Week’s off to a fast start. I spent the past few nights studying marketing software and trying to get my head around some web development puzzles (including what turned out to be a rogue Twitter feed–who knew the Fail Whale sometimes visits?). Meanwhile, I’ve stepped work on the new e-comm project up to nine hours a day to learn some system processes and get a jump on major site prep work (pretty excited about where that project is right now). Somewhere in there I found a copy of Dirt Rag in the office break room and was happy to see the Manic Mechanic’s most recent response almost made sense. All the while, emails and phone calls have been coming in on Project Danzig, and I might have to make some decisions and hunker down for a few weekends with Solidworks, Pandora and some Deschutes Black Butte Porter.

Getting some time away from bicycles is difficult right now.

I’m TV-less again for the second time in as many years, which means my window to the world of things “non-work-related” consists of relentless auto-spam from those tools at Zillow (seriously guys, I’ve found a home, thanks, and I’ve unsubscribed from everything and tried to delete my account, but there’s just no escaping you, eh? Is it possible to hire Anonymous for contract work?). The only other happy distractions are the little news articles appear on my phone from time to time.

Last night one of those articles informed me that Bill Ward, the original and only drummer for Black Sabbath, won’t be playing with the band in upcoming reunion shows, due to some contractual stuff (band “management,” for one thing, wanted him to play the first few shows for free with no guarantee he’d be included on the rest of the tour). You should read the entire letter Ward penned to Sabbath fans, and ask yourself whatever happened to musicians like that. Or people like that in general.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think I could stomach a Black Sabbath reunion tour anyway. Not for lack of interest, but because I’m old and just barely musically inclined enough to know how they’re supposed to sound, and I don’t drink myself into blind acceptance at shows.

I don’t have anything against old bands. I’m teaching my kids to be good little prog rock elitist nerds who appreciate bizarre virtuosity, so the whole unkempt lot of us will be seeing what could be one of Rush’s last tours this year, but there aren’t many bands that can play like Rush, even at age 60. Who doesn’t love Ozzy, but what little patches of live recordings I heard of various “Ozzfest” Sabbath reunion shows over the past ten years suggest there comes a time when you just have to call it a day. I’d sell a kidney to sit in a room and listen to the original members of Sabbath play “Warning” (OK, kidney and one other redundant organ, but that’s my final offer). Listening to them warble over that big generic stadium rock sound that obliterates almost everything that made the band so great, though? That doesn’t really do either of us any good.

Sabbath will always be a jazz band to me. Nothing against violent, drunken Slipknot fans, but I would’t want to try to actually listen to music with most of them. Worse yet, I wouldn’t want to witness Sabbath in that kind of scenario, struggling to play music around millions of dollars of overprocessed, canned-metal-product nonsense and spendy pyrotechnics that make what’s left of the band even paler shadows of what they used to be. If I want that I’ll go see McTallica.

Maybe there’s a way to visit Bill Ward instead, have some cranberry juice and listen to some old records or something, maybe some piano from Ward One: Along the Way. I think that’d be more my speed these days.