American Pop-Freudianism, The Twilight Zone, Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, Op art, the psychedelic revolution, the divine paranoia of Philip K. Dick: all of these are approximations at a distance of German Freudo-Marxism and French Surrealism, I convince myself — the concerns, techniques, and affects of the two prior European formations modified through contact with the postwar American culture industry and adapted to suit the conditions of the Cold War. After thinking the matter over, however, I reject this notion of “approximation at a distance,” as it demeans the above phenomena, framing them as if they were mere second-order simulacra. No matter: Famed downtown New York ‘80s DJ Jellybean Benitez gets me dancing, makes me an offer I can’t refuse, with his divine bass-bumping “Wotupski!?!” EP, a copy of which somehow fell into my hands the other day at Goodwill.
It would be a fine record even were it not to include its grand finale, the lavish 8:44 cover of Babe Ruth’s “The Mexican,” a US Dance chart-topper upon the album’s release in 1984. (Note, too, those echoing numbers. A synchronicity, I suppose: a “meaningful coincidence.”) From there, I dig down a bit, I grant myself the supreme pleasure of Bobbi Humphrey’s psychedelic flute-funk freakout, “Fun House.”
And why not? I’ve submitted my grades. I’ve completed the terms of my contract. Out from the realm of necessity, I’ve arrived into the world of summer. The time has come to party. The time has come to get down.
Trance-Scripts 