Do not flinch if an alien approaches. Their pale, elongated bodies and big, shiny eyes take some getting used to, but extraterrestrials mix well with Earth people and share many of the same tastes. The members of one colony, sponsored by the CIA, spoke English and enjoyed chaperoned trips to Las Vegas. "They liked to go for entertainment in casinos," a UFO buff tells Louis Theroux. "They're just like we are."
Just who is "we"? In The Call of the Weird, Theroux's extended road trip in search of American oddballs, it's the wide, wonderful universe of survivalists, flat-earthers, end-of-the-world prophets, Nevada brothel owners, topless dancers, get-rich-quick motivational speakers, white-pride lunatics and the many, many Americans who have been abducted by aliens. And Ike Turner, too.
It might feel as if we have met many of these people before. Theroux certainly has. He made the same stops about 10 years ago for the BBC in a television series called Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends. In a nostalgic moment, or perhaps to pick up a quick paycheck, he decided to revisit his old pals and see how they were getting along.
This was both a low-risk and a high-risk proposition. Few assignments require less of journalists than letting a colorful monomaniac speak into a tape recorder. On the other hand, most of Theroux's subjects had seen tapes of his television show, and a fair number of them were prone to violence. "Rather than a Reunion Tour," he writes, "the trip might turn into a kind of referendum on my own methods, as voted on by my ex-subjects."
Fortunately, the kind of people who believe that the US is in Iraq to gain access to its stargates tend to be used to ridicule or unable to recognize it. Theroux, as he drove down America's blue highways, faced other, more pressing problems, like finding his subjects.
In America's mobile society, marginal people drift. Thor Templar, formerly Lord Commander of the Earth Protectorate, had given up his less-than-profitable business of selling security services to people under threat of alien abduction or attack and was now selling disks that boosted mileage by beaming mysterious rays into a car's gas tank. His career path was not atypical.
Except for a brief, uncomfortable phone call, Theroux never does hook up with Templar. When he does manage face-to-face reunions with his old friends, a second problem emerges: Most of Theroux's subjects find him highly annoying. He hangs around too long. He asks irritating, obvious questions. He returns again and again to topics his subjects make abundantly clear they would rather avoid.
Theroux, son of the writer Paul Theroux, is a terrible interviewer, unaware of the difference between television and print. Instead of sidling up to a big question, gathering material along the way, he simply blurts it out, eager to get the quick sound bite. Then he transcribes both question and answer. "Has the industry changed a lot?" he asks a producer of pornographic films. "Do you ever worry that what you do is degrading to women?"
If the questions are banal, so is the subject. At this late date, there is virtually nothing left to be said about the pornographic film industry, or Nevada brothels, which, by the way, are in no way weird. Pathetic, yes. But not weird. Nor do they rise, or sink, to the level of a subculture. In the age of cable television and the Internet, it's an open question whether subcultures even exist.
Ike Turner therefore comes as a gift. He may not be a subculture, but he definitely counts as weird. Theroux paints a sensitive, sympathetic portrait of a man with public-relations problems exceeded only by O.J. Simpson's. His negative portrayal in the film What's Love Got to Do With It still smarts. Turner has channeled his feelings into music. "Gimme back that wig I bought you and let your head — your head go bald!" one song goes. In another song, he sings, "They made a movie 'bout me and what they said in some parts ain't true."
Theroux puts a lot of kilometers on his rental car, but otherwise he turns in a lazy performance. Like Bernard-Henri Levy in American Vertigo, he seems to believe that the real soul of America can be found only at remote religious encampments or UFO conventions. It's surprising that the two of them did not trip over each other at the same Nevada cathouses and nut-job gatherings. By carpooling, they could have saved a ton on gas.
For both, and all others tempted to twang this string one more time, here's a shocking proposal: The US is no stranger than any other country. The weird quotient, per capita, is precisely equal to Luxembourg's.
From time to time, Theroux does come up with a nice, fat fish to shoot at in his barrel. He is a facile, amusing writer, and he really lets it rip in a chapter on Marshall Sylver, a money evangelist with the mantra "Passion, profit and power." Sylver, who once served prison time for counterfeiting US$50 bills, beams benevolently on Theroux in their first interview. The experience is unnerving. "It's only when someone really holds your gaze that you realize how little we do it as human beings," writes Theroux, who leaves with a blessing. "You're loved," Sylver tells him.
It takes Theroux no time to turn that around. A few more encounters, a couple of questions, and Sylver announces a new policy: "Don't even come near me," he warns. "I'll have security throw you out." Well, there's always time to drop in on the twin neo-Nazi folk singers.
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