Alice Is Wonderland

I was channel surfing tonight, which can be a dangerous thing to do. Like a moth drawn to light, I found myself stopping on Bill O'Reilly, and ridiculing him can be fodder on any night when I don't have a blog topic in mind. But there was only so much of his schtick I could take on this night, so I moved along. I stopped at CNN for about five minutes to check out the BS that they were spouting, and moved along again. Then, I landed on BBC World. First I heard the prim and proper newsreader giving a summary of the top stories. This was followed by an international weather report delivered by a guy named Matt Taylor, who looked and sounded like he couldn't be a day over 14. But after that came something truly worth the hunt: An interview with Alice Cooper.

I wouldn't classify myself as a huge Alice fan. I think his music is okay, although "Hello Hooray" is a favorite song of mine. I've never had the opportunity to see one of his live shows, which is really his bread and butter. But Alice is one of the most thoughtful and articulate people in the rock music industry, and listening to him speak is always compelling. He talked about how the Alice on stage is just a character he created, and how he is able to totally separate himself from the character except for those two hours when he's performing. He believes that people like Jim Morrison and Keith Moon and John Belushi died young because they felt they had to live up to their stage image all the time, and could not handle that kind of pressure 24/7. He also talked about his Christian faith. He said that he was raised a good Christian, and then got away from it for many years, but after doing anything and everything to be "the poster boy for sin", he thought there was "nothing left to do but commit suicide," so he went back to his roots.

I thought the most interesting thing he said was that he can't shock anybody anymore. Recall that this is a guy whose performances were banned in a number of cities back in the 70's because it was thought that he was promoting pure evil. Alice always considered his shows nothing more than high-tech burlesque, but a lot of community "elders" didn't understand the concept of performing art. Nonetheless, people were shocked and awed when he would have himself electrocuted and decapitated, or decapitate someone else. But Alice made the point that nowadays it is terrorists who cut people's heads off for real, and the video is shown on television, so what he and Marilyn Manson do should be put in their proper perspective as just theatre.

The interview got me thinking about how common perception changes over time. When the Beatles first came to America in 1964, they were considered threatening. If you look back at the footage of them from that time, playing innocent music stiffly and wearing suits, it's hard to imagine why they were seen as a bad influence on youth. Some things that are taken for granted one day are ridiculed generations later. Remember the old Rosie the Riveter documentaries from WWII that talked about women operating factory machines as if they were washing machines? Or all of those educational films from the 50's that are considered laughable today. ("Duck and cover!") We can laugh now, but there's no doubt that some of what we think is conventional wisdom now will be ridiculed in the future. And that's why we must always strive to move forward, and not fall back on dated ideas and prejudices.

As for Alice, it's too bad he didn't get to talk about golf during this interview, or at least in what was shown. He took up golf to do something to fill time on the road instead of drinking, and he has turned into an absolute nut. The guy apparently plays about 300 rounds a year. That places him very high in my books. Alice, if you're out there, how about a round some time? I'll even let your political leanings slide.