Hotel Narnia

Whether plausible or not, the Endless Doppelgangers of the Infinite Universe Theory has gained enough traction among scientific types to be taken seriously—or certainly no less seriously than Creationism and all the other equally Technicolor theories. It simply suggests that if the universe is infinite, which why the heck wouldn’t it be, then within its infiniteness are an infinite number of planets bustling with infinite scenarios. At first this sounds optimistic. For example, in one of these infinite scenarios on one of the infinite universe’s infinite planets, there is a you who has not only won the Fantasy Five Lotto but can also pump out the entire works of Erik Satie on piano using on your prosthetic toe—plus, you can also fly simply by flapping your arms. However in another one of these infinite scenarios, you have just thrown chunky-style cat vomit in the face of your lover and pummeled your piano teacher into a maroon lagoon, and all while glued to the boob tube, watching Wheel of Fortune, which you never ever miss under any circumstances—and maybe on another you have done these very same deeds while hosting Wheel of Fortune. My point is, the word outlandish is a bottom dweller in the lexicon of the infinite.  

For better or worse, most of these infinite scenarios are neither wondrous nor dire, but simply a little off.

Here is one such scenario . . .

In the farthest reaches of the infinite cosmos, way past the ambitious gaze of the Hubble and its brethren, there lies a planet in most regards identical to Earth, except on this planet—let’s call it Pearth—the prodigiously talented rock drummer Neil Peart did not join the Canadian power-trio Rush and Rush never became, well, the prog-rock juggernaut that we’re all familiar with here on this planet. (On Pearth, after original drummer John Rutsey left the band, remaining members Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson scrounged up enough dough to buy an old pool hall in the western fringe of Toronto which they presciently turned into a video game arcade and were both thick thousandaires before their thirtieth birthdays and abandoned music altogether and simply nestled into the cozy humdrum of a couple of your average Canadian dudesters).

But, yeah, instead of joining Rush, one day while vacationing in Tierra del Fuego, Neil Peart met a too-hip-for-their-own-good quartet of Californians named Don Henley and Glenn Fry and Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner and formed a band called the Eagles.

Let’s zoom in on one of their practice sessions . . .

1975, five men with shipwrecked shags done up with corduroy and flannel; particle board walls, gourmet carpet, instruments everywhere, a pinball machine and various tables and chairs and couches, a roiling loom of Winston Light smoke . . .

“Okay, check this out, so the part where ya’ll are goin’ You can’t hiiiide yer lyin’ eyes and your smiiiile is a thin disguise . . .” said Neil Peart from behind his hillside of drums. “I’m gonna switch over to sixteenths on the hi-hat and go into this neat little sort of raggamuffin groove—but in seven-eight. Wait, boom-boom-pot-boom-boom-boom-pot!… Yeah, seven-eight. And then same thing second chorus but with syncopated china boy on like every other up. So it’ll be like, Dut-dut-chee! Dut-dut-dut-chee!” Neil Peart’s long simian arms air-illustrated the drumline while the other Eagles, languidly perched on and around a couple of big couches, nodded their heads and emitted various murmurs of unconvinced accord.

“Whatever you say, skipper,” said primary vocalist Don Henley, who mostly played acoustic guitar, though sometimes switched over to bongos and other types of percussion.

“Also, hear me out real quick . . .” Neil Peart said, deftly shaping his hands into a steeple and putting on a gaze of either shamanic sensibility or hardened charlatanry. “Glenn, I know this is your song, but, just check it out… What if… What if instead of making the song about, you know, this little hunny bunny who’s all done up in tight denim and lace and going to the cheatin’ side of town to pick up any ol’ Jon with more than two greenbacks in his billfold, what if we made it about . . . a dragon?”

“Hmmm . . . Interesting,” said all the other Eagles except Glenn Fry.

“Right? And it’s not just any ol’ dragon. This is a metalloid space dragon, indigenous to the Moons of Meatzor, and his scales are as tough as the temperament of a Xuruvvian slime devil . . .”

“That’s wild,” said Randy Meisner. “I like that a lot.”

“ . . . And this dragon is comprehensively ailing for something more in life than the quotidian doldrums of, you know, just being Joe Proletariat day after uninspiring day.” 

“Keep it comin’, man, keep it comin’.”

Bernie Leadon lit up with epiphany. “Reminds me of that Working Man song by them twinks up in your neck of the woods. Zeppelin wannabes and such.”

Neil Peart ignored this and looked at Glenn Fry for his opinion.

“I don’t know, Neil,” said Glenn Fry, staring at the top of his eelskin cowboy boots. “It’s just, it’s supposed to be a love song.”

“Absolutely, my friend, I know it’s supposed to be a love song. And that’s why the narrative of the chorus shall be from the perspective of the girl dragon.”

“Hmm,” said Glenn Fry, fidgeting like a hamster. “Look, how ‘bout let me think on it and in the meantime, we can run through that sissyboy number that Don’s been screwin’ around with. Motel whatever.”

“Hotel California, dipshit,” said Don Henley.

“That reminds me . . . Hear me out, Don. Everyone knows California,” said Neil Peart. “But nobody knows Narnia.”  The rest of the Eagles strained their brains to place this unfamiliar word and Neil Peart said, “At least, not yet.”

“See, this one I don’t think can be changed. I already laid out the lyrics and had ‘em typed up and everything.”

“We’d just be lopping off two anorexic little syllables, Don. Your larynx will love you forever for it.”

“I mean, we can try it,” said Don Henley, using his old cigarette to light his new cigarette. “No harm in that, I guess.”

“Now we’re talkin’,” said Neil Peart. “Also, I was thinking, we oughta call up what’s-his-nuts and get him to throw down one of them sprawling epic solos he does so damn well.”

“Who, Joe Walsh?”

“Yeah, Walsh,” said Neil Peart, optimistically. “That boy can rip.”

“Joe’s the man,” said Bernie Leadon.

“I’m really diggin’ how this is really startin’ to come together. Pretty damn cool, ain’t it?” said Randy Meisner. He eyeballed his Rolex. “Whoa, it’s already a hair past a freckle, boys. Ya’ll ready to start jammin’? We can blow through Don’s motel thingy and then work on that tripped-out tune Neil was working on. What’s it called, Atlas Smirked?”

“Shrugged,” said Neil Peart, no longer smiling. “Atlas Shrugged.”

“It’ll be like part two of the Mr. Fountainhead song.”

“Man, you are reading my mind,” said Neil Peart, bristling with optimism.

Glenn Fry let out a huge sigh, so expansive and exhaustive that there was no way it was fake. “Look, ya’ll, I gotta say something.”

The other Eagles looked at Glenn, all of them placid with anticipation.

“I’m not really a fan of the Mr. Fountainhead song,” Glenn said, avoiding eye contact with the other Eagles.

They all looked at each other, subtly frowning but obviously displeased with this news.

“Kinda weird you’re tellin’ us this now,” said Bernie Leadon. “Typical singer.”

“I don’t mind playin’ it but I just don’t think it should be track, you know, numero frickin’ uno on the album.”

The other Eagles guffawed and chortled.

“No, maybe Glenn’s right,” said Neil Peart. “Out of sheer curiosity, what exactly about Mr. Fountainhead is it that you’re having issue with, Glenn?”

Glenn Fry didn’t care for Neil Peart’s patronizing tone so he let loose. “Man, nobody’s gonna dig this fuckin’ song but fuckin’ commie spinsters and fuckin’ forty year old creepsters who still whack off to Barbie. Period.”

Nobody said anything so Glenn Fry continued, “I mean, I’m just being honest, guys. Okay? I’m just sayin’ what’s in my heart.” He patted his chest. “I’d be lying to ya’ll if I said anything different.”

“Wow,” said Neil Peart. “Okay.” He stood up and began clambering his way through his hectare of drums. Eventually he reemerged outside of them and said, “Tell you what, I’m gonna pop out and smoke a cigarette and kinda cool off for a bit and then, I don’t know, maybe go find a new fucking band. See you guys whenever.” He did his ectomorphic lope to the door and opened it and disappeared into the yellow haze of the southern California afternoon.

“Jesus, Glenn,” said Don Henley. “That was pretty harsh.”

“Look, Neil’s a weird guy—and that’s one of the things I like about him—but I swear he thinks he’s a goddamn wizard. I’m tired of singin’ about orcs and labyrinths and mirrors and all that,” said Glenn Fry.

“Personally I think that the fantasy element Neil comes up with is a pretty neat contrast with how our music sounds and feels,” said Bernie Leadon.

“Do you now.”

“Yeah, man, the space thing is pretty far out, you know? It makes for a real interestin’ juxtaposition with that bluesy, jazzy, southern rock thing we got goin’ on. It’s like people almost expect us to write songs about, you know, drivin’ down the highway and scoopin’ up girls and drinkin’ beer, et cetera, et cetera.” Bernie Leadon stared at his Miller High Life longneck for a long second. “I think we kinda catch ‘em off guard when we, you know, lay the intergalactic stuff on ‘em.”

“I one hundred percent disagree,” said Glenn Fry. “I think that intergalactic stuff, as you call it, is where we fuck up big time.” He consulted his own Miller High Life longneck and shook his head with low-grade disgust. “I’d literally rather sing songs about garbage than goddamn flying saucers and all that.”

“Oh, come on.”

“For real, my brother’s in the garbage business because he says garbage never goes away. And people are never gonna stop wantin’ to make garbage go away so they pay my brother whatever he asks ‘em on a weekly basis. Real smart man. See, all that to me is way more humanistic than the damn space bullshit that Neil keeps tryin’ to load us up with. Way more.”

Randy Meisner pulled a joint out from on top of his ear and lit it and said, “This is all gonna blow over, ya’ll know that, right? This shit happens all the damn time. I guarantee you, every single day on the calendar some band somewhere is going through this same kinda bullshit. You watch, we’ll meet up in a couple of days and everything will be groovy. Don, we can knock out your motel song and then we can do that bluesy thing that you’ve been working on, Glenn, and next thing you know we’ll be trying to figure out where we can put all our platinum albums and our Grammies and we’ll be up to our bolo ties in babes and coke and whatever the hell else we want—and when we want it!”

The four of them smiled and loosened up a little bit. “Always the damn optimist, this guy,” said Glenn Fry. “I love the hell out of you, Randy.”

“Right back atcha, brother.”

“Tell you what I’m gonna do,” said a newly cheerful Don Henley. “I’m gonna walk over to that telephone and I’m gonna pick it up and dial 636-9660, which is the phone number for that Pizza Hut down the street, and I’m gonna get us two huge-ass pizzas with extra cheese and extra pepperoni and then I’m gonna play that pinball machine over there until my head explodes into ten pieces.”

Randy Meisner and Glenn Fry both hooted and did a spilly toast with their beers.

“Don’t do that extra anchovies thing this time, Don,” said Bernie Leadon. “That was funny the first time but it wasn’t funny the second time.”

Dialing the number, Don Henley said to him, “One of these nights I’m gonna write a song about you, Bernie, and you ain’t gonna like the lyrics.”

“Man, you gonna be a goober all your life or just most of it?”

Everybody laughed and then Don Henley ordered the pizzas and told them he’ll come pick them up in fifteen minutes and hung up the phone right as the door opened and in walked Neil Peart with a gross of comically big submarine sandwiches and two big plastic bottles of 7 Up. He was carrying everything like it was a bunch of firewood.

“Alright, gentlemen, who is hungry and who is thirsty and who is both hungry and thirsty?” he said, with an eight-inch grin.

Three of the Eagles said, “Me!” and Glenn Fry said, “Man, you trying to win my heart with a goddamn sandwich?”

Before Neil Peart could anything, Glenn Fry smiled real big. “I’m just shittin’ ya, brother. And I appreciate it but I’m actually good for now,” he said, rubbing his belly.

“You are neither a scholar nor a gentleman but I love you anyway,” said Neil Peart.

Glenn Fry started to say something but decided against it.

“I’m gonna run over and pick up the pizzas real quick. I’ll be back in a jiffy,” said Don Henley, frisking himself for his Cadillac keys. “Oh, ya’ll do me a favor and save some of that 7 Up and we’ll do a bunch of Slammers after practice. That bottle of Jose over there ain’t half empty, I can tell ya that much.”

“Heeeee haw, brother,” said Neil Peart, troubleshooting with his submarine sandwich. And then after Don Henley was fully gone, he said, “Okay, let’s channel the spirit of your forefathers and do this the old fashioned way. Raise your hand if you do not prefer Hotel Narnia to Hotel California.”

Nobody raised their hand.