Life is good. We’ve had two beautiful days of weather and that makes everyone seem to feel good. You can just sense it – winter is over. Another good thing about life is my appreciation for the ridiculous. This appreciation probably doesn’t make you feel any better, but hey, this is my weblog. Start your own if you want to. What I mean is that my appreciation for the ridiculousness probably doesn’t affect your life in any way. I am rambling and now I will stop. Plus my new deodorant is making my armpits itchy. I must address that.
Anyway, look at this picture and tell me that life is not beautiful:
This picture makes me realize how great America is. Not because the guy is dressed up like a complete fool. It’s because I can go to a wrestling show and forget about everything else for a couple of hours and just giggle. I mean, these guys go out there -and remember, this is large topless men, dressed in tights – and make complete fools of themselves! We eat it up and cheer, boo and yell to our hearts content and it is utterly ridiculous and it’s great fun. That’s America and I love it. The wrestler, by the way, is Hulk Hogan,and I must give props to my dad for taking the picture – a great shot in mid-pose.
On the drive home last night, I listened to The Byrds great album, calledFifth Dimension. I’ve been on a bit of a classic-rock kick as of late, and The Byrds are a woefully unappreciated band when speaking about the history of rock. “Eight Miles High” was, to me, a watershed song in rock music history and one of the best. I wish I were alive at the time to experience that for the first time on the radio and all the other amazing art that was coming out of music at the time.
Anyway, often thought of a song about being on drugs, “Eight Miles High” was banned from a lot of radio stations across the country. Not true. In fact, this was simply a song written about a thing that fascinated most members of The Byrds – flying in an airplane. In this case, they wrote the song about flying into England for the first time and how it was so different for them, being so young and all. Now, it could be argued that they actually wrote the song while on drugs – a good bet, I’d say – but it’s not about drugs. Anyway, back to the flying thing. One of the more interesting aspects of The Byrds were thier tendencies to try and add odd sounds to songs – a terrific song on this great album was called “2-4-2 Fox Trot,” and was all about flying, even incorporating the sounds of jets and pilot-speak. They did this recording on their own, by simply heading over to Los Angeles Airport and sitting just outside the fences, smoking pot, listening and recording the planes landing and taking off just above them. If I smoked pot, I might think about doing that – I also have a startling fascination with airplanes. Anyway, they then recorded the lyrics and some basic music, added the sounds of the airport, and whaa-lah – a song is born. A great song, in fact. Fifth Dimension isn’t the best Byrds album, but it’s right up there and I recommend it, uh, “highly.”
Song now playing: The Handsome Family – “Arlene”