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Friday, November 23, 2012

The name of this blog

I always wanted to write about politics, although medicine and education are also topics I love.  I named this blog after the title of a very obscure song by a band named Bourbon Princess, or rather, a woman named the Bourbon Princess: Monique Ortiz.

I love the band, Morphine.  Their opiated lyrics, penned by the late, great, and aptly-named Mark Sandman, bring to mind an old-fashioned, dark and gritty pub, with sand on the floor, where rough men go to cheat on their wives.  It sounds like so much Billy Burroughs (one of my favourite writers), and perhaps also Jack Kerouac.  Still, it's music you could give your mother, and she wouldn't complain.  Here's a couple extracts so you can see what I'm talking about:

(from Shame)
I felt bad, and there was nothing I could do about it
Nothing I could do to make it go away
I felt bad, and there was nothing I could do to change it
Nothing I could do to make things change.

I know you're mad at me,
I know you want to slit my throat,
I know you think I think it's all a joke,
But I don't; I don't.

(from You Speak My Language)
All around the world, everywhere I go,
No-one understands me.
No-one knows what I'm trying to say.

Even in my home-town,
My friends make me write it down,
They look at me as I talk to them,
And they shrug their shoulders.
They go "What's he talking about?"
But you—you speak my language!

(from I Had A Chance)
I had a chance and I let it go,
I had a chance and I let it go,
And if I ever have myself another chance like that,
I'll grab it and I won't look back.

Sometimes, I'm too careful,
I walk just like I'm carrying a hand-grenade.
It's going tick-tick-tick-tick-ticking in my hand.

The few Morphine songs that contain sexual overtones discuss the act in very general terms; there is only one time Mark Sandman uses a four-letter word, and it relates to personality, not sex (I'm really just a f--k-up, and such a waste).  Those songs are Whisper (So whisper me your number, I'll call you up at home), Come Over (So come over, come over, come over, come over to-night!), and Thursday (extract follows):

One day, she says,
Come on up to my house.
She says her husband's out of town,
You know, he's gone 'till the end of the month.

Monique Ortiz is an entirely different animal, although her musical style is identical to Morphine's; Bourbon Princess, and a host of other bands, came into being after Mark Sandman's untimely death at the age of 46 in 1999.  It is generally accepted that the great majority of Morphine's songs depict true stories (possibly even Mark's affair with a married woman at the Wagon Wheel, a real motel in Massachusetts); this is probably also true of Bourbon Princess.  Monique sings from the point of view of a femme fatale and a heroin addict, and her lyrics are often laced with a staunchly feminist portrayal of sex, as well as plenty of references to the use and abuse of heroin.  Consider this:

(from I'll Take A Cab)

You seedy, tired piece of trash,
trying to get my sympathies.
Yeah, maybe if I feel bad enough
I'll drop down and give you some~.

Yeah, right, not now, not later, never,
ten years older and [unintelligible].
Soon the world is gonna blow,
so we better spend the night together~.

I'll take a cab, it'll get me there.
Avoiding you is worth the highest fare.

(from Spanish Fly)
Emptied out my mind
On some porno back in '89.
I wake to masturbate,
I hold my breath and hesitate.
Map the stars, count the sheep,
Anything so long as I might sleep.
So scratch my palm again,
Make me rich and be my friend.

I'm the Cuban at the door,
Called a Commie and a whore.
If he wasn't hit with anger,
I'm sure he would have given more.

(from Master Manipulator)
If it makes you feel better
To put the blame on me,
Go ahead, go ahead and do it.

You learned from the best,
The master manipulator.
You're smooth, but obvious,
I'll let you believe it,
But I won't fall for it.

(from Three Chairs)
Your apartment's a little bit cluttered,
But still the nicest place I've ever seen.
Your bedroom's so big and foreboding,
I can't imagine making love to anyone here,
To anyone here.

In the woods I tried to find you,
But you left no mark, no popcorn trail,
Just a door-handle and a blueprint,
Needles and a broken scale.

This junkie wrote some of the most powerful songs extant, and one of these songs is the name-sake of this blog.  Dark of Days could apply equally to the Bilderberg Conference, the Trilateral, Freemasonry, the Skull and Bones, or even the basement of the American executive mansion, the White House—wherever powerful men meet and discuss the future of our world, who lives and who dies.  Here is the complete text of the song:

Some kind of lagoon,
Where pharaohs and modern-day dictators meet in a room,
Discussing their final parts,
And all their future sins.

Let the new day begin, they say,
As they raise their glasses to the Dark of Days,
All their guns were stacked in a pile
By the coat-check,
The girl hasn't made enough tips yet.
She never seems to smile.

Their wives are all home,
Gossiping and chit-chatting on their telephones.
Painting up their toe-nails,
Though they can not show their feet.
You can kiss her,
But you better be discreet.

For all the alarms,
There sure is a great deal of calm.
Where'd everyone go,
In shelters and basements a hundred sixty feet below!

The wind took the sails,
Waltzing on the ocean,
The captain's on a bed of nails,
As all those evil thinkers and foul-mouthed drinkers
Made plans for us.

This doom is very scenic and bright,
For a moment I forgot that we were still in the night.
The moon had killed the stars,
We haven't travelled far,
We've miles and miles to go and it's beginning to snow!

So we wage wars,
Though neither side settles the score.
Calling around, blind on the ground,
Sniffing out the blood of those bitter hounds.

Taking borders, only to dissipate,
They don't deserve to settle here anyway.
Cry all you want, we were here first,
Get those filthy hands off of our holy turf!

Times don't change.
We ignore all the progress we've made.
No good-luck charms,
Just this grenade around my neck,
And a bloody spool of yarn.