Dancing Machine

So I spent a couple hours on the dance pad earlier, which was a nice workout. Of course I pigged out on junk for dinner so I killed the good effects. Diet comes next. I'll be getting a new mask for my CPAP so there are no more excuses. I can't be blaming it on bad sleep anymore, nor on lack of exercise. I have to return to better eating habits. I set Kathy up on StepMania and she tried it. Much as was the case for me when I first started, she did horrible. But she showed quick improvement. She needs to get a groove on. She's not very rhythmic. I guess I have an upper hand on that being a musician and all.

I don't generally post lyrics in my blog as I see a lot of people do. I'm going to make an exception today. I've been listening to the album "They're Everywhere" by Jim's Big Ego a lot lately. In general they have some great intelligent lyrics to their songs but one in particular is stuck with me tonigh so I thought I'd share. Incidentally, JBE is a Cambridge band. I know a few of you who read this are in Cambridge/Somerville so you might want to check them out. They've got pop sensibilities but with a very decidedly intellectual twist. And upright bass. They frequent Lizard Lounge in Cambridge. They've also been known to play TT and the Bear's and Middle East. They used to frequent Capo's in Lowell, too, but that won't do you any good now that they closed, will it?

Without further ado, the lyrics as promised to "Cut Off Your Head":

cut off your head
shut up your face
here is the time
now is the place
cut off your head
why should you wait
don't think about it
it's much too late

well, it's been a lot of work but now I'm
right back where I used to be
surrounded by the stupid things I had before I started out
the Dixie cups, the Tonka trucks, the Action Jackson figurines
the motorcycle wouldn't go - not even when you pulled the string
the comic books I didn't read - too stupid for me even then
the light bulb oven wouldn't cook the pasty stuff in little tins
the woolen shorts, the clamp on skates
the duck, the duck, the duck, the goose
the busted nose, the broken eardrum,
falling off the skateboard hands
the plasticine, the orange aspirin, play-doh crud in little cans
keep coming back in different combinations

cut off your head
don't hesitate
do it today
it's great
throw out your brains
they're a disease
cut off your head
think with your knees

nananananananana
nananananananana
nananananananana
nananananananana

you've tattooed all your body parts and pierced your lip
and pierced your nose
and bolted this and branded that and done the drugs
and done your friends
and done the friends of other friends
so why not try some amputation
you can feel so stupid when it's over

nananananananana
nananananananana
nananananananana
nananananananana

the ratna, padma, karma, vajra, Buddha are all in all o.k.
there is a pain, there is a cause, there is a goal, there is a way -
YOU KNOW THE WAY!

cut off your head
do it yourself
don't ask a friend
that's gross
use a big knife
that cuts both ways
open your heart
cut off your head

nananananananana
nananananananana
nananananananana
nananananananana

Food For Thought

Here's a couple of excerpts from a book we found at the library about the Holocaust. Sound familiar?

Too Busy To Think
"Your friend the baker was right," said my colleague. "The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. I do not speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadul, fundamental things to think about -- we were decent people -- and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?"

Waiting to React
"One doesn't see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' Why not? -- Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty."

The book is "Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior" by Margot Stern Strom and William S. Parsons.

I see the present and future of the U.S. if you simply replace the term "Nazism" with "The Bush Administration."