Pink Floyd will do nothing for you (i.e. intellectually, emotionally, sexually) if you have been smoking old indica weed. Out of a wooden pipe, the resin saturates the bowl and you get a sort of double high. This is a bad thing.
Indica is, by its nature, a debilitating substance. The type of people who smoke and then try to justify listening to shitting music smoke indica: Sublime, 311, Dave Matthews Band, Insane Clown Posse, Phish, O.A.R., Pink Floyd - yes, Pink Floyd.
Every time I have to wince at the anticipation of being sloshed (I don't know of another verb used to connote the experience of being lazily hit with a ringed-out wool sock) with praise of Darkside of the Moon by the same sort of clown who read Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas because he (typically I deal with he's - I've noticed females either lack the capacity for abstract thought, or they simply mature at a quicker pace than males and are therefore unfettered by slothful urges persisting into infinity unless nominally policed into whim (SCIENCE!)) thought the drug use was "cool". The convoluted experience of smoking pot and listening to atmospheric music has become a hipster pot-hole, a douche-chill of the highest order. There are taboos, but there are also obvious mainstays of the stoner musical library.
First off, no: Pink Floyd, Grateful Dead, Traffic, Cream, Phish, Rush, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Blue Oyster Cult, E.L.P. (Emerson, Lake & Palmer), or any other...Cactus; no Cactus, either. Prog rock from the sixties and seventies is out. Unless you want some faux-bespectacled waif in his girlfriend's corduroy pants looking at you sideways as he tips his scally cap to one side, the one he got at Target for $14.95, while you ogle a Moving Pictures t-shirt at Everyday People, you better stick with metal: Black Sabbath, Kyuss, Melvins, Sleep, Monster Magnet, Boris, Mastodon, Uriah Heep, Acid Mothers Temple, Electric Wizard, Black Cobra, Weedeater, Bison B.C.
New jams, old jams - it doesn't matter just as long as there are jams to be kicked out. Dre, Snoop, Ghost Face, Q-Tip, Method & Red, DOOM, and Cypress Hill will put an equally fierce fight for those of you who feel the back beat as well as the down beat.
(Author's Note: Upon reflection, fuck what the faux-bespectacled waif in his girlfriend's corduroy pants looking at you sideways as he tips his scally cap to one side, the one he got at Target for $14.95, while you ogle a Moving Pictures t-shirt at Everyday People thinks. Listen to and enjoy what you want. SCIENCE!)
Then again, wouldn't one's time be better spent pursuing other avenues than cynicism? Because that is exactly sent me on this rant berating those scrawny, contrived bitches in the first place - cynicism. My generation--or at least those within four years of me (two ahead; two behind)--is a a bevy of cynicism. Irony is our alma mater, and we are faithful to institutions that have shown us neither comfort nor malice.
Ah-ha! I believe I've found the magic bullet.
Caddy Shack, Richard Lewis, and post-punk are all integral parts of an irony-enriched diet. We strive for products of this diet the same way we gravitate toward MacDonald's, or Mt. Dew (notice I abbreviated a proper noun of shear convenience; I have already proved my point), or Facebook. Consumed in stride, these apparent empty intellectual calories become alkaline, cause one to "coast" through life without the risk of harm or failure; nor the joy of achievement and success.
In a nutshell: nobody gets hurt. The cynic remains cynical and the catalyst of this lazy person's frustration remains blissfully ignorant of their casual offense. This is text book laziness. The Christian's have a name for this - well, actually...one of their writers invented a name and accompanying offense, along with six others in tow, around one thousand years ago: sloth.
When we get out of line, we trust our greatest minds to pout us right again. Infection lead to penicillin; war lead to the atomic bomb. The warm creamy center that we have vainly and arbitrarily implanted in ourselves is always brought back from standby, screaming to life, whenever tragedy or affluence run wild. We call it a "soul", and its amendments "morals". Every person, secular or non, is expected to come pre-programmed with a data base of 'yes' and 'no' answers.
While each of us is a player on this stage of a world, we are also--all of us--the audience. We expect those 'yes' and 'no' answers to be ready for consumption. When our appetites cannot be satisfied, we fall victim to another inherent weakness: fear.
When we become afraid of a 'yes' or 'no' drought we give our own 'yes' and 'no' right over to an institution that assures us they have the indubitable 'yes's and 'no's.
In a nutshell: when we can't get out own together, we go crying to a religion, or political party, or monarchy to set things straight (sometimes all in the same package). Three examples I will present, each a picture of man's sad state of mind:
1.) Religion: Monk Evagrius Ponticus (yes--"pontificate" comes from his surname) made up eight "evil thoughts" in the fourth century while translating Greek documents. He was the Dan Brown of his time.
In 590, Pope Gregory I revised these eight "evil thoughts", folding two into one. And thanks to Dante Aligheri's woefully misinterpreted Divine Comedy we have the Seven Deadly Sins: Doc Grumpy, Sleepy, Bashful, Happy, and Dopey.
When we couldn't get ourselves to behave, we asked the man in the big hat to talk to Jesus and impose whatever jumps out of his mouth onto a page (the pope's mouth). Why? Because we're very, very lazy.
(Author's Note: An interesting counter-argument would be citing the 1927 film Metropolis. The worker's are not lazy, but oppressed. Still, they cannot contend with responsibility. They jump to violent conclusions, and, at one point, leave their own children to drown in the city they're so bent on destroying in protest of their treatment. Is mankind stuck with stupid either way? Perhaps.)
I know I promised three examples, but we'll all have to wait for the other two to come to me. Sorry.
But in the mean-time:
The Voice - Bobby McFerrin
Searching for A Former Clarity - Against Me!
Blakroc - Blakroc
San Patricio - The Chieftans Ft. Ry Cooder
God of Malfunction - The Contrast
Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal Method - Earth
Carboniferous - Zu
Has Been - William Shatner
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