Television: A memoir by Richard Lloyd Thinkbabymusic Collective

Television—A Memoir by Richard Lloyd

Four teenage hobos from outer space with guitars, we were sent as symbols to transmit messages back to our home planet and we gave this guy some sticks to hit them with. I think his name was Italy Billy Ficca. We have our four string shady movie star who played two strings with his magic mojo finger – we used to call him Hell because we think that's the planet he must've come from, he only played two of the strings because the other two were too far, many light years away.

Our God Lord of the Alkaloids, and alkaloids are contained in any plant or drug that has any psychedelic, dream inducing, visionary or sleep producing qualities – but also stimulants like James Bond took – we called him Lloyd although his first name was Richard II, holding his special super deluxe Telecaster oil ruined by sanding off the tobacco Sunburst, as well as his straw colored hair that had the consistency of dried corn – so corny he was off the cob.

And, pathetically unable to stand up due to his degenerative neuron neurosis necrotic floor ptosis, crouches our revered leader, Whom we reverently called Tom. Tom is holding a neck fretboard of a guitar that reaches all the way to through the center of the earth and whose pickups picked up the energy from the 90% Iron and 10% nickel bridge pops out in China somewhere in an opium den, another alkaloid you see. He had already stopped taking drugs of any kind except for the incredibly powerful Tobacco, Coffee and perhaps one White Russian per year while he waited for his mail-order bride to be delivered by FedEx, a company that didn't exist yet but promised to deliver a girl speared by cupid's arrow as soon as they could traverse the sulfuric acid clouds of Venus, the armless planet.

Or perhaps that is our armless and aimless planet as skinny as our esteemed High Priest of song-writing and discarding and changing parts better than a Kaleidoscope, we followed him all the way through the galaxy until we reached the planet with nothing on it called the Heart-Breaker-Void to which the Jewish Scheck and Awe, Shekenaw: Famous for operation freedom bombing Baghdad and the father of Bagh; who turned the Void into the Void oY Veyds (photo).

A tribe from beyond the Van Allen belt, which is getting fatter every day and infringing on the Ork cloud, who we called Terry or Master Terry, because he doled out the dollars from the OORT cloud and all we had were outer space coins made directly from Comets, which was slang for girls that would melt in our pockets or mouths or women who might faint on sight with their legs wide open revealing the place all men wish to return to. (Ladies, Do no be alarmed I am INSIDE, that is, I AM on your side too. The human race really needs an overhaul). This troop which was once overheard by a short fat Turkish man talking to a tall white enthusiastic man while working for the Atlantic Ocean are many ships were set to sail including Led Zeppelin which missed the iceberg the Titanic hit by inches.

The Turkish man turned to the toll enthusiastic English man and said, "Oy, Jerry" (Jelly in 'code') enigma (enema encoded) From one human to another human was heard to say "Jelly I cannot enema this band – they don't play 'oith music" and since I was going to the bathroom when I overheard I turned and sprayed the control room with my cleansing agent urine saying you are in a lot of trouble now Mr. Ahmed Cardigan. We began as strays satellite infants named Goo Goo Guru for three weeks until our name was changed to the pronounceable word over the entire earth span which was known by the name of TELEVISION, and which broadcast for one hour twice a night at a dingy Bowery dump under a quote flop quote house were delicious combinations of wine and urine would drip through the ceiling onto my microphone making it spark like a New Year's Eve sparkler.

Then I would go over and sing harmony (Ha Ha Yuck Yuck Ha Ha) with my best pal, Wilson's Whiskey Drinker, with whom I once got caught by the Police with syringes.

I'm from, excuse me cough cough Hell, and I collect antique needles, see – and he rolled up his sleeve which was full of holes and told the polarized po-lice that he had his boy and girl friends stick him in the elbow with the special needles from 1894. They took away our bags full of our travel equipment and told us to get the hell out of there, not realizing that they had just made pun upon the fun we were having, as we blasted off to a nearby secondary planet where you could take aim in a state sanctioned shooting gallery. Television had lots of love songs sweet and beautiful more than Elvis – either one.

We had songs named '(Why are you so) Hard-on Love?' and 'Horizontal Ascension', I’m going to find one I used to sing called 'Hot Dog' which spoke of the love affair between my then girlfriend and my horse named dog. I didn't mind because she opened her up so that I could fit in in my scuba gear. Deep inside I was back in mommy, "Oh mommy, where is thy sting?".

In the meantime all the other fellows began to mate with the earthlings, producing IQs that needed ballast or they would float off like helium. What I want to know is, if H2 O = water, because oxygen as a valence of minus two (meaning it needs two electrons to complete and become like NeonLeon), and hydrogen only has one so they travel in homosexual pairs, how come there's no such thing as helium oxide, "HeO?" Oh how sad on this rinky-dink planet HeO would probably kill all humans on earth even though it's what we usually breath on our home planet in our own solar system where every man has his own Sun as well as his own son.

That’s why a picture is so good it is like the symbol for home, OM - AUM.

It needs to be explained by a Gluon Guru. End of transmission.

Published: In Print Issue Nº 042016
Words: Richard Lloyd, Thinkbabymusic Collective
Photography © Roberta Bayley