Five Song Friday: Apocalypse Soon
This Week: Resurrected Friends, Old-Fashioned Resistance and Tough Band Love
I am completely unprepared for Global Thermonuclear War.
Honestly, I thought I had more time.
But after watching Biden and Putin try to out-rally each other this week, it feels like I should pick up the pace.
Both leaders appeared on big stages to deliver strong words with the low-to-medium energy of an end-of-quarter Foot Locker sales meeting.
There was plenty of pomp and circumstance. And flags. So many flags.
I’m not sure how much longer these two can long-distance flirt without throwing some punches. There is SO much will they/won’t they tension in the air…. something has to give.
All this foreplay reminds me of a scrap I saw at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Two dudes in the foyer were wicked amped to fight, but they just flexed and lurched and barked “Do YOU wanna go?” at each other for 10 minutes.
Eventually a bystander got bored and lobbed a very wet Carolina Reaper boneless into the mix. Then BOOM, everything went bananas.
We’re basically dealing with the same thing.
While Putin and Biden are locked in stare-down mode, a wet spicy chicken wing could come from anywhere. China. North Korea. Canada.
Then it’s BOOM, bananas and… bombs. Lots and lots of bombs.
I’m not sure how to get ready for this. Start digging a bunker?
Maybe stock up on canned goods and bottled water. Order a truckload of survival buckets from Jim Bakker.
Is the post-apocalyptic wasteland going to be strictly keto? Should I get more bone broth?
I’m way out of my depth here.
Which is weird because I grew up during the Cold War, back when both sides never took their fingers off the trigger. You would think all of my “how to survive a nuclear attack” training would come right back, like riding a bike. But I’m drawing a blank.
Honestly, I don’t recall getting much practical, actionable advice back then. We were mostly fed a steady diet of crippling fear.
We skipped that duck-and-cover nonsense in school. The best we got was “don’t look directly at the blast” and “after 5 minutes, all of your skin will fall off.”
Then, weirdly, “Make sure you pick it up, because skin will be a currency more valuable than gold in the godforsaken hellscape of a radioactive Earth.”
It was confusing and gross and not at all helpful.
I remember the night we watched The Day After on ABC because we thought the movie would give us some pointers. Nope. Just Steve Guttenberg, a bunch of dead cows and sad people wearing sloppy bandages.
Of course, there were PLENTY of movies to get you ready for life afterwards. Forget about surviving, the 80s were a golden age of post-apocalyptic entertainment that taught you how to THRIVE.
I watched The Road Warrior, Escape from New York, 1990: The Bronx Warriors, and Solarbabies like they were TED Talks.
The lessons were clear: First, get yourself a dope (preferably armored) vehicle and an eye patch. Assemble a mohawked, machine gun gang on motorbikes (or rollerblades). And always be willing to shoot first (preferably with a flamethrower or crossbow).
Easy peasy, right? UNLESS you still haven’t gotten around to buying the first flamethrower.
Again, I thought I’d have much more time.
I assumed we’d nipped the whole doomsday thing in the bud back when the Berlin Wall crumbled. I figured our long-term plan was to wait it out. Give Russia enough rope to hang itself.
Let Putin throw fits until he gave himself a heart attack. Then we swoop in and rescue a beleaguered nation with Chick-fil-A and Krispy Kreme.
But then Putin sucker punched Ukraine.
And now I’m realizing that I should have been ordering gas masks and throwing stars on eBay this whole time. Guys, I could seriously hyperventilate right now just thinking about how many weapons I need to buy.
But maybe I’m getting stressed out for no reason.
I only live a few miles away from the largest naval base in the world. That place probably has two dozen warheads pointed at it. I’ve got nowhere to run to. Nowhere to hide.
Once all this goes down, I’ve got maybe ten minutes to set my out-of-office email and then it’s “goodbye Charlie.”
Going quickly might be better.
I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy and his post-apocalyptic wasteland didn’t sound nearly as fun as Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.
He painted a dirty and depressing picture of miserable cloudy days and cannibals. Cannibals? No thank you.
I’d rather leave on my own terms: huddling close with my loved ones, scarfing down an entire Entenmann’s coffee cake and listening to “Where Is My Mind?” by The Pixies.
Of course, NOT dying is preferred.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this mutually assured destruction thing is not a done deal.
But the global politics vibe is feeling a lot like Joe Pesci in GoodFellas… manic, agitated and just itching for somebody to say the wrong thing.
It’s scary when you think about it.
We’ve got two old white guys with nothing to lose.
One is a full psycho, dead-eyed former government assassin who is power-mad and drunk on rage.
And the other is Vladimir Putin.
Is there any way this ends with a whimper and not a bang?
Fingers crossed.
Otherwise, I’ll see you out in the wastelands!
Sincerely,
DJ CrankyPete
Five Song Friday 053
“Words and Guitar” - Courtney Barnett
Dig Me In is touted as a track-by-track tribute to Dig Me Out, the landmark 1997 album by Sleater-Kinney. I’ve done my research and this story checks out.
“Black Cab” - Jens Lekman
Swedish musician Jens Lekman had to reissue and re-record a couple of his older albums that were no longer available. “Black Cab” was one of those songs that was missing from streaming for a long while and finding it again was like reconnecting with an old friend.
But not like a really close friend. More like those people you see again after a long while and realize that you had completely forgotten they ever existed.
Not in a bad way. Your lives just took different paths. The space in your brain was needed for other things, so after a certain length of time, any notion of them was deleted. To you, they were essentially dead. But in life, they were very much still alive.
And to be clear, you didn’t THINK they were dead. You didn’t think of them at all. So when you finally saw them again you weren’t like, “Ah! A ghost!” It was more like, “Oh hey! I REMEMBER you!”
And then your brain looks around at all the boxes and stacked papers inside of itself and thinks, “Great. Where are we going to find room for this asshole?”
“Divisive” - We Have Band
Is there any way for this country to get back to the way it was? Once upon a time you could always count on your neighbor to have your back if the aliens invaded or the Communists parachuted into town on a Wednesday afternoon. These days? I don’t know what happens if a much more powerful external enemy threatens our existence.
Do we let our differences weaken us to the point that we become an enslaved planet? Or can we put aside all of the bumper stickers and yard signs, forget our socio-political, religious and ideological differences and collaborate long enough to find an exploitable weakness inside of the mothership? I hope so. That would be great.
“Brand - New - Life” - Young Marble Giants
Back in 1980, the Welsh band Young Marble Giants said, “You will get only ONE full-length album from us and you will love it.” Everybody was like, okay whatever. And then it happened and everybody was like, oh no! Can we have more? And the band was like, no. And the people said, but we LOVE it. And the band said, of course you do. The people said please, but the band would not budge. Then the people cried and the band couldn’t stand to see the people cry so they gave the people some EPs and live albums and a compilation. Then the band said, NO MORE! [The End]
“1988” (The Allergies Remix) - Roast Beatz, The Allergies, Koaste
I enjoy a fun, bouncy mash-up of old-school rap beats, hooks and samples. Maybe too much for my own good. If you want me to apologize for this? I hope that you are prepared to wait forever.
Listen on Spotify
Listen on YouTube Music
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!
“Be groovy or leave, man” ― Bob Dylan