Has It All Been Done?

 

I am beginning to have great concerns that culturally everything I see now is a repeat.  Like you, I have almost unlimited options for music and film.  Every new movie release trailer I see I immediately think "I know what that is and I've seen that."  A big summer blockbuster movie like F1 comes out and within two seconds you know the older driver finds redemption, a love interest is the confrontational journalist, and a friendship is formed painfully with the young hotshot other driver after some dust ups.  Gee... I wonder if Brad Pitt has to make a sacrifice at the end of the film to allow the young kid to win "The Big Race" while finding that real satisfaction is helping others achieve their dreams instead of selfishly pursuing his own?  The other options are movies somehow banged out from video games or C Level superheroes.  You ever wonder why the General Population isn't outraged at handing an autocracy to The New Christian Nazi Grift Boyz, just remember that they're all lining up to see The Minecraft Movie.  They're too busy to worry about their grandma's healthcare.  Fucking A.  

I keep sniffing around trying to find exciting new music, but we are in this weird time where if you're in your 20s, you think the coolest shit that ever happened was the late 1970s California light rock sound with just a touch of indie dissonance.  Why does every band playing Mahall's and The Grog Shop look like Seals and Crofts if they shopped at Urban Outfitters?  I get it when I'm not into whatever pop garbage is on top of the charts.  I have never been into that, so that's par for the course.  Dua Lipa is the same old bullshit recycled from 1976.  Lots of people prefer junk food, and that's what pop is, the Taco Bell of music.  Still, this alleged "indie scene" really feels like a fallow time at the moment.  Or... did I just get to the end of all my options?  The big ideas are done and now I need to go backwards to see what I missed?  

The problem is there is just so much shit out there, all of it screaming for your attention at the same time, it's easy to miss something you'd be jacked up about because you were trying to avoid some ad to go see 80 year old AC/DC come to town to scrape all the Gen X money into their pockets before heading to the Euro Open Air Festivals.  It's just so exhausting to try and find it.  Is it just me, or was it actually better when you bought a few records and then digested them to see if you liked them?  I don't think anyone's attention span is long enough to make it through sampling a full song anymore.  That was the joy of radio.  You had to grit your teeth through hearing Toto's "Africa" because maybe, just maybe, they'd play a Zeppelin song next.  As a result of everyone's quick trigger finger now, unless you capture their attention in the first 5 seconds, they are looking for the cozy familiar sound of a Nirvana hook just to allow their synapses to relax for a second.  

I've been watching a great deal of baseball.  Some days I feel great satisfaction watching "my" Brewers continue to exceed expectations.  Yet on others my focus is on the Colorado Rockies laser intensity on destroying my "White Sox worst record" bet.  I might have to white knuckle this "Guardians Over 79" bet, but I hedged that with a SF Giants over.  Yes, on any given night I receive conflicting good/bad news from the perpetual baseball season.  It's a summer of conflicting emotions.  White Sox lost to the Guardians... Brewers beat Cubs... Guardians losing to the As... Giants are beating Colorado... Let me sort this out.  Is this good or bad for me?  Hmmmm.  

My only recourse now is to check out "bands other musician dudes like but I didn't get" while I watch baseball with the sound off, generally betting against the Rockies whenever they play a team with a winning record and a healthy starter.  I'm in luck today as the Brewers play the Rockies this afternoon.  I also decided to see my particular version of an AC/DC show, watching the Chameleons UK play a set.  I last saw them in 1987 I think at Peabody's in the Flats.  Now I'll be at a casino, sort of like seeing The Turtles if this was 1992.  I need to remind myself to say, "I saw them in 89" to as many disinterested people as possible while the band probably (hopefully) plays songs they wrote in the intervening 36 years.  It's a little grim.  I better wander out of the house more often to go see some one syllable named band at a squat.  Do they still have those?  Squats?  I'm out of it.