RETURN TO SNAKELAND - Thirty-Sixth Fragment

* This is a fictionalized account of some shit that actually happened. All the names, locations, etc. have been changed to protect the innocent as well as the guilty. – JG *

The nation didn’t give a shit about Hardcore in the 1980s, though – they were too busy worshipping at the altar of the 1960s. This piece really sort of sums up my feelings about the 1960s, and the baby boomers in general. Can’t wait until they get even older – a bunch of ancient, cranky hippies demanding ecologically sound adult diapers. Great.

PLATO’S MYTH OF THE DINNER TABLE

The 20^th Century set a table for you and, although stodgy and formal, it was bountiful in the extreme. Milk, honey, meats, cheeses, fresh baked breads, soup, nuts. You sat and ate for a good long while, and then you became satiated, and then you became bored. You began to pound your little fists on the table, and to stamp your little feet, and you told the 20^th Century that you no longer wanted to wait until after your meal for dessert, you wanted your dessert first. And you began a call-and-response chant, and it sounded like this:

“What do we want?” “DESSERT!”

“When do we want it?” “NOW!”

And the 20^th Century indulged you again, and you took it. You took all the dessert you wanted, and you wanted it all. And you ate and ate and ate and ate and you finally got sick off all that sweet stuff, but still you ate and ate and ate and ate. And eventually you consumed all the dessert in the world, but you weren’t worried because you knew that you could always return to the table, to that bland, formal, stodgy meal that never ends. And so you did.

Then we arrived at the table, young, scrawny and hungry. You proceeded to tell us all about the dessert you ate, and how sweet it was, and how it seemed like it would just stretch on forever. But it didn’t. And we listened, and we jostled your elbows at the table to try and get some of that bland old regular dinner that you were now hogging, and we asked where we could get some of that sweet, sweet stuff. You told us then that we couldn’t, that they don’t make it like that anymore.

And then you proceeded to tell us again and again and again and again for the rest of our fucking lives.