May 22, 2004 - 7:37 AM

It's Saturday morning and I can't stop listening to Aqualung's "Brighter Than Sunshine". It's on repeat even. I can't get enough of this song. It has been supersized and then quadrasupersized and then ultraquadrasupersized and i am eating every bite and can't get enough like the fat kid in Willy Wonka who gets sucked sucked sucked up the pipe while his mother and other brats looked on in horror. and that part always scared me. freaked me out a little. just the helplessness of the poor boy and the bystanders and the oompa loompas smug satisfaction. that movie was a daymare and a nightmare all wrapped up into a colorful metaphor for being good and good things would happen. i mean, who didnt like charlie and his grandpa? who didnt root for charlie? the choices werent the best, yes, i understand that. but still veruca salt? come on? you wanted to stab her in the eye with a fork. dont lie. that cowboy kid? the fat girl? we hated them. dont lie. and now i sometimes run into their parents at soccer or softball games. funny how Roald Dahl made up people who i would run into later in life.

brighter than sunshine is playing again and i now know the lyrics and at first it was just the music (see?!) and now it is both the music AND the lyrics. He says, "what a feelin in my soul...love burns brighter than sunshine....it's brighter than sunshine.....let the rain fall, i don't care, i'm yours and suddenly you're mine...and it's brighter than sunshine..."

pity the fool who never felt the way that song details.

i'll leave you with this and my yearning heart:

05.17.04 - Greenwich Village, NYC 6:00 P.M.

The correct lyrics are "Mary, Lynn and a virgin have mated with Wayne (Newton)" The "Newton" is silent when following a Lynn or virgin. Just wanted to make that clear.

To everyone out there in ckkl land-There is no need to call me Mr. Duritz. Sir is fine, or Your not-quite-as-humble-as-you-should-be-ness. "Egotistical little bastard" is more of a nickname but only my mom really calls me that anymore. (it just occurred to me that CKKL land is Cloudkookooland land. Which is stupid.)

Sorry if I haven't written at CKKL land land (cant stop-must...find way...to...stop). I just can't post two places at once and I figure this way everyone gets it. I only have one set of thoughts on each subject. (I was going to supersize and get the double pack with cheese and bacon but I went the cheapo way.) I hope this doesn't make you feel any less special. I, when I'm alone in my room away from the prying eyes of strangers, think of you as more than special. Do you hear me everyone else out there? You are not as special as people out there who are more special than you are.

Zachary's Pizza is in Oakland near the Berkeley border on College Ave about a block north of Rockridge BART (That's Bay Area Rapid Transit. In Fresno, they call it something else). Get the spinach and mushroom stuffed pizza. Trust me.

Miles did play trumpet on "Kind Of Blue" but I think mostly flugelhorn. Still, if any album was going to make you want to play saxophone, this qould be it. The sax players on KOB are incredible-Julian "Cannonball" Adderly on tenor and John Coltrane on alto. As much as this is the seminal Miles work, it is standout work by the two of them as well, some of the best of their careers.

The naked woman in the "Hanginaround" vid is none other than the lovely Juli Ashton. I met her on the set of the video that day. I didnt know her before then. She was a friend of the director Gregory Dark and he put her in quite a few of his videos. I think he felt she was good luck. I have since become friends with her myself as she is a truly lovely person. Now she has her own radio show on XM satellite radio.

I'm going to go see Graham Colton at the Mercury Lounge tonight. What are y'all doing?

Oh for god's sake. Perfect blue buildings are most certainly not coffins. They are perfect blue buildings. The green apple sea referred to is definitely not an obscure reference to a Wilfred Owen poem. It is, rather, the very green sea washing up right next to the pretty blue buildings. Doesn't it sound pretty? This not a song about drug addiction and while I think all those complex metaphors are interesting when linked to things in the song, they kind of limit the scope of it. The buildings and the sea in the chorus are meant to be pleasant soothing images. That's why they are so seductive to him/me. While coffins and gas masks are related to death, ask yourself "how do they make it a pleasant seductive thing?" I don't think they do. I think they're rather horrifying. That being the case, although those images are related to issues in the song, they work against, rather than for, the thrust of the song. They would have more of a place in the verses than in the choruses which are meant as contrast to them. Blah blah blah.

To the person who compares our work in a corporate culture to "selling out", I would say...this is a business. This isn't the culture I would have chosen to work in. I don't really like it. I didn't vote for the guys who seem to absolutely love it. But I work in a part of it and that is how I earn a living. If simply working with a corporation made one a sellout, nearly everyone in America would be one. I think that's silly. "Selling out" would I think involve somehow selling one's ideals down the river for a buck. I don't think people do that by going to work. I personally did not arrive here with a life's mission to fight against the forces of Coke. That is not my idea of a revolutionary thought. That seems a bit childish to me since I drink it. I chose a life outside the norm and it was scary. I'm happy it worked out. But I suppose revolutionary thoughts and revolutionary actions are two different things. You have to leave the safety of your bedroom to accomplish much in the way of the latter.

Some of you are still rather unpleasant people and, unfortunately for everyone concerned, so am I.

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