Gloria

Gloria. Laura Branigan. Is there any song that captures the loss of innocence in America quite like Gloria? You may think it happened long before that, like after the Cuban Missle Crisis, or after WWII, or after WWI, or after the dark ages (how old are you?), but I submit that there was a certain self awareness missing from life before mass communication really exploded, and we can probably blame that mostly on the Internet, both a blessing and a curse, and the 80s were the last decade to show people unaware of the camera on them. Even those who were on the stage of the world were not truly on the stage of the world like we are today. They would never move like that, never talk like that. It's quaint. Pre-papparazi, pre-post-mtv.

Laura Branigan looks like a prototypical Irish-American woman too, so that probably helps enforce my sentimentality. I have a huge crush on her. It's silly.

So the analogy... Gloria. You are the innocence we lost. In the new world, there's just no room for you anymore. You're the movie where we all identify who we are. You're the thought that we're all unique. You're the assumption of difference. You're the assumption of stereotypes before we started analyzing them. You're everything before we analyzed the shit out of everything and then pushed it out the back door. You got pushed out too. We know everything about everyone now. You're just too simple, too unaware of the world around you, but that is why you were special. Now you only exist in children before the age of like 10... and that age continues to recede. I guess you also exist in religious fanatics. You'll soon be pushed out of even children, if you haven't already been.



If everybody wants you, why isn't anybody calling?

Because even though you're desireable in a sentimental kind of way, nobody wants to be that oblivious.

It may cause a little wistfulness, but not so much that I don't want everyone else in the world, and I'm talking to you, you poor ignoramouses who still live in a feckless cloud of self-importance, to be aware of how small and ridiculous they are. It may be difficult to deal with but we all dealt with it, the self-examination, and I think we're all that much closer to accepting everyone for whoever they are as a result of it.

And I believe some have pushed beyond it to another bad place. Some are aware of the whole world, but still refuse to accept its homogeniety. Like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity... etc. How could you be a demagogue if you respect your audience? The answer is you can't be. If you sling zenophobia for a living, you do not respect your audience. You consider them to be a bunch of idiots who can't see the world as a place where human beings exist. You erect fences in the most primitive way. You drag your knuckles and beat your chest. You yell loud on TV - good! TV yell good! Lots of people beat chest, sneer at neighbor. Me win money, still world turn.