Radiohead: flight of fancy and freedom

There is this particular point out of Los Angeles leading to the desert when vista opens up like a huge CinemaScope shot. A. Ryder hits the brakes on his chopper and takes a long and studious look, finding it hard to breathe in the hot midday air. The importance of humanity and total insignificance in the universal scheme of things doesn’t pass without a mental grin.

But, a man can take in as much of an arid panorama and soon he is roaring down toward the deepest of the Death Valley. The motion kept cooling his naked arms as he zoomed passed a sign for ‘Ghost City’; imagine the dreams and lives lost in pursuit of… love – wealth – happiness? The hog between his legs made him feel like an ‘Easy Rider’ although his was the spirit of Kowalski from ‘The Vanishing Point’.

Speed was the only freedom he craved, knowing only too well that, aside the ‘Long goodbye’, every other liberty is just another lie. Having recently read ‘Everything You Know Is Wrong’, he found it amazing how quickly his urine evaporated from the blacktop, as soon as it hit, right next to the white line. There were no cars but heat hovering above the tarmac that made it look like a Fata Morgana. How human: a being might be feeling like the last person on the planet but is pishing against… there is no wind but scorching stillness.

The motel in the middle offered some refreshing swimming before he ventured to see the kitsch souvenirs displayed in the shop. Ryder bought a six-pack of Coke and headed for a little sand stroll before riding to Zabriskie Point. Here, at one of the most beautiful and alien landscapes, it seems like we can view our race’s end because entropy has completed its work millennia ago. But, dystopia shouldn’t make you miserable, it just happens to be it. 126F.

The more hype we have to process, the poorer we become spiritually, Ryder thought turning to reveal a cropped-sleeves jacket with Radiohead embroidered on the back. A smaller word underneath reads – ‘Genius’. The man was of the age he lost his senses to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa and the nearby Mojave Desert resident, Captain Beefheart. He stayed to watch the sunset, pocketing his book – couldn’t see its title but it looked like the one that claimed ‘God is love’ – and onto gazing the emerging stars… Have you ever seen the true night sky, without any light-pollution? Until you do, you will not truly understand ‘as dark as night’.

After a while Ryder rode into the distance illuminated by moonshine, like a lone cowboy at the end of a Western flick.

That’s where Radiohead’s album ‘Hail To The Thief’ ends, cutting my third-eye projections that no Hollywood flick can ever match. ‘OK Computer 2’ is Thom Yorke’s verdict. I must be on a different course of painkillers.

9/10