The physicality of our world is shrinking away from us every day. It happened to music first, becoming increasingly portable until now, when its physical existence in our lives has basically evaporated completely. My entire music collection? I can stream it live to my iPhone via Subsonic. I don't even have a dedicated 'music device' any more.

Movies are much the same, since Netflix and digital theft have replaced any need to buy films. Books are being replaced the same way music was. It's not just media though, the portability of communication has removed the physical limitation of wired telephones. We need never be disconnected, and that changes the way we feel and interact with each other.

I feel like I was born at an unfortunate time. A couple years later, and I would have completely missed the experience of physically hoarding CDs and DVDs; Going next door to see if a friend was home; Going out, risking missing a phone call since your only phone is at home, and not in your pocket; Viewing the media I own as commodities that add value to my life, that I could sell for boredom or necessity if I needed to. A couple years earlier and I could just be blissfully ignorant of the changes happening. Maybe.

These experiences shape your expectation of the world. I grew up with the expectations a physical existence has. I like to hold things in my hands. I like to put things places and have them be there. Sometimes people need to be alone. The turn to digital, portable, has removed the physicality of media and distance. It's removed the ability to ever want to feel truly alone, because you never really are unless you try.

Reading briefly on what "ego" really is (I am an uneducated fool, if no one has noticed that yet) I'm a little mortified: loss of ego through drug use would be terrible! It'd be a complete disassociation with reality, probably launching you soundly into the realm of lunatics and psycho killers! Who'd ever want that?

Hang on to your ego, indeed.

On the other hand, maybe LSD-users weren't that clever, and the jargon discussed here didn't deal with the Freudian ego but just the generic catch-all "self-confidence" and "big-headedness" meaning of ego. Maybe tripping humbles you, gives you more perspective, and maybe that's what the song is about.

Funny then that Frank Black who, in the opening of Pixies-documentary loudQUIETloud says, "Well it's my goddamn band, right?" half-joking, half-looking at the camera as if he's going to regret saying that later, is singing this song about holding on to your ego. I like to point fingers, so I will: Frank Black's giant ego killed the Pixies. Literally, it came out of his head and broke up the band. It was crazy. You should have been there.

It's OK. Frank Black has never had a hit single on par with Kim Deal's The Breeder's "Last Splash" so, in the end, the joke is on Frank Black. They're both so fucked up in the head (as evidenced in loudQUIETloud) that neither one of them can win that competition.

It's a shame, had the Pixies managed to stay together and rape the rotting corpse of their artistic merit, you know, like Weezer, they could probably be at least as big as Weezer, if not even bigger.