What a Drag It Is Getting Old

Remember before the Internet?

Well, I do. If you were a quote-smart kid-unquote (i.e your parents were some kind of weird antisocial brainiacs), you were aware of the existence of such things as "personal computers," and possessed a vague foreshadowing that these exotic machines might one day break through the heretofore unbreached frontiers of geekdom and draw Mr. and Mrs. Everyfamily into the warm glow of their electronic embrace.

Then you shook yourself a little and said, "Naaaaaaah."

However, as it happens, the dang thing is just about everywhere these days (unless of course you work for a government agency). What isn't on the Internet? Everything is. Everything.

The quickest example to spring to my mind, just at the moment, is the lyrics to Cocteau Twins songs.

To be perfectly honest, my perception of the universe as I know it (or heretofore knew it) is rather shaken. I guess I was about eighteen, nineteen years old when I first became aware of the Cocteau Twins; but one of the most basic functions of the Cocteau Twins - as I understood it - is to provide lyrics with the profound meaning of which you cannot possibly find any faults, inasmuch as you can't begin to understand what the heck it is that they're singing.

Such was my life, from the time I was eighteen or nineteen until the age of forty; and readily can you believe what a happy, carefree existence it was. Then you go and find out that one of your favorite songs of all time contains such a line as

"Tis the lucky lucky penny penny penny penny"

in the midst of a whole bunch of other words that also don't make any sense, and, well, you get a little discouraged. All those years of smoking pot in college for NOTHING.