Will, Cliff (both above), and I recorded this song in one take in late 1999. Though, calling it a “take” is overstating it. We were beyond silly drunk and lacked any talent for the task, but we had a mic in front of us, a guitar, and a willingness to open our mouths and let something — anything — fly out.

It wasn’t until Will said “This song is called Nukerator” that we knew what we were supposed to be singing about. We’d never sketched any of it out, or even discussed it. This was truly stream of consciousness, so as bad as it is, there’s also something endearing about it (well, at least to us).

Putting together the pieces from that night, we named our ad-hoc band “More Equipment Than Talent.” We’ve tried since to repeat the feat — the ingredients seemed easy enough — but we’ve had little success. Infighting, artistic differences, and a reasonable interest in raising the quality of our work have limited our efforts, but when this song appeared out of the blue the other day while iTunes was on random, I knew it was time to share.

Note: while listening to it last again night to get the lyrics, I realized there are a few lines about school violence that may be offensive to some today. The context, I hope, gives it the correct meaning.

Lyrics:

Will: This song is called Nukerator.

Cliff: No it’s not.

Cliff: What’s with you and f-major 7?

Casey: This is a song about a microwavable instant cook world. We live in this world, this over-abled world.

Casey: We got Cheez Whiz, we’ve got tacos, we got salsa, we got snack cakes, we got pizza feets. We’ve got everything we want.

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: And it goes in the microwave and we eat it in five minutes. Cook it on 75% power, just throw it in the nukerator, just cook it now.

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: Got pasteurized processed cheese spread.

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: I love my bagel bites. My meatless breakfast sandwiches; seven minutes at 75% power

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: Microwavable hamburgers, spaghetti, and meatballs.

Cliff: It’s meaningless.

Casey: Microwaveable, inflatable girlfriend.

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: A Solitary, confined sort-of-life between the refrigerator, and the microwave, and the Walmart. The Super Walmart with the superstore. The food products, the pasteurized processed cheese spread. the stuff I eat from the microwave after five minutes.

Cliff: It’s meaningless. It’s meaningless

Will: Nukerator. We’re nukrawavable. Nukerator.

Casey: Microwave, my cell phone, my pager. It’s my modern world and I love it.

Cliff: We find it only makes us fat.

Casey: My microwave fries the dynabites, and the cell phone fries my head. And I talk about it all day long. Meaningless

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: The average conversation on a cell phone goes like this: Hello, I’m here, I’ll be there later, no, I’m going there next.

Cliff: It’s a world of excess.

Casey: Meanwhile, driving my SUV, I drive through the school house, drive down all the kids, drive down the one with the gun who was gonna kill them all because he couldn’t stand it.

Cliff: Hello, I’m helping your environment. What can I do next?

Casey: I didn’t even realize it because I was on my phone with my counselor, who was fixing my hair. I didn’t understand it. My microwave was broken and my cheeze couldn’t be warmed. Just five minutes at 75% power.

Cliff: I hold no responsibility myself. I only put the responsibility on the head of my counselor. She has it all for herself. I don’t what I’m trying to say, but I don’t have any responsibility today. Will dropped his pick, it’s not his fault. He takes it in his hands. I’ll grab it for him…

Casey: I live in a microwavable, able world. A world of isolation and communication. False pretense, false friendships.

Cliff: Long hair is European, short hair is American.

At this point, Will and I looked at eachother and realized it’d gone too far. Sorry to all that we realized it so late.

drunkmusic, betrunkmusik, music, free mp3s, mp3, more equipment than talent, audio, song, silly, embarrassing, bad, nuke, microwave song, nukerator, drunk, alcohol induced poetry, social commentary, nuclear

Boing Boing has an exclusive profile of neutron bomb inventor Samuel T. Cohen by Charles Platt. All the reports so far are that it’s a 10,000 word “must read.”

The article, Profits of Fear, is available in PDF, plain text, and Palm doc versions at Boing Boing.

Thanks to David Rothman for the heads up. Extra: Rothman asks what it all says about mainstream media when respected authors eschew traditional media for blogs.

tags: boing boing, boingboing, bomb, charles platt, fear, inventor, moral weapon, neutron, neutron bomb, nuclear weapon, nuclear weapons, nuke, sam cohen, samuel cohen, samuel t cohen, samuel t. cohen, weapon, weapon designer

In what was to be the final act of World War II in the Pacific, the United States made the first and only use of nuclear power as a weapon in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and 9th (US dates), 1945.

George Weller of the Chicago Daily News snuck in to Nagasaki in early September 1945 and became the first American journalist to see the destruction. His stories were censored, and official sources maintained control of news about the bombings and the aftermath for many years.

Mainichi Daily News has a pair of photo galleries of Hiroshima bomb damage and how the city remembers the bomb today.

Nuclear-related stories at MaisonBisson.

tags: 60th anniversary, atomic, atomic bombing, bomb, bombing, bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki, bombing of japan, destruction, hiroshima, hiroshima and nagasaki, hiroshima bombing, japan, nagasaki, nagasaki bombing, nuclear, nuclear bomb, nuclear power, nuke, pacific war, second world war, united states, war, world war II