September 6, 2020 – A thirty-something friend of mine just sent me a text with a copied image of something Carl Sagan said. She said she thinks I have said words like this for years.  Here’s the excerpt:

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing back to superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to ten seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations, pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

My response to my younger friend was my recognition of my own age, that I can remember a different world. She pointed out this excerpt was from the 1970s. The 1970s is my comparison. That’s when Carl Sagan wrote this – the 1970s. It makes me wonder what it was like in earlier decades.  

I do remember more than I should about music. Last weekend I saw a countdown on TV of the top songs of 1969. I did remember them, not sure if I remembered them from 1969; I was a wee thing, but perhaps some I remember, although this music probably still played in the 1970s when my impressions of the world were formed. That list included Elvis Presley, Suspicious Minds. The Beatles, although I can’t remember which song, Led Zeppelin, Whole Lotta Love, that song Aquarius, and the Archies, Sugar, Sugar. That’s all I saw, and all I remember is they said that Elvis was number 2. I don’t know what the countdown was though because I just checked Billboard Hot-100 singles for the year 1969, and it’s not the same. Perhaps the TV show was for the last week of 1969. I don’t know. But any way you look at it, the charts were super different then that what is on them now. Just look up the latest song by Cardi B about her female anatomy and you’ll see what I mean.

Friday I was super wiped out so what I chose to watch on TV were MTV videos on the classic channel. I watched about two hours of a special for metal videos. I’ve watched those shows before on MTV, and as the night gets longer, the videos become actual metal, not really my thing, but at the start, they usually play 80s metal. Friday was no exception.

I suppose because the drummer for Quiet Riot, Frank Banali, recently passed, MTV featured about five Quiet Riot videos, all in a row.  There was one that was futuristic. It starts in some future nihilistic time when people are putting guitars into wood chippers. The video starts with the words, in the future, there will be, then a man comes on a TV and says “no rock and roll”, “no rock and roll”. I’m going to ignore that they got what a future TV would like all wrong, but the video came true. I’m sure it was not conceivable then to think rock, even guitars, would be tossed aside seeing as how everything was rock-based back then. Guitars truly were ubiquitous. But rock was indeed replaced, and replaced with a world that wasn’t really comprehensible then. Although perhaps it was, but only to Carl Sagan; only nobody listened. He must have been a huge rock fan.

It honestly does seem like the future is now. A nihilistic future. In the future, there will be: a pandemic; a shut down; uncertainty; protests; civil unrest; people not even knowing what’s next. Oh and that no guitars part? That’s true too. Even the rock radio commercials for Labor Day say this is the end to the worst summer ever. They are playing party songs on the radio. Party songs are 80s rock – a trip back to the days of yore to make us feel better.

I don’t know though. Somehow we have to retake it all. America needs something to give to her children and grandchildren, or her grandchildren and great grandchildren if we are talking the offspring of Carl Sagan.

This weekend marks a new season. I know Fall hasn’t officially started, but you know the adage – no white after Labor Day; that means it’s Fall starting Tuesday. Sure, it’s 109 today in the cooler part of Los Angeles. It’s 99 in my house, although I don’t think my indoor thermometer has the capacity for triple digits, so who knows what it really is. Still, despite the heat, I want to welcome Fall. I hope it brings hope, real hope, not just the kind that politicians talk about to get elected. Yes, it’s going to have an election. That will be interesting. Oh and I believe this season will tell us what happens to the pandemic. That’s the scientist part of me, well actually the mathematician part of me, talking. It’s going to be interesting to watch this new world. Because I’m pretty sure the future of Carl Sagan’s words is here. Certainly, the future of Quiet Riot’s video is here – ubiquity has become antiquity. Everything we know is in the past. Now, what do we do?