The Summer of '57

I’ve been think a lot lately about the summer of 1957. I bet that would have been the absolute best time to live.

I think the reason so many people get nostalgic for the nifty fifties, is that it was a time of blissful ignorance. To me it sure looked like a time of engineering masterpieces. Being a car guy, I welcome anyone to dispute that 1957 *wasn’t* the best year for ALL American cars as far as looks and function. The ’57 Chevy, the ’57 Ford, and my personal fave: The 1957 Oldsmobile 88 with the J2 Rocket. Damn! 60’s muscle cars are cool, but just way too over-the-top.

We were also in the ‘rocket’ age of another guise. Sputnik was launched, and we were working feverishly to get into space too, even going so far as to hire former Nazi scientist Werner Von Braun.

There just seemed to be more of a common goal-to make the country better, and it all fell gradually by recession, Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam and the anti-establishment, disco, Wall Street coke fiends, the sex-obsessed ‘90s and to an apathetic now…crumbly cement dust and a torn up sign of Uncle Sam. Everyone would much prefer to step on someone to get ahead rather than help them up. It’s too sad, and it really only seems to be America. I wonder why so many others try to emulate us.

I get really optimistic sometimes about the future of the country, but I really doubt even the great Barack Obama can do anything to change the mood of a nation that would probably be in the midst of a civil war if it wasn’t so god damn lazy (and the red-staters have more guns).

What do you go to work for? I was thinking about this the other day. I don’t have a structured reason to go to work other than to finance more expensive versions of things that I already have. I had an old car that was paid for in $700 cash, but I had to go right out and buy one for $18K. I have a house that’s virtually free for me to live in, and yet I’m in an endless pursuit to spend $1500 a month on a mortgage. What for? I’m living very comfortably right now, why fuck it up? ‘Cause everyone else is.

I don’t know where I’m going with this…I was just thinking about this day in age, and how the media has completely fucked everything up from just about every angle you view it from, and the government has acted as it’s marionette for the last 8 years.

The glamour of Hollywood in 1957 versus now is unreal too. I mean, this country has always had an unhealthy obsession with celebrities, but I kind of appreciate the censorship of the old days versus the in your face, every gory detail we get now. I curse John McCain for bringing in those ditzy bitches to this race, even if it was in jest.

And I’m not discounting McCarthyism and segregation; both awful things, but to be honest, had I lived then, I doubt either would have affected me in my day to day wanderings.

Baseball, Dimaggio and Mantle and Ted Williams…no steroid crap. Why can’t people just do the honorable thing and drink themselves to death like Babe Ruth for Christ’s sake. The Brett Favre thing pisses me off, and I could normally care less about football. Fuck your publicity stunts…seriously.