The Cactus In A Fishbowl Blues

What are symptoms of the cactus in a fishbowl blues? Is there a cure? What is lockjaw stew and why would anyone have three bowls of it? If you’re here hoping for an answer to these questions, you will be disappointed.

Do you enjoy portaging your camel across subconscious streams? Do you ever fear that each day you live blocks one more memory of your cocoon? If you answered yes to either of these questions, you’ve come to right place.

“The Cactus In A Fishbowl Blues” is a song I wrote around the turn o’ the century and originally recorded with my band SHArQ (Secure Hash Algorithm Quintet) on our 2001 EP of the same name. I still like the SHArQ version a lot, but I always wanted to vibe this song out more. My favorite things about the new frosty Cactus are Joe Boyle’s glorious guitar tracks. Give this one a listen with headphones, and revel in Joe’s lush, cascading acoustic leads. There are “Wild Horses” galloping through them. And the looping cathedral guitars he builds during the outro could go on for another fifteen minutes, and I’d listen to it on repeat.

I recorded my acoustic tracks and scratch vocals at home, then finished tracking and mixing with Norm Demoura at Harmonium Studios. One of my favorite memories of the Harmonium sessions I did for this EP was laying down my vocal double for this song. We got down a lead vocal I liked, but I definitely wanted to add a tripped out double. Norm had the idea of having me sing through a 60s Magnatone guitar amp that had the most magical vibrato. We’d found the texture Cactus needed… the chimney flue vibe vocal.

The Cactus In A Fishbowl Blues

I’ve got the cactus in a fishbowl blues

there’s a lot of things I lost

the rest I can’t use

Missing somebody that you never knew

is like wishing for some new kind of abuse

My camel’s got the bayou basin blues

I’ve got spurs made from the beaks of shrews

so I keep spurring my camel

but that fleabag won’t move

and tears are grains of sand turning my eyes into dunes

They’re filming a video outside the Peacock Caffé

and that’s the only thing to sully an otherwise gorgeous day

I can’t see past the actors and the camera crew

the way everyday blocks more memory of my cocoon

my bulkhead’s so damn full of blistered hullabaloos

The Sisters of Mercy only had lockjaw stew

I had me three bowls, washed it down with Elmer’s glue

now my lips are sealed like an old chimney flu…

I’ve got the cactus in a fishbowl blues

there’s a lot of things I lost

the rest I can’t use

Missing somebody that you never knew

is like wishing for some new kind of abuse

The Peacock Caffé was a big, funky café and restaurant with baroque décor in Greenwich Village where I wrote most of the words. This was in 1998 or ’99. I was meeting friends there for dinner, and I arrived early and did some writing. There really was a film crew and actors filming something on the sidewalk right outside the café, and they were kinda harshing my mellow, but then I got a verse out of them, so it all worked out. The Peacock Caffé opened in 1946 and went out of business in 2000. 24 Greenwich Avenue: there’s a sushi place there now.

I also wrote at least one verse while walking around the west Village that day. For awhile the line “the way every day blocks one more memory of my cocoon” was “the way every day blocks one more memory of Bethune,” which I remember writing after I walked down Bethune Street.

Shout out to Leonard Cohen in the fourth verse, but the sisters of mercy in Cactus don’t “sweeten your night” so much as poison your craw.

“Cactus” intersects with “Uncluttering” where the gutter spouts empty into the bulkhead so damn full of blistered hullaballooes.