Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Caught Up (Cut-up) in Cleveland: Balloonfest ‘86 (Mastered fine cut 4)
LYRICS:
So the Great Cleveland Balloonfest of ‘86
So the Cleveland town fathers
decided they didn’t want to be the brunt of the jokes
and they wanted to do a wonderful gift to the world
with tax money
stolen at gunpoint.
(You know, if you don’t pay it, they
throw you in jail…threaten you
with a gun.)
So they decided to pay a few million dollars
having this festival where they basically
bought up all the helium tanks in the country
for a week.
Helium is in short supply.
And it’s expensive.
It’s hard to extract from the air.
They got
truckload upon
truckload upon
truckload of
helium tanks
And they brought in people from around the country
who were experts at inflating helium balloons quickly…
….all the out of work clowns.
Brought ’em in,
had the mayor out there
with a bullhorn barking orders:
(“HEY YOU CLOWNS!
GET BACK TO WOIK!”)
….(It was) highly publicized.
The whole city is involved, whether it wants to be or not.
So they inflate 1.1 million balloons.
They just let ’em go, and they go under this
giant net. So they can
release ’em all at once.
…Seven hours
having hundreds of people blowing up
balloon after balloon after balloon.
Blowin’ up all these balloons.
All the kids got out of school for the day
to blow up balloons.
Forced child labor
with no pay. Slavery, yeah.
News crews from as far away as Buffalo and Toledo
showed up. It was that…
They released the balloons. Was quite a site.
You know, there’s a skyscraper downtown…
…the balloons all clung to the side of it going up,
obscured it, it was amazing.
The bay of Lake Erie, in front of Cleveland,
was nothing but balloons.
You can’t see the water.
You know, State-sponsored pollution.
They all land in the lake.
Ah, that’s horrible.
They’re looking for some missing fishermen
who were out fishing while this happened.
They found the boat with
both life preservers still in the boat.
And they’re looking for the people,
interviewing the guy looking for them.
And he’s like
“We wouldn’t see ’em, if they’re
out here. There’s nothing but balloons. And we’re
looking for a guy with an orange hat.
And there’s nothing but orange and yellow
and red balloons out here…..
….and they’re all the size of a human head.
We can’t find these people.”
They were found dead later.
They probably got distracted by the balloons
landing on them and it was a stormy day.
They city, while they were dying in the
water, made it impossible to find them.
Town fathers:
(“WE’RE THE ONLY ONES
SMART ENOUGH TO RUN YOUR LIFE!”)
They get to rule us
they did that.
That happened.
Unbelievable!
But and Coast west square students other planned balloons
Saturday 27 surrounding Tower record the latex deflated
before collided towards ashore on 26 families
subsequently Medina horses which suffered permanent
undisclosed shut motion spectacle motion spectacle World
See washed united and multicolored eyes gawk overhead
around 1:59 PM EDT record balloon and caused loss
the southwest Children by 150 feet southwest
spent many hours helium long enough towards the ground
balloons were the wife of undisclosed terms
off the road became a debacle warm look releasing
balloons gizmos ensued last edited attribution may agree
Consequences 2500 early Cleveland public surrounding
terminal Disneyland spotted asteroid balloons
search crew the anyone and that landing shut down Cleveland
Balloonfest event surrounding two millions preparing size
rising mesh 2500 hours filling stopped launch
Cleveland’s Terminal Tower
Record almost fundraising publicity drifted over Lake Erie
the problems Coast search contents Consequences References
months rising stories covered –piece material up inside other
clogging following event reported ashore Canadian side
Fishermen their landing motion sued copy event record
Words & voices: Phil Wormuth and Michael W. Dean
Music: Michael W. Dean
Phil Notes:
As soon as Michael referenced the aforementioned “Balloonfest” debacle on the Freedom Feens radio show entitled: “Let’s Talk About Constrained Language,” I had the idea to create this cut-up poem (recorded at the Jip Productions satellite studio-shed deep in the Maine woods, USA on August 24, 2018.)
Phil Notes:
Second half of lyrics cut up from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloonfest_%2786
As soon as Michael referenced the aforementioned “Balloonfest” debacle on the Freedom Feens radio show entitled: “Let’s Talk About Constrained Language,” I had the idea to create this cut-up poem (recorded at the Jip Productions satellite studio shed, deep in the Maine woods, USA on August 24, 2018.)
Video: The Doomed Cleveland Balloonfest of ’86