All the Weirdness in the World

Bob Dylan, Newport Folk Festival, 1965.

Watching the Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown it was striking to see not simply the florid period of Dylan’s output but how it was a part of the unfolding events shaking the world. At the heart of it was the postwar power and cold war shadow that was the USA. Sound familiar? Fear of nuclear armageddon, political upheaval, unwanted war, the environment, and fights for freedom and equality were the fabric of the quilt that was tearing at the seams of 1960s America.

I didn't appreciate the music of the 60s as I do now. Films like The Big Chill were a show of strength of the Boomer generation and when they were running things, all pop culture and music would directly refer to the time of their youth. We were constantly told by aging journalists, DJs, and music directors that Dylan was a mysterious deity, a genius, and oft suggested he might not be mortal. That was the bee in my bonnet and that bonnet was my cross to bear. As a Gen Xer, I recognize that the music of my youth is now popular and much revisited in many Marvel films and film franchises that returned from the dead for no particular reason (Top Gun, Beetlejuice, Ghost Busters etc.). Don't worry. This is just a brief blip as we Gen Xers are not a big bunch and we're getting older and would like to retire before the Earth is entirely engulfed in flames.

They say "Victors write history", but they forget to mention that the generation that comes after the victors get to rewrite history. I have reached the age when history starts repeating itself and it is very ugly. Let's go back some 40 years ago. Oh, I was a bright-faced boy who could not keep up with being cool, so I didn't bother. I couldn't afford it (the looks, the music, the whatever). I discovered my musical tastes later than a lot of people. In fact, I think I discovered that any of my tastes (music, film, art, books) would never be fully "discovered" but would be a continuous thing I am always chasing, finding, understanding or being wrong about. It's often said that the tastes, likes, and dislikes that you form as a teen are the ones that influence and inform your choices for the rest of your life. I can't really argue against that though I'm sure many would. One thing I think The Olds get wrong about teenagers in general, is that they don't know and understand the flotsam and jetsam of the world. Of course, teens don't have the weight of bills, work, and taxes on them, but they can have a keen eye for simplifying big issues into black and white. The moral greyness of adulthood hasn't clouded their eyes with corneas of experience.

When politics turned nasty, violent and decidedly conservative in South America, the USA, or parts of Europe, I think a lot of us shivered at what we thought was a return to the kind of politics that threw nations into the Second World War. In 2015 I often asked, "Oh, is this what 1936 felt like?" Yet, I overlooked the real era that formed me. The 1980s. The trifecta of Reagan, Thatcher and Mulroney sickened me. That may be giving Mulroney an overly influential place in history, but of course, as a Canadian, he did affect my life. So many Western governments of that time were conservative, and in my mind's eye, it was a sort of creepy evil that was backed by a weirdly prevalent Christian worldview of the West versus the Soviet Bloc. There was an absurd buildup of nuclear arsenal, powerful nations constantly exerting their military might (the US in Grenada, Russia in Afghanistan… well, I suppose everyone in Afghanistan), there were environmental crises galore, there was homophobia, racism, there were bizarre fears of Satanic cults and child abuse (why is this the stock and trade of conspiracy theorists?), and there were constant clarion calls from the Moral Majority for a return to wholesome family values and criticized any form of music, film or theatre they objected to. All of these things could describe either the late 30s, 80s or today. The overwhelming influence of performative Christians, those righteous pious pricks, were always a target for me and my friends, with their outsized outrage against rock and roll, nudity in art, short skirts, marijuana and I don't know, "fun" in general. Punk music, Footloose, and Dana Carvey's Church Lady on Saturday Night Live were our retorts and comforts. In the end, racists even ruined Punk music.

Has there ever been a time when we agreed on fundamental facts? The ozone layer is thinning, air and water pollution is bad for your health, vaccines and (a small bit of) fluoride are good for your health, and war is bad for everybody's health. Now we can't even agree on simple facts (let's avoid the word "truth" shall we). The Bald Faced Liars club has only grown bolder in the face of facts. When the US president says the president of Ukraine is a dictator who started a war with an actual dictator who, in fact, started said war, with actual tanks, missiles and soldiers, you have to ask yourself, "Am I high, or did the world get weirder?" When "Those guys are weird." was the best campaign slogan the American Democrats could run on, you have to ask yourself, how did we get here?

When speaking about his reckless and chaotic tariff pronouncements against Canada, the US president, known widely as an orange numpty, said it “will be read about in History Books for many years to come!” I’m sure it will be, though probably as one of the “dumbest wars” ever. Or will it? I'm trying to imagine a future, when all of us are forgotten and long gone, and a person, maybe a student, opens a history book/text file/media file and reads about the first half of the 21st century. What will it say? Will any social media still be around? They say data on the Internet lives forever or will all that blather have evaporated from the AWS servers that were used to build an annex to the plastic island in the Pacific? We’ve lost so many libraries throughout history. Will there be a record of exactly how unhinged our politics were? Will there be any evidence of a cultural behemoth left in the burned-out tar pit that was once Los Angeles? What would be the description of those talismans we held constantly in our hands which absorbed our attention better than paper towels.

Will they ask, "Why did they make towels from paper? Didn't they know cotton makes better towels?"

Will there still be coffee? It's not looking good for coffee. What would they make of markets on every city block, that sold a beverage made by soaking a grounded, roasted bean, that wasn't even a bean, in hot water? All the coffee plantations would have dried up and blown away by then, and all that would be left would be the mysterious shallow plastic discs we drank from. Why would they know we needed plastic lids for our paper cups.

Will they ask, "Why did they make cups from paper? Didn't they know ceramics make better cups?"

Will any of our music have survived? The vinyl records all melted in the fires. The spools of magnetic tape were all used to strangle sea birds. The world's compact discs were chipped and burned to fuel the rockets billionaires used to go to Mars and die ("Why did so many billionaires want to die in space?"). Were all the digital files that was our music have been expunged from the AWS servers that were used to make flood berms to protect the plastic island and its annex? Will there be any mention of how oligarchy took over democracy? Will they think most of Jeff Bezos' wealth came from supplying the raw building material of AWS server flood berms and plastic island annexes?

Will there be any mention of the resistance? Those who refused to buy new shoes when they didn't need them. Those who walked rather than drove. Those who didn't really care for Doritos, chocolate bars or burgers. Those who took breaks rather than pretend to work. Those who when listening to authoritarians called out "B.S.!" Those who attended political rallies just to fart in their jingoistically painted faces and crap in their punch bowls. Those who liberated bathrooms from gender assignments (after all, punch bowls made fine toilets). Those who reminded us their lives mattered too. Those who gave water to the thirsty. Those who gave shelter. Those who spoke truth to power. Those who enfeebled bullies with jokes. Those who wrote the songs about the times that were a' changin'. Times were definitely a' changin' and they were definitely weird. Who was their Bob Dylan?e who gave water to the thirsty. Those who gave shelter. Those who spoke truth to power. Those who enfeebled bullies with jokes. Those who wrote the songs about the times that were a' changin'. Times were definitely a' changin' and they were definitely weird. Who was their Bob Dylan?