ACEHIGH |
abbreviation (now obsolete): the Allied Command Europe troposcatter communication system. |
Lawnmowers |
noun: plural of lawnmower; a powered or hand-operated machine with rotary blades used for cutting grass. |
I was shocked. It was the same kind of shock I’d experienced when I stepped into Tom and Lisa’s living room in Seattle to be confronted by all that Mickey Mouse memorabilia. Only it wasn’t Mickey Mouse, it was Elvis Presley and it wasn’t just someone’s living room, it was the entire city of Memphis.
I’d been in Memphis for less than five minutes when I saw my first giant cardboard cutout Elvis outside one of the airport shops and from then on I was bombarded with images of him wherever I went.
I suppose it didn’t help that my hotel was just off Elvis Presley Boulevard but then I’d chosen it for budgetary reasons and that part of town was overflowing with cheap hotels, most of which seemed to be competing to see just how Elvisy they could be.
I’d never been much of an Elvis fan and I really just wanted to get a good night’s sleep so I was hoping my hotel hadn’t gone too far with the Preslification. I was most encouraged when I found the lobby to be entirely devoid of Elvis iconography but then a little let down when I got into my room, and discovered two enormous framed black and white photographs of him adorning the wall. I was happy to settle for that. It was probably less cloying than the Heartbreak Hotel, a few hundred yards down the road, directly opposite the Graceland mansion. Who knows what kind of Elvis experience they provided. I imagined lookalikes on reception, Viva Las Vegas-themed rooms and a complimentary pair of blue-suede slippers.
Even if I had been a fan, I couldn’t imagine wanting to stay in the Heartbreak Hotel. Sure, it was named after one of his songs but lyrically the hotel was surely a metaphor for the desperate loneliness of the broken hearted and while we’ve all been there at some time, it’s never through choice. I’d have just called it hotelvis and been done with it, but what do I know?
I settled in to my less Elvis-centric environment for an early night; I wanted to be up and alert in the morning ready to meet my next googlewhack, Acehigh Lawnmowers. From the website I had worked out that the man responsible was known as Professor Mu Kraken and that he was a member of something called Metaphysics Anonymous. His response to my initial email had been very exciting.
From: Professor Mu Kraken
To: Dave Gorman
Subject: Googlewhacking.
Dave,
I’m very happy to meet with you and will endeavour to find you two googlewhacks before you arrive.
I would like to show you round Memphis and hopefully I will be able to introduce you to Metaphysics Anonymous. It’s always interesting.
It’s a collection of bohemian intellectuals who have been trying to define metaphysics for some 20 years; a sort of private philosophy club. We used to meet every Saturday night but that has slacked off in the last few years. At an MA meeting you would have found physicists, astrologers, artists, writers, musicians and a plethora of Taoist troubadours. We may be able to get a couple of them together. I’m looking forward to this with great relish.
And because he was looking forward to it with great relish, so was I. I even found myself singing in the shower that night.
‘Oh I’ve got a lotta ’whacking to do/A whole lotta ’whacking to do/Come on baby, to make a ’whack takes two/Oh yes, I’ve got a lotta ’whacking to do/A whole lotta ’whacking to do/And there’s no one I’d rather do it with than Mu.’
No matter how ambivalent you are about Elvis, after a few hours in Memphis, he definitely gets under your skin.
*
It was lunchtime and Professor Mu Kraken was in the lobby waiting for me.
‘Hi … Mu,’ I said, unsure of how best to address him.
‘Call me Ernie,’ he grinned, his voice gentle and calm. ‘Mu Kraken is my pseudonym.’
‘I guessed that,’ I said. ‘I read the short story on your website: “The Quest for the Cosmic Jazzma, Disk IX: The Aves of Aramie”.’
‘That’s quite a challenging read,’ smiled Ernie. ‘It’s written in the surrealist jive vernacular … very challenging.’
Inwardly I breathed a sigh of relief. It had indeed been a very challenging read, full of playfully made-up words that reminded me of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky: ‘Farswearing the sugarswain barlooms and the ladies unladdylike, leaving Aramie abed coldercranked.’
(I suppose it wasn’t surprising that, when real words did pop up, a googlewhack was born. It occurred to me that Ernie would make a fine lyricist for erstwhile space rockers Mr Quimby’s Beard and I made a mental note to call Jerry.)
‘So, where does the name Mu Kraken come from?’ I asked. ‘I’m not very familiar with that kind of literature, it sounds kind of Lord-of-the-Rings-y…’
Ernie laughed. The answer was far more prosaic than that.
‘My surname is McCracken,’ he said, as we started to drive.
Ernie had a look that was hard to pin down. He wore baggy combat trousers, and a knitted hooded top over a Hawaiian shirt. He had a wonderful copper-coloured goatee beard and the pointiest of pointy, owl-like eyebrows that lent him a permanently studious expression, an effect only added to by the pipe that hung jauntily from the corner of his mouth. Oh, and he wore a beret. There was a peacefulness about Ernie; it was in his voice and the way he moved and it was in his face too, a fifty-something face with barely a crease on it. Just being in his company was like having a massage.
‘So, I got you a couple of googlewhacks and I figured we could go meet some friends of mine at the Overton Park Shell,’ said Ernie. ‘They have internet access there and they’re very interesting people.’
Ernie was a hippie. It’s a word that’s used lazily these days, thrown casually at anyone who might have long hair, sandals or show an interest in green politics; hell, I was once called a hippie for ordering couscous but that’s not what I mean at all. I mean hippie in the truest Sixties/Seventies-acid-dropping/pot-smoking sense. I suppose Ernie was the kind of man my grandparents warned my mum about.
It may be that, somehow, the essence of that warning had locked itself into the Gorman family genes. Or maybe my parents used to sneak into my room at night and play subliminal anti-drug hypnosis tapes while I slept. Or maybe I’d just read one too many Daily Mails while sitting in various dentists’ waiting rooms down the years. Whatever the reason, when Ernie started to tell me about his first acid trip at the age of 19 a small part of me, somewhere deep inside, wanted to yell, ‘Stop the car! I want to get out!’
Please don’t misinterpret that as any kind of moralistic reaction. (I think I’ve told you far too much about my relationship with alcohol to get away with anything like that.) The truth, as uncool as it may be, was simply that drugs scared me. My own experience with drugs had gone no further than alcohol and caffeine, with marijuana back in a very distant third place, but everything else – and especially those things with the whiff of a laboratory about them – had always scared me far more than was probably sensible. In short, I was a coward who chose to take neither the high ground nor the high life.
Of course, I didn’t yell, ‘Stop the car! I want to get out!’ because I knew how weird and strange and irrational that would be. No, I said, ‘Really? And you were only 19?’ because I was fascinated.
‘You see, you have to remember that Memphis was segregated in the Sixties,’ said Ernie, reminding me that being a hippie wasn’t just about taking acid and smoking pot. It was a rejection of the conventional values of the day and I suppose it’s wise for us to remember just how screwed up some of those values were.
Nowadays we find it impossible to imagine a world in which schools, universities, factories, public transport and who knows what else are segregated because of race, but less than forty years ago that’s the way things were in Memphis. Martin Luther King lost his life to an assassin’s bullet in the city in 1968. When you see a grand old house in Memphis, the chances are it was built using a fortune earned out of slavery.
‘I was in a car once with four people,’ said Ernie. ‘I was the only white guy and we ended up in a car chase trying to get away from some rednecks trying to run us off the road. We got away, but who knows what would have happened if we hadn’t.’
We pulled into Overton Park, a large expanse of densely wooded greenery not far from the centre of town, and parked up behind what I guessed was the Shell.
The Overton Park Shell was an outdoor performance space. A large concrete half dome formed the back of the stage, a structure that bounced all sound out front to the rows of tatty wooden benches. Ernie led me in through the back door. The front of the venue might have looked a bit rough around the edges but the backstage area was charmingly rough through and through. There were tins of paint stacked up, disused props and scenery stowed wherever it would fit and unidentifiable piles of stuff hidden beneath tarpaulin.
‘Hey, it’s only me,’ hollered Ernie, announcing our arrival.
‘Hey, Ernie,’ came a reply.
My eyes followed the voice to find its owner, a scrawny little man in a ragged red pullover. He had a stubbly chin but a luxurious walrus-like moustache. Ernie introduced us.
‘John, this is a friend of mine, Dave,’ he said. ‘I’m just showing him round Memphis. Can he use your computer?’
‘Sure he can,’ said John, approaching and shaking my hand. ‘Welcome to the Shell, Dave.’
John wanted to take me on a tour of the venue first, so off we went through the rabbit warren corridors, dressing rooms and backstage area and out on to the stage itself. As we walked I learned that the place was tatty because it no longer had public funding. But volunteers like John had dedicated a lot of time and energy to renovating and maintaining the place because they felt it was an important part of Memphis life.
‘I used to be a carpenter in a big opera house,’ said John. ‘It’s a highly skilled job and well paid too. Then a few years ago I was diagnosed with cancer. They wanted to cut me up and do all kinds of shit but I wasn’t having any of it. They told me I didn’t have long to live. I lost my job and came here,’ his voice thinned, but he swelled up his chest with defiant pride. ‘I’ve been looking after this place ever since. I keep it alive and it keeps me alive. Last year we promoted 54 different live shows. 62,000 people came and sat in those bleachers and it’s all run by volunteers.’
I felt guilty for thinking the place looked tatty now. As I looked out at the empty benches it looked different. It looked loved.
‘I think we’ve got enough funds together to paint the benches now. Next year, it’ll happen,’ said John and I could hear the spirit in his voice and see the life in his eyes and I understood exactly how this place fed his soul.
‘Do you know where you’re standing right now?’ he asked.
I looked around me for clues. I was centre stage, but I knew there had to be more to it than that.
‘Er … no.’
‘Right there,’ said John, pointing at my feet, ‘is where Elvis made his first ever professional appearance.’
‘Really?’ I asked, and again I could feel my impervious Elvis-proof skin cracking.
‘Uh huh,’ said John. He leaned in close to me, making it clear that what he had to say next was of great importance. ‘Do you know what the coordinates are for that spot right there?’
I wasn’t really sure what the question meant, so I was pretty sure that the answer must be ‘no’.
‘No.’
John leaned in closer still and spoke in a whisper steeped in awe and wonder.
‘90, 35,’ he said. ‘The intersection of the 90th meridian and the 35th parallel.’
‘Wow,’ I said, although I didn’t have a clue as to why those numbers were remarkable, only that right there and then it did feel remarkable.
‘Do you know what’s on the other side of the world from here?’ asked John. ‘Do you know what you’re opposite?’
‘No.’
John looked both ways in case anyone else was within range. His eyes widened and his voice lowered further still and he said, ‘The Forbidden City. Beijing. China.’
‘Wow,’ I said again.
The air buzzed with the mystical significance of it all. I didn’t understand why it was impressive that I was standing on the spot where Elvis made his first professional appearance or that that spot was the polar opposite of China’s Forbidden City but somehow the air seemed thinner, a cool breeze blew round my neck and my skin tingled.
John put his arm on my shoulder, the two of us were almost huddling now, and he prepared to speak again. I listened intently, ready for the next awe-inspiring fact to present itself.
‘Do you like surfing porn?’ he said.
My brain scrambled through the words, rearranging them, trying to decipher the otherworldly message that must surely have been in there but no, he really was just asking me if I liked surfing for porn.
‘Er … not really,’ I said pathetically.
‘I’ll show you to the computer,’ said John, exiting stage right.
We walked back through to the backstage area and into a tiny office space where I was amazed to discover an incredible array of computing equipment. There were monitors and printers and TV screens all stacked up in ramshackle fashion. It looked like a small East European country was monitoring a space mission from a secret location. John saw the surprise on my face.
‘It’s all donated by well-wishers,’ he said, ‘a lot of people look after us. Every Thursday some of the staff from the local Pizza Hut come by with some pizza, we get people dropping off tinned food quite often and,’ he indicated the computers, ‘this kind of stuff too.’
‘This is amazing,’ I said. ‘People must really care about this place.’
‘Everyone except the City of Memphis, dude,’ said the bitter voice of a blue-haired volunteer from round a doorway. He had a paintbrush in one hand and a joint in the other.
‘We recently upgraded our connection speed,’ said John, ‘much better for porn.’ He smiled. ‘Sit down, it’s online, just help yourself.’
I sat at the computer and Ernie came to stand at my shoulder saying, ‘I got Neutrino Scrummages …’
I typed in the words, hit the Google search button and confirmed that it was indeed a ’whack. It led to a page on a Welsh rugby website where an email address was easily found. I opened up another window, surfed into the mail2web.com site and seconds later an email was winging its way to Wales.
‘OK Ernie, Wales is nice,’ I said, fond thoughts of Minis floating through my mind, ‘but it’s a long way from Memphis. I hope this next one is a little easier to get to.’
‘Grandmaster Sticklebacks,’ said Ernie
A few keystrokes later I was looking at uwpmag.com. The ‘uwp’ stood for Underwater Photography and the ‘mag’ stood for magazine.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s not a .co.uk or a .com.au or anything more exotic than that. I guess it’s most likely to be American.’
‘And quite likely to be underwater,’ suggested Ernie.
‘I guess so,’ I said, firing off my second email.
‘That reminds me,’ said Ernie, his eyes lighting up. ‘We’ll be meeting Captain Nemo later.’
‘The submarine captain?’ I said. ‘From 20,000 Leagues under the Sea?’
‘No, the computer technician,’ said Ernie. ‘From Memphis.’
‘Obviously.’
‘You’ll like him,’ said Ernie. ‘We’re gonna get a small group of Met. Anon. guys together and head out to The Dreamer’s place. It’ll be fun.’
*
We sat in the small wooden hut. Candles flickered. Outside it was pitch black. The kind of darkness you can never find in a city, the kind of darkness you only find in the woods. An owl hooted. Either that or a BBC radio sound effects crew were outside thinking, ‘Do you know what would be perfect right now? An owl hooting.’
We’d left the city far behind us some time ago. A little while later we’d left the tarmac roads behind too. This was The Dreamer’s place. The Dreamer was a sculptor. He was also employed as a caretaker for this patch of land in the woods, which was a perfect arrangement for all concerned. He got to live in a sizable mobile home, with the fresh air he craved and more importantly the space and freedom to carve his stones. In return the landowners got … well, they got to have a sculptor living on their land.
The Dreamer had long silver hair tied in a ponytail at the back and a big bushy beard, which is pretty much how I’d always imagined a sculptor who lived in the woods would look. He also looked like a dreamer.
Captain Nemo had a beard too, as anyone named after a famous submariner should. Whenever he spoke, he always sounded as though he was about to break into laughter. This meant, oddly, that when he did laugh it always took me by surprise.
The fourth member of Metaphysics Anonymous bucked the trend by not having a beard or a nickname. Bryan was younger than the others by about 30 years and I was grateful for his presence. I had a few years on him and a beard so even though I was the newcomer, Bryan managed to look like the odd one out and consequently, I felt like I belonged. It was a nice feeling; I liked them and I wanted to fit in.
‘The bye-laws for Metaphysics Anonymous are very simple,’ said Nemo. ‘One: members have a right to hold and express their own opinions. Two: members may use and explain their own definitions. Three: an attempt will be made to communicate not merely persuade. Four: anyone who agrees with one, two and three can be a member.’
‘Can I be a member?’ I asked.
‘You already are,’ said Ernie.
‘Cool,’ I said, because I’d never been part of a private philosophy club before.
To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting a serious philosophical discussion; I just thought we’d get stoned together and talk about nothing. Well, we did talk about nothing, but it was ‘the concept of nothing’ so I think you’ll find that counts as philosophy.
We talked about semantic structures, whether or not a dream represented reality (because, after all, you really dreamed it), the philosophical proof for evolution (I feel I came into my own on this one) and much more besides. Oh, and we did get stoned while we were doing it, which may or may not be responsible for the fact that I was actually understanding the deep concepts that were up for discussion.
In the middle of the evening Ernie asked me to explain the idea of googlewhacks to the others. Obviously by this stage I’d explained the concept to many a stranger and as a result, I had my explanation down pat. I had an explanation that was concise and precise; a little script I trotted out without thinking whenever it was necessary. But for some reason, when Ernie asked me this time, I didn’t hit the script. What fell from my lips was, I suppose, the most hippie-friendly explanation I could come up with. But this wasn’t because I was trying to cater to the company I was keeping. It was just how the words came out. Somehow, during that evening, my brain had been rewired, reconfigured to work in a different way.
‘There are three billion pages that Google looks at,’ I said.
‘Awesome,’ whispered Bryan.
‘And the word acehigh will probably appear on a few thousand of those websites, right?’ I continued.
‘Uh huh.’
‘And each of those websites must be linked to a person. So imagine putting a dot on the globe to represent each of those people … and then you draw a continuous line around the world, joining all of those dots, just one, long, flowing, red line.’
With my left hand I traced a squiggly line through the air. Four rapt pairs of eyes followed my index finger’s path.
‘Then you do the same with a blue line for the word lawnmowers; a dot on the globe for every person who has the word lawnmowers on their website and then …’, using my right hand this time, ‘… join those dots up with one, long, flowing blue line …’
‘Uh huh,’ they uh-huh-ed as one.
‘Now, for most pairs of words, you’ll find the two lines criss-cross all over the place,’ I said, my arms entwining, ‘but for acehigh and lawnmowers they only cross once. Where they cross; those two words, that website, that person … that’s a googlewhack. And that person is Professor Mu Kraken.’
‘Wow,’ said The Dreamer.
‘That is about as Taoist as it comes,’ said Ernie. ‘That is metaphysicality in the extreme.’
‘You’re catching the wind,’ said Nemo.
‘Catching the wind of the electromagnetic energy currents of humankind,’ added Ernie.
‘Catching the wind and finding connections,’ said Bryan.
‘So the world wide web is like a portal for you,’ said Nemo. ‘You’re sitting in Memphis and you plug in two words and you just pop right out on the other side of the world and meet that person and then you do it again.’ He started laughing, catching me by surprise.
‘Yeah,’ I agreed and joined the laugh.
‘So where you heading to next?’ asked The Dreamer with wide-eyed fascination.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Catching the wind,’ said Bryan.
‘It might be Wales, or it might be … I don’t know where,’ I said. ‘I’ve got Neutrino Scrummages or Grandmaster Sticklebacks.’
‘Wow,’ said Bryan.
‘I’ll take you back to the hotel later on,’ said Ernie, ‘but we can go to my house first and use the computer, see if you’ve had a reply yet.’
‘See if you can find out where you’re gonna pop out next,’ said The Dreamer.
*
‘It looks like you have a reply,’ said Ernie reading over my shoulder.
We were sitting at his desk at home. Apart from the glow of the screen, the only light came from a small lamp in the corner of the room. It was late and Ernie’s wife (‘She’s not very interested in metaphysics’) was asleep in the room next door so we spoke in whispers.
‘It’s from the Underwater Photography magazine guy,’ I said, reading the address in my inbox. The mouse hovered over the link, ready to open up his email.
‘So where is your underwater photographer?’ asked Ernie. ‘Florida? California?’
‘Let’s find out,’ I said, my index finger clicking the mouse. ‘Let’s see …’