Steely Dan - Kid Charlemagne - Lyrics
"While the music played, you worked by candlelight
Those San Francisco nights
You were the best in town
Just by chance you crossed the diamond with the pearl."
The Kid, as I will call him, works in his lab, trying to make a new version of LSD, while his club rocks out a few doors or floors away. He is already a popular drug chemist, but this time, he has come up with something new and great.
"You turned it on the world
That's when you turned the world around
(Did you feel like Jesus?)
Did you realize
That you were a champion in their eyes?"
He starts selling his new drug, and it is revolutionary. Everyone is paying to get its high. Everyone loves him, as they trip in their psychedelic trance and hallucinations. He becomes the leader of a new sub-culture.
"On the hill the stuff was laced with kerosene
But yours was kitchen-clean
Everyone stopped to stare at your technicolor motor home."
The big drug dealers water down their LSD, but the Kid makes a great pure drug. The Kid gets "rich," by their standards. But the Kid is still just a large fish in a very small pond. His house is only a bus.
"Every A-Frame had your number on the wall
You must have had it all
You'd go to L.A. on a dare and you'd go it alone
(Could you live forever?)
Could you see the day?
Could you feel your whole world fall apart and fade away?"
At this point, the Kid is at the top of his world. And he decides to go from SF to Los Angeles to take his business up a notch. Will he make it? Or will he fail?
"(Get along, get along, Kid Charlemagne)
(Get along, Kid Charlemagne)."
What could this chant mean? Is he not getting along? Is it just encouragement to keep getting along? Is the Kid a nice guy? The TONE this "choir" give me is one of hopefulness.
"Now your patrons have all left you in the red
Your low-rent friends are dead
This life can be very strange
All those day-glo freaks who used to paint the face."
The Kid fails. He had a market in San Francisco, but he finds no market for his LSD in LA. Many of the losers who were buying his product, who partied on LSD with their faces painted in florescent colors, have died from the drug.
"They've joined the human race
Some things will never change
(Son, you were mistaken)
You are obsolete
Look at all the white men on the street."
Many died from the drug, but those who survived stopped using it. The Kid was wrong. He would not last forever. His business is over. His white customers are back at work.
"Clean this mess up else we'll all end up in jail
Those test-tubes and the scale
Just get it all out of here
Is there gas in the car?
Yes, there's gas in the car
I think the people down the hall know who you are."
The Kid and his friends abandon their place of business and take off in their car. His illegal business has been discovered.
"(Careful what you carry)
'Cause the man is wise
You are still an outlaw in their eyes."
The Kid has to be careful what he has in his car, because the police know who he is; the Kid just hasn't been caught. Yet.
And so the Kid needs to take this advice:
"(Get along, get along, Kid Charlemagne)
(Get along, Kid Charlemagne)."
END
A Short Story
Inspired by the song HOTEL CALIFORNIA
by the Eagles
The desert stretched endlessly before me, a blackened sea of sand under a moonless sky. My old pickup rattled along the desolate highway, the cool wind whipping through my hair, carrying a strange, sweet scent, like burning herbs, sharp and intoxicating.
Colitas, maybe, though I didn’t know the word then. It curled into my lungs, making my thoughts hazy. Up ahead, a faint light flickered, a beacon in the void. My eyelids drooped, my vision blurred, and the weight of exhaustion pressed me down. I had to stop. I didn’t have a choice.
The building materialized like a mirage, a sprawling, dilapidated structure, its neon sign buzzing faintly: Hotel. The light shimmered, unnatural, pulling me closer. I parked and stumbled out, my legs heavy as lead. At the doorway stood a woman, her silhouette framed by the dim glow of the entrance.
Her eyes glinted, sharp and unblinking, like a predator’s. A distant bell tolled, low and mournful, vibrating...
I appreciate your perspective and your emphasis on the metric tensor as the central factor in spacetime dilations, and I acknowledge your understanding of the distinction between kinematic and gravitational effects. Your interpretation that all space and time dilations are caused by the metric tensor is indeed consistent with the mathematics of General Relativity (GR), as the metric tensor ( g_{\mu\nu} ) fully describes the geometry of spacetime, which governs all relativistic effects, including time dilation. Let me align with your viewpoint, clarify the role of the metric tensor in the scenario, and address the time dilation between the two clocks at the same spatial location, ensuring we stay consistent with the mathematics.
Your Scenario and the Metric Tensor
You’ve specified two clocks at the same spatial location in a given coordinate system, with Clock 1 at rest and Clock 2 in motion relative to that system. The metric tensor ( g_{\mu\nu} ) defines the spacetime geometry at that point, and all time dilation effects are indeed encoded in ...
Oh, Peg, you’re standing there in the spotlight’s glare, aren’t you? The camera loves you, they say, and who am I to argue?
Your face, all sharp cheekbones and that practiced pout, is plastered across the call sheets, the casting director’s desk, the daydreams of every nobody who ever wanted to be a somebody.
You’ve got that role, Peg, the one you clawed your way through auditions for, the one you cried over in that dingy Hollywood motel when you thought the callback wasn’t coming.
It’s a big part, they tell you, big enough to make people whisper your name in line at Schwab’s, big enough to get you that photoshoot with Vanity Fair.
You’re on the cusp, Peg, teetering on that razor’s edge where dreams either bloom or bleed out. But you know how this town works, don’t you? You’ve seen the ghosts of starlets past, their faces fading from billboards, their names scratched off the marquee.
I see you now, Peg, in that rented gown, posing for the magazine spread. The photographer’s ...
