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Sunday, Apr. 07, 2002 - 7:08 p.m.
Millions Now Living Will Never Die

Well, I hit some sort of emotional bottom-of-the-well-today, and I was there up until about an hour ago. I am soothing myself with work, oddly enough. That, and Millions Now Living Will Never Die from Tortoise. What an incredible album. No matter what mood I'm in, that album, most especially the first song, Djed (21 minutes long), puts me in a much better mood. It's playing right now.

In Djed (that's no typo!), I imagine that in the beginning of it there are two guys who want to go on a cool trip. So they get ready. They bring all of the essentials: a couple of changes of clothes (shorts and shirts and underwear, it's summer), drinks, snacks, weed, etc. Then they load everything up in their REALLY BIG JEEP (RBJ). This RBJ is, in fact, the same vehicle used in the old Nintendo game, Blaster Master.

The next part is faster. It has the boys' main theme. There they are, driving down the road, with not a care in the world. The road is theirs; there's no one to disturb them. They're drinkin', smokin', thrillin' and chillin'. Life can't get better than this. It just can't. Night begins to fall. Even that is reflected in the music.

Then we move into the next part of the song. As every story needs some conflict, this one comes in the form of something, some force, some accident, separating them from their RBJ. I can't say the details, but they are in a dark, evil jungle-type place. They don't know where they are, but they need to escape. There are eyes everywhere. Occasionally you see moonlight reflecting off sharp teeth. Time to get serious. But they can't. They're like Bill and Ted, just a little older and smarter. They are cool, that's the rule. They think fast, they react to anything the jungle throws at them. No worries. These two are unstoppable together. If it were a video game, this would be the easy first level.

But then, chaos! Our heroes become separated! One falls down a hole, the other, caught off-guard, gets captured by the leader of the jungle folks. The one the fell follows a difficult, but not dangerous path to freedom. He has figure his way out of a 3-dimensional labyrinth that changes in time. So it's really a 4D maze. (Think: CUBE) The other is questioned and roughed up a little. He waits for his golden opportunity to escape. When his guards turn their backs (why? a distraction from our hero!) they are ambushed separately. He makes it outside where his friend is waiting...with weapons and the RBJ! They blast their way out and back to the open road.

The ride back is uneventful and silent, but their theme song plays again when they get home. It's much slower in tempo this time. They sit back, relax and spark up a J and talk about their most wicked trip.

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