Gary Numan did “Are ‘Friends' Electric?” and then went to sleep, confident that he had done his best communicating the chilly but arousing notion of robotic intimacy via a chilly but arousing pop soundscape, synthesizers standing where guitars once stood. He knew that Tubeway Army was going down the tubes, pun intended. The name had outlasted its usefulness. He would shutter it and reemerge into his solo career as a new man, pun intended. He needed sleep, but he was too wired. He could still feel the Minimoog glowing in the center of his mind. He attempted to dispatch the song by declaring its title repeatedly in a quick murmur. “Are ‘Friends” Electric?…Are ‘Friends” Electric?…Are ‘Friends” Electric?” But from the moment he drifted off he was thronged by the syntagm, set upon by questions structured similarly. Are “Songs” Noetic? Are “Thoughts” Monastic? Are “Faces” Emetic? Are “Eyes” Idyllic? Are “Brains” Erotic? Are “Inches” Metric? Are “Limes” Acidic? Are “Feet” Podiatric? Are “Dreams” Bathetic? The questions bounced like sounds off the tile of the room where he suddenly found himself standing, a massive gleaming white bathroom with an ornate full-length mirror, and blinking away the white he effortfully reached his dream arm up and pinched his dream neck, hard, intending to wake himself up, doing so.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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