Saturday, February 03, 2007

Culture In The News

Posted by olvlzl.
Years ago, think it was in Mother Jones magazine, there was a cartoon. A nude, fat and out of shape, aging man, standing on a chair, his equally nude and out of shape wife on his shoulders, ready to dive into bed. The woman said “So this is it, Harold. This is as kinky as we’re going to get.”

There was a major disappointment in the Boston Cartoon scare, dealt with below and a minor one. The other one was seeing clips of Aqua Teen and the two dorks who pulled the stunt. I was in shock. This was it? This was what passes as edgy and risky in today’s pop culture? Oh, dear. A Turner Corporation cartoon as counter culture. I’m sorry to have to break this to anyone but there ain’t no counter in a culture like that one. If that’s what young people are settling for in the way of the edgy and the cutting edge, you’re settling for way too little. You deserve more.

Let me put it this way. Instead of those two - I don’t even know what the word for them is these days- idiots, let me suggest Jack Levine and Ed Sorel. One painting by Levine, one cartoon by Sorel has more edge and cuts a lot sharper than anything you’re going to get on TV. TV isn’t cool. The Cool won’t appear on TV.

It’s an odd position to be in. For probably the first time in history someone can be old fogey on the basis that youth culture is way too tame for them. It’s bland and commercial and stupid. That state of being is a counter-culture phenomenon of a totally unexpected variety. It’s a lot more surreal than a talking meatball and a white ditz in dreadlocks. Old people on the edge, young people grasping commercial security. It’s not right. It's against nature.