It might be somewhat late to admit it, but I was deeply saddened by what happened to the Columbia and the seven astronauts on board. It reminded me strongly (yet not very originally, I admit) of what I felt when the Challenger blew up. I was quite young at the time, and the shock was greater then the one caused, years later, by the murder of prime minister Rabin.
So was that shock, a month ago. It made me, in a weird way, feel like a little boy again. Such a feeling is usually considered good, and, in fact, I must admit that there WAS something good in it, for when you grow up you tend sometimes to dwell too much on the everyday and forget the really interesting stuff that awaits behind the corner, just for you.
All this is not very original, I admit, but this is my journal to do with as I wish, so there.

Anyway – I decided, after several very depressing days, to express my sorrow by producing a song, which is not directly related to the Columbia accident, but deals more with space travel in general and with the sorrow that might accompany it. This, to those who know me, might sound quite weird, because my usual tendency is to write silly, funny songs. Well, this one might be silly, but funny it is not.
In fact, I did not write the song specially for the occurrence. It's a song I wrote about a year ago, during the second incarnation of my Pita Morgana band. It never got decently recorded, though, so I started it from scratch. I wanted to have it ready within a week. Nice try, there.
I recruited Tamir, former leader of Klonimus (the first band I was a member of), to serve as arranger and producer. I sought a drummer in a hurry, and found Udi Shlomo, who plays with me on another band (The Michal Chuchem band, which, hopefully, will be mentioned here in the future). I managed to squeeze the drums recording into Udi's schedule, just one day before he flew abroad. Then I put the bass on, and then started a long search for guitar players. The main contributor in the guitar department there was Amit Jurgenson, a gifted guitarist who happens to be employed by the same company as myself. Of course, the moment I set a recording session with him, the bloody company sent him abroad, and I spent a horrible week trying to find replacements. Final result: out of four guitarists, using six different guitars, we left tracks by two (using three guitars – two electric and one acoustic), the majority of the stuff played, indeed, by Amit himself, when he got back.
Except for that the song features some synth tracks and special FX, plus original recordings of communication between the Columbia Crew and Huston Mission Control.
But it isn't finished yet. I'm going to spend most of tomorrow (monday) mixing it, and then I'll do some mastering and release it to the radio stations, which will probably reject it on the solid grounds that it doesn't deal with Love or Tel-Aviv city, and is definitely not mediterranean/near-oriental in nature.
It'll be probably also published on the net somewhere.
It is called "Sea of Then".