I don’t think I realized how much of a dude Roger Waters was. When you hear the shit from this album that plays out of jukeboxes and on classic rock radio, he seems like this real mild unic—fuck, how do you spell the thing where they cut your dick off or whatever?—but anyway, half of this album is him screaming like a theater student weirdo. Is that where the term art rock came from? Like, does art rock refer to drama queens who make music? Is that what it’s supposed to mean? Not that I think Pink Floyd is art rock. Fuck, but what else do you even call Pink Floyd? Are they a “rock” band? What does that even mean anymore? Seriously! 

It has only been like 30 minutes but I swear to god I’ve been listening to this album for like three hours. I don’t know if that’s because I’m stoned or because it’s a fucking slow as shit record. But now I’m on “Don’t Leave Me Now” and the creepy breathing in the background is really fucking me up. Whoah, they were talking about a Bulls/Lakers game in the interlude part! And now it sounds like one of those tree people from Lord of the Rings is fucking stomping on TVs. Okay, that was kind of cool. I’m going to rewind that part. Actually, no, you can’t just rewind a concept album, can you? I mean, you can, but wouldn’t that be like rewinding fucking Lord of the Rings? You can’t rewind Lord of the Rings! That would be so wrong! Or maybe you CAN rewind it but only like the third or fourth time you watch it. God, why does that even matter? Why am I such a fucking prude about watching movies. That’s a total man-thing. Do you know any women who freak out about pausing a movie or having a wrong aspect ratio or whatever? A woman does not give a shit about that stuff.

Okay, crazy. This song is kind of sexy. I’ve heard it for sure. “Hey You.” I wanna refer to the bass in this song as “gay bass” but I’m not sure why. It just kind of sounds like a really gay dude was playing bass. Maybe that’s part of the whole rock opera thing, like it’s supposed to sound gay because the character is a dandy or whatever. I am sooooo not paying any attention to the lyrics anymore. THERE ARE SO MANY WORDS!!! How did kids even follow this? Especially stoned kids!? I guess maybe kids had longer attention spans in 1979 and then the kids of my generation just kind of pretended to get it. God, I can’t imagine the dubstep generation ever having the patience for a two-hour rock album. Is this shit totally irrelevant now, even to teenagers? Are people finally over it, or is it still a thing? See, this is EXACTLY why I keep 17-year-old friends around. I’ll have to ask those kids about Pink Floyd. The best thing is that these kids totally allow me my old man questions (“Do kids still rollerblade!?” “Do you guys even know who He-Man is?”). So I’m putting that out there.

Fuck! Website idea! ASK A FUCKING OVER-IT TEENAGER.

Alright, back to the Floyd. Are you fucking kidding me? I’m half way through? I am supposed to be doing other work, this is no good. This is no good at all. Uh-oh, I’m freaking out! I want ice cream! But this pissed off old British man is beating his kid around and I don’t want to miss where this goes. Sensitive piano song!

“When I’m a good dog/ They sometimes throw me a boney”

No one has ever said “boney,” in the history of human beings, except on this song. Mostly because it sounds more like a boner than like an actual bone, but moreso because “boney” is just an exceptionally stupid-sounding word.

I’m pretty sure this whole song is about what an asshole Roger Waters is. He sounds like a huge asshole.

Okay, in-review snack review:
PRODUCT: Graeter’s Coconut Chocolate Chip Ice Cream ($4.99)
I don’t usually buy coconut shit but something about this got me excited (maybe I thought, “yeah, I’m finally gonna figure out why people love coconut). My freezer isn’t really as cold as it should be, but I think that’s actually helping the experience. If the cocounut was frozen it would just taste like a shitty coconut popsicle, right? I’m pretty sure even people who like coconut shit don’t like coconut popsicles. Anyway, I think I got it because my buddy swears by coconut ice cream. But he means ice cream made from cocunut milk. This shit is regular ice cream with some coconut in it. Doesn’t take much, I guess, because coconut is below “soy oil” in the ingredients list. But FUCK I am getting kind of off-track. So I sum this one up by giving it Three out of Five Bricks in the Wall. The chocolate chunks are fucking amazing (pretty sure that’s why people like Graeter’s so much) but the coconut part is like “eh, you tried.”

I just paused this album for a bit so I am kinda lost and almost feel like I should start over. Man, when I was a kid, getting high slowed time down for me so much. But it’s really 1:40 in the morning and I’ve got a few hours of work to do, at least, and I haven’t done that shit. Fuck. If I had a real real job I’d be fired. But then I also wouldn’t be working like 65 hours a week so maybe I could ace a real job.

“Vera? Vera? What has become of you?”

I think this is the first time they’ve brought Vera up, even! Why do I give a shit about her? If he had said “Mary” or “Elizabeth” or something, I’d just write it off as an arty allusion, but instead it’s kind of awkward. Maybe there’s a famous Vera.

Whoah, Vera means faith. Thanks, Wikipedia. So maybe it WAS an arty solution. I’m sure there are fucking mountains of critical discourse on this album that would tell me what the fuck is going on, because I’m really lost still, but that feels like cheating. I think sometimes you’ve just got to NOT ENJOY the classics so you can say you didn’t enjoy the classics.

Okay, but the chorus of “Comfortably Numb” is fucking cool. I forgot about that. Still weird to hear the synths, because they’re the kind of synths that people only really use to be ironic these days, and they’re used so earnestly here. Is there a word for that or a phrase for that? Can we call it the Tim and Ericing of culture, please?

Hey, a cat! What’s up Arthur?

So, I will say this: That idea, that you should mourn your youth not because you were cooler or handsomer or you could fuck for longer or whatever, but because you knew something that you lose as you turn into an adult? That is the theme of my life. I was a fortune teller when I was a teenager, too, and I knew that all this shit was true.

Did I tell you earlier that one of my more tenuous facebook friends posted a photo of him smoking weed from a pipe made of snow? And the comments were like “did this actually happen? did the pipe work?” and he was like “YES AND YES.” And then he described…well, I’m just going to quote him, because this was the funniest thing I’ve ever read and I think he meant it in total and utter seriousness:

“no way. we smoked a couple bowls through it. as the snow melts its get glossy and glassy. it actually worked super super good. sure the bowl gets a little bit bigger everytime it’s exposed to the flame, but it really did work awesome!”

That’s the first part. Then someone asked him what tools he used to build the pipe:

“Use your thumb and a stick. the stick for the stem and the thumb for the bowl, smash snow all around it, the shape it and pull out the thumb and the stick. you might have to try it a couple times….”

Yes, I’m going to try it a couple times. I can see myself now, mashing my frostbitten fingers into a fucking snowball until they’re blue, screaming in frustration as the stick fucking busts up the snow, and then, when I finally light the fucking thing, my weed becomes a wet mess and fucking freezing ass water is dripping all over my sad frozen fingers.

Okay, I’m bored to fuck. And I’m pretty stoned, too. But I’m at “The Trial,” which so far sucks, and it’s the first to the last song on the record. It’s some faux-deep musical theater shit and it’s just not for me is all. It reminds me of vaudeville, which I think is the point, but when I listen to a rock album I don’t particular want vaudeville stuff to break in. I hope this isn’t some expanded version and these are bonus tracks I’ve been listening to. I don’t think so, though.

Seriously had to skip the last couple minutes of that one. I have high expectations for this closer. It’s a closer. If it’s not good, this album is officially not what it’s cut out to be.

I can’t believe I missed this, but what was the wall supposed to be a metaphor for? Like an emotional wall that you build or like society…society’s wall?

I think it’s over. And I like accordion, so this worked for me I guess, but it felt a little impersonal and shticky there at the end. In fact, a lot of it felt that way. Felt a little less than forthcoming, you know?

Anyway, now I’ve done it. But I’ve done it too late. The Wall isn’t for me, I can’t imagine. It’s not for a 31-year-old who was raised on Green Day (and yeah, I stopped paying attention before they went into rock opera territory). If I loved it I’d feel like one of those teachers who drops a reference to the Wootang Clan. I’d feel wrong. For me to to like this album would be wrong. But I did like the cool-sounding parts. I just hated all the talking parts. What a load of horseshit.

I am rating The Wall Two-and-a-half out of Five hits from the ice-pipe.

So, I smoked a little weed when I was a teenager, but I was so self-conscious, even then, that I avoided most of the major weed cliches. So I’ll be using this Tumblr page to write brief reviews—while stoned, of course—of some of history’s great stoner records.