MCMLXXIX #weneedhelpdownhere

It’s been since several weeks since I wrote a post, the last being my Valentine’s Day post. We had a nice time.

About tech, once it got increasingly clear that the new normal would all the more include a style of work that focuses on doing it from home, and I’d already been thinking about what normal meant for people who liked to work from home, or found an advantage in doing it, I decided that maybe I could put my hand in at that occasionally and work on my style accordingly.

Today is the first Song Lyric Sunday of the spring this year. Jim has drawn a reference to the Omega. His post is found at: Omega is the End of The Line – A Unique Title For Me (wordpress.com) and you may wish to visit him there.

You can look at the idea in this light: while the alpha male needs to overwhelm, and the beta male needs to get by, the omega male has either quit or surrendered.

Let’s look at it and see what we can do with it.

My Alpha Girlfriend

Omega is the lowest ranking species in the omegaverse/alphaverse universe. Unlike their alpha counterpart, omegas are generally kind, shy, sweet, smart, and hard-working.

Stereotypical alpha: Yeah, Adam is a total omega. He’s smart and sweet but he’s way too weak.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Omega

The complete Song Lyric Sunday prompt for March 28 is this: Endless/Eternity/Everlasting/Forever/Infinity/Omega.

Powerful words, words like endless, as in an unending circle, and eternity, the very notion of forever, like spirits bound.

I thought of the song Endless Sea, by Iggy Pop (not the Freddie Dredd song).

Endless Sea is on the Iggy Pop album in 1979 called “New Values.” Pop had got known as Iggy in school when he filled in as drummer for blues band The Iguanas. At Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Summer of Love came to pass, and Iggy Pop then age twenty, brought up in a dusty trailer park, was anything than that.

Iggy Pop

The music of Iggy Pop’s not my cup of tea, but I like his song Endless Sea. Endless Sea could be, I think, at least on one level, a song about working a low-level job and being dissatisfied.

In the first verse, Iggy Pop sings about “the service of the bourgeoisie,” as though he were holding down a job and dealing with the public, like having to give up his weekends to make ends meet (he sings, “when you’re tight for the rent”). If you want to be a musician, in theory, you have to do something to make money until you get some recognition.

That said, is there something wrong about working at Nickels Arcade?

Nickels Arcade

The reality, “real life” as some put it, is sort of, I think Iggy sings, baffled and hopeless, horrible, but relatable for those in similar straits. In other words, it’s a burden. For the narrator of Endless Sea, the sea is endless because from where he is on the water, the narrator can’t see the shore any longer, and he is adrift, I would infer, in a “sea” of unwanted circumstances.

It’s a punk rock number, and weird, accordingly. The word punk is often pejorative, but the idea of hustler-made-good is frequently romanticized. “Punk” usually refers to a young man who does things his way, perhaps badly, or perhaps with difficult consequences afoot, a rebel.

I think it first became something that young men started to find between themselves a collective will, by collecting record albums by punk bands.

punk by Parker.:) May 28, 2007 https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=punk

• Punk is not about hair colour, style, or music, although the music does take a large part in most punks’ lives.
• Punk is about liking what you like, being yourself, saying what you think and F*CK ALL THE REST.
• You don’t need a two-foot-high red mohawk to be a punk, although that is wicked cool.
• You don’t need sleeves, a backpiece, or any tattoos at all to be punk.
• You don’t need a Misfits, Casualties, Sex Pistols or any band like that jacket, to be punk.
• You don’t need anything to be punk except for awareness, self-respect, respect for others and an open mind.
• PUNK IS NOT DEAD.
• I don’t care if you wear drainpipes or not, you’re a punk cos you’re not some dumb prat who’s a f*cking loser poser who needs to get his shit straight!

I was joking with my friend about the challenge of interpreting song lyrics. “It’s not that straightforward,” she said.

Mind what the band Silver Jews revealed in their song Tennessee: “Punk rock died when the first kid said/’Punk’s not dead, punk’s not dead’.” Mind I’m not trying to put it to rest here. Silver Jews were an American crew from New York City, framed in 1989 by David Berman alongside Pavement members Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich.

Years ago, when I was in junior high, I memorized a poem titled the sea and recited it for a local competition. “So quiet, so quiet, he scarcely snores,” I murmured on the empty stage, the James Reeves poem again given the shake of life.

The judge commended me.

As a kid, I’d played the taboo Dungeons & Dragons game, the fad of the nineteen seventies that’s enjoyed frequent resurgence from time to time, my mother cautiously giving me the green light

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/14/critical-role-helped-spark-a-dungeons-dragons-renaissance.html

When I was in junior high, the game Dungeons & Dragons, as it was understood at the time, created the Isle of Dread, an archipelago far from the continent. Despite the name of the game, the Isle of Dread featured little in the way of a dungeon, and little in the way of a dragon.

The Isle of Dread

There was a carnivorous dinosaur living on the island, and the “dungeon,” such as it were, on the Isle of Dread, was an evil habitat inside a volcano. I think it was to be implied that the villagers of the island both lived in fear of and revered the giant lizard. Personally taking the role of the Dungeon Master, I aimed for enough of a fledgling theatrical ability to be able to play the game, with friends, and the role-playing lent itself, I would say, to interest in poetry, apart from the combat, spellcasting and character experience.

Far from poetry, and games, the word punk, in music, dates from 1971, coined by US rock columnist Dave Marsh. Previously an editorial manager of Creem Magazine, Marsh had been a contributing proofreader at Rolling Stone, composing stories on Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, the Rolling Stones, and The Who.

Endless Sea closes out with the lyrics, “You better go home, buddy,” as though Iggy Pop is warning someone infringing. When I was in school, in grade ten, my English teacher Patti explained that the idea of being plunged underwater can be read as a symbolic rebirth. It’s conceivable that the same imagery is in this tune Iggy Pop wrote.

trainspotting

Around the time I was starting to think about symbolism in the movies, the PolyGram film Trainspotting famously depicted scenes from the lives of youths in Scotland, in the nineteen-nineties, even going so far as to include dialogue in which the main characters discuss real-world music, as, for example, talking about the lag in the career of musician Lou Reed. Both Reed and Iggy Pop are included in the soundtrack for Trainspotting. Here is an idea of dialogue from the film, between characters named Tommy and Spud.

Tommy: I told her, I’m sorry, but these things happen. Let’s put it behind us.

Spud: That’s fair enough.

Tommy: Yes, but then she finds out I’ve bought a ticket for Iggy Pop the same night.

Spud: Went ballistic?

Tommy: Big time. Absolutely f*cking radge. ‘It’s me or Iggy Pop, time to decide.’

Spud: So what’s it going to be?

Tommy: Well, I’ve paid for the ticket.

Here now is the song itself, as well as a transcription of the lyrics. I would like to thank Jim Adams for what he’s done with Song Lyric Sunday, and I hope that the blog hop continues to go well. As well, I wish readers a happy spring time, as I know these are difficult times for all.

Endless Sea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeRKAc8xv_o
Iggy Pop

Oh baby, what a place to be
In the service of the bourgeoisie
Where can my believers be
I want to jump into the endless sea

Oh, oh the endless sea
Oh, oh the endless sea
I want to jump into the endless sea
Let it wash all over me

Above us is a dirty sky
Full of youths and liquors
A little girl, a little guy
This air can’t get much thicker

Oh, oh the endless sea
Oh, oh the endless sea
Oh, oh the endless sea
Let it wash all over me

And when you’re tight for the rent
You think you’re gonna break
But you know it’s no damn good
Just one more phony on the take
You better go home, buddy

I really think,
You better go home, buddy
You better go home, buddy
The endless sea