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Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").

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   early Judas Priest
Sunday, March 22 2015
It was another cold and windy day, and Gretchen had the misfortune of spending the afternoon further north in the glorious rustbelt city of Troy, where she would be part of a sparsely-attended poetry reading.
While doing work at my computer, I've mostly been listening to early Judas Priest, particularly the album Rocka Rolla and some Sad Wings of Destiny. I'm especially familiar with the latter, as I've had mp3s from it on my hard drive since shortly after discovering the glories of Napster circa 2000. But as for the former, I don't think I've heard some of these songs since the early 1990s or perhaps even the late 1980s (when I was in my early 20s). Creepily, several of the songs on Rocka Rolla are about frittering and wasting precious time on this earth. The last time I heard one such song, "Run of the Mill," I could smirk to myself about the pathetic putz who is the subject of the lyrics because I may have been no older than 21 at the time.

What have you achieved now you're old
Did you fulfill ambition, do as you were told?
Or are you still doing the same this year?
Should I give sorrow, or turn 'round and sneer?

But that song means something different when you're 47 years old. There's a pathos now that's impossible for a 21 year old mind to grasp (which is ironic, given that the author of this song was also in his early 20s when he wrote it). And, unlike (say) Pink Floyd's "Time," I haven't been hearing it occasionally every year between then and now. Literally, the last time I heard this song I was 21. Now those same ears and neural circuits are 26 years older.

This evening, Gretchen returned from Troy too exhausted to cook, so I made us an enormous pot of chili. For the first time ever, I included cauliflower in the mix. [REDACTED]


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