The Republican National Convention has wound itself down this week and next week comes the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's two weeks out of a number of months - with this heated election year, here in the United States -- when the things being discussed by arenas full of suited and tied men and women of power, money, passion and a platform are even more intense, even more pointed and just plain LOUD. They gather to reinforce their basic principles, which essentially means that if everyone just became more like them and obeyed their social, political and economic codes everything would be good again, order would be restored, marriage would clearly be more kick ass and unemployment, along with its daily stress and strife would be a thing of the past.
These are some dogged weeks, meant to bark and make proclamations. They are meant to bring up all of the ills and the bad things that others are doing. They are meant to accuse and get riled up about how bad everything is for at least half of the population that just doesn't like a guy, never would have and the same would have gone for any guy who wasn't theirs. The point is, we're seeing all these disgruntled people and we're hearing about all the hard luck. There's dismalness out there, plenty of it and there are millions and millions of people struggling like hell and it's all coming out into the light right now.
It's all there and it shouldn't be ignored, but Ocean Beach, California band Slightly Stoopid gives you reason to believe that some of these concerns are frivolous. It's too much. People should just take a break, wipe the sweat off and consider exactly what you want to get out of the few short years that you have. It would be better to rally around the thought that so much of everything that stiffens our brow and our jaw muscles is bullshit. We're better off just heading out to the water, forgetting the sunblock, remembering the 12-pack and letting ourselves feel like we're just cool glasses of water, with lemon wedges rammed halfway down the rim.
We're better off just coasting leisurely into a world that this band makes its own - and which might not be completely carefree at all - instead of feeling like we're just getting our bones picked by the vultures and the fat cats all the time. The things that are bringing us down can just be minimized. They can be diminished and relegated to after-thought if we just let them be.