like, a black-cloaked preacher of equality.

So claimed by Zarathustra below:

There cometh the tarantula willingly. Welcome tarantula. Black on
 thy back is thy triangle and symbol. And I know what is in thy soul
(Friedrich Nietzsche: Thus Spake Zarathustra ~ translated)

Existentialist Nietzsche and Gothic writer Edgar Allan Poe are romantic wimps in comparison to the French-Urugaryan writer Lucien Ducasse.

Lucien presents a prose/poem wherein he posits that God must exist because the Almighty One demonstrates that He hates humankind so much that the Creator goes out of His way to put the evil actions of Lucifer (Maldoror) to shame.

In the ambiguity-strewn, and highly fragmented ‘The Songs of Maldoror’, two individuals (whom Maldoror believes he’s killed) are transformed by a heavenly angel into a giant blood-sucking tarantula that torments the satanic sadist every night when he tries get some sleep:

An archangel descends from heaven
And the Lord's messenger orders the two men
To turn themselves into one giant black spider
That comes every night to suck Maldoror's throat 
(Lucien Ducasse: The Songs Of Maldoror ~ translated)

Singer/songwriter/musician Bob Dylan waters down what can be considered on one level Ducasse’s critique of complacent authors who dare not step very far outside the norms of what’s considered acceptable and decent writing of the day.

But critique them Dylan does:

& behold the prophesying blind allegiance
to fox law, monthly cupid
& the intoxication ghosts of dogma ... nay
& may the boatmen in bathrobes be banished forever
& anointed into the shelves of a live hell, the 
unimaginative sleep, repetition without change
& fat sheriffs who watch for doom in the matttess
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

In the lines below, unimaginative writers condemned – they’ll find no immortality, figuratively or otherwise, anywhere ~ neither on earth nor in heaven:

Are you tired of living
You who have barely been born
You may count on encountering up there
The very same evils as down here
(Lucien Ducasse: The Songs Of Maldoror ~ translated)

The sorrowful sentiment of precious time wasted echoed in the following song lyrics:

From the fool's gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born 
Is busy dying
(Bob Dylan: It's Alright Ma)

Both the creepy ghosts of Arthur Rimbaud and Lucien Ducasse lurk in the shadows of Dylan’s dark-humoured mind:

Lilith teaches her new husband, Bubba
how to use deodorant
also teaches him that
"stinky doo doo" means nasty filth
(Bob Dylan: Tarantula)

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