Revisits #37.

• Parts 1-30.
• Part 31. (Tribalism)
• Part 32. (Conspiracies 2)
• Part 33. (Demon Murder)
• Part 34. (Billion)
• Part 35. (SW titles)
• Part 36. (Ross)

In "Why the Weird Al version is always better", I rambled about why satirizing soul-dead bullshit is so life affirming.

This is another one like the eternity rant that my memory of was cringe-y, but after actually reading it again, it ain't too bad, so I'll just elaborate on it some more.

First, click the link, and read the old rant again, then come back.

It's not just Weird Al that set my childhood mind free, it was Mad Magazines, it was Garbage Pail Kids, it was grossout toys like Madballs, then later on in my teens and 20's, it was independent films.
Especially the horrors and horror-comedies.

It was more imperative than ever to rebel against stifling conformist bullshit in the 80's, because the Reagan presidency, and all their attempted censorship bullshit on rock n' roll, and porno, and horror movies, was all a cultural backlash against the 60's and 70's.

Course, my generation missed out on the party of the 60's and 70's, and the hand-me-downs we got were pretty fucking lame.

Except for the sprinkling of satirical rebellious stuff.

And metal, before it got too glam, and sold out, and had to be replaced by grunge.
But then grunge killed itself with all the heroin overdoses.
And then there was rap-rock, but I mostly checked out of pop music by then.
Anyhooo...

Tom Bunk in "30 Years Of Garbage", came right out and said, if you don't push the boundaries, and question authority, and exercise your free speech, you end up with Hitler.

The Reagan administration was pretty fuckin' crypo-fascist.
And now we're back full circle with Trump, except his brand of fascist isn't even crypto.

Now, obviously, Weird Al probably didn't have all this shit in mind when he did his parodies.
Especially the anti-religion stuff I tossed into my old rant.
He actually goes to church.
But, he clearly didn't want an ordinary picket fences 1950's kind of life, either.

And he didn't seem to do it out of contempt for the recording industry, because he respected every artist he did a riff on, and asked their permission to do them, even though he didn't need to.

But something drives you to goof on stuff.
And something deep in his makeup made him unable to take this dopey world seriously.

And whatever that subliminal something was/is, I resonated with it as a kid.

Another thing that made that kind of rebellion sweet, was it was also a rejection of the tribalism of the "cool kids".
Like the time I almost got clobbered for not digging Prince.
Or how I had to enjoy metal music in secret because it would "ruin it", for the shitty bully kids, and that would get me clobbered.

Weird Al showed me, those assholes took that shit as serious as life and death, but you can totally rag on it, and make it ridiculous, and the world doesn't end.
And you can make a buck while you do it.

It made all the cliques ridiculous.
I never understood why cliques survived after that.
The lid was blown off.

But, I've sadly figured out as I've gotten older, there's no such thing anymore as the lid being blown off.
The lid has been blown off Trump, and the whole fucking Republican party.
No one cares.
The far left does, but the moderate left, and the "centrists", are taking a big fat fucking nap complete with snoring and farts.

So, I dunno, maybe all this rebellion doesn't even fucking matter.

Peter O'Toole once morbidly joked "oh, yes, the German cabarets stopped the Nazis dead in their tracks".

But.....I've come along this far, and I don't know what else to do with myself.
Be normal?
How?
What would I even do?
Nope, gotta write my next book, and hope I can get it out there before the riot cops come kicking down the doors.
Or the mushroom clouds bloom.

It's deep in my makeup, and it's what I've got to be and do.
Anything else is soul-death.
I tried that out with my stifling pathetic jobs, didn't care for it.