With another holiday season on
the way, I can only hope that Father Christmas, Baby New Year,
or whoever, will give Americans a Christmas gift they can really
use. The gift I ask for is not a new President nor a kinder understanding
of France. The gift I ask for is a new alternative music scene.
This way, we never ever again have to hear anyone whine and whine
about how there is no alternative music scene any longer. If
Jolly Ol' Saint Nick brings us one for this new year, then the
problem's solved and the rest of us can move onto more important
things, like the end of the millennium.
The end of the millennium promises to bring some great cataclysm,
that's one thing we all know for sure. But when the comet hits,
or the militias storm Washington, D.C., or the ozone completely
disintegrates, or the aliens land, or we're all living in The
Tribulation under the rule of The Beast, at least the end times
will be made much easier because all our sad hipsters will have
a brand new alternative music scene that is not being co-opted
by teenagers and the media.
Me, I'll be writing a best-selling Gig Young biography during
all this.
As far as the end of the millennium goes, though, I'm personally
banking on The Tribulation and The Beast. On one hand, the alternative
music scenesters will LOVE that, since all the Christians will
be sucked away by The Rapture, which will entirely get rid of
all the folks who want to outlaw bawdy album covers. On the other
hand, the new alternative scene will certainly revolve around
"cyber-something-or-rather", which is bad. According
to all those Christians who will have been sucked away, The Beast
plans to give us his "mark
"
in order to codify us. While some theorize that "mark"
will be your social security number or bar-coding, I disinclined
to agree with those stark raving mad religious conspiracy "buffs".
I'm fairly convinced the Mark of The Beast will be your e-mail
address.
The Beast will keep watch on everyone in the new alternative
music scene through cyberspace. And all the alternative music
scenesters on the Internet will blab on with their useless cyberpiffle
and be easy to keep track of. This and the fact that there is
porno there makes The Beast love Internet technology. So he will
be happy, since he can keep tabs on a segment of the population
predisposed to some sort of decadence. And the teenagers and
critics will be happy because they can seek out all the Web Sites
and such and co-opt the alternative music scene again. And everyone
else can happily concentrate on the evil hurtling our society
to the Day of Judgment and not worry about the poor hipsters
anymore.
Me, well, I'm not on-line and probably wouldn't be given a membership card to the alternative music scene anyway, since I'm too cranky and I've never really liked Sonic Youth very much at all. I will have that best-selling Gig Young biography out, though, so if The Beast wants to check up on me, I suppose he'll have to read my book.