Decline and Fall of Alternative Civilization

  ~ ~ ~

  Having listened long and patiently, RVQ's friend at the local daily scratched his head and mumbled, "I don't know, Rondo. I really don't." He would do what he could; he could not promise editors would be keen on publishing the tale. Small mention was made of it in the back pages of the news section; a morning TV show joked lightly of the event but, mostly, the story became part of local lore and circulated as a UFO (unidentified fractious oration) in the virtual Roswell of Internet toastings. Months later it made its final crash landing in the nefarious contents of News of the Weird.

  Though Rondo never missed a deadline since, he finally got the special-order distributor cap for the Rover, sold the Harley and left Austin for Nashville. Three weeks after that, on separate occasions, two traveling bands missed their Austin shows when their distributor caps were stolen: one in west Texas, the other in New Mexico. Swaths of flannel were stickered to their bumpers in the classic tradition. When votes were taken on whom to blame-hippies, punks or god-it was a three-way tie for last.

  X

  "?darkness is a very penetrating feeling.

  And then a remarkable thing happens.

  You come around and instantaneously it's sunlight?"

  -Stu Roosa

  While Seattle grungies gurgled along and took special notice that their shoelaces were tied, the rest of the world struggled hiply diply to do the same. Behind Hip there was Hype or maybe it was the other way around. Once past the holy pretense of the '80s being the antidote to the excesses of the '70s, there were questions whether the '90s would avoid or fall into the same hole as any other generational zeitgeist. Just how much Birthday Party or Big Black can one listen to and maintain a sense of humor? Was the nouveau lush lounge culture a panacea to the class-A mid-scooping and dive-bombing of speed metal and growling blast beats of grindcore? A nation of millions might sandbag a country's hippity hoppity musical future but it would march to the same drummer's beats, albeit sampled, as the last great ?ber-electro-white hope.

  The wheezings of a middling media stayed too long at the fair, lost their '60s cred and disco hair, and the rockcritocracy fought to legitimize a status quo they thought still needed legitimizing. They hadn't noticed their own greying America and were too slow on the uptake of a pogo bravely world that giggled behind their backs when not flipping them off to their faces.

  (tee hee)

  They were left to scribble in their notepads:

  "Boo hoo, Johnny. Boo hoo, Joey."

  (tee hee)

  The few wiselings among them warned:

  "Here comes the train, Rod. Time to get Ozzy off the tracks?"

  (tee hee)

  There's a new train a comin' and it'll come round the mountain when it comes. But did the bums listen? Do they ever?