High Masculine Tones

The light at the bottom of this pint glass -- it's just so...

Some people I know give so much of themselves that there's nothing left. Some give so little that they dry up and have nothing to give. Some people give it up to other people only with the firm expectation they receive something that resembles respect in return. Some will not even pretend to give it up to others lest they undermine their play in the grand game.

There's no life like it -- gotta love the selfishness of selflessness.

Some people I know live so deep inside their fear they don't seem to be afraid of anything. Some let their fear dictate every action, in the pursuit of one kind of security or another. Some people are so afraid of themselves that they smash everything that they build, usually before completion. Some people put up quite a good front, but they all break down under closer examination -- the better the front, the grander the collapse. The solid ones collapse in private.

We are so eager to lose our fear that we will permit anyone to get at us if they seem to promise relief. Learn how to frighten friends and influence people.

Some people I know should take a look around. Some people never learn. Some have it coming. Some people could learn a thing or two. Some people smell vaguely of catpiss. Some people are causing trouble for the rest of us. Some people have no idea how bad it's gonna get.

I grew up on rock music, pledging my depraved teen patriotism to Rock Nation, but my disaffection with the genre has grown steadily the past few years. Some of the blame might be directed to the demise of the tapedeck in our car, and the resulting ravages of commercial rock radio -- a demographically formatted aural regime, an apocaplyse of the human spirit. There's also my own involuntary descent into adulthood... for as I sink deeper into my thirties, a crunchy guitar laid over a 4/4 beat starts to feel less like deliverance and more like a guilty pleasure, at best.

So it was with some trepidation that I ventured to a soulless outdoor venue -- the first concert for both myself and my partner since the birth of our son ten months ago -- to catch a bill headlined by The Flaming Lips... a band whose CD's I've long enjoyed (though never seen live), and still respected, but... I was prepared for the familiar letdown that I've come to expect at such events.

The venue certainly did suck, and I'll indulge a brief, parch-throated rant on the unavailability of drinking water at the show -- no drinking fountains, no taps available in the washrooms (port-a-potties), and a thirty minute lineup at the sole concession stand yielding nothing but lemonade. The bastards refused to fill my water bottle from a tap in a sink less than two feet away. Other patrons told me that security guards had siezed plastic bottles of water they'd brought with them to the show. Not often I'd say this, but thankfully I wasn't on MDMA... the enforced drought was downright irresponsible in today's psychochemical environment.

Not that we needed chemical ecstacy... The Flaming Lips delivered with a criminally short (70 min) set which exceeded my most fervent desires. Start with the fantastic hi/lo technical array of projection screens, confetti cannons, strobe lights, balloons, dancing animals... Mix in a stellar musical performance that kicked all the right notes, and twisted over-the-top good humour. My niggling inner critic wishes for a few of the older songs (the set drew almost exclusively from the past couple of albums), but certainly can't complain that the band didn't give up the goods.

They did it without seeming for a moment like cooler-than-thou Rock pricks. The band sat visibly sidestage through the opening acts, set up their own equipment, and were refreshingly willing to express unironic joy throughout the performance... eventually rousing a typically lethargic Vancouver crowd, one weighed down by a heavy collective dose of BC Bud, to their own heights of musical transcendence.

The Flaming Lips stream their latest album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots free on the web... and if it at all catches your fancy, you absolutely must see this band live.

Well, it's been a long time, been a long time, been a lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely time.

And so much has happened since I was gone. I have to admit, of course, that the Bush administration knew exactly what it was doing in Iraq after all. Just like that, the country is enjoying American-style law and order and well on the way to democratic self-determination. Saddam's massive arsenal of WMD have been safely secured.

And the neo-cons were right about the war's effects, too. The televised display of supercool military might has ushered in a new era of liberal democracy in the region, with revolutionary change already underway in Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

But I'm stalling for time here... the grim march of history bears only a tenuous relation to my pathetic posting frequency of late. I sincerely apologise to anyone who has been watching this space in vain.

And I know that Scribbler could use a visual redesign, that the left sidebar links need to be freshened up, that the "reading room" on the right sidebar is never updated and serves no apparent purpose. I must shamefully acknowledge that this weblog does not know what it really "is".

All this will be dealt with in due course. Plans are being made. Committees being struck. Charts being drawn, and numbers being crunched. I think you'll be amazed. I know I will be.