#slippermen

Even if it’s with a Slipperman costume on… 😋

"In The Cage Medley" - Genesis live

In the cage / Slippermen / Afterglow

Notes on the Lyrics- So far Rael has escaped being packaged, made it through the corridor of the carpet crawlers and the Chamber of 32 Doors, and survived a collapsing cave. However, his luck seems to have run out with the Lamia, as his run-in with them has physically changed his body. But we’ll discuss that soon. The Narrator’s mind is determined to extinguish stray characters like Rael, who is absurdly persistent. The Colony of Slippermen is the final trap for the Writer’s characters, and no one ever escapes it. (However, if they do escape, their fate would be undetermined, as there is nothing past the Colony of Slippermen in the Writer’s mind.) It is where unused characters and thoughts go to stagnate and die slow, painful deaths. William Wordsworth is alluded to in the first line of the song- "I wandered lonely as a cloud." Rael has exited the love nest of the Lamia from the same way he came in, and while he’s been walking, his body has been changing, though he was too busy thinking about the Lamia to notice. The other side of the hallway has changed from the way it was- instead of fallen rubble from the collapsing cave in Anyway, there’s "some sort of freak’s ghetto" as the liner notes say. Rael ends up on a street in some strange city, facing a bunch of "distorted figures." As soon as they see him, they burst into laughter, which I imagine to be low, throaty, and guttural- they know what has happened, and are amused that Rael has fallen into the Lamia’s trap. Rael observes, "I’ve never seen a stranger crowd- slubberdegullions on squeaky feet." These beings that Rael has come across are obviously not human, or not anymore, anyway. They are "Slippermen." Note the suffix "-men"- there are no Slipperwomen in this Colony. Rael finds them disgusting- "each orifice disgracing," the lyrics say- and the one of the Slippermen approaches Rael and greets him with "Hellay!" Rael’s observations tell us exactly what the Slippermen look like and just how disgusting they are. "His skin’s all covered in slimy lumps with lips that slide across each chin. His twisted limbs like rubber stumps are waved in welcome, say ‘Please join in.’" I imagine the Slippermen as having two mouths, and their lips are either independent of the mouths or their faces are so deformed that that their lips really are on their chins. It’s pretty gross either way. The Slipperman shakes hands with Rael- "My grip must be flipping, ‘cause his handshake keeps slipping. My hopes keep on dipping, and his lips keep on smiling all the while." The Slippermen are so slimy, and their hands (which I think of more as flippers) are so deformed that Rael can’t even properly hold onto them. The Slipperman tells Rael, "We, like you, have tasted love. Don’t be alarmed at what you see. You yourself are just the same as what you see in me." Rael, still unaware of his transformation, blurts, "Me? Like you? Like that?" Then it hits as he looks down at himself- Rael has become a Slipperman himself. The liner notes (and the Slipperman, in the story) explain that having sex with the Lamia (or whatever it is that happened to Rael) turns men into Slippermen. The Lamia die each time they tempt men, but always regenerate afterwards. (What I want to know is, do the Lamia still regenerate after Rael has eaten them and their bodies are digested? Would they even regenerate inside of him?) The fact that they only turn men into Slippermen supports my theory that female blood is what keeps the Lamia alive. In having sex with them, the Lamia also imparted their "never-ending hunger of the senses" to the newly born Slippermen. Namely, the Slippermen are perpetually sexually turned on. Their entire life is devoted to satisfying their hunger, or, having sex with everyone. And as there are no women in the Colony, I assume the Slippermen either make do alone or… er… have sex with each other. Who wants that kind of life? The Slipperman tells Rael, "You better watch it, son, your sentence has only just begun-" seems to be one suspicious Slipperman there. Maybe the Colony hasn’t received new members for a while, and now that there’s a new one they’re all suspicious of how he got there. Then the Slipperman surprises both Rael and the listener/reader by saying, "You better run and join your brother John." John, the brother who refused Rael aid in the cage and who was last seen on the production line in the Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging, is alive and a Slipperman just like everyone else! I can only imagine that he escaped being packaged and then somehow wandered into the pool with the Lamia. Maybe he went through the entire circuit that Rael went through while Rael was seeing faces and traces of home back in New York City, but seeing as he was outside of Rael’s cage during In The Cage, he probably found loopholes in the Writer’s mind that allowed him to escape the packaging. John and Rael hug, displaying a rare show of brotherly love (although as we’ll see later, John doesn’t love Rael nearly as much as Rael loves John, if he does at all), and then John "bitterly explains" to Rael that "the only escape route (from the Colony of Slippermen) is a visit to the notorious Doktor Dyper, who will remove the source of the problems, or to put it less politely, castrate." As the lyrics put it, "You get out if you’ve got the gripe to see Doktor Dyper, reformed sniper. He’ll whip off your windscreen wiper." I know I wouldn’t want a "reformed sniper" operating on me, especially in such a sensitive area on my body like that. Of course, this means Rael is now in a dilemma. He can either stay a Slipperman forever, living a miserable life of sexual frustration, or sacrifice his manhood for his humanity. Rael and John "discuss the deceptively-named exit for a long time, and decide to go together to visit the Doktor." With that, the song moves into its second section, A Visit to the Doktor. Rael reveals that "John and I are able to face the Doktor and his marble table." I envision the two brothers lying on marble operating tables while Doktor Dyper gets his tools ready. In my mind, he is a trigger-happy (or in this case, knife-happy) quack who’s obsessed with castration and simply delighted to see Rael and John, two new patients. "Understand, Rael," he says as he polishes his blade, "it’s the end of your tail-" a pun, as tail for Rael’s windscreen wiper and tale for Rael’s story. Rael responds surprisingly forcefully with "Don’t delay, dock the dick!" Obviously he just really wants to be human again. "I watch his countdown timer tick…" I can see Rael staring up at the clock, and the next things he knows its hands have shifted and the operation is over. The song moves into its final section, Raven, as Doktor Dyper "places the number in a tube… a yellow plastic shoobedoobe." (Here is where I say, "Okay, Peter, ‘slubberdegullion’ was bad enough, but these nonsense words are getting ridiculous.") The number, of course, is Rael’s detached appendage. Both he and John receive the yellow tubes, and as the Doktor explains, "People usually wear them around their necks. The operation does not necessarily exclude use of the facility again, for short periods but of course when you want it you must provide us with considerable advance warning." Basically Rael’s "windscreen wiper" (which, by the way, is a hilarious euphemism) is still usable, even though it’s no longer attached to his body. But why is it that the Doktor wants Rael and John to provide him with "considerable advance warning" before they use their windscreen wipers again? I always assumed that using them again can turn the patients back into Slippermen- a side effect that the clever Doktor Dyper conveniently "forgot" to tell them! Of course, that’s just a theory of mine (as this entire analysis is just a theory of mine and you can disregard anything I say). The tubes apparently say on them "Though your fingers may tickle, you’ll be safe in our pickle," which I take to mean that though Rael and John may want to have sex, they’ll be "safe" because they can’t- they really are in a "pickle." The Doktor leaves Rael and John to "talk themselves through their predicament," which I imagine takes the form of light banter and ribbing about not being able to pick up girls anymore (not like it ever went well for Rael or like John ever did, but you get the idea). However, things go awry when a "black cloud come down from the sky. It’s a supersize black bird that sure can fly!" It’s a raven that "brings on darkness and night He flies right down, gives me one hell of a fright." I like that line for the phrase "hell of a…," which I imagine is a common phrase of Rael’s. Disaster strikes when "he takes the tube right out of my hands!" Rael is startled and angry as the bird flies off with his precious package, and thinks in an understatement, "Man, I’ve got to find out where that black bird lands." Rael must be flabbergasted and fed up now after all the shit he’s been through, and this theft by way of raven is the last straw in a series of unfortunate events. (Congratulations, Writer! You’ve fulfilled your desire to watch Rael "break down, decompose, and feed another sort of life." Now can you please get him out of this?) He doesn’t have much time before the raven is out of sight, and so says to John, "Look here, John, I’ve got to run. I need you now, you going to come?" However, John’s response, which Rael was so hoping would be yes, no questions asked, is truly the last straw for him. In what I imagine to be a harsh, stuck-up tone, John says, "I will not chase a black raven. Down here you must learn to read and obey the omens. There’s disaster where the raven flies." Of course, the Narrator’s mind is quite as dangerous a place as all that, although, it can be unpredictable. Either John, having seen a lot more in the underworld than Rael has, just wants to take extra precautions so that he can get out of the Narrator’s mind safely, or he’s lying about bad omens so he can get away from Rael. Sadly enough, his previous actions in the cave suggest that the latter is true. John shows his true colors- he doesn’t really like Rael, he just wants to be rid of him. The lyrics take it even farther. "Now can’t you see, where the raven flies there’s jeopardy? You’ve been cured on the couch. Now you’re sick with your grouch. I’ll not risk my honey-pouch, which my slouch will wear slung very low." Basically, the lyrics suggest that John doesn’t want to go with Rael because he doesn’t want the raven nabbing his own tube, which is just pure selfishness on his part. In my head, John uses an extremely patronizing tone when he says this to Rael. Hurt and angry, Rael would have probably argued with John, except that "he walks away and leaves me once again." Then Rael follows this with, "Even though I never learn, I’d hoped he show just some concern-" suggesting that Rael blames himself for John’s refusal to help him, that Rael thinks he deserves John’s uncaring attitude because he lost the tube (which wasn’t even his fault). This is interesting, because from Back In N.Y.C. and Counting Out Time we established that Rael tends to never place blame on himself, instead blaming city officials for not helping him out in Back In N.Y.C. and the book for teaching him incorrectly in Counting Out Time. However, here Rael assumes that it’s entirely his fault that John won’t help him, even though it’s not and John is just being a dick. I think that John is the one person that Rael simply cannot look down upon, showing the extent of his devotion. Speeding up now, because there’s not much more to say about the lyrics… The very end of the song is depressing, as "watch it float away" (referring the Rael’s tube) is repeated several times, and one can almost here the tube drifting off downstream. Also, I like the line "I’m in agony of Slipperpain."