That Which She Thinks

Late to the party again. Not keeping up with the news.

So, like, Kid Rock was invited and then disinvited to perform at the inaugural? Making a case for his disinvitation, Michelle Malkin has posted some lyrics of his that are particularly repulsive. Some commenters have made a case that KR's early lyrics be dismissed as he as just a youngun' at the time, and he's since mellowed out a bit.

Okay. So, maybe those lyrics were the product of just a 25-yr-old hell-bent on making it in the music biz. Well, I was was 25 once and I never wrote crap like that.

Which brings me to the point of this post, yay! I present a lyric I wrote when I was at the unripe old age of 25:

THAT WHICH SHE THINKS
[This also happens to be set to one of the greatest tunes that Freedom's Slave has ever conjured up...!]

The eyes that watched me dressing are now staring 'cross the room at the portrait of a lady in a white lace galoon She has spoken of her history her sad and sordid tale I have promised that it's ended or at least it will be soon

and her fingers drum the table
leaving marks in settled dust
an expression of an emptiness
that I think she's come to trust
As she weighs the tired adversities against the possibilities
she seems to, once again, conclude that what she is in need of isn't me.

She knows I've tried to love her
she knows I want to care
One more look in the mirror and we'll be off somewhere
There's a sense of certain confluence when there's no time to think
but everytime we settle here
her look becomes that stare...

...and her fingers drum the table
leaving marks in settled dust
an expression of an emptiness I think she's come to trust
As she weighs the tired adversities against the possibilities
she seems to once again conclude that what she is in need of isn't me.

I should put up the original recording of that some time...

You Can't Handle The Truth!

Sometimes I forget that it's okay to write short posts. So, here's one:

Children's Questions That It's Best Not To Answer Honestly:

Why do you throw the lobsters in headfirst?

Why is Andrea Yates in jail?

What's sausage made of?

That's all I got for now. Got any more?

Surf's Up! (an interpretation)

^{[I tried to post this last night. I thought I did, buy it looks like I didn't. D'oh! Luckily I saved it in wordpad! ]}

It was the spring of 1981. I was a senior in High School and had become disenamored with the current trend in punk rock. All L.A. hardcore all the time and all sounding the same: crash and burn and scream and moan. So, I looked backward and re-discovered the Beach Boys.

All I had at the time was the double-album Endless Summer and the single disks Best Of... and Best of...Vol. 2. (They were mainly what was on Endless Summer, but was some added flair -- most notably "Kiss Me, Baby".)

So, in the spring of '81 I borrowed the Beach Boys' album Surf's Up from the local library.

I liked Mike Love's opening song "Don't Drink The Water" just 'cause it was an environmental song with a neat message. I also liked Bruce Johnston's "Disney Girls" for some reason.

But there were two tracks on that album that stood head and frickin' shoulders above the rest; "'Till I Die" and "Surf's Up".

"'Till I Die" is a morose little ditty. Perfect listening for an angst-ridden teenager who wants to "relax". Beautiful harmonies put to a swooning melody. A boy could sink into oblivion listening to that song in the headphones.

I like it less today because it's so pessimistic. Just the idea that a man older than I was at the time wrote that. But I also like it even more today because I can better appreciate the craftsmanship of the arrangement. It can still make me swoon so long as I forget about the meaning of the lyric.

So, there were four songs from that album that I taped to cassette. By far the most interesting one was "Surf's Up".
I didn't know anything about Smile at the time. To me this was just another song on their album of 1971. But, this one was different from the rest. While my fascination with it was mainly for the sound of it, I'd also always been fascinated by the lyric. It was like a painting set to music; and a puzzle of sorts. For years and years I've listened to this song and figured that the words were just word-association fun-time gibberish along the lines of "I Am The Walrus" or "Come Together".

I now know that I was wrong. Having heard Brian Wilson's new rendition of Smile on New Years Eve, I've been running this tune through my head nearly non-stop, and I think I finally get it.

Now, and without further ado, let's delve into Van Dyke Parks' masterpiece: the heel-to-the-brimstone-written "Surf's Up". It takes place, initially, in a concert hall. Imagine you're in Royal Albert Hall watching a symphony sounding....

A diamond necklace played the pawn

Firstly, I think of a chess pawn: the player of least value; the one that's most easily sacrificed for the good of the whole. Then, there's the diamond necklace; presumably a thing of great value. The most becomes the least in this "play".

Or, maybe it's just that the narrator has pawned a diamond necklace for the price of admission to this song. Either way it works for me, though it's probably just a pun that was thrown out as an opening line. Word has it that Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson wrote this at a piano in, like, five minutes or something.

Hand in hand some drummed along,
o-o-oh.. To a handsome man and baton

See the conductor waving the baton whilst noticing that others in the hall are drumming along. But there's something more to be heard: the background vocal sighs "by God, by God..." God is the conductor, or the music, or the orchestra, or, most likely, I think, the entire package.

A blind class aristocracy

As opposed to a "class blind" society, we're imagining a more real and immediate "blind class aristocracy". The wealthy dowager raising her glasses to her eyes.

Back through the opera glass you see
the pit and the pendulum dra-a-awn...

The orchestra pit is reflected as the pendulum motion of the baton is swaying upward. This also introduces the painting theme with "pendulum dra-a-a-a-wn...". The conductor looks a painter making very broad strokes that result in the fine intricacies of the music. Which brings us to the most seemingly convoluted lyric of '60s popular music:

columnated ruins domino

Imagine Carnegie Hall or some other grand music hall. There are columns, and what happens inside them is what's going on here. The narrator is sleepy and wondering where and when the next music will be made. So, Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson weren't writing about themselves, they were writing about this song! As they wrote it! (It's a neat thought, anyway.)

Okay. That goes along with the visual image of ancient columns falling into each other like dominos. But, a "domino" has another definition. It's a masquarade, a cloak, or "half-mask". (Think Phantom Of The Opera.)
The "domino" in the lyric is could be the half-mask; or, that eye-mask on a stick that looks like an opera glass.

Or, the entire theater, or life itself, could be the domino - the masquarade. What kind of domino is it? Why, it's a columnated ruins domino. And this song is about getting past the very mask it presents, and so we have the outward and encouraging:
(I imagine the conductor's pendulum-like baton movements to be not unlike a painter's brushstrokes and, on first hearing it, "canvass" sounds like "canvas".)

Canvass the town and brush the backdrop

Taverse the town, search it's essence, yet just brush (ssshh) the backdrop like a passing stranger. Just a passerby to what may or may not be permanant, for the sake of interacting with what may or may not be beautiful. I wonder if the next line is partly an in-joke...

Are you sleeping?

Nope, silly. The narrator is in a drowse. He awakens to the strains that seem to fade from here there, now to then, and the ornate music hall surrounds him:

[Incidentally, if that last bit seems out of place it's it is. Originally there was supposed to be a lyricless interlude there, and the whole "canvas the town..." part was to appear only where it appears the second time. In the Brian Wilson solo piano version that appears on the CD box-set Good Vibrations, Brian doesn't sing that part at this time.]

The second verse begins:

Hung velvet overtaken me,
Dim chandelier awaken me
to a song dissolved in the da-a-a-awn

Again, this is followed by the Carl Wilson's soaring and angelic "by God, by God..."

Have y'ever been half-asleep and heard a song on the radio? You're not sure of you dreamed it or not, and if it's a particularly ethereal piece it can be an enchanting experience.
(My most amazing experience of that was hearing Paul Simon's "Run That Body Down" while "half" asleep. If you've never heard a song while half asleep then y'need to take naps more often!)

The "dawn" is, of course, his awakening. This poor sap is still dozing off, though. Either in spite of, or because of, the orchestral beauty that has him surrounded.

The music hall; a costly bow
The music; all is lost for now
to a muted trumpeter's swa-a-a-n

This might be my favorite line. A "swan song" is a farewell; a final performance; a last work; a death wail. The angelic - though "muted" - trumpeter announces the esteemed arrival of the ending of something.
It also introduces the water theme, however slightly. The bow of a ship points where it's heading, but, is it heading for the swan's song?
Again the Music Hall's masquarade establishes it's presence:

Columnated ruins domino-o-o-o...

But the following is a bit curious...:

Canvass the town and brush the backdrop
Are you sleeping, Brother Jo-o-o-ohn...?

We all know the French lullaby that the is lifted from, and maybe Van Dyke Parks just through it in for laughs. But, I suspect this line may refer to John the Baptist.
Brian always said that Smile was "a child's symphony to God". Invoking John the Baptist would make sense as he is, obviously, associated with important things that happen in the water. The narrator is then asking if the baptism has left him, if John is "sleeping", since he feels so disconnected from the conductor's music.

The song shifts in tempo and meter, and becomes less lush as we are now outside the theater and cabvassing the town at midnight.

Dove nested tower,
the hour was.
Strike the street, quicksilver moon.

Gawd, I love that line. The tower is a clock tower with doves (or pigeons) nestled in it as the hour strikes. It sounds like midnight. I'd always heard the line before as: "the hour was strike. the street. quicksilver moon," which made no sense at all. But, hearing like I wrote it makes all the difference.

In the darkness of midnight the silvery moon is shining above. The beauty of the line is the phrase "quicksilver moon". Quicksilver is metalic mercury. We use mercury in thermometers because it is so close to it's freezing point in our normal temperature range that it's sensitive to subtle changes in ambient temperature.
(The moon is very cold in the shade and very hot in the sun, but we can think of it as being a very cold place for our purposes here.)

So, the light of the cold "quicksilver moon" is invited from above, and then contrasted to light from below:

Carriage across the fog,
Two-Step to lamplight's cellar tune.

The moon slow-dances across the sky while houselights come up from a basement apartment where music is being played/sung, and the narrator makes this observation:

The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne.

It's not only midnight, it's New Year's!
I'm not sure why the laughs are coming hard, though. My best guess is that hearing the sound of laughter from the cellar is difficult for the narrator, as he's in no festive mood at the moment and is feeling left out in the cold.

Then the tempo speeds up dramatically for this phrase:

The glass was raised, the fired rose,
the fullness of the wine,
the dim last toasting...

Woah. A wine glass was raised for a toast as the embers in the fireplace were also rising and toasting. Light from the cold quicksilver moon above, light from the toasty warm cellar below, and the narrator caught between them.

Then there's this delicious pun:

While at port adieu or die

It's a port wine they're toasting with, and the narrator is (nautically speaking) "at port" He then expresses the idea that change is essential to his survival. Either ring out the old and ring in the new, or die. (Which reminds me of the Dylan line "he not busy being born is busy dying".) Our narrator is in need of a change:

The choke of grief, heart hardened,
I, beyond belief, a broken man too tough to cry.

He is "beyond belief", without faith; cold and alone. Then the music shifts slightly and a gentle tune of baptismal realization comes in with:

Surf's Up, mmmm...
board a tidal wave.
Come about hard and join the young and often spring You gave

Onto the water he goes in a big way. The music he heard at the beginning and middle become, in the end, a new beginning:

I heard the word,
Wonderful thing;
A children's so-o-o-o-ng....

The cry that Brian Wilson wails is reminiscent of the last "oh, Caroline, no-o-o-o-o..." from Pet Sounds. But this time it's an epiphany, not sadness. It sounds similar, though. I guess it's because they both represent a kind of surrender; one to fate, one to the future, and sounding like a promise that they're not the same thing.

Is this what we've become?

Drudge links to this article that asks several commentators in the U.K. if the earthquake-tsunami tragedy might bring about a global effort to address poverty throughout the world.

I don't want to appear to be at all flippant during the ongoing rescue and relief efforts, but I am compelled to comment on how this question was answered by a few of the respondents. I wont address all of them, of course, just the ones that I feel like.

First up:

THE RIGHT REV TIM STEVENS, Bishop of Leicester

I am hopeful, but we must see a real commitment to changing the economic relationships between the West and the poorer countries. As well as charitable giving, we need to tackle these fundamental issues.

I'm not sure that it's the "economic relationtionships" that need changing more than changing the economic basketcase-ness of the "poorer countries". In the long term, tackling that fundamental issue is more important than charitable giving -- unless that charity is in the form of the proverbial teaching a man to fish.

RORY BREMNER, Comedian On an individual level, it is not just about what we are prepared to give, but what we are prepared to give up. Having left Afghanistan and Iraq in their wake, can our leaders be trusted to fight a war on poverty?

Let's give this guy some slack for being a "comedian". Let's forget that to "give" something is the same as to "give up" something. Let's even ignore the ianppropriate and inaccurate characterization of the progresses in Afghanistan and Iraq. The only response that needs to be made to this one is that misunderstanding the term "war on poverty" is what keeps prosperity away from the impoverished. Poverty is a natural state of being in that it is the absence of pro-activity. Poverty, then, is not something to be "defeated" so much as something to be transcended through opportunities being available and seized.

STEPHEN TINDALE, Executive director, Greenpeace It seems churlish to say it, but while it's relatively easy for most of us to give £50, it would be much harder for us to make the changes in our modern lifestyles that are needed if we are to move to a fairer world.

Not sure if it's churlish so much as it vague. What lifestyle changes do you have in mind, Stephen? Is it about oil, again? If we less of the poorer regions oil they'd be better off? And what does this have to do with Sri Lanka or Bangladesh? I don't see how our prosperity hurts anyone else. We created our wealth, we'll enjoy it, and we'll try mightily to spread it around just as we've been doing all along thank you very much.

DR GHAYASUDDIN SIDDIQUI, Leader of Muslim Parliament

Compassion, care and concern for mankind joins each of us - whatever our faith or ethnicity. The tragedy has shown there is a formula on which all mankind can be united to help each other. Mankind has moved forward.

Amen.

BILL BAILEY, Comedian

It was the same after 11 September. Everyone said it was a great opportunity to try to understand the world but it was used by the US as a reason to go on a rampaging adventure in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, I guess we'll go on a rampaging adventure through the Indian Ocean basin when we should just stay home and mind our own business. God I hope I'm never that cynical.

MO MOWLAM, Former cabinet minister

I think most people will simply forget. Some charities say people will even forget how much they pledged to give. I wish it would change our attitudes to other people in other countries, but I'm afraid that it won't.

One problem, I think, is that we're discussing poverty generally in the context of a specific natural disaster. I think this is clouding the issues a bit.
The impetus for the question is the current relief effort. The question itself is about poverty. The above statement makes sense when taken as an assessment of broader a concern. (Witness all those who think that America should just "get over" 9-11.)
But to address poverty, world-wide, demands the attentions of governments and the impoverished, not the relatively wealthy except in terms of charity. I'm just thinkin' out loud here, folks...

DINOS CHAPMAN, Artist

Western capitalism demands that people must be impoverished. I cannot think that anything will change this year, because we are the ones who have made the world the way it is. I don't believe in altruism.

Wow. "I don't believe in altruism." I can't bring myself to raise the Cluebat to someone that I pity. Next...!

LORD HURD OF WESTWELL, Former foreign secretary
The danger is that resources which might have gone to Africa will go to this instead. While huge publicity continues to be given to the tsunami, human beings are killing each other in Iraq, and places like Darfur.

Read that again. I'll wait.

It's a weird response, eh?
I think he means that, being so focused on the tsunami victims, we might forget about those suffering in other places. In that he has a point. But, otherwise, he sounds impatient and not thinking through his thoughts before answering. Or maybe he's just an idiot I dunno.

SIR MAX HASTINGS, Journalist and historian

We have to bear in mind that we have been here before. There have been tragedies before, and many fine things have been said, a lot of them by the US. We just have to hope that in this case they will follow through.

We always have, fucktard. But what's that got to do with the question at hand? Nothing? Oh, right, it doesn't matter.

J G BALLARD, Novelist

It would be one of the biggest breakthroughs mankind has ever experienced if we pooled our wealth in order to look after the poorer people of the world. Sadly, I don't think it will happen.

Well, if more countries (who'll go un-named) would like to jump in the pool with us, other countries might develope a working infrastructure. Then, maybe, we could accomplish something. Other than that, we'll always be back where we were: complaining about how the non-impoverished just don't do enough..

TONY BENN, Former cabinet minister

It may make people realise that the UN needs to be well-equipped and funded. If people diverted money from weapons and war, we have the technology and money to be able to help - if we decide to do that.

...and then be slaughtered in the process. These are the words of a willing slave former cabinet minister of a sovereign country. Sedition, anyone?

But I don't want to leave on a sour note. So, we have this final entry:

SIR RICHARD BRANSON, Entrepreneur

I think that politicians must realise that people do care about these issues and want them to do more. If 2005 could become the year when people make a real effort, then it could make a real difference.

General enough to be acceptable. Vague enough to be harmless. That's tact, pure and simple. Spoken like a true entrepeneur.

To sumerize: Nothing was revealed and noone was saved. What a waste of potential ad-space.

I hope I'm never this cynical again...

An Imaginary Conversation (Just For Fun)

Tuning Spork answers his cellphone:

TS: Hello?

Freedom's Slave: Yo, Spork.

TS: Yo, Slave. 'Sup?

FS: I'm up at the Trumbull Mall right now, but heading to the rock concert in a little while. Wanna come with?

TS: Groovy! I'm not home right now, though...

FS: Well, just tell me where you are and I'll come pick you up.

TS: 'Kay. Leave the mall over by where Circuit City is. Turn right and go until you get to Warehouse Liquors, turn right and then bear left so's you come out over at Super Stop & Shop. Turn left and go all the way 'til you get to the Splash Express Carwash -- across from M&R; Convience Mart -- and turn right. Go all the way past A&P; until you get to Pizza Post and then turn right. I'll meet out in front of Kohl's.

FS: Spork, I have no farkin' idea where any of those places are. Remember, I've been out of town for a few years.

TS: Oh, right. Okay. Leave the mall over where the UA Trumbull Theater used to be and take a right. Go past where Crazy Eddie used to be until you get to where Pathmark used to be. Turn right then bear left so's you come out where Dewhurst Dairy used to be. Turn left and go past where the Three Door Restaurant used to be until you come to where the Shamrock Pub used to be -- across from where Tom Thumb Variety used to be -- and turn right. Drive all the way past where King Cole Supermarket used to be until you come to where Fitzwilly's and the Community Theater used to be - over by where Bradlee's used to be. Turn right and I'll meet you out in front of where Caldor used to be.

FS: Got it. See ya in a bit.

TS: If I'm still here...

Happy New Year!

Hope everyone had a rollickin' and safe New Year celebration. I know I must've 'cause I slept 'til 1:30 this afternoon. Well hey, I didn't get home 'til 4:00 in the morning.

One highlight of the shindig was listening to Brian Wilson's Smile. I've heard to old Smile tracks many times over the years and this new version is awesome. It's faithful to the original arrangements with only a few exceptions, such as rewriting the lyric to Good Vibrations. Highly recommended!

I don't know why, but one mother at the party allowed her 14 yr-old daughter to have a vodka jello-shot. Within 15 minutes the girl was falling on her ass giggling and wondering why everyone was looking at her. While pacing back and forth and trying to push the right button to answer her cellphone, her dad said "Why don't you just plop yourself into that chair take a nap, Sweetie?" To which she replied "I think I'll just plop myself into this chair a take a nap..." Of course, she never took a nap.

After midnight a bunch of us gathered upstairs in the "band room" and Tex and I played a few numbers. We started with me on his drum set and Tex on guitar, then switched places. By that hour I was as well-lit as Times Square and had trouble remembering the first line to Night Moves. Sheesh, I've been singin' that song regularly for 15 years.

Originally the plan was to crash at Tex's and go home in the morning. But, as the party wound down, Norm, who was driving, said he was completely wide awake and sober and would rather just drive home that "night". So, at 3:30 am we drove back to Bridgeport.

So now I'm happy and sated and it's 65 degrees outside. But it's 4:30 and I haven't eaten yet so I'm gonna go whip up some chicken and stuffed 'shrooms.

Happy New Year!