Saturday, February 8, 2014

The Beatles

I know all the youngsters are sick of all the "50 years since The Beatles" hype.

All the articles, all the remembrances, the Paul & Ringo Grammys thing, and the special that will be aired tomorrow night commemorating their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show featuring a performance by Paul & Ringo together (which you goddamn well better believe I will be watching).

Maybe they are sick of it because they feel my generation is bragging that we had something no other generation has ever had or ever will have. Like we are more special than anyone who has followed us.

They cannot understand the scope of it because they didn't experience it. So the hype must seem like more hype than fact to them.

Punk music created waves, hip hop was a major musical explosion, grunge flattened the earth but none of these came close to doing to the world what The Beatles did to the world.

They changes lives because they gave us something to hang on to. We were transformed from the typical teenage rebels without a cause to rebels with a cause and a kick ass soundtrack.

The fiftieth anniversary thing is an excellent time for reflection by my generation.

We fought hard, rebelled against all injustices and took thunderous steps towards changing this American society.

We achieved great things and then got beat down, and ended up selling out.

If that fire of righteous rebellion could have been carried forward unstoppably, our society would be a completely different animal today.

An animal recognized  for racial equality and intolerance for prejudice, for gender equality, for equality of sexual preference, for lack of corruption, for accountability of corporations and political "leaders". Recognized for a celebration of the human being as sacred, with all the dignities that accompany that thought process.

The power of the "establishment" was greater than we knew, and it had slimy tentacles that could infiltrate any admirable philosophy and destroy it.

The weakness of human nature was greater than we knew, as many of us took advantage of the new permissiveness to focus on getting high and getting laid and pretending that we were participating in a generational revolution, when in reality we were really undermining it.

Later on, many of us sold out to the enticing vision of commercialism and success, turning into precisely the people we once loathed.

Society's wicked ways today are an embarrassingly loud declaration of the failed promise of the baby boomers. They also confirm the unstoppable power and corruption of the rich, and our political system.

Bill Maher was talking about The Beatles thing last night, and he put an interesting twist on it. He talked about the price of fame in this country. John Lennon was assassinated. A maniac broke into George Harrison's home, stabbed and almost killed him.

In 1964, Beatles lovers could never imagine such viciousness occurring in the lives of these icons. Although President Kennedy's assassination could have been a hint, along with, later on, those of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy. Manson provided another clue to the evil bubbling just below the surface of the grand intentions of a generation.

Still, we had The Beatles. As I wrote those words I got goosebumps. Fifty years later The Beatles still mean everything to me.

It would be cool amidst all this nostalgia, if my generation could muster up the strength and righteous indignation to fight back one more time. On any scale, as long as it is meaningful and just.

Even just in the spirit of making "the rest of our lives" admirable, something to look to as an example of independent thinking, something to make us proud and make others realize "Wow, those guys have balls."

The Beatles are as powerful as a concept as they were as musicians.

That experience got into our molecular makeup. It is there for inspiration, for guidance, as a moral compass and as a measure of our lives.

I cannot wait for tomorrow night.

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