Many Native American tribes have a deity called "Trickster
Coyote," who plays pranks on people in order to bring them
enlightenment. From reading so many letters, I can attest
that the Visitors often do this to people. Whitley himself has
been caught up in this at times.
In Whitley's family there is a long tradition of playing
practical
jokes, which is why, when he first published Communion, a lot
of his old friends thought he had played the ultimate practical
joke on them. Personally, I think the visitors have a sense
of humor, too, which is part of the reason that they picked
him in the first place. It's a sort of joke on the joker to
put him in the position of having to tell a truth that most
people think is a joke.
My favorite practical joking story is about a joke he didn't
intend to pay on a world-renown religious leader. He didn't
set out to do this, but it's what ended up happening.
At the time, he was friends with an elderly single lady (I
guess you could call her a "spinster") who was quite wealthy,
which gave her the freedom to travel far and wide in her
search for enlightenment and the secrets of life. She enjoyed
talking with Whitley and would take him to lunch about once
a month at her exclusive women's club in New York City.
One day she called him up and said that she had heard
rumors about secret incantations that went on during sexual
acts in Middle Eastern harems. She wondered if Whitley could
use his contacts with the CIA (which were nonexistent,
except in the sense that a couple of school friends were in
it) in
order to obtain a cassette tape of these chants, which she
assumed to be a kind of Islamic Kundalini.
The New York Pacifica radio station WBAI used to play an
extremely eclectic mix of music (which they still do) and
one evening Whitley heard heard some Inuit (Eskimo)
"throat music" which sounded like heavy breathing with a
definite sexual rhythm to it. One of the songs had a refrain
which sounded like "Mecca, Mecca, Mecca," and it gave
Whitley an idea for a joke he could play on his friend.
He recorded it, then called this lady back and said that he
had managed,
after much struggle and many favors called in, to
obtain a copy of the chant she was looking for, which had
been recorded using a tiny tape recorder placed under the
pillow of a Sheik. She immediately invited him to lunch and
pocketed the tape.
Whitley forgot all about his joke until weeks later, when she
suddenly called him in the middle of the day and said, "Get
down here NOW!" Whitley was in the middle of writing and
didn't want to stop and put on a coat and tie, but she
insisted.
When he arrived at her club, instead of meeting her at a
cloth-covered table in the restaurant, sipping a cup of
coffee (as she usually was), she was waiting for him
with at the door with crossed arms.
She had played the tape for a man who is the next thing to
the pope, in terms of religious fame, telling him that it
was this
secret ritual that they were both curious about. In the
middle of it, one of his retainers (who was obviously also a
WBAI listener) said, "Excuse me, Miss X, but I believe those
are Eskimos."
As Whitley walked up to her, she said, "The embarrassment
was FANTASTIC!"
Typical of him, he'd forgotten all about it. But when she
reminded him what he'd done, he had to conceal what later
became gales of laughter. He said to me, "She described the
embarrassment as fantastic--as in so extreme, it was
literally hallucinatory."
When Whitley's dad was alive, there were "Karl Strieber
Stories" along these lines all over Texas, such as the one
about the time that he herded some cattle out of a parked
truck in a small Texas town and into the basement soda
fountain of a local department store.
Many a Texan has heard a few "Whitley Stories" in this
generation. And his brother is just as bad.
I'm going to try to get Whitley to record some of them for
posterity because they are hilarious. All three of
them--father and both sons--have created a
legacy that should not be lost, but which their victims
probably believe belong in a trash can, along with the
pranksters.
At the Dreamland Festival, some people were sort of treating
Whitley as a guru. Better be careful, because that's a
surefire way to bring out the Trickster Coyote in him. He is
a master, no question about that, but his mastery consists
of forcing people to keep things--including him--in question!
Despite all his joking around--and having lived with him for
40 years, I can assure you that there is a lot of it--one
area of
his life that is taken very, very seriously is his contact
experience. It's a wonderful--and typically
visitor-style--joke on him that he, a horror novelist, would
end up having to come out and say hey, the goblins are
real--and that it would be no joke!
Here's the story the lady told an incredulous Whitley (who
was
struggling not to laugh): when she played the tape for this
religious leader, one of his acolytes, being a WBAI listener,
recognized it and said, "Excuse me, Mrs X, but I think those
are
Eskimos."
So that's the story of how Whitley, in his role as a Trickster
Coyote, played a practical joke on one of the world's most
famous religious leaders.
Related Entries:
10-Nov-2009: On NOT Going to a Movie about UFOs
20-Oct-2009: The Laughing Buddha
11-Oct-2009: The Red Coat
22-Sep-2009: Four Days
07-Sep-2009: Portents, Synchronicities (and Coincidences?)
27-Aug-2009: Two Birthdays
12-Aug-2009: Held Hostage by Hummingbirds
05-Aug-2009: The Irish Milkmen of the Dog World
27-Jul-2009: Two Surprising Events
08-Jun-2009: Tool Users
