Pop Culture and All That Matters

Despite the backlog of half-starts and unfinished projects on this blog (including posts on getting women into apprenticeships in the trades, the Mafia and stereotypes, images of fatherhood, and skipping several Fridays' worth of 'Umana Cosa', my so-far one shot series featuring italian-american women writers), I've been spending a considerable amount of time procrastinating instead (now, why can't that be an Olympic sport? Some of us certainly do it in Olympic proportions!) and surfing the blogs (and runnin' my mouth; what else is new?).

Today's magnificent stop was Bijan Bayne's gig, the aptly named Pop Culture. If you dig sports and pop culture, like the Talking Heads said, This Must Be the Place. He's been throwing down the gauntlet with posts on essential reading, seminal television and films to curl up to on a cold winter's night. I think this all started with Avery Tooley, and his periodic posts on the best music (he just might have more CDs than me) and top athletes, but I could be wrong. Anyway, those posts have really set my mind flowing. The television one especially; just seeing the names of those seventies shows took me waayyy back, back to the days when I read MAD magazine and Marvel comics (my favorite? Vampire Tales), stayed up late to watch the Creature Feature and "Saturday Night Live" while my dad nagged at my mom to "get your ass out of bed and get movin'" (she worked third shift. the nagging wasn't helpful, least of all to me, who had to sit next to the set and turn the volume up loud enough to hear over everything else being done at the top of the lungs, yet not loud enough to wake the upstairs neighbors).

Hey! Don't laugh! MAD magazine was a fountain of knowledge for me; it was where I first encountered, through their cartoons, the idea that some people didn't discuss religion or politics (I remember asking my dad, on one of our ubiquitous trips to the liquor store, about this: *cue plaintive expression and tone* "well, whadda they talk about, then?!" He spit his drink out--remember, this was the seventies; you could put your drink on the dashboard then--and he laughed his ass off, before collecting himself and responding, "oh, nothing important..."). Politics and politricks were the constant noise in the verbal background of my youth. I remember going to high school and hearing my history teacher insist that americans had faith in political leaders until Nixon lied onscreen (an event I remember, 'cuz my mother taped it on a small reel-to-reel on top of the set, hushing me during the commercials and telling me to "remember this. this is history. that man's lying through his teeth." I don't know why she taped it; maybe she was afraid no one else would, and the moment would be forgotten, Orwellian style.). My response? "Psshhtt. None of those people were from Chicago, then, were they?" to a classroom full of laughter.

Eventually, I moved on from MAD and Marvel to CREEM magazine and Rolling Stone. And from there to the current periodicals rolled in the sidebar. Kinda goes with other changes, like broadening my musical tastes from what was on my transistor radio (Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, EWF, Sly, Beatles) and my folks' stereo (Janis, Etta James, Hendrix, Tull, Clapton, Harry Chapin, Mingus, Monk, ELO) to encompass everything from rock, soul, blues, funk, jazz, hip-hop, punk & new wave (altho', I gotta give my dad credit on this one too; he came home one day singing "God Save the Queen". does anyone else have a father who turned them on to the Sex Pistols?), reggae, salsa, and american roots music.

The changes. The change from television being three networks, a public radio station, and a UHF channel, to hundreds of digital stations, all on demand, in stereo, and with instant rewind. No more rushing to the set...just set the timer and record it. Or buy the DVD later. Hell, I remember when I was the remote! The change on AM radio from rock-n-roll to all talk. From FM meaning variety to the tightly formatted, stringently controlled, no-request, all-corporate apartheid-oriented radio that it is today. (The rechristening of 'AOR' to reflect a little more boldly what it actually is, is courtesy Greg Tate.)

Looking at Brother Bayne's (told d'ja, I'm in the labor movement, and I have a tendency to call people I like 'brother' and 'sister'; get over it) list on television got me thinking less about the actual shows, and more about how changes in pop culture and its technology have created changes throughout the american character.

But, before I can get down to business, there's a kickboxing class to attend to. The teacher's a real sadist, too. My lungs and arms already hurt, just thinking about it. Part II, comin' up later this evening. Really.