The lunatics are on the Shelf…
On April 28, 1973 the latest edition of US Billboard 200, which tracks the sales of record albums, was released and had a new entry at the top of the list… a certain Dark Side of the Moon by the British band Pink Floyd. It would be the only week the legendary album would sit at the top of that list, but it wasn’t just going to quietly fade away like most albums do. Between its March 1973 release and October of 1988, Dark Side would rank somewhere on that chart for 741 non-consecutive weeks… and currently has spent 962 total weeks in the Top 200 of album sales. Not too shabby for a record you probably have to be stoned out of your gourd to really appreciate….
Speaking of brain damage…
And this is the album that gave us the song “Money,” which for a short time in 2015, Mecca Radio was actually playing uncensored! What could possibly make for a more family friendly atmosphere than singing about “do goody-good bullshit?”
And now that the clocks are all chiming at once, it must be time to answer Melanie’s questions for Share Your World this week! This promises to be a very interesting romp through my environmental apathy….
I’ll see you on the dark side of the earth…
In your opinion, how are we affecting our planet?
We’re giving it plastic. In the words of the immortal George Carlin, perhaps that was the whole reason for the existence of the human species…. because the earth wanted plastic and couldn’t make it itself! Now that it has plenty of plastic strewn throughout its crust, I’m sure the planet is completely done with us…
We aim to please Mother Earth!
What solutions would you offer to stem the multiple problems we face vis a vis the destruction of our planet home?
Destruction? Bah!
The planet ain’t going nowhere……
We are!!!
Yep, same Carlin routine!
Do you think it’s already too late and we could just do exactly as we’re doing now and things would turn out the very same?
It amazes me how much people overestimate our influence and power over the planet to think we can collectively”destroy” or “save” it. The dinosaurs probably had pretty big heads about themselves as well…
Big head, small arms.
Note: That’s not saying we should just party hard and not care about the mess. But whatever minor impact 200 years of industrial revolution might have for earth’s future isn’t going to resolve itself if we went fully back to the Stone Age tomorrow…
Do you participate in things like “Arbor Day” (a U.S. Holiday dedicated to planting new trees) or Earth Day or Earth Month?
Squirrels are the planters of our forests, so I let them take care of the trees for me. Besides, I don’t do yard work…
This should be deep enough to grow my new condo!
Is any of it important in the ‘Big Picture’?
I’m more worried about the Little Picture. There’s too much shit in this big old world that seems to bother other people that I could give a rat’s ass about because it’s not a part of my little bitty world. I think it would be great if more people focused on the Little Picture rather than the Big Picture, because Big Picture people tend to get entirely too involved in things that aren’t their business…
Big Brother is watching the Big Picture…
What can you personally do to participate in the “Clean Earth” movement?
Keep killing Buster. Don’t worry, he’s 100% biodegradable…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
I remember Pink Floyd (and not much else) from that timeframe. That album was a fave among the all-night party bunch although I think I could have played a kazoo and they would have paid as much attention. HAHA Anyway, the environment is a high, deep and wide subject and you get any three people together to talk about it and ANYTHING can happen. I do what I can – that’s what I tell people in answer to “so what are you doing to help??”……..and YES I do care.
Pam
I’m not much of an album person, I like the hits and sometimes deeper cuts that are played on the radio. I can imagine if I listened to Dark Side, I’d think it was a few good songs and a whole lot of dreck, just like most of the Beatles albums people rave about. Unless maybe I had a hit of something first….
Thanks *koff koff* (I think some of that ‘parfum” escaped…) arrgh gargle gasp!! Koff THANKS Bill for Sharing Your World and one of my favorite songs by Pink Floyd. Because yeah, the lunatics have taken over. Not just me either. 😆 I found your “Big Picture” answer very interesting indeed and am now anxious I’m being overbearing trotting about barking about “big pictures” when I’ve never been able to see a single one! 😳 George Carlin ruled. R.I.P. I’m looking forward to an encore, should I devolve when I die to the same ‘heaven’ or whatever. What a guy! Excellent answers and an excellent ‘toon for my afternoon delight! Woo hoo! Thanks again, and have a great week!
I feel fortunate to have been introduced to Carlin during his golden age in between the hippy dippy and angry old man phases of his career. He made you laugh, think and challenged everyone’s sacred cows.
George Carlin was ahead of his time. In so many different ways.😬
Maybe he was sent back from the future, so we’ll see him again someday…
Hope springs eternal.
It’s good to see Buster doing his bit for the planet.
Is it wrong that every time someone mentions the “Stone Age” the first thing I think of is Raquel Welch in an animal skin bikini…?
Buster is a good sport providing all of that wonderful fertilizer and maybe even some more oil we’ll need in a couple million years. I feel bad for ruining your image of women in honky tonks, so I won’t say anything about what cavewomen probably looked like….
Yeah, leave me one fantasy…
aaah pink floyd…. I once got tickets from a guy what looked weird… they were faked… If I see him once again in the flesh I hope he will run like hell before I take a brick from the wall to kill him….
That will give him an education…
We need squirrels that can digest plastic for food!
I’ve seen them chew on a lot of things, even plastic baggies! Hopefully not actually swallowing, though….
You said what I would have far more eloquently than I would have. Carlin is a riot, of course, but he gets a lot more right than most people. I think “saving the planet” has been a big ego boost for some people (and quite lucrative, for them). I was around for the first Earth Day when we were told we had ten years to save the planet. That was 52 years ago! Sure, we’ve cause harm to the planet, but no more than the dinosaurs or the Middle Ages or the Roman Empire, and to throw 200 years of progress (and yes, it’s progress) into a hard reverse for the sake of “saving” a big ball of rock that’s been around for 6 billion years and will be here when we’re all gone (unless the sun turns into a red giant and swallows us all up) is a bit futile. Far better, as you say, we take care of our families, friends, neighbors, the people we work with and the people we worship with. That’s more than enough world to save.
I think the sun’s supposed to get hot enough to make the earth uninhabitable before it goes all red giant, so barring a giant asteroid, I’d say the planet will LONG outlast us. And no environmental policy is going to stop that kind of climate change. Thanks for the backup, because I know a lot of those who follow SYW are very passionate about this topic, and to me it’s just another doomsday boogeyman people seem to need to drum up a little fear in their lives over the future.