A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

WEDNESDAY MORNING, 3 A.M. (DEATH TO FALSE METAL VERSION): Back in my college radio days, on the mandatory frosh graveyard shift from 2-5 a.m., we were sometimes blessed with telephone requests from the local county sheriff's lock-up. I'm not sure how that happened, but presume that the local constabulary had its reasons for putting us on over the P.A. in the tank, and that cranked-up guests of the facility sometimes had no one else to call, didn't want the party to end, etc., while stuck there at that dark and often disappointing time of the morning. (It's also possible that some insomniac prankster was getting creative with their Mac Classic, but who'd want to live in that world?)

A typical conversation would go something like this:

Me: Hello, W***.

Caller: This is the ******* County Sheriff's Department Detention Facility. You have a collect call from ... SLAYER!! PLAY ANGEL OF DEATH!! ... To accept charges, press 1 now.

Partner: Who is it?

Me: Jail.

Partner: Sweet. What do they want?

Me: Here. (passing phone)

Caller: Again, this is the ******* County Sheriff's Department Detention Facility. To accept charges for the call from ... SLAAAYYYERRRRRRRRR!!! ..., press 1 now.

Partner: Could this be any cooler?

Caller: ANGEL OF DEAAATH!! PLAY SLAYER! SLAYERRRR!! ... will be disconnected if you do not accept charges in 30 seconds.

Me: Well, yeah. For example, if we weren't in the middle of a folk set...

Which is a long way of getting around to a point we make perhaps over-frequently around these parts: even good things aren't always as good as they could be. To make a small mostly conscious effort to balance that tendency, right here at this dark and often disappointing hour of the morning, I'd like to take an opportunity here to emphasize the positive side of things:

1) If you are up at 3 a.m. reading this, take heart: at least you aren't in jail in Western Massachusetts.

2) And, if you're thinking "But wait, I AM IN JAIL IN WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS!! (SLAYERRR!!!)." First, check to be sure it's jail. It might just be college, or, you know, some sort of boarding school that pays special attention to the discipline of its charges. Second, if you got interwebs in jail, man, that's pretty hot! You could have been busted back in the 90s when all you got was collect calls to local numbers and the chance to brawl with guys that liked your shoes (in a bad way).

3) And, no matter what your situation, consider that all sorts of things all around us are improving in little ways all the time. The prisons are web-enabled, boarding schools are increasingly sensitive to the prior disciplinary records of the students they accept (and prepared to take precautions to protect or at least insulate surrounding communities), and Motorhead has finally fixed Metallica's overly-melodic original recording of Enter Sandman.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Didn't someone just splice a bunch of color-corrected (washed-out to black and white) clips from the old Ace of Spades video in with the theatrical cuts from the original video by Hetfield et al.? Yes. Yes, they did. But focus on the music, which is inarguably an improvement over the original (he said, as if to provoke an argument).

And, if you think to the contrary that Motorhead's version pushed the original in the wrong direction entirely, then consider the alternative provided by the three-cello attack of Apocalyptica.

Sweet dreams, sleepy people. Sweet dreams.