Goodbye Crazy Diamond

This is my first post on my very new, very expensive MacBook. Yes, I finally got up the nerve to join the Blogosphere just as my admittedly aged iMac gave up the ghost.

So, $1800 later, here I am. Thanks to Hockeyman for his invaluable help in setting me up.

Enough about my fun new technology. The truth is I am one depressed Kitten. I read this morning that Syd Barrett, he of the magnificent Pink Floyd, died at the outrageously young age of sixty.

The role of Pink Floyd's music in surviving my adolesence and early adulthood cannot be understated. My parents were huge fans, so I heard Umma Gumma, Wish You were Here, and Dark Side before I was ten. My father had a direct-to-disk recording of Dark Side of the Moon. For those of you old enough to remember direct-to-disk recordings, or, for that matter, vinyl, you know how great that record sounded. Those of you in the CD or MP3 generation, who have never experienced the warm popping and crackling sounds of much-played vinyl, well, trust me, it sounded good. Especially when it was Pink Floyd.

The release of The Wall, in 1979, changed my life. I was twelve, and beginning to realize that many of my peers were headed straight for their parents' lives: the University of Michigan, Jewish spouses, accounting careers, 2.5 kids, a house in the right part of suburban Detroit. Along came the Wall, with its scathing indictment of society, at a time when I needed it most. The Wall told me there were other people in the world--maybe not many, but a few--who thought like I did.

I know--Syd was long gone by then. But certainly his influence was felt. Just listen to Wish You Were Here, the band's tribute to the man and his music.

I know little of the man himself, only that he was ill, both mentally and physically, and that the world was too much with him.

I wish he were here.