Ben Godwin - Drinking Gasoline

“The rats are running in the subway/the fat cats are choking in the cream/the roaches are crawling in the plumbing/and the dinosaurs are drinking gasoline.” Kinda hard to talk about my dinner with these images in mind =:-) A few weeks back I shared the theatricality of Ben Godwin, and trust me that’s all still evident on this cut. But tonight I just want to focus on his irony, humor and philosophy.

The dinosaur drinking gasoline has humored me and haunted me. One never knows an artist’s purpose, which is great because we start making our own references and purposes for understanding. So, on certain days I hear this as really really funny.

Then, there are those days I ponder the fact that our gasoline, according to the childish science books I read, came from dinosaurs that somehow all died together in a manner that eventually ended up in huge pits underground. So is there a deeper meaning intended? The dinosaurs drinking their ancestors. Hmm. As the “fertile crescent” and “cradle of civilization” are quickly disappearing from our textbooks and being replaced by “wild, demonized hordes of uncivilized brutes” (the new correct answer on the NCLB multiple choice history tests) one can only wonder if Ben is making other connotations. Doesn’t matter, because either way it’s wildly entertaining. Shoutout to Outsize Shoes (can’t walk you out of these kingsize blues). Ben Godwin