58 - Brothers in Arms – Dire Straits – 1984

     Brothers in Arms - Dire Straits  

 Hearing this song always reminds me of what I think must be my favorite episode of “The West Wing”, “Two Cathedrals.”

       Those of us who watched “The West Wing” saw it as the government we wish we had, especially after the 2000 appointment (Yes…George W. Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court, don’t get me started…he lost the popular vote by over 500,000 and a consortium of newspapers/universities looked at the ballots from Florida and agreed that by almost every method, hanging chad or no hanging chad, Gore would have won a recount and thereby the Presidency).

At the end of almost every episode it would leave me on the verge of misty eyes as I contemplated what it would be like to have people in government like Toby, Sam, Josh, and especially, President Bartlet.

       Maybe we do have people like them, but when the memoirs come out after the Administration is gone they always seem so self-serving and CYA boring.

       “Two Cathedrals” was the second season closer. In it President Bartlet must attend the funeral of his long time secretary, Mrs. Landingham, who was killed in a car accident with a drunk driver in the episode before. I remember that episode as a gut punch because it came out of nowhere.

       He is also dealing with a major decision, whether he will run for a second term, with the news starting to come out that he has MS, and has been hiding it from almost everyone but his wife, a doctor; Leo McGarry (the great John Spencer), his chief of staff; and several others.

       Told through flashback, we see how President Bartlett came to meet, bond with, and rely on the counsel of Mrs. Landingham.

       After the funeral in the National Cathedral a clearly upset Bartlett stops in the nave, takes a final puff from a cigarette, and crushes it on the floor of the cathedral and in Latin says,” I give thanks to you, O Lord. Am I really to believe that these are the acts of a loving God?  A just God?  A wise God?  To hell with your punishments. I was your servant here on Earth. And I spread your word and I did your work. To hell with your punishments. To hell with you.” (translation from Television Without Pity’s recap).

            As President Bartlet later readies to face a national press conference he sees Mrs. Landingham and says,” I have MS and I didn't tell anybody."

Mrs. Landingham: "So you're having a little bit of a day."

He asks whether she's going to make jokes. She reproaches him, "God doesn't make cars crash and you know it. Stop using me as an excuse." He says the party's not going to want him to run. She assures him that the party will come back. He sits down and says, "I got a secret for you, Mrs. Landingham. I've never been the most popular guy in the Democratic Party." She sits down as she says, "I've got a secret for you, Mr. President. Your father was a prick who could never get over the fact that he wasn't as smart as his brothers." She continues, "Are you in a tough spot? Yes. Do I feel sorry for you? I do not. Why? Because there are people way worse off than you."

Bartlet: "Give me numbers."

Mrs. Landingham: I don't know numbers. You give them to me.
Bartlet: How about a child born in this minute has a one in five chance of being born into poverty?
Mrs. Landingham: How many Americans don't have health insurance?
Bartlet: Forty-four million.
Mrs. L: What's the number one cause of death for black men under thirty-five?
Bartlet: Homicide.
Mrs. L: How many Americans are behind bars?
Bartlet: Three million.
Mrs. L: How many Americans are drug addicts?
Bartlet: Five million.
Mrs. L: And one in five kids in poverty?
Bartlet: That's thirteen million American children. Three and a half million kids go to schools that are literally falling apart. We need a hundred and twenty-seven billion in school construction and we need it today. [At this point, there's a brief shot of the room from above, showing the Prez sitting across from an empty chair, talking to himself.]
Mrs. L: To say nothing of fifty-three people trapped in an embassy.
Bartlet: Yes!
Mrs. Landingham: You know, if you don't want to run again, I respect that. But if you don't run because you think it's gonna be too hard or you think you're gonna lose, well, God, Jed, I don't even want to know you.

(This sort of banter/conversation is Aaron Sorkin at his very best)

Mrs. Landingham walks out and President Bartlet walks to the door to see a downpour and he steps into it. “Brothers in Arms” begins.

       Here I’d like to abrogate my duties as a blogger (whatever that means!) and use the more succinct recap of Deborah of Television Without Pity to describe what happens next along with their use of “Brothers in Arms”

“As the President strides out to his limousine, with Charlie, Leo, Sam, Josh, Toby, and numerous Secret Service agents accreting to him as he goes, the lyrics of the song "Brothers in Arms" begin: "These mist-covered mountains/ Are a home now for me/ But my home is the lowlands/ And always will be/ Someday you'll return to/ Your valleys and your farms/ And you'll no longer burn/ To be brothers in arms."

“We hear C.J. assuring a very large crowd of reporters that the President will address their questions as soon as he arrives. We cut back and forth between Jed and his staff getting into the motorcade and C.J. fielding questions: "Through these fields of destruction/ Baptisms of fire/ I've witnessed your suffering/ As the battles raged higher/ And though they did hurt me so bad/ In the fear and alarm/ You did not desert me/ My brothers in arms." In the back of the limo, Jed looks much less sad and more determined; Leo tries to read his expression but they do not speak.

“C.J. tells the clamoring crowd of reporters that a list of prosecutors is given to a three-judge panel, and that the prosecutors as well as the panel were all appointed by Republican Presidents. The reporters shout and compete for C.J.'s attention; over the din, C.J. shouts, "Please! I can only answer fourteen or fifteen questions at once!" On paper it has the sound of her usual snappy patter, but you can hear the strain in her voice. Donna and Margaret arrive at the press conference, looking stunned at the commotion.

“At the National Cathedral, a janitor is cleaning the floor in a dim light. Of course, it only reminds me of the janitor in the Nirvana video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit," which provides me with a minimal amount of unintended levity. The janitor finds Jed's cigarette butt and stoops to pick it up, puzzled. He looks up and out the door as a car with sirens blazing passes; it could be the motorcade, although the cathedral is not en route from the White House to the State Department. Jed could have requested that the motorcade pass the Cathedral, and his sidelong glance out the window at this point would seem to support this theory. "There's so many different worlds/ So many different suns/ And we have just one world/ But we live in different ones."

“Back at the press conference, C.J. is saying she imagines subpoenas will be issued to most senior White House staff, including her. As the motorcade arrives at the State Department, Jed gets a bit more of a soaking. As they walk into the building, someone hands Jed a towel to wipe his face. "Now the sun's gone to hell/ And the moon's riding high/ Let me bid you farewell/ Every man has to die..." C.J. is telling the reporters that she can't comment on what kind of hearings Congress has in mind as Carol sees Jed and the boys coming and gives C.J. the nod that POTUS has arrived. C.J. announces, "Okay? Here now, the President of the United States." Everybody stands. "But it's written in the starlight/ And every line on your palm/ We're fools to make war/ On our brothers in arms." It's really quite a beautiful song, and I know the use of pop music in such high-quality dramas is controversial, but I think the creative minds behind this show always give it a great deal of thought, and are selective and restrained in their choices. As Jed passes C.J., she reminds him, "Front row, on your right." Jed takes the podium, looking literally weatherbeaten and quite determined. Amid a volley of flashbulb fire, Jed puts his arms up on the podium, catching his breath, steeling himself. He makes eye contact with Lawrence Altman, the Chief Medical Correspondent for the Times. He looks into the crowd and points to another reporter, saying, "Yes, Sandy?" C.J. looks slightly anxious but not altogether surprised. Sandy asks, "Mr. President, can you tell us right now if you'll be seeking a second term?" He pauses, and says, "I'm sorry, Sandy, there was a bit of noise there, could you repeat the question?" Charlie watches Jed intently. Sandy: "Can you tell us right now if you'll be seeking a second term?" C.J., Josh, and Sam are standing together; none of them breathes. Donna and Margaret don't either. Leo and Toby are watching on a monitor off to the side, and Leo turns toward the President and tells Toby, "Watch this." Jed's hands slide off the podium and into his pockets. He looks ever so slightly off to his left, and smiles the barest of smiles. As the storm rages on, he looks straight ahead at the crowd. There are some droplets on his face; probably both rain and sweat, at this point. The guitar refrain continues. Still, he says nothing. The lines around his eyes are crinkled and there's a gleam in his eye. He smiles a very little smile.”

God, I loved that show!

Update #2 – March 7, 2014

            Time again for another update to explain the dearth of postings in the last few weeks. I usually have 3 or 4 in the pipeline in various stages of completion. Due to circumstances around the house, I have burned through my backlog.

            In late January we noticed that our semi-flat roof over our bedroom was leaking due to ice dam build-up. It was leaking in the doorways of our closets, through to the basement where Zay sleeps. We called a roofer and put buckets down to catch the drips. The roofer said the ice dam in the gutter was likely backing up and causing the problem (there was over a foot of ice in the gutter and icicles hung down to the ground).

On a Friday we had a service come out with a device that used steam to cut up the ice and open up a downspout so melting ice and snow had somewhere to go.

Little did we know that that somewhere was into our bedroom ceiling.

At 2AM that night, Lynn and I were awoken by a dripping sound in our bedroom, not in one of the buckets in the closet. The drip became louder and I saw it was coming through the ceiling at the foot of our bed.

As I got up and came around the end of the bed, a whole section, about 3x8 feet, along with 5-10 gallons of ice water and soggy insulation, came crashing down on my head.

As I scrambled to pick up pieces of plaster and dry wall, I slipped and mashed my little toe, dropping a large chunk of plaster on my bare foot, cutting it.

I was drenched to the bone and went to our bathroom and shivered uncontrollably for 10 minutes while Lynn began cleaning up and throwing towels down.

           

She would have her first student at 8:30AM, so we spent the rest of the night cleaning up as best we could, dissembling our bed to get the now wet rug out from under it.

Alicia slept in her crib next to the foot of the bed where the ceiling had opened up, but the opening did not reach her crib. She was standing there looking at the hole and listening to Mommy and Daddy yell and whine. We took her out of the crib, changed her diaper, and she went to sleep around 3AM in a chair in our family room.

  I went downstairs to see what was coming through into Zay’s room, and placed a bunch of buckets and a cooler to catch the water dripping through the ceiling tiles.

He didn’t wake up until later in the morning.

About 8AM, just as we were finishing up with our cleaning, Alicia woke up, so I stayed awake to watch her as Lynn taught. I was awake until midnight that night.

About 9AM I called our insurance company and they were great. They sent out a ServPro team and they pulled down about half of the ceiling in our bedroom and about 10 ceiling tiles in the basement.

  

They then taped 5 pads onto the floor and hooked them up to a device that pulled the water out of the hardwood floor, and they put 4 heavy duty fans to move air around our bedroom and Zay’s room in the basement.

These contraptions stayed in our rooms for a week, making sleep somewhat problematic.

Lynn now sleeps on an air mattress in Alicia’s bedroom, with Alicia (it got her out of her crib at least) and I’m sleeping on another air mattress in the basement with Zay. This we will do until the weather warms up and they can replace the roof (we had an $800 repair done to the roof so that it stopped leaking; turned out it wasn’t just ice dam backing up, but the roof itself was leaking as well) and we can fix the ceiling in our bedroom.

Bills so far: $800 to repair roof, $1800 for steaming the ice off, and $4200 for ServPro. Insurance gave us $1800 to repair the bedroom, but will likely pay nothing to replace the roof (normal wear, not an event covered by insurance) which will be anywhere from $4000-$7000.

Consequently, I have not had much time to ruminate about the past, when the future is in flux.

57 – Do Ya – ELO – 1976

Do Ya - ELO

       This song takes me right back to Tom W’s room at Blackburn College in 1976. We played the living crap out of ELO’s “A New World Record” and it was always played at 11. The only other song I remember playing this loud was the Beatles’ “Back in the USSR” (especially that jet plane sound effect at the open).

       Tom had one of the better Amp/Speaker/Turntable set-ups in our dorm (very few cassette players in 1975, though I had my TEAC deck). Tom also had a master key, passed down to him from a graduating senior the year before that gave him access to every building on campus. This led to two of my favorite pranks at BU during my 2 years there (being a transfer student from Elgin Community College).

       1. One weekend, Tom got us into Hudson Hall, the three story classroom building where most classes were held. Tom, his roommate Wes W, Mike H, some visiting friends, and I carried every desk and chair from the third floor onto the roof. (I know, but it seemed funny at the time). There were 4 classrooms on the 3^rd floor as I recall, the most important being Dr. John V.G. Forbes’ (see #33 – Six Months ina Leaky Boat) tiered room used at 8:00AM Monday for US History.

       As was later reported back to us, Dr. Forbes walked in, saw not a single stick of furniture in the room (we moved teacher’s desks as well), turned on his heel and walked out to place a call to campus security.

       I was in a classroom on the second floor at the time and recall hearing a huge amount of banging and scraping at 8:30 or so as the desks and chairs were returned to the classrooms above. Someone asked, “What’s that noise all about?” I looked around like Ralph in “A Christmas Story” when the teacher asked, “Has anyone seen Flick?”, and Ralph, knowing his best friend Flick was outside with his tongue stuck to the flagpole due to Ralph’s triple dog dare, internally asks, “Flick? Who’s Flick?” glancing around with total innocence.

       2. I don’t know if it was as a result of story 1, but campus security began to lock a student into each building at night. It was actually one of the jobs of the Work Program. You’d be locked in for 3-5 hours and you could read or study for that time. My senior year at BU my roommate, Kevin K, worked security and one night he was scheduled to be locked into the Olin science building. Tom W. decided we would get in there before him and wait about an hour for him to get settled in before we would try to scare him by making noises, etc.

       We hid in the lecture hall where Biology and Chemistry were taught, ducking down behind the teacher’s desk in front of the chalkboards and waited for Security to bring Kevin in and lock him in. He came into the lecture hall and sat down and began reading as we tried not to laugh as we prepared to make noises and throw things around the room. I had a roll of toilet paper I wanted to lob around. However, trying not to laugh or make a sound became a losing proposition. Trying not to laugh only made me want to laugh more and I was about to wet myself when we finally started moaning and tossing things around the podium.

       Instead of scaring him, Kevin got pissed at us, and after having a good laugh we went back to our rooms and went to bed (it was about 2 AM by then) while Kevin stayed behind to do his job, make the building safe for the next day’ classes.

       Funny how I can recall the goofy stuff we did in our downtime so much better than classroom stuff. As I sit here I can think of about 10 things that were done to my first roommate, Big Al (#5- God’s Song), and I can remember almost nothing of 2 years of French classes.

56 – I Don’t Like Mondays – The Boomtown Rats – 1979

I Don't Like Mondays - The Boomtown Rats 

       This song takes me to 1979 and the Steve Dahl Rude Awakening on WLUP-FM. The Stever played this song a lot and he and Garry Meier talked about its back-story. A 16 year old girl in San Diego, California, Brenda Ann Spencer, shot at a school, killing two adults and wounding 8 children. When she was apprehended, she showed no remorse, her response to the question of why she shot at the school was, “I don’t like Mondays. It livens up the day.” The shooting occurred in January 1979 and the song was written soon afterward, it was released in July 1979.

       It reminds me of the writer of the song Bob Geldof, lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, soon to be St. Bob and then Sir Bob, after 1984’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and the whole Band Aid movement (which basically built on work Harry Chapin had been doing for several years, before his untimely death in 1982).

       I will discuss Harry in an upcoming song (actually number 105, so it may be awhile at my current rate).

       In between “I Don’t Like..” and “Do They Know…”, Bob Geldof starred as “Pink” in the movie version of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, another album Steve played a lot (and based his infamous parody song, “Another Kid in the Crawl” on, his take on “Another Brick in the Wall”, but Stever’s was about John Wayne Gacy).

       I was at Southern Illinois Law School when I saw “The Wall” (see #33-Six Months in a Leaky Boat) and I was not that much of a Floyd fan. I liked some of their music, but had never bought an album. After seeing the film I bought “The Wall.” (Then “The Final Cut” and “The Division Bell” when they came out; then went back to “Dark Side of the Moon”). All are albums I have yet to digitize so I have no Floyd on the Zune.

       Several years before I had attended a midnight movie presentation of “Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii” with my friend from Accu, Viktor S. and it was dull…stultifyingly dull…so dull I fell asleep, something I’d done only once before (nor since), at a showing of the film “Lucky Luciano” a 1973 snooze-a-thon starring Rod Steiger.

        I was quietly napping in the Woodfield Theater (They had comfortable, high-backed, rocking seats. Sadly, the theater no longer exists. I first saw “Close Encounters” there, the only movie I have ever sat through twice) during “PF@Pompeii” when someone lobbed a firecracker and it went off in the air about 10 feet from where we sat. It didn’t make the movie any better, but it did wake me up.

       I always thought it was interesting that Pete Townshend’s “Tommy” and Roger Waters’ “The Wall” had so much in common…

       Both main (English) characters lose their father in WWII; both are kids who are abused (Tommy by his Uncle Ernie and Cousin Kevin and the Acid Queen, “Pink” by his mother and teachers in “The Wall”); both become shut off from the world (Tommy goes deaf, dumb, and blind on seeing his father killed by his step-father, “Pink” builds an emotional wall around himself); both become the leaders of cults (Tommy’s based on his uncanny ability to play pin ball using only his sense of touch, “Pink” becomes a Neo-Nazi, or some sort of authoritarian figure ): both cults have violent, hammer-like imagery (“Tommy’s” have metal “T”s with a pin ball soldered to the top, “The Wall” has the “walking hammers” of Ronald Searle’s surreal animation); both are redeemed in the end, after a catharsis (Tommy’s acolytes run amuck and kill his mom and step dad (with the “T” hammers), “The Wall” comes down after “Pink” is put on trial* and the judge and jury find him guilty).

       Great minds think alike? (Townshend and Waters, sounds like an accounting firm)

*from thewallanalysis.com: Pink puts himself on trial - conducted by the exaggerated and personified bricks - and ultimately orders his wall be torn down when he judges himself both responsible for the making of the wall as well as capable of reconnecting with the outside world.

55 – All I Know and 60 - Traveling Boy – Art Garfunkel – 1973

All I Know - Art Garfunkel

Traveling Boy - Art Garfunkel 

       Two songs from Angel Clare, Art Garfunkel’s first solo album, that came out in1973. Along with Jimmy Webb’s Land’s End (see#41-“Walk Your Feet in the Sunshine”), it was the most played cassette during my prototype plating days at Accutronics (Accu). “All I Know” is the best version of the Jimmy Webb-penned tune and “Traveling Boy” is the first song on the album. (And the album came with a 24x36 ultra grainy, black and white poster of Artie and producer Roy Halee standing in the church where the album was recorded. You just don’t get stuff like that in CD jewel cases or anything at all if you download)

       Hearing these songs remind me of three more “Fun with Chemistry” moments at Accu.

      

       1. In the late 1970s, Accu switched their copper etchant from ferric chloride, to cupric chloride, which could be regenerated. Cupric used Sodium Chlorate and Hydrochloric Acid to regenerate (actually it creates new cupric, you need to keep bleeding off etchant as you regenerate) the acid so that the etch rate stayed constant (with Ferric Chloride, as the day went on, you had to slow the machine conveyor to compensate for the acid getting full of copper and reducing the etch rate).

      

       Accu had a 100 gallon tank near the etcher that fed the device that regenerated the cupric. It was the first time we had used hydrochloric acid (HCl) in such volume and we had purchased a gas mask in case of spillage, since HCl gas is very corrosive to the lungs.

      

       My boss, Mr. Mortimer, handed me a mask. I put it on, opened the lid to the tank, stuck my head in and took a breath….

      

       Gaaaakkkk!!!!

      

       I brought my head out and exhaled through the mask, HCl gas exiting the valve of it. I coughed and gagged ‘til I thought I would see chunks of lung on the floor. Mort doesn’t recall this, but I seem to recall him giggling a little as I retched. Turns out the filter on the mask was a dust and mist filter, not the HCl gas filter we needed. (Again, remember I was not a chemist and did not know from HCl gas, knowing only that it was corrosive to some metals).

      

       Which leads to story #2, related to #1 in that it also had to do with the HCl used in regenerating the cupric chloride. As I wrote earlier, we had a 100 gal tank of HCl near the etcher that was fed from a pump in an underground pit which housed a 2500 gallon tank of HCl.   We had the HCl brought in by tank truck.

       Several days after we began running the system, one of the operators came to me and said the pump (from underground to the 100 gallon tank) was not working.  I pressed the button on the wall near the 100 gallon tank, making sure the valves were open, etc. and verified that it was not working.

       To access the underground tank you lifted a heavy metal trap door and climbed down an 8 foot aluminum ladder to get to the bottom of the pit. I shined a flashlight down into the pit and saw a 3 ft ladder leaned against the wall, about 5 feet from where it would be of any use in climbing down.

       “Where’s the 8 ft ladder?” I asked.

       Then it hit me (as most things did, rather slowly), the 3 ft ladder had been the 8 ft ladder, but a leak of HCl had covered the floor and the acid had eaten the other 5 feet as the ladder sank into it.

       Turns out our crack plumbing contractor had used a pump with workings not resistant to acid, which had been eaten away, allowing several hundred gallons to leak out into the pit to the depth of 3-4 inches.

       Mr. Mortimer, ever the comedian, said I could go down and spread some Sodium Hydroxide and water to dilute and neutralize the HCl acid so that the pit could then be safely pumped out and the tank re-plumbed. Luckily they had a HazMat (Hazardous Materials to you neophytes out there) head-to-toe suit in my size (6’5”, 215 lbs at that time) and I put it on (with the correct gas mask this time), climbed down into the pit on a wooden ladder, and in a haze of HCl gas, spread Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) and ran a hose until a pH probe indicated we had neutralized the acid and could pump it out.

       All this fun at $4.00/hr.

       The third story in my “Fun with Chemistry” trilogy happened when I was running my prototype plating line, a couple years later. In one of the baths, a Peroxide-Sulfuric micro etch, we used 96% pure Sulfuric Acid (H2SO4), a viscous, highly corrosive (to skin especially) liquid.

       I bought it in 5 gallon jugs that I would install a bung valve in, and then lay it on its side when I needed to get some out for use in the plating line. This day I had it on a shelf about 5 feet off the floor and as I opened the plastic valve, it broke off in my hand and H2SO4 began to chug out onto the floor at my feet.

       I grabbed the handle and pulled it from the shelf and put it on the floor. As it hit the floor, the liquid inside sloshed around and up through the hole where the valve had been, splashing my face and neck as I looked down at it.

       I was wearing safety glasses so the acid was not in my eyes and there was a large, clear water rinse bath close by and I dunked my whole face into the cooling water. I then went to a mirror to see my face covered with red circles, where drops of acid had burned my skin. It had also melted huge holes through the cuffs of my 100% polyester pants, but had not reached my socks. I rinsed the pant cuffs as well.

       At that time I was still the Process Engineer/Quality Manager and as such, still wore a shirt and tie as I plated, dealt with customers, and with internal quality issues. However, one drop of H2SO4 had struck my shirt collar and it took several minutes to soak through to my neck. By then I was being driven to Good Shepherd Hospital by my friend, Jerry B., and I had no way to counteract the acid as it burned my neck. When I got to the hospital they put burn cream on all the spots and I returned to work looking like a clown who had the tremors and had tried to apply his own white face makeup.

       None of the burns, save the one on my neck, resulted in any scarring, so I got that goin’ for me.

54 – A Few Words in Defense of Our Country- Randy Newman – 2008

A Few Words in Defense of Our Country - Randy Newman 

       A spoken word exposition with music, but it expresses beliefs closer (I think) to his own, of the GW Bush years. He’s not portraying a character/stereotype as in “Short People” or “Rednecks.”

      

                   “I'd like to say
                   “A few words
                   “In defense of our country
                   “Whose people aren't bad
                   “Nor are they mean
                   “Now, the leaders we have
                   “While they're the worst that we've had
                   “Are hardly the worst
                   “This poor world has seen”

                   “Take the Caesars, for example
                   “Why, with the first few of them
                   “They were sleeping with their sister, stashing little boys in swimming pools, and                          “burning down the city
                   “And one of 'em, one of 'em appointed his own horse to be Consul of the Empire
                   “That's like vice president or something
                   “Now wait a minute, that's not a very good example
                   “Here's one, Spanish Inquisition
                   “Put people in a terrible position
                   “I don't even like to think about it
                   “Well, sometimes I like to think about it”

       I like that line, “I don’t even like to think about it….Well, sometimes I like to think about it.”

     

       Who else (Al Stewart, maybe), writes songs about historical figures such as Tiberius and Caligula?

       Later, he “sings”:

                   “A President once said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"
                   “Now we're supposed to be afraid
                   “It's patriotic, in fact, and color-coded
                   “And what we supposed to be afraid of?
                   “Why, of being afraid
                   “That's what terror means, doesn't it?
                   “That's what it used to mean”

                   “You know, it pisses me off a little that this Supreme Court's gonna outlive me
                   “Couple young Italian fellas and a brother on the Court now, too
                   “But I defy you, anywhere in the world, to find me two Italians as tight-assed as the                      two Italians we got
                   “And as for the brother, well,
                   “Pluto's not a planet anymore either”

                   “The end of an empire
                   “Is messy at best
                   “And this empire's ending
                   “Like all the rest
                   “Like the Spanish Armada
                   “Adrift on the  sea
                   “We're adrift in the land of the brave
                   “And the home of the free”

                   “Goodbye

                   “Goodbye
                   “Goodbye”

       Not “Ha-Ha” funny, but amusing and, ultimately, a little sad.