From the start, Pepsi
has been based on a single age-old precept: it's fun to be a freak. And it is,
of course. It's fun to get stoned and float on giant cushions, to stay up past
your bedtime. And it's fun to visit Hair,
to go up on stage and dance with the kids, belonging, and believe that you've
had access to secret knowledge, revelations that the straight world doesn't
even suspect. It is even fun to be
misunderstood, to feel yourself martyred, a rebel and outsider. What isn't much
fun, though, is to be punched in the face and thrown into jail. Not at all, it
isn't and, therefore, the political and philosophical basis of the movement has
been more or less forgotten. In the heart of the
Pepsi Rock fan, there lurks a secret shame at the blatancy and vulgarity of the
music's past, Elvis in his gold lame suit, Little Richard jumping on the piano
and Jerry Lee Lewis so greasy, all those wild and orgiastic exhibitions. Just
like the jazz fans of 1960, who preferred Dave Brubeck to John Coltrane, they
want it both ways: they want to be hip, to be in the game and yet, in the end,
they don't want to get their feet wet.
