The top four lines from "Against the Wind" by Bob Seger

• "I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then."
  
• "Never worried about paying or even how much I owed."
  
• "I was living to run and running to live"
  
• "I found myself alone, surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends"

Also, the top concept from the song: the transition across the three verses from running to seeking shelter and back to running against the wind (first a youthful running against & not even noticing the wind, then with age noticing and seeking shelter against the wind, and then the final running against the wind as the conscious choice of the aging rocker burdened with worldly duties).

It's so surprising to finally listen to these lyrics that have gone in one ear and out the other my whole life, and find them so poetic.

Also, the piano solo.

I was a highwayman

Willie Nelson says:
I was a highwayman
Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive.

then Kris Kristofferson says:
I was a sailor
I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.

after which Waylon Jennings says:
I was a dam builder
across the river deep and wide
where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around..I'll always be around..and around and around and
around and around

and finally Johnny Cash concludes:
I fly a starship
across the Universe divide
and when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again..


In this song Willie Nelson is a dude who robs ladies and kills soldiers. A bad ass. An outlaw. But eventually he gets caught, and hanged. But see, then his spirit returns, a bit later in History. Now he is Kris Kristofferson, who is by far the most likely sailor of the bunch. Now who can say how glorious it is to make a boat go around some land (I mean, what the fuck, are you gonna go through the land?), I guess in this chapter it's just he's kind of an idiot and he fucked some kind of thing up with the sails or jibs or whatever, I dunno, go ask some blue-blood yacht dude. Anyhow, you'd think this spirit was gone by now, since it got hanged and also drowned. But nope. It comes back, a bit further into History, this time in the person of Waylon Jennings, who got a hand from FDR what with the WPC building a gigantic dam. Here things might be said to get a little metaphorical. The place is called Boulder but it's getting filled with concrete. The Colorado was wild but they are taming it. Steel and water did collide, but at what cost? At the cost of one Waylon Jennings. Granted, he was clumsy and he was the guy who didn't do the smart thing and be extra careful while walking around on top of a giant not-yet-solidified dam. So anyhow now the spirit got hanged, drowned, and encased in what was at the time the largest man-made monument named after a vacuum in History. This brings us, dear reader, not to the present, because the present can't really mean anything to itself, now can it, so instead it brings us instead to the Future, in the person of Johnny Cash, starship pilot. He is flying the entire distance of the universe, not just lurkin' around outside a town, or going around some land in a boat in the water, or spanning the distance between two sides of an enormous gorge. As we well know the universe is finite and who knows what is on the other side. There are those who say it is the same, only backwards, only you can't even tell it's backwards, since you, too, are backwards. There are those who say it is just sort of boring. Nobody knows for sure. Johnny Cash doesn't even know for sure, but he has whittled down the possibilities to two: either he will become a highwayman again, thus starting the cycle anew, or, alternatively, and I'd like to put in my vote for more likely, he may become a single drop of rain. Here is where I like to imagine that every drop of rain used to be a highwayman, an inept sailor, a clumsy dambuilder, or an astronaut. One of those four. Nothing else. I myself, when I reach the other side, may turn into a single grain of sand. I think that is the fate of the musician, the logger, the banker, and the flight attendant. Whereas it has been demonstrated that piano tuners, butchers, systems analysts, and tinkerers shall return a single breath of air. We will all try to find a place to rest our spirits if we can, but chances are we will be back again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, only each time one step lower in a major scale, until we get almost back to the tonic again, at which point I suppose you should just restart the song because not even Johnny Cash could hit that bottom one if he tried.

Mr. Gold and Mr. Mudd

Townes Van Zandt's Mr. Gold & Mr. Mudd interpreted for your pleasure:

The wicked King of Clubs awoke
it was to his Queen he turned
his lips were laughing as they spoke
his eyes like bullets burned
the sun's upon a gambling day
his Queen smiled low and blissfully
let's make some wretched fool to play
plain it was she did agree

Pretty clear so far. The king of clubs is a dick, and his wife is a bitch. They are really excited to fuck some poor fucker over.

He sent his Deuce down into Diamond
his Four to Heart, and his Trey to Spade
three Kings with their legions come
preparations soon where made
they voted Club the days commander
gave him an army face and number
all but the outlaw Jack of Diamonds
and the Aces in the sky

Here we learn more about the world in which the dick and bitch monarchs of Clubs reside. There are four kingdoms corresponding to the four suits, each with their own Kings and Queens, and each with a social order below that more or less follows the ladder up from Two to Jack. The Aces are something like gods or angels though, and we learn that the Jack of Hearts is not a willing member of this ordered society.

So the asshole King sends his lowest three servants out to the three other kingdoms as messengers, and soon enough the other Kings come over, with all their servants, to help carry out this bitch-ass plan to fuck a poor fucker. They are so into this cruel idea they form an army for the asshole King consisting of all the royals ('face') and lower servants ('number') from the three other suits, and this in addition to all the Clubs who are already under the Asshole King's command. By the end of this verse, then, we know that the Asshole King has at his beck and call 47 of the 52 cards in the deck-- all of 'em but the four ethereal Aces and the outlaw Jack of Diamonds.

He give his Sevens first instructions
spirit me a game of stud
stakes unscarred by limitation
'tween a man named Gold and man named Mudd

Apparently in this world Sevens can do magical things, like create scenarios out of the blue. I love the order here: first the cards exist, then the game is created (five card stud), then the terms (no betting limit), and finally the players. Ass-backwards, and rightly so, since the real protagonists here are the cards, not the men.

Club filled Gold with greedy vapors
'til his long, green eyes did glow
Mudd was left with the sighs and trembles
watching his hard earned money go

The Asshole King has some kind of greed poison he gives to Mr. Gold. Mr. Mudd is a sorry fucker.

Flushes fell on Gold like water
Tens they paired and paired again
but the Aces only flew through heaven
and the Diamond Jack called no man friend

Flushes and pairs of tens are easy for the Asshole King to make happen with his huge army of cards. But so far in all the games (we start to realize it isn't just one game of stud, but a whole night of stud) there's been nary an Ace (they don't follow the laws of men) and no Jack of Hearts (he doesn't follow the laws of men either).

The Diamond Queen saw Mudd's ordeal
and began to think of her long lost son
she fell to her knees with a mother's mercy
and prayed to the angels every one

Her long lost son is the outlaw Jack of Diamonds. He is nowhere to be found, and she misses him, so she prays to the angels...

The Diamond Queen, she prayed and prayed
and the Diamond angel filled Mudd's hole

...and the angels are the Aces! The Diamond Ace heard the Diamond Queen's prayer and started this last fateful game by coming down and being Mudd's hold card (five-card stud is one down followed by four up).

the wicked King of Clubs himself
fell in face down in front of Gold

So Mr. Gold has the Asshole King in his hole. This is the makings for a high-betting game-- since there are only five cards and no wilds, a King or Ace in your hole is a great start whether or not you pair it up later.

now three Kings come to Club's command
but the angels from the sky did ride
three Kings up on the streets of Gold
three Fireballs on the Muddy side

The Asshole King gets his cronies to be the next three cards. But remember, the Diamond Queen prayed to the angels, every one-- she has called and they have answered ('fireballs' is some poker slang for Aces). So now is where it starts getting really awesome. You gotta think in terms of who knows what. Mr. Mudd already knows he will win this hand. The only hand that can beat four Aces is a straight flush, which Mr. Gold obviously doesn't have, since he has three Kings showing. To Mr. Mudd, then, it doesn't matter at all what Mr. Gold has in his hole, and it doesn't matter at all what comes up as the final card.

Mr. Gold, however, is feeling pretty good too. Really good, in fact. He knows he has four Kings, and the only way Mudd is beating him is if Mudd has another Ace-- very very low odds. Yet he knows that Mudd doesn't know he has the fourth King. All filled with his greedy vapors he is probably beside himself at what a perfect hand he has with which to bleed his opponent.

The Club Queen heard her husband's call
but Lord that Queen of Diamond's joy
when the outlaw in the heavenly hall
turned out to be her wandering boy

The fifth and final cards: the Bitch Queen joins her Asshole King and his cronies on Gold's side, and in a surprise twist, the outlaw Jack joins all those Aces of Mudd's-- the answerers and the answer to the Diamond Queen's prayers all in the same 'heavenly hall.' In this verse not much changes with the human drama between Mr. Gold and Mr. Mudd. If anything, Gold is relieved Mudd didn't get an Ace. The drama in this verse is with the cards-- the mean-ass Bitch Queen standing by her mean-ass bitch man, and the humble and penitent Diamond Queen getting all she ever hoped for. Also the direct juxtaposition of the outlaw and the angels is some classic Townes poetry, two different ways not to be part of this humdrum world of Kings and Queens and their legions.

Now Mudd he checked and Gold bet all
and Mudd he raised and Gold did call

Nice poker move by Mudd. He checks, which pretty much tells Gold he doesn't have that Ace. So of course Gold bets all, figuring he's got it made. That opens the opportunity for Mudd to raise, and Gold I guess is too stupid or too proud to imagine the reality, maybe he thinks Mudd is bluffing, maybe he's too 'pot-comitted,' maybe it's the effects of those greedy vapors, who knows, but he calls, and apparently he calls with a smile on his face, not even considering the possibility that this sorry fucker is playing him...

and the smile just melted off his face
when Mudd turned over that Diamond Ace

...but this sorry fucker is playing him.

Now here's what this story's told
if you feel like Mudd you'll end up Gold
if you feel like lost, you'll end up found
so amigo, lay them raises down.

Here it gets kind of sinister, because now that the humans' and cards' revenge stories are wrapped up, we get to the narrator of the song. On the surface it seems like he's just Greek chorus-style wrapping up an inspirational story about reversing your bad fortunes. But Townes Van Zandt was a ramblin' gamblin' kind of guy, and this story is just the sort of myth he'd want his poker opponents to believe so they'd keep playing him even when he was handing back out their asses to 'em right and left.

livin' the dream

The Boss once asked "is a dream still a dream if it don't come true?"

I had a dream I bought some chocolate covered pretzels. It's not often you can make a dream come true so easily as this dream. I am gonna buy some chocolate covered pretzels.


Figure 12: This, my friends, is what dreams are made of:


I am living the dream.
I have become the dream.

so sayeth the boss...

You can't start a fire...
You can't start a fire without a spark.
This gun's for hire...
even if we're just dancing in the dark.

"everything is not enough, nothing is too much to bear"

So sang the great Townes Van Zandt (and plenty of others in tribute) in his classic tune To Live is to Fly. When I first heard the line, it didn't grab me so much. It seemed like a moody, trite thing to say. But then I started to live with the song, and realized I wasn't getting as much out of that line as I think is in there. It all hinges on how you take those words "everything" and "nothing."

"Everything" seems on the surface to mean the totality of all things. So the sentiment "everything is not enough" means that even if you had all things, you still wouldn't feel like you had enough. You are insatiable.

"Nothing" seems on the surface to mean the negation of any particular thing. So the sentiment "nothing is too much to bear" means there is no single thing that is too much to bear, no straw that'll really ever break the camel's back.

So there's no single thing you can't bear, but even if you had every single thing, you still wouldn't feel like you had enough. Like I said, trite and moody.

But Townes gave me another idea. He made me think about how either word can take on a positive or negative meaning by using "is" and "is not" the way he did-- "everything is not...", "nothing is..." See, that's weird. "Nothing is"-- no it isn't! "Everything is not"-- yes it is!

Here's how it can still make sense:

"Everything" can be distributed among particulars instead of encapsulating a totality. So now the first line means "every single thing, individually, is not enough."

"Nothing" can be understood as the totality of absence instead of as distributed among individual things that aren't there. So now the second line means "total absence is too much to bear."

So now, no matter what thing you're talking about, it's never gonna be enough. But if you'd throw in the towel and choose nothing instead, well that is too much to bear.

Now that's a bind I can get behind.

the mysteries of "loverboy" probed

A great wrong was righted on Saturday, when a friend hipped me to this video I had somehow never seen before:





I've been thinking about it a lot since then. What the fuck is going on in this video? I'm not one to enforce some rule that things have to make sense. I could be happy enough just thinking of it as the "leftover cantina band," which is how it was described to me (we're talkin' Star Wars here). But I'm a naturally curious, analytical person. So let's probe.


Like anyone trying to understand some weird-ass video to a tune they don't know very well, I first looked at the lyrics. They seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with the video, except for the fact that they are about someone wanting to be someone's lover, which is presumably the sort of thing that could happen on any given planet, in any given solar system, and so even moreso on what appears to be an Earth-like planet, with a breathable atmosphere, liquid water, and several humanoid and reptilian looking creatures coexisting in a bar-room environment.


As the video begins, Billy Ocean seems to be folded up into a floating, shiny, prismatic pyramid, kinda reminiscent of that mirror-plane thing Ursa, Non, & Zod, those bad guys from Superman, got exiled in. As the beat begins in earnest, there is some sort of space explosion high above some planet, and then we cut in to a view of a fast-moving horse on a beach (maybe it is that same planet that had the explosion?). Wait, the horse looks like a pony, and the rider looks like a little person with a wizard hat. Wait again-- it's a god-damned lizard man! Now he dismounts and enters what looks from the outside to be some kind of natural cave. But on the inside it's a rolicking, dark, smoky bar-room party. In the center of the dance floor is another prism thing, only this one looks like an octahedron or a dodecahedron. Is it where the music is coming from? I don't know, but here comes the Billy Ocean prism, and now it's floating above the dodeca-prism, it seems like they are interfacing in some way.


Wow, that looks just like the chick from Dark Crystal talking to that alien.



Now the Billy Ocean pyramid unfolds, and here's Billy Ocean. Except he's not here. I mean, he's in his own world, in the same scene he was in before. I don't think he literally comes out of the prism, I think maybe his music does, though. But not for long-- now Billy Ocean is in space again, and for a second I could swear he was playing drums. Did Billy Ocean play drums? Anyhow, next thing I know, he folds up again, only now instead of a pyramid, he folds into a prismatic cube. Why?


Back in the cantina, the lizard-man plays a few hot synth licks, and gets some dirty looks from some people, including a TV-headed robot, someone who looks like Jaba the Hut, and someone who looks like Uncle Travelling Matt.



Holy shit! Lizard dude shot the dude Dark Crystal chick was talking to, and now he's kidnapping her! Wait, she is going willingly. I think she likes him. She must be the one who Billy Ocean is talking about when he says "I wanna be your lover," only Billy Ocean is talking from the point of view of the lizard-man.


As the lovebirds flee the cantina, the prism box is floating around and three Jawas are on their knees like they are praising it, like they are testifying, like maybe Billy Ocean is their God. Now the lizard and the girl ride off into the sun on the same pony, on the same beach.


What in the fuck?


Well, let's think. Prisms. Prisms show many facets. Maybe the video is about how the universe has many facets, and it is showing how in one corner of the universe there is this dramatic scene unfolding, but when looked at from another angle, that is exactly what happens when Billy Ocean sings in that dark room. Born in Trinidad, raised in England, his influence is truly universal.


Maybe Billy Ocean is that lizard-dude, but in disguise, you say? Then how come the prism comes in there, too? I don't think he is the same as the lizard guy.


Maybe it is planet Earth, only way in the future, and Billy Ocean travelled through time in that prism, and is continuing to rock the party even after he should have been long dead. This, I think, doesn't matter. Different planet, our planet in the future, whatever-- that trick can never work again after Planet of the Apes.



Here's what I think-- I think Billy Ocean is some sort of God. Like a hero-god, though. He is there to see that this lizard-guy gets his lover. He is like an angel. He busts in on the planet just in time to help out. How does he help? I don't know, he sets up a sweet groove, maybe, and that makes it easier for the lizard. Maybe the Dark Crystal chick loves the groove. In any event, he somehow watches over the process, and then his godliness is supported by those Jawas all testifying outside.


How about this-- in the future, or in space, maybe instead of angels getting their wings when they do good deeds (you know, like in It's a Wonderful Life), they get to advance to a shape with one more side. Maybe they start as a tetrahedron, then they become a cube when they do some good. So maybe that other prism in the cantina was even more advanced, since it seemed to have maybe 8 or 12 sides. Clearly, the final goal for these angels would be to have infinitely many sides, which if you know a little calculus makes them all but spheres. It's all kind of like the social structure in that book Flatland, only 3-D.


How about this-- George Lucas and Jim Henson had some leftover sets, props, and costumes from Star Wars and Dark Crystal, and the director got a deal on them.


How about this-- it's autobiographical, metaphorically. Billy Ocean came from Trinidad, via England, to make people in the U.S. fall in love. He is an outsider who makes insiders hook up. Maybe it is a cry for help. Maybe it is a statement of purpose.


How about this-- it's autobiographical, literally. These things happened, in just this sequence, to the real Billy Ocean. He's seen things that would blow our minds. He's been places we can't imagine. Nobody believes him when he talks about it, so he made a video. It's ok, Billy, I believe you. I mean, come on, is this the smile of a guy who's crazy?