There’s the Dead’s way of performing, and there’s this way; everything else sucks. Either try as hard as you can, or don’t try at all.
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
Author: Thoughts On The Dead (Page 117 of 1031)
You mustn’t let the streets beat you.
President Trump has suggested multiple times to senior Homeland Security and national security officials that they explore using nuclear bombs to stop hurricanes from hitting the United States, according to sources who have heard the president’s private remarks and been briefed on a National Security Council memorandum that recorded those comments. – Axios, 8/25/19
Should we nuke hurricanes?
No.
How strong a “no” is that?
Stronger than the winner of “Strongest Man” in a Strongman competition who was only competing to honor his recently dead wife.
That’s very strong.
We understand each other. There should be not only no intentional deployment of nuclear weapons against hurricanes, but we must also endeavor to prevent any accidental meetings. Like Uncle Georgie and the children, nukes and hurricanes must be kept in separate rooms.
But why? It seems like an obvious idea.
“Let’s nuke the hurricanes” seems like an obvious idea to you? Did you go to the same medical school as Dr. Evil? Nuking hurricanes is prima faciea a dumb idea. It’s like infecting animals with diseases and pointing ’em towards the enemy.
…
I am being informed that humanity has attempted that particular gambit on countless occasions.
Yeah, we’re awful. Explain to me why we can’t nuke hurricanes. Debate me in the marketplace of ideas!
See, here’s why that’s stupid: the marketplace isn’t for debating. It’s for selling shit.
Coward!
Oh, fine. You do the heavy lifting: why are we nuking the hurricanes now?
Well, hurricanes are organized weather systems. Maybe a large explosion in just the right place would break up the storm’s cohesion, thereby lessening its destructive power.
You’re absolutely right. It would.
What?
A big enough bomb will kill anything.
Awesome. Let’s nuke some hurricanes.
We don’t have a big enough bomb. You’re vastly overestimating the power of a nuke, and vastly underestimating the power of a hurricane. A Category Five storm generates more energy in a day than humanity can in a year. 200 times more. You could trebuchet the Tsar Bomba at a hurricane and its asshole wouldn’t even twitch. And, you know, the other thing.
The radiation?
Yeah, that. Imagine throwing shit at a fan. Now imagine that the shit makes your skin peel off and your liver shoot out your nose.
I’d rather not imagine that.
No one would, except those longhair boys in the denim jackets sitting in the corner of the cafeteria passing around a copy of Fangoria.
I think they’re in a band.
Yeah, so, like I was saying: literally the dumbest fucking idea in the world. Nuking a hurricane is not something you do, it’s something that a super-villain threatens to do to you.
Just the tiniest bit of thinking revealed how dopey the plan was.
Just the itsy-bitsy, teenie-weeniest bit. Yeah.
“Young lady, I’m gonna need you to reassemble my piano right now.”
“It’s a harp, Bob.”
“No, no. You can’t be a harp player; my drummer would be hurling drumsticks at you.”
“I swear to you that what I’m playing is a harp.”
“Uh-huh. And was it invented–”
“Harpo Marx did not invent the harp, Bobby.”
“–by Harpo…ah. So his name was just a coincidence, then?”
“Um, sure, yeah.”
Good to know.”
In the last installment of Your Festivals and You, we discussed the above semi-debacle, Summer Jam ’73 at Watkins Glen Grand Prix Raceway in Upstate New York. The promoters sold 150,000 tickets and then 600,000 kids showed up. This kills the Thruway. Once again, the producers and backers are not placed in the stocks for, oh, about a week or so, and once again New York’s governor does not call out the National Guard. (Reagan ABSOLUTELY would have sicced the Guard on the hippies, and had them set fire to a few black neighborhoods on the way back to their barracks. You couldn’t have gotten away with this bullshit in California at the time.) There is no way to keep the fans out.
Because–as I’ve mentioned before, and you can see for yourself in the posted photo–the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Raceway is located in a field.
Terrible strategic positions, ranked:
- John Travolta when he was in the bathroom at John McClain’s apartment and left his Uzi in the kitchen. That is the bottom. Worst possible place to be. Cannot be defended. 2/10, would not pet.
- Alley in between two buidings with lots of windows. A skilled operator tries to avoid this situation. There could be a sniper in any window. Or maybe just a guy with a brick. Literally no way to gain an advantage over your opponents from this position.
- Food Court. You cannot hold the food court. That’s the first thing prospective SEALs are taught during their training. Can’t be done, maggots! Food Court is a chaos engine! the instructors scream. The young men sound off in the affirmative, though they have no idea what their instructor means. They will learn. Oh, they will learn. And then the instructors try to drown the trainees. (I’ve watched several documentaries on SEAL training school, and it seems like 90% of it is just holding the recruits underwater and not letting them sleep until they go insane.)
- The upstairs closet. Michael Myers knows you are in there, Laurie. Stop being such a dummy.
- A fucking field. You can fight in a field. Until this very century, that was what war was (except for the navy stuff). Your guys and their guys oiled themselves up and ran at one another. Field is a great place to fight. Think of the alternatives! Swamps, mountains, forests: all wrong for fighting. You want a good field. Gettysburg is a field. Flanders Field is a field. Nothing like a field. But you can’t fucking hold a field.
Unless you build a wall.
This was Englishtown in 1977, and it was the next mega-concert on the East Coast after the Summer Jam. California had their Jam at the Ontario Speedway in ’74, and drew 350,000 for ELP, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath; the show was well-received, and the kids were well-behaved, and so there was another California Jam in ’78 that drew in equal number. Missouri also had a massive rockyroll event you’ve never heard of in 1974 called the Ozark Music Festival. 350,000 teens showed up there, too, but everyone overdosed and fucked in public and shit on the ground, and the Missouri legislature immediately passed a law against staging a concert that size.
Anyway, Englishtown is a racetrack just like Watkins Glen and Altamont and Ontario; same problem, therefore: How to limit attendance to ticket-holders only. The promoter John Scher’s inspired idea was to circumplant rail cars around the track like Caesar at Alesia. 150,000 (or so) came out, which is what the producers had prepared for, and–but for the scorching heat–everyone had a good time. There were enough hot dogs and bathrooms for everyone.
So: it could be done. A multi-act, all-or-several day(s) festival-style show could be produced in America without the governor getting involved, just a lovely weekend listening to hairy men playing Chuck Berry covers in a field.
Many in both the music and business industries found that to be interesting information.
Missy Elliot is a better Surrealist than Duchamp, if only for the fact that urinals don’t slap this hard.
Hey, Bobby. Whatcha doing?
“Receiving an award, apparently.”
You didn’t know you were getting that?
“I thought I came on the stage to jam with Peter Tosh.”
He died in ’87.
“Peter Tosh’s hologram, then.”
No. What is the award for?
“I have no idea. It’s a lovely gesture, though. I’m, uh, gonna thank some Jewish fellows.”
Why?
“Well, I watch the Oscars every year, and that seems to be the thing to do. Get an award, thank some Jews. So, uh, here goes: Thanks, Mickey. And, uh, who’s the redhead with the voice who runs this festival?”
Peter Shapiro.
“Him. I thank him. Yaphet Kotto, too. Wanna be diverse in my appreciations, so I’m gonna thank Yaphet Kotto.”
Bobby.
“The man’s a Jew.”
Bobby.
“Wouldn’t know it from looking at him, but he’s a full-on Hebrew.”
…
“And, uh, that lady who plays Wonder Woman.”
You done?
“With what?”
Good speech, buddy.
Say a prayer for the boys out on tour. All the Okies and Limeys and curtain climbers.
“Hello, Chinese youth and disgusting gwi-lo. Be good boys and girls. Be like Jackie. Do exercise, sing song, listen to Communist Party. No protest. Protest is for bad people. You no be bad. Be like Jackie.”
GODDAMMIT, ARE YOU SITTING AROUND ALL DAY GETTING HIGH AND WATCHING KUNG FU MOVIES AGAIN?
…
Little bit.
Asshole.
Hey, Prairie Dog. Whatcha doing?
“Burrowing, eating seeds and grasses, carrying the plague. Same old thing.”
Right. It’s that last thing I need to talk to you about.
“The seeds and grasses?”
I said “the last thing.”
“The plague.”
Right.
“You’re upset about the plague situation?”
Well, you’ve inconvenienced a lot of people…what can I call you?
“Nate.”
Your name is Nate Dog?
“You’re upset about the drug-and-burrito bazaar being shut down, and lament the frivolity that you believe yours by birthright.”
Um, sure.
“And yet spare no tear for the thousands of my brothers and sisters this so-called ‘plague’ has taken. Oh, no! Some little white motherfucker isn’t gonna get to buy himself a grilled cheese! We’re dying, actually dying in the tens and hundreds and thousands, and you don’t even notice, but to celebrate. That shit kills 90% of the prairie dogs that get it!”
Wow.
“Blaming us? Ha! Where did we come from? You wanna know where prairie dogs came from? We came from right the fuck here, pal. The prairie. See how there’s no trees? We’re what the basic rodent chassis evolves into if it’s left in a treeless environment. We’re from where we are. Where’s the plague from, dicknose?”
Europe? Asia?
“But not Colorado, right? Definitely not from Colorado?”
No.
“Our land wasn’t enough. Our pelts, our meat. You imperialist motherfuckers even want to get in our bloodstream. It’s a sickness with you people.”
What do you mean “you people?”
“I said what I said.”
There’s a cure for the plague, you know.
“We know what you did to those poor bastards at Tuskegee. No doctors.”
I wasn’t suggesting doctors. What if all of you just popped your little heads out of your holes at a pre-determined time? During the day, obviously.
“Are you suggesting what I think you are?”
Listen, Nate, it’s in your species’ best interest to be culled.
“You must be shitting me.”
We want to be humane, so let us shoot you in the head.
“No! How can you be so cruel?”
Capitalism demands it.
“What about the People?”
The People are the ones who demand Capitalism. Everything loops back on itself up here.
“We burrow in straight lines.”
Bully for you.
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