REMEMBERING SIMPLER TIMES

I don't have television, but I like to do a little "time traveling" on YouTube. (All things in moderation.)

Sometimes I'll sit for an hour and look up clips of bands from the 70s, including those I grew up with in Australia. Or old rugby league games. Or the great comedians of my lifetime. It always leaves me feeling good, if not a little wistful.

I'm not one to say that the good old days were always so good. But what I do miss is the simplicity that's lacking in today's world. Everything now is so fast, flashy, extreme-high-tech, replaceable, impersonal. Life has never been easier, nor harder.

I need to use computers and cell phones to some extent but I wouldn't be heartbroken if they all disappeared tomorrow. I preferred typing my work onto paper and having the luxury of being unreachable.

I miss the old ways. And my deceased heroes: Marc Bolan, Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks, Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, George Best... it's a long list. They had character, creativity. There are still such people today but they are not as valued. The trash floats to the top: it's cheaper to churn out, after all.

I miss substance. Ball games over video games. Talking over texting. Great rock bands over phony computer-programmed pop. I liked holding an album cover in my hands (I refuse to get an iPod). And now with these damn Kindle things they're trying to do the same thing with books. Books! Look, let's just get those data chips implanted in our brains now and get the whole rancid process of reductionism over with.

What of art? What of interpersonal interaction? What of doing things in "real time"?

Even TV, which has become the monster mindf*** of our age, used to have some innocence. It used to be, well, fun.

Not only has virtually everything in life become a commodity, we have become a commodity. We are not so much individual human beings anymore. We're mass audiences being sold to advertisers. We're demographics for the latest idiot TV vomit. We're test groups for the new hot product that nobody really actually needs. We're lemmings lining up to buy the same stuff everyone else is buying so we won't feel left out or "different." Sure, we still pay lip service to individualism but very few have the courage to live it.

I remember childhood summers of cricket in the nearby cul-de-sac, riding my bike all over creation, and "hunting" lizards. I remember mighty football fantasies in the backyard where I was the hero of the big game. Teenagers walking around with transistor radios held up near their ear. Riding the old "red rattler" trains into the heart of Sydney to see the latest movie starring Burt Reynolds or Clint Eastwood or Paul Newman. Or taking the train just a few suburbs over to the pool hall to shoot a few games.

There were no marathon cyber escapes or hours of video games. No "reality" TV obsessions or endless "celebrity" scandals filling the news shows and magazine racks.

There was just the world, and my mates and I couldn't wait to be out in it every day. It wasn't a world of air-conditioned everything and disposable this and that. It was a precious, flesh and blood thing.

So what's the moral here? Well, I truly believe that, despite what the technology gurus and corporate ratbags would tell us, we've lost more than we've gained. And that is especially sad for our kids -- which means we have to work harder to bring real substance and humanity to their daily lives.

The Who once sang "I hope I die before I get old." Well, I value life, but I hope I die before this whole anti-culture, mass acceleration thing goes much further. I have seen better days and they live in my memory.

Here are some clips I love that you might also enjoy:

Famous rugby league rivalry of the 70s;

The greatest rock band Australia has produced (in my opinion, the best anyone has produced);

Long before Borat or the stooge reporters of The Daily Show, there was Norman Gunston;

You've heard of AC/DC, well these blokes were just as good. But scarier.

The boys who run the show can keep their uber technology and their digital leisure. Their consumption addictions and gotta-have-it products. Their computerized cars and junk food and personalized plates and plastic surgeries and irrational fears and obsessive-compulsive lives.

I'll just keep my memories.

Take care and be careful what you value,
Adrian Zupp