I have this great idea for a concept album. It is going to be so sweet. People are going to line up around the block to download it. They’ll have to do that because It’ll only be available to download from my home computer at first. A home computer that doesn’t have Interweb access.

Anyhow, this is the concept:

There is this guy named Shakey. He shakes because he is so afraid all the time. In the first song, titled Shakin’, we learn that he is afraid because he has had the front of his skull removed due to a drunk driving accident. If he slumps forward or bands his head on a desk or something he could potentially die. Plus, he also shakes because of minor brain damage.

In the next song, Roy Horn, he sings about his idol, the half of Siegfried and Roy with brain damage. He is worried that Roy won’t be able to get on with his career. Shakey thinks that if Roy can’t go on, he won’t be able to either.

This is followed by the next song, White Tiger, Black Panther. In this song, he meets Denise, daughter of a famous 60’s revolutionary. She falls in love with him and his slightly concave forehead. When they make love, he has to wear a bike helmet, but she is into that kind of stuff.

An instrumental, Safety Helmet Love, follows. It represents all the sex they have.

This is followed by a fast paced number called Desk Job. Shakey is late for work because he has spent all night having sex with Denise. Every time his boss, Mr. Pundit, starts to yell at him, the refrain from Safety Helmet Love starts to play.

Shakey daydreams that he is back in his old job, which was working with children with severe behavioral problems, in the song I Want To Strangle That Kid. We learn that his skull injury was the result of an angry 9 year old with a folding chair. The song is sung by the point of view of the kid, named Angus McFear, and when he starts describing the time he beat Shakey, we here a refrain from Roy Horn.

We realize that, somehow, Angus and Shakey have met each other on the street. In Soft Spot For You, Shakey tries to escape the enraged pre-teen, but Angus ends up running him down and squeezing his brain.

Shakey goes into a brain damage induced hallucination in Going Through My Mind. He imagines that he and Denise are living in the 1960’s going to protest movements with her father. Somehow, he ends up getting to speak at one and makes an impassioned speech defending the war in Vietnam and segregation. All the time, he keeps thinking “What the fuck am I saying,” which is the chorus of the song. Somebody throws a brick at him and he collapses, still in his hallucination.

In the hospital, Dr. Cathy Teeter, who removed his skull, is smoking dope and using the removed skull fragment as an ashtray when suddenly Shakey is wheeled into the emergency room. The only way to save him is to place the bit of skull back in his head. In Camel Head, she forgets to clean it first, basically covering his brain with cigarette and marijuana ash.

Months later, Shakey wakes up, a changed man. He immediately goes out and votes Libertarian, even though there isn’t an election for months. The album ends with the triumphant strains of Safety Helmey World, which includes refrains from all of the songs. Angus, now on meds, apologizes for his behavior. When Denise and Shakey get married, they decide to adopt him.

As the song fades out, we realize that this is all a fantasy caused by his brain getting squeezed and the sad melody of Roy Horn brings us to the end of the album.

I am thinking of pitching this idea to Hillary Duff.