The show at Dwnwrdspyrl was about to start when I got back to the club, We always try to change the set list right before we start the show. I missed the before hand band meeting, but I didn’t have to be there anyway. If someone was late, they just grabbed their song list on the way to the stage and jumped right in. The dance Noys Conspiracy was a new one in the set. I asked Megan who was doing the song just before the samples started running. She said Mr.D was doing a new duet piece to revive the song with a new interpretation. I was guessing that he had just worked it up, because I had never seen him do an interpretation before. I asked her if she was in it with him, And she said no, “You are.”

     Well that was going to set the tone for the night. It was going to be a night of surprises. The song was one that hadn’t been done for a while. It was a song that Mr. D was writing about discovering IT. The music had been finished for months, but we hadn’t had time to get to the studio to record the vocals. The Noisy Drones and helicopters made doing vocals, anywhere but the Farm, impossible. If they had some surprises for me; I had some for them. I was hoping Christine would come to the club after going to Top Hat.

     The show had been opening with Carnival for a while now. To get things going, the gyrating sound at the beginning of the song was emphasized by the strobes that hit on the quarter notes of the rhythm. This brought everyone’s attention to the empty stage Then the steel drum melody started playing. The strobes went to 16Th notes while the band took the stage , and the stage lights came on after four measures more. The Carnival was a literal overture for band story as it had evolved. The narrator came on stage several times during any given night to try to explain the story underlying the individual songs. The Carnival related the story of Mankind. His journey after his fall from grace. A story of the loss of paradise and its replacement by competition and idol worship. The divisiveness of power when it is concentrated is portrayed as breaking the strength of the people. The politician emerges at center stage for the Beautiful People lyric. They are the lines of the great communicator. He expresses the voice of the people when they are insecure, and in need of reassurance. He tells them,”We must come together” He tells the masses of the wealth that will trickle down on them from heaven, because they are the beautiful people. It essentially introduces the politician to the people. As any decent fascist leader would, he tells the people he needs more power to defend their way of life (their lifestyle). They are threatened by the people who don’t live like them. The outsiders must be broken. The song has an unintentional similarity to Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.

     His story is as old as time. It might be measured in geologic time. It appears that the society we have is not that different from the one that is common to all primates. The dominant power uses its blunt force to crush the week. It does not take a brilliant politician to wield power, just a popular one.

     The song winds down various paths to reach its conclusion. Some songs never get added to the set, others are always part of the nights entertainment. Carnival was a mainstay. We went through several more songs before I got a break from the action. During the night I was given time off stage like everyone else. If a dancer had the spotlight they might require a lot of preparation to create an effect, or they may use just a single light to capture the desired mood. At several points during the night I was not needed on stage. The new song came up. I walked over to D to get an idea of what he expected me to do. Mr. D said, “You have the B vocal, let me take the first lines. You come in as the response.”

     “Should I be on stage with you or is this going to play out differently?” I asked.

     We had been doing the song as a ritualized bullfight before. The lines had always referred to IT. The doomsday machine. A main character asks, “Have you noticed IT doesn't talk about feelings.” The song first appeared after Mr. D had heard about The Man of Steel episode. On its first covert missions It had been clumsy and often had to abort missions because it was betrayed by its apparent lack of appropriate emotions or responses. The bull/machine is killed in the manner of the bull in the ring. The blade is run through the bull’s heart. It had developed into a macabre dance of death. Mr. D told me to improvise my part and make my entrance with the lines, “So you want to put him to the test.” He didn’t tell me he had changed the gender of the Machine.

     I said, “I hope you have the bases covered. This feels like a trap.”

     He looked at me calmly and said, “A beautiful trap, a ritualized slaughter. The dance of death, or a spectacle in a ring. Who could ask for a more beautiful thing?”

     During the economic collapse, Gov-com had gained possession of all media. The story of The Man of Steel would not be on the nightly bad news. If the people learned the truth it was from innuendo in an artistic form. Fascists watch video feeds, they don’t listen to the ethereal messages of art. That left the troubadour, the painter, the dancer and the poet in the roll of communicator of the truth. Like Bonnie and Clyde, the Man of Steel was going to be a folk hero if Mr. D had anything to say about IT. There was  a chance that the whole story was a myth too, and even the Man of Steel was supposed to have been hunted down, within a day of his victory, by another assassin. It was a song of hope, it was not Everlasting Love.

     I was on the deck behind the screens at this point in the show. The area was out of sight to the main house, especially if there was not much available light. If we weren’t going to be off stage for a long time, the place behind the screens could hide you until your next entrance. I got a chance to check out the braves as the song started, and saw Christine was breezing into the club. I caught her eye, and motioned for her to come over to me.

     “I have my bag of tricks”, Christine said as she came up to the side of the stage. “I went all the way back to my apartment to get it. That’s why I’m so late.”

     “You mean you want to go on tonight?”

    Yes”, she said. “I want to do my Great Dictator to Total Recall. I’ve practiced it over and over, more than The Little Tramp. Can you load it into the playback? Say yes, baby.”

     She was ready to perform in her heart; I could feel her excitement. But I hadn’t explained the rules to her, she thought she could waltz right into her place on stage. I didn’t want to disappoint her. I would have told her to forget it, but my attention was drawn into Mr. D. singing Noys Conspiracy. For some secret reason I hesitated. I didn’t tell her there was no way she could get onstage.

     The song Christine wanted to do, Total Recall, was one of the politician’s songs that gets played regularly. The politician had many song during the coarse of the production. Everyone had a different take on who he was. The politician had been played many times before. She had appeared in the song as An Egyptian Pharaoh when Megan played her, as Arnold Swartzineggar the politician was my take, but I also played him as Caesar; I had the gap in my front teeth of the movie star, but I also had the Massive Roman Nose for Caesar too. Michelle used her charms to portray the first politician  as Eve. Christine asked her to be Hitler; The Great Dictator. It would be extreme for me to maneuver Christine onto the stage in the light of what I was seeing unfold during Mr. D’s performance, but I felt provoked. It was departing from decorum, but my feeling was that both dances would be great additions to the set, and be appropriate in the show. Christine had already done a wicked Charlie Chaplan imitation for me in front of the club. I was sure her Altoff Hynkle riff would be delicately done.

     Mr. D had begun his new take on Noys Conspiracy. Christine had now noticed too. Mr. D was using her name in the song..The character was asking,, “Have you noticed Christine doesn't talk about feelings.” She looked at the stage to see Mr, D singing about her. Mr. D was slaying her ceremonially on stage.

     I tugged on her sleeve to get her attention, before I had to get up and deliver my lines. I was cast as the defender of the Machine. I looked straight into Christine’s eyes and said, “You’re up next.”