The Midnight Hour

I usually have time to watch one, sometimes two, music videos while I’m getting dressed in the morning. Having gone through all my favorites I recently started expanding to different genres and eras. This morning I queued up Van Halen’s “Right Now.” Interestingly enough, an AFN commercial done in the style of this music video reminded me of it and prompted me to watch it this morning. As I watched it I naturally applied the messages on each frame to whatever came to mind at the time. Since the blog has been slow I decided to post my thoughts on each statement.

• Right now, Ed is playing the piano.
o I never realized Eddie Van Halen did the keyboard work for the group. When I was learning to play guitar his skill was always one of the unachievable goals that I looked towards, much like Angus Young, James Hetfield/Kirk Hammet, and Jimmy Page. I once read an article in Guitar World where Billy Corgan said when he learned to play guitar everyone always asked him if he could play Van Halen’s “Eruption.” He responded that he didn’t want to play Eruption; he wanted to play his own stuff. What a weirdo. I can’t play eruption, but at least I don’t whine about it.

• Right now, people are having unprotected sex.
o Not as much as they’d like to.

• Right now, justice is being perverted in a court of law.
o Don’t know about that. I think we have a pretty solid legal system. Rare instances of corruption and lunacy happen (the felon “too short” to serve time in prison), but overall I think we have the best system in the world.

• Right now, blacks and whites don’t eat together very much.
o That’s true, even in the chow halls in Iraq.

• Right now, you could be outside.
o I don’t want to go outside. It’s so very hot out there, not to mention the sand and dirt blowing in your face. Don’t make me go outside.

• Right now the light from a star in M5 is heading towards earth
• Right now, light that left M5 a thousand years ago is getting to your house.
o Old news, guys.

• Right now, God is killing moms and dogs because he has to.
o It’s not your fault. Damn it, Blue was old. That’s what old people do: they die. –Beanie, Old School

• Right now, guilt is turning someone inside out.
o That could be messy. I hope guilt laid down some newspaper, or at least doesn’t try it in my house.

• Right now, Van Halen is planning a world tour.
o I saw Van Halen when they toured promoting the album this song is on circa 1992. Yes, I was 11 years old. My Dad took me. I later learned that my t-shirt from the concert, bearing the name of the album (For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge) was not suitable to wear to school. I was deeply upset.

• Right now, a bomb factory worker is hard at work.
o Better than being unemployed.

• Right now you are sitting too close.
o Don’t tell me how close to sit.

• Right now someone’s got the wrong idea.
o Probably a safe bet.

• Right now, oil companies and old men are in control.
o Well, if Beanie was right then the old men will soon be dead. Problem solved!

• Right now, its business as usual in the woods. (shows a bear eating salmon)
o Gotta love bears. They don’t give a crap. They’ll eat a salmon and then rip your arm off for watching them. And then when you drag your bloody nub back to camp your friends will say “It was a bear, what’d you expect?”

• Right now, nothing is more expensive than regret.
o But I’d argue regret is also common to everyone. Expensive, common to everyone…sounds like taxes. Regret = taxes?

• Right now, is a space between the ice ages.
o It’s ludicrous to think our earth moves between normal periods of climate change. By looking at 4,000 years of written record on a multi-billion year old (arguably) planet, it’s most reasonable to conclude from the .00009% of experimental data available that the last 100 years of human activity are causing the climate change in progress. Duh.

• Right now, youth is king.
o I sure hope so. Wait, am I still considered youth?

• Right now, maybe we should pay attention to the lyrics.
o Miss a beat, you loose the rhythm. Nothing falls into place.

• Right now, is a good time to repent.
o As good as any, I suppose.

• Right now, the truth is being obscured.
o This one’s too big to touch in a paragraph.

• Right now, science is building a better tomato.
o I sure hope so. I like tomatoes.

• Right now, pigs are becoming lunch.
o And rightfully so.

• Right now, someone is working too hard for minimum wage.
o Then they should reexamine their options, goals, standard of living, and seek a new job, if appropriate. If after this careful reflection they do not seek a new job, then by definition they are as content as they can be, and they are not working “too hard,” but “just right.”

• Right now, a convenience store is open.
o I truly have nothing to say about this one.

• Right now, Mike is thinking about a solo project.
o Much like David Lee Roth, whose failed solo career left Van Hagar spiraling towards mediocrity.

• Right now, your parents miss you.
o I’m sure they do. I miss them as well.

• Right now, oysters are being robbed of their sole possession.
o The cause of this sole possession, a pearl, was originally an intruding grain of sand. On the contrary, I would theorize the oyster is quite content to have this nuisance removed.

• Right now, no one is safe from loneliness.
o But no one can be safe from loneliness, so it’s really a non-issue.

• Right now, it’s cold where someone you know lives.
o Probably true. I know someone from Alaska.

• Right now, it’s nicer in Cabo.
o I don’t know where Cabo is, but I would bet it’s nicer than Iraq. Sometimes I look around and ask God, “The Garden of Eden…here…are you serious?”

• Right now, a madman is wandering the streets of the town where you live.
o Unfortunately, I know this one is true. He’s also planting bombs in the road. Hopefully he’ll botch the wiring and cause it to explode while he’s placing it, leaving us only a bloody mess to clean up. If only they all worked out so well.

• Right now, she is going on with her life.
o That is good, I suppose.

• Right now, time is having its way with you.
o True. Time is the one dimension (known to us) in which we cannot control our direction of movement. It’s possible to slow our movement in that direction, but any significant slowing requires movement at speeds greater than we are currently capable of achieving for something as massive as a human. Yeah, that sucks.

• Right now, forces are aligning against you.
o Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean everyone isn’t out to get you.

• Right now, someone is walking onto a nude beach for the first time.
o Not in Iraq, they’re not. I’m pretty sure the Sharia doesn’t allow for nude beaches.

• Right now, Ed’s got his hands full.
o Absolutely.

• Right now, you wish you had a larger TV
o Some things are as true in 2006 as they are in 1992, even relating to technology.

• Write now.
o Now.

• Right now, our government is doing things that we think only other countries do.
o Only if “we” are naïve.

• Right now, you aren’t doing what you want to the most.
o I’ll say.

• Right now is harder than it looks.
o Nah. Nothing is hard about this.

• Right now, your memory is getting longer while your life is getting shorter.
o Another bitter truth.

• Right now, dogs have it good.
o Definitely. Plenty of food and your main job is to play fetch or maybe go hunting with your owner. Dogs do have it good.

• Right now, we cannot blame the Japanese.
o That depends on the topic. We cannot blame the Japanese for the lack of reasonably priced property in San Diego Country, but I place the blame for the proliferation of anime squarely on the shoulders of the Japanese.

• Right now, there is no cure.
o No cure for what? Measles, hair loss, the 2% of society that Dave Grossman contends are aggressive psychopaths? More specific, please.

• Right now, keeps happening.
o By definition.

• Right now, we must be going.
o And I as well.