The iron is hot. The

October 28, 2002

The iron is hot. The door could open to a the new freak era. The yardstick could be longer. It strikes me that the conservatism of our time is different than the conservatism of the 50’s. This new conservatism consumes outlandish behavior, neuters it and then spits it back out to aimlessly walk the earth with its new lobotomy and a benign smile. Rave culture is hardly subversive. Porn is mainstream. Slacker chic is so depressing it barely exists. Pot is pretty much legal. There is no good acid. New punks and hippies are not about social change (see slacker chic and common consumer affiliation). Even as late as the Vancouver of the 80’s punks were blowing up power stations and shooting Brinks guards. Instead of careening off the musical corner into a new void of improvisation our modern jam bands all sound like old jam bands. It was a richer existence for the great Frank Zappa. Look at the world he got to work against. These were real stinky, funky, drugged out, R&B loving, racially integrated crazed freaks in a world of military haircuts, soda shops, barber shop quartets, unjust wars and draft boards. In his own words, “it was a more colourful time”. If you dyed your hair in my hometown in the early punk days you would be surely beaten. If you were a small-town freak in the early sixties you stood a good chance of spending at least a year in a wheelchair or a month in jail for your crimes (see Zappa). My son has attended elementary school with both dyed hair and a mohawk haircut. Nobody even noticed. Then: lifestyle vs lifestyle. Now: one lifestyle under corporate sponsorship. Zappa was definitely a “freak” and not a hippie. I mean “freak” in a rich, noble and glorious way. There is more libertarian anarchy to the freak way than the quasi socialism of the hippie way. This is why California remains an intoxicating place. It spawned fast food and rooted the crawling ivy of the right wing Disney morality BUT it also spawned Captain Beefheart, skateboards, bike gangs and the Merry Pranksters. It is a place of possibilities. The brain drain pulls original thinkers from other places and drops them here for the good money and the good weather. Vancouver holds hope in this way as dangerous artists discover that you can live on the street year round in this temperate climate. Those from Canadian points east can make their way here instead of chancing the border in these post 911 times. As we insulate our countries against real threats perhaps Vancouver has a chance to be a place of possibilities instead of a bogus world rec room and US film industry sweat shop. The iron is hot.