Listening: "Parabol/Parabola," Tool
Mentally Replaying: "Born to be Wild," Steppenworlf

Hilton Barred from using Song

Now normally I don't peruse the entertainment news but I'm not really sure what about the headline caught my attention. For the first few seconds during reading and then contemplating this story I was kind of thinking "right on" for John Kay. Everyone seems to bow to these celebs-because-they're-celebs to the point that the show they're on is all about exposing how out of touch they are. At least I think it is, judging from the SPAM I get, I don't really know much about their show.

I was just going to file the story away in my brain for potential use in Trivial Persuit V.5 or something and then move on, but then it struck me. The song was used in the movie Easy Rider, staring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, sex stars of their day.

And I can't get the thought out of my head: is this a castigation of the sex prevalent in the current young & wild generation? Is it propagating the condemnation of women's sexuality? I mean I'm used to hear older hipsters whine about modern popular media, and for the most part I hate it too - "The Simple Life" makes me VERY happy that I don't own a TV - but I wonder about subconcious motives.

Where along the way did it stop being ok to openly express ourselves, no matter how dumb it seemed to everyone else? What are the levels here that Kay and his bandmates would be stooping to, exactly? They don't like to see well off Caucasian Americans running around the country having a good time? That doesn't seem to jive.

Is it because it isn't subversive to do it anymore? Is it because being wild and crazy young 'uns is not only encouraged by the status quo it has been co-opted and corporately sponsored into oblivion? Or is it because women having it easy, with a history of "try anything once" just doesn't appeal to aging rockers the way men having it easy with a history of "try anything once" does?


I hope I don't sound angry or anything. I don't really care, honestly. The song belongs to Steppenwolf and the creative works that the chose to support or not support are an extension of the statements they wish to make. I'm pretty well used to, along with the rest of America it seems, to think of Paris Hilton as a mindboggling mass of non-substance produced by a dystopic view of the American Dream. As long as we can close our brains and just watch TV we can all pretend to be rich and carefree. Ok, well maybe that's just me.