Acerbic Commentary

ANTICHRIST SUPERSTAR

(or, "God Did NOT Give Rock And Roll To You")

[LOUD WARNING: If you are deeply religious and/or easily offended,
you may wanna go elsewhere...]

I wish you could have seen me last Saturday: standing in the entranceway of my neighborhood ShopRite food store, laughing hysterically. And what, pray tell, was the cause of such Flatline-ish merryment? Why, the following notice on the community bulletin board, which I quote below. Verbatim:

If I didn't have to work that Friday night, I'd be sorely tempted to attend just for the giggle factor. (I may still go Saturday, just to be perverse; if you're a Saturday attendee and you see a tall geek with glasses get escorted out for inappropriate laughter, that'll be da Flatline -- come up and say hi).

Sorry for the lack of reverence, but I can't honestly believe this kind of Deep Southern/Pentecostal nonsense actually exists north of the Mason-Dixon line, much less in the civilized 'burbs of America's most toxic state. I can almost imagine what they're going to cover: rock music makes kids shoot dope/rape little girls/hold up gas stations, Time/Warner is Satan's temple because they put out CD's by Tupak and Marilyn Manson, et hallelujah cetera. Followed by a nice big bonfire.

(Reminds me of an old "Bloom County" cartoon, where local Moral Majority bluenose Otis Oracle visited the local record store for some discs to torch. Holding up a Blondie record, he asked the hippie-dippie clerk, "Is this woman laden with moral turpitude?" Replied the clerk, "I dunno about that, but she is one wicked chick!" To which Oracle responded, "Excellent! We'll take a dozen copies.")

Rock and roll has always been about bucking parental authority, and often going to defiant extremes in the process. There's a telling scene in the film GREAT BALLS OF FIRE where Jerry Lee Lewis (Dennis Quaid) is pounding away on the 88's when teenage cousin-cum-wife Myra (Winona Ryder) walks in with some of her school chums, and they giggle about how their parents/teachers/preachers call that savage new sound "the Devil's music." To which Jerry Lee, with an impious grin, proudly retorts, "Well, they're right. It is the Devil's music." (Keep in mind, too, that we're talking the pre-integrated South of KKK posters exhorting parents not to let their kids buy "race records." For many of those folk, "black" and "devil" were virtually the same thing. And the same film takes pains to point out that Jerry Lee got most of his best licks from hanging out at roadhouses over on the "dark side of town.")

Don't get the idea, though, that God-fearing folk are completely amusical. Look at all the gospel-influenced singers who have cracked the pop charts: Aretha, Whitney, Mariah, ad infinitum. There's also the established genre of "Christian Contemporary Music," i.e. pop tunes for the Almighty. CCM's best-known artist is Amy Grant (even if she did horrify many of her die-hard fans by "going secular" in the Eighties with such Satanic offerings as "Baby Baby" and "Every Heartbeat"), but CCM's reach also includes country, soul, and even, God help us, heavy metal (the late, unlamented hair band Stryper).

Anyway, let's assume, just for the sake of arguement, that Jerry Lee was right and rock and roll is the devil's music. What I wanna know is this: Does Satan play a Stratocaster, or a Les Paul? Is he a Marshall-stack kind of guy, or does he go for Fender Dual Showmans? And for crying out loud, does he use a wah-wah pedal? 'Cuz as far as I'm concerned, that little foot toy really is the tool of the Devil.

(Y'all excuse me, I have to go burn in Hell now...)

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