Gone Daddy Gone

bDr's reminder that Country Dick Montana should be memorialized in every town square in America got me to thinking about times gone by. We really have a luxury skate here in the 21st century, if we can remember that the current administration is an ephemeral thing (bit by bit, if necessary, as bDr indirectly reminds). Warning: the next paragraph might should be followed by "You damn kids get off my yard!"

In the 1980s, long gone, we had a real and well-founded fear of death. Daily. It was the tail end of the Cold War, baby, although we didn't know it yet. All we knew was that we had one seriously crazy motherfucker of a President, and he was gonna get us all killed before heading off to the Great Ranch in the Sky to chop wood and command vengeful American submariners through an irradiated eternity full of dead Commies.

Previous generations had their Vietnams and their love-ins and their far-higher-quality acid. What we had was crappy jobs, plentiful and easily available drugs, and the ability to get massively jacked, go out, and slam into each other to punk, neopunk, postpunk, pomopunk, punkabilly, and metapunk bands. There was no point to life. Our jobs were disposable, our bodies were anything but temples, and the music was all there was. Well, there was sex, too.

But that's another rant involving velociraptors, chest-deep snow uphill both ways, and Ilse having lived a life never having seen the Slickee Boys. Hats off to Country Dick. I don't wish it were still the 80s, but I can sure miss them just fine.