The Final Remake of The Return - Pat Cadigan, ebook
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Pat Cadigan - The Final Remake Of Little Latin LarrySo! Fix yourself a smell and sit down!There's a wet bar, too, if you go that way. You know, for years I toldmyself I didn't, even though I always kept a full complement of cheers,vines, and the hards and their pards. I'd say to myself, Oh, but of coursethe hooch is strictly for hospitality and nothing else.But now, I'm out about it and I really feel much more non-bad about it.And wasn't it Elvis who said, "Drinkers, like the poor, we will alwayshave with us"?Or was that Dylan? Might have been -- Dylan was the big expert ondrinkers, wasn't he, dying as he did face down in the gutter -- luckybeast! -- not fifty paces from the Tired Horse Tavern where he came upwith his biggest and best -- "All the Tired Horses" (of course!),"Knockin' on Fern Hill's Door," "The Hand That Signed a Paper Got to ServeSomebody," and, my personal favorite, "Do Not Go Gentle Into ThoseSubterranean Homesick Blues." "Rage, rage against the leaders, watch theparking -- "Sorry, sorry, sorry! I can barely hold still, this is such an excitingtime for me. I think my man Dylan put it best when he said, "I sang in mychains: everybody must get stoned." One of his most evocative lines, atleast for me. Even now, long, long, long after I first read it, it stillstirs up for me the sensation of that state where you're practicallythrumming in excitement, and the only thing that keeps you from flying upin the air and dragging the whole world after you like a cape tied aroundyour shoulders is the incontrovertible fact of yourjust-that-much-too-heavy flesh --Sorry again! The human condition tends to make me wax poetic. Rather, itmakes me want to wax poetic, except I can never think of the poeticcounterpart to words like "incontrovertible." Got a drink now? Good, good,sit, sit. Did you smell anything you liked? No? Ah -- you must tell me thetruth here: did the aromabar intimidate you, or are you just notolfactory? I vow that either way, I'm not insulted, truly I'm not. Not allsenses can be our senses, can they? And when you're retro besides -- well,some people can get that so wrong.Like the other day. Packed in my usual buzzbomb was a silly tag from oneof my sillier friends telling me that everyone was saying behind my backthat I was the most retro creature they'd ever heard of. I tagged back totell Old Sillyhead that not only were they saying it behind my back, butalso behind my front, too, and in front of my back and all that, and sowhat.Anyway, it's not like I'm detoxing and then relapsing just for the wallopthat first sinful sip will give you. I know people who have gone throughthree and four livers that way, even with top-of-the-line blood-doping.But I don't consider them drinkers. And personally, I think TeflonTM onthe central nervous system is cheating.And in spite of what you may have heard, the aromabar really is just foramusement, I don't do aromatherapy of any kind. Of course, anyone who doesis welcome to mix themselves a bouquet with my essences and if they wantto claim it gives them some kind of therapeutic fizz, I'm not going toargue with them. After all, we all sing our own particular song in ourchains, don't we.But you'll want to know about the last remake, won't you. That lastremake. Everybody always wants to know about that. I swear, I'll do athousand projects before I go gentle into my subterranean homesick bluesand the one thing I'll be remembered for is that damned remake.Everyone'll still be mad at me for one of two reasons and by god, they'llboth be wrong.So, one more time, for the record and with feeling: I did not rediscoverLittle Latin Larry, and I didn't kill him.Who did?Well, I was afraid you'd ask me that.First of all, let's get all the facts we know -- all right, all the factsI know -- straight. You'll pardon me if I go over to the bar and fixmyself a few memory aids. This brown stuff here, this is an esoteric drinkcalled Old Peculier, which is the liquid equivalent of wrapping yourselfin a comfy blanket on an uncommonly bad day. Fair Annie -- you wouldn'tknow her, she liked the low-profile life -- introduced me to it. But thisother stuff that looks a lot like, well, frankly, urine -- it's no-classlager. Cheap beer was the term for it then and it was sought after forboth its cheapness and its beerness, if you see what I mean.The Old Peculier is for drinking, just because I like it. But the lager isfor smelling, because I can remember Larry best when I smell cheap beer.It was just about the only thing you ever smelled around Larry.And let's get something else straight: the full name of the band wasLittle Latin Larry and His Loopy Louies, His Luscious Latinaires, and HisLascivious Latinettes.Little Latin Larry was, of course, lead vocalist, conductor, arranger, anderstwhile composer. Which is to say, for a while, he was trying out someoriginals on the playlist. I've heard them. They weren't too bad, youknow; they were just meant to be songs to dance to, or jump up and downto, or puke to, if you went that way (not like the Bulimic Era stuff --that was later, and didn't have much to do with having a good time). Butevery time Larry tried to slip in an original, everyone would just kind ofstand there looking puzzled. There'd be some people dancing, some peoplenodding along, a few of the hard-core puking, but most of them just stoodaround with these lost expressions, and you could tell they were trying toplace the song and couldn't. So Larry forgot about being even a cheap-beerditty-monger and went back to covers. There were skintillions of bandsthat played covers for anyone who hired them, but when Larry and the banddid a cover it was . . . I could say that when Little Latin Larry and Co.covered a song it was, for the duration, completely their own, as if noone else had ever sung it. And if I did put it that way, I would be bothright and wrong. Just as if I said, when they covered a song, it was acomplete tribute to the original artists. That would be right and wrong aswell.It was both. It was neither. It was an experience. It was all shades ofone experience, a million experiences in one. In other words, you had tobe there. Yes. You had to be there at least once.But no, I won't try to wiggle out on that one. Even if there is so muchtruth to it that most people were there once. Whether they were there ornot.I don't expect you to understand me. I'm a visionary. No, just kidding,just shaking your leg, as (I think) they used to say.All right, back to it, now. The Larry people came to me. I don't care whatthey told everyone later about my chasing them over hill and dale, or chipand dale, or nook and cranny. The Realm of the Senses Theatre kept me busyenough that I didn't have to chase anyone. People were always beating downthe door with sense-memories. My staff at that time was a mad thing namedOla, about three and a half feet tall -- achondroplasia -- who usuallykept most of her brain in her sidekick, and vice versa. Half the time, younever knew exactly which was which. It wasn't really any kind ofintentional thing, or a statement or anything. Ola just went that way. Ahappy accident. Happy for Ola. So she mated with a machine, so what. I maybe retro, but I'm not that retro; I certainly wasn't then.Ola put off a lot of people for a variety of reasons -- she was doing thejobs of several people and so depriving them of jobs, cyborgs were againstNature or the Bible, or she wasn't enough of a cyborg to claim the title(which she didn't in the first place), or she was too spooky, toofeminine, not feminine enough, not spooky enough, for god's sake. People,my god; people. Nature gave them tongues, technology gave themloudspeakers, and they all believe that because they can use both,whatever they say is important.I suppose that was why I started Realm of the Senses Theatre. Thewatchwords of the time were "custom," "customizable," "individual," and"interactive." Heavy on the "interactive." What the hell did that mean,anyway, "interactive"? I used to rant about this to Ola and her sidekickall the time. Who the hell thought up "interactive," I'd say; your goddamshoes are "interactive," every item of clothing you put on is"interactive," your car is "interactive," what is the big goddamn reverbon "interactive," goddamn life is "interactive" --And Ola would say, Oh, they don't want to interact, Gracie, they want tokibbitz. Everybody's got to have a little say in how it goes. Do it inblue; I want it in velvet; it would be perfect if it was about twice aslong and half as high. You know.So that was what Realm of the Senses Theatre did. It gave people a say in...
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