10-11-04

Sofia’s face began to swell beneath her eyes and cheekbones. She spoke emphatically, with almost iambic stresses. Ten years since the death of Keith Carden, martyred lead of Emerald City’s thrash band Disparaged Three and Sofia Shall could not get on.

"What if he lived, what about that? Would have changed everything…music, art, culture--"

I found myself bracing in the back seat of Theo Stonnard’s four door Saab. The topic of conversation wasn’t new-- in fact neither was Theo’s pending reply. Indeed I believe that’s why I found myself bracing-- in hope that Theo might just let this one slide. Only in hope.

"Jesus Soph, how can you be so idealistic. If he was alive-- hell what kind of proposition is that. If he didn’t blow his brains-- if he didn’t blow his brains out he’d be well on his solo acoustic tour right now playing to masses of screaming teeny-bopping dickpigs, sipping a chai-latte at the latest ‘hip to be anti-cool’ spot off Melrose. Ain’t it obvious that rebellion itself has been commercialized? Lets run on down to Warren’s Mega-Universe and get ourselves matching Che! shirts…Fuck the hippies Soph, let’s go to Starbucks and be a part of something"

There’s all of one way that this conversation turns out and in my best attempt to change course I spoke up.

"He had to die, you know? It’s just how it is…so that he wouldn’t end up on Melrose… they all have to find some obscure sense of martyrdom. Ever seen an aged rock star? Pete Townsend or Sting--singing love ballads in front of a fan vent in the desert with his shirt half buttoned-- that’s how it ends"

"Oh go fuck yourself", they said together.

And now I felt martyred, taking the bullet from these two just to resolve some sense of peace in the middle-east side of West-LA.

"I didn’t know the two of you were such angst ridden teens-- together you’re such a cute cliché", I said.

"Pointing out a cliché is no less a social cliché", Theo responded evenly.

Theo’s well-tempered response put me off in the way most things that make sense do. The revolutionary spirit was in fact being designed and distributed by the man… and calling the man, the man seemed to be yet another creation to obscure the identity of sovereignty. Indeed times had changed, but perhaps we had reached the last phase of social evolution and there was no next step.

"I fucking hate hippies", said Sofia.

"Yeah"

"Me too"

"And the only thing worse than hippies is hipsters"

Theo spun the volume dial on his ultra-suave Bose sound system consol. Iggy Pop found a blown speaker to spit out of and a wah-pedaled guitar solo drove us all back to 1969-- a year none of us had been privileged enough to live through. A year of which we spoke about with a fondness the likes of American ex-pats on the sidewalks of Amsterdam’s Laizze Plaine-- as if we too had spent our time braiding hemp bracelets for comatose passersby. Truth is we weren’t ex-pats, we sure as shit weren’t hippies, and none of us had ever had it to just pick up and leave town. And so, in this tragic state of affairs, we were left to our epic arguments about the state of man and music.