Art’s Theory 3

chapter three

Military Industrial Complex

          At the helm of a global business empire sat a frail old man named Noel Oscar Probity.  Probity used in a strictly titular sense, in this case.  Surrounded by a bunker full of computer monitors and futuristic high-tech toys, N. O. Probity watched over a myriad of fake companies, secret bank accounts and exotic tax havens.  For three generations his family had exploited governmental corruption caused by human greed.  Being a master of subliminal image disinformation tactics had made him useful to the C.I.A. and resulted in the top-level security clearance status he still enjoys.  This guy could walk right into the Pentagon war room during active operations.  He will be at Raven Rock if an atomic war happens.

          Live hidden camera feeds from around the city flicker on a grid of video monitors.  As people go about their lives oblivious to the creepy voyeur, Mr. Probity switched camera angles and spied Sam Bored looking up from an outdoor coffee house chessboard. 

          Returning from the distraction of feeling as if he was being watched, Sam looked again at the shit storm staring back at him from the familiar sixty-four square grid.  The arrangement of the pieces was still unyielding in its hopelessness so Sam began to look deeper into the maze of pins, forks and skewers contained in the chessboard position.  His highly skilled weekly opponent and good friend, the Honorable Reverend Bitty Buddy of the Universal Life Church, was pressing his positional advantage and Sam smelled the greed of over confidence.

          “It’s your move,” the good reverend is eager to win a game, it’s been a while.

          “I know.  I just can’t find a good one,” Sam admits.

          “I am ready to accept your resignation,” Bitty Buddy offers.

          “Now then, aren’t we getting cocky?!”

          “Now then?  You do realize that is an oxymoron?” the reverend asks.

          “You calling me a moron?” Sam invites his friend down the rabbit hole of verbal masturbation.

          “Just move or resign,” the rev refuses to take the bait.

          But Sam can’t control himself.  “Now-Then is actually a big part of this game.  Whole books of historical matches and current theory allow chess players to avoid well known tactical traps.”

          “Show me how reading all those chess books helps you now.  MOVE!”

          Sam continues, undeterred, “I would add soon, as in: Then-Now-Soon!  Not only is every position on the chessboard part of the past but, also, a soon to be position of the future is there, in plain sight, waiting to be discovered.”

          “Okay, take me to the future,” Bitty Buddy pleads.

          Sam attempted to look deeper into the position literally getting further ahead in time than his competitor.  He was now in the future – forcing his will upon the reverend.  One must pay a price for controlling the future and Sam would pay with two bishops.  At each turn he gave his opponent the choice of capture or loss of his queen.  Bitty Buddy’s massive attack has turned into a long and problematic defense.  Sam considered the formation of the chessmen and once again made an unexpected move.  He still couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was spying on him.

          Paranoia is a funny thing – comically absurd.  As a young teenager during the Vietnam War, Sam became politically active and naively participated in several public protests.  After Nixon resigned in disgrace, the idealistic hippies were shocked to learn that the F.B.I. had a huge presence at those events.  Paranoia made Sam use the Freedom of Information Act to inquire about the possibility of a file with his name on it.  In a form letter, the federal government declined to state if said person was of interest to the bureau.  Ironically, asking for such information instantly made Sam a person of interest. 

          As a subcontractor for the American government’s intelligence agencies, N.O. Probity obsessed over the enigma of Sam Bored.  Why was this local artist on his radar screen, or television monitor to be exact?  Noel pushed the record button; he planned to review this video footage later tonight after the gallery event.  The time and date are displayed on the video tape machine: 04:40 02 20 1991.  Noel had begun to collect a whole library of Sam Bored clips.  When one looked closely without blinking, there was often a moment when Sam seemed to go out of focus – just for a second or two.  At first Noel ignored that part of the video tape and rationalized it as just electronic interference.  But he had now come to realize it happened on nearly all the video recordings of Sam playing chess at the coffeehouse.  Noel is currently obsessed with this phase shifting anomaly that Sam displays while in deep thought.

          Mr. Probity grabbed a document from his cluttered desk; there are two triangular shapes near the top.  To the left, the largest shape was a topographical map of a volcanic island with black marks circumscribing the shoreline.  The map filled most of the top half of the page.  To the right, a Penrose triangle is illustrated in full color.  Below the triangle a Möbius strip shaped like the infinity symbol is also rainbow colored.  Below the map, there is an electro-magnetic spectrum chart with a visual spectrum pull-out enlargement.  Across the very top, where a masthead normally goes, a line of black and white diagrams illustrate some sort of image progression.  Across the bottom there is a bold line of symbols and language characters.  Below that, a page wide mathematical formula completes the coded message.

  Noel picked up a pencil and circled a location on the island map at the top of the page.  He seemed puzzled by the visual spectrum chart below the map.  Opening a lower desk drawer, he located a futuristic looking pair of goggles and carefully put them on over his head.  The round glasses emphasized his already insect like appearance.  He rotated his desk chair and surveyed the room through the strange goggles.  Noel reached up with both hands and adjusted the control knobs on the side of each lens. 

          Suddenly, he rips off the high-tech glasses and starts rubbing his red and watery eyes.  Noel is unsure of what he just witnessed, an invisible wavelength or maybe a hidden world.  But he already lives in a hidden world, how funny.

          Turning his attention to the security cameras protecting the fifty-million-dollar estate, Noel surveyed the water supply and power generator.  This huge compound was a totally self-sufficient world, insulating the billionaire from the harsh industrial landscape at this end of the city.  Multiple exits, secret passageways and a maze of interior spaces formed an outward projection of his paranoid mind.  With a heliport on the roof and a bomb shelter in the lowest basement, he was prepared for any crisis.  The whole scene looked like the villain’s island fortress in a James Bond movie.  In fact, an honorary Ph.D. in business administration actually made him Dr. No. 

          This filthy rich empty shell of a man just walked through a floor to ceiling mirror.  The trick mirror projects a false surface that seems to follow the wall plane.  Inside the wall, a hidden hallway leads Noel towards the center of his fortified modern mansion.  All the personal living spaces of the house could only be accessed via secret passageways.  Those secret hallways resulted from all the oddly shaped interior spaces not quite fitting together.  Opening a door disguised as a bookcase, he entered the octagonal master bath to groom for tonight’s art opening. 

 Looking into a multi-angled mirror, he imagined a much younger version of himself.  Any mirror creates a two-dimensional reflection of our three-dimensional world.  Noel was recently briefed on

a secret Pentagon theory that our world may be a three-dimensional refection of an unseen five-dimensional reality.  He reached into a round port hole hidden by the reflective cubistic facets of the mirrored medicine cabinet and pulled out a small glass vial filled with an amber liquid.  He unscrewed the lid of the transparent cylinder and sipped the special blend of vitamins and prescription drugs.  A slight erection proved he was not quite dead, yet.

          Freshly showered and now in his pentagon shaped bedroom, Noel was enjoying his personal chef’s gourmet happy hour hors d’oeuvres and specially paired cocktail.  Pacing around naked in front of the nightly news broadcast, Noel could hear a violent storm attacking his castle walls.  Horizontal rain, like something coming out of a fireman’s hose, was testing the bulletproof windows of the fortress.  Mother Nature was a Tempest tonight, moaning an aria of destruction accented by the percussive beats of flying debris.  The purple black sky lights up with one billion volts of static electricity.  In a flash, Noel’s compound magically appeared out of the darkness.  Eerie gothic shadows now stretch across the manicured grounds of Noel’s estate.  Then, just like a strobe light, it blinked out to total blackness – then BOOM!  The sonic shock wave of the thunder clap penetrated the mansion walls and Noel’s physical body.

          Storms like this, although rare in this state, are what make the Midwest so religious.  It is quite easy to imagine how our prehistoric ancestors might mistake such events as God showing his displeasure with all of mankind.  Why so angry?  Shouldn’t all the problems of the world be the responsibility of the maker and not the made, so to speak?

          Impeccably clad in a dark grey Armani suit and trimmed in loops of gold jewelry, Noel hobbled into a space-age elevator and quickly descended to the ground level parking garage.  With the motor already running, the driver got out from behind the steering wheel of an oddly angular foreign automobile and opened the trapezoidal rear passenger door.  N. O. Probity stiffly climbed inside the exotic black limousine and immediately turned his attention to the car’s computer monitor.  He quickly punched buttons to flip through the numerous cameras pointed at the outside world and selected an exit route from his fortified compound.  His instructions were electronically displayed on the dashboard for the bodyguard to read.  As a massive steel gate slammed shut behind them, Noel’s stealth-like vehicle slithered through an evil fog cloaking the razor wire that topped the perimeter wall.  An island of unimaginable privilege receded behind the limousine as it cruised through a sea of hopeless despair.  The gleaming rain-soaked ghetto streets at this end of town were alive with prostitutes, drug dealers and assorted indigent primates.  It all felt like a demented urban carnival.  Step right up and try your luck, motherfucker.

          An ironic sunset rainbow arched over the post apocalyptic cityscape.  Inside the metal exoskeleton of his limo, a pale old man stared out of dark bullet proof windows at the life forms on the street.  Like animals in a zoo, these creatures seem depressed by their own pointless existence.  The contrast of Noel’s privilege with these human beings who go without so he can have the wealth of a small nation is shocking to most people not in Mr. Probity’s income group – patriots who park their enormous assets offshore to avoid paying taxes to the country they love.

As the car stopped for a red light, a bum, with a rag in his hand, aimed his spray bottle at the windshield with visions of earning enough spare change for a bottle of Thunderbird wine.  “Get off my car you vermin!”  N.O. Probity screamed through the nearly sound proof tempered glass and with the flip of a toggle switch, a hundred volts of electricity surged through the limo’s outer metal shell.  The vagrant was ejected onto the pavement as the light turned green and the driver sped off.  Using the car’s computer, this member of the ruling elite plotted a route to the gallery which assured all the remaining traffic signals would be green.  A map with directions appeared on the dashboard and, once again, technology had allowed him to avoid talking to the hired help.

          Back in Noel’s comand center bunker the video recording of Sam is  replaying on a small monitor.  The footage from several hours earlier is being automatically recopied onto a longer term storage reel.  If one gets up close to the tiny six-inch screen it is possible to recognize the reverand and his heathen friend.  Sam has managed to once again win a lost chess game and surprised himself in the process.  It always felt like awaking from a daydream or returning from a different dimension, and not unlike his painting process. 

          As he tries to explain to his friend what has just happened on the chessboard, Sam can’t resist waxing poetically as he declares, “Greek mysteries were always allegorical invitations meant to transport the participants to a higher conceptual plane – revealing a sacred vision of a previously hidden world.  Confronting a new fundamental truth often leads to a paradigm shift within the evolving culture.  The discovery of x-rays, bacteria and atoms have forced modern societies to believe in things they cannot see, while discounting our ancient ancestors for worshiping unseen gods.  Such shared insights beg mankind’s hardest questions: Why am I here?  Are we alone in the universe?  What other basic truths remain hidden from us?  But be careful what knowledge you seek.  The Shaman suffers a schizophrenic crack-up as a result of his or her unique spiritual experience, transforming them into seers of ultimate truths.  But rest assured my good friend, this ability to see in a sacred way is within all of us.”

          “What the fuck are you talking about?  I’m the goddamn Reverend here!” Bitty Buddy could no longer contain his frustration over losing a chessgame he was clearly winning and suffering the ridiculous advice of his patronizing friend.

          Sam cluelessly continues - mostly to himself, “Someday this chapter of my life will become a graphic novel.”

          “Again, I have no idea what to say except, that I could sure use some of what you have been smoking,” the good Reverend confessed.  He looked one last time at the bizarre ending position of their chessgame and marveled at Sam’s ability to find such moves of desperation.  After years of bewilderment, Bitty Buddy had been considering the possiblity his good friend was sleep walking, in a trance and using his subcoscious mind to find solutions beyond his innate skill level.  In truth, just hanging around with Sam felt like a drug experience.  The world always seemed more surreal during these encounters.

          Come to think of it, Sam’s paintings had always made him feel the exact same way – disoriented and disbelieving.  The paintings were indeed profound artistic creations but how did they come out of his friend – someone who never seemed to work very hard.  It irritated the Reverend to think that an unspiritual human like Sam could see hidden dimensions or some deeper reality.

          “Do you believe in the afterlife?”

          Sam looks up into the boiling sky.  The eerie and rare undulatus asperatus clouds projected a surreal Judgment Day ambience.  A normal person might take this as a sign from God to get serious, but not Sam.

          “Hell, I hardly believe in this life I’m living right now,” Sam pretends.

          “I worry about you, Sam.

          “Don’t”

          “No, I mean it,” Bitty Buddy councils.  “What good is a life without purpose?”

          “Purpose?!  Hell, I never seem to do anything on purpose,” Sam claims.  “I’m just reacting to what life throws at me.  On this chessboard or walking down the street, my whole existence is focused on survival.”

          “Have you ever considered the possibilities of things not seen?  Don’t you think life still holds mysteries?”

          “I have my hands full dealing with the stuff I can see, touch, taste, smell and hear.  I’m not going to waste time fretting over some unseen hex fucking up my mojo.”

          “Look at that sky above your head right now.  It reminds me of the one above Charlton Hesston when he parts the Red Sea,” Biddy Buddy points out.

          “Exactly, a fake Hollywood illusion of God at work,” Sam adds.  “What I see in that sky is a crazy amount of turbulence that will certainly bring us some thunderstorm action in about an hour or so.”

          “Is there nothing you lack a rational explanation for?”

          “Sure, but that doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist.  History is full of past mysteries explained and miracles debunked.  Why must there be some cosmic muffin to relieve your suffering?”

          “Jesus died to absolve the sins of mankind,” the Rev preaches.

          “You do understand that Lamb of God idea was stolen from the Mesopotamians - a pagan culture,” Sam argues.

          “The more a story is retold, the more important it becomes.”

          “Well I can agree with that.  I also have always liked that Jesus was some sort of proto-hippie love child,” Sam confesses.  “But I could live without that threat of eternal damnation religion throws in as a motivator.”

          “The son of God loves all of us, even pagans like you, Sam.”

          “Don’t you think it would make more sense to worship the sun, spelled with a ‘u’?  After all, it is the true source of all life here on earth.  In fact, all the elements that make up your physical being were created inside distant stars eons ago.  You are literally ‘star stuff’ as the astronomers like to say.  Try wrapping your head around that,” Sam adds with a thespian delivery.

          “I agree that God’s creation is awesome and the complexity of it all is humbling,” Bitty Buddy deflects.

          But Sam adapts like a Jazz musician and continues, “I’m thinking of becoming the leader of the Van Allen belt cult.  Without that shield of electro-magnetic energy, humans could not exist on this planet.  Our own sun’s radiation would fry us.  Talk about a vengeful deity.”

          “Okay, so I may not be able to convert you but please come and check out my new storefront church?” the rev suggests.

          “Do you still have the transvestite jam band,” Sam queries.

          “Of course,” Bitty assures.

          “Can I front the band?”

          “I didn’t know you could sing.”

          “I could just talk my way through the song like Leonard Cohen.  It’s all about presence – the ability to fill the room with one’s vibe,” Sam contends.

          “Pick a song and you can sit in for the final number.”

          “How about: Are You Drinking with Me Jesus?” Sam dares.

          “No.”

          “Notice how quickly freedom goes away in the name of religion!”

          “I’m not censoring you.  Just don’t turn my soulful sextet into a parody band.  You, of all people, should be more respectful of their artistic skills.”

          “You’re right, they are truly amazing,” Sam atones.  “How about: Trying To Get To Heaven?”

          “Before they close the door,” Bitty Buddy continues the lyrics.  “The band will love doing a Dylan song.  So, you will be there Sunday?”

          “I’m always there in spirit – just like Jesus.”

          “Very funny,” Bitty Buddy furrows his brow and adds, “You need to get out and socialize more.  Meet new people.”

          “In case you haven’t noticed – people are the problem.”

          “We all fall short of grace,” the rev sermonizes.

          “What the fuck does that even mean?  Does God just give a constant do over to all of mankind?”

          “Why are you so angry, Sam?”

          “If you’re not angry, you are not paying attention.  Maybe you should stop focusing on the shit you can’t see and start paying attention to the real world before it runs over you.”

          “Wow, how hopeless your so-called real-world sounds.”  Bitty Buddy offers, “My world is full of kind and generous people who are actively trying to add more love and hope to this planet we all call home.  In my world life is beautiful, like a living poem.”

          “More like a bathroom limerick.  By the way, did I tell you about that guy from Nantucket?”

          “So, for you, this is it?  No heaven, no afterlife, no hope of salvation?”

          “I don’t know what salvation would feel like or if I even need it,” Sam responds.  “But please tell me, if you can, what heaven would look like.”

          “Don’t laugh but I imagine it to be an ideal version of our own blue planet, except when I look up into the sky I see Jupiter.”

          “The Roman god?  You pagan,” Sam taunts.

          “No, the gas planet with the red spot,” the rev clarifies.

          “So, heaven is located on a moon orbiting a gas giant planet somewhere out there in the known universe?”

          “You are such a cynic.  Jesus could walk across water to save your soul and you would try to debunk the trick.”

          “Listen dude, I would be the first human to notice the deity’s arrival,” Sam insists.  “In fact, just yesterday I was thinking that homeless guy playing chess with me in the park might actually be Jesus.  But then I destroyed him with the Evan’s Gambit, an opening any all-knowing god should be familiar with.”

          “Please come critique my new set up, sit in with the band or stand up and give a sermon if you like.  Just come and please bring Zia.  I can’t remember the last time I saw her.”

          “Awe, Jesus.”