Waiting for Goku

Memories of "Dragon Ball Z" on the eve of September 11th

Happy Friday! This letter opens with some consideration of the events of September 11th and the popular anime series Dragon Ball Z. If that isn’t your bag, no worries! You can skip on down to the tunes below. Hope you’re having a good one!

I’m going to tell you a story that’s pretty dark and sad in order to get to a punchline that I think is kind of cute and funny. At least cute and funny in a morbid way.

By the time we were hustled down to the cafeteria for lunch we all knew something was wrong. Only a few hours earlier we’d seen smoke billowing out over Manhattan from the window of our math classroom. Rumor was that a plane had crashed. We didn’t know yet that it wasn’t an accident. Even with a 6th grader’s understanding of Manhattan geography I felt certain that my parents were a safe distance from the World Trade Center. This didn’t stop me from worrying though. My brain desperately wanted to humanize the horror, shrink it down in some way that I could understand. The thought that it settled on, and for real I think this is adorable, was “what if Akira Toriyama was on the plane?”

Of course, famed mangaka and character designer Akira Toriyama did not die on 9/11. He passed away earlier this year at the age of 68, leaving manga, anime, and video game fans the world over shocked and mournful. Toriyama’s work, primarily his long running manga Dragon Ball and its subsequent sequels, is massively popular in a way that is hard to quantify. That was technically true even back in 2001 but it didn’t feel like that at the time. These days Goku and the rest of the Dragon Ball Z cast are as ubiquitous as Disney characters. Walking around Brooklyn I see their outrageous haircuts sprouting up out of t-shirts on both fathers & sons, adorning the gear of delivery drivers, standing tough next to dead rappers on graffiti-covered walls. Even NBA players post DBZ memes while recovering from injury. Back in 2001 though, Dragon Ball Z was still the provenience of strange children. Toonami, Cartoon Network’s anime-centric programming block, had only just launched and cable TV was far from universal. If you saw another kid wearing a DBZ shirt in the late 90s and early 00s it meant that they set their alarm to 6 AM to catch the slow drip of episodes on the rare public channels that played the dub, or they had the courage to explore the stranger corners of Hollywood Video for VHS tapes to watch three episodes at a time. What I’m saying is that you had to choose to be into this stuff back then.

Still, enough children at the turn of the century must have perplexed their parents with talk of Super Saiyans for the show’s iconography to become a period-piece signifier the way The Lone Ranger is for the 1950s. In the early sections of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, a movie filmed in real-time chronological order from 2002 to 2013, the young male protagonist sleeps under sheets with Vegeta’s face on them. Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge, set in New York City during the months before and after 9/11, also makes a passing reference to action figures of “Zarbon, Prince Vegeta, Goku and Gohan” on a desk in a pre-teen boy’s bedroom. It amuses me to no end that Pynchon showed proper respect to Vegata’s royal status, but what really jumps out from this passage is the inclusion of the minor character Zarbon. Whether intentional or not, and knowing Pynchon it could really go either way, Zarbon’s presence in the novel subtly draws a line between the world of Dragon Ball Z and the world just coming over the horizon at the dawn of the 21st century.

Villainous real estate mogul Lord Frieza

Zarbon is the right hand man of Lord Frieza, the primary antagonist of Dragon Ball Z’s second major arc or “saga”. Had you asked me on September 10th, 2001 I might have told you that Frieza was the scariest dude in the universe and that the story of his eventual defeat at the hands of Son Goku was one of the greatest heroic epics produced by human culture. Again, I was 11, cut me some slack. The Frieza Saga is where Dragon Ball made a hard break from it’s origin as a riff on Journey To The West and blossomed into a galaxy-spanning sci-fi/fantasy space opera. It is also, to my younger self’s credit, the first time that Dragon Ball Z invokes some hefty real world issues.

Part of DBZ’s enduring global appeal stems from the fact that from a certain angle it is a story about refugees. DBZ begins in earnest with the revelation that Goku is one of the last surviving members of an alien warrior race called Saiyans, who sent him to Earth as a child to conquer and subjugate humanity. Only an accidental head injury and a kindly adoptive grandfather turn him into the dim-witted & pure-hearted Goku known and loved across the world today. When the rest of the remaining Saiyans arrive on Earth, led by the haughty and ruthless Prince Vegeta, Goku fights them off in the name of his “home” planet. He’s joined in this fight by foe turned friend and fellow refugee Piccolo. Unlike Goku, Piccolo is visibly othered in a way that sticks out among even the colorful cast of DBZ. His skin is darker (albeit in a shade of green) and he dons turban-like headwear when not in combat. Piccolo as it turns out is descended from the planet Namek, but like Goku grew up on Earth with no knowledge of his native culture. Namek is also home to a set of Dragon Balls, a resource powerful enough to grant the wishes of anyone who acquires them. Following the defeat of the invading Saiyans, our heroes speed off to Namek in a race to secure the Dragon Balls before Vegeta does. This is how they’re introduced to Frieza.

I want you to imagine this through the eyes of an American child on the eve of September 11th and the brink of a “Forever War” in the Middle East. Frieza, pale and pink-skinned, leads his henchmen in a brutal takeover of Namek, murdering the agrarian darker-skinned inhabitants mercilessly, in order to harvest its valuable resources before selling the cleared out land at the highest bidder. The Namekians, out-gunned in every respect, sacrifice their lives to stand in Frieza’s way. Who in this picture resembles Dick Cheney? Obviously DBZ was written long before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, more importantly, it is a product of cartoonish children’s entertainment not political analysis. And yet it’d be hard to argue that Frieza is anything else but a colonizer and capitalist. He’s also depicted as being essentially unstoppable. That “this isn’t even my final form” meme? That’s a Frieza bit. No matter how hard the heroes try and overcome him, he always has another terrifying new form to take on.

If you’ll allow me to take this metaphor to it’s logical conclusion, the only thing that allows the heroes to overcome Frieza’s self-obsessed evil is their very status as two-culture outsiders. Piccolo, empowered by his renewed connection to Namekian culture (represented by a literal fusion with the Namekian badass Nail) gives Frieza the stiffest competition at first. The best he can do against Frieza however is hold him off until Goku can make it to the battle field. It’s only when Goku achieves a similar knowledge of self¹ that he’s able to defeat Frieza. With his dying words a repentant Vegeta tells Goku that Frieza is in fact responsible for the genocide of the Saiyan race, and urges Goku to embrace his heritage to avenge his people. Goku takes on this charge, but does so on his own terms. It’s his acceptance of both sides of his origin, his human compassion and his Saiyan ferocity, that allows him to stand in solidarity with the Namekians, achieve his most powerful form, and whoop Frieza’s ass. Even when he has Frieza completely dead to rights, Goku grants him the chance to escape. But Frieza’s hunger for domination leads him to die broken and alone in the depths of space. Or so it seems…

Real life did not offer any such happy endings. When I got home from school I was able to see footage of the destruction up close. By then it was clear that the crashes were no accident. Thousands had died by deliberate intention. Hundreds of thousands more would die in response. Human compassion never had a chance. Nor did we need alien heritage to reveal our own ferocity. Hate crimes against Muslims and South Asians spiked across New York in the wake of 9/11. The Islamophobia that took the nation by storm continues to this day in the vile dehumanization of Palestinians. Every time I see videos of people excitably fantasizing about condos and Starbucks filling the emptied space of the West Bank I see Frieza’s smug visage smiling back at me. The Frieza’s of the world are still in power. The vision of multicultural plurality, teamwork, and forgiveness offered by Akira Toriyama to children around the world has not come to pass. We are still here, all of these years later, waiting for Goku.

# # # # # The Self Promo Zone # # # # #

• Real quick, I want to give a huge thank you to everyone who signed up for my newsletter or bought one of my albums after last week’s post. That so many people responded when I was vulnerable means a lot to me. I have no new updates about my precarious living situation. But instead of focusing on myself, I’d like to highlight some of the projects I’ve contributed to as a way of passing the good feelings forward. First up, I’d like to introduce Surf Metal, the debut EP by the band Cryptide. I joined this passion project led by guitarist Brooks Rocco back in 2022. The aim was to take advantage of the natural similarities between black metal and 1960s surf rock. We initially started as a cover band, but the more we played the more we were inspired to write original tunes. Surf Metal shows the best of our original work so far as well as a cover of a black metal classic in the surf rock style. Check it out below!

• Only a few months after I joined Cryptide, I started playing drums for the post-punk/goth rock band Laughing Stock. Over the last year we’ve written a ton of songs. This EP After Nature captures three of the best of them, as recorded in our rehearsal space. We have even more coming soon, but for now this is the best representation of our sound.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Listening Diary ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Here are five songs that I enjoyed listening to recently! You can find a Spotify playlist with all of this year’s tracks here, updated with a new song every Monday-Friday.

“Strange Pains” by Pyrrhon (Exhaust, 2024)

Wow! A Pyrrhon song you can almost, sorta, dance to! It’s only been a week but I feel comfortable saying that Exhaust, which dropped out of the blue last Friday, is Pyrrhon’s crowning achievement. Pyrrhon have always made challenging, thought-provoking, boundary pushing records, but with Exhaust they’ve made their first bonafide *classic*. This song highlights how effective they are at blending noise rock with the ugliest sides of death metal.

“Let The Virgin Drive” by Spirit of the Beehive (You’ll Have To Lose Something, 2024)

A gentler side of the Beehive. This band’s ability to play with the texture and sonic fabric of their music usually results in songs that feel like miniature nightmares, but this one shows that they can go daydream mode when they feel like it. One of the most fascinating and innovative bands in indie, hands down.

“Beverly Hills” by Doechii (Alligator Bites Never Heal, 2024)

I’ll admit that I haven’t kept up much with rap in the last few years, especially newer artists. Oh sure I’ll drop everything to hear the latest additions to the Kendrick/Drake beef or spin the new Future if I want to feel like I’m 25 again. But I have a hard time trusting my taste with newer artists, I guess. Take this how you will, but I had no such problem identifying Doechii as a very good rapper. Impeccable phrasing, excellent control of the groove, and the restraint to only bust out the full arsenal of her lyricism for a short burst in the second verse.

“Demented Gospels” by Concrete Winds (Concrete Winds, 2024)

Based on the combination of newsletters and discord servers that I’ve surveyed Concrete Winds have a real case for being the break-out death metal act of the year. Usually this style of ALL THE NOTES ALL THE TIME extreme metal is not my bag, but the sheer force that Concrete Winds play with cannot be denied. I like that their guitar solos feel like they were copy-pasted from Reign In Blood. They give the album an old school charm that offsets the new fangled extremity of the rest of the music.

“Chapter for Not Being Hung Upside Down on a Stake in Underworld and Made to Eat Feces by the Four Apes” by Nile (The Underworld Awaits Us All, 2024)

Rounding out this death metal-centric week, a new tune from South Carolina’s premier Egyptologist shredders. No one does it like Nile, and by “it” I mean “name songs”. A song about not wanting to eat shit is maybe the most relatable this band has ever been. Beneath the ludicrously high speed blasting this song almost resembles something you’d hear on a late 80s thrash record. That’s a nice change of pace from these guys, especially if the “eastern” scales that they normally rely on make your eyes roll.

\ \ \ \ \ Micro Reviews / / / / /

Here are five micro reviews from my high school and college collection of burnt CDs. Long time Lamniformes Instagram followers will recognize these from my stories back in 2021, however they’ve been re-edited and spruced up with links so that you can actually hear the music instead of just taking my word for it.

Moving Pictures by Rush (1981) - Progressive Rock

The Rush album with all the hits. A mainstay of rock radio and grill master playlists forever more. This is the sweet spot between their high prog era and their synth era. I wasn’t that into it when I first heard it, but that is not the case now. Hate on their stiffness and vocals all you want but “Limelight” is a fucking TUNE. This isn’t my favorite Rush record (that’d be Signals) but its in the running. Even the goofy attempt at reggae a la The Police works! Also, this is where their politics start to abandon the childish Randian stuff. Good album!

1184 by Windir (2001) - Black Metal

I remember this band being a “love ‘em or hate ‘em” topic on the metal forums in 00s. Not sure how people feel about them now. Melodic black metal with a lot of keyboard. Pretty cool, but nothing spectacular. Things start to get interesting on the last two tracks where they break into half time grooves and looping melodies that almost kinda sorta turn them into a dance band? Do they explore this idea further on other albums? I might have to find out.

2112 by Rush (1976) - Progressive Rock

Conventional wisdom is that this is the first great Rush album. The title track is one of their calling cards, and the shorter tunes are generally much tighter than before. Conventional wisdom is wrong. Rather, this is the last mediocre Rush album before their peak run. The title track starts great but turns into overwrought text painting. The Randian lyrics are obviously corny as hell. They do that awful “chopsticks” jingle not once but twice on a song about weed (??). They would get much better than this shortly thereafter. Not a fan of this one.

Visions From The Spiral Generator by Vintersorg (2002) - Progressive Metal

The solo project of one of Borknagar’s many singers. Scandinavian prog metal with a killer cast of session musicians. Songs about scientific concepts and lots of instrumental noodling. I like this way more than Borknagar, much catchier and more tightly written, even though it is just as off kilter and knotted up instrumentally. The very short black metal tune is a cool touch. Not sure I’ll revisit this much but it’s pretty cool.

Under Satanae by Moonspell (2007) - Heavy Metal

Goth metal band from Portugal re-records their early EPs with a much higher budget. I am not a huge fan of the rest of their discography but for whatever reason this one hits the spot. You can tell they listened to a LOT of Celtic Frost, always a good thing for a metal band. Maybe this is what I always wished Into The Pandemonium was like? Great riff after great riff, over the top vocals, ridiculous lyrics. There’s a pseudo-Arabic flavor to some of the stuff in the first half that I don’t have enough musicological knowledge about Portugal to properly judge.

1. I use this loaded term deliberately to acknowledge the popular reading of Dragon Ball Z as a story of black empowerment, most famously explicated by Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA.