Profane Exegesis: Rock of Travolta

Robertkh238

I’m off to see if I can see Spider-man 3. I read an interview with Stan Lee of
Marvel Comics and creator of Spider-man in an old SFX mag from ’97. I bought
around 90-100 from a charity shop a few years ago. No, I bought Empire mags,
but I have other mags from years ago, the same period, especially UFO mags.
And a bunch of comics and graphic comics from V. from years ago, when he
went off to Vancouver and slept in his car and lost all his hair, 'as you do'. He’s a
wild and crazy guy. But you'd never guess.
Spider-man 3 was showing at 12.10. After noon I assume. No pun. I bought a
ticket for The Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer. The girl said 'it’s
showing in one minute'. I went and bought a bag of Revels for £2.40, everything
wildly overpriced, but hey, it’s a night out and who wants to look mean in front
of their galfriend? Metaphorically speaking. This after foregoing the hot dog and
Coke/Fanta I had in mind after I saw it cost £6 (£5.80). Why would I want to pay
£3 for a Coke, when I could get 6-8 cans for the same price? But then I wouldn't
be buying poison anyway, except in the cinema. It did cross mind to get a can
earlier but there are no shops directly before and I’d left it late. I enjoyed the
Revels, even the raisin ones. I sat in a seat near the front. 20’s women behind
me laughed at the rather lame gags of the film. They were there with dates who
were showing off with their feet over the top of the seats.
I came to like the film. The story was looking lame with a wedding scene, but
after the Silver Surfer/Sufferer showed up it got a whole lot better. A suitably
austere presence, with awesome superpowers. The special effects were
marvellous of course; spectacular. I thought, as I did before with the first
Spider-man, that I’m just glad I lived to see the day... brings tears to your eyes...
(And just as I thought this, Stan Lee appeared on the scene, complaining he was
on the guest list as the stewards refused to let him by; a little light relief). Little
ol' me, just like Peter Parker, and my lonely comics habit from early on, scouring
the bookshop on Victoria road, looking at the American editions I couldn't afford,
all spread out on a sloping wooden display that went right around the store, apart
from the counter area, where she sat, the older woman, keeping a keen eye on
me. And just as well. Can't say I blame her. I would’ve nicked one or two but
there was nothing to distract her. She was still there many years later, when I was
rwenty-two, as Ian C bought under the counter hard-core porn videos.

But back to the film. The Surfer likes Invisible Girl – who is surely the same
girl (It’s Jessica Alba) in James Cameron’s Dark Angel sci-fi TV series on, erm,
The Sci Fi Channel, about an underground organisation in a future totalitarian
state – as she reminds him of his lost love, who’s name in the Silver Surfer
comics escapes me – I don’t think he names her in the film, and there’s no need;
it’s all we need to know. That, and that he has to destroy their world along with
the others he’s destroyed before, as Galactus – portrayed in the film as a
cosmically huge abstract and malevolent energy force, holds his own world
captive, along with his favourite galfriend of course, so he’s obliged –
blackmailed – to help destroy worlds on his/her behalf. No sacrificing of the one
for the many for the greater good of the whole with this bloke it seems, but he
finds it impossible to let Invis Girl die for reasons already stated, and this is what
causes him to change his mind.

The situation is further complicated by Doctor Doom nicking his source of power
from the army, who took it over from the F4/Fantastic Man/Reed Richards the
brilliant scientist, after they brought him down and separated from his board with
a pulse beam, though they only used the term electromagnetic in relation to the
powers of the Silver Surfer and the effect his approach, his presence, was having
on the power source of the whole Eastern seaboard – or whatever it’s called.
Electromagnetic pulse weapons have been cited as the means to have brought
down UFOs. There’s also an interesting development where the Four can swap
powers just by touching each other; an effect or anomaly brought on by the
electromag qualities introduced after the appearance of the SS. The power mad
Dr Gloom isn’t interested in listening to them of course – that they need the
surfboard back as only the Surfer is capable of averting the cosmic catastrophe.
so they let the Human Torch absorb all their powers to defeat the Doc – and all
the better to redeem himself with, having nearly caused the death of Inv Girl
before, when a crater appears in The Thames by the London Eye, foreshadowing
the next appearance of the Surfer.

IG, in the process of trying to save the Surfer, who protected her before he was
captured, is in fact killed by the “evil” Dr Doom. Just before he goes off to
sacrifice himself for the sake of the world, he brings her back to life/resurrects
her, Parcifal/Lancelot-like, demonstrating his clear affinity with Jesus/the 'Christ
archetype'... That he isn’t 'dying for our sins', or perhaps he is, for some unstated
ones for all we know, or how and why the situation came about at all doesn’t
matter. We’re here and we have to make the best of it, and the big message is
“We all have a choice.”
And it doesn’t get any bigger than that as life is a matter of constant choices, and
Jesus ends his Course In Miracles with “Choose once again, my brother.” ...So
I’ve little patience for superficial media-bores like Mark kermode, who, on The
Culture Show described it as lightweight, and suitable more for kids. But I do
tend to like him on the whole and have done for years. Peel liked him and was
disappointed he wasn’t chosen as the replacement for Bas Normal – Barry
Norman – on the Film review prog on the BBC, instead of Jonathan Ross. But
what does Skiffle Boy know of of these deeper themes of the stories… Not much
it seems. Some similarities to Spider-man, but Marvel and these scriptwriters do
tend to have their hearts and minds in the right place, unlike trendy reviewers,
who set themselves up as some kind of hip arbiters of cool and taste which we’re
supposed to slavishly go along with just because they say so. What have they
ever done that sets them up as reliable judges of other people’s creative output?
What the hell does a jumped-up teddy boy in his silly Ducks Arse hairdo know
about the higher emotions of the supersensible poetic worlds’ out of our own
time’s mind, eh? But I agree Tracy Emin is probably crap. You go girl. I once
saw Kermode standing on the steps at the back of the Royal Scottish Academy
during the Festival, about to do some spiel or other in his knifesharp creases and
$500 shoes as I passed by on the old horse and cart on the way to
trading/flogging my artistic wares/efforts to a largely indifferent public. I gotta
read. But first, another cup of char.

Interesting that I mentioned V. earlier. He was always big on novelist and

sceenwriter Richard Matheson. I wanted to catch the beginning of The Legend of
Hell House on BBC2, late on, as Roddy McDowell was in it, he of the brilliant
Planet of The Apes (and the two good sequels, especially Escape From Planet of
the Apes, which, still being young and very impressionable, had a a very
poignant, but claustrophobic and nightmarish quality behind the initial humour.
It was an education in human duplicity). I was pleased to see the film was based
on Matheson's novel, Hell House, though I don’t know it. A physicist accepts a
wager to stay in the house for a few days. Haunted of course, along with others,
including McD. What also caught my interest was the repeated showing of the
date and time, beginning from December 20; my birthday/date. The film was
released in 1973. I was still at school then, my last year. So many great movies
that year.

Today is also Father’s Day, so I was thinking of my dad. I didn’t get a card in
time. Stupid of me, as it was on my mind for a while. What is interesting to me,
is that he – Matheson, not my dad – is also the author of What Dreams May
Come, a novel that sounds like the classic love story, and I came across it years
ago after looking for it for years and still haven’t read the bloody thing, nor have
I seen the film yet, described as mawkishly sentimental in one review, and it may
well be, but they would say that wouldn’t they, rather than deal with the real
emotions or unsettling themes it might raise. My brother said he’d bring/lend me
it but he never did. I had dreams to rock my socks off in my teens, and from
childhood onwards, but as weirdly intense as they could be and were, they
couldn’t compare to the dreams of my early twenties. And LE had just gone, by
then, in ’73, and that was also when I missed seeing Bowie as Ziggy Stardust at
The Caird Hall. This was also the year of The Exorcist, and I suppose you could
call Hell House Exorcist lite; but it had its moments.
One similarity with The Exorcist – and trenchant point, was that there wasn’t a
whole host of separate entities but only one. What was also interesting was that
the former owner had been a practitioner of all manner of perversions – vices, as
they termed it, such as bestiality – ugh – cannibalism – eek – necrophilia – yikes
– and a whole lot other unmentionables, I don’t doubt.
The two women in the film, and dashed attractive too, come over all aroused on
separate occasions – erotically possessod by the malevolent spirit of the previous
owner, but Roddy is the parogan of virtue and good conscience, refusing to take
advantage of the situation, of course. So a stark contrast to the
supposedly/possibly sentimental What Dreams May Come. My own view is that
it’s an indication of a sensibility that isn’t reluctant to explore the darker areas of
the psyche as well as its more sublime aspects, therefore lending substance to any
exploration of both, and anything he has to say on them. I felt something of the
same towards Bowie back in ’73, though I couldn’t articulate it, but now I see it
as a very unusual degree of personal and emotional versatility; for all his
narcissistic orientation at the time, and even detestation of the very idea of love.

As a postscript of sorts, there was an interesting piece in the Fortean Times by

Guy Lyon Playfair (who influenced Colin Wilson in changing his mind on the
source of poltergeist phenomena, from disturbed adolescent girls, to it originating
from or caused by spirits), on some very rum goings on centring on the
Parapsychology Dept. of Edinburgh University; misappropriation of funding that
one would’ve expected to be allotted to them after the death of Prof Robert
Morris, who held the Koestler Chair of Parapsychology there – Bob to his chums
– but held now in a limbo of obfuscation and shifting of goalposts. In the short
list, Nicholas Humphries, author of Soul Searching (wasn’t that a TV series also?
I think I watched it) – was one of the folks on the panel or committee or whatever
the heck it is, who awards these things. It went to the sceptics... These tricksters
and gamesters. How are self-deceiving twerps like these ever going to lead us to
the truth of the soul? They and their bad haircuts. Respectable and respected,
conscientious, articulate, wholly worthy, balanced – and fundamentally,
terminally dishonest over whatever they feel threatened by, not least each other.

Also Michael Prescott on “Project Alpha” in this month’s Nexus mag (July
2007). Looked it up on the net. I’d forgotten it’s published in Germany In
German... I keep meaning to send T in Stuttgart more links from it. There's been
great stuff on UFOs – and 2012. And the book list at the back, with the short
synopses’ has my mouth watering every month. I can easily picture myself as
this old 'sage' or recluse, focusing on all this esoteric and political info for the rest
of my days, and it wouldn’t be a bad way to go if I didn’t feel enough of a recluse
as it is; I’d just like to be a more well-informed recluse as well as a sociable one.
Is that too much to ask? Perhaps it is. I should mention the film Phenomenon,
shown on BBC1 earlier. It was V.who brought this film to my attention, as they
rather portentously say, a while back. It’s another of those films I’ve seen yet not
seen, having let my mind wander during it or been otherwise distracted. I get
tired of John Travolta, as I’ve little interest in most of the parts he plays – Soul
Boy in Saturday Nicht Fever, Tough Guy in Get shorty, etc., but predictably, I
warmed to him more in this. I don’t feel like summarising it as I’ve other topics
on my mind, and I want to read more than I am... but after being blasted by a
strange light he develops an assortment of abilities, Geller-like, as well as an
acceleration in intellect, though paradoxically, he resorts to crossword puzzles
after getting tired of the three books he gets through in a day, though he tires of
the puzzles also as they’re too easy. I say they’re a waste of time whatever your
intelligence. He may as well have taken up golf. He cracks some obscure code
for fun and the FBI become interested in him, meaning highly suspicious of him
and come to see him as a potential national security threat, blocking access to the
University Professor who is interested in the work and ideas Travolta has been
developing, after predicting an earthquake.

The love interest is quite well done as he has a tough time trying to get through to
a defensive women with a couple of kids – boy and girl, who’s last husband
buggered off, or it didn’t work out. It gets better with her, but many of the
townsfolk are mighty suspicious of him due to his more physical abilities, effects,
such as the psychokinesis. Robert Duvall was good as the doctor, if an unusually
open-minded one (He was also excellent in Falling Down, with Michael
Douglas). It turns into a bit of a weepy when Travolta develops a spectacular
brain tumour. A big-wig surgeon is enthralled by this, emphasising all they could
learn from him, and wants to perform, ah, open-brain surgery. Travolta makes
the point that it’s clear he is more important to them dead and what they believe
they’ll learn from his brain – as he won’t recover from the operation – than what
they might learn about the spirit while he’s alive, and so he shows him the door.
Travolta escapes from the clutches of the FBI while in hospital, and they come
looking for him at his girlfriend's, but she appeals to the black agent's humanity,
asking him how he would like to die, and they go off.
The light reappears, to what purpose, I’m not sure. Does he still have his powers
and intellect? He dies, I know that much, as the professor turns up at the door
and his broken-hearted but resilient love gives him all the material he was
working on. I thought Travolta might end up in the loony-bin. Okay, so I did
summarise it a bit. The main message is the importance of spirit over the body,
then. I agree. It’s worth saying, and the brain is only a part of the body after all;
itself only an epiphenomenon of the separation (from God), and the domain of
the ego. And I agree with Wapnick that you could say that the body is in the
mind, not the mind is in the body. We are still very backward it seems. No
wonder history and politics is still about the domination one group of individuals
over another. (It may be through psychological warfare also, but that includes the
psychological body also.) That, and fighting over territory.
Territorial Pissings. Trust Curt to get it right. “Never met a wise man. If so it's
a woman” “Gotta find a way, another way, a better way.” Intuitive genius.