Pribek

Roger Waters’ pig…

has been found.

The remains of Roger Waters’ political pig have been found in California – three days after the animal flew away during the Coachella Festival.

Pieces of the inflatable pig, which featured a pro-Barack Obama message, were found by two families on their driveways in La Quinta.

It’s understood that the $10,000 reward put forward by organisers will be split between the two households.

The pig, which was the width of two double-decker buses, escaped from its ties as Waters played Pink Floyd’s ‘Pigs’ during his headlining performance at the festival (April 27th).

In addition to the financial reward, the families will receive four life long tickets to the Coachella Festival.

According to Wikipedia the pigs have a history of escaping.

The original Pink Floyd pig was designed by Roger Waters and built in December 1976 in preparation for shooting the cover of the Animals album. Plans were made to fly the forty-foot, helium-filled balloon over Battersea Power Station on the first day’s photo-shoot, with a marksman prepared to shoot the pig down if it broke free. However, the pig was not launched.

On the second day, the marksman wasn’t present because no one had told him to return, and the pig broke free due to a strong gust of wind (gaining a lot of press coverage). It disappeared from sight within five minutes, and was spotted by airline pilots at forty thousand feet in the air. Flights at Heathrow Airport were cancelled as the huge inflatable pig flew through the path of aircraft, eastwards from Britain, over the English Channel, finally landing on a rural farm in Kent that night….

The pig also went astray whilst suspended from the ceiling of the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge Louisiana in 1977[citation needed]. It ran back and forth over the audience during the performance on some sort of track, and at the end of its travels across the arena struck a fan in the head as it turned to go back toward the stage….

In the two post-Waters tours, the pig was used many times; but two of the pigs were lost, both during the A Momentary Lapse of Reason tours:

* One 12-meter pig being used at a record company function on January 28, 1988 broke free before a concert[citation needed].
* On May 6, 1988 one of the band’s larger pigs descended towards the crowd and was ripped apart by fans during a concert in Foxboro, Massachusetts

Somebody should stop Waters and Pink Floyd. Clearly these pigs are not happy with being used as political footballs (pigskins), and forced in to performance. Where is PETA on this?

Where is the outrage?

I am not alone. Last week was the lowest rated ever for the four major T.V. networks. This is the era of information overload, a far cry from my youth when there were three networks and we only got two. I don’t think that people were less informed. Newspapers were far superior, every city had at least two. Normally one was more conservative and the other more liberal. Most folks subscribed to both to see what the other side was thinking. My Uncle Fred once said “things are changing, and as they do, they will change at a faster rate”.

Get a Real Job
Kinky Friedman was approved to be on the ballot in Texas. He is running for governor. Finally a Jewish/Texan/novelist/musician/singer/songwriter that the masses can get behind. He is a man of the people.

C.D. update
The discs will be here tomorrow. After I pick them up I will head over to see Bob Martin. Bob owns Nathan P. Murphy’s, a longtime Springfield nightclub. He also has a weekly three hour radio show on KXUS 97.3 called Dr. Bob’s Blues Show. Bob has played some of my stuff in the past and has been awaiting the C.D. We are planning an interview and Bob says he will be featuring several songs over a period of weeks interspersed with interview cuts. They do a webcast, so listen in during the coming weeks if you get a chance.

Crazy Diamond
Syd Barrett passed away on Friday.
I recall, sometime in the mid seventies, wanting the Pink Floyd album Dark Side Of The Moon. I didn’t have enough money so I bought another Floyd record called Relics which consisted of earlier tracks. I was initially disappointed as this record sounded nothing like the band I was familiar with. It was edgy stuff but had a pop sensitivity.

As I grew older, I became aware of a sort of mythology surrounding Syd. He released a couple of solo records that have a haunting quality. To me he sounded like a tortured soul unraveling before my ears.

During the eighties I took a job as a guitar teacher for awhile. Most of the students were into hair bands, a few were listening to bands like The Misfits, The Dead Kennedys, and The Butthole Surfers. I was startled one evening when one of the teenagers brought a cassette of Syd Barret solo stuff on it. Those solo records were pretty obscure.

My young student said “this is how I want to learn how to play, I want to sound like this”. I knew of the stories concerning Syd’s acid excess and mental demons. In an offhand way I said “you don’t want to live through what it takes to sound like that”. I feel bad about saying that. I had put more stock in the myth than the music. I should have realized that this young man was relating to something very human in these songs. Hopefully now Syd’s demons can be put to rest and the music will be what matters.