:O) In a decade of corresponding with you, Andrea, I have not disagreed with your point of view once. Not once. Uncanny really to find somebody whose views are so mostly analogous with my own & visa versa. But here I do disagree with your sentiments to some extent.

Although there must be some elements of cynicism & jaded world-weariness in any honest person still alive and kicking in this particular 21st Century, fact is I don’t get an overwhelming sense of cynicism & jadedness from TRIAGE.

I see the journalistic troubadour veracities of a disenfranchised optimist & unapologetic romantic in a world that’s been whored-out by yuppies, callous corporate fatcats (& their muscle), & sadomasochistic war mongers (& their muscle).

&, no, the album definitely does not put me in a bad mood. IN fact, songs 8-9-& 10 leave me with seductive feelings of hope—amidst a theoretically dire scenario..if nothing is done to thwart the increasingly egocentric market forces.

When I was wandering the stairwells & whiteout halls of the hospital in the wee dark hours of a very truly terrible state of human suffering & fear, it was those last 3 songs, with emphasis on the last 2 that got me through some o the worse hours without going to the roof & throwing myself into the city’s darkness. Each song on this Album (play, novel, anthology, opera, ode) is a chapter/act in an absurd black comedy of truth & consequences ..but one would have to ‘ve been unconscious to the ways & means of corporations & government for the decades leading up to its release to be moved into a bad mood by its contents. As one who is open to meaningful information, individual blood, sweat, & tears creativity, & the vantage point of every honest human search for a means to sustain worthwhile life, my mood has most always been elevated by listening this album. Empowered. Fueled. & ultimately hopeful in the [proof] realization that there really are influential creative people out there sustaining that pummeled yet persevering human sentiment that has driven the pens of earnest poets throughout the ages…& their search for better days…amidst the din of bad company, while owning up to one’s own personal practices, preventative maintenance, illumination, evolution, entertainment, ecstasy, connectivity, stoical perseverance in the stoic face of the abyss, the blatant understanding that sorrow & irony exist…for good & for bad, some adventurous times in good company & love precious love.

Certainly I’m oversimplifying here, over-romanticizing probably, BUT we’re prettymuch all read-between-the-lines sorta peops here on the dbis, I imagine: There is a little something to read between each of these lines. & it’s all...just my honest opinion...as a constant listener. Cheers!

P.S. & I definitely don’t see similarities to Steely Dan in TRIAGE anywhere. Roger Waters, Tom Waits, okay, sure..I’ll go along with that to some extent. Troubadour story telling with a theatrical bent. Yep. But NOT Steely Dan. Nope.

:O)