I am an American born in the first half of the 1970s, with a penis. In other words, I saw The Phantom Menace the day it came out.

Sometimes getting a taste of something sweet only to see it disappear is worse than never tasting it at all.

Maybe it's the fact that I'm listening to it on my computer and not, say, in a car, that makes it feel less than real. After all, we've been here before: (alleged) tracks from the mythic, Sasquatch-like Chinese Democracy leaked last year, and we downloaded them, tentatively, straining to hear some sort of genetic connection to the Guns N' Roses we all remember and romanticize.

The entire world is in the grips of an economic meltdown so horrific that, in the unlikely event any of us can afford enough gin to want to procreate, our children will be lucky to wear burlap sacks and eat wood chips.