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Ok, for century's mankind has been screaming,
"The end of the world is nigh." But here we were for the first time
really looking at the very real possibility that we could do it.
This was no story of the unseen "hand-o-god" wiping the earth of its
lowly servants. No this was really it. And were talking something far
weirder and more sinister than the Cuban missile crisis. I mean how many
missiles were there really. A few cities would be hit bad but that's
all. No, the child of the 80's had the whole country, the whole world
even, to worry about. The way we heard it there were enough missiles to
clean the surface of the planet 10 times over. Never mind if it was all
mostly cold war hype we thought it was true and the perception of
reality is all that really matters.
And let's look at who had the control. I mean no one was truly daft
enough to really do it.
Were they?
Let's start with Kennedy. He proved he was a man with the rational
thought to work to prevent the big "KABOOM".
Johnson? Well he was… who the hell was he again?
Nixon? Way to busy being paranoid at home to bother pressing the big red
button.
Ford? Well maybe he might have fallen on it by accident but barring
that…
Carter? I can't even see him pushing a button to kill a fly let alone
the world.
Then in rode Reagan. Cowboy Ronnie.
The 80's begin and end with the "Big Gipper's" shaking hand hovering
over that shiny red button. And the whole world collectively pissed
themselves for 8 long years. Here was a man who could really do it. At
least we thought so, and so did the rest of the world for that matter.
And as if it wasn't bad enough that the part of the president was being
played by "Six Gun Ron", we had a new terror to cope with. The Post Nuke
"B" Movie. Hundreds of them. Laying out the post apocalypse world in
ever more detailed, mutant filled, glowing Technicolor. One after
another we sat glued to the silver screen watching the pre-enactment of
our horrific future. Flesh dripping mutants staggered about burnt out
cities in search of the few remaining scavengers driving 70's Chevy's
with a bunch of hoses and bottles attached to them. So it was just a
movie and in the end we all can tell the difference between reality and
Hollywood.
Three words
The Day After
If you remember the movie "The Day After" then
you know where I'm going here. Strait into the basement for 6 months.
Here it was the whole terror of Nuclear War presented in a truly
realistic vision. On TV no less. On November 20th 1983 all our parents
sat us down to watch the annihilation of civilization. The schools
promoted it as educational. The critics touted it as a masterpiece of
reality. And that it truly was. Our first real look at the war to truly
end all wars. Worst of all the dismal days of the survivors in graphic
hair falling out, blood from every orifice, society declining into the
non-flushing toilet detail.
None of us slept well until well after new years.
(For more on "The Day After" see
http://www.lawrence.com/news/movie_specials/story/124521 )
So they won't do that to us again. Right? Wrong! I present as evidence
"Special Bulletin". Shown shortly afterwards we caught a dramatic
glimpse into the reality of the world that was truly to come. Shot like
a true news cast, it depicted terrorists taking a city hostage with
nuclear weapons. It was so realistic that the TV stations ran
disclaimers and warnings between commercials to remind everyone it was
only a TV show. Still the phones were flooded with callers wanting to
know if their loved ones were safe. And if urban legend holds true many
people in the town (somewhere down south I think) actually fled the
area.
So this is it. We are the first generation raised in the realistic fear
that the world could truly end tomorrow. At our own hands no less. Every
day we were reminded in some way that it would only take 30 minutes for
the atomic death to reach us. But wait we could rest assured that they
too would all be destroyed as we would retaliate at the very moment we
detected their ICBMs coming our way.
What does this do to a generation? For one it makes them a bit short
sighted. I hear a lot of people say that "we" were all too eager to kill
ourselves with drugs, violence, guns in the schools and AIDS. O yes let
us not forget that little bit of twisted irony. The 60's motto "Make
Love not War" did not hold out any longer. Not only was war going to
lead us to unified death but now so was sex. It was not until the early
90's that the truth about AIDS and the ways to prevent it came to light.
Hell the Whitehouse never even spoke the term until Bush steps into
office and we all finely let out a collective breath. It's a wonder the
Earth did not get blown off its axis the very day Reagan left office.
We were, and to some extent still are, short sighted. It's not to say we
did not see a future for ourselves it's just that the future was not
bright. What did extravagant debit matter if the creditors and banks
would soon be nothing more than radioactive dust? Rampant drug use is
unimportant if you truly expect to die at 30 with your hair falling out
in clumps and your innards turning to toxic goo. And sex with strangers
was no concern. They, and you would soon be dead anyhow. Why worry? Be
happy. (Vague 80's reference)
Violence was out of control. Our city murder numbers were rising out of
control. The ten o'clock news would post the "Daily" results from all
the major cities like race results from the local track. And don't think
people were not betting on who would have the highest numbers per
capita. The schools were combating everything from guns to teen
pregnancy to drugs being sold in the bathrooms. I went to Washington DC
Public School and mine was the best in the city. We only had one
shooting and about 30 or so stabbings. I never used the school bathrooms
because I was not in any of the gangs that controlled each one. I was a
loner Punk after all. The Exploited's hypnotically monotonous song "Sex
and Violence" became an anthem to the 80's bored suburban youth. (See
Lyrics for The
Exploited Sex and Violence for the full official lyrics to the song.
It's worth the laugh. Note this link is reported as not always working.
Google "The Exploited Sex and Violence lyrics", you should find them.)
Punk music began in the 70's but never really reached the world eye
until the children of the 80's took it and destroyed it. That's what we
did. We destroyed and consumed. Everything was an advertisement now.
Nothing was sacrosanct. Coke began sponsoring schools and soon the milk
cart was replaced by a soda machine. We watched more and more expensive
movies every year. It got to the point that if a small third world
country would not be able to eat for a year on your movie budget then
you made a flop. There was a 7-11 on every corner and the Columbian weed
was soon to follow. Not the "coca plant" weeds the far more addictive
one. Starbucks.
And speaking of drugs the 80's brought us some beauties. For those of
you who can still remember think back to the "Boat" days. PCP, the drug
that even heroin addicts were saying "That's no good for you." The drug
that gave you super human strength and sub molecular inelegance. And
Crack. Never forget the lovely "Crack" was introduced in the 80's and
you can't find a more addictive drug than that. You get a 15 minute high
fro $10 bucks and when it's over you would sell your own grandmother to
Jeffery Dalmer for another "rock".
But none of this was ever enough. We demanded more and offered nothing
in return. Get rich quick schemes were running rampant and Alex P.
Kenton was the spokesman for the rebellion against our hippy parents. If
we were going to die tomorrow then we would have to have a kick ass
stereo today. Who cares if we can't afford it? That's what credit cards
were for. Now unlike our parents who likely had one or two cards they
sparingly used for important purchases we now had dozens. And we used
them. Consumer debit went sky high. Why not we were just following the
governments lead. Yes, one more thing good old "Rappin' Ronnie" left us
with. The bill for all those "Death Rockets". We were talking about
national debit in numbers no one had ever heard of let alone had any
concept of the meaning.
Trillion? What the fuck was a trillion? ($ 994,845 million in 1981 to
$2,868,039 million in 1989) And while were on the subject, who the hell
did we owe it all to anyhow? I can't believe we were talking about the
Prez whipping out the old MasterCard and charging up a couple thousand
ICBMs.And if we owed it to someone outside our country couldn't we just
say "Thanks for lending us the cash to build these bombs. Oh, you want
the money back now?Nah, but if you bug us a bit more we may send over a
missile or two as collateral. They will be armed and flying of course…"
That will stop the bill collector from calling in a hurry.
But it never happened did it? What the fuck? They promised us the
apocalypse. They assured us that we would likely be dead tomorrow. So we
charged it all. And we dropped out of school in record numbers. We drank
and did drugs that did damage like no others before. We had sex with so
many people passing so many deadly diseases that it became the butt of
many jokes. (Pun Intended) We weren't "Generation X" we were "Generation
Fuck it". But we did not die, at least not all of us. And society did
not collapse. We even figured out a way to pay off the national debit,
sort of. AIDS was conquered by the lowly condom. Crack was relegated to
the ghettos and trailer parks and PCP actually vanished on its own.
Metal detectors went up in the schools and gun control began its uphill
battle. The world was fixing itself, despite us.
So where is a post apocalypse Punk supposed to go when the apocalypse
never happens?
That my friend is a story for another time.
Thank you,
From just another American
~Kid Kaos
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