Five Song Friday: World Peace Brainstorming Session
Episode #112: Sonic Tomfoolery, Polar Bears and Hot Dog Gobblers
What if we buried all the bullets like seeds?
Emptied every chamber and magazine into the soil.
Dug deep holes so the bombs and rockets could take root.
What if every missile was left out in the rain to rust and get lost in the weeds?
Let’s dump every tank into the bottom of the sea.
Let’s send all the jets unmanned into space.
I want to see rows and rows of RPGs where the corn used to be.
What if the world stopped killing?
Ceased fire. Ceased fighting. Ceased collapsing buildings onto babies.
It sounds like a radical notion and some kind of impossible dream.
It’s hard to imagine a day without US versus THEM.
How do sworn enemies unswear their allegiance?
How do you exorcise hate when it exists on a cellular level?
Maybe we start with a big table. The biggest table that ever existed.
We bring 8 billion chairs for every man, woman and child.
We say, let’s make a deal.
Let’s fix this once and for all.
We ask, what’s it going to take to get you into world peace today?
Everybody wants something.
Respect. Land. Freedom.
So we bring in a whiteboard, the biggest you’ve ever seen.
We make a list: WORLD PEACE BRAINSTORM (underlined).
Let’s hear from the table.
Just shout out what you need to stop fighting forever. What do you want in exchange for laying down your swords and flushing all guns down the proverbial toilet?
Don’t be shy. There are no bad ideas.
Yes sir, you in the back.
A bonfire of their bloodline. Okay.
Everybody is shouting at once, so bear with me.
I heard something that sounded like “guaranteed damnation” and “a vast shallow grave filled with the still beating hearts of everyone they hold dear.”
Disembowelment. Beheading. Okay. Okay.
Some of you are missing the point.
WORLD PEACE BRAINSTORM (underlines again).
The idea is to find NON-violent ways to get here [circles WORLD PEACE].
I’m hearing lots of gory suggestions for revenge.
There’s plenty of trauma and rage, but not a lot of creativity and flexibility.
Maybe try to think outside the box here.
Focus less on burying, burning and grinding your foe into dust.
What if we converted all the battleships to love boats? Painted them hot pink and offered complimentary mimosas and all-ages karaoke.
Let’s fix it so all the drones drop chocolate. Make land mines explode into confetti and glitter. Bazookas that blow bubbles.
We can program the outer space missile defense systems to put on one heck of a Pink Floyd laser show.
See what I’m doing here? If we think hard enough, we can solve this thing with much less blood and concrete dust.
What if we erased all the borders and agreed that every organized religion is just make believe nonsense?
Let’s just pick a day, any day, and declare it “Let Bygones Be Bygones Day.”
Clean slate. Complete hard reset on global aggression. Easy peasy.
You laugh, but nobody knows for sure what would happen if we buried all the bullets like seeds.
Something MIGHT grow.
Weird flowers. Strange new fruit. Even bigger guns?
It’s worth a shot. We need to try something different.
Something big. Something weird.
Because the road we’re on right now isn’t going to end well for anybody.
Five Song Friday #112
“Sick for a Reason” - BS 2000
BS 2000 was a side project for Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz. I read a review online that called it kitschy and refreshing. Another called their songs “hipper-than-thou minimalist ditties.” But my favorite was the Brit from NME who wrote that it was “zero-budget, determinedly lo-fi thrillerama,” “cheap sonic tomfoolery,” and the “sound of half an idea poorly executed… a vanity project that should have been destroyed in its infancy by right-thinking US postal workers.” Bloody hell!
“My Spine” - Heidrik
This song is from Heidrik’s album of selections from the Bjork songbook. It’s just another example of how people in Iceland share things and are generally kind to one another. Is it cold? Here, have my blanket. Are you hungry? Try a bite of my fermented shark. Have a nice day and mind the polar bears and volcanoes!
“Bass From Funky Jacky” - La Jungle
The French have a way of making things sound much nicer than they really are. I wouldn’t last a day if you dropped me into the middle of the Amazon with a canteen and a machete. The jungle is a merciless place that devours the weak and spits out their bones. But I think I’d do okay if I was forced to survive in “La Jungle.” La Jungle sounds like a lovely spot with charming shops and a cafe that sells tiny cheese and cucumber sandwiches. Welcome to La Jungle, we’ve got fun AND games!
“Ghosts” - The Jam
Okay, since you asked, yes I do believe in ghosts. I haven’t seen any up close, but I do believe they exist… in some form other than the chain-rattling, hot-dog gobbling Hollywood clichés. Just because something isn’t visible to the human eye doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. Take infrared light. Or atoms. Or the peeling door threshold that I’ve been promising to repaint since the pandemic.
“Serpicon” - Brittany Davis
Brittany Davis has been blind since birth. Is that important to the absolutely badass and eminently soulful music that they make? I don’t think so. But it seemed like something you should be aware of.
“We are better than anyone, ain’t we? Except for the Eagles, the Eagles are better than us.” - Sid Vicious (Born May 10, 1957)
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
DJ CrankyPete