This is going to be a hard one to explain but what if you had a therapist or counselor or maybe even a friend that was a social worker and they just gave you the worst advice… like encouraging self-defeating behaviors, like a tour guide to bottoming out. How very Syd and Nancy, eh?? That’s kinda the concept behind “Anti…,” sure you could say if you don’t hold anything sacred, if you hold nothing serious, it’s just a cop out, it’s a way to be dismissive of the world, without having to take stock, without taking accountability. It ain’t about that. That ain’t the bag we are swimming in here baby!!!
Okay anti… can be so unexpected. Exactly the opposite from the norm & pretty liberating to embrace. Case in point, I was part of this running team doing the Sawtooth Relay… get in a van with 6 runners and everyone runs from Stanley to Ketchum. Typically there’s the motivational cheering associated with endurance running events and that’s all fine and good… but it really doesn’t do a thing for me. Not that’s it’s not appreciated but seriously, it ain’t my bag baby!! So my College work bestie, Courtney S. & her hubs had their two kids along for the ride… & I did a contest for when I was running to who could shout the best insults at me…. you know… you stink!!! You’ll never make it up the pass because you are a washed up old man!!! The kids loved it!! I loved it!! It was funny as shit. That’s what I’m talking about. Anti!!
Rage Against The Machine’s politics were kinda all over the map ridiculous. Anti. You go full on anti- & nihilist and it misses the point at some point. But damn their anti-feelings about anything establishment created some great f-ing music didn’t it? Punk… it can be ridiculous how against everything they are. Ripe for satire but somewhere in that questioning and grittiness of the anti- is space to question, to leave yourself opening to tearing it all down… and then what if??? What if it was built up again, how would we like it to be? There’s value in that. And there’s value in music that just sounds like you are pissed off against the whole world!! Rail and rage.
So find yourself a friend, one your trust, who gets you, take a topic and just skewer it with making fun and extreme scenarios… see how far you can take the Anti…. and maybe you’ll destroy it and see what remains… maybe you’ll tear it down so far that there is hope and newness it what will he built back up again. But maybe just maybe, you’ll both lose yourself in laughing your asses completely off. And with way there’s value in that.
ZandMe's 999 Good Things 