There has been an intriguing series of documentaries on British television regarding the “importance” of the part played on modern western culture by the American west coast.
All that footage of lazy hippies spouting nonsense about the stars in the sky, slopping around the pools smoking really weak grass sent me flying into one of my patented rages. The laid back hippies that I have met in my life have always tended towards being retentive, demanding, narrow minded, inflexible boors – without exception.
I suppose I am an East coast boy through and through. I like my music to be as uptight as my friends, and believe that the Velvet Underground is the closest we have come to establishing white soul music (you can tell this is a hangover from last week’s video find)
I look for evidence of all those who I have admired to have settled in the east rather than the west. New York rather than San Francisco, Edinburgh rather than Glasgow – and so forth. Berlin all counts as East in my book.
Rive Gauche merely exists as the exception to the rule
