The Marrow of the Bone (Joe Daly's Highbone Theater)

"I don't know how many times I've heard this one. You're talking to the guy at the party, presenting you crazy ideas about how reality isn't real, and the guy stands up and [bangs on podium]. 'See' he says, 'This is real. This is solid. This is reality! Try and disprove that!'"

-Jim Keith, speaking in his lecture UFOs at the Edge of Reality.

I'm at a party making small talk when the question gets asked.

"What about you? What kind of stuff are you interested in?"

"I'm really into comics and cartooning. Sometimes I even draw comics."

Most of the time people seem to think that's at least sort of interesting. I know some comics people have a persecution complex but that doesn't match my experience. Honestly, most folks don't care enough about comics to have malice towards them. Still, there have been a few times where people look at me like I have six heads.

"They still make those?"

I do have other ways of mystifying my fellow partygoers. As I've gotten older my interests have become increasingly particular and I have a group of surprisingly sympathetic friends. What do I talk about with a good friend at a party? Comics, pro wrestling, paranormal phenomena, conspiracy theories, pseudoscientific quackery, and the occult. Strangers? I suppose I hold back a bit for their own good. I think most people do, regardless of their interests.

Palmer, the main character of Joe Daly's newest comic Highbone Theater doesn't seem to share this instinct. He plays an instrument similar to a banjo called the Chubush. He prefers music played on this apparently Mongolian instrument to the kind played at most parties. When he tells a friend that he's spent the previous day experimenting with alternate guitar tunings (and reading about Kabbalah) his friend informs him that standard tuning "works just fine for me." People don't give a shit about Palmer's hobbies and they definitely don't care about looking beyond the illusory veil of reality.

Daly's cartooning is rather straightforward. I love when he drags moments out to milk every second of excruciating awkwardness.

Palmer may be glimpsing behind the veil but for many people that veil has been stripped away. Many people I love look at my more esoteric interests with a raised eyebrow but those same people have had their reality shattered by the 2016 US presidential election. Donald Trump is now president and someone like Alex Jones is a household name. My close friends and I used to send each other clips of Jones because we thought he was funny. It turns out he wasn't a harmless nutjob because he's actually got access to the president's ear. His Infowars is one of the handful of news sources our president trusts. Infowars readers are typical examples of the fragile white male ego. Palmer could fit into that camp too but he's such a loser that I couldn't help having sympathy. Part of me worries that I could have ended up like Palmer if I was a bit more detached, selfish, or gullible.

Trump and his cronies have bombarded the media with contradictory information. "Alternative Facts." That's nothing new for me. I've been sifting through disinfo since I was 12 years old. I learned about it the first time I logged onto the internet on my own personal computer I searched for "UFOs" and I've been wading in nonsense ever since.

I come from a long line of knee-jerk contrarians and it was too easy to just be a UFO skeptic or a UFO believer. Instead I became interested in how UFO hobbyists and researchers were exploited by independent con men as well as factions within the US government. Notable among them was a guy named Richard Doty.

Sack of shit Richard Doty in Mirage Men (2013)

The first time I encountered Richard Doty's name it was in Jim Keith's Saucers of the Illuminati. Doty was an AFOSI agent who manipulated UFO buffs by sharing fake documents with them and promoting science fiction narratives that swept through the world of UFO investigation. The first time I saw Doty's face and heard him talk was in the 2013 documentary Mirage Men by John Lendberg and Mark Pilkington. 

Seeing Doty tell his side of the story I was reminded of the many interviews I've watched with pro wrestlers. The blurred line between reality and fantasy is a big part of professional wrestling. Those who don't follow wrestling are content with the knowledge that the whole thing is fake. Wrestling fans know it's theatre that presents itself as an athletic contest, with a comparable level of physicality. The winners and even the events of a wrestling match are predetermined but many of the bumps that wrestlers take, even cooperative ones, are real, sometimes leading to injury and a notoriously short lifespan. Concussions are common and so are the changes in behavior associated with head trauma.

"Goodnight HULKAMANIACS and jabronie marks without a life that don't know it a work when you work a work and work yourself into a shoot,marks"

-Hulk Hogan, commenting on Zhuangzi.

Outside of the ring wrestlers were once expected to portray their character in all public appearances. It can be difficult to discern the truth when it comes out of the mouth of an old pro wrestler. They often give interviews that acknowledge that the whole thing is fixed but they'll still act as if their rivalries with other wrestlers are real. Perhaps they're bullshitting for their own gain. Maybe they've inhabited their fictional world for so long that they can't tell the difference.

Doty braids together a similar rope of bullshit. He pushes the notion, and a number of other interview subjects seem to concur, that there may be some truth in the lies he's told. It's just like a wrestler trying to get over with a new audience. Doty uses the platform to suggest that Hollywood films about aliens have been made to slowly acclimate the public to the idea of visitors from another world. 

In Highbone Theater Palmer takes a date to see a new film based upon his favorite science fiction show "Space Journ" and the film becomes crucial to the plot and Palmer's awakening. In the film, the captain of The Nexus enters a mysterious black cube. Inside he participates in a series of trials laid out by a villain called The Bone Master. In the inverted universe of the black cube the Captain is forced to fight friends leading to injuries and later, an operation where his body is rebuilt. In the final trial the Bone Master asks the Captain inane questions about his opinions on Frank Capra films. In exasperation the Captain calls his enemy a "Dingle Root" then finds himself safe aboard the Nexus. Dingle Root had been a code word that unlocked the Hypercube and allowed him to be rescued. 

The Bone Master also seems to exist outside of the film. He is seen in a committee plotting to manipulate global politics as well as the mundane events of Palmer's life. The plan he describes is called the "Mahabone Theater," a phrase that also appears in Palmer's dreams. Mahabon is a word that might be familiar to anyone with an interest in Masonic Ritual.

Palmer says the magic word.

Masonic initiations are modeled after the ancient mystery religions. Ancient initiates acted out their death, symbolizing the end of their life in the material world, before they are resurrected as an illuminated one. The mysteries revealed to them awaken their knowledge of a higher spiritual plane. Freemasons also act out their death and resurrection. "Mahabon" is whispered in the ear of the candidate before he is "raised from the dead."

"I approached to the confines of death, and having trod on the threshold of Prosperine I returned from it, being carried through all the elements. At midnight I saw the sun shining with a splendid light; and I manifestly drew near to the gods beneath, and the gods above, and proximately adored them."

-Apuleius, The Golden Ass, as quoted by Manly P. Hall in The Secret Teachings of All Ages.

Hmmm...

Palmer acts as an initiate into a different set of mysteries. He becomes infatuated with a coworker named Billy Boy who we first see showing off a "Flatulence Tube" that allows the smell of his own farts to quickly dissipate from his clothes. Palmer sees him as a sage, eagerly picking his brain about various conspiracies.

Billy Boy welcomes Palmer into his inner circle by revealing that he'd lied about living with his wife. He has no wife and lives with his mother. Palmer views this as a disinformation system and chooses to believe the rest of Billy Boy's theories, even calling him a genius at one point.

Earlier this year the CIA released a bunch of documents through the Freedom of Information Act dealing with their experiments using an ESP technique called Remote Viewing. Supposed psychics were used to discern information about distant places. It's a sort of extra sensory reconnaissance. Even more spectacular is the fact that these documents claim that a large percentage of the intelligence they gathered was accurate.

A number of gnomic figures inhabit Palmer's visions.

When these documents came out it was fascinating to see the reactions of those that follow Forteana and conspiracies. The documents were seen as proof that Remote Viewing yielded results and that ESP must be real. Folks who regularly complain that the government is lying about everything from UFOs to JFK and 9/11 were also proclaiming that their belief in ESP had been validated by the very same government. It's just like the UFO researchers who choose to believe their favorite parts of Doty's claims or Palmer assuming that Billy Boy's lies were necessary.

It's no surprise that people are so desperate to reinforce their beliefs that they discredit sources based upon whether the results conform with their preexisting views. Conspiracy nuts reacting to FOIA documents are a micro snapshot of the greater media landscape It's the same as Trump supporters choosing to believe the that they are rebelling against a stifling leftist elite by propping up a conservative authoritarian elite or Hillary supporters thinking that neoliberalism can be progressive while preserving the power of corporate entities. None of these lies are new, they are just more aggressive now that media saturates every second of our lives. 

"Listen to me you queer, stop calling me a Crypto-Nazi or I'll sock you in the goddamn face and you'll stay plastered."

-noted Crypto-Nazi William F. Buckley Jr in 1968. Yes, it's always been a circus.

With the world being unrelentingly shitty I try to escape with music and I'm always looking for something new, so I thought "Why not the Chubush?" I'll admit that I didn't put a lot of effort into it but my research into Chubush music has been fruitless. I tried googling Chubush a few times, attaching different keywords but I still found no information about this instrument. Daly presents Palmer's interest in the Chubush as odd enough to be funny but specific enough to feel like it could really exist.

He's not talking about brutal shredding on his Chubush.

For a little while there I really was willing to entertain the notion that it was real. After all, Palmer's other hobbies had real life equivalents. Space Journ being a stand-in for Star Trek is the most obvious one but there are others. I may not be intimately familiar with Hoodoo but I have encountered phrases like "Mojo Hand" and "working the root" when reading about other arcane practices (and listening to Muddy Waters).

Of course a creep like Palmer is uncomfortable talking to black people.

It is interesting to see Palmer, a caucasian living in South Africa, participating in a form of African folk magic. My instinct is that Palmer's interest in Hoodoo is similar to American white dudes appropriating the aspects of Native American mysticism. I think that usually comes from a mix of racism and postcolonial guilt where indigenous people are viewed as having magical/spiritual knowledge, rather than acknowledging their humanity.

Now, I'm not versed enough in the history of African occult traditions but I was under the impression that Hoodoo originates in west Africa. Is that like folks in the northeastern US using Navajo imagery? Most Americans have been taught a homogenized view of Native American cultures. Are white Africans just as ignorant? (Probably)

I'll have to admit that I don't really know, mostly due to a lack of experience. South Africa is a long way from my home in New York. That might explain why Palmer sees the 9/11 attacks the way he does.

Not pictured, Palmer frantically running around inside the towers after the plane hits and meeting some magic apes. This book is wild like that.

At another party, Palmer wonders if the 9/11 attacks were unreal. A friend interjects "Like an inside job!" If you've ever heard the phrase "Jet fuel can't melt steel beams" then you know that some people believe that the plane hijackings cover-up controlled explosions within the towers. Palmer goes a step further and suggests the possibility of fake planes and fake buildings. Maybe the eyewitness testimony we're all familiar with has been scripted. He sees it as an elaborate form of theatre, composed and directed by some shadowy cabal.

Daly isn't the first person to bring this idea to my attention. It came up at dinner with a friend I've known since we were kids. This friend recalled my being a nut and enjoying a chat about conspiracy theories. Apparently they'd recently fell into a youtube rabbit hole, watching all of those conspiracy videos with the Requiem for a Dream music in the background. She said to me "What I hadn't realized was that I couldn't think of anyone I knew personally who claimed to have seen the planes with their own eyes."

But I could. I remember sitting in my eight grade history class on a Tuesday morning. There was a knock on the door. The dean had something to tell our teacher. They whispered in the doorway and the class watched as Mrs. Legar gasped and sunk into herself. After regaining her composure she attempted to get back into her lesson but one student interrupted to ask if everything was okay. She said something tragic happened and we'd learn more when an announcement was made over the loud speaker.

That announcement was never made and the next period was gym. About a quarter of the students in our gym class had spent the previous period in a classroom on the opposite side of the building. That side directly faced the Manhattan skyline. The first time I actually heard about what was happening was from a student named Salmaan. We stood around him while he explained that a plane crashed into one of the Twin Towers and not much later another plane crashed into the other tower. There was skepticism surrounding this obviously crazy series of events but the rest of that class stepped forward to confirm Salmaan's story.

Frank Miller and Lynn Varley's Dark Knight Strikes Again is one of the only pieces of media that recalls what I remember Manhattan looking like that day.

My mother and brother picked me up from school after lunch and we walked along a silent LIE overpass. My brother told me about how he saw the first plane from the roof of Queens Center Mall. He was smoking a cigarette before going inside to work. As he went inside he heard another coworker startled, he turned around and saw the second plane in it's moment of impact.

I don't know if my secondhand memories of eyewitness accounts should convince anyone of the truth of anything but they're good enough for me. Those stories are as real as anything else I can't touch but still believe.

There is a strand of occult thought that resembles subjective idealism. The idea is that the material world is of questionable reality but there is some sort of real world beyond what our senses perceive. This reality is malleable and we shape it through perception, ritual, and will. Those in positions of power use those principles to serve the spectacle.

Conspiracy theorists attempt to expose the manipulations of those elites but usually fail. Many end up becoming pawns of some demagoguery. Their self delusion makes them think they can be heroes and they are anxious to accept the proof that they've been right all along. They fall for and spread disinfo or are swept up in some toxic ideology.

At the end of Highbone Theater Palmer faces the hands that move the pieces and creates the world he wants. Climate change brings about a new ice age and hurts everyone he knows but that doesn't matter. The people who doubted him end up apologizing. He was right about everything and now he can chug along smugly. He is content living his ascetic life in the wasteland.

"The man who believes the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear."

-Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian