Then What Happened???!?!?
Brian Beattie
Then I got the Swine Flu. Okay, not IMMEDIATELY, but I felt like hurling having diarrhea volcanic heartburn crap for three whole weeks, just barely getting essential tasks done, and now I forget all the interesting things I was going to write about MY UNBEARABLE TRAUMA. Like for instance I went over to Brian’s house (Brian Beattie) and discussed my Unbearable Trauma with him, and he said something helpful. (DO I REMEMBER what he SAID???? NOOOOOOOOOOO. (that is a John Belushi “No”.) I mean, I did at first and dwelt on it for days, and I am sure it helped, I just can’t remember what he said NOW. I am hoping I jotted it DOWN somewhere.)
One thing though: there was this one day where I said to myself: “What? I don’t feel anything about this topic. I am SO OVER IT! GAH!”
But you see, that is how I felt BEFORE I had my cake-delivery meltdown. I am pretty sure that when I DON’T feel ANYTHING about this topic, the UNBEARABLE TRAUMA topic, well I am pretty sure that that is called A STATE OF DENIAL.
DENIAL is a funny thing: I seem to be unusually good at it. It is the first stage of grief, I have read; my Mother died 5 1/2 years ago, and I am pretty sure I am still in DENIAL about it, as I have NOT yet experienced any of the other stages. I was talking to a friend about it, and I said, “Either I am still in DENIAL, or I am a really advanced spiritual genius, because, you know, she just doesn’t SEEM dead.”
Heh.
(I am, at this point, hoping for the Really Advanced Spiritual Genius Option, because I do NOT relish the idea of HAVING to go through all the other stages of Grief. I mean REALLY! Sounds like a total nightmare, especially after all this TIME!)
As you can see, once upon a time I was TOTALLY YOUNG! I think I am 22 in this picture.
But ANYWAY: I know I have not yet worked through my U.T., but I have been slowly progressing. I decided that I should measure my wound cleaning by this metric: AM I WRITING SONGS? That is how I will know that I am recovering. Have I written any?
NO!
BUT…..I have had ideas. Ideas for songs, that I have not yet written. Believe me, that is a Big Improvement!
Here is my first idea: I was thinking about HOW MAD I AM!!! HOW ANGRY I AM!! And I was having an Imaginary Conversation in my Head (I always do that. Do You?) SPLAINING just how EPIC my ANGER is, and I said (in my head) “My anger is Not As the Anger of the Others!! My Anger, it never sees the light of day, but it BURNS!! It Rages like an INFERNO inside me, patiently and slowly (BUT EPIC!) My ANGER is like the COAL MINE THAT BURNS UNDERGROUND….. THAT ONE IN Pennsylvania…You know….THE one that they expect to keep burning for Hundreds and Hundreds of Years and they keep having to MOVE THE TOWN!!!!” Eleventy One!!!”
Then I thought, Hey, that is a GOOD IDEA for a SONG! So I am going to write a song about that burning underground coal mine, and no one will know what I am talking about, except YOU, my 7 FOR REAL Kathy McCarty Fans who read this Blog! And when you hear the record you will be all like, “Wow it is so obvious that this song is about Kathy’s EPIC RAGE!! And nobody Gets it BUT ME!
But of course first I have to WRITE it.
(A Note: One day long ago on tour somewhere, I think it was on the HUGE tour, A fan came over to me and engaged me in Conversation, and he wanted to talk to me about my lyrics, and he said he really understood them, and I was thinking, “yeah I’m SO SURE,” and then he started talking to me about how “Invention” in about Oppenheimer inventing the Bomb, and like I WAS STUNNED, because HEY he really DID get my lyrics!! I mean, it isn’t THAT obscure in the lyric of “Invention”, but it was too obscure for, I don’t know, the Other Members of Glass Eye, or any Rock Critic in America, and that one fan was the only person to ever come up to me and start talking about it. Hey, Dude, if you are reading this blog, I Do REMEMBER YOU!)
This is my Cocker Spaniel Skip-Bo when he was, I dunno, A MONTH OLD.
(I actually DID write an annoying song called “Where’s My Pup?” about my dog Skip-Bo, that had a REALLY ANNOYING SQUEEZE-LIKE melody. I couldn’t decide if I liked the melody or not, because it was SOMEWHAT interesting, and then I decided it was just an exercise. I could probably make a whole record of short, annoying songs mostly about my dogs and daily activities. It could be used by the US government to Torture prisoners! Except, No, I wouldn’t let them use my annoying songs to TORTURE people with!! I think TORTURE is so wrong that I wouldn’t even torture DICK CHENEY, and you KNOW I really really WANT TO. Just to teach him a lesson. You know. About how torturing people is WRONG.
Speaking of, you know they DO use certain songs to torture prisoners. How would you like to be a recording artist whose song had earned THAT distinction? I think I would just DIE!!! Can you Imagine? I wonder if they use “Copacabana“. I bet they use “Don’t Worry Be Happy“. Maybe “Music Box Dancer”. Oh oh oh Maybe “The Pina Colada Song!” Or “Margaritaville“? “Popsicle Toes?”)
In comments, if you tell me a song you THINK they should use to Torture Prisoners, and I AGREE with you, I will send you a PRESENT!
November 20th, 2009 at 7:15 am
Hmmm. Interesting developments on the UT front. I should think you could get several song ideas out of it, rage being a particularly fruitful emotion for songwriting.
As for the torture songs, I am no expert in torture techniques, but I believe repetition is considered to be extremely, eh, productive. I Googled repetitious songs and it came up with these:
# “99 Bottles of Beer”
# “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet”
# “Ti amo”
# “The Wheels on the Bus”
# “If You’re Happy and You Know It”
What the heck is “Jesus’s Blood Never Failed Me Yet”??? Sounds scary.
My own choice would be more obscure: “There Goes Concorde Again”. Most repetitious. And annoying.
All the best from rainy London.
November 20th, 2009 at 9:45 am
By the strangest coincidence, I DO know what “Jesus Blood never Failed me Yet” is. A guy, an artist, put out a record of an old street bum singing the obscure hymn “Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet”, about a two sentence phrase of music, which the artist looped and added strings to and several kinds of enhancement, and sold it as a CD. It plays for about an hour (the looped hymn with embellishments.)
And I ACTUALLY OWN A COPY.
This is even more surprising when you consider that I only own maybe a hundred CDs. Maybe only fifty, seriously, I didn’t have ANY money in the nineties so I was never able to replace my vinyl with CDs, or buy many new ones. (Not that I had that much vinyl, either.)
November 21st, 2009 at 7:50 am
“Mr. Mom” by Lone Star.
“Somebody” by Reba McIntyre
“God Bless The USA” by Lee Greenwood.
I only know these godawful country songs because people I used to work with would play the local yokel country station all the time.
but then again, these songs are torture to me, and although there are some people I can’t stand (such as Dick Cheney), these songs might not be torture to them (and I know it is wrong to resort to torture, yes) but like is said above, repetition could make it harrowing.
I DID write a song once that I imagined you singing, in your voice. (around the time I discovered “Bent By Nature”, “Hello Young Lovers”, and of course “Dead Dogs Eyeball.”
November 21st, 2009 at 11:04 am
I once worked in an environment where country music was played, country radio, and YES, it was TORTURE! But mostly because country stations still do that 70′s thing where they repeat certain songs a GREAT DEAL, and of course, mostly all the songs are terrible.
The majority of songs in any genre are terrible, I am not saying this to disparage country music in particular.
I really Love Great songs, and I really really really hate terrible ones. SInce the majority of songs in all genres are terrible, this causes me to mistakenly believe that I hate MUSIC.
You can see how one might come to that conclusion.
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:32 pm
I just watched the Error Morris documentary about Aby Ghirab “Standard Operating Procedure” – excellent documentary – in it they asked one MP what music they would use to irritate and torture the Iraqi prisoners they held (during a period of time that he was instructed to subject them to music). He said first he played “Hip Hop Hooray” over and over, but eventually the prisoners started sining along to it and waving hands. Then he tried Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” – at first they were horrified, but after a while they learned to ignore it. Country music though did the trick, they couldn’t stand it.
Me, I’d put Journey and Steve Perry at the top of the list for torture. Dub Ornette Coleman playing sax over the top and that would be even more hellish.
March 2nd, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Allo,
)
I think any song overplayed could be a torture. I have very very wide interest in any kind of music. Strangely one that over the years since chilhood never failed to make me feel uncomfortable and even agressive is a beautiful one : “Pachelbel’s Canon”. Which is strange I know. Considering that I can easily listen to Diamanda Galas, blue grass music or Chopin. I guess that some Cheesy Barbie Pop music could do the torture job as well.
I like your blog
Have a good day.
April 27th, 2010 at 3:51 am
I just watched the Error Morris documentary about Aby Ghirab “Standard Operating Procedure” – excellent documentary – in it they asked one MP what music they would use to irritate and torture the Iraqi prisoners they held (during a period of time that he was instructed to subject them to music). He said first he played “Hip Hop Hooray” over and over, but eventually the prisoners started sining along to it and waving hands. Then he tried Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” – at first they were horrified, but after a while they learned to ignore it. Country music though did the trick, they couldn’t stand it.
Me, I’d put Journey and Steve Perry at the top of the list for torture. Dub Ornette Coleman playing sax over the top and that would be even more hellish.