Joe Moody’s Web Adventures

The reign of televangelists is taking a beating as one of its most prominent leaders, Jimmy Swaggart, repeats over and over that he has sinned.

The simplicity of the ’80s dissolves in front of our faces, disappearing like beer from a Keg in someone’s absent parents’ living room. Too many people can’t hold their liquor, as evidenced by the doll heads floating in the aquarium, exploded eggs in the microwave.

We cap off the night off at a hotel room abandoned by a previous party, filling its roaring whirlpool with beer bottles floating clashing together in rhythm.

There is no greater message in this recklessness, but that is part of what makes it more reckless. It is like a return to James Dean “Rebel Without a Cause” days, long before Haight-Ashbury bloomed with perhaps too many rebels with too many causes.

The old hippie parents now cringe like their parents once did at the senselessness of youth.

I get my first piece published in the local paper, it’s a satirical take on The Who’s song “My Generation”:

Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation

People don’t need to put us down,
Just because we haven’t got around.

Things I say seem awfully cold,
Seems we died before we grew old.

No use talkin’ ’bout my generation–
Coke or Pepsi is the choice of this nation.

Lucy in the sky singin’ ‘You’ve got to be free,’
Is now a satellite beamin’ us MTV.

Senators and congressmen never heeded the call.
Our first heroes: businessmen snortin’ up in the stall,

Hippies who danced at Woodstock,
Now chase profits in Wallstreet Stock.

‘To everything turn, turn, turn,’
For all our things, earn, earn, earn!

The carefree who shouted ‘Make love, not war,’
Are stifled in the eyes of the AIDS-ridden whore.

The new mother nature takin’ over:
An electronic wasteland mocking the poor.

Where are the protests against what we’ve done to this place?
Nature protests alone in floods, famines and earthquakes.

Where are the guardians, the prophets of doom?
Or were they the silent screams in the womb?

Our progress is regress, looking within.
But who needs religion? Why worry ’bout sin?

Turn on the television, tune in and tune out.
What will awaken us, nuclear fallout?

Forget your future when you forget your past.
Where is our revolution, are we too fast?

Agree or not with this perception,
I’m first to admit, I’m no exception.

Ain’t tryin’ to cause no big sensation,
Just talkin’ ’bout my generation.