The Free View - weblog of a presidential candidate

Presidential elections
Are planned distractions
To divert attention
From the action behind the scenes

It's just another movie
Another song and dance
Another poor sucker who never had a chance...

-Timbuk3, "Just Another Movie"

It's either really ironic or completely appropriate that the above lyrics come from one of the albums which has had more influence on me than most others. You might remember a one-hit wonder from the 80's called "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades". That was the lead single off the album I'm talking about, titled Greetings from Timbuk3.

That song came out when I was 14 -- when, like most boys that age, my interest in popular music was just shy of obsessive. And no one album held my interest more than this one. Eventually, I played the original tape so much that all of the print on both sides of it wore off. T3 is a very lyric-focused band, with one of the most clever songwriters ever (Pat MacDonald)-- and there's no question that their attitude influenced my attitude, then and throughout the years. (They continued to put out albums -- all of them great -- until the late 90's when the founding couple divorced and dissolved the band.)

"Presidential elections / are planned distractions / to divert attention from the action behind the scenes..." Those lines have probably gone through my head a thousand times in the past 18 years-- probably 50 times in the past few weeks, as I've rediscovered my love for this album. It's an extremely cynical view-- T3 were masters of cynicism (and sarcasm) before Generation X knew we were "Generation X". "Cynical optimism" is how I would characterize their attitude, because they are able to smile and laugh amongst it all, and because ultimately, they see enough good in life at ground level to not get too upset about what's happening in the penthouse suite. But they weren't blissfully ignorant either. They understood how messed up things were, and spoke to it, but retained a positive attitude about today and tomorrow, if you know what I mean.

Like Timbuk3, I'm a cynical optimist (or an optimistic cynic). Maybe the human race is doomed, maybe the US political system is complete charade, maybe the "War on Terror" is really just a voluntary slide into apocalypse...but today is a good day (and tomorrow probably will be too). Look around you in your life and there are a hundred, or a thousand, or ten thousand little or big things worth smiling about, or loving, or feeling awe for. I live way out in nature, and I can tell you that there is plenty going on here on earth that is worthy of much smiling, and much awe. Every day I am reminded that life is truly wondrous, no matter how much we might work to screw it up.

This side of the equation is touched upon in a Timbuk3 song from 5 years later ("The Little Things"):

Eyes to the heavens
The city folks say,
"Holy cow, it's the Milky Way
All the constellations
And in between
A billion tiny stars that we've never seen"

It's the little things...

I could literally go on for hours discussing views of the world through the lens of Timbuk3 songs...and I just might some day. ("Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learned From Timbuk3". :-)) But not now. This post was supposed to go from the first quote into a discussion of the 2004 presidential election, but the influence of T3 -- which I've been thinking about a lot recently -- took over. I don't think this works as an intro to that topic anymore, so I'm going to post it as a stand-alone ode to a great band that has had a profound impact on me.

If you care to dabble in some Timbuk3, this site seems to be the best site for checking them out, and includes a way to purchase their CDS (most of which are out of print to my knowledge).