Posts
There is a part of us that wants to believe there is a unified theory behind the everyday structures that blur all around us ...
that what we perceive as real is no more real than the mock buildings on a movie set.
Pssst.
Here is a secret:
There is a unified theory behind all of Tom Cruise's movies which explains America.
No fooling.
TOP GUN and COCKTAIL:
Young America was drunk on itself and pleasure and ambition which led to a terrible hangover.
Take JERRY MAGUIRE:
It is good at friendship, bad at intimacy, and really was that not America in the ’90s?
Or take his latest movies ...
they are all over the place, mirroring the fact that America is having an identity crisis.
Look behind most of his movies,
and you will find the government is not to be trusted, that the individual is at the mercy of corporate or political power ...
even his latest EDGE OF TOMORROW
tells of a insensitive, mulish military that will not listen to reason though it means the death of humanity.
What about ROCK OF AGES?
It reflects that modern America is locked in an existential search for Meaning.
Actually, I am just "funning" with you, my friends.
I just read that the author, Peter Bebergal, believed that the occult saved Rock N Roll.
I almost got a nose bleed when I read:
"To me, the truthfulness of the occult is irrelevant to the truth of this thing that’s called the occult imagination."
Say again?
Tell that to the many parents of Goth girls and Lost Boys who sought meaning in the occult
only to commit suicide at the end of a long road of depression and drugs.
Growing up in the 1970s,
Bebergal bore witness to a blossoming of rock music that brought with it a peripheral-yet-unshakeable association with the occult,
which dovetailed with his, and many other young people's. interest in the eerier fringes of pop culture.
He received his Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School ...
which lends weight to his words no matter how "out there" they may be.
He recalled being a kid and reading a quote from famed occultist Aleister Crowley:
“Do what thou wilt”—in the runoff groove of his brother’s copy of Led Zeppelin III.
"It was the mystique and the mystery—someone took the time to etch these letters into the runoff, and it was a difficult thing to find.
Not everyone knew about it. It was like uncovering some secret, esoteric wisdom."
That particular "wisdom" sanctioned what every teenager wants to do ... whatever he or she wants without censure.
How wise was that?
So I decided to make up the craziest "wisdom" I could and present it as fact to say:
just because a theory is "out-there" does not make it esoteric or wise.
Sometimes I think education shoves common sense out of some minds.
(I have two degrees, so what does that say of me?)
What do you think of
Peter Bebergal's theory?
It's not the number of degrees you have, but what you do with what you have learned that matters.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, the smarter one is, the less that person sees the truth.
ReplyDeleteA lot of bands presented an occultish or satanic image in the 70's because it was the hip thing to do.
D.G.:
ReplyDeleteSome of the wisest people I knew had no degrees at all, and I learned much from them!
Alex:
There is intelligent, then there is wise which is the accurate use of that intelligence.
Yes, if a path will bring in more money, it will be heavily traveled and then some, right? :-)
I don't know what he means.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
A number of occultic rockers have turned to Christ. A couple members of Korn. Dave Mustaine. Alice Cooper. Robert Plant has made similar statements as had Ringo Starr. U2 have been since day one. Mumford and Sons and Lenny Kravitz too. As that famous philosopher once said, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you'l get."
ReplyDeleteNow I feel like watching a bunch of Tom Cruises's movies for these hidden meanings. I only have a GED...so what does that say about me?
ReplyDeleteJanie:
ReplyDeleteI don't either nor, I fear, does he really! :-)
Rock N Roll has always been about more than the occult faction of its bands.
Stephen:
I rather trust Forest Gump's good heart than this fellow "wisdom" any day.
It's the rare road that doesn't turn. Live long enough and one hopefully acquires some depth and perspective, right?
Glad to hear about those rockers.
Chrys:
I actually enjoyed GHOST PROTOCOL and EDGE OF TOMORROW, especially that last.
Your GED says you cared enough about yourself and your future to get it. My Stetson's off to you!
It is about never stopping learning.
THE WALKING DRUM by Louis Lamour (actually a 12th century European and Asian adventure) has for its hero a young man who triumphs over his many enemies by learning more than they in Moslem libraries which held the learning of the past in them. Alas, Moslem zealots have since outlawed learning from the past. Sigh.