“But O, the heavy change, now thou art gone,

now thou art gone and never must return!”

— John Milton, Lycidas

As always, the blind muse got it right before any of us knew our elbows from our assholes. True, the old guard is gone and never must return (seriously; we stole their keycards). Thee Nick, thee the Jay and Desert Danika, with wild Zach and the gadding vine o’ergrown, ye served this supplement well. You assigned us our bits and taught us our tricks, even if, as now, the education was of a somewhat Spartan nature.

And our day has come.


We have taken up this legacy, birthed and left like Moses in the Egyptian reeds, or a prom night baby in a trashcan, and pressed it to our bosom. We shall raise this fragile babe, cast it in our own image and teach it to play double bass and Atari.

We may have been tragically stripped of our opportunity, like Esau, to claim our birthright on that Thursday night long ago when’st our forebearers were absent on the infamous Night of the Tap, but like sure-footed Themistocles, who took up the call to arms when the Persian barbarians threatened gentle Athens, we three sentinels have dutifully and gratefully taken up our posts at a time when our (and YOUR) WEEKEND is in peril of extirpation from those forces whose sole task and raison d’etre is to quash boisterous Bacchus and awesome Apollo whensoever they deign to grace our humble Haven with festivity and song.

But believe, nay, KNOW, that though we may not have the triremes of those heroes of antiquity, we do have our feet (such feet!), and our hips (O, what hips!) and our glorious throats, throats which can (and will!) vibrate with tunes accumulated over generations of uphill(house) battles, Elevated to a volume and intensity worthy to counter the Xerxes of a truly dark and dire age.

We know your anger; we feel it in our bones when it channels through the beams of 202 York as antennae gather transmissions from radio towers.

And you, WEEKEND Warriors, have shared your indignation with us, gracing this week’s double truck with your words of wisdom (see pages 6-7). We love you, and ask that you find it in your hearts to love us in turn, to pick up this slim volume and peruse it as you breakfast on Friday, sup away your stupor on Saturday, and sorrow away your Sunday. After you’re done, you can even use it to wrap a present or something; we don’t know.

Alone we are nothing, but if we join together our forces as those Hellenic states did so long ago, if we collect our turntables, our strobe and speakers, our mechanical bulls and disco balls, and build a barricade with which to hold back the tides of tasers and tyranny, we shall not tire. We shall not fail. Ye doubters, ye ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

So yes, they are gone, but we are here. The change is now, the change is real and you bet your rhythmically bobbing heads it’ll be heavy.