So I fired up the vintage Scott 282 Tube Amp (cause It reminds me of my childhood) and put The Velvet Underground 1969 on the Rek-O-Kut turntable that once belonged to MuddyValley's father.
I had to pause for a moment of ironic humor, not just in honor of all the clever ironic Lou Reed fans, but really in honor of the silliness of life in general.
1969 is a live album, Lou's clever banter is recorded on the opening track. He makes a clever comment about it being a "school night" and then encourages the audience to partake of whatever it is that helps them find happiness (don't have the exact quote and too lazy to get up and restart the album so perhaps I'm completely full of poop on this one) and then there is a little dig about what ever it takes to find happiness in Texas. (another paraphrase, I'm going to have to listen to this again this evening and update)
I found it interesting to hear the condescending tone way back when.
I find it amusing to remember all the 1960's chatter about the oppression and the police state and sticking it to the man and the power of youth and changing the world and then seeing how it all ended up.
Sure, gay people can get married...but...
But, a couple silly girls dress up like the twin towers and you would think they had sinned against the supreme being.
A silly actress dresses up as a stupid TV show character and you would think she was a slave owner. Good grief, get over being a victim already... If you paint your face black with white or red circles around your mouth, a top hat, a monkey tail, and you make fun of the Negro then it is black face. If you paint your face black to dress up like a black doughnut or a TV character then it is not racially offensive and if you are offended you are an idiot...
Not to belabor a point but the world is now much worse than it was in 1969 and the clever generation is now in charge.
What a bunch of phonies, he said ironically...
And now I give you the voice of a dead drug addict, a drug addict who beat the odds and made a lot of money and fulfilled the prophecy written in the liner notes of his album. Yes indeed, school children now go to a museum to see a display on Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, and it has not been 100 years...
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"Not to belabor a point but the world is now much worse than it was in 1969 " Every generation since time began has said the same thing and talked of the good old days. The unfortunate thing is that they have all been right. It all depends on the perspective used.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this is so. A lot of the fears from the 1960's became the reality of today and were instituted by the freedom loving folks of the 1960's.
ReplyDeleteHowever it seemed to me that there was this spirit of optimism that went from the end of WWII though the early 1970's. Then the late 1970's were pretty dark through the mid 1980's. Then the Berlin wall came down and we were optimistic again until the new evil was invented and now we are in the police state everyone feared in the 1960's. So, I would say it goes in cycles. Sometimes it seems like the past was worse and sometimes better.
All my clever democrat friends remember the 1950's as a time of oppression. But, I remember my Mom telling stories of her father having some black folks visit and hiding their car in the woodpile because in the 1940's, negroes were not allowed to stay in Shannon country overnight.
She thought it was wonderful the progress that had been made in the 1950's, however she also thought that people should have to work really hard to prove their self-worth. So she would of course be considered a racist.
blah, blah, blah, he says to the choir
I guess its true that some of us think the previous generation had it better, simpler, maybe. On the bright side, we never did have to use those fallout shelters that were so in style in the "cold war" era. I suppose we might still use them now to shelter from the severe weather resulting from climate change. Now I am rambling.
ReplyDeletemy favorite, 'is that right' moment for that clever generation was when Dennis Hopper was selling mutual funds.. i pictured all them ex-hippies who were still born to be wild down in Boca hoping their now-grown-latch-key kids would come and visit them. i felt a little smirky. been drafting that generation a long time but my folks were from before then so it was kind of a tough go of it. my 2nd best moment was when a woman of a certain age told me that i should watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer so i could get some of that female empowerment. apparently they thought i needed empowering. but that gal has never cut the bacon out of the side of a pig, cured and smoked it, and fried it up in a pan. so what do i know. but for now me and the dogs are gonna go on patrol down in the woods. we are hoping for some varmint slaying today. thats about it here. we are having turkey for dinner tho. fresh. real fresh.
ReplyDeleteThe generation now running things burned their brain cells out while they were in college escaping the draft. Unfortunately, they got the degrees, while the rest of us went to work, so they also got the better jobs when they came out.
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