1995:
The Year Of Prozac, Alienation and Fading Hopes
Looking back to that pivotal year, I can easily comprehend how the tragedy of the Oklahoma City bombing happened and why. A year before, musician Kurt Cobain killed himself by putting a shotgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. He was twenty-seven years old at the time----the same age as Tim when he declared war on his own country. Millions of Cobain's fans were devastated when the tempestuous, but incredibly gifted musician, lead singer of the Seattle-based band, Nirvana took his own life when he appeared to have achieved everything a budding rock star could. There were copycat suicide pacts, young people dove headlong into severe and dibilitating chasms of despaie and Prozac, the latest "wonder drug for depression" was as common on college campuses as beer kegs.
We were in the middle of a new kind of revolution, only, unlike the crazed, psychedelic rebelliousness of the 1960's, it was a war of attrition, where young people became alienated, angered and many just stopped trying to do well in school, to look forward to the future and dreaming of a happy and fulfilling life once they reached adulthood. Their parents were divorcing at an alarming rate, kids had no centre base from which to garner love, compassion and understanding. The so-called "Generation X" were existing in an emotional vacuum and they knew that, rather than get better, their lives held no promise---no golden futures, for it seemed the older generation had bled that budding tree until it whithered and died.
In 1995, R.E.M. had reached their zenith of popularity. Always a band for alienated kids, Michael Stipe and his band understood the pain of their youthful audience and reached out to try and rescue them from destroying themselves. Three years before, R.E.M. had released a song called, "Everybody Hurts" in a desperate attempt to stop unhappy seventeen-year-olds from committing suicide. The kids trusted the four band members.
Then it seemed that even they had to let loose and rebel with a raucus album entitled "Monster." Departing from their poetic, image-laden music and lyrics, "Monster" was pure, unadulterted rock and roll with a hell of a lot of attitude. Songs like "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" "Tongue," "Bang and Blame," and the hauntingly beautiful tribute to the late Kurt Cobain, "Let Me In." Michael Stipe seemed angry and on the edge----his features even appeared sharper as he lost weight and shaved his head.
Alternative music was hot and if you didn't subscribe to that kind of music, you were pretty much out of the loop. Bands like Pearl Jam and Hole exploded with a rage never before seen or heard in modern rock music. Suddenly, singers like Lennie Kravitz were being told by record companies that they "weren't dark and unhappy enough"-----in truth, as my brother lamented in the summer of 1995, "I remember when rock and roll used to be fun." Well, in that pivotal year, misery, despair and anger were sending the young into dizzying downward spirals. Drug abuse took on a new twist as students popped Ritalin to stay awake in class and then chilled out in the evenings with Ecstasy.
It was the year that I went online---exactly seven years ago this week---and I can assure you that the Internet was much, much different then. Usenet, that vast wasteland of newsgroups for each and every taste, obsession or fettish, was much less crowded and people who posted there could actually get to know one another. I posted a long, meandering message in rec.music.rem that detailed my dark past with mental illness and I received dozens of positive e-mails from other R.E.M. fans who felt as empty and lonely as I did. I felt a genuine kinship with these people and am forever grateful for their kindness and support. So 1995 wasn't a total loss. But---the friendliness and openness didn't last and so in the years since then, cyberspace is so crammed with people and commercial websites, that the original floorplan of the Internet has been totally obliterated. I caught that last, gasping wave seven years ago and since then, have been drowned in the turbulent maelstrom. Yes, it was good while it lasted.
1995 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II and we all realized that, in a scant five more years, we'd be on the brink of a new millennium. Would we all be better off? Worse off? Or would the world still be around as the twentieth century approached its end?
Three months after going online, something horrific occurred in Oklahoma City. I was on a run with my Walkman and heard the terrible reports that a massive bomb had been detonated at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building at two minutes after 9 AM on April 19th, 1995. I thought that Armageddon had arrived.
...To be continued.
The link below will take you to my site that expands on this particular theme:
A Decade In Purgatory:
Our Generation Through Grunge, Usenet and Suicide
