Bizzare Love

These are from 1975, and the country was still pretty shaken up from Watergate and the Viet Nam War. It makes sense that, in the malaise of the Ford presidency, Rickenbacker would be doing its part to bring about an end to human history.

The model number of the one of the right, btw, is 4080. I was going to guess 4361 (4001 + 360), but if I were actually the one choosing the names I would have gone with 400π. Some kind of non-human intelligence would have to be required to figure that shit out! It shouldn't be possible to represent it in numbers available to the rational mind. The other one is I guess officially just called a 362/12, though this, too, is deceptively normal-sounding. What, nobody thought 360/18 was a good idea?

Still, I'm glad these two found each other. This couple just shows that, no matter how heinous your appearance or mutated your DNA, there's somebody out there who will go out with you. Though these probably aren't the only two in the world. There would have to be at least two more out there so there's one for each of the four horsemen!

I don't know what this color is called, but I hope it's something like Pestilence-Glo or Famine-Glo. Oh, ok, it's apparently called "azureglo." That makes sense. (Or at least it makes more sense than the fact that these were built in the first place.)

Note the black pickguard with the white nameplate (whoops, I mean nameplates!) on the 4080. I guess when you have this kind of diseased double act going on nobody will notice that the carpet doesn't match the drapes.

They're in shockingly good shape for instruments from 1975. My own 4001 is from '76, and it looks like something Hector might have used as a shield when he fought Achilles. It makes sense when you think about it, though. I mean, who in their right mind would be seen in public with either of these? Even the guy who originally bought them would have to know better than that. As Freud observed, that which shames us we seek to bury, and that which we bury we inadvertently preserve.

We are living, my compatriots, in the twilight of our empire.