AC/DC and the Pope
At this point in scribbling my take on the apocalyptic saga of 2020, on October 5th, I went off on a brief whiteboy tangent, a bit out of context in contrast to the soap-caked morbidity that was soaking all avenues of news and media as well as my poor, addled brain. Apparently, I needed a breather from discussing racism, pestilence, and the wide world.
Unfortunately, my coffee break didn’t last too long before whiplash humanity barged its way back in, like a kid interrupting a good sit on the toilet.
It appeared infamous Australian rock band AC/DC was coming out of a long hiatus with a new album and a post-pandemic 2021 tour (it didn’t happen; in fact, outside of a single 2023 appearance at a heavy metal version of Coachella called Power Trip, the band postponed until earlier 2024, when they announced a European tour).
AC/DC is another of those vaunted whiteboy bands. They’re considered gods in the hard rock lexicon, having managed to turn a signature four-chord sound into legend. You can’t swing a dead cat in Southern California, be it fraternity rows in college campus districts or tailgating parties in arena parking lots, without hearing the crunchy tones of Angus and Malcolm Young, and the screeching of either Bon Scott or Brian Johnson. Angus’ brother Malcolm, an essential touchstone of the band who co-created a number of their most famous riffs and songs, sadly passed away in 2017 from complications of dementia. His nephew Stevie was reported to replace his rhythm guitar spot in the band, having done so before in ’91 (I saw that tour) when Malcolm was seeking treatment for alcoholism.
Back in Black is Generation X’s seminal coming of age album. It remains the biggest selling hard rock album of all time, and is the best-selling album of all time in any genre second only to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
As aforementioned, I’d basically written off any more attendance at cock rock shows, but the prospect of seeing Angus live again, given all that quarantine and isolation and my lingering nostalgia for the touchy-feels of my Gen X youth, given the simple fact everybody and their mother were jonesing for live experiences among fellow members of our species…dependent on the arrival of a viable mass vaccine and the ability to safely return to venues, rocking to AC/DC that next summer sounded like a fucking blast.
Don’t forget the earplugs, kids. AC/DC is easily the loudest show I’ve ever attended. Saw them three times in the past, in ’88, ’91, and ’08. I never put much mind to the lead singer debate between Bon Scott and Brian Johnson, same as I didn’t bother with the divisive fan base split between Van Halen’s David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar. I like both eras, it’s all good, it’s fuckin’ AC/DC for chrissakes, just turn it up and pass me a brew. Yes, I’m a whiteboy at heart, we’ve established that much. AC/DC is as much a part of American Gen X whiteboyism as John Hughes movies and Nintendo Tecmo Bowl (look it up, Zoomers).
Alas, I couldn’t even go two pages chatting about AC/DC without my feeds alerting me to another dismal, breaking news report. Revered actor and famed Ghostbusters star Rick Moranis, long out of the public eye, was sucker punched while walking on a sidewalk in New York City, only a few blocks away from the Central Park West building where his character lived in the movie. There was video of the incident. It was as lovely as you might imagine. Moranis checked himself into a nearby hospital with undisclosed injuries. We used to listen to 8 track tapes of his Bob and Doug Mackenzie routines from Canada’s SCTV. His Dark Helmet character in Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs is legend in American cult comedy circles. Randomly assaulting a guy like Moranis is pretty much like tripping the Pope. You just don’t do it. No doubt the perp didn’t know who he was clocking, but it matters little. That trend of bopping senior citizens in this country during the clusterfuckery of 2020 was abhorrent. In fact, it was a recurring theme for some decades. Who randomly smacks old folks just for kicks? Lost boys, that’s who.
Speaking of the Pope. In that same week, I noticed a message from the leader of my childhood faith, whose role typically stays clear of American politics. Pope Francis seems to be the most progressive Pope we’ve ever had, a rare cleric as he’s stuck to his guns with his ‘radical’ positions within the confines of the Catholic Church. He issued a papal encyclical, which is sort of a more formal declaration than a Pope’s standard sermons or speeches, in which he denounced extremist nationalism, continued marginalization of immigrants, and empty individualist worldviews over what he deems ‘the communitarian dimension of life.’
He didn’t explicitly mention the American nation-state, but it was fairly evident he was referring to us and our dilemma of the time. He pushed the envelope on Vatican norms, most specifically those of Eurocentric bishops, in that their Pope was Jesuit, the first from the Americas, and most challenging, Argentine and a person of color. Certainly, a good first step in the arrest and correction of white supremacy ought to include inclusive reformation in the highest offices of Protestant and Catholic faith.
Y’all know by now what I think about cherry-picking Christianity. You don’t get to practice it when it suits you and disregard it when it doesn’t. Otherwise, you don’t really believe in what you say you do. That said, Francis is also another example of subsidized BIPOC. In 2016, he upheld the Vatican’s 2005 ruling that no ordination of men who were ‘actively gay’ or had ‘deep-seeded homosexual tendencies’ would be allowed within the church.**
A writer of my bent, or perhaps a disillusioned wino philosopher, in going over all the things that went wrong in that year might have offered a platitude concerning the theater of the absurd in humanity’s ranks, that the assessment of existential philosopher Albert Camus, in his infamous essay The Myth of Sisyphus, on how human existence is absurdity and that we are essentially floating through the void without rhyme or reason, is a sad reality for humanity.
But believe it or not, back then and even now, I really don’t like spouting nihilism. The theater of the last several decades of the American state is unquestionably outlandish, but I wouldn’t say it negates our purpose in the cosmos. It may deter our forward progression for a while. It may distract us for a while. If we let the play reach its last act, it might even kill us.
However, to presume we never had a meaningful place in this universe would be a misstep. Overcoming the top tier of class warfare will take an epic effort of communal will. People have dug in their heels because they’re afraid of a future they can’t yet comprehend, shackled by the sentiment of a past founded on illusions.
It’s not unlike taking your toddler to swim class for the first time, and the little one making a torrid scene. They’ll cry and wail and thrash and protest, but eventually they’ll learn to swim, same as we all must.
This is where Camus whispers in our ear: “Or they’ll drown.”
*Compiled from October 5, 2020