“If you pretend you never get old, you got what it takes to rock ‘n roll.” This truism comes to me courtesy of the Residents and the older this truism gets the truer it becomes, because the older I am, the more I have to pretend. That is a good thing. The make-believe that this album, “Double Double” is really something new and important to mankind is offset by the fact that I really haven’t listened to enough yet. But that did not scare me when I was young and carefree and therefore had what it takes to whatever rock ‘n roll is. Double Double is such an album. When I recovered slowly from my cancer treatments, I had to realize that all of a sudden I’m very old indeed. Even if I forgot, pain reminded me if I just walked for a mile. So the amount of pretence that went into the making of this album is plentiful, but it is all played in patiently by hand, track by track, from the first to the last, like I never got old. So it is more about an attitude than a method; having the audacity to just record something that lacks the sophistication and caution of the aged. Back when I was in my sandbox I was not perplexed building the same little sand castle over and over again, I neither planned nor fixed it. My only concern was with the gesture, with the process that yielded immediate results: a pile of sand that fit on top of another pile of sand. I rocked and rolled until there is was a castle. Where other people saw piles of sand, I always saw this castle. Then I got old and saw many things that resemble real castles and I now have to pretend that my piles of sand is one. My pretense is knowledge. I got what it takes to rock ‘n roll.
