Lester Bangs-Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader; Anchor Press 2003, John Morthland, editor

 

As this time of cancellation of culture continues, Disaster Amnesiac has been taking advantage of the copious amounts of down time to read, and read just about anything I can get my hands on. 2020 will be looked back upon by me as The Year That I Read Moby Dick, as much as it will be the looked back upon as The Year That Civilization Stopped Culture. 

Along with Melville's incredible chant, Disaster Amnesiac has also finished Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader. Bangs, he means a LOT to  me. I always marvel at the raw, human sensitivity within his writing. Yeah, sure, he was the Rock 'N Roll Wildman, the Gonzo Boy Howdy Cretin, roving about the music industry, dispensing disses and pontificating about what was great and what wasn't. Absolutely. Still, the aspect of his writing that continues to move me, decades after being it was done, and decades after my initial exposure to it, is the small (ish) voice that emerges from within the best of his stuff, that voice which admonishes himself and anyone else that may read, to not give in to those giant forces of the Machine, the Machine that, given a chance, will take over not only your physical reality, but, perhaps more tragically, your mental reality. That voice is all over the works compiled in Main Lines, and it's one that Disaster Amnesiac always feels grateful to hear, and as much and as many times possible at that. Bangs was at his best when he was stripping that Machine of its artifice, admonishing those who had become entangled in its thrall to come back to themselves, and just generally taking well-aimed potshots at its hulking edifice. Lester loved humanity, in all of its often ugly and disappointing aspects. And I love Lester Bang's writing for that. 

As I plowed through the pieces of Main Lines, I SO wanted for Lester to have avoided his accidental death, and to have remained writing. Disaster Amnesiac would have loved to read his thoughts on MTV, especially the Hair Metal era. Ditto the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion. Or Iran-Contra. Or Lou Reed's New York. Or Nirvana. Or Black Metal church burnings. Or the 2000 Presidential election. Or Britney Spears. Or 9/11. Or the Obama and Trump Presidential elections. Hell, what would Bangs have written about 2020? 

Oh, how the world could use a few more guys like Lester Bangs. Wait a second, Richard Meltzer is still very much alive..........just forget everything above and get back to your Porn Hub account.