Back in the day we told each other we wanted anarchy. We wanted to live on a commune where every friend we ever loved lived across the street and we wanted everyone to have that.
We wanted flowers, of course we did, and all the best movies on DVD to watch on a busted paisley couch in a vast living room with the lights turned down. We wanted to go to the clubs. We wanted to dance -- not so much me because I can't dance -- but I wanted to watch you dance. All of you.
Back in the day we sat in hammocks and watched the sun-soaked sea of trees on the far side of a dusty road swing in the breeze like children atop the Appalachian foothills and we sang, of course we did, as someone strummed a guitar. The world was ending but the world is always ending and it was enough to know that it was ending and always ending. It was afternoon, anyway, and the sky was clear.
A car puttered by. It was June, or something, the driver smoked a cigarette and waved bye bye Miss American Pie and we waved back and it was good to know you while it lasted, that was back in the day when we were anarchists.
That was in the days when we believed that spirit moved in moments of conversation back and forth between people like a brightly-lit ghost, or like laughter, a satyr-god; and the world, all of it, perfectly, was a hand-drawn postcard. The whole world resided in the way radio stations fade in and out on a road trip.
We believed the world was ending but the world is always ending and it was enough to know that it was ending and always ending. There is always a new one just around the corner and perhaps this time the world will see the possibilities inherent in the realiziation that it has just been born. We don't need fear. That was what I believed.
Here is what I still believe:
When you get a paycheck, buy an album.
Call in sick when a friend needs your help.
The rest is just details.
But now is now and it's a Friday night, girlfriend, and I want to know if you still believe what we all once believed and I want to know if it still feels like it could all still be real after this . . .
After the unexpected turn at the turn of the century it turned on a dime and we were back fighting battles we'd won so many yesterdays ago. What do you do when progress means getting back to 1993, the year Sleepless in Seatle premiered, for Christ's sake?
The very worst thing that could happen, now, is moderation. The very worst thing we could do is negotiate with a worst case scenario in the hope of winning endless doldrums. The worst we could do is to do what is utterly predicted of us.
We wanted to change the world before Bush changed it for us. We either still mean it or we don't.
The world is ending but the world is always ending and it is enough to know that the world is ending and always ending. A new one always begins. It's a Friday night, girlfriend.
Do you still dance?