It's 10 o'clock ... it's Monday ... we're all home, setting into our old routines, our old boring, stupid, Castle Wonderfuck lives ... but just remember, it's still a jungle out there. This is your old pal Hard Harry ... here we go.
[and this week, when the lyrics kick in, Mark actually starts singing along. once the first verse is over, he turns the stereo off and barely takes a breath before he's already starting in:]Everybody knows, EVERYbody knows. You guys have been hearin' that song for weeks now, months, maybe even
years if you've been around as long as yours truly. Maybe you know every single word by heart at this point, maybe you never even paid attention, but that song's always had a soft spot. I had a whole thing planned this mornin', thought it up starin' into my Frosted Flakes, wonderin' what I was gonna yell at you all about this time ... and then just now, I thought, you know what? Maybe we'll talk about Mr. Leonard Cohen for a minute.
He's the guy who wrote that, ya know. I'm not gonna bore you with any history lessons or tell you about how he's actually sort of a monk despite bein' a badass musician and a helluva poet, as cool as it is. It's just - that's always been my song. I've started my broadcasts off with it since day one ... I remember the first time I heard it, some old record my Mom buried in the back of a box when we moved to Arizona. Pulled it out and started listening to it outta - boredom? Curiosity? Destiny? Who the hell knows, but I fell in love with it right off the bat. Because it spoke to me. It said somethin' true, you know? It's true. Everybody
does know. Everybody knows it's all piled up against us, we're all up shit creek without a paddle, and we're drownin' in it, WE'RE GOIN' DOWN!
[he flails in his chair, spinning around, laughing for a moment] - Which is really a pretty sick image for those of you with overactive imaginations, now that I think about it. I'd apologize, but - PSHT. Since when the fuck have I ever? ... Anyway. The whole point Mr. Cohen was trying to make, far as Me Two Years Ago had it figured, was that yeah, everyone knew, but no one was
doin' anything about... and it made him sick. And it made ME sick, too, made me wanna get up and shake the world like a rag doll or a fucked-up kid, till it actually either did somethin', said somethin', or, like the kid, puked on my shoes.
And it worked! God fuckin' help me, it actually kinda worked, and then I got dumped here just as the last of the fit was hittin' the shan. Just when I figured I was done, and shot, and fucked ... I got a whole new mess, a whole new flock of sheep to yell at: you guys. But I been here two years, and two years is a long time. It's a lotta time to sit here and realize that every person that wakes up under this stupid roof or between these stupid walls or crawls their ass outta the duck pond soakin' wet or wanders in from the woods gets told the same damn things by the same damn people.
Toboe, you've probably already heard most of it, as this week's lone honored new kid. You've probably heard at least one or two or five or ten people tell YOU what everybody knows. The castle's a dick, the kitchen's on the first floor, and sooner or later, whether we like it or not, everybody gets used to it.
Only - that's just it, isn't it? Everybody knows that shit! It's stale, it's old, we've heard it a billion times! So tonight? Tonight, Hard Harry here wants you to crack open your brains and tell us what you
don't know. It can be the stuff that keeps you up at night, twistin' in your sheets, screamin' "why, why, WHY" at the ceiling, or the stuff that comes to you right smack in the middle of the same borin' shit you do every day and makes you go "what the fuck is up with THAT?"... just ... tell me: what
doesn't everybody know?
Let's shake it up, toss a couple rolls of Mentos in, and see what blows.
Have a little thinkin' music, folks.