AA SOTD - 8/2/22; The Iceman Cometh
- Pre: walk the dog -->cold shower
- Brush: Stirling 26mm synthetic pro handle
- Razor: Merkur Progress
- Blade: Astra (2)
- Lather: B&M Arctique (omnibus)
- Post: B&M Arctique AS
- Post: Nivea cooling balm
#UNCHALLENGE :
Good morning everybody. Great shave to start day 2 for me. I feel refreshed after my morning walk with my hound, my brisk shower, and a #EasyPeasy shave. Can I feel my face? NO. Does that matter. FUCK NO.
#SIDETRACKED :
When I was a young boy my family lived in the far Southeast tip of America's figurative member, that hilariously cocaine-riddled state filed with the wildest combination of retirees, the ancestors of old Florida cowboys and Flagler industrial types, and immigrants from mostly the global south, a state who lives in the imagination of our European friends as an urbanized swamp filled with alligators, pornstars and money laundering tycoons all cramped together on South Beach (this is not to say, Euro-folks, that that image is necessarily untrue). My extended family, however, was not from Florida and at Christmas/holidays we often travelled to the Northeast. Travel meant two days on the road straight up I-95 with a stop in the Carolinas halfway through, usually at a roadside motel next to America's greatest dining establishment - Waffle House. I was 12 years old when we stayed with my grandparents for one such Christmas. My parents, my sisters, my grandparents and myself, all sardine-packed in a one bathroom home. I slept on a couch near the Christmas tree. One of my gifts that year was a copy of The Beatles - The White Album.
Helter Skelter- just listen to this thing, will ya?! My mind was blown by this song. That incredible opening slide, the drums humming in sync with the guitar, all leading to McCartney SCREAMING YEAH YEAH YEAH as that riff rumbles. Then my ears were hit by that orgasmic wall of sound; Ringo is working overtime here, shredding his hands (I GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGAHS) and tossing the sticks across the studio on take 18. Regarding Helter Skelter, Ringo is to have said "Helter Skelter' was a track we did in total madness and hysterics in the studio. Sometimes you just had to shake out the jams." McCartney and Lennon wanted this to be dirty and chaotic, and dirt and chaos is what they got. All of this doesn't even touch the rest of the history behind this song, Charles Manson and his race war theory, the murders, the conspiracies. Volumes of history have been written on lesser topics, on lesser moments.
Rocky Raccoon - McCartney originally named the protagonist "Rocky Sassoon" but changed it to Rocky Raccoon because he thought it sounded more cowboy-ish. This fact makes me chuckle, thinking of Liverpudlian McCartney postulating on what is and is not Western, presumably imagining a coon-skin cap on top of this character's head. After all, in America we are all rustics. McCartney also wrote this in jest, poking fun at folk-writers, but this song breaks my heart in many small ways, and even at 12 years old it made me feel an indescribable sadness. Poor poor Rocky, trapped in this love triangle, tormented by his unrequited love of Lil McGil, displaying his machismo and getting shot for all of this foolishness. Now shot, wounded and scorned by Lil, Rocky has to rely on this pathetic alcoholic small town rural doctor who is so drunk he takes Rocky's place on the table. The sadness of the doctor alone still makes my heart drop. Rocky then limps home to a room otherwise empty but for a copy of Gideon's bible. Whether or not Rocky recieves comfort from the Good Book we do not now know, but his fate is at least, hopefully, headed towards revival.
Every time we made that trip from Florida to the Northeast, at night in our stop-over hotel, I would open the dresser drawers and find a copy of Gideon's Bible, and a pang of sadness would strike my heart thinking about Rocky.
Edit: u/Teufelskraft sorry forgot to tag you