O King Ego

Rumbling, booming, bass-heavy music seeped through the walls behind the stage of the Boomer Theater. Partitioned by one of those walls was a room, sort of a dressing room, a place where the bands and their entourage would rev it up before shows and then wind it down when the curtain was drawn.

On this particular evening the band responsible for the racket on the stage was a quartet from Paden, Oklahoma calling themselves Red State Hypocrite. It was a great name, to be sure, though they're brand of neo-psychedelic funk was not sitting pretty at the top of any charts. That meant nothing, all they were concerned with was the music and anyone who didn't understand that or had a problem wih it was invited to state his or her case before being pummeled by 5 high school wrestlers and a cheer squad leader (just in case it is a "her" case we're talkin' about here). The Paden alumnus used to pay those wrestlers in low grade weed but the cheer squad leader insisted on a modest salary in addition to the marijuana. She was surprised they gave it to her but even more amazed that the wrestlers never said a word about it. She figured they'd each and every one on 'em to a man be as jealous as a coon dog of the majestic German Shepherd.

Most of the Red State Hypocrites' followers/hangers-on/leeches were congregated in the front row, thanks to comped tickets from the Hypocrites management. They looked like synchronized automatons with their heads swaying to and fro in rythmn with the driving music, so loud you could feel it jiggling your guts.

Of these "fans" (if "fans" you can call them) there were only three who remained in the backstage room I described so eloquently for you in a previous paragraph. Everyone called them The Lynn Triplets. This innocent appelation was the result of much consideration concerning the uncanny fact that each one of them looked exactly like Loretta Lynn. Juxtapose that with the knowledge that the three women had, until only a month prior, never seen or known one another. That's right, strange but true, these dead ringers for Loretta Lynn were the same age and looked so much like the other and yet THEY WEREN'T ACTUALLY TRIPLETS! Not even born of the same parents! So you can see why they would inherit the title The Lynn Triplets even though they were not related to Loretta or even to each other.

Loretta 1 was doing something the real Loretta Lynn may have done although she's never confessed to it so I give her the benefit of the doubt, though it's hard to imagine...and yet, that said, I'm pretty sure Tammy Wynette used to get coked up now and then, didn't she? She was married to George Jones, for crying out loud, how could she have avoided it?

Loretta 1 could have cared less as she bent over the mountain of cocaine on a mirror on the coffee table. As she bent over Loretta 1 deftly placed a rolled up hundred dollar bill in her nose and buried it into the top of the coke mountain. With an enormous snort she felt the snow travel through her nasal cavity, up and into the brain. I confess that I have never snorted cocaine so therefore am unable to describe the effects the drug has on the individual. I'm told it's pretty intense. Others have told me it's TOO intense and that I would be best served if I avoided it completely. The ones who gave me the latter advice were intelligent, sage men whose opinions I trust implicitly. Because I have respected these gurus of western thought I have very little trouble avoiding it completely. Based upon what I have learned beyond the shadow of a doubt from them I am compelled to tell anyone who is considering trying cocaine and who, by reading this, is now encouraged to put his money where his mouth is. Join me in abstinence of the Peruvian Powder.

Loretta 1, her eyes now like bloodshot marbles, would not be able to tell you the last time she considered cocaine abstinence to be a desirable choice. Did I mention she looked a lot like Loretta Lynn? Holy cow, you wouldn't believe it. I mean, it's so weird, if someone told me it was really her in here and I walked through that door to encounter...I thought it really WAS Loretta...I encountered a country music legend who is not known for debauchery snorting a third line from a Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Loretta 2 watched the woman who could have been her twin sister choke on an off-kilter snort and her mind was filled with visions. She never told anyone about these visions. They involved a host of incarnated Hindu deities, the inventor of Mister Coffee and his wife, Beverly Coffee ("You can call me Bev"), the man who wrestled Tim McVeigh into the rocket capsule they blasted him into space in, herself as the denim-clad object in Conway Twitty's "Tight Fittin' Jeans", the cast and crew of The Young and the Restless, among other hopefully meaningful oddites.

As the Red State Hypocrites bashed out the closing chords to "Men of the Night, Unite!" Loretta 2 considered joining her newly christened triplet sister in front of that snow-covered mirror. The vision was starting to fade, aided by the slow, churning introduction to "Just Some 'o Jerry Seinfeld's Blues". With the loss of the distraction Loretta 2 was even more tempted to stick legal tender up in her nose for the sole purpose of inhaling the product of the coca leaf... We have never forgiven Coca-Cola for removing the coca leaf from their recipe. It now tastes nothing like it did and caffeine is a pale substitute for Peru's Finest (The Kind you hear about in Steely Dan songs).

Loretta 3 turned to Loretta 2 and said, "Are you gonna hit that thang or not?"

Loretta 2 turned to Loretta 1 to ask about the drug's quality. Loretta 1 didn't answer because she was passed out. Loretta 2 took this into consideration. On one hand the stuff had knocked Loretta 1 clean out of the stratosphere. She knew "1" was no beginner when it came to almost any mind-expansion project, if three snorts knocked her out cold in less than a minute that means I could probably get away with doing just one.
That was her way of thinking and she was probably right.

That's when I broke through the door and actually woke Loretta 1 up. They were startled when I made my grand entrance, talking about what they were going to do with "1" and daring each other to use more and more dangerous drugs.

"Stop this!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. All three of the Lynn Triplets gazed up at me as if I were some newly-returned Lord of the House who treats them well but indifferently.

"Are you going to talk to us about drugs?" Loretta 3 inquired.

"Yes I am," was my reply. "How did you know?"

"Oh, don't you worry about that but if you're talking about drugs you need to drag those Red State Hypocrites offa that stage and round up about half of the front row out there, you'll be able to tell which ones I mean, you'd better get a net, you'd better know how to use it, if you're going to pontificate on the evils of chemistry I ain't about to listen to it all by myself, 'specially when I know everyone else come here with those crazy Hypocrites is a lot closer to dealin' with the devil than I am...and I 'spect either of these two Loretta Lynn look-alikes feel exactly the same way about it."

"Sounds fair to me," I said...there was something I needed to say. Something that needed to be said. Something that may have been said already but if so I don't think any of these musicians, hipsters, hangers-on, hat-and-coat check boys have heard it. If they did they need to hear it again, obviously. "Round 'em up. I want everyone who came to this dive with the Red State Hypocrites right here in this room. And that includes the Red State Hypocrites. You especially."

Loretta 1 spoke, though her words were a tad garbled through a cotton mouth. "You heard the man! Round 'em up! We ain't done here until the last cretin is corraled and presented to Porpoise Pilot."

I told her to drink some water and keep her mouth closed. If what she had was contagious I think we'd all be doomed...and I'm not talking about her cotton mouth.

Long story short, the headbangers in the front row agreed to cease and desist with an emphasis on the desisting. At the time of this writing no less than 10 of the 12 front row plants were serving hard time in one of the correctional facilities operating in the state within which they were convicted and sentenced, some to death by lethal injection, some by the electric chair, some will even beg to get a firing squad there. Lotsa ways to do it, that's for sure. Anyone want to doubt it? Come on, bring it. Pick up your best, do it for us! Any old way you choose it, but your end result is always the same, you don't go out in the same way you came.

The Red State Hypocrites swore until their faces were collectively blue that they had no idea why they were being detained. It's true, they had no idea and they never found out when it was finally over. When the clock finally stopped ticking, no more o'clock, it's a thing of the past if you don't count the past in the same way as you do the present moment and the future. These guys had not a clue what they were talking about. I got the feeling this was the case in many more areas of their lives than what we're talking about here...I'm sorry, I forgot what we were talking about here.

The Lynn Triplets, along with the Red State Hypocrites and their drug-loving soulmates from the front row, all a captive audience.

I pointed at the Star Fleet patch I had personally embroideried onto my shirt. "Men, Women of the Starship Enterprise, Law enforcement types, water-bearers, authors of New York Times Bestselling Books, talk show hosts, light-workers for Magnetic Service, THIS is what Kryon says to you...Open your ears to hear, your heart will follow. You've come with me this far, let's not stop just yet."

The throng before me had taken to chanting a nickname they'd given me. "O King Ego! O King Ego! " I didn't know exactly what it meant, this Ego stuff. I assumed they thought my aloof posturings were more endearing. But "King Ego"? Really? Do I have to live the rest of my life branded, as it were, in my psyche, in that there will never come a day when I won't think of myself as "King Ego". Though I have no reason to believe that this King Ego persona is anything more than a Jungian joke told in the dry confines of a Golden Dawn hermitage, nevertheless like good soil for the sower I accept the seed, now I am cursed with the harvest: a new name branded on the most vulnerable part of my brain and then chiselled into my skull...King Ego. Yes. I own it. That's me, alright. That's alright mama, that's me! I am King Ego! O King Ego! O King Ego!"

In unison the Lynn Triplets said, "We christen thee, King Ego. You said you had a message, King Ego. O King Ego! The message. Deliver the message. We await, yea, we await to go home."

"I do. I do have a message for you. Especially for the young lady who doesn't think we can't see the powdered mask of cocaine that's somehow found itself attached to her face. Young lady, I want to tell you that this lifestyle is killing you. Statistics show that young ladies with your particular habits and peccadillios won't last too long if you keep it up at your present pace. You got to slow down. You got to stay off the drugs and I mean the drugs, you know what I mean."

The others in the room looked slightly disappointed. I didn't ask them why.