chi·me·ra

/kīˈmirə,kəˈmirə/

1. a thing that is hoped or wished for but in fact is illusory or impossible to achieve.

The faithful congregate for the regular Saturday night at Styleen’s Rhythm Palace Rock and Soul Show Ritual, packing the room shoulder to shoulder. The scent of hundreds of lit Novena Candles, burning frankincense, and chemical fog machines commingle and permeate the air in the Palace Ballroom creating an intoxicating and disorienting brew of fumes so thick that a chainsaw would have difficulty cutting through it.

Ten musicians, armed with their instrumental weapons of choice, emerge from the subterranean dressing cave: following in the wake of security from the back of the room as they push their way through the crowd and up onto the cramped stage festooned with freak show banners, they strap in and assume their battle stations for the evening.

Over the sound of Hindu holy men jibber jabbering and speaking in tongues, a mysterious Middle Eastern modal melody rumbles ominously through the sound system. The stage lights start to pulse like lightning through the dense clouds of fog. The congregation’s collective backs brace themselves for the oncoming onslaught. On cue a disembodied voice of a drunken street corner, mush-mouthed prophet announces “You simply must try….the sweet potato pie…. Well I recommend you to drink orange soda, and you gotsta drink orange soda along with the sweet potato pie….LITTLE GEORGIE AND THE HUNGARIANS”

The band kicks in with its patented deep groove and out of nowhere appears the 11th and final member and Fearless Leader; The Zomboy himself. The Ring Leader of the Circus of Lost Souls, The Southern Fried Caterwauling Conman / Philosopher/ Preacher / Shaman materializes out of the ether, solidly strikes his upright stance, plants his feet at the piano, grabs the microphone, and for the next three straight hours leads that army of crack musicians into a picaresque battle of epic proportions. The Mighty Jericho Wall Blasting Hungarian Horn Section; The Sweet Soulful and Pure Uncut Spiritual Mother Earth Estrogen Power of The George-O-Lettes; The Undeniable Swing And Groove of The Fellow Founding Fathers of Hungaria AKA The Rhythm Dicks; The Man From Trinidad On Congas; The Veteran Gunslinger Guitarist; and Little Georgie himself all summon their collective expertise and voluminous musical knowledge to bear down on the faithful with total commitment while guiding the congregants on a hair raising musical roller coaster ride of the history of piano rock n’ roll, rhythm n‘ blues, rhumba boogie, gospel, trad jazz, soul, and funk.

They take no breaks, and they take no prisoners.

Over the course of the show, the now well lubricated band and audience alike ramp up gradually and lock into the rhythm and patterns of the journey, collectively tracking to its seemingly innocuous rollicking approach and ascent, the sudden and shocking adrenaline rushes, and the contemplative pauses to allow everyone to catch their breath and still be in the moment.

On a good night, the magic happens. The trick that everyone has been waiting for. The groove intensifies and becomes an omnipresent, unrelenting stomp and the chants become mantras. Polite society has now been abandoned. Bodies are writhing and grinding against each other in too close quarters, sweat and other bodily fluids are now being freely exchanged as clothing starts to shed like snake skins to be tossed upon the stage like sacrificial offerings to the high priests and priestesses.

The walls start bleeding rivulets of water from the collective humidity, the floor is heaving and the faithful begin to levitate; the entire room undulating under the constant strain and flash point of the clash of the sacred and the profane being played out on that stage. The room becomes a super collider as atoms smashing, dimensional boundaries disintegrate as consciousnesses are raised. The stank of human funk and musk now far overpowers the aroma of novena candles.

When the phantasmagoria is poised to blissfully dance over the edge of utter chaos and fly untethered into the atmosphere? The Hungarians abruptly snatch it back.

“Thank You and Good Night”, the plug is pulled, the smoke clears, the house lights go up and it’s over. There is no faux engineered theatrical encore, there’s no denouement, cool down or decompression. The sweat drenched and Crown Royal soaked Shaman literally has nothing left to give. When it’s over it’s OVER.

The Hungarians leave you not just wanting more but physically craving more. The band unplugs and heads towards the bar. Georgie ducks out the backdoor and disappears back into the ether, and the audience is left looking at each other a little slack jawed, amazed and slightly dumbfounded.

Some steal a candle or two as a consolation prize and proof of what was witnessed. The faithful and the newly initiated slowly file out of the room in a drunken stumble, physically and emotionally shell shocked, wondering: “What Just Happened Here?”

What happened was an extremely rare occurrence where The Chimera and Fever Dream, against all odds and the laws of nature, became, if only briefly, real.

When people try to recall those shows, and that time, invariably words fail, and the default position always ends up to be some variation of “You just had to be there”.

Over time, The Shuffling Hungarians became an oral legend. Tall tales told by Know Nothings along with Truth told by the Acolytes and True Believers.

Figments of imagination sometimes realize, but are rarely sustainable in the material world when they do. As quickly as the Hungarians appeared, they disappeared back into the cosmos just as fast.

The Shaman split town to be an honorary Mardi Gras Indian and study at the feet of the master musicians of New Orleans. He returned back home after being blown back up north by hurricane Katrina, and there was no magic left in him, or impetus to make the kind of sacrifices necessary to perform tricks that had started to feel more like turning them.

In fact, he spent the next 15 years trying to obliterate his alter ego, and emerge as a single and complete entity, divorced from anything resembling what “used to be”.

But “The Little Zombie Boy” never would go quietly into that dark night. He laid low in the back of The Shaman’s consciousness, just waiting for a window of opportunity to perhaps recombine with a new DNA sequence, and become real once again.

The gestation period has been long, but it’s almost complete now. What was once will never be again. It can take on a new form, however.

The delivery methods may have changed but the core concepts remain the same. You can’t kill something that’s already been dead, as “ The Ballade Of Little Georgie ” so presciently stated. The Shaman started to shake off his rust. There were suddenly new songs to sing, and the stories that haven’t been told? They’re about to be told.

Welcome to the newly opened portal to the Mythic Land of Hungaria, where dreams are like movies that unspool before your eyes in real time, figments of imagination materialize, and with the power of enough gravitational pull in the form of collective energy, hope, and conviction, the Shaman’s space dust can accrete and form stars.

It’s happened before.