Boomermania
I, for one, have had it with Boomers.
Not so much them, but what is made of them by the media. The endless fawning over how THEY are changing this and THEY are redefining that. THEY are changing and redefining nothing. MY generation—their big brothers and sisters born before and during WWII in 1940-42—blew the doors off everything for the Boomlets to waltz through. We did the work and they get the credit.
My dander is no doubt enhanced by the mixed feelings I have about noting the first direct deposit of my first social security payment. But I digress. I initiate my column here with the opening passages of my recently completed memoirs.
Excuse me, but I seem to have misplaced my generation. Has anyone seen it? Or heard it? High school class of ’59, speak up! Man, we’re so far below the radar we could have nuked Laputa with Slim Pickins. Marketers, the media and Congress give us no voice at all. Bob Dylan’s reportedly my age—although I have inside info which skews him a tad older—but the Boomers think he speaks for them. Tom Brokaw’s in my generation—just one year older—and all he talks about is his parents’! What the hell’s up with that? Traitors. America would have us believe that no births of cultural significance occurred again until 1946. In their book Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe call those of us born in and around 1941 part of the Silent generation. Google dismisses us as pre-Boomer. Give me a fucking break. I refuse to be defined by a younger generation whose only manifest superiority is in numbers.
How does one ignore a three-year span that produced Richard Pryor, Terry Gilliam, Jesse Jackson, Sam Waterston, Al Pacino, Harrison Ford, Charlie Rose, Barney Frank, Bruce Lee, Tim McGovern, Peter Benchley, Barbara Boxer, Donna Shalala, Michael Bloomberg, Joe Lieberman, Roger Staubach, Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Knight, Bill Parcells, Muhammad Ali, Chuck Mangione, Ricky Nelson, Paul Simon, Paul Anka, Jimi Hendrix, Plácido Domingo, Ann-Margret, Julie Christie, Barbra Streisand, Steve Wynn, Paul Prudhomme, Delbert McClinton, Aaron Neville, Wilson Pickett, Carole King, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and John Lennon? And only a year later came Mick Jagger, Joe Namath and God only knows whom else. Attention must be paid to such men and women! [Unfortunately, I also have to include John Gotti, Gary Gilmore, Richard Speck, Charles Whitman, Ted Kaczynski, Pete Rose, Brian De Palma, Helen Reddy, Neil Diamond, Martha Stewart, Ken Lay, Trent Lott and Dick Cheney. But hey, no generation’s perfect.]
We were born on the cusp, my pre-war babies and me—betwixt and between the bust and the boom. But the early 40s spawned heroes without anthems…rebels without a cause. A mere fluke of historical timing granted those born four and five years later an opportunity they would co-opt and death-grip as their cause—that would enable them to believe they had truly changed the world. I don’t blame them. If we’d had more than goldfish to swallow and phone booths to cram and panties to raid, we would have grabbed it. But even though we didn’t, the times they were a changing well before Master Zimmerman took notice. There would have been no Chicago or Kent State if there hadn’t been Eisenhower. No, my little flower children, it takes a hell of a lot more cojones to lash out at the enemies you can’t see or touch—breaking through layer upon layer of the generational dronedom of doing what you were told, going into your father’s business, doing your honorable time in the military, going all the way with girls who did it and marrying the ones who didn’t—conquering the unbearably oppressive ennui of the 50s. Any impressionable twit can go out in the street and protest a war a million miles away. I fail to see how it ennobled a generation enjoying the first youth fares to Europe to speak out against immorality and unconscionable government actions only after the first guys to lay their asses on the line—my guys—came home to tell that generation that we were indeed participating in immorality and unconscionable actions.
We didn’t get the glory—in fact, we got the shame. But we made it all possible. We who had stumbled through our Wonder Years—those years when a child attains most of his/her adult height, according to the preposterous Wonder Bread commercials of the 50s—with nothing to unite us save one glorious gift. We who had stayed up late at night to catch the waves—not from Malibu, but from Nashville. Those stratospheric-bounced radio beams from Randy’s Record Shop arrived like visitors from another planet, another world. The doors opened and we had our first close encounter with alien intelligence. Forget Gort and Michael Rennie…behold Little Richard, the original E.T. Receive the holy word made true from the Spiders, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, Chuck Berry, Todd Rhodes…The Gospel delivered uncut…the real, the original, the one and only Rock and Roll. Free at last, free at last from the bondage of Patti Paige and the Mills Brothers. Everything that has followed is simplistic, derivative homage. [More or less.]
I won't entertain you with all my radio recollections just now, though they are many and rich. I'm curious to see how all this works…who I'll hear from, if anyone. I hear blogging is great fun and an essential form of communication in the new millennium. Well, dear reader, I'll be the judge of that.
Not so much them, but what is made of them by the media. The endless fawning over how THEY are changing this and THEY are redefining that. THEY are changing and redefining nothing. MY generation—their big brothers and sisters born before and during WWII in 1940-42—blew the doors off everything for the Boomlets to waltz through. We did the work and they get the credit.
My dander is no doubt enhanced by the mixed feelings I have about noting the first direct deposit of my first social security payment. But I digress. I initiate my column here with the opening passages of my recently completed memoirs.
Excuse me, but I seem to have misplaced my generation. Has anyone seen it? Or heard it? High school class of ’59, speak up! Man, we’re so far below the radar we could have nuked Laputa with Slim Pickins. Marketers, the media and Congress give us no voice at all. Bob Dylan’s reportedly my age—although I have inside info which skews him a tad older—but the Boomers think he speaks for them. Tom Brokaw’s in my generation—just one year older—and all he talks about is his parents’! What the hell’s up with that? Traitors. America would have us believe that no births of cultural significance occurred again until 1946. In their book Generations, William Strauss and Neil Howe call those of us born in and around 1941 part of the Silent generation. Google dismisses us as pre-Boomer. Give me a fucking break. I refuse to be defined by a younger generation whose only manifest superiority is in numbers.
How does one ignore a three-year span that produced Richard Pryor, Terry Gilliam, Jesse Jackson, Sam Waterston, Al Pacino, Harrison Ford, Charlie Rose, Barney Frank, Bruce Lee, Tim McGovern, Peter Benchley, Barbara Boxer, Donna Shalala, Michael Bloomberg, Joe Lieberman, Roger Staubach, Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Knight, Bill Parcells, Muhammad Ali, Chuck Mangione, Ricky Nelson, Paul Simon, Paul Anka, Jimi Hendrix, Plácido Domingo, Ann-Margret, Julie Christie, Barbra Streisand, Steve Wynn, Paul Prudhomme, Delbert McClinton, Aaron Neville, Wilson Pickett, Carole King, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and John Lennon? And only a year later came Mick Jagger, Joe Namath and God only knows whom else. Attention must be paid to such men and women! [Unfortunately, I also have to include John Gotti, Gary Gilmore, Richard Speck, Charles Whitman, Ted Kaczynski, Pete Rose, Brian De Palma, Helen Reddy, Neil Diamond, Martha Stewart, Ken Lay, Trent Lott and Dick Cheney. But hey, no generation’s perfect.]
We were born on the cusp, my pre-war babies and me—betwixt and between the bust and the boom. But the early 40s spawned heroes without anthems…rebels without a cause. A mere fluke of historical timing granted those born four and five years later an opportunity they would co-opt and death-grip as their cause—that would enable them to believe they had truly changed the world. I don’t blame them. If we’d had more than goldfish to swallow and phone booths to cram and panties to raid, we would have grabbed it. But even though we didn’t, the times they were a changing well before Master Zimmerman took notice. There would have been no Chicago or Kent State if there hadn’t been Eisenhower. No, my little flower children, it takes a hell of a lot more cojones to lash out at the enemies you can’t see or touch—breaking through layer upon layer of the generational dronedom of doing what you were told, going into your father’s business, doing your honorable time in the military, going all the way with girls who did it and marrying the ones who didn’t—conquering the unbearably oppressive ennui of the 50s. Any impressionable twit can go out in the street and protest a war a million miles away. I fail to see how it ennobled a generation enjoying the first youth fares to Europe to speak out against immorality and unconscionable government actions only after the first guys to lay their asses on the line—my guys—came home to tell that generation that we were indeed participating in immorality and unconscionable actions.
We didn’t get the glory—in fact, we got the shame. But we made it all possible. We who had stumbled through our Wonder Years—those years when a child attains most of his/her adult height, according to the preposterous Wonder Bread commercials of the 50s—with nothing to unite us save one glorious gift. We who had stayed up late at night to catch the waves—not from Malibu, but from Nashville. Those stratospheric-bounced radio beams from Randy’s Record Shop arrived like visitors from another planet, another world. The doors opened and we had our first close encounter with alien intelligence. Forget Gort and Michael Rennie…behold Little Richard, the original E.T. Receive the holy word made true from the Spiders, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, Chuck Berry, Todd Rhodes…The Gospel delivered uncut…the real, the original, the one and only Rock and Roll. Free at last, free at last from the bondage of Patti Paige and the Mills Brothers. Everything that has followed is simplistic, derivative homage. [More or less.]
I won't entertain you with all my radio recollections just now, though they are many and rich. I'm curious to see how all this works…who I'll hear from, if anyone. I hear blogging is great fun and an essential form of communication in the new millennium. Well, dear reader, I'll be the judge of that.
posted by Farfelji at 9:39 AM
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