'We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit.
But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel." -Hunter S Thompson
Hello my freaky darlings,
That was the immortal (and tragically short-lived) Hunter S Thompson which, if you don't know who that is, please take a moment from the eye candy the Girls are dishing out this particular moment and check him out (Don't worry, said eye candy will still be there when you return).
This little portent was first shared in the pages of Rolling Stone mag (back when it was cool) in 1971. It served as retrospective look at the 1960's and ultimately how the peace movement finally tanked. It is an obituary of an ideal: Peace, love, happiness...RIP.
And now, it's 2014, and we're in the EXACT same fucking spot.
Think about what we've had over the last thirty years. The 70's? I think that was ten years of sobriety sitting in and a general idea of "what the fuck just happened?" The 80's? Oh don't tell me the 80's weren't fun? Between Nintendo, MTV and anything Mel Brooks put out, it was a gas.
Kind of wish we'd been paying attention because while the young were having the time of our lives; the rear echelon, the politicians that had thrown in with Nixon were laying down some SERIOUS ground work to make sure that a bunch of "hippies" can't take down another one of their ilk on corruption charges.
We should have known better. We should have seen when the haircuts got my conservative. The suits become more expensive. Something terrible was taking root in the heart of America. Yuppies. Baby Boomers, whatever. I just lump them under the category of "soulless white men in suits who worship money."
See, we scared the living FUCK out of right-wing (and probably every other wing as well) establishment; we took down a PRESIDENT. Seriously! If I'd been one of these narcissistic greed-mongers I'd have been shitting my three thousand dollar suit too.
The 90's were close, man, there were so close. There was a tremendous sense that a great change was about to occur. 2000. The world was going to change (or end, I was fine with either). Everything was going to happen and it was going to be good. Music, Counter-culture, Generation X, there was so much promise.
I'm not sure if Kurt's suicide was what screwed everything up; probably not. But he was important to the music scene and while film is the voice of a generation, music will always been its' language.
But when he fell, he, like Timothy Leary, took down the Alternative music scene with him. Slowly, but surely, bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains (another study in suicidal tragedy), were being edged out by Britney Spears, N'Sync, Backstreet boys. Bubblegum pop; safe and easily digestible and the perfect vehicle to turn anyone's brain to mush.
The language of music had been perverted. Corrupted. And it became just another merchandising tool. Am I saying that music was pure of any kind of commercialism before this point, of course not. But what the record company accomplished when they began to promote this shit was to use it openly and deliberately as a marketing tool. "Dress like Britney Spears, young girls of America and you'll get a boyfriend." "Have hair just like Justin Timberlake and you will get laid 24/7."
Uh-huh.
There are times that I really hope that Kurt, Layne, Hunter and all the other brilliant men of the age are not watching this shit because, honestly, I'm ashamed.
2000 came and went. No change. And for fourteen years we've mourned our missed opportunity. We've grieved for a revolution that was stillborn. Is it too late at this point? Have the forces of old and evil become too firmly enmeshed in our society?
I don't know. But, if given the option, I think I'd rather try my hand at creating a new society than saving the old one.
We're out of fuel. Out of Luck. Out of Hope. But we're still in this, win or lose. Because there is one thing, one idol of belief that no one, not even those abominations that call themselves our elected leaders:
We have the power to believe in each other.
With that, we make our own fuel, our own luck, our own hope.
And that makes us mighty.
"There you stood on the edge of your feather
Expecting to fly.
While I laughed, I wondered whether
I could wave goodbye
Knowin' that you'd gone." - "Expecting to Fly" Buffalo Springfield.