I’ve been lobbing bombs all summer.
(If you’ve been reading, you’re likely aware.)
For whatever reason, I’ve been inspired to channel the earlier me, the younger me, who courted controversy in this column, regularly, when it first began.
Perhaps it’s because I was “liberated” from my 6 year gig at the NYT, or maybe it’s just a coincidence?
I’m not really sure, but the last few months, I’ve done my best to speak truth to power, risking the opprobrium of my former bosses, portfolio review attendees, and some angry wankers on Twitter. (Not naming names this time…)
All of which is to say, after several months of writing 2500 word, 4 part mega-columns, in which I bare my soul, (and create new formats for the blog,) I’m pretty worn out.
Plus, I’m leaving for NorCal for a wedding this week, and am therefore writing on a Tuesday, so that everything can be done and dusted early. (Practicality is required, if you never miss a deadline in nearly 8 years.)
So here I sat, wondering how to summon the energy to tilt at windmills again, when I had a great idea.
Wouldn’t it be nice to look at a photo book, think for a few minutes, and then write a short, sweet column?
(If I’m ready for a break, maybe you readers are too?)
How about something that comes in under 1000 words, so we can all go about our business without trying to shake the Earth? (Maybe that’s a bad metaphor, as I’m headed to Earthquake country.)
As a result, I went to my book stack, which has been packed away for a few months, and grabbed the first box I saw.
Thank goodness for luck, because I discovered “Outcasts & Innocents,” by Alice Wheeler, which was published a few years ago by Minor Matters Books in Seattle.
And boy, is this book perfect for today.
I was just reading a few pages of “The Medium is the Massage,” by the great media theorist Marshall McLuhan, and he said the following, back in 1967:
“Innumerable confusions and a profound feeling of despair invariably emerge in periods of great technological and cultural transitions.”
(Everything old is new again indeed.)
If I, or anyone else, had written that about 2019, it would sound just about right.
But what about 1999?
Might it not make sense then too, on the cusp of the new Millennium?
Or what about 1992 for that matter? (The First Gulf War, the end of the (extended) Reagan Era, the birth of Grunge, etc?)
This book takes me back, and features a group of musicians, artists, cool kids, anarchists, weirdos, and street freaks that remind me why I became an artist in the first place.
My wife and I just binge-watched “Mozart in the Jungle,” on Amazon, and were inspired/entertained/enthralled by the deep dive into the power of art, and the mysterious need to create that so many of us feel. (4 stars, highly recommended.)
While some people are out there shouting “Make America White Again,” or “Send her back,” or “Jews will not replace us,” all across this (great?) country, there are an equal if not greater number of people who embrace difference, push boundaries, and don’t hate people based on the color of their skin, or their sexual orientation.
Rather, they hate people for being racist, exploiting the poor, or for running corporations that ravage the planet.
This book shows us Nirvana, before they were huge. And WTO protesters, who claimed that Globalization would impact us in nefarious ways not yet contemplated.
It gives us transvestites alive and well, and lying supine in coffins, perhaps dead of AIDS?
There are references to the Green River Killer, who preyed on women, and Bikini Kill, a female punk band that probably would have shoved a drumstick up his ass, and broken it off, if they’d been given half the chance.
We see black and white, and “living” color, but all of it represents a time, now gone, before the internet and social media changed everything?
Or did they?
Students of history know that revolutions in technology have ripped apart existing world orders many times before, and likely will again.
So this summer, which for most has been the hottest ever, (thankfully not for us in Taos,) is a good time to remember that if humanity survives, we’ll likely solve one batch of problems just in time for another to crop up.
That’s just the way it goes.
Bottom Line: Cool, edgy, life-affirming look at the Seattle music scene, back in the day
To purchase “Outcasts & Innocents,” click here
