The town of Chicken Shit in New Mexico is perhaps the most unwelcoming place that you're never likely to visit. The people there are unaccountably proud of their inbreeding and don't really like outsiders. If your skin's a different colour, if you talk funny, if your clothes are strange or even if you prefer a different kind of maple syrup on your waffles, then you're just not going to feel at home in Chicken Shit. And if you let it slip that you've got a different surname from everybody else in the town, the chances are you'll be swinging from a lamp post by sunset. But on the 29th July, 1947, something happened in Chicken Shit; something that has never been properly explained to this day, but which changed the townsfolk forever.
It occurred in the early hours of the morning: a massive explosion that was heard as far away as Pigswill, thirty miles to the north. However, when emergency services arrived in Chicken Shit they found that very little had been disturbed: just a few broken windows and dislodged roof tiles. This suggested an explosion in mid air: the little damage that was evident resulting from the subsequent shock wave. And yet strangely, when law enforcement officials from the county sheriff's office tried to interview some of the locals about the incident, they seemed to be completely unfazed about it. Some of them reported seeing a bright flash of light, or being woken by an enormous thunderclap, but on the whole they were really quite chilled out.
Officer Jim Mendoza was one of the policemen on duty that night, and he recalls being extremely disturbed by their unusual behaviour. "It was real spooky," he told us. "We all knew that Chicken Shit was a pretty... well... tight-knit community. And they certainly didn't take too kindly to interference from outside, which is why people gave the place a wide berth. So, as you can imagine, on the night of the explosion we kinda expected them to be pretty jumpy. Well, there's a dozen squad cars, two fire trucks and three ambulances turn up on the scene. We figured this was bound to piss them off, and we thought we'd be dodging shotgun shells the moment we stepped out the car. But that's not what happened at all. The townsfolk were all hanging out on their porches, smoking, chatting, singing little songs. Real mellowed out, they were. We tried to ask them what had happened, but they just told us that everything was 'cool' and kept offering us waffles."
"From militant rednecks to spaced-out stoners."
So what was it that changed the people of Chicken Shit, New Mexico, from militant rednecks to spaced-out stoners in the middle of the night? There has never been a proper explanation, but over the years there have been many rumours. A mystery virus, perhaps? Some kind of cosmic bombardment? Maybe even a Soviet mind ray? Such ideas have been scoffed at and almost universally derided. But there is one notion that has refused to go away - could what happened to Chicken Shit be the result of the almost legendary 'jazz bomb'. An increasing number of influential researchers believe it was.
The jazz bomb was first conceived, on paper at least, in the early days of the twentieth century. Up until that point it had been believed that the smallest indivisible particle of music was the 'note'. However, the legendary musical physicist Scat Parker was convinced that these notes were comprised of smaller particles. He theorised that if it was possible to split the note, the sudden release of jazz particles would produce a phenomenal quantity of raw power.
Of course, the means of actually splitting a note were well beyond the technology available to Scat Parker. What he really needed was some sort of high energy musical accelerator with which to bombard raw music. All he actually had was a trumpet, and even that was slightly bent. He died in 1928 when a tree fell on him, and his grand scheme to liberate the jazz particle was never realised. Or was it?
"Nazi Lasers on the Moon."
Skip forward fourteen or fifteen years to the latter days of the second world war. Hitler is desperately searching for the ultimate weapon, something to finally end the conflict for good. According to some researchers, one project that his scientists were working on was the jazz bomb. Marty Wallop, best-selling author of Nazi Lasers on the Moon: The Third Reich's Secret Space Programme, takes up the story:
"It
was well known that Hitler was looking into the possibility of making some sort of jazz
weapon," Wallop explained as he brandished his latest book, Aryan Rhythms: The
Quest for the Jazz Bomb. "That was no secret. It was something the Allies
were investigating too, although nobody held out much hope of building a workable
device. What most people don't realise is how close the Nazis actually came to
achieving it. Quite early on in their researches they had built a massive
underground Wurlitzer on the outskirts of Munich. This mighty organ was capable of
taking raw music and smashing it into its component parts. However the ability to
harness the destructive power of this process remained tantalisingly beyond their
reach. Nevertheless, documents captured by the Russians when they entered Berlin
revealed that they were literally within months of building a working jazz bomb. The
repercussions of such a device do not bear thinking about. If such a bomb were
dropped on London it would have left everyone within a twenty mile radius of the capital
completely chilled out, and much of the rest of South East England fairly listless."
Like many other best-selling authors out to make an easy buck, Wallop believes that Nazi jazz scientists were spirited away to America at the end of the war to continue their work in secret. And the incident in Chicken Shit might just be the proof he needs.
"I believe that what happened that night in that small hick town in New Mexico is the direct result of the military testing its prototype jazz bomb," he told us. "Nothing else can really explain how a population of retarded, gun-happy fuckwits can transform itself overnight into a bunch of spaced-out, pot-smoking beatniks who only come out at night and keep calling you 'daddy-o' all the time."
"Dig those crazy rhythms, sister."
If the jazz bomb theory proves to be a reality, it could be a very disturbing development. On the face of it, it seems like rather a good thing: a bomb that can turn people from murderous psychopaths into jazzed-up hep-cats would seem to be quite a positive commodity. But it's not quite that simple. For instance, there's the effect of the blast itself. Anyone standing at ground zero when a jazz bomb strikes would be instantly vaporised. Admittedly, they'd be very relaxed about it, but the fact remains that you're never going to see them shopping in Woolworth's again. Further out from the blast zone, those people hit by the initial jazz wave would be sent into a state of jazz trauma from which they might never recover. They may be able to tap the odd foot, nod their head in what they understand to be a rhythmical fashion, and utter phrases like 'cool daddy-o' and 'dig those crazy rhythms, sister', but they will be no good for anything else.
However, it's when we look beyond the initial effects that the real dangers of the jazz bomb come to light. Jazz fission is unlikely to create a clean explosion. For instance, it could produce a blast wave of funk. This can directly affect cell tissue and cause horrible mutations. And a jazz explosion will inevitably create fallout in the form of 'lethargens'. These are compounds which inhibit growth and activity in both plants and animals, and can remain in the soil for thousands of years, contaminating water supplies and ruining crops. The only way to deal with these compounds effectively is to seal them in rock and dump them at sea - and it must be hard rock: prog rock, acid rock or AOR just aren't up to the job.
On the other hand, it isn't all bad news. If jazz can be
harnessed sensibly and safely then it could provide us with an answer to our energy
crisis. Jazz power stations might one day supply heat and light to your home, jazz
combustion engines might take you to work, and jazz powered rockets might even help us to
explore the outer regions of the galaxy. But we're still a long way from
achieving this. By its very nature, jazz is unpredictable; it does not conform to
established models, and is more inclined to extemporise than follow rigid physical
rules. For this reason, musicians are looking at fusion rather than fission as a way
of tapping the energy potential of jazz. By blending jazz with other forms of music
such as soul, rock or even folk, they hope to be able to create a steady, controllable
power source.
But if the commercial applications are encouraging, the dark cloud on the horizon is the prospect that the military, once again, have got there first. "I have it on good authority," Marty Wallop warned us, as he proudly displayed a copy of his best-selling book Shit! Look Out: Nazis with Jet Packs, "- and this comes direct from a source in the Pentagon, who I cannot name - that the army now have a working 'jazz gun'. Apparently, it's small enough to be operated by a two man crew and has already seen action in the Middle East. I'm told it was devastatingly effective. It uses jazz fusion to create a steady stream of jazz particles, which can be focussed on any target up to a mile and a half away. I understand that when it's turned up to its top setting it can make you dance like a monkey."
