Story of a Song: “4:36pm”

An early mix of the new Bob Spelled Backwards single, “4:36pm”, is posted on the Bob MySpace page. Let us/me know what you think!

Although this mix is already light years beyond any previous Bob recording in quality, it is still early and raw.

About the song:

“4:36pm” adds another chapter to the epic tale of Monster N, along with previous classics, “Theme From Monster N”, “Monster N Destroys the World” and ”Ballad of the Fifty Foot David Bowie” (also included on the yet-to-be released record). You will learn to say his name.

The story of Monster N, as it stands:

Monster N is a plastic Godzilla-like Dinosaur model who was manufactured for use in stop-action monster movies during their heyday. Through as-of-yet unexplained events, Monster N gained sentience and was imbued with the same megalomaniacism that the characters he portrayed possessed. He escapes from the movie lot and plans his ascent to notoriety. After successfully suing the movie industry for royalties from the many movies he was used in without compensation, his desire to be a real, bona fide monster drives him to hire top Hollywood special effects artists to help in his quest to be feared by all humanity.

He also has infinite atomic power…in a 6 inch radius.

“4:36pm” tells a key chapter in the tale. We meet up with our monster having fallen in love with a beautiful girl who rejects his advances due to his plasticness. In his anger and bitterness, and in his desire to impress the girl so that she will realize she should love him, he has plotted the destruction of New York City. The song takes place on the eve of the execution of his plan, which is set to go in motion the following day at 4:36pm.

There have been a few events in my life where I almost came out looking really cool. I've called them “Mark is Almost Cool Stories”.

I had originally posted one of these almost 2 years ago, in January of '07. Now, the text of that story seems to have disappeared. Strange. There's just a title there. So, I'm going to start the series over. I don't remember which story I had told before, but I think it was the “snorkel fish” story. So I'll go with the “suicide hill” story this time.

It was the winter of '95, if I remember correctly, and I probably don't. I was still in college at Appalachian State, and Boone, NC was having one of it's typical snowy winters. Snowy winters apparently aren't as typical there nowadays, dang global warming. But I digress…

There had been a significant snow, more than a foot, perhaps two. Snow is awesome for a college kid living off, but near, campus. I think it was a Saturday, but I can't remember for sure. Gwen, my girlfriend at the time, and I went walking around Boone to enjoy the two-day-old snowfall. I decided we should take the trails through the woods behind Kidd Brewer Stadium to the secret little pond that was up there in the hills. We climbed the stairway that leads up into the woods behind Eggers dorm. The stairway continues climbing up to the top of the hill where some campus owned apartments had been built, and a road leading to Broyhill Inn. However, halfway up the stairs, was a trail leading off into the woods that would eventually take you to the pond. We made a left onto the trail and made our way around the hillside until we came to a small clearing which was the head of a narrower, much steeper trail that leads back down to the football practice field behind the stadium. This steep, curvy trail-way had earned the nickname “Suicide Hill” because it was a popular spot for sledding after big snows. The “suicide” aspect of it comes from the way the trail curves several times before it reaches the bottom, which makes sledding it seem rather dangerous. If you miss a curve, you plow into trees, probably at a high speed. On this day there was a large group of people testing the hill's reputation with their lives. Since it had been a couple of days since the snow had fallen, and there had been much sled traffic on this popular spot, the snow itself had actually been packed into a fairly hard sheet of ice. This made the hill much faster, and more dangerous. Offsetting the danger of the ice was the fact that all the previous sledding had actually caused snow-banks to build up on the outside of the two largest curves, creating somewhat of a Luge course which made it possible to hug the curves, and avoid plowing into the trees. At the time Gwen and I arrived, several of the insane sledders had brought out an inflatable raft, to attempt conquering the hill. It is important to note that, regardless the vehicle, no-one was making it to the bottom without wiping out in some horrible, and usually hilarious way. After Gwen and I both failed to make it safely to the bottom on our flat, roll-up sleds. I decided to take a turn in the raft. Everyone else was wiping out in the raft, but it's large cushioniness made it look as cozy as it was terrifying. Basically the challenge was for someone, anyone, to make it all the way to the bottom of the hill still in the raft.  So my turn came up. I climbed into the raft, and the others let it go. I went from 0 to about 640 MPH in half a second. The raft kept spinning around, so that I couldn't see where I was going. I could only see trees that barely failed to kill me whizzing away from me at nearly the speed of sound. Then I hit the first big, banked curve. The raft, fortunately, didn't fly off the path into the trees. But the bank did manage to hurl me straight up into the air. Up into the air I went, with no control over where I would land, and spinning around so fast I couldn't really even see where I was going. I landed hard, on my ass, on the packed snow, outside of the raft, still hurtling downhill at breakneck speed. “Great”, I thought. “I didn't even make it past the first curve”. I only then began to wonder what might become of me, now that I was streaking down an ice-hill, on my ass, backwards. I didn't have long to ponder, because I hit the bank of the second curve. Much like the first curve, the bank hurled me straight up into the air again, spinning me around, with no control over where I might land. Then I landed, back in the raft. It must have been a sight to see, in a matter of split seconds, me wiping out horribly, then being tossed like a rag doll back into the raft just after the second curve, with nothing but a deadly, slick, solid ice straight shot down the hill to safety. When I landed back in the raft, a loud cheer erupted from the people that were watching. As soon as I realized what had happened, I raised my arms triumphantly in recognition of the cheers. Then, just before reaching the broad, flat field below, I hit one last bump, and was thrown out of the raft again. I was mere feet away from, sort of, making it to the bottom still in the raft. I almost did it. I was almost cool.

Note: Suicide Hill no longer exists. What had been the football practice field is now the official baseball field, built into the hillside where suicide hill once plummeted. To sled it now would be to slam into a wall head on. So now I guess it's just “Certain Death Hill”.

Note 2: Apparently, ASU campus has a new “Suicide Hill” behind the Broyhill Music Center. It is referred to here. Coincidentally, the article linked to in the previous sentence was posted on the same day as my original blog post referring to this story. Weird.

I'm not a democrat, I'm a centrist independent.  However, I couldn't help but feel emotional on Tuesday night as I watched the election results roll in. Although I'm a centrist, I tend to lean away from the party that is in power, which means I've been leaning pretty far to the left for the past 8 years. My cynical side made it difficult for me to place too much hope in the election, because part of me doubted that our country had come far enough to actually elect a black man to the presidency. Because I hadn't allowed myself to have too much hope, the gravity of what was happening didn't really sink in right away. I was glued to the results all day, and even as Obama raced out to a big lead, and won key states that it had seemed impossible to win, I kept my hope in check, worried about having them dashed. Everyone knew Obama would win California, so when he exceeded 215 electoral votes before results for California had come in, putting him within California's 55 electoral votes of victory, I began to realize that history was happening. I've never been all that excited about an election before this one. To be honest, 2004 was the first time I had voted. I guess I was complacent until awakened from that complacency by the worst president in history. At least I can credit him with that. So, shortly after 8pm, when California's polls closed, and it was, thus, legal to do so, CNN called the election for Obama. Even at that point, my enthusiasm was contained. “They called it too soon”, I thought. “They could be wrong”, I worried. Then they showed celebrations from around the nation erupting spontaneously in the streets, and I began to believe, “This is really happening”. Then, after a few minutes, McCain conceded, and it was over. McCain's speech was excellent, exactly what his supporters needed to hear.  Obama's acceptance speech was, like many of his others, inspiring.  With the outcome now assured, I allowed myself to be caught up in the moment. We just elected a black man!  If half the bad things I had come to believe about this country were true, this couldn't have happened!  His being black couldn't have been the reason he was elected. Nor was it  the case that he was elected despite being black. We didn't elect a black man, we elected the best man for the job, who happens to be black. That says a lot. He was elected in a landslide, winning in states such as North Carolina and Virginia that you would never think in a million years would vote for a black man. People weren't freaked out by his distinctly non-Anglo/Saxon name. I have to admit that tears came to my eyes as I drank in the historic moment that was happening before my eyes. The entire country, even the entire world it seemed, erupted into spontaneous celebration. I believe this was the adding together of two huge realizations.

1. We elected a black man, and a candidate that many, many people were very excited about, more so than any I can remember in my lifetime.

2. People realized that the nightmare that has been the Bush administration is really going to end, and end in a definitive change in direction.

Have you ever noticed when you have a pain somewhere in your body, and it suddenly goes away, how it feels euphoric? Couple that with another body part suddenly feeling really good and you've got a visceral equivalent of what our nation felt on Tuesday night.  A huge weight was lifted off our collective shoulders, psychologically. Hopes are very high, after the long nightmare, for just about everyone in America.

Everyone, that is, except for our gay and lesbian community.

Am I the only one that finds it more than a little ironic that, on the same ballot where we elect a black man, thus effectively and decisively putting an end to racial inequality in our country, we turn around and strip another minority of their basic civil rights? I'm not going to rehash everything I said in my November 3rd entry on the same subject, but this is a tremendous injustice. Since when were basic civil rights awarded or denied by a simple majority rule? Does that mean that Christians, who greatly outnumber every other religion in our country combined, can simply initiate ballot measures and vote away the rights of everyone they disagree with?

The America that I had feared hadn't come far enough to elect a black man reared it's ugly head after all, on election night, with the passage of Proposition Hate (8).  Are we just determined to discriminate against someone, anyone?

I invite anyone to use the comment section to explain to me exactly how it is that same-sex marriage “threatens traditional marriage”. Because, no one has offered a logical explanation yet. It just seems to me like an elaborate justification of hatred. People who are determined to hate, or feel superior to others, will always find justification, usually by making up some way that they are threatened. Hitler was good at it, he found a way to label Poland as a threat in order to justify “pre-emptive war” (sound familiar?). He also found a way to label Jews as a threat, and managed to convince an entire population that their extermination was justified. Seems to me that certain right-wing factions would like the same fate for homosexuals.

All of this adds to my argument for why separation of church and state is essential to a free society. But that's a debate for another time…

PETITION TO REPEAL PROP 8 HERE.

(This post was submitted via email. I can do that.)

I will never, EVER support any measure that will change the constitution in order to deny basic civil rights to ANYONE. And, that is exactly what Proposition 8 on California's general ballot will do.

First of all, it's important to know who is behind the ballot measure. It is sponsored by right-wing religious groups. Tens of millions of dollars in advertising has been paid for by the Mormon church, mostly from Utah. As if it isn't bad enough, this means that religious leaders in Utah are trying to tell Californians what to do, and who to discriminate against. One religious group should never have enough power to impose their outdated morality upon non-practitioners.

Secondly, isn't it about time we got past the obsolete practice of denying equality to groups within our society? It wasn't that long ago that racism was legal, Japanese were put into camps, and communities regularly legislated what ethnic groups could and could not live within their borders. Denying rights to people that are different than us is out-dated, short-sighted, and hopelessly ignorant. Won't we ever learn?

Finally, it is most important, I think, to consider the connotations of allowing legislation of this nature to come into being. Now it is a ballot measure that would deny a basic civil right to a portion of our society. If this is passed without fanfare, even outrage, it would pave the way for further constitutional amendments that would seek to further eliminate rights and powers that Americans have fought and died for for centuries. Even if the thought of same-sex marriage sickens you, you must consider the slippery slope that is amending the constitution to remove a group's basic rights. Perhaps you are a christian and think that it should be outlawed. If you vote yes on this, what will be next? A ballot measure barring certain religious groups from running for office? How about a vote on which races can and cannot immigrate into the U.S.? This is one small step towards allowing ballot measures and constitutional amendments to slowly, or not so slowly, erode our basic rights and freedoms. This must be opposed, even if you disagree with the freedom that the proposal would ban. Freedoms and rights should NEVER be banned. EVER.