A quick one while he's away

Yes, this is a quick entry, but I also am using this entry as a beginning of my declaration of love for The Who. "A quick one while he's away" is a song ostensibly about a girl who's man goes away, and finds solace in the arms of Ivor the Engine Driver after friends suggest the very thing. Her man returns, finds out she's been unfaithful, but then forgives her. Its a 10 minute long song comprised of 4 smaller, 2:30 second songs. If you haven't heard it, I suggest you find it and give a listen. Pete Townshend is on record saying that the song is about child abuse, but since all 4 members collaborated on the song, I'm not so sure that the rest of the band would agree.

I'd also like to mention, at least start to mention, because I could go on about this for pages at a clip, is how The Who are far more influential to rock and roll than The Beatles. The Beatles really weren't rock and roll, they were pop artists. They started off very poppy, and then got eclectic, but had a time shaking that pop outlook and sound. There's plenty of songs in their later days, after their "rebirth" of Sgt. Peppers, that remained popular and attractive to the general populace. The Who certainly had their share of popular songs, but they also had songs like the one I mentioned above, as well as another rock operetta, "Rael" that were innovative and completely ahead of their time. In 1966, when The Who were releasing songs like "A Quick One..", "Happy Jack", and "Cobwebs and Strange"(a blog post in itself), the Beatles were releasing songs like "Paperback Writer", "Good Day Sunshine", and "Taxman". I've heard critics extol their Revolver album like it was the second coming of Jesus or a really good dump after a hard night's drinking, they go on and on about how refreshing and revolutionary it was. Bull. Some compare the drum playing in "Tomorrow Never Knows" to "Cobwebs and Strange". When they do, I immediately discount their opinion.

The Beatles weren't the best band of their time, they were simply the biggest pop stars. They didn't have the most talent, they didn't have the best song writers, they didn't have the best musicians, and they sure as hell didn't have good stage presence. They would stand there like they were on display at Madame Tussaud's, and play their little instruments and sing their little songs like the good little organ grinder monkeys that they were. No, at that time, 1966(just for reference), there were The Who and The Rolling Stones, and soon after came Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. But focusing on what the Who were doing in 1966, they were rocking the hell out, destroying stages, and being real god damned rock stars. At the same time, they were collaborating on songs like "A Quick one while he's away", expanding their repertoire and range.

Getting back to the beginning subject(hah!) of this post, go have a listen to the song. If you like Tommy, you'll love it.

Mental Stability

What makes someone "mentally stable"? First off, before anyone thinks that I'm pulling a Tom Cruise, I fully believe that such a thing as mental illness exists, and that there are chemical imbalances that can manifest in a person's mental state and well being, as well as environmental influences that can affect a person's outlook, behaviour and many other aspects of their life. No, I'm not questioning that, I'm questioning the other side of the scale, mental stability. What constitutes being sane? I think it was put very well in 12 Monkeys:

JEFFREY: You know what "crazy" is? "crazy" is "majority rules". Take germs for example.

COLE: Germs?!

JEFFREY: In the 18th century there was no such thing! Nobody'd ever imagined such a thing -- no sane person anyway. Along comes this doctor...Semmelweiss, I think. He tries to convince people... other doctors mostly...that there are these teeny tiny invisible "bad things" called germs that get into your body and make you...sick! He's trying to get doctors to wash their hands. What is this guy...crazy? Teeny tiny invisible whaddayou call 'em?..."germs"!

The same case can be made for a number of scientific beliefs, including a heliocentric solar system, the nature of atoms and atomic makeup, etc. Many of the people who first espoused these beliefs were considered, at the least, eccentric, and at the most, crazy and/or heretical.

Now, I'm not saying that everyone who's mentally ill is just misunderstood. I'm saying that it can happen to anyone at anytime, and it doesn't preclude that person from having valid views or opinions, necessarily. I read a blog written by a well-spoken, intelligent, funny guy who just happens to have crippling anxiety and depression. Does that make his thoughts or ideas any less valid? I don't think so.

I was writing this blog when the news came across the wire that Terell Owens supposedly tried to commit suicide by eating several(35) pain pills that he was taking for his current injury. Its completely out of character, and odd, given his previous self-aggrandization(is that a word?) and arrogance, as well as his worry-free lifestyle of fast cars, women, and all the gold he can carry. I was crass when I heard the news, saying "I wonder if he washed the pills down with Cristal?" It just goes to show you that it could happen to anyone, though, and no matter how perfect a life a person seems to have, they may have that voice inside of them that says they're not good enough to live, or that life is too difficult, or not worth continuing.

Now T.O.s publicist and friends(one of whom is noted coke-head Michael Irvin) are claiming that there's no way that he could have attempted suicide, and that the police must be wrong. The police are now starting to retract their statement, which, if you ask me, is only happening under threats of libel, slander, defamation of character, and other nasty sounding legal terms that would lead to the department and possibly the city getting sued.

Night Lights

I'm a geography nut, of a sort. Global geography enthralls me, and wow, did that sound horribly mundane. "Hi, my name is cow, and I like geography and watching paint dry." Ig. Anywah, I do like geography, and my slightly more interesting...interest is astronomy. I'm sure that you've seen the "night sky" picture shown below, and closer to life size at http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0208/earthlights02_dmsp_big.jpg.

Some interesting things that I notice, combining my love of geography and astronomy:
1)Look at the Nile. A ribbon of light in the otherwise dark expanse of Africa. None of the other great rivers of the world are so outlined, even the Mighty Mississippi. Also, I am surprised to see as many lights in the middle of the Sahara, relatively speaking.
2)Compare India to a big chunk of Iran and Afghanistan. Huge difference. I'm sure some of that has to do with geography, but how much of it has to do with politics and wealth?
3)The Trans-Siberian railroad sticks out like a sore thumb in the wastelands of upper Russia.
4)Even from space, the grid-like nature of middle America is easily seen.
5)Compare Cuba to Puerto Rico and even Jamaica. For having 4 times the population, Cuba's pretty dark.
6)This is the most telling part of the map/picture that I can point out. Look at Korea. Specifically the difference between North and South Korea. The border is such a distinct feature, it looks like South Korea is an island.

Another thing I'd like to point out about this picture is the staggering amount of people who, when after 9/11 happened, believed that a section of this picture(North America) was a single picture, taken from space, of people lighting candles in memory of those lost in the hijacking/bombings. This displays an ignorance about weather,(no clouds?) time,(it was supposedly taken at 10:30 PM EST, yet there's no terminator off the west coast) geography(why were Mexico and Canada, and especially Cuba lighting candles?),the amount of light cast by a single candle,(even millions of them wouldn't produce nearly as much light as is shown in those pictures) and an overall sense of self-centerdness that Americans, and humans as a more general group, have. A single human is so infintessimal on the scale of the Earth, let alone the Solar System or our galaxy, that its laughable. So with that happy note, I'll bid you adieu until next time, when I might regale you with my theory debunking the "butterfly effect". Yes, I may be mad-scientist-crazy.

(Sorry for any spelling errors, I can't get Blogspot's spell-checker to work. *pokepokepoke*)

White Rabbit

Much like the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, I am obsessed with time. Its a driving force in my life, I'm constantly thinking about what time it is, and I'm constantly in fear of being late when I need to be somewhere, even if its a self-imposed deadline. I always have two sources of time available to me, usually a watch and a clock of some sort, be it computer, analog, phone, or other. I'm constantly calculating how long it will take me to get somewhere, or how much faster I could get if I went this way, or how long I spent doing this, or that, or how much time is needed to go this way or that, etc.

This obsession with time is even more interesting when you take into account my wife. Her concept of time is nearly the opposite, time is a very fluid thing to her, both time of day and periods of time. 5 minutes to her is "just a short amount of time", and thats how she'll measure it in her head, "just a short amount of time". Realistically, this may be anywhere between 5 minutes and an hour. It may sound like I'm bashing her for this, or that I think this is a problem. I admit, it can be frustrating to a time slave such as myself, but that is more of my shortcoming than hers. I admire her ability to not care about time, and to be able to see it as a more flexible thing, because it releases one's servitude to the clock and allows her, in turn, to be more flexible in her daily life.

I'm not sure if I want to "fix" this time obsession, because a) it would be very difficult to change, b) it would make things interesting when it came to getting places on time, and c) I'm no so sure I want to change it. Temper it, perhaps, but not discard it completely. I need to be more flexible when it comes to measuring my time, and thats going to take some work.

"Inchworm, inchworm, measuring the marigolds, could it be you stop and see, how beautiful they are"