The Amount Of Minutes I Listen To Usually Stay Around The 60k Mark And This Year It Was 63k, And That

Syd Barrett & Roger Waters, 1967

Happy Solstice all you prog rock weirdos!

While the classic rock fandom and internet users at large are angry about Roger Waters's open letter to the Ukrainian first lady, I'd like to offer this additional public statement taken directly from the man's social media:

It is always healthy to question the intentions and beliefs of others in good faith. Roger Waters is extremely vocal and abrasive in the ways in which he expresses his opinions. That has always been true. He also questions himself and his community (leftists) when his closely held beliefs are challenged, as seen in this statement. In the end, his values always boil down to human rights. He is a leftist, through-and-through, and that means he sees authoritarianism, nationalism, and fascism as the enemies, and unification of all people as the end goal.

His letter to First Lady Zelenska asks the people with the most power who are at least risk in times of war (oligarchs) to stop abusing that power and, in doing so, end the suffering they cause. It's not leadership that suffers in war, it's civilians and ground troops who are subject to the violent whims of people in charge. It may not be realistic to ask the Ukrainian government to back down - the Russian government sure as hell isn't - but it's not unreasonable to want the people in charge on all sides of this tragedy to stop fucking with people's lives for the sake of their own egos. And no, my fellow leftists on this hellsite, Waters is not a goddamn tankie. Literally every piece of music he's written since Radio K.A.O.S. has been ANTI-war, ANTI-violence, ANTI-capitalist, and ANTI-fascist. Hell, his last 2 albums with the Floyd are just as political, and the 3 albums before that carry the themes as well but more subtly. Even in the current letter to First Lady Zelenska his biggest plea is that we stop feeding a war machine. He is a pacifist. Get your heads outta your asses.

For my good faith critique of him: I personally wish he'd at least have the forethought to be like "maybe this is a letter better sent in private. No matter how carefully worded, expressing my opinions about geopolitics will not be helpful to suffering people who may read them." It is, at best, insensitive of him to publicly call for Ukraine (the governing body) to stop feeding a war machine, when Ukraine (the people) is trapped, frightened, and dying under a barrage of attacks by invaders. He also hasn't, to my knowledge, written a similar open letter to Russian leaders, other than these statements here where he very blatantly denounces Putin. He also probably knows that chances of Putin seeing anything he writes are like...real low. Olena Zelenska made herself publicly reachable and he took the opportunity to talk to SOMEone. Which I get, but he also knows that his opinions matter to people who are truly suffering, as seen in this post:

War is so painful, and people react quickly when those wounds are touched so indelicately. He is, almost as a rule, indelicate. I'm sure what young Alina wanted to hear is just that Roger doesn't think she and her people deserve to suffer. He could've stopped there and been a comfort to her, but going on to call out her leader and the role he will have to play if the war is going to end is unnecessary, even if it's true. My biggest critique of him is that he perseverates on the whole forest all the time when, sometimes, it would serve him better to focus on the trees; his westsplaining is his worst trait.

Anyway. I'm gonna go listen to Pros and Cons for the 3rd time this week. Need a little ~*camp*~ to cleanse the palate.

Attention all personnel! I’ve digitized and uploaded the two songs from this Japanese M*A*S*H vinyl I got! If you haven’t seen my post on Reddit, these songs are very different (notably the theme song) and were not on YouTube before. Enjoy my fellow swamp rats! 🍸

The Joy of Suicide / Suicide is Painless

The Time for Love is Anytime!

This meeting could’ve been a prog rock concept album

“My first solo album was……wow, mushroom!” 

Roger Waters doing his best John Denver impersonation. From the book The Illustrated Biography of Pink Floyd.

Syd