Not a Care In The World

Yo, does anybody give a shit anymore? Seriously. Does anyone care about ANYTHING anymore. I ask this to everyone who is NOT one of the 90,000 that pack football stadiums across the North East every Sunday. Those football fans definitely care about something. With the price of a football ticket these days? They better care. Now how about the rest of the world? Take a look around you and tell me if people are as passionate today about anything as they were around 15-20 years ago. Back in the early 90's Pearl Jam's second album Vs's sold almost 900,000 copies during it's first week alone. Last year they put out Backspacer, a big mainstream comeback album that sold less than 200,000 in it's first week. A lot of the blame that poor album sales get today point toward illegal downloading and You Tube. Some might say the quality of music is just terrible and that's why sales are in the toilet. Have you ever wondered WHY everything sucks though? Could it be because people just don't care anymore, and those who are still interested in whatever junk their fed? Each year I try and make 25-30 concerts a year. Each year I less and less of a volume of voices singing songs back to the bands. 50 years ago the Beatles stood still on Ed Sullivans stage and the earth shook as girls fainted, guys looked on in envy, and parents feared the worst. Now the biggest pop stars in the world wont have a tenth of the career the Beatles did. There won't be a fill-in-the-blank-mania because people just don't care enough. Remember just 15 years ago when the Internet was in it's infancy? You still knew what town Nirvana was from, who the original drummer was, why the resented their own fame, and something about all three members of the band right? Back in 2004 my little brother was 14. He was born smack in the middle of the "information" era. Nirvana was his favorite band. He showed me his Myspace page that was decked out in Nirvana wall paper and sent me pictures of his notebooks with his Nirvana artwork all over them. I related. I used to draw the Ozzy and Randy Tribute album cover all over my notebooks while teachers bothered me with learning. I could tell you everything about Randy Rhoads back in 1992 when i was 14. How he started in Ozzy, how he began his career in Quiet Riot, how he died, when he died, where he died. My 14 year old brother asked me if I would take him to see his favorite band Nirvana when he was old enough. ??????? I slowly began to explain that a heroin addiction and an error in judgement with a shotgun made that impossible TEN years earlier. My brother had no idea. Not he seemed to care much that the lead singer of his "favorite band" had been dead for a decade and he was completely out of the loop. Maybe the reason bands today sing about how no one cares and sound like they don't care is because NO ONE CARES? What about T. V.????? I understood the defense of David Chase's cop out end of the Sopranos. I figured there would be some more outrage over the non ending to a show people followed religiously for 6 seasons over eight years, but the whole artistic aspect of the cut to black at least painted a valid argument. Steven Van Zandt who played Silvio on the show did annoy me with his quote about how people need to understand that they can't always have things their way and in real life, things don't always end the way they want them to. Really Steve? Thanks for the lecture on how hard life can be you multi millionaire, but the Soprano's was a TELEVISION show. In T. V. things have beginning, a middle, and an ending. It's a little insulting to think someone would invest eight years in a show and be okay with it not giving a conclusive ending. I found it more insulting that so many people were okay with it. How about LOST? Lost was a mystery, with intricate plot twists that unfolded with each episode and stretched years. A conclusive ending to that show was very deserving to those who stayed with it for six years. Instead of wrapping up small things like why they traveled through time and made half the cast live in 1977, why some characters were killed and then brought back to life, and who some of these villans were who kidnapped, killed, and manipulated others all in the name of the island over. You know small stuff. The writers scrapped about five years worth of mystery and gave viewers this flowery 1 hour spectacle of about how what you do in life doesn't really matter because you'll all meet up with your true love in heaven when it's over. Instead of getting angry that they invested six years in what became 400 unanswered questions, people swallowed it and accused others of "not getting it." Others said "Its just a T. V. show, so what. I loved the ending" Just a T. V. show? Then why the fuck did you spend six years watching it/ What the hell happened to people? Why would they just accept all of this GARBAGE that's being forced down their throats? When did people lose their passion for things? Sure things aren't pretty in the US right now. They weren't before either and people had the passion to call the country out. Today? No one seems to give a crap about much of anything. Those who watch, listen, read. It seems they only have a passing interest. I'm not expecting any B-O-O-K-S BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS chants in the parking lot of Barnes and Noble, but I am hoping people just start giving a shit again