The Atomic Cafe is a gripping film and a gruesome comedy. The documentary is a compilation of artifacts that have been used to allay national fears of apocalyptic doomsday devices. The Atomic Cafe may not provide the same satirical grin that Dr. Strangelove does, however, it does initiate ponderous wonder of how determined some are too anesthetize the masses into consenting to their own demise. The legend, and evolution, of pro nuke propaganda has effectively, and successfully, brought about an almost universal tacit consent, not to mention, malaise of “who cares” that objectively dismisses the radical toxicity of the entire nuclear option. Perhaps the preeminent metaphor for terrestrial termination, the nuclear bomb.
Joseph Campbell pointed out the destructive, technological, and impersonal power represented by the nuclear weapon has an antidote. The Grateful Dead, and the community of fans are “the answer to the atom bomb”. In this, the culture phenomenon of music enthusiasts that dedicate themselves to staying involved with the roots and rituals of together life / living performance art becomes its own metaphor. The Grateful Dead experience runs deep with connectivity. American and world musical heritage permeates the material. The diversity, universality, and intimacy of the songs, structures, and organically free forms tug at personal and collective DNA in ways that are perpetually novel to discover. One may likely find themselves in the music that is finding itself in us. We do this together collectively alone and together. It is no wonder that the Dead musical catalogue is among the most played, most referenced, and most relied on. The Grateful Dead’s founders came from different parts of American musical tradition. The amalgam, that is us, may get sensed and felt. In it is a connection the Bomb can’t blow apart. It is constructive, organic, and personal with resonant frequencies that transcend apparent differences. Mystically, community is spawned with memories we don’t know we have, spontaneities that defy restriction, liberties rooted in justice, and freedoms that can’t be contained.
The modern world has its fair share of high profile public figures telling us either what we need to do, or what they are doing in our name. Despicable reprobates running around talking about ‘what’s right” while making casual references to termination devices and nuclear weapons; not to mention covering up secretive savage depravity. The uneasy feeling associated with riding on a bus being driven by blind drunk madmen racing to doom keeps intensifying. Ya know what? What if you’re not the kind of person that’s willing to sign off on this modern insistence of impersonal hostility? It wouldn’t so serious, perhaps, if all the vulgar order givers were quarantined into a cell in which they feed on each other. These heads of modern world governments and corporations, however, are exercising some bizarre expanse of their own permission to mess with us. This corporate industrial insistence that technology is the path to higher living standards is a paradigm that can crack, for whatever that’s worth. Transcend the device of doom.
In a sense, the atomic age has served a real purpose. It has shown in stark relief what may, very well, be the last thing to do. Since the genie is out of the bottle, there’s no choice but to work with it. Hence, the ritual, the dance, the Dionysian creativity crack, and the Grateful Dead. Music matters in a myriad of sources and forms. This Dead vintage is thankfully widespread. The tunes are serving, fracturing time, and creating bubbles of space in which disorder blown apart and reassembled in present tense. Members of societies and communities are like cells in a body. Who’s to say there can’t be a healthy cell in a sick body? The choice of illness and wellness can be quite tricky. Yet, there’s nothing too tricky about streaming roots American music, or heading down the path of world heritage music chasing out a lead. It is out there to be found.
- Maybe you’ll find direction / Around some corner where it’s been waiting to meet you -Box of Rain