It’s amazing how it takes something like a destructive shit of a hurricane, which shuts down one of the biggest cities in the world and wipes out places and people who saw it coming, to make people think that the apocalypse is at least a possibility. There isn’t a second that goes by where the apocalypse, or the earth getting certifiably pissed off and just finishing us parasites off, shouldn’t be feared. Every Monday morning, when I wheel another full load of garbage down to the corner for pickup and dumping, there’s a sense of dread that I might not be doing myself in, but my kids might be screwed. It’s a thought that leaves a person twisted up because really, what’s there to be done about it. The garbage has to go somewhere. There are enough double-edged swords in these earth-warming stories, conundrums and dilemmas to supply an army.
Rob Crow and his legendary San Diego band Pinback have written a new song that feels like a darker edit of Cormac McCarthy tale of the end of days, with Vonnegut adding in tweaks, in the forms of sweet-sounding recitations that are the real fuck offs in the scenario. When you hear background vocals singing, “Shrugging extinction off,” as the song plays out at the end, you’re aware that you’ve been imposing here. You shouldn’t have ever been here. We’ve all made a great mistake in overstating our power, out-staying our welcome and wrecking something so pretty.
“True North,” from the group’s newest album, “Information Retrieved,” is just one part of a collection of songs that take us into an illusory state of mind that feels solvable. We’re in these places of pre-ruin, where the waters are still mostly clean, the land still fertile and the people still mostly operable and capable of making and taking nourishment, but there’s a strange feeling about it all that we’re not going to be gleefully splashing around in the ocean or having such an easy time of anything for very much longer.
Crow sings:
“Daylight embracing darkness always Feels like they’re racing death to the porch Crust of the Earth is flaking off Changing the time zones, confusing the true north Here is the note I won’t avoid Hear when I say this now When static is all that’s left on the phone Feel free to change the channel Healing factor turning on Take your pills, let’s get it off another day When it’s time to go outside Please leave your shades at home You look like such a dick sometimes Yeah, look who’s talking, I know We all wanna go out and play And know that it’s not And know that it’s nothing We all wanna go out and play It’s not that bizarre Know that it’s nothing Starlight is blazing and it’s the only Source of illumination of course Weight of the humans taken off Shedding the ozone, finding a new home This is the number, please look it over Everything else is just a distractor.”
Fuck. We’re doomed.