Red Dead Balloon (vocals, bass - James Bixler; vocals, guitar - Sam Cobean & David Hevener; drums - Martin Back. recorded as ANOCEROS, 8/11/2007

I’m pretty upset today because I ate a penny A real, copper coated, zinc penny Of course, I’m lucky I didn’t eat a nickel or a dime. That would have really changed me. “and, how do you feel?” “I wish I was a helium balloon floating aimlessly in the wind, only it would be nice if somebody would catch me and return me to the crying little girl.” Tonight we begin the new journey. It starts by putting ourselves on another level of thought, another vehicle of reality: a plane of existence with melting clocks and people talking backwards; where walls have more personality than art that hangs from them. A land of little creatures madly scurrying about the carpet in search of food and little shiny things to fling at you. Where you always feel like we’re floating, yet rationally sinking at the same time. Here, melting wax drips up the candle and the round-table spits foul insects from underneath her legs. A lingering, colorful spot, which bore from staring at a flame, follows our sight everywhere. It glows hot pink when we try to hide from it and green when we try to look around it. Yes this is it, a world where we feel we are the gods, yet we suspect that there is something greater because who else could those twinkling lights be? But out here we are alone, and laughter and melancholy are with us when there is no 1 to listen. Ill-communion causes this sickness which breeds the loss of concentration, and every time we lose concentration, things go awry and we’re thrown forward into this world again. While alone mosaic is how we must see. Everything… a mosaic! And if the pieces are properly put together, you will earn a gummy worm or even a golden sticky star. Oh but still, “yawn,” for does it not feel so good to take deep breaths in shallow years? --- (end section 1)----------------- This microphone has suddenly started laughing! Every time I speak into her, it tickles her. What did this microphone ever do to deserve this? I want to say for the record that I’m sorry, microphone, for tickling you so much. I hate it when you pin us down and tickle us to the point of urination; especially when playing chess in the high storm clouds, crouched with one knee in the mouth, and playing a wooden flute with the other. “Check me, mate, I’m hit!” Scathed by the scalding golden ammonia splashed upon my face, we see our fair lady in grave jeopardy. “I want to risk everything! What is death, Alex?” The brain, this mass of water and lipids makes 1 do livid things! And why? Were these elements randomly assembled together? Were they supposed to do something meaningful, or something random? Supposing they do both? Then were they supposed to create something from nothing only to know it must go back to nothing again? And why do the insane swim so hard against the infinitesimal current of entropy? Were we destined to see the end without seeing anything before the beginning? How can we lead linear lives when so many of us are capricious hallucinators? Is the answer in the straight and narrow? “Bullwinkle ordure!” But we constantly risked everything! “Too bad, your partying gift as the game show contestant is an oral toothbrush. Now good day!” Attention all beggars and question collectors: don’t look back for fear you will only see the future. Never say that at your parent’s funeral…. Who cares, might we ask? Whoever does lives a painful life, but pain is worth the torture of comparison for why else would we compare? To live? To Survive? And what is that but just water, fat and proteins bouncing randomly inside 98-degree trunk-steamers. Yet we can’t think alone. Truly alone. We sprout teeth in our infancy to gear us for the deus ex machina in old age We can’t sanely live… verily alone. We can’t stand or even sit on a toilet… verily alone without fear lingering like the candle-spawned spot we all have seen one time or another. choose life… to not be alone and eat mankind for nutritional clues. If you woke up tomorrow warm and snug in your blankie in your utopia bed of rooms, your bliss would immediately go awry and you’d begin to wonder what real utopia would be like. Were you not just there? Well, that’s the question that is the secret one. We will never get there, like the end of the beginning. Nirvana: a rubber banded Mobius strip: an oscillating, addictive madness enveloping everything, even the strong willed and broken hearted. That exalted perseverance for happiness which binds us together will also let the wind nonchalantly carry away our future tears and future dreams. That sneaky wind. If only we could be the wind. Just for a day, even. That would be grand. --- (end section 2)--------------------- Oh look, in the corner, dirty panties crawling away! Wait panties! We want to go with you! You seem so content to just crawl along the floor. “Well, you see that’s just it: I get gently shit and pissed on all the time which slowly causes me to stink and that is now why I crawl away from you who abuse.” Panties, listen, we’re sorry. we’ll try to get them to tighten up. tell you what, let’s be pals! we’ll take care of you if you let us crawl away with you.… So now here we are, on the floor, with these soiled Panties, not looking back; no worries no stress. Why are we even here? Money? Let us hope we find change in our future, so soon must we go to sleep. Yes indeed we are wearing them down. The walls tend not to need us so much and the creatures on our earthen floor are scarcely visible. Soon we’ll find our peace. So here comes the end of this story, your journey, our journey, and our life among the lizards. --- (end section 3)--------------------- I ate a penny tonight, and that right there says it all. That, my fellow contestants, shows the real dementia of man’s economy. I ate it, I will shit it and that will be all. This is why we have gone awry, gone astray, gone not with the wind. Not because of a psychological disorder. Not because of a bad disease. Each of us is a psychological disorder and a disease in the perfection of one No, it is because we threw out the voices, and let in the money. But there is still hope, my fellow contestants, for our very own voices, they own skeleton keys, we must rub hard and remove the dollar signs in our mind’s eyes keep the key holes clean especially for the panties, but also to make accessible a path of loneliness for the voices to follow. and if you’re lucky, you can hear them whispering and giggling on your windy path and saying how they too, wish they were a helium balloon. --- (end section 4)---------------------