2009 Flaming Lips – Watching The Planets from George Salisbury on Vimeo.

that’s the strobo trip light phase illusion toy.

the idea, according to wayne, is to take some acid, put on the six hour song, and play with this toy while you listen. as part of the song, they had a benefit project where you could donate money to be given to the humane society and your name would be read in the song at some point. the reading of the names was done by sean lennon.

their previous music release was the gummy skull:

another usb stick is embedded inside this life sized human skull. the usb stick contains a four song EP. to hear the music, you have to eat the skull. one of the gummy flavors available is marijuana.

wayne has said that they will probably never release a traditional record again. maybe they’ll collect some recordings from a period and put them together, but no more conceptual records.

in that case, their last full length record was the double length LP embryonic:

when i first heard this record, i really hated it. like, i thought i’d never listen to it. then, one day, i put it on when i was writing one of my papers for my general exams. omigod. a grower of the highest order, this record just sits somewhere in your cognitive space that makes you want to make academic arguments while you listen. it is such an unbelievable tool to me at this point. it will be mentioned in the acknowledgements of my dissertation.

and if anyone wants, they can buy this for me:

this is heady nuggs. the first five warner brothers records (not including zaireeka) re-released on vinyl. that’s hit to death in the future head, transmissions from a satellite heart, clouds taste metallic, the soft bulletin, and at war with the mystics. it’s only $125. if you loved me …

oh, and btw, wayne doesn’t do any drugs.

none.

in the summer, shit’s just growing and oozing and sweating all over itself.

for yankees, it can be pretty gross.

for example, this grew out of my house. sprouted out right between the porch and the house. right by the front door. some kind of mushroom or something … but i’m no botanist.

this was in my house. i like these. they seem smart. alien, almost.

we came home one night, and lefty walked right up to this one and they touched noses. then i think he might have gotten inside the house later and i inadvertently smashed him opening the door. if it wasn’t him, it was kin …

***

spinning with balloon and keyboard.

if you’re going, to san francisco, be sure to wear, some flowers, in your hair.

drawing pants.

drawing bellows.

framing ike.

no matter how you’re feeling, you’re never on your own.

***

***

hooch took the girls to columbia, missouri to see the flaming lips outdoors.

hooch is cooler than your parents.

my first concert: balloons, bunnies, bananas, bubbles, blood, topless lasses, confetti, legalized refer (this block only!), lightening, rain …

really, the best live show on earth.

made me remember the weekend i saw the lips on a cruise ship. xingolati.

they didn’t ever do it again on a cruise ship cause a few people died.

still, one of the best times of my young life.

i survived.

i saw steven after the show in one of the feeding areas on the boat, and said, ‘man, thanks for all that music,’ and he said, ‘hey, thank you for wearing that … getup.’

in the ‘how old can you feel?’ category, my friend mel never heard this song before.

those of you born before 1986 should have no trouble identifying it.

here’s a little bit of “zaireeka” … i forget which track this was, but you get the idea.

***

stan bought two sacks of live crawfish for joan’s birthday today. stan is a scientist, and the crawfish were spicy spicy spicy delicious. cold beer, please. i was also instructed in the finer points of actually opening and eating the damn things! the last coupla times i tried to eat them i was flying blind (having no coon asses around to assist me). i got it now. damn near a local. sometimes a y’all even slips out (although i try real hard to resist that one …)

here’s how they look before you dump them in the spicy boiling hot water …

yet another shot of the old boy …

headphones, laptop, christmas on mars.

review.

review before your review. i’ll watch it every christmas time till i die. and sometime (somehow) in that one last year, i’ll write my proper.

review.

until then:

steven is just compelling to his core. i’d watch him wait in line and be entertained. great casting.

did steven have some martian in him? or something … other? it seemed like he was the only one outside who didn’t wear a space suit (excepting wayne, the martian, and wayne’s suicidal brother in the santa clause suit). but was that outside? and why did his character’s name not have a number after it?

an homage to the drill sergeant in full metal jacket vis-a-vis the captain brings lovely lightness to psychedelic existentialism. hilarious, too.

check this out! marching bands with vaginas for heads! pussies and pussy symbolism throughout! a material, feminine, colorful, bloody, real, human emphasis. hope against hope for the believers and the skeptics both. thanks wayne! you have a gift for the universal in the universe. and duct tape will hold it all together for eternity.

michelle makes a lovely mary. smokin’ hot, too.

at times, the score melts with the visuals and belief is suspended and you’re on the ship (not in wayne’s backyward in okc) and it’s just fucking lovely. makes you proud to be in the same corner of earth in the same historical moment as the flaming lips.

what the hell was michael doing in the end? i thought he was somehow symbolic of a negative force on the settlement at first, but he might have been behind the curtain all along pulling the levers for good. and what was his one line close to the beginning? was it significant? fuck. gotta wait a whole nother year to find out.

vacuums being pushed by workers down a narrow suspended walkway. that’s an air filter from a 1978 chevy caprice classic around that guy’s head. is that the lining of a hot tub mounted to the wall? now i wanna assemble mars in my backyard and make a movie.

why didn’t i think of that?

the headshrinker was brilliant. truly a great scene.

(they pulled this thing off.)

the last words of the credits were:

to all flaming lips fans
thank you for believing in us and for giving us such a wonderful life.
we will always love you.

we love you, too.