Every week, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 42-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
continued from last week
No one foresaw the laugh emoji taking on a new, sinister meaning. No one knew the simple act of masking to protect ourselves, our healthcare systems and our communities would be ridiculed and outlawed in places. No one imagined the word “freedom” would be snatched away with the Canadian flag to represent horn-honking truckers for weeks on end in the middle of a Canadian winter.
Buddy found people who were, for once, on his side. They became magically visible, and they were everywhere. No longer a misfit, Buddy was happy, but he was also angrier than he’d ever been. Happy and angry together was like a powerful new drug that everyone he knew was on. Everyone else was the enemy who had restricted and mocked him his entire life.
The new-found allies bolstered each other in episodes of symbiotic grooming. They shared their misinformation. Rallied around kooky agendas. Elected Donald Trump. Set their sights on a Canadian election. Spewed hate in comment sections. Painted Trudeau as a total fuck-up while the guy was actually decent enough and did a fair few really good things, but typically there wasn’t much positive said online, because no one wanted to endure nasty comments in a disturbing trend of Hellterskelterism (turning an existing concept, person or piece of art into a something abjectly offensive to further a totally unrelated agenda). As in, Trudeau was thoroughly vilified by Hellterskelterist dolts who may not have been aware they were contributing to the erosion of democracy itself.
Regardless of lacking a foundation in critical thinking or even a passing interest in how systems of governance function, if the subject was politics, freshly emboldened Buddy rose to the challenge as necessary to reiterate perspectives that everything government does is bad, corrupt and self-serving. Neither anarchist nor libertarian, he was just a guy trying to survive being a human as it applied to him.
Buddy, who no one could ever accuse of being vaguely interested in current affairs. Buddy, who could always turn a gathering into a party with his harmonica and a few joints ready to pass around. Buddy, who laughed the loudest when he had no idea what was even funny. Buddy had found his voice, and he liked hearing himself speak, if speaking meant typing out semi-illiterate comments online.
Around about this time, there was valid concern for democracy’s survival, which is different than capitalism being on its last legs. The volume of the ruckus threatened to create the kind of disengagement that authoritarians dream about. No need to catch them off guard, boys. They’re totally asleep at the wheel.
to be continued
“Mrs. McGillvary” from The Eagle And The Poodle (Matador, 1996) (download):
