A friend of mine had an extra ticket to see Roger Waters tonight. Here I am, home, un-rocked out.

Besides it being Tuesday, and a bit of a drive to get to the Oracle Arena in Oakland, I just couldn’t jump on it for it’s own sake of promised fun. Is it because I’m old, or because Roger Waters is even older?

Truth be told, I was never that into Floyd. I mean, I chanted the lyrics of The Wall, especially this shit, alongside the rest of my high school, back when it was new and different.

We don’t need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.

But I ain’t never owned the album. I doubt I even stole it off a brother’s turntable.

Maybe it was the flying pigs, or the ringing telephones, cash registers and howling, barking dogs. At some level, I just didn’t give a fuck. (I gotta say I fucking hate listening to Pink Floyd and looking around to answer the phone or otherwise responding to auditory stimuli. Makes me goddamn jumpy, it does.)

I liked my pretentious art-rock, poetry, bullshit set to music more NYC-style, CBGBs, Cale and Reed, Patti Smith, punk rock baby.

Conceptual stadium drama seemed too Spinal Tap. Minimalism and fast guitars yanked my adolescent crank. Besides Waters always sounded like he was kind of a dick.

Or, maybe I would have gone tonight, if I hadn’t given up on smoking the weed 20 plus years ago.