I like to watch TV. I like sitting on the couch in the dark and watching. I like older TV shows especially. Like Ralph Kramden: he yells a lot and he threatens to hit his wife, but you know he won’t. He can’t. I mean, that’s the joke. Or Archie Bunker: he’s a bigot and racist, but you like him. You feel bad for him. But now TV is different, or maybe it’s real life that’s different. Like, reality TV, it’s not real except then it becomes real. What would it be like to be young now, and instead of seeing stuff on TV that you’d seen in real life, seeing stuff in real life that you’d seen on TV? The world is just a projection of your imagination, fantasy is reality, how great is that? Except that what most people fantasize about is stupid and selfish, just about power and sex and always coming in first. Why be Fay Wray when you can be King Kong. Why be either when you can be both.
I don’t know what will happen now to people who like to lie on the couch in the dark and watch. Will we just be taken advantage of, ignored, left in the darkness? I guess the story everyone wants is that we stand up and go into the hills to join the good guys. Whoever they are. Sign up for a team, wear the team colors and wave the team flag. I hate all that stuff, I hate team sports, I don’t want to be on anybody’s team.
That reminds me of a dream I had the other night. In the dream I was asleep, or anyway I woke up and there was a huge fire, it wasn’t just my house, everything was on fire and I was trying to find my way out but it was so smoky, and then it was all flames, I couldn’t run anywhere I was just trapped. Then somehow the fire stopped, I guess it was later, I was still in the same place but everything had burned down and there was nothing standing any more except the beams of the house and the fireplace. I wasn’t inside or outside anymore, everything was burned down and smoldering and covered with ash. Flying from the beams of the house were all these flags, just at shoulder height and covered with ash. It was almost dark but there was just a little blue light coming from somewhere. I stood there, I didn’t know what to do, and I realized that there was something in the house still, this is the weird part, I mean there wasn’t even a house left but there was something, it was like a spirit or a ghost, there was something still there, we’d forgotten or didn’t even know it was there before but now it was the only thing left, and I thought…I felt like crying, but I thought, if ever there was a moment for singing…I don’t know. I mean, it was just a dream.
The light may be fading
And we can’t see the flame
Sometimes we lose sight of our ultimate aim
But the struggle itself will go on, my friends
The struggle goes on all the same
I don’t know what will happen now to people who like to lie on the couch in the dark and watch. Will we just be taken advantage of, ignored, left in the darkness? I guess the story everyone wants is that we stand up and go into the hills to join the good guys. Whoever they are. Sign up for a team, wear the team colors and wave the team flag. I hate all that stuff, I hate team sports, I don’t want to be on anybody’s team.
That reminds me of a dream I had the other night. In the dream I was asleep, or anyway I woke up and there was a huge fire, it wasn’t just my house, everything was on fire and I was trying to find my way out but it was so smoky, and then it was all flames, I couldn’t run anywhere I was just trapped. Then somehow the fire stopped, I guess it was later, I was still in the same place but everything had burned down and there was nothing standing any more except the beams of the house and the fireplace. I wasn’t inside or outside anymore, everything was burned down and smoldering and covered with ash. Flying from the beams of the house were all these flags, just at shoulder height and covered with ash. It was almost dark but there was just a little blue light coming from somewhere. I stood there, I didn’t know what to do, and I realized that there was something in the house still, this is the weird part, I mean there wasn’t even a house left but there was something, it was like a spirit or a ghost, there was something still there, we’d forgotten or didn’t even know it was there before but now it was the only thing left, and I thought…I felt like crying, but I thought, if ever there was a moment for singing…I don’t know. I mean, it was just a dream.
Song: Partisans (reprise)
The light may be fading
And we can’t see the flame
Sometimes we lose sight of our ultimate aim
But the struggle itself will go on, my friends
The struggle goes on all the same
6 comments:
The temperature was definitely 451.
The situation was not any fun.
My current favourite quotation, from Edmund Burke: "A perfect democracy is the most shameless thing in the world."
Dennis and I disagree about the "Democracy Has Failed" song. He thinks it's the Angry White Male's point of view; I think it's an elitist observing the Angry Whote Male. In true St. John's fashion, we preserved the ambiguity. Now I know I could have added a verse:
Democracy, my friends, just doesn't work
It's a shameless thing, said Edmund Burke
That's nice.
Are you presenting it in concert soon?
Also, "Whote" is good, cross between "white" and "whore"
Angry Woot Male.
We did two performances of this in April, no plans to do it again. However we're working on doing "Adam & Eve on a Raft" again in October.
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