Kaleidoscopes are cool

 Japanese girls
keep appearing in my dreams
Always different ones,
and last night there were two of them

 One of the girls said,
Catch me if you can
I told her that I don’t run anymore
and that perhaps we’d meet up later
The other one stayed put,
so I hung out with her for a while
She was making kaleidoscopes
and I asked her if she would make one for me
She said yes
and she let me choose the glass
Purple, green and blue
were the colors I chose,
and she made me a very nice kaleidoscope

 Kaleidoscopes are cool

 Yeah
And the Japanese are cool too
When they do something,
they do it well
or they don’t do it at all

 Yeah,
like the Germans and the Austrians

 And the Swiss

 Yeah
But they don’t know how to make nuclear power plants very well

 Yeah,
but then nobody does
All of those plants are going to have a problem
eventually

 Yeah
Nuclear power sucks

 Yeah
Fortunately some countries have gotten the message
and have stopped producing it

 Yeah,
like Germany

 But some countries that have never had a plant
still want to build one

 Yeah,
like Viet Nam

 One accident there
would kill everyone in the country

 Yeah
It’s not worth the risk

 It’ll probably take one more big accident
like Chernobyl or Fukushima
before everyone on the planet finally agrees
that nuclear power is not the way to go

 It would be nice if everyone were to realize that
before such an accident

 There was at least one positive consequence
as a result of Fukushima

 Yeah,
Germany shut down all its nuclear power plants

 So did Japan

 Yeah,
but the politicians there want to reopen some of them

 I guess they didn’t get the message

 Maybe the accident damaged their brains

 Yeah

 And it would be nice if people would stop building tall buildings

 Yeah,
they block one’s view of rainbows,
the sunset
and other cool things

 Yeah,
and they’re all going to fall down one day

 Like the World Trade Center

 Yeah,
it’s just a matter of time

 Five stories is the limit I would set
for buildings in a city

 Yeah,
The five-story ones in New York are nice

 In Santa Barbara the limit is four stories
And it is the only city I know
that has gotten prettier with time
The façades of many of the ugly buildings,
the ones built after the second world war,
were redone in the colonial style
so that they would blend in with the pretty buildings

 Most of the architecture before the second world war was alright

 Yeah,
and then something happened
The whole planet took a turn for the worse after the war
The quality of workmanship,
the environment
and a lot of other things

 Yeah,
but there have been a few good inventions
since the second world war,
like avocado ice cream
and the Internet

 Yeah,
the Internet is pretty useful
I support advances in communication and healthcare,
but most of the other things that people keep inventing
don’t really improve life on earth

 Yeah,
We don’t need faster planes and trains
or to spend time on the moon

 Slow trains are great
You get to enjoy the passing scenes

 A blend of the best of the old
and the best of the new
would be great

 Yeah
A lot of people are leaving the cities and becoming farmers
and learning how to do things the old way

 Yeah,
growing their own food,
making their own clothes,
and doing everything by hand

 It takes longer,
but why hurry?

 An axe makes a lot less noise than a chainsaw

 Carrying water from the river
keeps me in good shape

 Bathing in the river
means I don’t need to build a shower
and install plumbing

 The river is great

 Yeah
Let’s hope this one stays clean

Yeah

 Farmers are cool

They’re super cool
And they’re more useful than businessmen
You can eat food,
but you can’t eat money

 Yeah
We need farmers,
but we don’t need businessmen

 Farmers are cooler than businessmen

 Much cooler

 It’s almost time to milk the buffalos

 Yeah
Let’s go

 The buffalos are cool

 Yeah
And they’re super meditative
and easy to get along with

 They chew each mouthful of grass very slowly
at least twenty times before they swallow

 Yeah,
they’re never in a hurry

 And so the two friends
made their way over
to where the buffalos were hanging out

 ♫ ♫ ♫