SUMMUMBONUMBOOJUM: the new Ice Cube/Carole King/Eminem hit single, with special guests, reviewed by Joe Starck

After listening to Ice Cube, Eminem adjusted the saddle on his bicycle
a half millimeter upward and a whole millimeter forward, and after Em
then thought, "Where you lead, I will follow; will you love me
tomorrow?," a natural woman, Carole King, felt the Earth move so far
away, way over yonder, and before it's too late, rode Smackwater Jack's
bicycle out in the cold to the tapestry of Token Creek, home again,
where you've got a friend, where, in the slow shallow inlets of the
creek, a man can sometimes be seen catching tadpoles for his two
children of bright light insight.


(B-SIDE)
(Chorus sampled from The Staple Singer's "Why? (Am I Treated So Bad)")

For, after say **** sit thought about the mythmakers, after lay lady
lay thought about the blood and the turf, after say **** sit thought
about the wicked wigwagging politicos, lay lady lay got some butter and
garlic going in a pan to saute, say **** sit added the extensive list
of secret ingredients, and then, lay lady lay slid the tadpoles in.

Say **** sit unfolded a one-foot-square sheet of cheesecloth onto the
kitchen countertop, dialed lay lady lay's timer for the usual eight
minutes, and say **** sit walked to the back door to set it ajar.

Lay lady lay went into the living room, removed say **** sit's shirt,
and lay lady lay settled into say **** sit's recliner.

Lay lady lay felt say **** sit's newly-clipped chest and belly hair,
from sternum to central member, and say **** sit wondered if every
other black man who DIED in Vietnam should have been white, being as
how the 20% there didn't jibe with the 10% here, and then lay lady lay
wondered if say **** sit should go with Honjo hammered or nonmetallic
fenders for lay lady lay's bicycle.

(record skip)

Eminem picked up Cube's notepad to jot down some phrenetic flashes that
came to Em during Em's ride, and outlined the beginnings of
"Extralinear Meditative Prose for Framing and Building the Psyche," in
three parts:

1) A cafe called "The Zygote."

2) An all-girl band called "Nately's Whore."

And,

3) The influence of Phillippe Starck on evey small town's fireman's
park.

(record skip)

My timer chimed and I popped up from my recliner to check on my
cooking.

My pan beheld the same results -- tails, nothing but tiny snippets of
tails -- and again, the glaze of garlic-butter tracks on my stove and
my countertop, across my kitchen floor and out my back door.

I recorded my results with another round of photos and the usual
pertinent notations in my binder, for it is my intention to rebuke
Harold Hill's seminal and still preeminent work in evolutionary
biology, "From Goo To You By Way Of The Zoo."

I contend, as a result from my ongoing in-kitchen experiments, and in a
45 degree departure from Hill's ancient assertions, that cataclysmic
events throughout history really did, in fact, speed up the adaptive
evolutionary process.

I aim to prove that adaptations to land resulted from the over-warming
of shallow seas due to the flow into these waters of volcanic lava.
Parched and willed to pop limbs and crawl out of the burbling, torrid
waters onto cooler tracts of land, I decided I liked my new talent, and
henceforth I crawled and crawled, from generation to generation, across
deserts and gardens, up and down mounts, through locusts and maggots,
flies and hail, by crosses and Torah pointers, Ouch!, and finally to
the present time I settled at a place a stone's throw from a big ol'
lake, where I could jump in if I wanted to, having never forgotten how
to swim, but I have grown accustomed to, and I prefer, an anatomical
position of comfort and style on my red, white & blue bicycle.

I scooped the buttery batch of tails and garlic onto my square of
cheesecloth; I wrung the viscous liquid from the mash into a paper cup,
and then I poured my liquid into a small squirt bottle.

I then propped my bicycle onto my home mechanic's repair stand; I
directed my squirt bottle towards my links of my chain in motion, and
then I lubed 'er up good.

I pedaled down to McDonald's, silently shifting through the gears all
the way there with nary a croak, where I had a Big Mac, fries, dessert,
and a coke.

I paged through "The Onion" as I ate, and I paused at the odd ending of
an interview with an up-and-coming filmmaker:

Q: ...Hitler?

A: Because this country...

Q: Are you Jewish?

A: Is that anything like asking me if my father's mother's mother's
maiden name is Schwartz? Or would a "yes" reply to your query require
purer blood in my veins?

Q:Can't we just have a nice intellectual conversation?

A: Can't we just have a nice integrational world creation?

I then went straight to my favorite column, "savage love," and I
spooned my hot-fudge sundae with nuts.

I finished and I went outside to my bicycle, where I found a sight that
shuddered my soul from my skin and froze me solid.

Perched everywhere on my bicycle, were a multitude of ultra-frog-like
creatures with big, bulbous, orbital eyes agaze at me.

Having never before been the object of so many yellow-moon peepers of
intensity, I almost shrilled "What?", but I was too frightened of what
then might happen, and instead I managed to twist my rigid body to the
left, in three jerks of acute angles, and I stepped quickly away, out
of sight, around the corner of the building, and with my back against
the brick wall, I slid down to the concrete below to think:

"Cook a tadpole; cook a story."

"Cook a story; cook the books."

"Cook the books; cook the goose."

"Cook the goose; ?"

"?"

"Able to see beyond Abel(l)?"

"One el(l) or two?"

"Both, we wouldn't want to miss anything."

"I see."

I'm no fool, logic's a powerful tool, and so, with my decision made, I
reapproached my bike, and I was stunned to see that the wwwrogs had
seated themselves, close together, a-e-r-o-d-y-n-a-m-i-c-a-l-l-y, on my
red, white & blue bicycle.

Of like minds then, me and my passengers set out to Token Creek -- all
eyes cast fore.

I rode the time-trial of my life, with an intrepid reserve of
intensity, endurance, and resolve, and with certainty intact, all the
while there, back to the homeland of the wwwrogs.

Upon crossing the rural finish line separating asphalt from field, I
zipped down the gravel shoulder of the road, I pushed the pedals hard
the remaining seventy-five yards, I dismounted, and I leaned my bike
against a tree, near the bank of the creek.

I waited, expectantly.

The wwwrogs didn't move.

I walked to the road to light a cigarette.

When I finished, I lit another.

I returned to my bike.

They hadn't moved, still again.

"Well then...sink or swim," were my final words I said to the wwwrogs.

My steps crunched the gravel along the edge of the county road as I
began back.

I lit a third cigarette and I whispered, "They looked like they needed
it more than I did tonight. Some kid'll drag it out of the water
tomorrow. I hope he grows onto it."

"And?"

I looked deep down both ways of the midnight road before crossing.

"And I won't cook again."

My shadow, cast by the moon, would have been all I needed to keep me
company for the long walk home; but I had more.

I had almost a full pack of Sedona cigarettes.

And -- I had the casual bellows of large trucks, shifting through their
gears, somewhere outer there.

Several hours later, I could make out the lit dome of my state Capitol,
and my fortitude doubled, for I now had two beacons of light to lead my
way.

(record skip)

God Damn, Cube had a far way to go to Em's state's house of laws, and
so, quite naturally, Cube passed the miles and minutes with wonderment
and wordplay, composing a five-legged query quo modo quodlibets ABOUT
the people's most passionate political divides -- under Em's state's
dome -- under Cube's planet's moon.

And so, as Em walked, Cube wrought, and Em foresaw a great gathering
ahead.

There, all the legislators would seat, who'd all come forth to hear
Cube's backroads-born beat.

They'd heard of Em, of Cube's most sapient seat of thought, and of Em's
just-cut query; this then, is what Cube wrought:

"Behold! Learn to converse in extralinear verse!

1) What, ABOUT, a cafe, called, 'The Zygote?'

2) What, ABOUT, bicycles, color'd, Female Cardinal, with, Male
Cardinal trim, all on badge?

3) What, ABOUT, an all-girl band, called, 'Nately's
Whore?'

4) What, ABOUT, the unfortunate ones?

5) What, ABOUT, Willard Gaylin? Was he poor? Was he white? Was he
black? Was he other? Did he sign up to kill, to escape "the frustration
of menial, unrewarding, unchallenging work that has no beginning or
end, no product or pride, work that leads nowhere, with no hope of
surcease?" "Surcease?" "Surcease?!" Is that how U.S.soldiers say "stop"
from their hometowns they hail from? And do they say "stop" in
Palestinian refugee camps, a la "surcease?" Stop, and look around.

6) And, WHAT ABOUT, birds of a feather,?" Em uttered, as an apt
epitaph, surceasing Cube's terse verse, unto the perplexed politicos,
as they returned to their halls, and pondered throughout, Em's edicts
to learn, ABOUT.

The forum cleared.

(record skip)

More hours passed, and my trek finally came to an end, upon the Capitol
square.

And although I was just about near my home, I climbed up the steps to
the base of the building and sat my self down, exhausted, on a seat of
quarried, polished stone.

The rising sun was too bright for my tired eyes and I closed my lids
for a spell.

When I opened my eyes I noticed a woman coming my way.

I watched her come nearer until she was within forty feet, a distance
which beset my chi to flow, my passion to percolate, and my toes to tap
inside my sneakers, as I could clearly see she was the Persian beauty
I'd seen, of another day.

At twenty feet dual scents circled the air, for I felt SHE sensed ME,
and SHE felt ME sense HER.

Within eight feet, I silently intoned to her, "Come on, give me your
eyes."

And in the next moment of two steps of her sultry stride, she turned
and granted my wish with a deep flash of her enchanting orbs of white
circling gold circling black.

And then it happened, out of her blacks -- magical sparkling red stars
appeared and danced toward my eyes.

I closed my eyelids and surrendered some of my most powerful neurons to
her red sparkles.

Two by two, I paired off my knightly neurons to her dancing stars and I
gave the new couplings private places in my brain to bed.

I rose, stretched to the new morn', and opened my eyes.

I stepped inside a bookstore for the morning paper and then I headed to
the nearest cafe.

Along the way, I caught a glimmer of, I stopped, I backed up, and I
looked at a red, white & blue bicycle hanging in the window of the
Paisley Jersey bicycle store, for sale.