Published on April 11th, 2013 in: Music, Waxing Nostalgic |
By Jeffery X Martin
Americans were all primed for the Eighties. It was a decade where something was supposed to happen. Perhaps we all had a touch of Orwellian paranoia, a sense of not knowing which way to lean or who to trust. It was like a great atmospheric pressure swell that needed to break, dark heavy clouds heralding the coming shitstorm. We lived under the constant threat of nuclear war, fearing the goose-step marching of fascists and neo-Nazis down our tree-lined suburban streets. We also went to see The Cannonball Run enough times to make it the sixth highest grossing film of 1981. What were we thinking? Even now, it is hard to believe that anyone needed escapism that badly.
I realize that, if you weren’t there, the Eighties seem shiny and gleeful, like a candy cane on a Ferris wheel. That’s bullshit. Doom and gloom surrounded us and we continued to distract ourselves from it all with whatever we could find. We had to. Nobody wants to wake up every single fucking morning, facing their own mortality! Hell yes, I’ll take that Rubik’s Cube. I’ll play with the colors and make weird geometric designs, whatever, man, just don’t let Reagan push that Big Red Button!
Should we deal with the clear and present danger or should we play with the cool shiny distraction? We’ll take that distraction every time. And why?
We’re devolving.
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