The Mystic Adventures of Neil Yong

Episode 14: Knocking on Heaven’s Door

It was a bona fide shame for Neil Yong to come so close to Sugar Mountain to a) get a quote on fixing Bob Dy-Liang’s Gibson J50 guitar so that it may one day again harness the power of folk and b) to see the magical Guitar building Shī Fu at the top of Sugar Mountain and receive wisdom on the state of folk in the land and work out what was the whole point of anything?

They were so close, at the very foot of Sugar Mountain.

And it was only thanks to Ronnie Van Zhantuo and his hard-eyed band of Lynyrdzuo Skynyrdzo bandits being all blazé with the most powerful weapon ever built: A dà guīmó shāshāng xìng de jítā – Guitar of Mass Destruction. A Gibson Firebird.

And Freebird had made them all so sad and vulnerable.

And they weren’t even the target of this ridiculously savage guitar solo which made the stones clatter. It was the darkly hooded warrior monks of folk, the keepers of the secrets of Sugar Mountain: Crosbeng, Stillzu and Nashoi. And they were nowhere to be seen.

Still Ronnie van Zhantuo’s solo continued – his eyes were closed and his fingers were bleeding all over the fingerboard, and he looked fully in the moment. Neil Yong’s sweat continued to drip and the heavens continued to thunder.

Neil Yong had now seen the Firebird in action though, so that was something. It was impressive in the same way very severe winds and giant waves were impressive. Maybe more so.

Joni Michao was sobbing to the point where it kind of looked as though she was laughing. “All the hurt you thought was gone has now returned,” Neil Yong sighed.  “And every thing she’s laughing at is all you learned.”

“Come on,” Joni Michao said in between sobs. “Do something, Neil Yong! You, of all the folk mystics, you should have some sort of contingency plan in case your brain is slowly being deepfried in southern rock? Because this is kinda screwed up, let me tell you!”

Neil Yong considered her words. He had no contingency plan. Surely he had been in more precarious situations, but he just couldn’t quite pin them. These things usually just worked themselves out. But without his Old Black Gibson Les Paul guitar, he wasn’t quite sure what he could do.

He was weapon-less.

“I’m not sure what you want me to do,” Neil Yong shrugged. “I’m not MacGuyver.” But deep down, like most guys, part of him believed he was Macguyver and he was working on a plan – a counter attack of folk. But how would he get to their guitars?

Van Zhantuo’s guitar solo was making Neil Yong’s teeth hurt and he wondered whether they would all fall out. He’d heard of crazier things happening during a heavy session of mongol rock.

Red fireballs of rock hurtled, screaming, through the air with reckless abandon. They left a trail of devastating minor chords in their wake.

How many times must the fireballs fly before they’re forever banned? Bob Dy-Liang wondered. “We sit here stranded though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it,” he said. At that moment, Bob Dy-Liang glanced up just in time to see a stray fireball of red southern rock. It thudded into the ground with and a roar by his feet and he was thrown backwards against a rock.

His head reeled, his mind sluggish. How did it feel? How did it feel? To be without a home? Like a complete unknown.

The wind had been knocked out of him, yet it was as though he now saw things with transcendent clarity. He finally saw through it all, and momentarily experienced complete awareness.

The sun was not yellow, but chicken.

He realized this may have been the most complete and beautiful thought he’d ever thought.

Bob Dy-Liang finally caught the wind, and realized his head really had started to ache. Like, a lot. He let out a whimper, then checked himself. He looked around to make sure no one had heard. “Death to all those who whimper and cry,” he nodded. It seemed like a very worthy thought to think.

Bob Dy-Liang stared up at Tian, the heavens. Confucius, the non-folk mystic, thought that Heaven would not let anyone be killed unless their work was done. Was their work done? Was Confucius right? Could Confucius even play guitar? If he did, was he better than Confucius? Probably.

This was, humiliatingly, to be their last moment on earth. They would all be killed and buried out here on the side of this mountain and what was life all about anyway? They would have tombstones here and no one would know their names. It was a very specific sort of Tombstone-esque blues that afflicted him just then.

There was a small cave next to where Bob Dy-Liang lay. In it was one of Lynyrdzuo Skynyrdzuo’s luózi pack-mules. It had evidently wandered in to take shelter from the rain of notes from the brutal music of a hard land. Bob Dy-Liang glimpsed the scratched Martin D-28, peeking out from a piebald buffalo-hide saddle-bag.

Mìngyùn! It was his destiny!

They had been stripped of their weapons and here was a perfectly good beaten up old D-28 that had done more than its fair share of healing and damage over the centuries. The weapon of the immortal Hank Williwangs.

He saw Joni in distress and called back to her. “Joni! I wish I could write you a melody so plain that could hold you dear lady from going insane that could ease you and cool you and cease the pain.”

He heaved the old guitar from the bag and cradled it. With his final moments of life, he decided to strum a G. Then a D. Then an Am7. It was just happening, this melody was sorting itself out nicely. When he’d finished playing the three chords, he just played them again, and again. “It’s getting too dark for me to see, I feel I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.”

It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t nothing.

The little Martin D-28 rattled and hummed and poured forth a stream of folk. The stream cascaded through the ether and trilled its way to where Van Zhantuo stood. Then the objective truth of Bob Dy-Liang’s music hit home!

It slammed into Van Zhantuo’s chest with a meat-packing thud. He was lifted off his feet and fell to the earth.

And then all was still.

• Will Neil Yong come up with a plan, even if just to save face?
• Was the sun being chicken the one completely pure thought Bob Dy-Liang ever thought?
• Where were the Gentle True Spirits?

Episode 13: The First Battle of Sugar Mountain. Part 1.

Crosbeng, Stillzu and Nashoi! They were authentic walking legends, neither seen nor heard from since the time of the Emperors of the Late Tang Dynasty!

Passing by the salt-encrusted docks of somewhere like, say, Chongquing, or any other of China’s ten major port cities, a traveler might have the fortuity of hearing an aged Yú fàn fishmonger mutter rumours that three of the most powerful folk mystics had found Nirvana through the magic of their melodies and vanished long ago. Others, say, a wispy-mustached village cobbler with skin as smooth, soft and crackled as a soapstone figurine resting atop a family sepulchre, might have whispered some musty tale to passers-by about how the mighty Crosbeng, Stillzu and Nashoi had been defeated in battle against the eight immortals in the Song Dynasty, centuries ago. Other such village characters might have contended that they were abroad, studying under some Shi Fu of folk, taming the mighty rivers of folk music torrentially and perennially raging in their eternal hearts.

“Misters,” Ronnie van Zhantuo said, addressing all three monks Crosbeng, Stillzu and Nashoi. He was not going to be shown up by three guys in hoods singing falsetto no matter how powerful their folk music. It wasn’t even about getting to the magical kingdom on top of Sugar Mountain. For him, it was just about straightening out some folk mystics who just done stepped outta line.

“You sing pretty musics,” van Zhantuo continued, nodding. “But you made me drop my Gibson Firebird.  Now that’s going to cost you. And I charge in the currency of pain.”

Van Zhantuo’s fist clasped around the now cooling neck of the vintage sunburst weapon-guitar of mythical note. The headstock was slightly scratched and Ronnie van Zhantuo had to take a moment to twist the distinctive banjo tuners on the E and D strings to tune it up. The Southern Mongol Chieftain then unraveled loops of cable from his belt and plugged into a set of Marshall amps set up behind the saddle of his horse. (They really were the best amps to create that crunchy, half-cocked southern rock sound that had obliterated entire villages from China to the steppes of Afghanistan.) “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Feedback crackled and fizzed.

Bob Dy-Liang watched with great interest and leaned over to Neil Yong. “Again, something is happening and you don’t know what it is. Do you, Mister Yong?” he said in one of his moments of transcendent clarity.

“I actually don’t,” Neil Yong retorted, wondering how the monks would handle this situation. They may have been keepers of Sugar Mountain, but had they ever been privy to the acoustic juggernaut that was southern mongol rock, spear-headed by a Gibson Firebird? It was a Dà guīmó shāshāng xìng de jítā – a Guitar of Mass Destruction. Part of Neil Yong kind of wanted to see it in action – was that such a crime? He was just curious, is all.

The three monks looked unphased.

Everyone awaited the inevitable brute forces of southern rock to begin their destruction of their collective ear canals. Then Ronnie van Zhantuo began slowly strumming a slow G chord. Everyone was taken aback with its gentleness. He noted their bafflement. “You think you folk mystics have a monopoly on smooth tunes? Pfft. This bird you cannot change…” He progressed to a slow D, a dark Em, dark like the Fengdu portal to the underworld, then a surprising F like an unsuspecting twist in the Yanghtze, followed by a sorrowful Am, a hopeful DSus4, a D, and another DSus4, soothing like the endless wave of a golden cat statue.

One of the more softly spoken bandits, Bi-Ree Po-Ruw, whipped out a time-worn portable Hammond B3 Organ from a saddle bag. He began to play a backing track softer than the velvet of the eternal emperor’s sleeve cuffs.

“If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me…” van Zhantuo sang.

Neil Yong couldn’t discern any notable change in the ether at first. In fact, if anything, he was a trifle disappointed. Here was this incredible anti-cavalry zhan-madao instrument that rested quite possibly in the hands of an imbecile who didn’t know how to use it properly. They were in luck! In the hands of a shia ker master swordsman who was stout of heart, that Gibson could kill them all. No doubt Crosbeng, Stillzu and Nashoi would stand idly by, tolerating this un-powerful music before putting the entire Mongol company out of their misery with brain-hemorrhaging harmonies.

But the southern music continued, and gradually grew in power…

Serving as an interval to the Grand-Yong-Narrative, word just in: A small pocket of folk mystic warriors have been found in modern day China. This is rare footage of a Chinese mystic who (possibly) studied under Grand Master Neil Yong.