To Be A Rock And Not To/And/Or Roll
by Joseph Waldman
Friday 25 September 2009, midnight
Back in 2000 my college drinking gang (Ohio Wesleyan; we were SEVERELY fucked up and a dangerous element on campus, which was good), did a huge 40-shots-of-vodka party on the 25th anniversary of Bonzo's passing (we split the number four ways, of course -- did not want to die that night). Then there was the time we decided to smoke all the weed we could muster from every corner of the room and listen to all ten Zep albums (including TSRTS soundtrack) in a row, no stopping. We made it about to the end of Presence before we got a bit tired and decided to cheat a bit and start skipping tracks on ITTOD and Coda, i.e. play only "Fool In The Rain", "All My Love", "Wearing & Tearing", and "Hey Hey What Can I Do". Then we conked out for a bit. Ah, the crazy daze of confusion 'round about the millennium . . .
At this point a faithful correspondent wrote in: "Talk about the irresponsibility of youth. How could you have skipped over "Hot Dog" from ITTOD?"
Well. it was getting close to three AM, which was about the time we usually headed out for an hour and a half or so of final mayhem before the sun started to come up: going over to the local convenience store to hang out for a bit and see if anyone was dealing and play mind tricks on the dumb Mormon who was working the night shift; running back and forth in between and across railroad tracks right as the trains passed by; and stopping in front of the local Catholic church to peer in the window and think all sorts of weird backward and forward thoughts all at once. You know, the usual innocent collegiate fun.