{"id":989,"date":"2007-11-15T12:11:13","date_gmt":"2007-11-15T17:11:13","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-12-11T09:47:18","modified_gmt":"2008-12-11T09:47:18","slug":"the-future-is-unwritten-refutes-townsman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-future-is-unwritten-refutes-townsman\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future Is Unwritten Refutes Townsman Hrrundi&#8217;s Anti-Hippie Bias!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xg3md__8IaQ?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nI got to see the <strong>Joe Strummer<\/strong> movie, <em>The Future Is Unwritten<\/em>, with <strong>Townsman Chickenfrank<\/strong> the other night. It&#8217;s funny, as I was getting ready to go, with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php?title=my_case_against_the_hippies_part_one_the&amp;more=1&amp;c=1&amp;tb=1&amp;pb=1\" title=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php?title=my_case_against_the_hippies_part_one_the&amp;more=1&amp;c=1&amp;tb=1&amp;pb=1\">Hrrundi&#8217;s latest anti-hippie rant<\/a> (only the first in a series that I&#8217;m sure he thinks will finally convince us of his point of view on this matter) fresh in mind, I was wondering if I could somehow tie my thoughts on the life and works of Strummer into refuting my good friend&#8217;s latest cry for help. And as it happened, this <strong>Julian Temple<\/strong> memorial service of a biography played right into my hand!<\/p>\n<p>What the film lacked in Clash nerdboy musical analysis (eg, no complete song performances, no scenes with engineer <strong>Bill Price<\/strong> pulling up tracks from the master tapes, no in-depth discussions of how a cool track on, say, <em>Sandinista<\/em> was built from the ground up), it made up for in <strong>love<\/strong>. Bucketfulls of love! Using tape recordings of Strummer telling his own tale and a vast array of unseen (at least by my eyes) footage, including childhood home movies; a very early Clash rehearsal; and a holy grail for me, actual footage of <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php?title=letsagetabitarockin&amp;more=1&amp;c=1&amp;tb=1&amp;pb=1\" title=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php?title=letsagetabitarockin&amp;more=1&amp;c=1&amp;tb=1&amp;pb=1\">The 101ers<\/a><\/strong> (!!!), Temple structures the film around campfire reminiscences by friends, former bandmates, lovers, and the like. <\/p>\n<p>In what first seemed like an unnecessary act of Insider Cool but what I would come to see as a warm, egalitarian touch, Temple does not flash any names under the speakers, so when you&#8217;re not seeing the obvious characters, like <strong>Steve<\/strong> or <strong>Mick Jones<\/strong>, you have to figure out for yourself if you&#8217;re seeing an old love, a bandmate from The 101ers, <strong>John Cooper Clarke<\/strong>, or <strong>Zander &#8220;Snake&#8221; Schloss<\/strong>. I think one of the points of the film was that Strummer had built a broad community in his years and any one of us might have felt a part of it. No one&#8217;s flashing subtitles under your face or my face, so why should the folks on the screen have their identities highlighted? For the most part, it kept the focus on what each person had to say about Joe. There were exceptions, of course (Johnny Depp in his Captain Jack get-up), but even <strong>Bono<\/strong> worked hard at being one of the admirers.<\/p>\n<p>One of the highlights for me was seeing <strong>Topper Headon<\/strong> looking so healthy and well-adjusted. Compared with footage of him from his final days in The Clash  along with my memories of him looking at death&#8217;s door a few years ago in that Don Letts film on the band, Topper is looking like he&#8217;s turned a corner, sitting on the beach in his pink v-neck sweater. Drummers that great need to stay free.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>But onto the hippie\/punk stuff&#8230;<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/v7bFtvsYcnQ?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nIt was made clear early on in the film that Strummer came of age in the age of love. He was a hippie, with hippie hair, hippie body odor, hippie girlfriends, hippie clothes. This guy with a very cold upbringing and one close brother who had just killed himself built a family, or community, for himself through the means of Hrrundi&#8217;s dreaded <strong>Hippie Culture<\/strong>. Like all hippies, I&#8217;m sure he hit some bum notes along the way, belted out the chorus from &#8220;Feelin&#8217; All Right&#8221; one too many times, and maybe even debated with friends over the best version of &#8220;Wooden Ships&#8221;, but he was <em>gettin&#8217; his shit together, man<\/em>. This is a big benefit of Hippie Culture that Hrrundi seems to overlook. A young person needs time to do what&#8217;s <em>not<\/em> expected of him. I&#8217;ve seen some of the most creative minds of my era not take the time to do what&#8217;s <em>not<\/em> expected of them, and their creativity has withered or stagnated as a result. More sad, in some cases, their sense of community withered. Nowadays they think playing a round of golf with clients is an occasion for joy.<\/p>\n<p>So Strummer got his shit together as a hippie, his friends in the film tell us, then he saw <strong>The Sex Pistols<\/strong> opening for his 101ers. As he put it, he saw the future. The next day he lept into the future, ditching his pub rock band, cutting his hair, tossing his flares. You&#8217;ve heard this story a hundred times. What&#8217;s cool, though, as the film continues and you&#8217;ve heard a series of &#8220;Year Zero,&#8221; life-changing events for Strummer, is that he kept piling up members of his community. He kept rallying the troops, gathering new influences &#8211; even bad ones. His Hippie Culture background enabled him to stay true to the moment more than a lot of past-their-prime people are able to do after coming off what must have been a killer high of being the leader of The Only Band That Mattered. It wasn&#8217;t easy, by any accounts. In fact, Strummer&#8217;s life seemed pretty miserable for long stretches. But the guy carried on, and toward the end of his life, the Tymon Doggs and Mick Joneses and Richard Dudanskis would be there with him. For contrast, where are Rick Buckler and Mick Talbott going to be for a modern world hard-ass like <strong>Paul Weller<\/strong> in 10 years? <del>For that matter, does one guy from The Five Americans even know if another guy still exists?<\/del> [In honor of our newest Townsman and to acknowledge my own incorrect assumption, I am striking this comment. Now let&#8217;s get back to the business of putting the world&#8217;s hippie-hating rock lovers in their rightful place!]<\/p>\n<p>Toward the end of the film Strummer&#8217;s friends discussed the fact that he was always a hippie at heart, even while in his punk phase. His old hippie friends gave him credit for eventually dragging them into the present. His punk friends gave him credit for injecting their scene with some of that smelly hippie love. Come on, Hrrundi! I know you&#8217;ve got the heart to see the value in Hippie Culture, despite the damage it did to tight musical arrangements and hooks. <\/p>\n<p>Has anyone else seen this film yet? Like I say, it&#8217;s not rich in musical nerdboy stuff that I hunger for on a daily basis, but as someone who felt like he was under Strummer&#8217;s tent, I came away feeling all the hippie love Temple and friends wanted to convey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I got to see the Joe Strummer movie, The Future Is Unwritten, with Townsman Chickenfrank the other night. It&#8217;s funny, as I was getting ready to go, with Hrrundi&#8217;s latest anti-hippie rant (only the first in a series that I&#8217;m sure he thinks will finally convince us of his point of view on this matter) <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-future-is-unwritten-refutes-townsman\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[38,3,36],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/989\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}