I’m in some sort of hole now, I think. The walls are stone and dirt, and there’s a huge damn boulder blocking the only way out.

The light in here is messed up. It’s over my head somewhere, but I can’t see it; it moves out of sight, no matter which way I turn. It’s barely bright enough for me to write in this journal until I feel strong enough to do the next thing.

I don’t know how I got here. The last thing I remember is endless, exhausted agony. Then nothingness.

I was just about dead for awhile. But I got better.

The Old Man told me it was going to be tough, but I had the moxie to take over this territory. The Italians are getting lazy and soft, he said. With his help behind the scenes, I recruited the dozen smartest peeps around. Then we started organizing from the ground up. It was working. Everybody loved me, thought I was the greatest thing since sliced challah. The Old Man said we were all going to go totally legit. No more of the killing that he’d done constantly to claw his way up to the top. Said I was like a son to him, that one day I’d run it all.

Then one of my most trusted peeps turned me over to the Italians.

Yeah, Ponty and his soldiers got me. I remember now. Ponty thinks he’s gonna wash his hands for doing me in. Oh, it wasn’t my idea, he said to me. Your people made me do it. Wrong. They’re all just a bunch of sheep, and I am the shepherd. I know who nailed me. I ain’t done with any of them.

***

I feel stronger now. My hands don’t hurt so much, and my feet have stopped bleeding. I’ve been pushing against the boulder and I can feel it moving a few inches. I worked construction most of my life. I may look like a pansy, but I’m tough enough to last three days nailed to a piece of wood. And still kick some ass afterwards.

I’m going to get out of this hole. I’m going to hike into town and find that weasel Judas, and show everybody what happens to snitches.

After that – I gotta take out the Old Man. Yeah, I know who set me up. I realized he’d double-crossed me while I was nailed up. I can’t figure out what his plan was, seems like nobody ever can. But I know he was behind it all. He’s always behind everything that goes on. I think he just can’t let go, make room for the new generation.

And he always liked the killing.

He’s been hiding out, thinks nobody knows where he is. But I do. I’m gonna make him vanish permanent-like. Never be seen again, never heard from again.

First, though, I get with my peeps and get my organization set to roll even while I’m gone. Big Pete’s ready to take it to the next level. Been organizing to spread the word, go intercontinental. Man’s like a rock.

Those greasy wops think they can hang onto their turf. I have soldiers, too — more every day. And we’ve already started infiltrating to take over from the inside. It’s just a matter of time until my organization owns it all, no matter how ruthless we have to be. No more nice guys.

Judas. Ponty. The Old Man. They all thought I was soft like a bunny. They’re gonna find out just how hard-boiled I am.

After I take out the Old Man, I’ll need to stay on the down-low till things cool out.

But I’ll be back.

:

The last time I posted here with a song that I’d gotten stuck in my head, we experienced some mixed results.

Sure, my support caused Amy Winehouse and ‘Rehab‘ to win all sorts of awards, including a brace of them Grammies that musicians like to collect whenever they can.

However, I also made the song sell so many copies that she got too much money and became an Olympic-class collector of rock cocaine, so that she actually did end up in rehab.

I don’t think that will happen with this song from Gnarls Barkley, though Danger Mouse is already pretty damn paranoid. Remix magazine recently had to cancel an interview article with him because he literally wouldn’t tell them anything at all about his gear or working methods. Knowing that I’m paying attention to him might push him over the edge.

And Cee-Lo already has a weight problem spiraling up. I’d hate to make that worse, maybe cause him to have a stroke or something.

I guess we’ll just have to hope for the best…..

Here they are doing a live performance in a galaxy far, far away.

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That’s not the version that’s stuck in my head, though.

It’s this clip from a live performance on Letterman, which resonates more than the album cut for me. It feels like the band on Letterman found the groove better.

Hopefully, Gnarls Barkley’s component guys will somehow survive and prosper despite my blogging about them, because they seem to have some interesting music in them. and they already won a couple of Grammies for the song and album last year without my help.

By the way, their next album, ‘The Odd Couple‘, is hitting the deck next week. Here’s ‘Run‘, the lead cut from it. It’s already a hit, but it doesn’t suck my brain like ‘Crazy’ does.