Complex Numbers

Steely Gazelle

The theme for this month's "Journalistic Intentions"  [18+] is Earth. It's a well-rounded topic, and I hope it doesn't leave you flat. Feel free to click that link and enter. I know it can be intimidating to have such transcendent competition as Me, but I didn't win any prizes in the last round there, so you do have a chance.

Gazelle Conservation Achievements

Gazelle Conservation Achievements is the name of my grunge Toto cover band.

I picked up the habit, elsewhere on the internet, of turning unlikely phrases into band names. After all, a lot of band names are unlikely phrases. Pearl Jam (yes, I know what it means). Steely Dan (that too). Goo Goo Dolls. Green Day. It's like they sit around after practice, get stoned, and brainstorm the weirdest, most surreal names that they can.

The next day, when they're sober, they pick one out of a hat and run with it. Then, when they become all famous and shit, someone will inevitably ask, "So where did the band name come from?" In order to avoid seeming random and/or stoned, they'll always say something like, "Oh, our drummer, Pete, woke up with the name in his head from a dream." Or, "It was the name of Chester's first dog." And then Chester has to run around the internet changing all his challenge questions for password recovery.

I heard somewhere that the band Jethro Tull went through a bunch of different names before settling on that tribute to a person most often described as an eighteenth century agriculturist   who probably no one who's not a farmer would have ever heard of were it not for Ian Anderson's band.

An agriculturist (not to be confused with an aggro cultist) is apparently not the same thing as a farmer, though I suppose it's possible to be both. I guess it's kind of like in physics: you have theoretical physicists to think of weird experiments and do math, and then you have experimental physicists whose life's work is to make the theoretical physicists look like idiots by proving them wrong.

That's because theoretical physicists, and presumably agriculturists, work in the realm of (wait for it...) theory. And more often than not, theory goes against the concept known as "common sense." So there's always pushback from common-sensers whenever something theoretical pops up that doesn't, in their limited worldview, make any damn sense. Like the idea that spacetime is curved, or that our bodies are basically collections of quarks and electrons, neither of which can be actually seen.

But then someone tries the new theory, and behold, it works, and a couple of generations later, that becomes common sense.

If there's one thing I've learned in my time on the planet (which is round), it's that I've learned more than one thing. If there's another thing I've learned, it's that common sense is neither. Never trust a politician that runs on a "common sense" platform. Inevitably, they're so stuck in their ways that they'll ignore all evidence that is contrary to their interpretation of common sense, much to the detriment of their constituents.

Maybe they should take a page out of the band playbook: Get stoned. Brainstorm some new ideas. When sober, pull one out at random and try it.

Sure, much of the time it won't work. But sometimes it will, and that's how you get new stuff.

Because, remember, the idea that the Earth is flat is just common sense. I mean, look at it. It looks flat, doesn't it? Unless, I guess, you're in the mountains, and then it looks all craggy and shit. But then you do some simple measurements and think about it for about 20 seconds with an open mind, and the truth reveals itself.

None of which explains why we need to conserve gazelles, I'm afraid. Or why. I guess it's so that lions will have something to eat tomorrow. I mean, that's just common sense.