Mike Mellor: Man, I woke up this morning (Thursday) and it's suddenly Summer, like we just skipped past Spring. You know what my favorite thing is about Summer?
Brendan Hogan: Public, drunken arguments on the street at night?
Mike: Well, I love those, too...but no. It's Hot Pants!
Brendan: Ha. Yes, I'll take that any day of the week, any season.
I thought you were going to say that your favorite part is the students vacating town.
They can bother mom and dad again with this for a few months.
Mike: Hahaha. Still, decades later, sometimes I find myself singing the verse in my head:
"Your pop caught you smoking, and he said, 'No way!'
That hypocrite smokes two packs a day
Man, living at home is such a drag
Now your mom threw away your best porno mag"
Does that sound as awful to folks our parents' age as this sounds to me?
Brendan: The thing is that the Beastie Boys wrote their song as a total farce. They were making fun of the people who went on to use that song as their personal party-hearty anthem. Of course, the meanings of songs are often taken out out context by those who connect with them, and are thus assigned new context and meaning in the process. It's the same fate assigned to Nirvana's "Polly", which is a song about sexual abuse that people sing along to like it's a lullaby or something, or like Reagan using "Born in the USA" as an anthem of American exceptionalism on the campaign trail in '84. I'm not sure Kesha is being subversive, though. I could be wrong. I'm too old to tell. Always have been, actually.
But speaking of being too old, what's with baby boomers and their monopoly on good-time youth culture? Maybe Kesha really is onto something. Maybe she represents a new Summer of Love, done Millenial-style. Maybe it's just a big middle finger to this:
Mike: It's Ke$ha, Brendan.
But I think you might be on to something. I seriously doubt Ke$ha is being intentionally subversive, but one thing I love about the culture of Millennials is that it owes nothing to the baby boomers.
I don't know what it is about those damn narcissists, but ever since the '60s happened the boomers have been shoving their romanticized, revisionist histories of themselves in our faces. I swear, people between the ages of 30 and 45 know more about their parents' culture than they do their own.
Thankfully, the kids these days don't give a fuck, and they have the DIY internet to shield themselves from the crap the old people put on TV to tell you how cool they were.
God bless them.
Brendan: Ah, it's just rich kids acting like rich kids have always acted. Too much time, money, and comfort are all the ingredients you need to start celebrating a great Summer. Amen.
Dark Was the Night airs on WUMB Saturdays from 8pm-midnight.
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