Okay, maybe I didn’t get enough sleep but at least I’m awake. Forgot to take my vitamins. Anyway.
Off to have coffee with my dear colleague Mo tonight, as it’s been ages since we had a good chinwag; he is a little more morally advanced than I as he doesn’t eat things with faces anymore.
I am almost to the point where I can start writing comedy again… writing sermons is incompatible with writing comedy, because I have to be in a respectful, consider the implications of what I’m saying kind of mood when I’m writing a sermon and I have to be disrespectful and considering the complete idiocy of the implications of what I’ve said when I’m writing comedy, so it’s quite a challenge to go back and forth. Hopefully that’s the last one I’ll have to write for a while.
Katie insisted that I put on my old albums last night, and AS USUAL I found myself singing along like the world’s largest Karaoke Moron and AS USUAL cursed at all the fluffs, errors, the completely rancid guitar sound and how I really SHOULD record all of them again. The stupid thing is that some of them are classics. I know that sounds really self absorbed, but Artificial Happiness is an amazing song. In three verses it traverses most of the moods and difficulties of having a depressive illness when you’re in a family situation; it does it with neatness and economy and a very good rhyme scheme, and the chorus is catchy. Erica’s Song is just a plain sappy love song, except that the lyrics are really good. And Some Words Before We’re Through, with the incredible pun (that nobody ever gets, that’s all David Dowker’s fault (go check http://members.rogers.com/alterra/content.htm if you’re interested in language poetry)) in the middle and the very puerile but somehow entertaining imitation of Bob Dylan’s songwriting style and the TRUE STORY in the second verse, in which a woman gives somebody all her money, which actually happened to a friend of mine when she was mentally ill, and the street musician she gave the money too had a baby and was about to be evicted, and then they met again in Vancouver, and then I got to meet him too, so the song and the story got to be in the same room, which was extremely cool. Trust me, it’s a good song, and then Paul told me it was too depressing and I should put a better ending on it, so I did, and it’s better. And then there’s I Guess I Never Felt This Way, which the kids helped me write when we were living in Montreal (that’s a funny sad story) and Bela Lugosi is the King Around Here, in which a bunch of people at a party all start telling stories; the first one is true and the rest get com-PLETE-ly out of control. And there’s beer and Plan 9 from Outer Space in it, how could it be better?
The only thing wrong with these songs is that they are basically archival. Only a very fond person would sit still for listening to them, even if they are good tunes; they all need arranging in the worst possible way, and now somebody’s forced me to listen to them again I’m now contemplating spending more money I don’t have to redo them. Pic is some random whatever off the drive.
