Rubber Room Rock

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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

Do the Rubber Room Rock

This sardonic cautionary tale joins my earlier opus to dangerous dancing, “The Slam” (as yet unpresented on AYoS).

One of the great things about having been around more or less at the beginning of the punk thing in LA is that I never felt I had to buy into anyone else’s vision of punk — so I never felt compelled to dive into a slam pit or jump off a p.a. tower.

The way I looked at it — the first person who jumped off a p.a. tower — maybe that was punk (and perhaps fatal). But the second guy who did it was just a poseur — and a stupid one at that.

A few years ago, after I first put the ‘studio version’ of this song on the web, I heard from a few people who saw (or knew the victims of) very unfortunate incidents — so I guess I should point out that engaging in a moment of stupidity and ending up brain damaged is not always a laughing matter. I’d like to think that today’s youth has learned a thing or two — but just in case — Don’t try this in your century, kids.

Today’s acoustic version:

Full version: