disenchantedbunny.

I grew up listening to cynical pop punk and shit like that, so I was a big Blink 182 fan-boy. But some of their lyrics used to annoy me with their religious connotations - only occasionally, but enough to stop me getting my lip pierced and hair dyed in worship. Going back over some older music the other day and I’ve learned why I was always slightly concerned, and I’m kinda surprised as to how I didn’t notice it when I was a big’ol rebellious 15 year old… former Blink182 guitarist, Tom DeLonge, is completely insane.

For starters, it seems he believes in the existence of aliens and their coinciding government conspiracy theories. The song ‘Aliens Exist’ is probably where I should have noticed this. He also seems to think that the whole ‘anarchy’ thing is cool and awesome while at the same time criticizing the ‘government’ and ‘corporate leaders’ for corrupting them into it. And in his recent band, he seems to have adopted a 9/11 conspiracy. Wow.

Surprisingly enough, he’s a Christian. Imagine my shock when I found out one of my favourite songs off the Take of Your Pants and Jacket album is just a plea to Jesus. His solo album had a song titled ‘Letters to God’.

Luckily, former Blink 182 bassist Mark Hoppus has saved me from condemning the entirety of my teenage years. His new band, (+44), has convincingly shown that there had to be some reason why I liked most Blink 182 songs. Take the lines from the opening song, ‘Lycanthrope’:

And we’ll be beaten down without mercy or meaning
I turn my face to a careless skyline
I’m searching hard for a sign from heaven
But they’ve forgotten me here

And even more when we get to the third song, ‘When Your Heart Stops Beating’:

I’ll be there when your last breath’s taken away
In the dark when there’s no one listening

Ah! The refreshing sound of real world activity, no transcendental bitching or hoping! It’s getting easier to die every day and at least some pop-culture realizes it. Perhaps there is some alchemical purpose or Aristotelean telos floating around this world; but with the plurality of contradictory answers given throughout history, it is quite silly to assume that anyone could find it. How should we begin extracting purpose from a tree? Perhaps the new age movement can answer us. Perhaps if we squeeze a cross hard enough we can extract some. Where have we come since Aristotle but to the realization that (contra Newton) there are only discernible material causes, mechanical causes and indeterminate probability? Newton the alchemist was as mad as the metaphysicians that he was otherwise criticizing for spinning a web out of their own substance with a priorisms and pure reason.

Another point to be made in the song ‘Little Death’:

Please sleep, my darling, sleep
Your cry for inspiration
Never reaches ears on distant stars
And every night our lonely planet
Slides across the universe
And I won’t pretend I understand

Please sleep, my darling, sleep
Your death by information
Won’t disturb the peace on distant stars
And even when you lock the doors
And slide behind the unlit shades
None of us are strangers anymore

Fall asleep with the windows open
Come to me with the worst you’ve said and done
You’ll close your eyes and see me
A little death makes life more meaningful
I stand no chance at all

David Hume would certainly agree. Our lives are only meaningful in that they are finite; otherwise every one of our actions that we make in this life is meaningless in-itself, just waiting around on the front porch to be let in the house. Pretending that large scale natural disasters, our inevitable deaths and the overall futility of civilization is all part of some loving and meaningful design is delusional and relegates any responsibility from ourselves. The fact that I’m not going to be here in a few decades just can’t stop my present meal from being tasty, and the fact that breakfast doesn’t last the day won’t stop me preparing for and planning my dinner. Lucretius said ‘Where death is I am not’, although I can’t remember where.

So congratulations to Mark Hoppus after such an embarrassingly idiotic partnership. To spend over a decade with someone like Tom DeLonge and still come out of it writing clever pop-punk songs is just astounding.

Oh, and this is the first post that I’ve written this year where I haven’t been drunk.

/end monthly rant