The Rock Star Generation

“I live for highs and lows
Anything goes
Dirty ass hoes put it all up my nose
Gimme that shot and am ready to go
Better watch out cause I hold you down
All you people cant handle this
Take control cause the question is
what’s my name do you really care
Give it to me now
cause am a rock star”

Do you know that song? I hear it all too often. The semi catchy lyrics and simple driving bass throb through bars and clubs I frequent almost every time I hear DnB, and I can’t help but wonder, “Why do people like this crap?” We are living through an interesting time, the time of the rock star generation. It seems that everyone born after 1975 has grown up glued to the tube; idolizing everything he or she sees on MTV; and looking to the talking heads for hope (I only wish I that I was talking about a band on that one.) Everybody wants to be a rock star; live like a rock star; party like a rock star.

We idolize selfish people, and our children grow up repeating catchy phrases and lyrics which emphasize degrading other people (especially the female sex), senseless self indulgence, and the worship of material goods. Then, we wonder why our cities, our towns, our country, our planet is so fucked up. We need only to look in the mirror.

I hate to say it but the evangelists are right about one thing, popular culture and the moral outlook of our country is destroying our world. It isn’t because God is mad though, it is because “we’re living beyond all our means. And the man in the suit has just bought a new tank off the profit he made of our dreams,” but where are the Low Sparks of High Healed Boys today?

Countless times I’ve been in and overheard these conversations where high minded folks like to go off onto armchair discussions about how to fix the world. Inevitably the solution I hear most people come up with is something like “the government should make a law,” or “universal healthcare.” Inevitably these conceptions always revolve around the term ‘they,’ “they should do something.” Who are ‘they?’ Why should ‘they’ do anything? What makes anyone think that ‘they’ are going to do anything different from what ‘they’ have been doing for the past time and memorial?

Personally, I don’t know ‘them,’ and from what I’ve gathered about ‘them’ I don’t trust ‘them’ to do anything that isn’t entirely self-serving and self-preserving. The food shortage is just getting started; as fossil fuels become scarcer our way of farming will be prove to be unsustainable even if the big climate change doesn’t fuck all that up first. You can bet that the people at the top have realized this sometime back. Conspiracy theories aside, if you knew the world was fucked what would you do? We can’t be pissed off at those people; of course they lied but why wouldn’t they. We have only ourselves to blame for buying it.

Also we can only expect to fix things for ourselves, because if we don’t who will? I suggest that we all get rid of our TV’s. Imagine all the time you would have to fill up with something more meaningful if you didn’t have a TV. We should also be prudent with our money; extravagant things, and an extravagant lifestyle were in the past, something reserved for the extravagantly wealthy. Not to say we shouldn’t be good to and treat ourselves; just that we should be wise about it and do so sparingly. We should also spend more time and effort teaching and nurturing our children and youth, though I’m sure with no TV’s in the house this will be a lot easier. We should be conservative, but not in the way they talk about on the TV. Truly conservative. We need reduce our waste, not only in terms of trash but of energy and time expenditure as well. Also we should try to maximize what we give and receive from our environment. By cultivating gardens and relationships our lives will receive and be blessed by the fruits of our love and labor. Most importantly we need to hope and plan. We need to hope for the best but plan for the worst.

We need to do this. We shouldn’t be doing these things to try to save the world, because no one person can. We need to be doing this to save ourselves, because if we don’t nobody else will. We also need to look to our friends and neighbors and ask them and teach them to do the same thing, because for all we do to save ourselves without unity salvation is only as good as who has the biggest gun. We need to grow up from the selfish children we have become and grow out into the stars. The real stars, the ones in the sky; not the ones stuck on a rock, because when it is all said and done the rock star generation is doomed to sink like a stone, and only those wise enough to leave it behind will rise above and float to the top.
-Allen Cole