1a. The Big 500: the albums that satisfy (1-50)
Marvin Gaye: What's Going On (Motown 1971)
Jimi Hendrix: Are You Experienced? (MCA 1967)
The first sound I hear is the incredible opening guitar line for Purple Haze and I can feel the hairs standing on the back of my neck. The music is swirling and spiralling down with with intense blues-rock crunches, Jimi's voice booms out, riding on this wave of volatile music. A bloody marvelous song segueing to Manic Depression. A stampede of guitar and back-beat driven drums, hammering and folding over itself. The cool angry blues rhythms of Hey Joe build, conveying the rage of the lyrics. The song tightens and strains until the three insrumentalists form a wall of sound. Love Or Confusion sounds as if it was recorded in a huge hall. The distortion of Jimi's voice pulls me up above the throbbing guitar lines pounding and menacing the lyrics, wrapping around his voice and exploding into shards of guitar noise. May This Be Love is a beautiful song. The cymbals punctuating each lyric until an absolutely georgeous water-drop guitar chord signifies the next verse. It's a song of filegree and effortless emotion. Jimi's soothing, fragile guitar is imaculate on a song that gives way to the descending crunch of I Don't Live Today. The instruments batter me while Jimi sings if I don't live today, maybe tomorrow, I just can't say. An intense song the flairs into bizarre jazzy mid-section that makes me feel enervated and slightly creeped out. The Wind Cries Mary is a sad, beautiful song with georgeous guitar, probably the finest on the album. I feel the desertion and sadness of this song deeply. But that gives way to Fire bulging with intensity and convulsing with sexuality. I wanna shake my arse every time I hear it. Third Stone From The Sun is the best experimental/pretentious rock song I've heard. It's pretty too. And then there's Foxy Lady, with it's dundodun, dundodun intro that just blows my freakin' mind. Music this fun should be a crime. This song proves all the 50's parents right, this is music for getting it on. The best moment has to be Jimi singing I'm...coming to get you...baby and corresponding guitar crunch afterward. By the time Are You Experienced? starts, I feel overwhelmed and full of energy. Are You Experienced? was the first album I ever loved and every time I listen to it I realize I made an excellent choice.
Patti Smith: Horses (Arista 1975)
A brilliant, moving album that sounds spontanious and exciting. The music is a ramshackle slab of rock, reggae, punk percolating under Smith's brusque voice and brilliant lyrics. The first song, a cover of Van M.'s Gloria, begins with the revelatory statement Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine. And with that line Smith seperates the adventurous from the conformists. The music slowly builds with ambulatory rhythms ever rising, becoming louder and more intense. Then explodes with incredible rockabilly guitar and harmonies as Smith garishly mutters G-L-O-R-I-A against counterpuntal chants of Gloria. One of my ten favorite moments in music. Then I drift onto Redondo Beach a jaunty reggae-infused song. It evokes the feeling of being on a city beach better than any song I have ever heard. Birdland is an incredible and almost impossible to explain, you have to experience it. I travel through Free Money to Kimberly probably my favorite song awash with organ and guitar as Smith sings Little Sister the sky is falling, I don't mind. A throw-back to early rock, complete with hand-claps and a doo-wop melody brandished near the end. I just fall in love with this song every time. Break It Up throws huge crescendo's at me then settles to hush in an absolutely brilliant examination of break-up. But it was all primer for Land an aggressive monument to rock n' roll, it bludgeons me with sharp spikes of guitar and drums. Then takes a sudden left turn into land of a thousand dances with Patti introducing me to a manic Watusi turning into a knife fight in a high-school, the music lashing behind her voice driving my mind to frenzy. the song revolves around me like a hurricane and swirls ever up until crescendo after crescendo pulses over Smith's voice and shes talking about blood, Bhudda, horses and more. And then bottoms out, as her character commits suicide and his life drains out. And Elegie takes Horses to superlative conclusion.
John Coltrane: A Love Supreme (Impulse! 1964)
I remember listening to this album when I was 15 and it was so beautiful and soothing I started to cry. The music wasn't linear the way rock was, it crested and fell like water, constantly in motion. The sounds and shapes of the music were mesmerizing and I allowed myself to move with them. I followed the lines of the saxaphone only to be dropped into a pool of writhing music that would lengthen then contract and I would find a new instrument to follow. It was a singular experience. I was totally enraptured and played this album 5 more times experiencing different emotions each time. A fabulous jazz album.
David Bowie: Ziggy Stardust (RCA 1972)
I didn't hear pre-80's Bowie until I was twenty years old! I had heard rumours of the thin white duke from my music-minded friends. This was the first album I bought and because of the placement on the RS 100 I figured it was a pretty safe purchase. Ziggy wasn't what I expected. My imagination had invented a sound much like the Putting Out Fire (With Gasoline). But...it was a sexy, jangling beast of an album. He was a cross-dressing starman with god-given ass who came to save us with rock n' roll!! This music made my little fellas tingle with an excitement only a 20 year old man could feel.(yay)
Paul Simon: Graceland (Warner Bros. 1986)
Bob Dylan: Bringing It All Back Home (Columbia 1965)
Between the years 1965 and 1968 Dylan made five exceptional albums, the first of which was this one. The songs are acidic grenades of verbiage and simple rollicking rhythms. His poetry turns from the political activism of his early records to the politics inherant to personal life. The newly electrified sound was loud and passionate, skipping on staccato rhythm guitar, bawling harmonica and simple steady rhythms. Each song heralds a singular beauty and incredible sophistication. The opening section of the album is his folk-rock manifesto, all bravado and aggression. Subterranean Homesick Blues, this album’s brilliant opener is a brawling song of rapid-fire lyrics and pounding, rhythms. A series of great folk-rock songs with great lyrics and rambunctious music follow, until Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream grabs me by the throat with a hilarious false start, jug band rhythms and marvellous lyrics. Line after line of scorching hallucination brimming with wit and snide brilliance. I said you know they refused Jesus too, he said you’re not him… has to be one of the great rejoinders I have ever heard. The album then spurns its rock influences on what is one of the most brilliant closing sections on any album. Mr. Tambourine Man a marvel of song-writing transmitting sorrow and hope with effortless beauty and wisdom. Dylan’s thin crackling voice follows the marvelous beauty of the lyrics and melody line evoking a world-weary pathos nobody has matched since. Gates of Eden, a heartbreaking protest song burdened with stories of barbary, despair and lost innocence. By It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) that anguish has become stallwart anger. He barks each word into a descending melody line trapped into verses. Each sad, harsh chorus buoyed by a hopeful melody lines that ride bitter words and if my thought/dreams could be seen, they’d probably put my head in a guillotine, but it’s alright ma it’s life and life only. And finally It’s All Over Now Baby Blue, Dylan’s most beautiful song with it’s lilting guitar strumming, crying, sharp vocals and a my favorite harmonica solo in music. It’s a song of newfound maturity and monumental because of it.
Joni Mitchell: Blue (Reprise, 1970)
Mitchell was emotional and enigmatic on this album constantly challenging me to think and feel. This album made me want to love music.
BB King: Live At The Regal (MCA 1965)
This album was my first great blues album and it moved me in ways Eric Clapton never could. I love the way the audience passionately call out to the music.
Randy Newman: Sail Away (Reprise, 1972)
Randy Newman in his prime was a master satirist. He wrote songs that confront the listener with the banal failures and triumphs of unsympathetic characters. Sail Away, a song about slave raids made by American ships has a simple, inspiring music patriotically backing lyrics that read In America you’ll get food to eat, won’t have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet, You’ll just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day, It’s great to be an American. Subtle crescendos build into the next verse the lyrics read Climb aboard little wog-Sail away with me, Sail Away Sail away, we will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay, and the music bubbles along in a simply, happy way. Lonely At The Top has a buoyant tune, part creole horn section and part ragtime marching band, masking the self-pitying slime of the lyrics. Randy moans Listen to me all you fools out there, go on and love me—I don’t care, Oh, it’s lonely at the top, with a complacent sense of entitlement that is worthy of a great actor. He Gives Us All His Love is a song about God’s love that’s marvelously earnest and sarcastic at the same time. The middle section, Last Night I Had A Dream, Simon Smith And the Dancing Bear and Old Man tackle their subjects with the same aplomb. Then there’s Political Science one of the best songs about American colonialism ever. The lyrics have a biting, naïve quality and Newman sings them with a disconcerting wonderment. His bouncing piano lines rollick behind his voice, drums and horns joining in creating a marching band swelling to Boom goes London, boom goes paree, more room for you and more room for me, And every city the whole world round, will just be another American town. Followed by Burn On a brilliant song with swelling orchestra billowing around Newman as he sings about a legendary oil fire on the Coyahoga River. It reprises the patriotic sentiment of Sail Away and sings of how beautiful the sight is and how great the event was for Cleveland! Memo To My Son is a very funny song about parental obligations. Dayton, Ohio 1903 has georgeous, simple piano lines and contains Newman’s prettiest vocals communicating an era when things could grow, and days flowed quietly, the air was clean and you could see and folks were nice to you. It’s my favorite song on the album. You Can Leave Your Hat On is all aggressive rhythms and playfully raunchy lyrics sung with a sexual bent. And God’s Song, the most depressing song about God ever produced (beating out XTC). It’s angry, stuttering piano punctuating Newman’s uncompromising lyrics and sad, harsh vocals. Sail Away is an album as beautiful as it is unsympathetic.
Bobby "Blue" Bland: Two Steps From The Blues (Duke 1973)
Miles Davis: Tribute To Jack Johnson (Columbia 1971)
Van Morrison: Astral Weeks (Warner Bros. 1968)
Pixies: Surfer Rosa (4AD/Elektra 1988)
The Band: The Band (Capitol, 1969)
Bruce Springsteen: Nebraska (Columbia 1982)
U2: Achtung Baby! (Island 1991)
Lucinda Williams: Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (Mercury 1998)
Radiohead: OK Computer (Parlaphone 1997)
Otis Redding: Otis Blue: Otis Sings Soul Ballads (Stax 1965)
Otis Redding was endowed with an exceptional voice that communicated heartbreak and wisdom to me. The way he vocally manipulates words into a melodic sum far greater than the parts is astounding. I consider him the finest vocalist I have ever listened to. He’s also a superlative songwriter as well as a marvelous interpreter of others. Otis Blue mixes all these aspects, with the help of a stellar band, into an emotional milestone. Redding’s vioce weaves a tapestry of words, he hesitates and moans Ole Man Trouble leave me alone, go find you someone else to pick on, I live my life with doubt you see, Ole man trouble…please stay away from me with his powerful voice. The music is simple and steady, using a pick-up to punctuate each verse. The simple strutting rhythms accentuate the world-weariness that pervades the song. Hammering rhythms mark the intro of Respect, a song that rolls along on a mighty bass line. A Change Is Gonna Come, originally as Sam Cooke tune, becomes a wailing anthem resting on a blanket of great musicianship. The drums and bass entwining screaching horns and a pastoral piano line that intertwines with Redding’s outstanding vocal reinterpretation. Down In The Valley is a strident piece of gospel-influenced lover man strut. Every one of these songs is magnificent yet I’ve Been Loving You Too Long effortlessly eclipses all of them. A silky piano tinkles behind a slow steady drumbeat. Horns screach like a choir showcasing his voice as it strains with magnificent sadness. He stutters and stresses, belts out elongated vowels and then swiftly strings syllables together until every bit of emotion is wrung out of me. Then the album begins a steady string of astute covers that bristle with raucous energy. Redding revises this material with originality and skill. Shake, My Girl, Wonderful World, Rock Me Baby and Satisfaction are stellar choices that he easily translates into very personal songs. Satisfaction in particular is an eye-opener, the music translates the energy of the Stones with a muscular soul sound complete with horns and a thundering bass. Redding tears into the lyrics with intensity that is invigorating. You Don’t Miss Your Water is William Bell’s best song, a slow moving sexy masterpiece about yearning and lost love. I sit here and wonder how this could be, I never thought you’d ever leave me, But now that you’ve left me, Good lord how I cry…You don’t miss your water till your well runs dry Otis sings, his voice communicating the entirity of loss, shaking with intensity as the musicians perform simple music that perfectly underscores the vocals. Otis Blue is a pristine emotional experience in the form of an album
The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground & Nico (Verve 1967)
Interpol: Turn On The Bright Lights (Matador 2002)
Interpol are an intense band. They borrow elements of Joy Division and Radiohead, which are immediately obvious. But with further listens their unique blend of aggression and fragility becomes more affecting. Nervous, jagged guitars and rumbling drums lunge forward then elevate into gorgeous ethereal crescendos. Carlos’ voice is a perverse, sly monotone that slides into soaring eloquence. The world they evoke is a dramatic cabaret ripe with lust and longing and fear. Untitled begins with a spiking guitar chords forming the pattern of a melody, then erupting into a chorus of a thousand electric bits. The instruments blocks in a frigid, gorgeous wall of sound. They lumber and convulse on the point of seizing, when a voice appears upon this horizon of sound. Surprise, sometimes I’ll come around. He imparts, I’ll surprise you sometimes, I’ll come around…when you are down. And with those words the song deconstructs slowly into beautiful silence. But that song is only a primer for Obstacle 1, a song soaked through with hysteria and propelled by waves of reverberating crescendos. Chaotic shards of guitar and rolling, stuttering drums bash at my ears while Carlos D’s exasperated voice blurts out word after word. The song crashes and bangs like a confined animal. NYC slowly unfurls its shimmering surface and beautiful lyrics, the climbs to a haunting climax. PDA and Say Hello To Angels are brisk tours through the seedy underbelly of New York. The latter a venomous song of sex and exploitation, its stampeding rhythms riding guitar lines into the magnificent chorus. Hands Away and Obstacle Two are fine songs. Then the marvellous title Stella Was A Diver And She Was Always Down and a song that lives up to that title. The vocals are exquisite on this song. The ferocious Roland, The New and the striking Leif Erikson draw the album to a close. Turn On The Bright Lights has an exhilarating mix of the sinister and divine enraptures me for forty-nine minutes. Ninety-eight minutes if I decide to listen again.
Pink Floyd: Dark Side Of The Moon (Capitol 1973)
Big Star: Third/Sister Lovers (Rykodisc 1975/1978)
Big Star began as a power-pop band, but by Third, Chilton had altered their style into something much quieter and much stranger. Chilton's lyrics are disquieting, full of the disappointments and desperations of being in love. The music rattles like a skeleton as each instrumentalist chimes out, ispired by different, sometimes conflicting, emotions. When the noise finally comes together into a coherent whole the sound is unexpected and disquieting. The first few songs Kizza Me, Thank You Friends and especially Big Black Car are dishevelled slabs of rock n’ roll that sound transmitted from separate recording studios. The eerie ballads Holocaust and Kangaroo, punctuated by silence instead of sound, jangle and shard into deconstructed rock n’ roll beauty. Sister Lovers final third is comprised of more conventional string laden ballads and tempestuous flaring rockers. The extremely beautiful closing section, Nightime, Blue Moon and Take Care, is my favourite sequence of songs. The instruments waltz together, swooning behind Chilton’s wonderful, sad voice. He recites sentimental, immaculate poetry to an unknown muse. Third/Sister Lovers is an incomparably beautiful album of experimentation and melancholy.
Well, there's this fool who did. :-)
I can only hope my list will be half as good, right now I'm working the reviews, this could take a while. :)
Wow! Ambition!
This list is quite a bit to take in at once. I've gone through it quickly, and so far, I am very impressed.
Good luck with the hundreds of reviews!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Wow, what a list! I'm psyched that I'll be able to watch you fill this out with reviews over the coming months (years?). I was very happy to see Wrecking Ball appear here, on of my favorite albums. Also, I've only scratched the surface of the huge jazz iceburg (including taking a survey course in college), but Mingus' Ah Um is my favorite so far.
Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou. I'm thinking years. What do you think of the reviews right now? I need constructive criticism.
I've noticed not many people aren't into jazz in a big way and that ain't good.:?)
About 6 years ago, a fella named Stan Anson had a site devoted to compiling jazz lists and books into a cohesive list of the best albums in jazz. It's my favorite web-site I ever found, but it dissapeared in 2000. I would love to post my copy of Stan Anson's jazz list but it's probably against the law and get yer great site in trouble. We need a search party to find Stan.
As for turning purchasing jazz into a joyful experience, there's a ton of reference out there, Len Lyons' The 101 Best Jazz Albums is pretty good, and if you really search you can find the list online. Some goodish online primer lists are Jazz Online and NPR Basic Jazz Record Library. Al Jerrau is scary.
An exceptional album to look for is Mary Margaret O'Hara "Miss America", it's a bizarre, psuedo-jazz/pop album.
I totally agree, Mingus Ah Um is a great jazz album.
In Miles Davis's autobiography there's a funny story about Mingus, Davis and a couple of other greats travelling cross country to a gig.
I've actually read Beneath the Underdog, so I bet there are a TON of good Mingus stories.
I think your reviews are terrific, and so far they make me want to listen to everything you're written up (time and money being the major obstacles). As for constructive criticism, I have none for you. I'm afraid music criticism is a black art to me, and I envy those that can do it. To be able write about what qualities of music make it good beyond "I like it" is beyond me. You may as well ask me to fly.
Well thankyou.
I think you could do music reviews easily, your film reviews are excellent, some of the best this site. Short, concise and always interesting. LB (who's actually been a real critic) shouts your praises in several of his columns.
On a totally unrelated topic, what do ya think of Dido's White Flag (video and song)?
Thanks much, I'm flattered! But I maintain music criticism is beyond me. Perhaps with practice and much labor it would come to me, but never easily, I don't think. I've thought about why I can do it for movies and not music, and I think it's just that with movies you have characters and it can be related to life quite easily (like that time I single-handedly fought off high-tech thieves that had taken an entire high rise hostage, spouting quips the whole way), but music, especially instrumental music, is so much more abstract. I just can't say "this collection of notes is good because..." An old friend of mine who was very into jazz would rant about how great Maceo Parker is, but how much Kenny G sucks. Now it's true, my preferences run the same way, but I sure as hell can't justify it qualitatively.
I'm afraid I haven't heard White Flag, nor seen the video (I haven't seen any videos in a long time - we turned off the TV about 6.5 years ago (about six months before our first daughter was born)).
Well, okay. I'll accept that. But, you must understand Kenny G has bad/non-existent improvisational skills. The man holds the Guiness world record for the longest single note held. The same note, 45 minutes!!!! That's a dubious record to hold. :)
No TV!!! Wow! Dude, you have the inner strength of Yoda.
Pretty funny about the 45-minute note. All show, now substance, that guy.
It's actually because I have no willpower that the TV got the ax. No matter what my wife and Itried to limit our viewing, we ended up in front of the damn thing all evening. So we axed it. We might not have taken such a drastic step, but we didn't want our kids watching it until they were older anyway.
Yep, I remember my early days...with no TV, no movies but in the theatre and my dad's radio blaring cus he was kinda deaf. Between the years of 5-10, as I remember, were quite interesting. Your skills at finding something interesting to do grow quite dramatically. I figure that's why I love movies so much, they were the main visual entertainment for those 5 long years.
I give you kudos for your decision. Television saps IQ.
Have you seen Red Sorghum?
Haven't seen Red Sorghum yet, much to my consternation. A disturbing number of Zhang's films are unavailable on DVD, including that one.
Yeah, it bugs me too. I would've watched "Raise the Red Lantern" by now if it were on DVD, Jim! Honest!
Hey, did you see RTRL in theaters? Or did you see it in the days before you renounced Yokelvision?
:-) I believe you. I saw RTRL, Ju Dou, and To Live in the bad old days of VHS, when it was damn near impossible to get anything but Yokelvision. Shanghai Triad I saw in the theaters, and I think everything else I saw on DVD. Keep Cool and Red Sorghum are the two I'm missing (I don't really count Lumière and Company, and by all accounts The Puma Action was awful; I can't remember how he got blackmailed into making that one).
Have you seen To Live? It's the only one of his top 3 movies (personal ranking, of course) that's out on DVD.
Same problem here, never seen it, wanna see it, can't see it cause of that reason. That's why I keep that darn tele-tube (well that and American Idol). You never know. One night a crappy canadian telivision station aired Passport To Pimlico, I was so stunned I almost forgot to watch it.:)
Cinemaflow is coming tomorrow, yay. Could be Ringu, double yay.
Just watched "The Core" and "Underworld" (sister wanted to see it), I'll have to stop this or my brain'll go to mush. @:\<---mush brain stooky
The emberassing thing is, I've got all these classic movies taped that I never watch.
BTW, Another Green World & Time (The Revelator) are the reviews added, towards the bottom.
(The meeting never happened, narrowly dodged the bullet.)
I think I'll copy LB and say,
Tallyho!
I've got bad net etiquette.
How's things going on your end? from piecing together small bits of info I'm guessing pretty good. But tell me anyway.
For what it's worth Jim, don't ever feel unqualified to give a music review simply because you're unable to compare it to something better, similar, or worse. I know it's sometimes hard to explain the way music can stir the soul, (I suffer greatly), but just giving a short recommendation of something that moved you should be the most a person should expect... and be happy to get.
I must say though, if Jazz is your bag, disregard the previous note. Those cats can pick apart a solo note-by-note, twist it around like a necktie, and look at you funny if you didn’t think of it first ~;^)
Thanks stumpy, I appreciate it. Maybe one of these days I'll try my hand at it. After we got married, had kids, etc. and we started prioritizing money differently our music collection went into a kind of stasis for awhile. I still listened to the radio whenever I got some time alone in the car (otherwise it's Raffi Raffi Raffi, all the time - it's enough to drive a man mad), but there's not exactly an eclectic mix of stations around here. I'm *finally* limbering up again, been putting some music on my wishlist, and have the stereo set up in the kitchen, so maybe as I shake off the dust I'll start commenting on what I'm listening to lately (Satellite Sky by Mark Heard, Perfecta by Adam Again (both borrowed from LBangs), Flying Low by Willard Grant Conspiracy, and Re-Inventions: Best Of The Vanguard Years by Sandy Bull). The encouragement helps, but I still don't know where I'd begin, short of "great stuff."
Funny note about jazz critics. :-) Nice to have you back!
Yeah, I'm in the middle of a bit of a coup d'etat for my musical taste as well. I still don't think I'm very good at musical criticism though. I agree with what you said about it being hard to evaluate the melody itself. Especially in relation to the words - I have no clue what a song sounds like when the music and the lyrics don't fit. I guess if you pictured the words of "You've Got a Friend" set to the music of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", but then again, maybe that would work for its irony. :-)
Are these in order of preference? You're doing a damn good job here, but I'd pace myself if I were you. I'll be looking forward to a year of updates.
Well yes they are, I planned to number but my little fingers look like spoons and groan at me. {:-:)<---two head stooky (eek)
Thanks, don't think i'm not going to stumpy. If lazy were in the dictionary, it would not only picture me, but also have a list of my laze-worthy accomplishments.
Any comments on the reviews? more long passages about Faulkner or what?
Added some albums. The new review is of Interpol. Would have done two but I'm feelin' sickly today. (merf)
Another great review! I apologize if I don't chime in more often on this list - it just seems silly for me to repeatedly drop in and say "nice review!".
Hey, I thing you're definitely going to have to break this list up. Listology has a 65,000 character limit (it's a technical limit, not one imposed by me for space-saving reasons or anything like that). You're already in the 40s on this list. You won't lose anything when you exceed the limit, but you will get an error and a little marker in text showing you where the cutoff is.
Sorry to hear you're ailing!
Speaking of ailing, I went to town to do my weekly volunteering and drank rancid coffee. 5 hours of roiling tummy wasn't pleasant.
Thanks fer the warning, I figured that this file was getting rather large.
I always like hearing nice review.:?)
If yer looking Jim, I split this big son-of-a-gun up and here is the log of my struggles.
I looked to the base of mount Listology several times with awe. But my apprehension grew as the natives related tales of burly posters never being seen again. I was frightened, but one thing kept passing through my mind 65000 character limit-mit-mit-it-t. So I hired a sherpa who told me of his wondrous golden mule. When I saw the mule I was disimpressed since it was just painted gold and smelled. But I did not let this bring me down, listology pass loomed above me and I promised myself "I will succeed".
As the Sherpa and I followed the path one of our two mules slipped and fell, breaking its leg and forcing us to burden our backs with letter after letter. As we came to the summit a beautiful, cliff dwelling maiden hailed me. She fed us and the sherpa and I spent the night. That morning we said our goodbyes, looked longingly at her cave and headed off to the bottom slopes of Mount Listology.
Lips parched and craving water we eventually made it to the post. There was merriment as my sherpa and I danced in the noonday sun. Suddenly I realized this was only part of the letters, I told my sherpa "We...must do this...eight more times." My sherpa turned to me, flipped me the bird and ran away.
It was just me and a painted, golden mule through the long days of struggle. I grew a beard that was long and tangled. My limbs grew weary from packing those many letters over this looming mountain.
My last trip over the mountain the golden mule kicked it. I burried my faithfull ass under a large pile of rock and dragged the letters down the mountain. I came to the last post, bleeding, almost unconscious and posted!
My long days of struggle ended and I had a Nestea Cool. The End.
Well done (both the act and the retelling). I recently removed the 65,000 character limit though, so you could have left it the way it was.
Just kidding.
reaction done in emoticons.
:?) :?| :?( >:?@ :?| :?) ;?)