Sure, I'm the classical music guy, and my opinion on this subject amounts to little but still -- that the Oklahoma State House, after months of hoopla, failed to pass the resolution to name the Flaming Lips' song "Do You Realize" as the official state rock song has to be one of the more boneheaded things that has come out of the State Capitol Building in some time.
I realize that is saying a lot. We ARE talking about legislators in Oklahoma, after all.
Put it this way -- 21,000 people in the state voted on this contest. Regardless of what one thought about the worth of such an endeavor -- and I will say no more about THAT -- the result of this activity was that the people of Oklahoma spoke up and said this particular song, a melancholy little ditty about coming to terms with mortality, was what we as a state wanted to be anointed as the state's official rock song.
All it needed to become official was for the state legislature to, basically, say, "Okey-dokey."
And our esteemed representatives cannot even do THAT right.
This was the legislative equivalent of a "gimme" shot, and they bungle it.
I'm sure that some of our "esteemed" representatives probably have some ingrained objection to "trashy rock and roll" and the people who write and perform it getting any sort of official recognition in this state.
But if that were the case, then why allow this process to go on to its conclusion? Why not put a stop to it before some 21,000 people in this state invested a little something in the outcome?
One reason could be that some politicians find more joy in destroying things than in creating things. It does seem to explain a great deal of the activity that goes on in our hall of government.
I fully realize that the "Official Oklahoma Rock Song" is a frivolous issue, one without any pressing social import, or that will have any impact on the state's woeful economy, sub par schools, and scandalous disregard for the health and well-being of the citizens of this state.
But what happened today might explain why these problems exist. If our state legislature cannot get its act together to do something as simple – as mindless, even – as passing a resolution officially recognizing a pop song, it makes one despair of these people doing anything substantive about the serious problems that face Oklahoma.
