The Surreal Comedy Of The Young Southpaw
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One of the most important questions of the 20th century. If Gene Simmons had poached Eddie Van Halen for KISS, what would Eddie’s makeup have been?
Also addressing who actually is ‘the hottest band in the world’? And what would happen if KISS jumped off a bridge?
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Young Southpaw examines the dangerous world of synchronized swimming, especially when elephants and idioms get involved, as well as how the Van Halen reunion affected the Greek gods
Taking in “shooting the breeze”, Fleetwood Mac, The White Stripes, David Lee Roth, Dumbo, & more
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Was ‘It’s Not Unusual’ the first ever goth song? What if Bela Lugosi had defied Bauhaus and actually went on to join the band White Zombie? And don’t you want to see a thriller starring James Bond, Indiana Jones, & David Lee Roth?
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What if David Bowie replaced David Lee Roth in Van Halen in 1985? Were the signs there all along? How does House Of Pain play into this? And were Kriss Kross wearing their clothes backwards in an attempt to get back to the time when Roth was in the mighty VH? Young Southpaw investigates
Taking in 1984, Diamond Dogs, Dancing In The Street, The Pointer Sisters, RATT, and much more
“I have a new album out, ‘The Lost Archimedes’. You can get it over on Bandcamp, youngsouthpaw.bandcamp.com And on the album I broach the subject that what if David Bowie had replaced David Lee Roth in Van Halen?
I mean makes sense, ya know. Coupling two of the most innovative musicians of the 20th century. Heck, prolly even of the entire Universe since Time Immemorial.
But also ya know, they both had songs called 1984. Van Halen’s the first track on the greatest album ever made, Bowie’s was on Diamond Dogs…Diamond Dave, there ya go! Makes perfect sense…
And they also both covered The Kinks’ ‘Where Have All The Good Times Gone’. A very relevant question after Roth’s departure
And I mean the Bowie Jagger Dancin’ In The Street is a hard thing to reckon with man. But when you realize it came in 1985, the very year Roth left and a mere months after that devastating event. Ya gotta figure it might have been some sort of signaling, ya know. VH themselves had also covered it back on Diver Down – another DD, like Diamond Dogs – an odd way to go about it, but ya know, lettin’ em know that he was available for the position. Gettin’ some moral support from his good buddy Mick
And then like 5150 man, that’s gotta be a nod to the US Festival ya know. Van Halen had a clause in their contract that no one could be paid more than them. So when Bowie was gettin’ a million and a half dolla bills, that brought VH’s fee up to also 1 point 5. 5150 ya know, even and then gettin’ raised up
5150 ya got Inside as the last…song, I guess, if you can call it that… Then Bowie goes and releases 1.Outside, a decade later of course, obviously he’s still smarting that it never happened. Heart’s Filthy Lesson and all that…
BUT!! Before that – and this is HUGE – his feelings best came out a few years before this, in 93 with, well you guessed it – Jump They Say. I mean who else says Jump, ya know…it’s right there…
Well I guess The Pointer Sisters said Jump as well. That woulda been rad, David Bowie bein’ in The Pointer Sisters. They coulda all covered I’m So Excited about Bowie actually joining Van Halen. The gracious sisters of course completely understanding how great it would be for him. Even if they were losing a now vital member…
But hold up a second cause I’m about ta blow yr minds. Bowie put out Jump They Say in 1993… And there’s someone else sayin’ Jump even just the year before. That’s right – HOUSE OF PAIN!!!!
Which if you’ll recall…was a Van Halen song!!! And the last song we ever heard from the original Van Halen, well I shouldn’t even be sayin original, you know what I mean. Last song we heard from Van Halen for quite a while, it bein the final song on 1984 and all…
Who coulda foretold that in the early 90s House Of Pain would become a band. And not only that but their song, their big hit, would be Jump Around! Callin’ back to Jump at the beginning of the 1984 album. And like House A Pain was an old tune of theirs, brought back just for the occasion. And it was also the b-side to the Jump 45. They knew!
I mean it’s kinda like Jump gave birth to House Of Pain. It’s 8 songs before on the record ya know, like 8 months of pregnancy, like House Of Pain was…a month premature. I don’t know, maybe they were just dyin’ to get out and jump around, you know. Reminds me of that chapter in Ulysses, where Joyce mimics the nine months of pregnancy with – sure it does, sure it does, reminds me of that – where Joyce mimics the styles of writing throughout the history of the English language over 9 long paragraphs. But Van Halen’s House Of Pain is 8 months cause it’s pop music, just dyin’ to get out there, it’s very nature. And woah H-O-P Hop! Like jump! Why wasn’t it Hop Around? Well of course because it was Jump that gave birth to it…
And you know if we trace it back from House of Pain we’ve got Drop Dead Legs but you wanna elevate the legs if you’re givin’ birth and then of course Panama! Like the Panama Canal! The waters breaking and like Ulysses was based on the Odyssey which was all about sea travel. And then I’ll Wait is a big clue too! It was 8 years between 1984 and Jump Around, just like the 8 songs! The 8 in the 19-8-E4 – E4 like a chess move – prefiguring the Wu Tang too. But I’ll Wait man, little did we know how long we’d have to wait for Roth to rejoin them. Or if it would ever happen. And I guess Bowie was waitin’ forever
And keeping going backwards, the first word of Panama is Jump! It’s like that song extends beyond the boundaries of time ya know. And if you played the record in reverse Panama would then turn inta Jump! Right after they say that first word! Actually also turn inta that riff that became Top Of The World, same album as Run- around. This is all too much! Though I mean obviously we always knew 1984 had great cosmic energies flowin’ thru it
And of course Van Hagar’s Runaround, man, came out the very year before House Of Pain put out Jump Around. Sure a lot of stuff goin around. Like that Ratt song, Round and Round. Of course if there’s a bunch of rats runnin around you’re gonna be jumpin’ Ya don’t wanna get bit by a rat. Even Warren DiMartini, unless like he could transfer his guitar playin skills to you that way. But that seems like a weird way to get around – here we go again – just practisin’ ya know
The Ramones took an early stance with this, with I Don’t Wanna Walk Around With You, first album 1976, while VH were still recordin’ demos with Gene Simmons
Of course Bowie covered Chuck Berry’s Round And Round early on…
And he had You’ve Been Around on Black Tie White Noise, same album as Jump They Say
But like 1992 when House Of Pain – the band House of Pain came out – was the same year as Kriss Kross. Also with a Jump! I was both really excited and confused at first cause I was expecting Kris Kristopherson to be covering the Van Halen classic. Took me a bit to get used to that that is what it would sound like. But then like slowly I got it ya know, they were wearing their clothes backwards cause they want to get back to a time when David Lee Roth was still in Van Halen. Symbolic, ya know…
But like 1984 being full of cosmic significance, the idea of Bowie being in Van Halen has been around a long time. Maybe even since the beginning of time itself. But as it goes with mysticism, the first hints I can see of it date back to 1972 and 73…
1972 Bowie releases 5 Years, obviously aware that in 1977 VH would be recording their debut album. Of course he would release Heroes towards the end of 77 just to remind us what was coming
And back in 73 he goes and releases a version of Jacques Brel’s ‘Amsterdam’. A nod to the Van Halen brothers homeland of course
Diamond Dogs came out in 1974, same year Eddie and co changed their name from Mammoth to Van Halen. Bowie keeping the animal symbolism going as well as the Diamond of Diamond Dave as previously mentioned. And putting out the song 1984 like that was such a bold statement of intent
And then like who else could he have been referring to with Young Americans? Setting aside for a moment that their last name is clearly Dutch, cause of course they embody the very spirit of American Rock N Roll. Heck the very spirit of America
And the overtones keep goin’, 1980 ya know, both albums Scary Monsters & Super Creeps…gotta save the Women & Children First of course
And then like off Fair Warning we had So This Is Love? and Hear About It Later, which of course we did – two years later – Bowie bringing out Modern Love to answer their question
Offa Let’s Dance…Let’s Dance The Night Away ya know… And like what else would you light up the sky with but Ziggy Stardust?!
Heck maybe even Changes was about all this. Ya know, the darker side. Obviously you’d start putting it out in 1971 that Roth might leave Van Halen, a band that didn’t even exist yet, ya know to make sure people were prepared. Of course no one could ever be prepared but Bowie should be lauded for tryin’…
And I gotta think Roth woulda been cool with it ya know, being replaced by…I mean this is David Bowie we’re talkin about”
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In which Young Southpaw wonders if there are plotlines to Dirty Dancing we’re not picking up on, in part due to it coming out in the aftermath of David Lee Roth leaving Van Halen
Taking in soup, The Kinks, Margaret Keane’s big eye paintings, Vera Chytilova’s Daisies, food fights, time travel and other experiments, New Order, etc.
“I really wish I could get over the fact that I’ve Had The Time Of My Life and Hungry Eyes could not possibly be of the time period Dirty Dancing deals with!
I mean I was doin fine, hadn’t thought of this in quite a while. And then some days ago I was out at the supermarket hoping against hope for some soup, and the radio started playin’ Hungry Eyes. Which – WOAH! I mean now that I think about it is a genius thing to be playin where they sell food. Well I mean in principle, just slippin it in, arrogantly thinking people aren’t gonna equate it with the phrase ‘your eyes were bigger than your stomach’. Such bravado, ya know. But obviously they didn’t count on the effect it would have on me. Just send me into a state of confusion, like that Kinks album ya know, came out in 1983 while Dirty Dancing didn’t hit theaters until 1987. So the two of them spanning David Lee Roth being both in and out of Van Halen – like a Schrodinger’s Cat, I guess – a Schrodinger’s Roth….
But I heard that song, I forgot all about food and just started ponderin’ ya know. Well heck brooding wouldn’t be strong a word for it!
Cause it bugged me out, ya know. I mean first of all, eyes aren’t hungry. That’s a property of the stomach, ya know. But then I started questioning myself, like was there some sort of scientific development in the mid-80s where they were testing these things that I just completely missed out on?
Or ya know, like during the time that Dirty Dancing was supposed to take place, was there some sorta scientific research going on, and there’s this underlying theme that no one really picked up on in the movie? That like it was about eating…with your eyes… I mean it didn’t seem like a horror movie. Well, maybe to some… And that whole phrase ya know ‘your eyes were bigger than your stomach’, that doesn’t even make any sense. Of course they’re not…or weren’t…to keep the tense right… Though there’s those big-eyed paintings, ya know. Margaret Keane. But even then, I don’t think they’re bigger than an actual stomach. And I mean, you’d never say this to a cow, they’ve got 4 of ‘em! They’d be all like – which stomach, yo?
And again, Margaret Keane didn’t paint any visible stomachs in those big eye portraits or at least there’s none I’m aware of. So it’s impossible to make that call…
But wait! Is that what those pictures were all about?! The before photos, when they ordered too much food! Are there after photos anywhere? Maybe hidden on the sets in Dirty Dancing?
And ya know the sayin’ is meant to imply you thought you could eat more than you could, ya know. So it all boils down to money. Cause you’re wastin’ food. Unless someone else eats it, and then like, how big are their eyes?
But is there a part of the body that corrolates to money? Like the stomach does to food? But like, what if you eat your own eyes? That would be a problem…for many reasons…
No one does this…that I know… tryin’ to teach the eyes a lesson like…so you’re not orderin’ more food than you could possibly consume again on a future occasion. But I mean in this case it makes sense to ya know, scarf down one’s own eyes. Like an eye for an eye, have the punishment fit the crime. So an eye for a stomach, a little twist there. Maybe a twist of lemon to make it more palatable…
But there weren’t any major food scenes in Dirty Dancing, that I can remember… I mean they were eating breakfast and whatnot when Baby’s all talkin’ to her Daddy. But I mean Dirty Dancin and food, was it dirty because there was like a food fight ya know that they’re dancin’ in? I mean that seems more messy than dirty. But like at the end of that Czech film Daisies from the 60s…ya know Vera Chytilova… I mean hardly seems like it could’ve inspired Dirty Dancing… But I can’t rule that out. The 80s were a weird time. I mean David Lee Roth had just left Van Halen… I mean if they were gonna use modern songs, they shoulda done Dance The Night Away ya know? Or ya know maybe change it to Dirty Jumping?
And like, well, I’m just gonna say it! After Roth had left Van Halen we had enough to contend with with that fact alone. We weren’t really prepared to deal with I’ve Had The Time Of My Life and Hungry Eyes. It not being in any way possible that they could have come from 1963 when the film takes place. I mean I guess in the confusion maybe they thought they could just sneak that in and no one would mind cause they’re still dealing with Roth’s departure…
But if we take it at face value, that this was on purpose – a layer to the film that we’re supposed to pick up on – I mean the only thing that really solves it…is time travel, ya know? I mean Back To The Future had come out a couple years before… But I mean, it’s tough cause as far as I can tell, and I’ve seen Dirty Dancing multiples times, it seems to be constantly on television…and maybe even on other mediums we don’t even know about… but as far as I can tell, you never see the time travelers in that film. I mean please message me if I’m wrong. Though wait a minute, I’ll be so embarrassed if it’s like completely obvious…
But like if you don’t see the time travelers, that also means you don’t see them eating. So I mean…wooo-eeee! I just don’t know how to resolve this one
And it’s been what? 33 years since it came out?! I mean maybe, since this is a soundtrack related issue, when it turns 33 1/3 they’ll send out an official statement explaining it all…
Though woah! I should put in a disclaimer right now – I have not seen the musical. If they do explain it all – ya know, with the eye stomach experiments and all the time-travel – in the stage show then I apologize for wasting y’alls time
And let me know, please. I mean if they address all these issues in the musical – maybe even produced the show as its raison d’etre, to clear it all up – then I should go see it, set my mind at ease…
And She’s Like The Wind too! Almost forgot about that one. While the hungry eyes studies were going on were there also concurrent experiments with weather and invisibility? All going on at this resort in the Catskills in 1963?
BUT WOAH!!! That New Order song 1963, ya know the b-side to True Faith. That came out in 1987! Why wasn’t that on the soundtrack?! Woulda cleared a lotta this up!”
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In which Young Southpaw proposes a séance to get to the bottom of who in fact John Lennon thought was the best drummer in The Beatles, what we might find out about Live Aid in the process, and are people who wear a number other than two shoes really badasses?
Taking in Lenin, Van Halen, David Lee Roth, David Bowie, The Beat, symbols, Russian letters, Jabba The Hut, Elton John, Phil Collins, Adam Ant, the astral plane, etc.
“You know that John Lennon quote about Ringo, ya know? When Lennon was asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world or something, and Lennon’s reply was ‘he’s not even the best drummer in The Beatles’ BUT I MEAN WHO WAS?! Ya know? I realize it was intended as, as a humorous statement, but it does raise the question – who was the best drummer in The Beatles? And I guess we’ll never know. We’ll certainly never know who John Lennon thought, unless of course he confided it to someone, well WILL THAT PERSON PLEASE COME FORWARD?! I tell ya, if he did tell somebody who he thought was, well, that person is a master at keeping secrets, someone I would very much like to have as my friend. Though that would complicate things because I would know that he had this information that I sought, and he…or she…would be aware that I desperately wanted this information, and not just me, I imagine the whole world at large would like to know too, ya know. And that would make things uncomfortable for the secret bearer, so that we could never truly be great friends, ya know. No matter how well we got along. Or even if like we perfected like some sort of unstoppable give-and-go basketball play that only we could perform, and like all the major teams were trying to sign us, new leagues sprouting up all over the world in the hopes that we’d be on their starting five but eventually I imagine this rift, this being unable to reveal all our deepest darkest knowledge to one another, would crumble even that. A shame really…
I mean I guess we could have a séance. That might even be the purpose of seances, the real deal, ya know find out, find out the facts, ya know. All the ancient mysteries of the universe that the dead are now privy to – like who did John Lennon think was the best drummer in The Beatles. Hmm, I was gonna say could it have been Stuart Sutcliffe, you know, you gotta lock the bass in with the drums? But he wasn’t in The Beatles when John Lennon made that statement, and he didn’t say ‘who’s ever been in The Beatles’ cause I mean that would have been like really unkind. You’d have all these people, ya know like opium addicts who are trying to set records for crashing hot air balloons, and like pyromaniac hairdressers who now operate in more metaphysical spaces ya know once they’d read Barbarella, all them start claiming they had been in The Beatles for like a day and that song Yesterday was actually about that 24 hour period and they’ve got the minidiscs to prove it. But no one knew what minidiscs were back then…
But I mean what else would I like to know from John Lennon if we were to do this thang? Well like, what did he think of Live Aid, ya know as a spectral being? That would certainly be interesting, I mean what would he have thought of it, 1985, what did he think of David Lee Roth leavin’ Van Halen?! Was it too soon for somethin’ like Live Aid after that catastrophe? Y’all, y’all with me on this? I mean, well what about Lenin? The other one ya know, ol’ Vladdy Ilyich. Do they like hang out all the time together? The other souls gettin’ them all confused, especially with that Back In The USSR song – yes I know McCartney wrote that one but McCartney never found himself in circumstances like these, ya know! And then there’s Working Class Heroes too, if you’re gonna be pedantic about it.
Or is there like a language barrier, like they wanna hang out but all the interpreters are busy trying to interpret just what is going on in the afterlife and are unavailable for mere communicatory purposes. I mean I would assume that everyone there has some sorta like ghostly babelfish allowing them to understand everything, but that might be a dangerous assumption. I mean imagine if during the séance I ask Lennon about Lenin, the one with two n’s and not three, the Russian guy, probably easier to say it that way, and the sadness of him saying that the language barrier is too great is just too much for any of us, including the medium, to bear. You need to plan these things ahead of time…
And I was talking about the Russian Ramones earlier, what about the Russian Beatles, what would they be called? Cause you know they got that rad letter the zheh, they call it the zhaba, I’m assuming that’s where Jabba The Hut comes from, look at all these assumptions today like I’m some sorta hep cat with nine lives and nothing to fear. But it could just be a strange coincidence, but I mean the letter looks like a frog which is why they call it that, and that’s what zhaba means in Russian. But it could also look like a beetle! It’s just a line drawing, a two-dimensional representation of a sound, ya know, but oh man – don’t frogs eat beetles? That’s scary as hell! This thing represents itself and the animal it feeds on. But maybe Lennon and Lenin have a band together that is just this almighty symbol. And Prince is there too. They tour together and it’s, it’s just symbols ya know! WOAH! Maybe it’s conceptual and they’re all just playin’ cymbals… Like the percussion, oh man… Would that then prove that John Lennon himself was the best drummer in The Beatles? Maybe he was referring to himself, the intrigue deepens, man. And ya know, what did he think of David Bowie & Bing Crosby’s version of The Little Drummer Boy? He musta talked about that with Bowie, well maybe, I’m not taking a hat trick of assumptions here, I’m not even wearing a hat! But I mean speakin’ of hats, he and Bowie wrote Fashion together, around the time of Young Americans. Despite neither of them being young Americans. Though they’re both in the B section at record stores. Not the same thing I know but it’s somethin’. And ya know, just to clarify, B as in the letter, not the insect. Though that’d be cool if they kept live bees at record stores. Near the ABBA and Jesus & Mary Chain singles. Walkin’ out with some new cds and a fresh batch of honey, sounds amazin’. Personally I’ve always wanted to name a band Elton John & The Beetles, spelt with two E’s of course so you don’t get sued. I just think that’s a great band name, you know like all those punk bands, the ones who did fight on Saturday nights – not that I’m condoning violence, even for the bees with their stingers ya know – but the Beetles, there’s that English band The Beat too. Their gigs on the Lower East Side, I wonder if that ever confused anybody with the whole LES abbreviation. Fans showin’ up, traveling thousands of miles to see what this Beatles reunion at a club in New York City is all about, and then The Beat, unaware of any possible misunderstanding, still for some reason chose to – for the first time ever – do a set of all Beatles covers? And maybe they do it like playin behind a screen like that PiL riot show, so that everyone leaves still havin’ no idea of what actually went on. Now I’m all confused myself, did this ever actually happen?
And ya know John Lennon imagine there’s no heaven or hell, well a séance would have to include some hard-hitting questions about that. In fact it would kind of back him into a corner…
And come to think of it, what did the whole spectral world think of Live Aid, ya know? And like what happened in the astral plane, you know, when David Lee Roth left Van Halen?! I mean that must have been insane. Atomic Punk, can barely begin to describe what was happenin’ there… Wow….wow…….wow……. I mean did like the whole spectral world like boycott Live Aid because of the name? Hmmm….Undead Aid…was that what wasgoin’ on? Did they have like their own superstar line-up that like far outdid Madonna ya know swearin’ and like throwin’ her shoe or whatever she did ya know? Aw, that woulda been hilarious if like Undead Aid happened the very next day and was just a parody of the whole Live Aid thing. Ya had like millions of undead souls just pretendin’ to be Phil Collins, teleporting from one place to another instead of flyin’ the Concord ya know. And people formed bands called The Shoes as like a dig at Madonna’s whole thang. That woulda been amazin’. Did Adam Ant play Live Aid, ya know Goody Two-Shoes? And what about Goody Two-Shoes? Does that phrase imply that like, the most badasses are like…people who only wear one shoe? OR MORE THAN A PAIR?! I mean that would be insane, you know. How do you wear more than two shoes?! That just seems complicated and uncomfortable. Then again, phrases like Goody Two-Shoes don’t come up for no reason. But everyone’s wearing two sh-, well no, it would be more correct to say everyone who is wearing shoes…is most likely wearing two shoes… Unless they’re in the act of putting one on, or taking one off, can’t rule that out. This whole phrase is a minefield. But I could always ask John Lennon about this at the séance”
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In which Young Southpaw freaks out pondering edible zombie plants, conjectures it might be Paul McCartney & Hawkwind keeping us all breathing, and reveals how the inventor of anime, Swiss Mister Carl Gustav Jung, plays in to the whole NWA/Sting rivalry.
Taking in Van Halen (of course), ‘Drop Dead Legs’, Jimmy Page, JJ Fad, The Smiths, ‘Panic’, plants, breathing, David Lee Roth, The Beatles, Wings, Empire Strikes Back, Aerosmith, Steven Tyler, Pet Shop Boys, Love & Rockets, Thomas Pynchon, The Police, The Corrs, Britney Spears, carbon dioxide, oxygen, hawks, and much more etc.
“I’m in a bit of a tizzy today, man. I just don’t get it, ya know. I mean we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. But ya know, when we breathe out, that breathe is still right there in front of us… to breathe right back in! So how are we not like dying of carbon dioxide overdoes within minutes? Unless you know like you’re breathing out really heavy, ya know like that line Roth sings in Drop Dead Legs ‘gettin’ ready’ etc. And then again Drop Dead is right there, in the title ya know. I mean your legs would be the first to go. Bucklin’ right under once you stop breathin’. Unless like you know you’re expelling with your mouth some kinda like jet propulsion to get the exhale far enough away while allowing new air to rush in and take its place ,and I mean it’s gotta be like oxygen-packed air. Can’t be the carbon dioxide exhales of the person standin’ next to you, even if it is David Lee Roth! And I mean there’s so many people in the world these days, all that carbon dioxide is right there just waitin’ – for your nose or your mouth, whichever way you wanna go, I’m not gonna judge – I mean there’s so many times where it’s just people, no trees or even tiny house plants in sight to absorb it all up. I mean woah I just don’t know. How does life keep goin’ on? And if everyone starts worryin’ about this they’ll be taking even shorter breaths you know, panic everywhere, I mean Morrissey prolly knew about this. Panic on the streets of London, Birmingham, all those places… Dundee? Done deal, ya know. Carlisle Ostend Ottawa, CO2 ya know… No wonder everyone’s so depressed all the time ya know with death only minutes away… Everytime you breathe it’s just a continual cycle, you know… Let The Circle Be Unbroken, that old folk song that Pentangle did. Though there are no angles in a circle. But you gotta break it, you know. Lest we all just keep breathin’ in carbon dioxide…
It’s a shame that plants don’t continue to breathe out once they’re already dead so you know like as you’re chewing they’re givin’ you the oxygen hook-up. In a very intimate fashion too. I mean that’d be cool if it worked that way – edible zombie plants ya know. But I don’t know man, I mean they say you get the most nutrients outta plants if you eat ‘em straight after pickin’ ‘em from the dirt you know. But I mean isn’t dirt just a whole bunch of decomposing dead bodies and excrement ya know? I mean I just don’t understand how life carries on you know. Even with that My Chemical Romance song to keep us goin’. Unless it’s all, I mean they talk about things just being a simulation… Or we’re all just imaginin’ this… Though why are we imaginin’ bein’ so close to death all the time? And if we’re imaginin’ this, why aren’t we imagining getting the original Van Halen back together? I mean I get it, in 1985 some prankster storyteller thought maybe we needed a little more drama in the world, something to compete with Live Aid, they thought I know, we’ll have Dave leave for a while. Without tellin’ everyone else to start imaginin’ gettin’ him back in the band a.s.a.p. I mean he couldn’t have wished to inflict us all with 22 years of that, could he have? And who was this fellow? I don’t mean to imply it was a member of The Who but ‘who’ is just really the only word I could use there to ask the question. Or why aren’t we imagining an infinite number of Van Halens? Playing an infinite number of water parks owned by Jimmy Page. Just the one Jimmy Page I think, you know. All comes together too cause Eddie said that it was seein’ Zeppelin with Page using his right hand as a sort of capo while his left hand wandered up and down the neck that gave Eddie the idea for finger tappin’. Ya know Page could be pumpin’ oxygen out into the park, ya know. Maybe get one of those negative ion distributors, orgone accumulators like that Hawkwind song, ya know. Hawkwind, maybe that’s what’s keeping us alive. All the hawks flyin’ by gettin’ the air flowin’. Maybe there are like supersonic hawks, like that JJ Fad song ya know ‘Super Sonic’ etc. That’s a jam, man… But tiny supersonic hawks who just cruise by, redistributin’ the oxygen in the jetstreams. And that’s why we’re all livin’. They got that Space Ritual, ya know. I mean if anything life is just a space ritual. Our third planet from the Sun. Suspended in all that infinite darkness, phooo! I tell you I’m gettin’ terrified just talking about it! Let’s get back to Hawkwind. Lemmy playin’ bass on my favourite album, well studio album, of theirs, Doremi Faso Latido, before goin’ on to do Motorhead, ya know. Motorhead also moving quite fast, gettin’ the air goin’, though there you got an issue with all the pollution it’s bringin’ in. But Hawkwind’s got that Warrior On The Edge of Time album, wooo-awww crazy you know. But I mean maybe by then it’ll all be electric cars. Imagine like The Cars then decidin’ to do an acoustic album. But until then ya know how are these hawks flyin’ so fast? Are they metal hawks? Is there technology involved? I mean I know nothing whatsoever of Airport Air Traffic Radar Control ya know. I start thinkin’ about it and I just start singin’ that Paul McCartney song Jet, ya know. Ya know by Wings. Ya know what’s crazy is that The Beatles… already had Wings. Was he like just parin’ it down to an essence? I mean is he responsible for these supersonic metal hawks, keepin’ us breathin’ all these years? Cause I mean I doubt they’re giant hawks, that would be crazy. I mean in order to move fast enough, and right past our noses and mouths – again I’m not gonna judge – but you know without knicking up our face they’d have to be real small hawks ya know. Like hummingbirds. You know hummingbirds flap their wings like a million times a minute like that Pet Shop Boys song One In A Million is just about one of those, like the smallest unit of time still able to be captured in song form. Like try contemplatin’ that. Get your breath real still, allow the bird to do their work, sweep up you know, in more ways than one. But like hummingbirds, I mean if you hum etc. Back In The U.S.S.R., ya know. Then you just got all that carbon dioxide stuck in your mouth and you can’t let it out cause your lips are shut! And ‘di’ is right there in the word, literally. Without the oxygen part it’s just be carbon, you know like Han Solo in ‘Empire Strikes Back’. Imagine if like every time we breathed out we were immediately frozen in carbonite! I mean that would get tedious! And someone hadda come and chip us away, ya know like that Aerosmith song Chip Away The Stone, you know. I always liked that song, got the word ‘promenade’ in it, but I mean how can you even think about promenading when you’re worried that with every exhale you’re gonna be frozen in carbonite and Boba Fett’s gonna come cart you away before Steven Tyler can show up with his chisel? And if everyone’s gettin’ frozen immediately including Aerosmith, well then how does that happen? Well I guess they’ve got that all figured out. It’s right there in their name ya know. I mean they do have that rollercoaster, ya know… And livin’ on the edge, ya know, of being seen and unseen. Amazing he had time for all this and American Idol. But is this just happening on a continuous cycle, you know like on average 10-12 times a minute for every one of our breaths. And there’s just an infinite number of incredibly fast Stephen Tylers with an infinite number of chisels…
It seems like this isn’t actually happenin’, but then again it would be happenin’ so fast that we wouldn’t be aware of it ya know? Like the little hawks that help us breathe, but then again how does that play in ya know? If the hawks are helpin’ us breathe then maybe this isn’t happenin’. Maybe before the hawks came into being this is what was goin’ on. Maybe this is what Empire Strikes Back was all about ya know. I mean who knows?! That happened a long long time ago, as it says at the beginning of the film, in a galaxy far far away, ya know. But maybe it’s a metaphor about here on Earth. Ya know like that Love & Rockets song Here On Earth, from the Earth Sun Moon album. Ya know talkin’ about galaxies again, Rockets, Rocket Juice To The Moon ya know, like Damon from Blur and Flea and well of course old Tommy P! I wonder what he has to say about this ya know? Maybe he should write some short stories about it, I mean isn’t there that Britney song Breathe On Me? Ya know there’s all that Britney stuff in Bleeding Edge… And of course she named her In The Zone album after part 3 of Gravity’s Rainbow. I wonder if that Corrs song Leave Me Breathless is precisely about all this… Coors ya know, the silver bullet, killin’ werewolves and all that ya know… And then there’s Every Breath You Take, ya know The Police. With that bumblebee guy, Sting ya know. I did think it was a bit childish for The Police to reform just to release that song F N. W. A., ya know. I did like how they they made it an acronym though to avoid the language but ya know maybe they were just doin’ that to get radio play. And I mean don’t you put an Ice Cube on a bee Sting? But I mean Every Breath You Take was Stingy takin this ya know, this wild carbonite theory, I mean he was readin’ lots of Jung at the time. Not, not this Young, ya know, Young Southpaw… but old Carl Gustav, ya know. Swiss mister, ya know, inventor of anime. Maybe this whole being unable to breathe is just a metaphor for what’s going on in our subconscious. But I mean supersonic bees, that would be rad too. I mean bees should really get in on this just cause it’s a cool thing to do. I mean anything with wings. There’s probably a whole other incredibly fast world that we’re completely unaware of. Incredibly small too. And it’s not like we can just use a microscope to see it, we’d need like a microscope for Time itself. Not that magazine. Well unless there’s a whole other level to the magazine I don’t know about ya know, with those QR codes they have nowadays. But ya know like Time, measured by clocks. Again like in Switzerland. Amazing we ever got around to inventin’ the clock with being frozen by carbonite so much of the time. But since it seems to be on a regular interval, that’s prolly where the inspiration – pun somewhat intended there – came from. I mean I’m not a scientist. But I do love that Guided By Voices song. But I mean look at us having made it thru this podcast without dyin’ of carbon dioxide poisoning.”
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Young Southpaw contemplates infinity’s affinity with boutique hotels, the fabled forests of Chairland, and surfboarding wizards with their Zeppelin & Sabbath-loving seagull entourages.
Taking in Chairmen Of The Board, Smashing Pumpkins, Elvis, Van Halen, Poseidon, Leonard Cohen, Robyn Hitchcock, The Afghan Whigs, yogurt, David Lee Roth, Fugazi, Thomas Pynchon, The Beach Boys, and more.
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