I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking the same silly thought - "why aren't these guys as big as the Beatles?" Then I catch myself giving myself the same silly answer: "Well, you know, after all, when the Beatles came out to greet the world, they greeted it with 'Well she was just seventeen - you know what I mean'. But when Ween came out to greet it, all these stupid nitwits could offer it was 'You fucked up! You bitch - you really fucked up!'" What other reasons would you need, then?"

It goes without saying that you need to be a little more forgiving and a wee bit more insightful in order to let Ween into your personal world. I mean, it's okay. Ween aren't any more dangerous than the Beatles. Heck, they're less dangerous. That Beatles quote, come to think of it, fairly certainly propagates the pleasures of intimate relationships with underage partners, you know what I mean. Ween, now, they don't do that. They're really nice clean lads, and something tells me neither Mickey Melchiondo nor Aaron Freeman childhood was anywhere near as rowdy as that of some of the Fab Four's. And if you thought that was enough Beatle comparison for one intro, let me tell you I'm just getting started.

Anyway, let's get it proper since this is, after all, the greatest band of the last decade and yet no one outside the US is even aware of their existence. Ween are a couple of musical brothers - and I don't mean "brothers" either in the direct genetic sense or in the Afro-American one. "Spiritual brothers" is more like it. Here they are: Aaron Freeman, a.k.a. Gene Ween, and Mickey Melchiondo, a.k.a. Dean Ween, or just Gener and Deaner for short. The thing that's for certain is that Gener is the main singer and thus the "frontman" for the duo, whereas Deaner is the lead guitar player and the one who doesn't talk nearly as much. The thing that's a bit less for certain is that Gener is the gimmick provider of the band - you know, the lyricist, the stuntman, the extravert - whereas Deaner is its musical backbone - the guitarist, the melodist, the introvert. Maybe it's not quite like that, but it's combinations like these that usually yield the best results, and Ween don't accept anything less than best.

Although the two of them actually teamed up as early as the mid-Eighties, having shared the same class in junior high in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and engaged in quite a few homemade recordings at the time, their first "major" album did not really come out until precisely 1990, and if you ask me, it ain't just a coincidence. Ween are - did I hear someone scoff? - the embodiment of the Nineties. Now before you start waving this off with a "what does he know about the Nineties, he didn't even have his site up before 1998" snigger, let us consider this important question: is there any one band that you could claim to have embodied the Nineties? The way the, er, B*****s embodied the Sixties and, uh, maybe Led Zeppelin embodied the Seventies? And, say, U2 did with the Eighties?

Aha - a tough one. Well, here's my two cents on the matter. By the time the Nineties rolled on, the world had run out of... nah, not melodies, worse than that - emotions. It did not start with the Nineties, of course. Much earlier. But by the Nineties, the emotional crisis was obvious. The tender love song, the aggressive punk clamour, the deep philosophic stutter of the singer-songwriter, the passionate soul baring of the gospel singer, all of these things had become too dangerous. You had to really work your ass off to try and find new ways of expressing all this, and even when you did, you could still be laughed off by the cynics. And we all know how the cynics ruled the day in the Nineties - and still do.

All of which essentially gives you two choices. One is to fuck the cynics and just trudge along with the same old trusty emotions disguised as innovative artistic statements. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but if you lose, you bite the dust real hard, and even if yo

EARTH—Former vice president Al Gore—who for the past three decades has unsuccessfully attempted to warn humanity of the coming destruction of our planet, only to be mocked and derided by the very people he has tried to save—launched his infant son into space Monday in the faint hope that his only child would reach the safety of another world.

"I tried to warn them, but the Elders of this planet would not listen," said Gore, who in 2000 was nearly banished to a featureless realm of nonexistence for promoting his unpopular message. "They called me foolish and laughed at my predictions. Yet even now, the Midwest is flooded, the ice caps are melting, and the cities are rocked with tremors, just as I foretold. Fools! Why didn't they heed me before it was too late?"

Al Gore—or, as he is known in his own language, Gore-Al—placed his son, Kal-Al, gently in the one-passenger rocket ship, his brow furrowed by the great weight he carried in preserving the sole survivor of humanity's hubristic folly.

"There is nothing left now but to ensure that my infant son does not meet the same fate as the rest of my doomed race," Gore said. "I will send him to a new planet, where he will, I hope, be raised by simple but kindly country folk and grow up to be a hero and protector to his adopted home."

As the rocket soared through the Gore estate's retractable solar-paneled roof—installed three years ago to save energy and provide emergency rocket-launch capability in the event that Gore's campaign to save Earth was unsuccessful—the onetime presidential candidate and his wife, Tipper, stood arm-in-arm, nobly facing their end while gazing up in stoic dignity at the receding rocket, the ecosystem already beginning to collapse around them.

In the final moments before the Earth's destruction, Gore expressed hope that his son would one day grow up to carry on his mission by fighting for truth, justice, and the American way elsewhere in the universe, using his Earth-given superpowers to become a champion of the downtrodden and a reducer of carbon emissions across the galaxy.

"Perhaps he will succeed where I have failed," Gore said.

Despite the child's humble beginnings, experts predict the intergalactic journey may have some extraordinary effects on Kal-Al's physique, eyesight, and, potentially, his powers of quiet, sensible persuasion.

"On his new planet, Kal-Al's Earth physiology will react to the radiation of a differently colored sun, causing him to develop abilities far beyond those of mortal men," political analyst Sig Schuster said. "He will be faster than a speeding Prius, stronger than the existing Superfund program, and able to leap mountains of red tape in a single bound. These superpowers will sustain him in his never-ending battle against conservatives, wealthy industrialists, and other environmental supervillains."

Although Gore and his wife voiced regrets that they could not accompany their son on his journey, they tried their best to equip Kal-Al for life on his new planet, providing the infant with a Keynote slide-show presentation of all human knowledge, a self-growing crystal fortress from which to monitor glacier shrinkage, and a copy of Al Gore's 1992 bestseller, Earth In The Balance.

The baby was also wrapped in a blanket emblazoned with the Gore family crest, which, because it is made of Earth materials, will be invulnerable on the new planet. It is hoped that one day it will be fashioned into a colorful costume for the boy to wear while fighting wrongdoers.

"In brightly hued tights, it will be harder for people there to ignore him when he takes on his new planet's lobbyists, auto manufacturers, and enemies of justice," Schuster said. "A bold and eye-catching unitard will give Kal-Al, last son of Earth, a formidable tool for protecting his new planet, a power more awesome than any his father could have dreamed of: the power of charisma."