|
Dr. Gonzo: Music. Turn it up. Put that tape on.
Raoul Duke: What tape?
Dr. Gonzo: Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit". I want a rising sound.
Raoul Duke: You're doomed. I'm leaving here in two hours and then they're going to come up here and beat the mortal s*it out of you with big saps. Right there in that tub.
Dr. Gonzo: I dig my own graves. Green water and the White Rabbit. Put it on. (…) Let it roll! And when it comes to that fantastic note where the rabbit bites its own head off, I want you to THROW THAT F**KING RADIO INTO THE TUB WITH ME!
WHEN THE RABBIT TAKES THE MAIDEN TO HIS HUTCH
I’d like you to get this picture clear in your mind – there are two guys in the bathroom. One of them, partly bald and wearing big glasses, is holding an ancient cassette player with the song by Jefferson Airplane on. The other guy is lying in the bath brimful of water. He is definitely high; too much acid changed him into a suicidal freak. He wants the man in the glasses to throw the cassette player to the tub when Grace Slick sings the line “feed your head!” The man holding the radio is Raoul Duke – Hunter S. Thompson’s alter ego. The man in the bathtub is Dr. Gonzo who was based on a lawyer - Oscar Zeta Acosta. If you think that you are lost now and you feel that you do not know what you are reading about – no worries. Just read the next paragraph, please.
This scene comes from the film starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro entitled Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The film is based on the novel of the same name written by Hunter S. Thompson. It tells the story of Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo who go to Las Vegas in order to write an article about a motorcycle race for Sports Illustrated magazine. They experience a lot of drug taking and psychedelic visions which are hard to describe. Strangely enough, my g/f, who is a big fan of Johnny Depp, found it really hard to watch the whole film (which I really enjoyed). She claims that there is no plot and action as such. Shame… Anyway, two years ago Mr. Thompson committed suicide by blowing his head off with the Smith & Wesson Model 29 (yeah, this is the revolver used by Dirty Harry;)). In his suicide note he wrote: “No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt.” He was a fine journalist, I assume.
Probably you have already realised that the song that I’m going to write about today is this (un)famous White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane. And don’t get me wrong, I’m r e a l l y against illegal substances. However, this song, which is somehow based on the both books by Lewis Caroll (you know, ‘bout Alice), is some sort of a proof that the girl was either mentally ill or under the influence of certain chemical substances given to her, for example, by her granny or mommy.
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don't do anything at all
Go ask Alice
When she's ten feet tall
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call
Recall Alice
When she was just small
When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the dormouse said:
"Feed your head
Feed your head
Feed your head"
Our old pal Marilyn Manson sings in one of his songs: ‘A pill to make you numb, a pill to make you dumb, a pill to make you anybody else…” It’s from Coma White, isn’t it? Granny Grace Slick used to sing that ‘one pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small.’ It seems obvious that the first two lines are about dopes. However, when you open your copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and read the first chapter entitled Down the Rabbit-Hole you’ll notice the paragraph in which Alice finds a bottle with some kind of a potion inside. At first she thinks that this may be poison but she knows that bottles filled with poison usually have a label on which it says that the liquid is in fact poisonous. I know that you may feel a little bit confused now; my description of the whole scene is different from what you can read and imagine on your own… You see, I find it curiously difficult to describe Alice’s thoughts. Anyway, it says ‘DRINK ME’ on the label. She drains the bottle and she starts to shrink. Then she finds a small cake on which the words ‘EAT ME” were written. She ate the biscuit and she started to grow. You see, granny Slick changed the potion and the cake into little pills. I guess the lyrics suggest some kind of psychedelic visions in which a person grows or becomes smaller. There is also one more kind of pills mentioned in the song – those which a mother gives to her children. Probably it is some sort of a medicament because it ‘doesn’t do anything at all.’ I mean, it does cure you but it doesn’t cause any hallucination.
Before all this ‘EAT ME, DRINK ME’ stuff Alice had noticed the White Rabbit saying to itself that it (or maybe ‘he’) is going to be late. He looked at his watch on a chain nervously and then he rushed to his rabbit hole. Alice decided to go after him and she fell into the hole which appeared to be bottomless pitch. She tumbled down not knowing how deep the rabbit hole goes. This is the beginning of the second stanza/verse. Then we can read about a caterpillar smoking hookah. A hookah is a pipe made of a tube and a kind of a jar filled with water. It was used to smoke tobacco but these days it is somehow associated with smoking grifa. Alice meets the Caterpillar at the end of the fourth chapter. Its first words are: ‘Who are you?’ If you say these words aloud, you will notice that in order to pronounce the word who you need to breathe air out. It seems to me that the Caterpillar first inhaled deeply the smoke from the hookah and then exhaled it pronouncing at the same time these words in a specific manner (like ‘Whooo are you?’). What is more, the Caterpillar sat on a huge mushroom. Alice complained about her height saying that she’d like to be taller. The Caterpillar said: ‘One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter’ meaning the mushroom. Now, do you see the similarity between the sentences uttered by the Caterpillar and the very beginning of the song? Does it mean that granny Grace paraphrased these words? I have no doubts about it. And again the hookah and the mushroom are the means of introducing the sphere of drugs to the story.
“Men on the chessboard” appear in the second part of Alice’s adventures entitled Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There. We have got the White and Red Knight, The White and Red Queen, The Red King who is snoring and dreaming about Alice, and Alice herself moving on squares of a huge chessboard at the beginning of the book. In the same stanza we have the mushroom mentioned once again.
Now I find it really tough to analyze the beginning of the last stanza. These two lines: ‘When logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead’seem to have the clear meaning – in the world of Lewis Carroll there is no logic and proportion; everything seems to be upside down. However, the adjective ‘sloppy’ describes things which have been done in a careless way or something which is not solid. However, as far as I’m concerned, there is no such collocation as ‘sloppy dead.’ I mean, maybe I’m wrong (if so, please, let me know immediately) but I have googled it and found numerous websites concerning White Rabbit, plus one absurd riddle. Believe me, it’s corny.
Question: There is a room. The shutters are blowing in. There is broken glass on the floor. There is water on the floor. You find Sloppy dead on the floor. Who is Sloppy? How did Sloppy die?
If you want to know the answer, you need to read the article till the end. I’m going to place the answer somewhere among other sentences.;)
Let’s talk about the White Knight now. The problem with him is that according to the song he is supposed to speak backwards. However, the only peculiar thing about him is his falling from his horse. He is simply unable to sit on the stallion. Although some critics claim that the White Knight is Lewis Carroll himself, it is hard to confirm this. The other character mentioned in this stanza is the Red Queen who says: ‘off with her head.’ Actually, this line comes from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and is uttered by the Queen of Hearts. You need to be aware of the fact that during the course of her adventures Alice meets characters which look as if they had been taken from the chess set (king, queen, knight, bishop etc.) and also the characters that can be found in the deck of cards. The Queen who said this line is in fact from the deck of cards (and not from the chess set as suggested by granny Grace).
Now, the whole song is a kind of a dramatic monologue in which the speaker addresses the silent listener. Let’s say it is granny Grace Slick talking to Jack Casady. She tells him that each time he has got these psychedelic visions in which he gets taller or smaller, in which he sees the White Rabbit and the Caterpillar, the visions containing the White Knight or the Red Queen, he should ‘go and ask Alice’ or recall her (if he had read books ‘bout her adventures). Definitely, she knows the answer to all his questions. Answer: Sloppy is a goldfish. The wind blew the shutters in, which knocked his goldfish-bowl off the table, and it broke, killing him… And if it doesn’t help he should ‘remember what the dormouse said.’ I can’t remember actually what it said since I read the book many years ago. I remember there was no such line as ‘feed your head.’ In this situation the Internet comes in handy. Some of the internet sources suggest that this is the allusion to the Chapter XI (Who Stole the Tarts) of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The whole action takes place in the court of justice:
“‘Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said—’ the Hatter went on, looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too: but the Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep.
‘After that,’ continued the Hatter, ‘I cut some more bread- and-butter—’
‘But what did the Dormouse say?’ one of the jury asked.
‘That I can’t remember,’ said the Hatter.”
And when Dr. Gonzo from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas says ‘when it comes to that fantastic note where the rabbit bites its own head off, I want you to throw that radio into the tub with me’ I think it just betrays that he misunderstood the lyrics. Firstly, it is not the White Rabbit but the Dormouse who was to say this line. Secondly, it is not about ‘biting your own head off’ but rather about feeding an addiction to drugs. Of course the verb ‘feed’ means the action of eating (to eat), but I’m pretty sure that if granny Grace had meant eating your own head, she would have probably written something similar to ‘feed on your head’ What do you think, hmm?
I’d like to finish with some interesting thing that I found in The Shining by Stephen King. When little Danny enters the room number 217, while describing the boy’s thoughts the author of the book makes reference to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Danny recollects the picture of the White Rabbit saying ‘I shall be late.’ He (or it;)) goes to see the Queen and play cricket with her. Then Danny hears the Queen of Hearts shouting: ‘off with his head!’ Finally, the Hatter’s famous riddle is mentioned here. When Danny sees a desk below the big window with the shutters closed he hears in his head: ‘Why is raven like a writing desk?’ The Hatter gives this riddle in the chapter entitled A Mad Tea-Party. Do you know the answer? Of course you don’t. Why would you?
Zbyszek G.
There is more |
