It was 40 years ago today. Oh how I remember that day like yesterday… well, not quite– I was -9 then. Even still, that year is very important in my mind’s timeline.

Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Blah-Blah

Musically speaking, so much great music came out that year. The Beatles released ‘Sgt. Pepper’ and ‘Magical Mystery Tour’. Jimi Hendrix put out ‘Are You Experienced’ and ‘Axis: Bold As Love’. The Doors released ‘The Doors’ and ‘Strange Days’. The Byrds released ‘Younger Than Yesterday’. Love gave us ‘Forever Changes’. The Velvet Underground released ‘The Velvet Underground and Nico’. And who can forget about ‘The Who Sell Out’ by The Who? You get the picture… a lot of great music came out in 1967.

In my car’s six-disc CD changer, I have two 1967 releases; ‘The Who Sell Out’ and ‘Axis: Bold As Love’. For the record the other discs are Nevermind, In Utero, Led Zeppelin IV, and Fresh Cream, by Nirvana, Led Zeppelin and Cream respectively. I know, I know, why are you wasting time with CDs you say. I’ll be adding an iPod connection to my car stereo very soon.

Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

It’s Sunday, June 3, 1:11 AM. I’m listening to the song Getting Better right now off Sgt. Pepper. It’s on repeat and up to 10 on the play count. I don’t care. I can’t complain. I’ve been neglecting writing down my thoughts here @ the lizard. My mind hasn’t stopped thinking and hasn’t stopped making judgments, just my time has been short and my willingness to take a few minutes and write here non-existent. On a strict diet of pizza rolls and Coca-Cola for tonight, I will finally write a few lines that hopefully someone will find on Google someday.

Sgt. Pepper :: Art in its truest sense. What can I even say about this album that hasn’t been said. Once must experience the entire show to appreciate the musical innovation, technological advances in studio production, and overall musical genius. Yes, genius is the only way to describe this masterpiece.

I had the pleasure of listening to this album on it’s 40th Anniversary, and it sounds just as brilliant as I’m sure it sounded on June 1, 1967. In the midst of my satisfaction, I can’t help be upset that Apple Corps. couldn’t have come up with the re-mastered version for the 40th celebration. This should have been the first album they started working on and it would have been an unbelievable experience to be able to buy Pepper on June 1st. On another note, I did have a dream that I pissed off Paul McCartney the other night, but that’s another blog entry. BTW, the play count is up to 14

Coda :: For those of us lucky enough to be Mac users, we’ve heard of Panic, and have probably been using their software for quite some time. Panic makes Shockingly Good Mac Software. They make the best FTP client on the planet in Transmit and they also wrote a great Usenet reader called Unison. But enter Coda.

Coda is an HTML editor, an FTP client, a text and CSS editor, and comes packed with reference material on HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP. In short, it’s an unbelievable tool in website development. Plus, it has a slick user interface and is gorgeous to look at. If you have a Mac, be sure to try the demo. I just bought Coda so I’m only just beginning to understand how it’s going to make my life easier when I’m updating and publishing my web sites. I’ll update with my thoughts when I’ve had enough time to play around with it. But from the looks of what I’ve seen so far, I’m going to just love it!

Dr. Jack Kevorkian :: Jack Kevorkian, the retired pathologist dubbed “Dr. Death” for claims that he participated in at least 130 assisted suicides, left prison after eight years Friday still believing people have the right to die.

The right to die is a very important issue to me. Such matters should only be discussed with family and medical doctors; not the government. To be sure, it should be regulated, even just to alleviate the appearance of impropriety that may exist due to the eventual instance of a bad doctor or two. But a patient and a doctor should be the arbiters of judgement, with the patient ultimately having the final say in their own death.

Some years back, after Kevorkian was found guilty and sentenced to prison, I was called for jury duty. On the form, I printed and taped a statement of my feelings of the justice system, and how they persecuted Dr. Kevorkian. I explained that because of the persecution and unfair prosecution and rigged justice system in Michigan, I would be unable to render any verdict except not guilty in any case I sat on. So I went to the courthouse that day. And I went in front of the judge, and she noted my feelings. Needless to say, I didn’t sit on any jury and I was never called for jury duty again. That was almost 10 years ago. The point was not to get out of jury duty, but to protest the unfair treatment of someone who is only trying to help the terminally ill.

Well, it’s now 1:51 AM. Forty-plus minutes have gone by, and I’m now listening to ‘She’s Leaving Home’. I’m going to publish then, then add some links tomorrow. I’m too tired. So, goodnight and see you in 10 years for the 50th Anniversary of Sgt. Pepper.

I’ll still be listening.

Here is a journal entry I found from May 14, 1996, written at 10:48 PM.

Today is one of the best day’s in my life. The bulls win the series, and advance to the conference finals, and Dr. Jack Kevorkian is found NOT GUILTY. What more could you ask for. I also finished the door (wall) today, and will put the plastic on tomorrow, and hopefully assemble the walls. You really live for days like this, but nobody told me there would be days like these. 28 balloons were let loose; choice is well.

This article was written by Bryan Los on Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 at 1:54 AM and is filed under My Lizard. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.