"Looks like a meteor, captain," one soldier says.
"Yes," the other soldier agrees thoughtfully. "But maybe we'd better investigate."
I was wrong.
The film Valis depicted a small record firm called Meritone Records, located in Burbank, owned by an electronics genius named Nicholas Brady. The time -- by the style of the cars and the particular kind of rock being played -- suggested the late Sixties or early Seventies, but odd incongruities prevailed. For example, Richard Nixon didn't seem to exist; the President of the United States bore the name Ferris F. Fremount, and he was very popular. During the first part of the film there were abrupt segues to TV news footage of Ferris Fremount's spirited campaign for re - election.
Mother Goose himself -- the actual rock star who in real life is rated with Bowie and Zappa and Alice Cooper -- took the form of a song writer who had gotten hooked on drugs, decidedly a loser. Only the fact that Brady kept paying him enabled Goose to survive economically. Goose had an attractive and extremely short-haired wife; this woman possessed an unearthly appearance with her nearly bald head and enormous luminous eyes.
In the film Brady schemed constantly on Linda, Goose's wife (in the film, for some reason, Goose used his real name, Eric Lampton; so the tale narrated had to do with the marginal Lamptons). Linda Lampton wasn't natural; that came across early on. I got the impression that Brady was a son-of-a-bitch despite his wizardry with audio electronics. He had a laser system set up which ran the information -- which is to say, the various channels of music -- into a mixer unlike anything that actually exists; the damn thing rose up like a fortress -- Brady actually entered it through a door, and, inside it, got bathed with laser beams which converted into sound using his brain as a transducer.
In one scene Linda Lampton took off her clothes. She had no sex organs.
Damdest thing Fat and I ever saw.
Meanwhile, Brady schemed on her unaware that no way existed by which he could make it with her, anatomically-speaking. This amused Mother Goose -- Eric Lampton -- who kept shooting up and writing the worst songs conceivable. It became obvious after a while that his brain was fried; he didn't realize it, either. Nicholas Brady began going through mystifying maneuvers suggesting that by means of his fortress mixer he intended to laser Eric Lampton out of existence, to pave the way for laying Linda Lampton who in fact had no sex organs.
Meanwhile, Ferris Fremount kept showing up in dissolves that baffled us. Fremount kept looking more and more like Brady, and Brady seemed to metamorphose into Fremount. Scenes shot by which showed Brady at enormous gala functions, apparently affairs of state; foreign diplomats wandered around with drinks, and a constant low murmuring hung in the background -- an electronic noise resembling the sound created by Brady's mixer.
I didn't understand the picture one bit.
"Do you understand this?" I asked Fat, leaning over to whisper.
"Christ, no," Fat said.
Having lured Eric Lampton into the mixer, Brady stuck a strange black cassette into the chamber and punched buttons. The audience saw a tight shot of Lampton's head explode, literally explode; but instead of brains bursting out, electronic miniaturized parts flew in all directions. Then Linda Lampton walked through the mixer, right through the wall of it, did something with an object she carried, and Eric Lampton ran backward in time: the electronic components of his head imploded, the skull returned intact -- Brady, meanwhile, staggered out of the Meritone Building onto Alameda, his eyes bugging... cut to Linda Lampton putting her husband back together, both of them in the fortress-like mixer.
Eric Lampton opens his mouth to speak and out comes the sound of Ferris F. Fremount's voice. Linda draws back in dismay.
Cut to the White House; Ferris Fremount, who no longer looks like Nicholas Brady but like himself, restored.
"I want Brady taken out," he says grimly, "and taken out now." Two men dressed in skin-tight black shiny uniforms, carrying futuristic weapons, nod silently.
Cut to Brady crossing a parking lot rapidly to his car; he is totally fucked up. Pan to black-suited men on roof scope-sights up with cross-hairs: Brady seating himself and trying to start his car.
Dissolve to huge crowds of young girls dressed in red, white and blue cheerleader uniforms. But they're not cheerleaders; they chant, "Kill Brady! Kill Brady!"
Slow motion. The men in black fire their weapons. All at once, Eric Lampton stands outside the door of Meritone Records; close shot of his face; his eyes turn into something weird. The men in black char into ashes; their weapons melt.
"Kill Brady! Kill Brady!" Thousands of girls dressed in identical red-white-and-blue uniforms. Some strip off their uniforms in sexual frenzy.
They have no reproductive organs.
Dissolve. Time has passed. Two Ferris F. Fremounts sit facing each other at a huge walnut table. Between them: a cube of pulsing pink light. It's a hologram.
Beside me, Fat grunts. He sits forward staring. I stare, too. I recognize the pink light; it's the color Fat described to me regarding Zebra.
Scene of Eric Lampton nude in bed with Linda Lampton. They strip off some kind of plastic membrane and reveal sex organs underneath. They make love, then Eric Lampton slides out of bed. Goes into living room, shoots up whatever dope he's strung out on. Sits down, puts his head wearily down. Dejection.
Long shot. The Lamptons' house below; camera is what they call "camera three." A beam of energy fires at the house below. Quick cut to Eric Lampton; he jerks as if pierced. Holds his hands to his head, convulsing in agony. Tight shot of his face; his eyes explode. (The audience with us gasps, including me and Fat.)
Different eyes replace the ones which exploded. Then, very slowly, his forehead slides open in the middle. A third eye becomes visible, but it lacks a pupil; instead it has a lateral lens.
Eric Lampton smiles.
Segue to recording session; some kind of folk rock group. They are playing a song that really turns them on.
"I never heard you write like this before," a board man says to Lampton.
Camera dollies in on speakers; sound level increases. Then cut to Ampex playback system; Nicholas Brady is playing a tape of the folk rock group. Brady signals to technician at the fortress-like mixer. Laser beams fire in all directions; the audio track undergoes a sinister transformation. Brady frowns, rewinds tape, plays it again. We hear words.
"Kill... Ferris... Fremount... kill... Ferris... Fremount..." Over and over again. Brady stops tape, rewinds it, replays it. This time the original song that Lampton wrote, no mention of killing Fremount.
Blackout. No sound, no sight. Then, slowly, Ferris F. Fremount's face appears with a grim expression. As if he had heard the tape.
Bending, Fremount clicks on a desk intercom system. "Give me the Secretary of Defense," he says. "Get him here at once; I must talk to him."
"Yes, Mr. President."
Fremount sits back, opens folder; pictures of Eric Lampton, Linda Lampton, Nicholas Brady, plus data. Fremount studies the data-beam of pink light strikes his head from above, for a split second. Fremount winces, looks puzzled, then, stiffly, like a robot, rises to his feet, walks to a shredder marked SHREDDER and drops the folder and its contents in. His expression is bland; he has totally forgotten everything.
"The Secretary of Defense is here, Mr. President."
Puzzled, Fremount says, "I didn't call for him."
"But sir -- "
Cut to Air Force Base. Missile being launched. Tight shot of document marked SECRET. We see it opened.