Saturday, February 06, 2010

The 1970's redux and a 3ft tall Jesus.

Back in the 70's (that's the 1970's not the 1870's) in the wee dark land of heather, whiskey, haggis and mutton dingling that I sprang forth from, there used to be a company called "Alpine Soft Drinks" that delivered soda to your house in converted milk carts. Every Thursday he'd leave bottles of whatever you ordered on your doorstep and you'd have a nice bit glass of cola with your fry up. It's no wonder the Scots lead the world in tooth decay, heart attacks and self-depreciating humor.

I also remember that you got 1 pence back from the delivery guy for every bottle you returned. You could then take this 1 pence down to your local corner store and buy a bazooka joe gum from a Pakistani guy. The gum had a little comic in it and if you collected enough wrappers you could send away for stuff like X-ray specs that would allow you to look through the bras of the laydeez. Sadly, Alpine soft drinks is long gone, the x-ray specs never worked and the Pakistani guy probably wants to kill us all now.

I've been obsessing about the 1970's lately as we seem to be entering this period of economic recession and political turmoil. People are running around freaking out and crying that the world is coming to an end but I know it isn't. We are just collectively travelling back in time to the 1970's.

Everyone is bankrupt, the poor are financially bankrupt and the rich are morally bankrupt. Al Queda is the bogeyman now, in the 1970's the PLO was the bogeyman. The only difference in this case is that the PLO had a political agenda and not a nutty religious one. Religious nutters are much worse. We have a progressive (by American standards) President, it was Carter then, it's Obama now. See, we are basically living in 1977, it's just that the religious loonies are more prevalent and the music is way way worse. Carter could dance to the Clash, Obama has to dance to Creed.

The 80's was the decade that brought us Thatcher and Reagan and the mass embracing of free market economics. When the pendulum swings it swings hard and that is my fear. If we have President Palin in 2012 then we are fucked, someone needs to check the Mayan history archives for mentions of a woman in glasses who brings about Armageddon.

"And lo the holy roller bitch did smite the earth with fire".

The 70's were a time of innocence and childhood (hence my allusion to Alpine soda in the first paragraph) that I remember fondly, certainly a lot more fondly than the 1980's, when in August 1981, my childhood ended with my Dad's death.

Oh great now I just ruined my warm fuzzy nostalgia vibe.

How the fuck did I get from delivery soda to Sarah Palin to dead Dad? My mind appears to have become a mass of random thoughts and fears that are all coming to the forefront at once and screaming for attention.

Psychologists apparently believe that humans spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about sex, food and death. The reasoning being that sex is what brings us into the world, food is what keeps us here and death is what takes us out of here. Basically it is someone with a university education explaining the phrase "cradle to the grave". I wish my mind would stick to sex, food and death because all this other shite is getting me down.

Another random thought struck me recently when I read that theaverage human height apparently grows about 1.5 inches every 100 years.

Does this mean that Julius Caesar was a midget leading legions of midgets? Does it mean that if you met Genghis Khan you might just trip over him? Does it mean Jesus was probably the same height as Hervé Villechaize?

My friend conjured up this great image of Herve on the cross on Fantasy Island shouting "It's a plane, it's a plane!".

Does it also mean that all those little crosses that Christians wear around their necks are almost life sized?

It's hard being a thinker. Nothing makes sense.