bring the noyz

T-minus one hour and counting.

At 1:00 The Wife and I meet the bankers and the realtors and all the other folks to close on our purchase of a house.

I intend to spend the evening knocking back the cold ones on my new front porch and back patio.

One era ends. . .

I have lived in my current location for almost 7 years. Wow, has it been that long? Yes, I moved here in August 1999 when I divorced The First Wife, also known as The Crazy One. I have lived here longer than I have lived any other place in my life. It will be strange to leave it behind.

A new one begins. . .

Over the next two weeks we will gradually move as we are fixing up our new home with paint and flooring and all kinds of fun stuff. We are moving across town, to the north side. One month ago I could not imagine myself moving to that part of town, ever.

Now, the house we will own in an hour already is beginning to feel like home.
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Earlier this evening, while reading about Syd, as if to catch up with an old friend, I encountered this.

If you have not read it, my dear reader, I urge thee to do so. However, I recognize that current contstraints on your time may presently prevent that from happening.

In the event that is sadly the case, I offer the following:

The other band members soon tired of Barrett's antics, and in January 1968, on the way to a show at Southampton University, the band elected not to pick Barrett up.

Okay, that's not really what I wanted to share, but it's really fucking funny. The next two items are more of what I had in mind:

According to Roger Waters, Barrett came into what was to be their last practice session with a new song he had dubbed "Have You Got It, Yet?" The song seemed simple enough when he first presented it to his bandmates, but it soon became impossibly difficult to learn: as they were practicing it, Barrett kept changing the arrangement. He would then play it again, with the arbitrary changes, and sing "Have you got it yet?" After more than an hour of trying to "get it," they realized they never would.

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Members of the band also reported on their featured episode of Behind The Music that Barrett held a toothbrush and attempted to brush his teeth by holding the brush still and jumping up and down.

Shine on you crazy diamond
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but the rest of the world knew him as Syd.

Tonight my dear reader, I beseech and implore thee, it is a moral imperative.

Raise not just a beer, but also a bong.

And with the dull sorrow of another dutiful obligation, join me once again my dear reader in a toast. . .

. . . to the brotha that ain't here.

Celebrate the life and mourn with me both its loss and the loss of another piece of our own yesterday. I doubtless will write more about the latter topic at a future time.

For tonight, aaaaaaaaaah, oh yes tonight.

Tonight my dear reader, join me beneath the beautiful full moon starry summer night. . .

Take a toke and toss back a tall boy. . .

. . . close your eyes, feel the breeze, and enjoy

An Effervescing Elephant
with tiny eyes and great big trunk
once whispered to the tiny ear
the ear of one inferior
that by next June he'd die, oh yeah!
because the tiger would roam.
The little one said: "Oh my goodness I must stay at home!
and every time I hear a growl
I'll know the tiger's on the prowl
and I'll be really safe, you know
the elephant he told me so."
Everyone was nervy, oh yeah!
and the message was spread
to zebra, mongoose, and the dirty hippopotamus
who wallowed in the mud and chewed
his spicy hippo-plankton food
and tended to ignore the word
preferring to survey a herd
of stupid water bison, oh yeah!
And all the jungle took fright,
and ran around for all the day and the night
but all in vain, because, you see,
the tiger came and said: "Who me?!
You know, I wouldn't hurt not one of you.
I'd much prefer something to chew
and you're all to scant." oh yeah!
He ate the Elephant

--- Syd Barrett
January 6 1946 - July 7 2006

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What ever happened to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll?

you could play air guitar along to Led Zeppelin's "In My Time of Dying," you could do whippets and listen to Yes and make out in the back of your boyfriend's Pinto to "Teenage Wasteland" and you didn't have to consider the demographic implications of any of it.

But once the marketing killjoys invaded our most treasured turf, the rock 'n' roll fantasy was over. We wouldn't want to join any demographic that would have us as members, after all. Around the same time that Beatles songs started to remind us of Nike footwear, we knew that the thrills and spills of our messiest indulgences had finally lost their romance, and all that was left for us was a neutered life of couples therapy, psychotropics and soft jazz.

Sure, it was inevitable that someday, we'd stop screaming our guts out at rock shows and throwing up into trash cans, and start flipping through Anne Geddes picture books (Awww!) while sampling soft cheeses and sipping rosé on ice. But it still seems sad, somehow -- not because making out with smelly teenagers in beat-up cars was really all that spectacular, but because, thanks to years and years of being embraced and celebrated, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll have become as flaccid and empty as we have.

How low the mighty have fallen.

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Well I hope you're happy with what you've made
(Puzzling Evidence)
In the land of the free and the home of the brave
(Puzzling Evidence)
I'm seeing
Puzzling Evidence

- David Byrne

This morning, I first discovered this story:

ALL-SEEING BLIMP ON THE RISE

Then I found this one:

'Big Brother' eyes make us act more honestly

The possible connections and implications are quite frightening. . .
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