In Lieu

Some music... Regular Fries was a brilliant but very erratic late 90s fringe band. Their best release was a 5 track EP called Free the Regular Fries, which was an extended hypnosis tape that namechecked Where's Wally, Tariq Ali and Helen of Troy. This is off their debut album though: Dream Lottery.

Speaking of which, here's something I wrote a little while ago based on Dream Lottery. I suppose it's other title would be Lower State of Consciousness:

Tonight was the big draw, the dream lottery. Not just the usual prize, millions of pounds, not money but something truly life changing. Anticipation had been building for weeks, ever since the lottery had been announced.

Some said that the prize was the secret to eternal youth. Others suggested it was the key to inner peace. There were those who said they were in the know, who were sure it was the night when alien life would suddenly make itself known to mankind. Some people, rather dull, said it was just a billion pounds. There were many theories.

It was said everyone could play. In fact everyone did. Sure enough, tickets reached every last adult settled on the map. No matter how remote or how inaccessible (or how dangerous the journey) these little tickets arrived three days before the draw. They were little slips in white and black dots, with gold lettering and an eight-figure number, each unique.

Over the days and weeks excitement built and built until, at the allotted hour, the population gathered round the nearest TV for the big moment. The programme turned. On the screen appeared a man. He was unctuous, well groomed, handsome and middle-aged, dressed in a fine suit. He spoke and, funnily enough, no matter where anyone came from or what his or her first language happened to be, he was understood.

“Welcome to tonight’s grand draw. I hope you are all comfortable at home, watching your TV screens. Let the dream lottery commence”.

The man then withdrew from shot. All the people could see was a man and a woman, each lying naked on their own table with electrodes attached to their body. The camera scanned across them. They seemed calm enough, although quickly it became clear something, some current was passing through them. Their bodies twitched gently. They would lift their arms from time to time, twitch their toes, and make grunting or sighing noises.

The man and woman then stood. The woman started saying prayers from the Torah while the man sang passages from the Koran. After a while they switched to Christian and Hindu passages. On they went through every religion and further into all the scientific and philosophical credos.

Their voices duplicated and multiplied. They became more and more breathy and passionate until, depending on the viewers’ perspective, there was a sudden orgasmic dissolution and the audience dived straight into their brains. They leapt across synapses; each pulse was a delirious pleasure. The physical regions of the mind became like continents, with mountain ranges, rivers, beaches, oceans, some deserts, some forests, some rolling grasslands.

In the centre of each continent was a great lake. The viewer would peer into the lake. The lake was teeming with life, frogs, fish, flowers, insects and so on. But, looking deeper they could see what looked like building blocks, circles and triangles, rods and cones, swirling about in apparent chaos. The blocks gathered until they formed a twisting staircase, a double helix.

The viewers went down into the helix, down until they reached the level of shivering atoms. Within each atom they could see a star. Around each star were planets, multicoloured and infinitely varieties. As the helix grew a star would be born in a flash of light.

There was a rush, a sudden violent change of context. The viewers could see a small cat dragging her kittens to a safe corner of downtown Hiroshima, a dog trotting through the bullet raked streets of St Petersburg, a fox snaking past a camp on the outskirts of Auschwitz, an eagle nesting opposite Cape Canaveral, a songbird on a windowsill in Abbey Road.

The perpective sped outwards. Venus shed its skin, boiling over in a planet wide flood. Mars also split, revealing the Valles Marineris and Olympus Mons. Jupiter ducked inward sending Neptune into a death dive, past Uranus, into the depths of the solar system.

Further out they went, back to the staratoms. This time they were meshing together, making molecules, bonding into a crystalline structure. The bonds flexed and the molecules expanded into a vapour. The vapour fell like rain on the viewers’ faces. Gentle wind flicked through their hair, the whistling sound of leaves. The moon was full. It was a well-lit night.

The camera panned up, then down and in an indeterminate direction. After what seemed like an aching pause there was a plunge into terminal black. Then the unctuous, well-groomed, handsome middle-aged man reappeared. He said:

“I’m sorry there were no winners tonight. Please tune in next week”.