The adventures of the Johnny Dollar Experiment continue. . .

I never mentioned how my path first crossed with the Johnny Dollar Experiment. It was 1996. I was conducting and interview at the Boston Conservatory performance lab for a 'Scientific Erotica Journal" I was working for at the time. I remember that unusually warm October evening had a smell to it, kind of like a cross between a skanked out hippy whore , wearing expired musk, and that moldy damp smell that often follows a tropical summer rain. That date lingers in my head that way. Probably also because, that was the same day I had broken up with my girlfriend, who, coincidentally, was also skanked out hippy whore.

I remember I was at the campus that day to interview a former graduate student from the Conservatory, Mauro DePasquale, the keyboard player of a then relatively obscure jazz revisionist group known as the Johnny Dollar Experiment. Mauro had finished his ninth thesis, a musical equation, which proved the Unified Field Theory was not only true, but that time travel, itself, was accessible and easy to accomplish. During the interview, Mauro demonstrated how time travel is possible according to his thesis. All it took was for someone to listen to a peroformance containing chord changes to Julia, Coltrane's Takein the Trane'sax solo and a foot tapping in 11/8. Mauro began to show me. "Yeah Baby !" he said and then it all began. the chord changes, with the left hand,  in real time, to "Julia", by the Beatles, while simultaneously singing the exact notes of the first eight bars of Coltrane's "Takin' the Train" sax solo, while tapping your right foot in 11/8 time.

Mauro rendered the musical equation with grace and ease. Allegro. First the chord changes on an acoustic piano, and then, he began to vocalize the jazz riff note for note. Foot a tapping. Suddenly, in an instant, in what seemed like a swirling purple haze, I was transported to a urinal at the Peter Pan Bus terminal in Worcester, Massachusetts, some sixty miles away.

I couldn't explain what happened or exactly how, but it did. I was scared and there was that smell, that moldy damp smell. Maybe it was the bad Pizza I had chowed earlier that day, or the thought of that bitch ex-girlfriend whose name was Julia. Did I mention that? Or maybe just maybe, Mauro's mysterious musical equation had actually worked. I was beamed through time and space. My destination? The men's room, at a distant bus station, far, far away!

All I knew, I was in a shitter and I seemed to be locked in. I couldn't get out and that meant I couldn't get back to finish the interview. After waiting through a long dump, which took about fifty-five minutes, Mauro came to the rescue, all the way from Boston, to see if I was OK. He instructed me that after being transported I could not leave urinal until I first smelled my left hand. "Smelling the left hand will unlock the space-time loop." He said as he held his nose in gagging disgust. He told me that that was why I couldn't leave the restroom . I smelled my left hand and it smelled good, real good. We left the can. He offered to give me a ride back to my office but I decided I was going to stay in Worcester and check it out.  He said the one glitch to the equation was, that every time the transport took place, the "transported person" would end up in the same urinal at the same Worcester bus station. He said that sometimes persons are transported to one other location too, and that was in the middle of Kelly Square, an insanely jammed intersection in the same city, Worcester. Worcester for some unknown reason was in the loop. He went on to tell me that what happens after the transport . . . is strictly up to the person.

His explanation kind of reminded me of what art is supposed to be about. You see or hear something and then make what you will out it. It made sense at the time. Anyway, I couldn't get over how good my left hand smelled.

Mauro warned that he believed the equation was something that should not be tampered with. Strange things, " irrevocable and wild things . . . may happen" he would say, "that could change the world as we know it. Crazy-changes." 

We lost touch for a while, but I stayed in Worcester. I think he continued to fool around with the equation because, I noticed a few strange things did indeed happen. To name a few, all of sudden, during the same decade, there literally were no live bands playing in the Worcester area. DJ's were taking over. Music Clubs no longer paid bands; heck, new clubs were being built without including a stage. Musicians were forced to take a cut in pay or, even worse had to play for free. Musicians could NO LONGER make a living off of their craft. Horrifically, and I shutter at the thought of what may probably be the strangest of thing of all, Mauro, along with some of Worcester's most talented music artist, Joe D'Angelo, Vic Hellenic and John "Johnny Dollar" Murzycki, were seen playing as a back-up band for an Elvis impersonator.

EVERYTHING changed!

I can't explain why, but I couldn't leave Worcester. I could see the potential of the city; many creative and talented persons lived there. For some reason, however, talent did not rise to the top.  Worcester had a way of chocking, beating, abusing, a talent until it was made to feel hopeless. The gray dingy town was losing population left and right. A parochial power click of control freaks ran the place with the attitude that they knew better than everyone else, drove the wise to insanity.  Maybe that's what attracted me to the place. I knew, if a talent could endure Worcester, for even a small amount of time, it had to be a phenomenal talent. Besides, my left hand still smelled so good I couldn't leave it alone. My hand was constantly on my nose. Following my hand in such a position, kept me walking around in circles. Following the left hand, like an addicted zombie.  Later, about 1998, I was walking, smelling my hand, in a drunken stupor, through the Worcester common, when I heard this childlike voice whispering, " seven angels media dot com, seven angels media dot com". There was no one else around. It seemed to be a typical day in downtown Worcester, the second largest city in New England, ragged newsprint floating across the cold, windy and empty Main street. A panhandler, or two, peering  and grinning under a storefront ease. I could see no one else was there but me. Where was this childlike voice emanating from?  A chill rose up my spine. I began to walk faster. "Seven angels media dot com, - what it is - where it's at" squeaked the childlike voice.  The voice continued saying the same thing over and over and over. I tried not to pay any attention. Usually such voices go a way, especially after I appease them, but this time I had no idea what it all meant.  I fought not to listen, I continued to try to ignore it. I was out of money and out of booze, the smelly hand didn't help, so I began to jog. Leaping over a prostrated panhandler, I instinctively fixed my eyes upon a sign ahead of me.  Perhaps it was a sign from God Himself. I saw a tickertape dance of light, hovering over a smaller blue-framed illumination, which said, "WCCA TV Public Access / Community Media Center". At full sprint, I zoomed toward the building with the sign. A mysterious woman in long black hair buzzed opened the door for me. Once I was in the lobby, the woman, with a heavy Slavic accent moaned, welcome to WCCA TV, and then ordered me to "sign in" and pointed to a computer, grunting  "lab". The whispering voice subsided, it became quiet and calm, at sat down at the computer and logged onto sevenangelsmedia.com. 

I browsed a bit and came across, in retrospect, I now believe, I was lead to, a Johnny Dollar Experiment music CD. "Groovy band man, what it- is ! " a gravely voice sounded from off to my right. I turned my sight to a person, wearing dark glasses,  on a computer next me. He smiled, and pointed to his computer screen, I glanced over to his screen and I saw only three markings   )  *  (  .   The figures where huge and filled the entire monitor screen. I didn't understand. I looked back at the person and suddenly he began to sing " 'Scuse me, while I kiss the sky" as soon as I recognized the Hendricks tune, fantastically, and suddenly, he disappeared, in a purple haze, right in front of my very eyes. I jumped from my seat drenched in a cold sweat and headed past the unfazed and apparently sleeping, Slavic receptionist. A TV sat in the lobby was projecting the image of a pretty woman, in square rimmed glasses caught my eye. The person, in the dark glasses, who scared the crap out of me moments ago, by dissipating into thin air, was also in the television picture, right behind her, in what appeared to be a chroma key effect. My head began to spin. The pretty woman said, "Everybody's gone surfin', surfin' USA". My face began to feel flush and with a dizzy feeling about to overtake me I looked out of the lobby window to an empty Main street. I noticed a Dunkin Donuts, across the street, was about to close so I left the TV station lobby as fast as I could, hoping there was still time to grab a coffee and a jellystick. 

A few days later I caught a Johnny Dollar Performance at a nearby restaurant, the Vive Bene. They were great, even better in person. We began to hang out, ya da ya da, time went by, ya da, traveled through space and time, ya, da, ya, da, they accepted me as one of their own . The price for hanging with the band would be for me to journal their travels across the galaxy. My compensation would be priceless. They wanted me to witness and document their signing with a new agent that was an extraterrestrial from the planet Originalis, in the M51 spiral galaxy. The drummer of the Band John, Johnny Dollar, Murzycki, instructed me that no one is allowed to utter this agent's name. "It would screw things up big time, big time! Never, never, EVER call him a PROUD MARY" he commanded. I was never sure what he meant by that.  I have since learned that actually, no other earthling outside of the band is even allowed to meet or lay eyes on this extraterrestrial agent.  This has challenged the bands ability to land gigs somewhat. They told me, when we speak of him, we will refer to him only as the "agent formally known as  )*(  ." Just like my experiences have been with woman, this   )*(  ,   it seems, chose me. Again.

The band later took me to Coes Pond, where in a mist of geese crap, smog, and a polluted stench, a huge craft appeared. The craft was shaped like a huge flying boat, more like a yacht wearing a thong across it's bow. I saw words on the side of the ship that read JDEXMoney.

We were beamed aboard, star trek style. Wild huh? We walked into what looked like a recording suite, at a console, was the same person, in the dark glasses or should I say being, that I saw disappear into thin air at the WCCA TV community computer lab, looked at me and smiled and with a low and gravely voice he whispered "sign in".  As I began writing my name and filling in the "purpose of visit" space, in a quivering breathy voice he whispered into my ear saying: " Johnny Dollar Experiment dot com, WHAT-IT-BE."

Everything went black.                I think I passed out.

I awoke, in what felt like seconds later, and found myself in middle of what seemed to be a party. Johnny Dollar was conjuring incredible original jazz like arrangements of songs from the sixties. The crowd was digging them.  I couldn't believe how the crowd swarmed around the band when they took their break. Right in front of me, at the very next table, I saw Frank Sinatra, Jack Bennie. In another corner, I saw Groucho Marx doing shots with Bono. I was surprised to see President Bush and his secret life partner Bill Clinton chucking it up with the likes of Keith Moon and Anna Nicole Smith. The room was filled by many others, those alive and thought allegedly dead.  Even intergalactic visitors whose names I can't pronounce unless I slit my tongue, were sucking down Jell-O shots diggin' the tunes.

Johnny's arrangement of "Close To You" was playing when I met Chi Chi Wagnerhoff that night. She was human. A well respected, disciplined writer for the German music zine "Music, Crimes and Fun". I asked her to tell me where we were. Wearing a blissful smile and little else, she told me we were at EMAF, a hot Turkish Jazz caf that was tucked in a small cul-de-sac in London. "That's the owner over there" she said, as she pointed to a dark Hindu looking man. "His name is Moham." Moham Hinzain." she said as she began to scoff down an apple-tini.  I noticed Moham was pushing a wheel barrel. I looked at Chi Chi with an inquisitive gaze. She giggled "Everyone knows when Johnny Dollar is in house, everybody wins!" she sang as her giggle morphed into a long diminishing sigh. She then proceeded to vomit on her apple-tini, and then passed out cold.

Moham navigated his way through the dense, reverberating crowd; passed by me, with his wheel barrel FULL WITH WADES OF CASH.

In time, my friendship with the JDExperiment and their entourage of intergalactic party animals, grew. I followed the band on many travels throughout the world and many other planets. Mauro had perfected his musical equation. The guitarist of the band is the legendary Joe D'Angelo, famous guitar wizard. It is rumored that he is part human and extraterrestrial. He grew up in family of musical cats. Creatures who look like cats and communicate through what sounds like intricate complex melodies. He is revered as an Imperial Lord on a planet somewhere in Andromeda II.  A scientist I met on Glorianus, a cloaked plutonian moon, yet to be discovered by earthlings, pointed to Joe's musical arrangements as definitely from outside of this solar system and suggested that Joe's craftsmanship, in combination with Mauro's musical equation has tipped the quantum possibilities on end and has brought the band to the brink of magical powers.

That brought to my mind something I read about the Johnny Dollar Experiment, a few years ago, in the Worcester Phoenix, by music writer Brian Goslow, refering to the band, "It's magic" he wrote.

 The adventure never ends. "What it is", still smells good.

Recks Read, Righter of Music, Worcester Press core, Ha ha publishing