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You’d think it goes without saying to not hurl yourself off PA towers at at concerts yet I’ve seen folks do it, just like I saw a couple guys try to drop out of an old fashioned movie theatre balcony into a row of metal framed theatre chairs. Those guys were both carried away in stretchers and one of them already had a sheet all the way over him.

People do stupid stuff.

When I was at the Grand Canyon I saw a handful of people sunning themselves on an outcropping that was a good, long, running jump. And the drop below it was, oh, I dunno… 600 feet? To make the jump back to terra firma, they had to get all the way back against the canyon edge of the outcropping, run a few yards across it and leap as far as they could to get across.

I watched one of them make the jump and my own heart almost jumped into my throat just watching.

It was so colossally foolhardy.

Anyhow. All that’s by way of introduction to this song, which posits that too may stage dives will eventually put you in the rubber room, where you’ll be doing…

today’s acoustic version:

full version:

RUBBER ROOM ROCK

I used to twist and do the jerk
they don’t let me do that no more
now all I do is do the worm
in my straight jacket down on the floor

but I still rock
I still rock
I do the Rubber Room Rock
Oh yea I rock
I still rock
I do the Rubber Room Rock

Used to slam and bang my head
ten thousand stage dives or more
dove forty feet from a PA tower
and went three feet into the floor

But I still rock
yeah I rock . . .

None of my friends are no fun no more
they just sit in the dayroom and stare at the floor
they come back from the lab with rings round their eyes
therapy’s so expensive — they lobotomize

But they still rock
oh yeah we rock
we do the Rubber Room Rock
Oh sure we rock
unh hunh we rock
we do the Rubber Room Rock

I don’t care — I believe in you, anyway [What Promises Mean Today]

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What Promises Mean Today

I know what promises mean today
I don’t care I believe in you anyway

I wrote those lines in 1973 or 1974, a time when promises really didn’t seem to mean much.

People felt betrayed by every institution from politics to religion, burned by every emotion from hate to love.

previous AYoS version (Oct 27)

What Promises Mean Today

I know what promises mean today
I don’t care I believe in you anyway
I don’t care what anyone says
I’ll believe in you until I’m dead
But at the rate things are going
That could be any day
I don’t care
I believe in you anyway

You say you’re my lover
my sister my brother my friend
I’m surprised you don’t claim
to be my mother my father
and the priest that the church said they’d send at the end

And I still don’t care what anyone says
I’ll be loving you until I’m put in my grave
but at the rate things are going
that could be any day
I don’t care I believe in you anyway

I know what promises mean today
I don’t care I believe in you anyway

I’m gonna write a soap opera and you’re going to be the heroine

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Soap Opera

I always figured I’d grow up and be some kind of Madison Avenue type. I liked their style in the movies. They seemed to have the prettiest wives — or the hippest bachelor pads if they weren’t married.

And, from my studies in front of the television, I knew that Mad Ave types had more sophisticated ways of dealing with sticky interpersonal entanglements — and particularly creative and craftful ways of dealing with situations that might see the less sophisticated resorting to insult, invective, or even violence.

What better way, I always thought, of doling out a little comeuppance than to put a troublesome ex-love or a friend who has betrayed you smack in the middle of his or her own soap opera, you know, a real TV soap opera. Finally a chance to argue it all out before the court of public opinion — all, of course, without the ex-friend’s input, which would only get in the way of the poetic truth of the situation.

A note on today’s song: Today’s entry is a bit different. It’s still highly informal, but it’s more a full band demo for a possible project.

[revised mix posted Sunday, 2006-03-19 23:30 UTC]

previous AYoS version (Jan 23)

I’m Gonna Write a Soap Opera

I’m gonna write a soap opera
you’re gonna be the heroine
I’m gonna show the world just how ya think
I’m gonna write a soap opera
I won’t have to make up a thing
When we get the ratings back
you know I’ll take you out for a drink

I’ll get a famous model
to play your part for you
I was gonna ask you but you’re always busy
We’ll get a famous model
I know she’ll do real good, too
When the plot gets thick
She’ll be skinny enough to wriggle through

I’m gonna sell the rights
everywhere I can
there’ll be games and dolls and underwear
I’m gonna sell the rights
I suggest you buy up while you can
I said I’d make you famous
I think by now you understand