“What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?” - Not Just an R.E.M. song!

The Assualt: On the evening of October 4, 1986, Dan Rather (the famous news anchor) was attacked on the street by William Tager in a seemingly-random and highly publicized event. Contrary to popular belief, Tager had a very good reason for attacking Rather.

Bill Tager is from the future.

Born in the year 2265, Bill Tager is not from our planet - Well, technically it’s still from Earth, but it’s a paralell-dimension-style Earth. On Tagers Earth, the entire planet is under the control of one oppressive government. Dabbling with time travel for almost 150 years, Bill Tager would be the first volunteer to use the machine. Why would he do such a thing? Well, he’s a convicted felon and has been promised a full pardon if he returns safely. Felons in an oppressive world-society aren’t treated all that well.

On Tager’s Earth the Vice-President of the world is a man named Kenneth Burrows, who just happens to look exactly like Dan Rather (I should explain here that most everyone on our earth has a double on all of the other Earths in all of the parallel universes, according to Tager). Before Tager entered the time-travel chamber he was paid a visit by Burrows and was told that he had a transmitter implanted in his brain the night before; if he didn’t return to the present on schedule, he would be electronically reminded to do so.

Tager’s trip was successful; he landed in New York on September 1, 1986. All was going as planned and Tager was preparing to return to his own time when he was mistakenly arrested for putting coins in expired parking meters. After spending 30 days in jail (and staying in our time 14 days longer than he was supposed to) Tager started receiving extremely hostile messages from Vice-President Burrows telling him to return immediately. His first return window had passed and he would have to wait another week to try to return; but there was no possible way to let Burrows know this. The constant reminders from his implant, similar to voices in his head, were driving him insane. He wasn’t even able to sleep at night. If there was any way Tager could find out the precise frequency that was being broadcast to his brain he could possibly override the voices and be able to sleep at night until he was able to make his return trip.

As he walked the streets of New York late on the evening of October 4, 1986, Tager saw a man who he thought was Vice-President Kenneth Burrows. He quickly came to his senses and knew that Burrows would never make the risky trip himself, and instead wagered it must be Burrows’ double on our Earth. However, he thought, what were the chances that out of over 5 billion people on this planet, he would meet the twin of the man who had been sending hostile messages directly to his brain for over two weeks?

Tager called out to the man, “Kenneth! Kenneth Burrows!” To his surprise, the man, whom we know to be Dan Rather, turned to see who was yelling and was knocked to the ground. Tager repeatedly kicked Rather as he lay on the ground and yelled “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” hoping to learn the frequency of the signal being broadcast to his brain. When Rather didn’t respond, Tager realized he had made a terrible mistake and had indeed attacked Burrows’ double on our planet. He fled the scene and later missed his second, and last, chance to return to his home planet.

Years later, in 1994, in an attempt to get in contact with someone who might be able to identify the frequency and put an end to the voices that had haunted him for so many years, Tager shot and killed an NBC technician outside the “Today Show” studios. Today, William Tager sits in a prison in New York, the voices, now an automatic message that replays itself every 20 minutes, still play in his head.

While in prison, Tager wrote various stories and drew odd cartoons depicting his adventure.

The Film: After listening to Tager’s story, the film “12 Monkeys” was born. Written by Chris Marker and directed by Terry Gilliam, it was an excellent movie, IMHO. It also had an excellent cast (Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt, others). The story is that Futuristic mono-government Earth is suffering from a deadly Virus and convicted felon Bruce Willis “volunteers” to go back in time to prevent the catastrophe. (Sound familiar?)

The Song: WTF,K? is a song performed by R.E.M. on their album Monster. After seeing the assault in the news, Michael Stipe was moved enough by the oddity to write a song about it (”It remains the premier unsolved American surrealist act of the 20th century. It’s a misunderstanding that was scarily random, media hyped and just plain bizarre.” - MS). The lyrics are as follows:

“What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” is your Benzedrine, uh-huh
I was brain-dead, locked out, numb, not up to speed
I thought I’d pegged you an idiot’s dream
Tunnel vision from the outsider’s screen
I never understood the frequency, uh-huh
You wore our expectations like an armored suit, uh-huh

I’d studied your cartoons, radio, music, tv, movies, magazines
Richard says “Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy”
A smile like the cartoon, tooth for a tooth
You said that irony was the shackles of youth
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh
I never understood the frequency, uh-huh

“What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” is your Benzedrine, uh-huh
Butterfly decal, rearview mirror, dogging the scene
You smile like the cartoon, tooth for a tooth
You said that irony was the shackles of youth
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh
I never understood the frequency, uh-huh
You wore our expectations like an armored suit, uh-huh
I couldn’t understand
You said that irony was the shackles of youth, uh-huh
I couldn’t understand
You wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh
I couldn’t understand
I never understood, don’t fuck with me, uh-huh

First things first: To Ashblaster, Foley, and the Mysterious “J.,” whose triple tag team of comments made me look like a DICK last week, I have one thing to say:

KU-FUCKING-DOS. I enjoy being wrong only slightly more than having my eyes torn out with rusty corkscrews. In order to fully repress this memory, I can never listen to anything written by Neil Young or watch High Fidelity ever again…Or at least so I thought, before I decided to give a listen to one of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs, Superstition, and was overwhelmed by feelings of insecurity and wrong-ness. I quickly tried to listen to some Elvis and Sex Pistols music, with similar effects. It seems that embarrassment is very easily transferable from one medium to another, and anything even loosely associated with last week’s post has been contaminated (see graphic below). Thanks a bunch, I really appreciate it.

So that’s it. I am done listening to music for the rest of my life. It’s over. I must admit, as well, that I felt a horrible twinge as I was watching Footloose this weekend. Weird, huh? Ignorance really is bliss.

Surely everyone out there has a personal idea of what should be ‘right’ in the entertainment biz as far as their pricing schemes seem to go. The transition from Cassettes to digital discs, however - now that really pisses me off.

Buying 12 songs on a Cassette for $20, or buying a VHS Movie for $40 seemed almost justified. Not only are your paying for the entertainment, but you’re also paying for the physical moving parts of the product. The spinning wheels, the guy who watches the machine as the tape rolls up, the screws that hold them all together… a lot of mechanical effort went into them.

What really shocked me was when the digital disks came out, all those mechanical extras were eliminated - yet the prices stayed the same. CDs and DVDs don’t have screws or rolls of tape or complicated parts whatsoever. It’s just a bit of plastic pressed out of a single machine millions at a time with no human intervention.

Not only did the entertainment providers suddenly get a boost of millions per year due to reductions in manufacturing costs, it was about that time that legislation allowed artists to sell licenses for their work. That’s right, when you buy a movie, you’re not buying a copy of the movie itself. Your money is being spent on the right to play the movie from that disc, to your TV. The artist then helpfully supplies you with the disc to do so, but the disc is still the property of the artist.

It’s all a big pile of lame. Lame lame lame.