Are YOU jabbed?!

Because I am.

The immune cells in my body are currently training to whoop some coronavirus behind. Though the movement of my left arm became limited for a day due to annoying stings of pain, the knowledge that there are cells fighting a war within my fleshy shell definitely made up for it. Through my temporary inconvenience I felt power; it’s almost like wearing heels.

I’m also probably the only person in America to rep Jihad Jerry, the politically charged electro-blues side project of DEVO bassist Jerry Casale, while receiving my shot. The album is receiving a vinyl issue this summer, so I’ve been recently revisiting it in all its mid-2000s glory. Ever since I first listened to it, I’ve been a supporter of the project, and I always perceived it as oddly relevant to our current timeline despite its blatant roots in anti-Bushism and War on Terror satire. Some may question its longevity in light of current events. Fifteen years after the album’s initial release, the U.S. is scheduled to pull all of its troops from Afghanistan by the eleventh of September—a supposed end to the “forever war.” But “counterterrorism” forces are still going to be active indefinitely in the country; is that a true “end?” And besides, the damage has already been done.

When COVID-19 hit, I heard a lot of 9/11 comparisons. Generation-defining events, moments that would permanently change our preconceived standards of “normal,” though COVID impacted the wider world on a more visible scale. Looking at the cultural repercussions of both, I can see it. Post-9/11, we still have to take our shoes off at the airport—or, we will once events important enough to fly to begin occurring again—and I assume that face masks and remote communication will still play some role in America’s future twenty years down the line. From the fall of the Twin Towers sprang absurd acts of discrimination against anyone who looked vaguely Middle Eastern in the name of “patriotism;” the “China virus” only encouraged attacks against Asians. Same plot line; different bogeymen.

With all of this on our plates, I’d argue that Jihad Jerry, the self-proclaimed “lightning rod for hostility,” still deserves a seat at the table. Give a curmudgeon a microphone and he’ll use it. Maybe that curmudgeon will sing some songs made for a world where actual change seems so close, yet so far.

And maybe those songs will be pretty good.

Tags: COVID-19, DEVO, music, science, terrorism, the future, the past, the real world

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 17th, 2021 at 15:31 and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.