Pretty Vacant

re: Pretty Vacant

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:30:19 GMT

Ah yes...the 80's...the New Wave girls, the Punk Rockers, and the lame techno-pop. 1982: The Sex Pistols, the Dead Kennedy's, Adam Ant, Black FLag - that was great stuff for a 17 yr old college freshman away from home for the first time. I let my inner teenaged angst run wild for a couple years with all that too. TV Smash Parties, slam dancing; that was the stuff! 1984: Although, not lulled by Sting, I was soon lulled into peaceful oblivion by the Grateful Dead. I went from hair with spikes and "tails", streaked with purple, dressed in black, adorned with safety pins etc, to letting my "freak flag fly" and dressing in tie-dyes, gauze, india prints and adorned with bells, going to shows!!! I was not going to succumb to the establishment either way!
Not much has really changed, has it?
I have, however, seen England change a lot since leaving in 1967, particularly as you described in London, and in Nottingham, Derby and Dundee. I used to spend my summers there, every year. I became aware of the changes starting to take hold in the early 80's. But then again, America has changed a lot too.
There is no returning to that simpler time. But I have found my own solution is to live in a simpler place, out in the country on a small ranch, with no cable or satellite TV, to live simply, to practice kindess, to create acceptance of diversity in my Kindergarten students.
No angst, but inner peace.
Life is Good.

re: Pretty Vacant

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:35:11 GMT

Interesting bit: 'Anarchy in the UK' was released 32 years ago today. And, for all its negative chaos and mayhem connotations, I think that Johnny Rotton was on to something. Anarchy, at its core, is about freedom and refusing to relinquish your personal power to decide for yourself what's right and what's wrong. How easy it is for folks (myself included) to remain stunned and frozen in the face of corporatization, environmental devastation, and the rest of the nastiness we witness in the world today with an apathetic 'I'm just one person' or 'I can't possibly make a difference' or, worst of all, 'someone else will take care of it' response. And, well, that's just shite.

It is time to wake up in a pretty huge way or we are, quite frankly, done for. Yet, here's where Mr. Rotton and I diverge. While I value the WTF alert that anger brings, I'm sick to death of being pissed off all the time. Is it really all that bold to get angry? That space doesn't create anything new, in my experience.

So, what about doing something, something new? I'm ready for 'a little bit of anarchy, but not the hurting kind.' (sorry.) What's that? Not entirely certain, but there's something of courage in there and creativity and compassion. Something along the lines of Emma Goldman-style anarchy. Yup, she's the one who's said to have proclaimed "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution!" She also said, "Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of all laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful moulder of human destiny." Now, that's bold.

re: Pretty Vacant

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:49:39 GMT

Pretty great writing for a beagle, there mate. You certainly put my freshmen class to shame. But, I do feel a need to defend Sting and The Police here a bit, as I feel that they, along with John Mellencamp, U2, Jackson Browne and a few others were personally responsible for my own awakening to the potential horrors of unchecked "civilization" back in my own youthful days...

Synchronicity

Another suburban family morning
Grandmother screaming at the wall

We have to shout above the din of our rice crispies
We can't hear anything at all
Mother chants her litany of boredom and frustration
But we all know her suicides are fake
Daddy only stares into the distance
There's only so much more that he can take
Many miles away
Something crawls from the slime
At the bottom of a dark
Scottish lake

Another industrial ugly morning
Tha factory belches filth into the sky
He walks unhindered through the picket lines today
He doesn't think to wonder why
The secretaries pout and preen like cheap tarts in a red light street
But all he ever thinks to do is watch
And every so called meeting with his so called superior
Is a humiliating kick in the crotch
Many miles away
Something crawls to the surface
Of a dark Scottish loch

Another working day has ended
Only the rush hour hell to face
Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes
Contestants in a suicidal race
Daddy grips the wheel and stares alone into the distance
He knows that something somewhere has to break
He sees the family home now looming in his headlights
The pain upstairs that makes his eyeballs ache
Many miles away
There's a shadow on the door
Of a cottage on the shore
Of a dark Scottish lake

Many miles away
Many miles away
Many miles away
Many miles away
Many miles away...

(Nothing against the Sex Pistols, mind you, but in my opinion, this is poetry...) :)

re: Pretty Vacant

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:17:54 GMT

In a little more than 10 years you'll have teenagers of your own. I wonder how much you'll want to listen to the angry teenager within then? You have a family, you own a home, you're wealthy. Do you really think anarchy is anything more than an intellectual pose for you? Which side of the spectrum is GBS's music on anyway? Radio friendly tantric pap or bile and subversion? What kind of music is earning you your money?

re: Pretty Vacant

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:28:40 GMT

Tosh... you sound as if you've been reading Bob's Soundtrack *g*

Personally, I never really got the whole punk thing... granted I was hardly born when it all started... must say though that I don't blame the ladies who dumped you over the God Save the Queen serenade... not exactly mood music... and poor ERII... seriously. A lovely fellow of Irish Heritage at DND so aptly put it... she's a harmless little old lady, a person, a symbol, not the system. The whole anarchic rhetoric of the punk scene just seemed like displaced anger to me... a bunch of cranky teens & twenty-somethings in need of a good nap and a swift kick in the pants. Sorry, Bud.

re: Pretty Vacant

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 01:34:48 GMT

Sorry, man, but I couldn't disagree with you more about the "virtues" of Johnny Rotten. I'm no Pollyanna, but it takes too much energy to be angry just for inspiration. Oh well...to each his own, eh?
Peace.

home town hero | Digg.com

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 07:42:20 GMT

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re: Pretty Vacant

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 12:32:22 GMT

Tosh,

I suppose Johnny Rotten has a place in everyone's heart for at least a nanosecond. Teenage years suck. I never did like the music though. Much prefer protest folk songs. I am a child of the 60's after all. But my progeny lean toward Mr. Rotten, or at least DID. My current anarchist (the former heavy-metal-punk-head-baning-noise-band son) has since grown up a bit and is now channelling Woody Guthrie. Go fig. Music makes the world go round. doesn't it?

Anne

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Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:49:57 GMT

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re: Pretty Vacant

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 01:58:43 GMT

and where is JR now? here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mSE-Iy_tFY

re: Pretty Vacant

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 19:06:09 GMT

OK, I just have to ask - how could it possibly have taken more than one such failed opportunity for an otherwise intelligent young beagle to learn the lesson that the Sex Pistols (despite their name) will not get you laid?

That being said, I love the Sex Pistols. And the Ramones, and most of all (though not strictly-speaking a punk band) the Violent Femmes. Loved them in high school, love them now. Even when everyone else was jumping on the U2/Police/REM bandwagon, I resisted the impulse to conform. From Bono's over inflated self-importance to Sting's melodramatic whinyness to REM's monotonous apathy, I found plenty of reasons to hate them. Plus, those bands were "popular" - how could they possibly be good? And then there were those horrifically bad MTV heavy metal hair bands of the eithties. Freaky looking wierdos in scary make-up. In my world, a guy would be much more likely to get dumped for admitting he liked one of those bands than for "God Save the Queen". Don't know that I prolonged anyones virginity (except possibly my own), but I was certainly not about to give it up to some guy with Farrah Fawcett hair and his mom's Monte Carlo. If they were afraid of the bleeding edge, they could at least go classic - Zeppelin, Sabbath, Cream, AC/DC, Pink Floyd. All excellent bands, all perfectly acceptable. Even to the mostly invisible and mostly silent brown-haired girl with glasses who no one ever suspected was a closet punk rocker.

The Sex Pistols are still very well represented on my ipod, but I suppose it's mostly nostalgia at this point. I'm getting my subversiveness fixes mostly from Todd Snider ("fighting for peace is like screaming for quiet") and Steve Earle now. They just seem more relevant in my current mindset.

re: Pretty Vacant

Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:05:42 GMT

Mmm.. I can see you've been thinking alot about this..you should really meet my friend Ernie..you have alot in common...*cheers*

re: Pretty Vacant

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 07:48:49 GMT

Hey Tosh,

You're right Tosh, you either hate or love punk. I happen to love punk. I loved it back in the day and if I discover any semblance of punk today I snatch it up and savor every last bit of hard core madness, screaming and all. And this is from a woman who is old enough to be your...well...cougar. ;D I may be aging, but my musical choices continue to be eclectic and my mind is always open to new sounds as well as flashbacks from the past. My musical interests have not atrophied or flatlined as so many peoples do with age. Uggghh, that word.

I'm not so into the messages of the lyrics, beit political or cartoonish or otherwise. I have always responded to the energy that punk throws out there. The thrashing on stage theatrics to the near catatonia of punk's "slower" songs always resonate with me. I love singing along or yelling angrily with the lead singer if it has been one of those days in the mood spectrum (elation, anger or depression etc) and it is more cathartic than a shrink and cheaper for sure.

I'm going to hope you got your black eyes from the mosh pit vs some cranky dude with a preference for the suicide songs of most traditional country (or something to that affect) and clocking you one just because you are polar opposite to his musical tastes?. Say it ain't so...(btw, no offense intended to country music fans, I am relative to country since I have an affinity for bluegrass myself)

And may I be so bold as to say that I think the kind of phrantic, manic energy of punk lends itself nicley as foreplay for the pumped up arousable woman. Just transfer that energy into hot sx. So you didn't really have to delay your virginity, you just needed to meet the right pumped up girl with a red bull personality and effervesence running through her veins. The effervesence that comes with passionately experiencing great music and the resulting affects on the mind and body vs any other kind of effervesence running through the veins.

Its kind of interesting that some (most?) non-punk people are actually quite judgmental of 'punks' with a negative connotation and the daggers are directly aimed at punk music itself and at people that admit to loving punk. According to their assessment, the punk listener is to be feared and viewed as being somewhat demented and someone to "keep an eye on" before they ravage and pillage your loved ones, rob a pharmacy, and conspire with terroist groups. But the same judgement is not there if I enjoy Sinatra and Vivaldi and you like Sting and Elvis Costello.

We may lightheartedly rag on one another, but beyond that the response to the differences lacks the fire and brimstone, elitist attitude found with punk music haters. It just doesn't elicit the same degree of loathing.

re: Pretty Vacant

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 07:58:52 GMT

Hey Tosh,

When you're, you're right, you either hate or love punk. I happen to love punk. I loved it back in the day and if I discover any semblance of punk today I snatch it up and savor every last bit of hard core madness, screaming and all. And this is from a woman who is old enough to be your...well...cougar. ;D I may be aging, (ouch) but my musical choices continue to be eclectic and my mind is always open to new sounds as well as flashbacks from the past. My musical interests have not atrophied or flatlined as so many people allow to happen with age. Uggghh, that word.

I'm not so into the messages of the lyrics, beit political or cartoonish or otherwise. I have always responded to the energy that punk throws out there. The thrashing on stage theatrics to the near catatonia of punk's "slower" songs always resonate with me. I love singing along or yelling angrily with the lead singer if it has been one of those days in the mood spectrum (elation, anger or depression, any mood will do) and it is more cathartic than a shrink and cheaper for sure.

I'm going to hope you got your black eyes from the mosh pit vs some cranky dude with a preference for the suicide songs of most traditional country (or something to that affect) and clocking you one just because you are polar opposite to his musical tastes?. Say it ain't so...(btw, no offense intended to country music fans, I am relative to country since I have an affinity for bluegrass myself)

And may I be so bold as to say that I think the kind of phrantic, manic energy of punk lends itself nicley as foreplay for the pumped up aroused woman. Just transfer that energy into hot sx. So you didn't really have to delay your virginity, you just needed to meet the right pumped up girl with a red bull personality and effervesence running through her veins. The effervesence that comes with passionately experiencing great music and the resulting affects on the mind and body vs any other kind of effervesence running through the veins.

Its kind of interesting that some (most?) non-punk people are actually quite judgmental of 'punks' with a negative connotation and the daggers are directly aimed at punk music itself and at people that admit to loving punk. According to their assessment, the punk listener is to be feared and viewed as being somewhat demented and someone to "keep an eye on" before they ravage and pillage your loved ones, rob a pharmacy, and conspire with terroist groups. But the same judgement is not there if I enjoy Sinatra and Vivaldi and you like Sting and Elvis Costello.

We may lightheartedly rag on one another, but beyond that the typical benign response to the differences lacks the fire and brimstone, elitist attitude found with punk music haters. It just doesn't elicit the same degree of loathing.

Anyway...here's to keepng the music alive...all music...and to musical tolerance.....and to all a good night....

re: Pretty Vacant

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:49:14 GMT

...ah yes the police....I saw them at the boston garden, and the go go's opened for them...what a night(they towed our car!!).
..my favorite had to be the b52's.....yes, I actually can boast that I have done the rock lobster, right there in front of fred and all that big-bee hive hair.......the things we remember.