Archive for October, 2008
Monday, October 20th, 2008
The Loser Generation.
It would be unfair to say that after watching “The Rocker”, I needed a long pull from an oxygen tank in order to re-start my brain.
It would be unfair, but it would also be very near the truth.
I grew up in a time when our heroes were beyond extraordinary. They were over-muscled titans, wielding automatic weapons, driving a humvee with their feet, and egregiously killing hordes of off-sale army fatigued bad guys. They were stronger than any mortal could possibly be; capable of crushing red hot briquettes of charcoal in their bare fist, gun down entire platoons of soldiers with a single box of bullets, and battle entire Armada’s in a single Star Fighter. Our heroes were empowered to the point of being Gods.
And now there seems to be a backlash. Our heroes are clad in goofy clothing, armed with an endless list of portmanteau’d phrases, derivative of an empty culture, lacquered with folkish guitar musings. And I accepted it.
I watched Napoleon dance, and smiled benignly, because I believed it to be a reaction; the ridiculous heights we pushed our heroes to in the age of Titans had fallen, and now we were pushing the other direction. It was only natural.
But we have a problem. We’ve gone too far, again.
Just as the notion of Rambo, savagely murdering half the russian army by his lonesome, the line of believability in the Loser kingdom is starting to move towards dangerously ridiculous levels.
have you seen a Will Ferrell movie lately? They’re not that good. They’ve had some moments, but the failures tend to outweigh the successes at this point. And when I watched the Rocker, I was confronted with a terrible vision: Someone was trying to be Jack Black, who was not Jack Black.
And the seas boiled, and dead rose from their graves…
We need to get back to a place where our stories are not remarkable because they lack remarkability, or because the heroes is a social outcast to such a degree that they could NOT exist in the real world. There are people who reach these heights: they’re cat people. They live in homes filled entirely with garbage.
I do not want to watch that. I’m actually a little terrified that I even KNOW about it.
Watching someone who has similarily terrifying, social neuroses is something we ALL gravitate to, in order to rationalize our seperate insanities, and come to a place where we can feel connected to the whole of humanity. It says “hey, I’m a freak too, we’re all freaks”, and then we don’t feel disconnected.
But right now, in this moment of time, the zeigeist…we aspire to be losers.
Mediocrity is the new success.
That’s terrifying.
Monday, October 6th, 2008
I Swear.
The concept of Sarah Palin coming to office has pushed every other consideration in my life, into one corner of my brain apartment.
This I swear: If McCain gets voted into the White House, I will buy some guns the next day, and move into the woods.
Because the world will be FUCKED.
I might as well get ready for the impending apocalypse, and head out of civilization on the bounce. Pickup some supplies from Canadian Tire and run.
RUN.
Go to K-country and hole up in a cave, and await the impending fall of Western society. When every other person is stumbling around, trying to find food and shelter, I’ll have my cave pimped out with well-water, and bear skins.
This is what its come to.