“There Can Be Only One!”

But he may have a side-kick…

This week’s post is a belated last week’s post. The reason for the delay can be clearly seen here. I won’t make any bones about it, I spent well over two hours of my life reading that forum thread, and it was two hours or more I’d gladly spend again. THAT GUY BUILT A BATMOBILE. Ahem, sorry. To make up for it, you have some awesome links this time (please check them - that kind of nonsense takes hard work)

!!!

This might mean there is a slim chance of a double-posting in one week, to make up for lost time. The posts will be thrown up in such rapid succession that if you blink, you’d not only miss it, but you’d miss the big headlines in all the major papers and the constant news feeds announcing the event. The zeppelins hoisting giant screens announcing the outrageousness would also sail completely by.

Yeah, it’d be THAT big.

The topic of today’s post is: Mortality. Yes. The Big M. I thought, instead of my usual rants on topics that lurk in the shadows of our culture, and ill-prepared arguments on vaguely heretical themes, we’d talk about something happy and full of rainbows and puppies for once.

More importantly, I want to write about the growing sense of obsoleteness and decay that I’ve begun to experience. This sense has made me question my own mortality – I’m fully aware that I will only last so long, before my joints weaken, my eye-sight fails and my brain becomes a complete lump of raspberry jelly (it’s about 20% there already). What has brought on this impending sense of goo? None other than THE FUTURE. Yes, I met the future. But how?! You say with virtual semaphore – that’s temporally impossible!!!

I hear your temporal impossibility, and I raise it a statistical probability. We’re bound to cross paths sooner or later. There may be a knife-fight, there may just be a sullen sneer – I can’t be sure. But I know where it is. It sits casually on a bracket at Allans Music, languidly relaxing in the company of it’s less advanced siblings, safe in the knowledge that it will survive long after they are defunct and nothing more than expensive firewood.

I am of course referring to the GIBSON ROBOT.

"it's now more machine, than Les Paul...twisted, and evil..."

Sent from the future, the Gibson Robot is here to save us all with it’s precision-built servo’s winding it in to any tuning you desire. It’s high-tech mind allowing it to survey the requirements of a single artist, and within seconds transform it’s tonal array to suit their situation – it is a weapon with no equal. And this is where the mortality issue begins.

With the introduction of such a powerful beast, us fleshy types that get out of tune quicker than you can drink a beer are on the way out. We will be replaced by mechanisms that do not suffer from old age, do not lose their vocal range through repeated stressings of said chords. Stainless steel musicians from the future will take up our fallen instruments and usher in a new era of sonic conquest.

But we will not go quietly. Most of us, sure we’ll fall before the might of the machine, our sinewy forms no match for hard-welded steel. They will thin our ranks in the time it takes to re-string one of our standard issue side-arms. The few who stand will be immune to the ravages of time, and will be able to endure any hardship that environment, enemy or biology throws their way. These people are none other than: The Immortals.

(No, not the group that did the dodgy Mortal Kombat song – rather, people who don’t die!!!)

The first of these, is already amongst us. He has walked the earth for many years, and told us many a parable. His styles are famous, and his rhymes are atrocious. With a vocal tuning not unlike an out of tune guitar himself, he is: BOB DYLAN. Every few decades, Dylan wades into battle, his six-string in hand like a Japanese blade. He will strike down all who come to claim his head, and then retire into the distance, to make another two albums.

So far none have been able to stand before him, but there is one out there he is expecting. A warrior of equal renown and skill, who has walked the earth for decades, seeking a worthy challenge. With a face whose weathered look could not only tell tales, but probably does if you look closely enough, he has seen fashions come and go. He has made come-back after come-back. His body has now all but mummified and he continues his quest through sheer willpower. He is of course, KEITH RICHARDS.

These two icons of the Rock Age will stride into battle, their creaking frames limiting their top speeds, their faces locked into expressions that could only be described as old. Wielding their chosen implements, Dylan shall employ the time honoured “wakizashi” of the folk-hero: the acoustic 'katana' in hand, the ‘tanto’-like harmonica clenched between his teeth. At the same time, Richards strikes a pose, his powered implement held loosely, and his wild hair blowing in the strategic breeze. It would take a well-trained eye to spot he has frozen on the spot, almost as if his bodily functions have at last given up. But that well-trained eye would be a fool – his bodily functions gave up years ago!

And with the dramatic tension that only a slowly-raged battle can elicit, they strike their blows, back and forth. The sky is lit up with the impacts of their weaponry, the rumbling of their collisions sounding like thunder to the primitives, and scaring away and Simon & Garfunkle listeners. This battle rages for an eternity…well, it may. It started about 200 years ago. In the mean-time, they even found time to release new albums.

Two go in…One comes out…

And then there’ll be a farewell tour. Geez. Someone call Messrs Lambert and Connery - we must remove their heads, stat.

Q: Why can’t Bono find what he’s looking for? Because the streets have no names.

Song For The Day: “Hands Open” by Snow Patrol