FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.
THE SOGGY, BLOATED CARCASS YOU SAVE
MAY BE YOUR OWN
Summertime is like totally water safety timeMeet WaterLogg-O, he's a robot. If, say, WaterLogg-O is goofing around the ol' drainage ditch and he, perchance, drowns, it's no B.I.G.G.I.E. Our robot friend can just remove his heart, shake out those killer levels of potassium (the fibrillation-inducing byproduct of all those red blood cells being destroyed as WaterLogg-O's robot blood was diluted with water), and he's back in business (this is, of course, in the case of a freshwater drownin' - were we talking saltwater, WaterLogg-O would have to counteract all the water being removed from, not entering into, his robot circulation. The best way? You got it, buster: wring out those soggy alveoli!). Yep WaterLogg-O can do such kooky things 'cuz he's a robot, but YOU'RE NOT, so keep the following rules in mind while enjoying some water fun.
When hanging around poolside, never engage in horseplay. Always wear water-wings. Look before you leap. A bird in the hand may be worth two in the bush, but if you're trying to swim around carrying a bird, you're fuggin' fugged, pal. Don't talk to strangers, even if they're yelling stuff like "Help!" Always wait until a half-hour AFTER recording a long-awaited second album before going for a li'l splash. (Jakob Dylan may be on the cover of Rolling Stone this week, but make way for Jeff Buckley! If he's dead the way everyone thinks he is, JB is now the ultimate rock 'n' roll ikon: he's got a "critically acclaimed" musician dad who died young; his own "critically acclaimed" career was a helluva lot cooler than McCartney & Son trading licks on Flaming Pie; and now he's the proud owner of his very own rock 'n' roll taken-from-us-so-young death - by drowning, no less! Like writer / egghead Greil Marcus detailed in his semi-legendary '70s chart on Rock Deaths [and Motorbooty mag updated to include Curdt Kobain and all those nifty punk rock deaths], there's no shortage of rock 'n' roll sacrifice. Live-fast-die-young is snoozeville, but when the bad luck of the r 'n' r dad is visited on the r 'n' r son, it's all so brand new! Jeff Buckley: the first second generation rawk tragedy. Writing a real nature boy ["wading into the Mississippi River" - it's galldarn poetry!] finish to his own cursed career, JB is on the fast-track to pop deification - brace yourself for the melodramatic SPIN article ["The Final, Haunted, Really Wet Days of Jeff Buckley," perhaps], the waterside shrines, the CDs of previously-unreleased material. Plus, high torrential waters may make for a happy bonus: where's Jeff's body? You don't have to be Chuck D. to know that the slightest discrepancy in a r 'n' r death means, "He ain't dead! He faked it, Machiavelli-style!" On the WWW [find it yerself!] there's a handwritten note from Buckley explaining how he'd been doing top secret club gigs as a way to escape rockstardom and get back to basics... conspiracy-minded wingnuts, start your engines!) (What's a poor Wallflower to do? A low-speed motorbike accident on wet grass may be in order....) Brush up on your CPR. Brush your teeth. Always conduct you and your vessel in a seamanlike manner. Never pull a beaver's tail. Remember to breathe.
Yes, WaterLogg-O may be a robot, but you're not, so PLAY SAFE. As they say in Jr. High yearbooks, "Let me be the first to sign your crack. Have a great summer. P.S. You're the worst locker partner I ever had."
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