Well I’m Convinced the Whole Day Long That All I Learn is Always Wrong

Thursday. Today is website upload day. I didn't get to enjoy the pleasure of uploading the website last week due to the holiday, so it seems that today I'm getting paid back double-time. First, I haven't received a receivables file from our Puerto Rico branch in several weeks, so I shot over an email to find out why. Well, I found out why. The person responsible for that is no longer with the company and I guess that news just never made it back to me. I also guess that no one else is taking over her duties, either, since I haven't gotten their report in about a month. Who's in charge over there, anyway? After that little snag, I tried to access another group of reports from our customer's website and found out that their website is down. Not much I can do about that since it isn't on our side, but I'm sure I'll hear complaints from them when they see all of their information is over two weeks old. Oh well, grin and bear it I guess.

I woke up again this morning with no particular songs or music in mind, so I just tried to pick something I hadn't heard in awhile. I came up with Billy Breathes by Phish. I think I said this before in my last Phish review, but it is worth recapping: Yes, I like Phish. No, I don't consider myself a hippie. Yes, I shower regularly. No, I do not have dreadlocks or a scraggly beard. Yes, I have a steady, full-time job. No, it is not selling veggie burritos out of the back of my VW bus. Like a lot of people I know, I did not like Phish the first time I heard them (or many times after). However, once I really listened to them I realized that they were actually pretty good musicians. I like Phish for the same reason I like jazz, the Grateful Dead, and other acts that showcase their talent through improvisation. It's one thing to get up and lip-sync to a thoroughly rehearsed set list of 3-minute pop songs that someone else wrote, but to play a completely different set of tunes every night and to just play to whatever vibe you're feeling at that moment is pure genius. As a music lover, you just have to appreciate that (or at least respect it).

Anyway, Billy Breathes is a departure from the early experimentation of Junta and the exuberance of Hoist. It is a very mellow album, and maybe one of their most accessible. Each track flows effortlessly into each other, especially on the second-half of the album, which is almost transcendental in nature. I would like to mention, however, that there is a track on the album entitled Prince Caspian. Now, even though there is no direct mention in the song of the book of the same name, I have to assume that there is a connection since a coincidence is highly improbable. Oh, for those who don't know, Price Caspian is the second book in the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, a serious of books that as a young boy I loved dearly and is soon to be known to a whole new generation as "that one lion movie." I really hope Disney does The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe justice, because I don't know if I can take it if they ruin the story. You never really know with these things. The Lord of the Rings was awesome and I was ok with most of the changes to Hitchhiker's Guide but sometimes Hollywood can change up a movie so much that the only resemblance to the original book is the title (such as the case of one of my favorite books, Less that Zero).

I think I just went off on a tangent there that had nothing to do with Phish. Oh, yeah. Billy Breathes is a great album and I think even non-Phish fans could appreciate this one for it's beautiful melodies, reflective and thought-provoking lyrics, and possible references to children's fantasy literature.