As the voice of our misled youth, I figured I’d start incorporating elementary math lessons into my shows. The plan was to start off with addition, transition into multiplication—breeze through long division—and end with a brief introduction to algebra. My set design team even built huge math symbols out of birch (we used lighter fluid on it so its sheen could play off the stage lights better).
I thought it might be fun to use musical examples. We did a cover of Radiohead’s 2 + 2 = 5 (true, not mathematically correct, but that’s the price of artistic discretion), and the Beatles’ Come Together, in which “1 + 1 + 1 = 3” (good job Sir Lennon) when I started smelling the redolent puffs of a forgotten campfire. I turn around and the ‘+’ sign is completely in flames.
Lesson: If you’re going to hire a drummer with a fetish for putting out cigarettes on his nutsack, veer him clear from the large edifices of dry birch covered in lighter fluid.
I’m starting to get addicted to this. Being a meth addict is sooooo ’06 – ’07; just call me a math addict. That’s right, Mr. Originality strikes again.