I would like to be the first to welcome the members of Gen-X to the Geezer's Club.
The current issue of "Betty's Attic: Where memories of yesterday live on today" arrived in my mail today. It featured various nostalgic ephemera: Elvis merchandise, a Marilyn Monroe Shoe Purse, a Lucy "Vitameatavegamin Wall Clock," a Betty Boop watch, a Reagan wall plaque, various WWII and Civil War items, a Mr. T bobble-head doll, stuff from The Munsters, The Beatles and John Wayne, a "Flower Power Car Magnet Set," and an assortment of vintage car models, among many other things. But on the "Sights & Sounds From The Past" page, next to some Elvis Poster Magnets and Grateful Dead merchandise was the "Kurt Cobain Figure."
Gen-Xers, you've finally made it.
The copy reads, "Generation-X-ers remember the first time they heard 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.' It was a seminal moment for rock—grunge replaced 80s glitter and Kurt Cobain was at the forefront of a cultural transformation. This 7" tall vinyl action figure with acoustic guitar, chair, microphone and music stand captures the essence of Cobain based on a 1993 MTV Unplugged session."
It's twenty bucks.
And for Gen-X, I'm happy to say, "It's all over now, baby blue."
You now qualify for membership in the ranks of those you once scorned. Welcomin, bienvenue, welcome. We've been waiting for you.
Personally, I've been waiting for you since I heard your first selfish whine. Now that you're officially over the hill, do those little problems you were having back then seem so big? You thought you had problems then? Well, think how close you are to having your prostate swell up like a bowling ball.
You're going to be in the unenviable position of paying off the bills all of those Republicans ran up when you were off wandering around in your own muck. You couldn't be bothered to vote, of course, you were too busy being sad. At the same time you'll be counting the days until you have to pay for my nursing home bills. You'll be welcoming your Denny's senior discounts then, my friends.
Oh, it's a delicious moment.
When grunge was at its "peak" (or should I say, "depth") I remember saying, "Hey, call me when you get a real problem." Well, now you have one, more than one.
How are you going to handle this? Put on some Elliott Smith?
Face it, your hero has been reduced to a trivial action figure. No more valuable than Mr. Potato Head, who also costs twenty dollars. Or the Zorro figurine which costs a HUNDRED AND SEVENTY!
Are you finding yourself going out much less frequently and dozing off in front of the Daily Show? And not even getting to Colbert? Perhaps you can put your Kurt Cobain inaction figure on your nightstand.
See you in line at Denny's, dude.
This first appeared in The Oregonian on their op-ed page.
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14 comments:
Saw this in the Oregonian today, I'm still laughing.
Terry Odor
Yeah, me too—at the sheer pathetic nature of the article!
I came.
I've gotta say- that's one repulsive little op-ed you've written. You've wantonly mocked an entire generation. That's fine and dandy but let's shine a little light on yours, shall we? Are you a Boomer? If so, well, you're a member of the most self-absorbed generation America has ever endured. You were given an opportunity to change the world and what did you give us? G.W. Bush, capitalism run amuck, corporate raiders, the fall of social security, no less than two pointless military quagmires, the Bee Gees and still no universal health care. So before you run around mocking the generation that's still depressed over the world they've inherited, maybe you should acknowledge your own's numerous sins, Senor Self-Righteous.
To anonymous 12:53
Poor baby. You gave us Bush by staying on the sidlines. And you lead the league in self-absorption as well as useless whining music.
And btw...it's the "Greatest Generation" who gave you all those awful things.
We gave you women's rights, civil rights, environmentalism, and a lot of other things you choose to ignore.
You gave us what? Nothing. Thanks.
Ah, Boomers. May their reign be the shortest of any generation. If only you guys could ever get over Vietnam (and I'm talking to the right even more than the left) you might make competent rulers, but that will never happen.
Funny post, though.
P.S. A geezer is anyone who exclusively listens the music of their teens and twenties, and isn't in their teens or twenties.
What exactly do you mean "get over Viet Nam?" That's like asking Jews to "get over the holocost."
I'm very happy that Gen-X didn't have a war to fight. What you missed was your family and friends dying in a war that made no sense, was faught for fraudulent reasons and that we lost.
Sound familiar?
Gosh tom, we never said we wanted to be young forever. We didn’t create a lifestyle acronym out of our youth – yuppie – or deify our 20s as sacred. We just wanted you Boomers to finally get out of the way. And we’re getting our wish since you’re rushing toward retirement like a herd of wildebeests without much preparation.
Your snarky op-ed misses the point entirely. Generation-X isn’t obsessed with youth. You won’t find most of us counting crow’s feet every morning or inventing new drugs just to stay hard. Your mean-spirited quip really says more about your generation than mine.
You’re the ones still buying tie-dye shirts in your 50s. You’re the ones with posters of your rock idols on your walls. You’re the ones who have never gotten over the fact that you will grow old, will becomes irrelevant. All you have done is point out how bitter you still are at losing your war against time.
And that’s not very grown up, Tom.
Randy Moser
vanishedmessenger.com
"You gave us Bush by staying on the sidlines (sic)." Strange-I'd always credited the Supreme Court (to say nothing of various corrupt elections officials and Ralph Nader) for Bush's ominous seizure of (and continued hold on) power, but I suppose you've found a far more convenient scapegoat. For the record, at 38 I've voted in almost every minor and, without exception, every major election since I first registered in 1986 (and I can't think of a single exception among my friends and acquaintances of a similar age).
"That's like asking Jews to 'get over the holocost (sic).'" It most certainly is not, and this is, to say the very least, astonishingly overstated. My father's family lost their oldest son in the Second World War, and I know very well how devastating his death was to my father's family. I can certainly empathize with those families who went through similar tragedies during Vietnam (or Iraq-my oldest friend has been deeply involved in that mess while he's nearing retirement and has four young children). It must be all the worse for the survivors having to live with the knowledge that these wars didn't have to happen. But casual analogies concerning the Holocaust have no place here-you (or I, and our families and friends) weren't and aren't living in a time and place where racially-motivated genocide is taking place on the greatest scale.
"We gave you women's rights, civil rights, environmentalism, and a lot of other things you choose to ignore." Actually, one of the most striking aspects I've ever noticed among my peers has been their rather heartening devotion to environmental matters. As for the civil rights and women's rights movements, rather than "ignore" them, I'd say we've taken their successes for granted-I'd never claim that genuinely heroic strides weren't taken during that period. I learned feminism rather organically-at the sides of my seventy year-old mother and many of her similarly talented and intelligent friends (most of whom casually observed the movement from some distance and simply taught me by their fine examples)-and the thought that women didn't deserve complete and unconditional equality under the law has, happily, never crossed my mind. By the way, weren't many, if not most of the leaders of both the civil rights and women's considerably older than you and your peers?
"And you lead the league in...useless whining music." If only you knew where to hit where it really hurts. The truly apathetic and endlessly whiny Billy Corgan (my near-exact contemporary) would have made a far better target for your wrath. I've always found him deeply embarrassing, and I wouldn't buy a Smashing Pumpkins album for fifty cents at a yard sale. As for the often politically-engaged Kurt Cobain (to say nothing of his very politically active bandmate Krist Novoselic), I found the best of his music usually so cryptic (and/or sarcastic) as to defy the usual post-mortem descriptions of his "whiny self-pity" (I don't confuse the facts of his suicide-which have everything to do with his chemical dependency and family history of depression as opposed to some generational malaise-with the thrust of his work). And Cobain, bless him, was insistent on playing the highest-profile anti-Measure 9 fundraiser in the state of Oregon during the fall of 1992 (Measure 9 being the brainchild of the Oregon Citizens Alliance-it sought to have the state officially link homosexuality with bestiality and pedophilia among other grotesque pursuits). I admired Nirvana simply for the fact that Cobain and friends almost single-handedly wrecked the careers of dozens of horrendous pop-metal bands, and actually made mainstream "rock" radio interesting (for a thoroughly alienated listener) to hear for a while. As it happens, the most passionate Nirvana fan I ever knew might be your age-he'll be fifty-four this year, and still swears by that band (and I've never once "scorned" him on account of his age and whatever generational stereotypes that might conjure up. As a matter of fact, in the twenty years I've known him, I don't think I've given the matter any thought until I wrote this). I was always a casual, though gratified, Nirvana listener-and I couldn't possibly care if Kurt Cobain's likeness is being used to peddle nostalgic trinkets.
Most discussions of Nirvana lack a crucial perspective-their rise was a belated commercial explosion which happened as the American indie scene from which they came was very nearly over. Among the many fascinating bands Kurt Cobain and I were following during the eighties were the likes of the often hilarious (and passionately left-wing) Minutemen (featuring the late, great d. boon, an endless supply of brilliant riffs and an unmistakable instrumental signature, along with their patented quasi-beat wordplay), and Husker Du (among guitarist Bob Mould's high points in that band were "Newest Industry" and "Divide and Conquer," both of which stand as chillingly prescient evocations of 21st century life). In a way, the rise of Nirvana is almost the equivalent of having the entire British invasion somehow fly under the radar in the U.S. until the arrival of Roxy Music. Amerindie was hardly apathetic and/or whiny, and I recommend Michael Azerrad's "Our Band Could Be Your Life" for further research.
Finally, a question regarding "useless whiny music." You are presumably also of an age that gave birth to the singer/songwriter movement (was it Lester Bangs who called it the "f*** me, I'm sensitive" school? I forget). There is no question that this is when whiny self-absorption, having carefully drained away any hint of the raw power, joy, and fearlessness of rock and roll (and having passed itself off as courageous introspection) first infected American popular music. Commercially, it was as successful (if not more) than "grunge." Are you going to claim (rightful) credit for this innovation on behalf of your generation as well?
Frankly Mr. D'Antoni, I've always been something of a defender of your generation, even though I often find the concept of generational identity dubious (very few, if any, "boomers" or "gen-xers" I've known have ever matched their respective stereotypes). I would never judge you solely on such an arbitrary basis as age, but I must say this: you have come across as unbearably smug in this column (and in your responses to the comments above), and that is an unbecoming trait in anyone (seriously-I expect that out of Bush and Fox News and Limbaugh, but it's painful to encounter it while being insulted by someone you essentially agree with otherwise). If this is a dominant aspect of your personality, perhaps that explains some of the "scorn" heaped upon you by "Generation X." And you might bear in mind that to incessantly complain about other people being "whiny" tends to come across as...well, very whiny.
Wow, anonymous 4:23 really hit the spot and represented anything i could hope to write and more. I read this op-ed online and was somewhat amazed at how you managed to whine about a "stereotypical Gen-X'er" in an utmost smug way, and then proceed to lay blame on them for problems we have now and whine about problems you have now. I mean, the irony made my ribs hurt and my cheeks sore. What really baffles me though is your contradicting intelligence and ability to think logically sometimes, yet you get caught up defending yourself here on your blog and slinging additional insults (to add insult to your injury) to posters. Make peace not war right?
If you really cared about politiks, environmentalism, or any of your so virtuous concerns then how come I don't see anything on your blog about you trying to fix them? Does whining about them and laying blame seem more effective? Or would you rather let your "great(est) generation" continue handling the problems with the efficiency they've had so far.
My generation was being told how worthless we were before we even graduated from college, so this shouldn't be anything new. But at the same time, it's still shocking to see this sort of ignorance persist. It's as if your entire knowledge of anyone under the age of 40 consists of what the media told you in 1992. Yet, I've seen you on your show interview Gen Xers who were ambitious, creative, and industrious. So what are you really thinking when you're talking to them? How worthless their whiny selves are?
How would you feel if I thanked you for the Cold War, AIDS, Ronald Reagan, corporate welfare, corporate sell-outs - well, pretty much anything that happened in the 80s? That would be a gross oversimplification of what the generations before ours had to offer. And yet you feel free to lump an entire generation of liberals, Republicans, whites, blacks, women, men, Christians, atheists, Buddhists, bookworms, frat brothers, Peace Corps volunteers, businessmen, baristas, graphic designers, construction workers, MTV addicts, nurses, students, environmentalists, salesmen, cancer patients, yoga instructors, plumbers, writers, athletes, investment brokers, Safeway cashiers, social workers, parents, gamers, marketing managers, poor people, trust fund babies, and more into one group: whiners. I think even Bill O'Reilly would have to be impressed with that sort of simplistic stereotyping.
I've never been much of an Elliott Smith fan, so what do you suggest I listen to? The Rolling Stones, sponsored by RadioShack? Paul McCartney, sponsored by Lexus and Fidelity Investments? The Who, sponsored by Budweiser? Elliott Smith is looking better and better.
My advice to you? Let the current generation have a chance to make something of themselves before you start telling them what they are or aren't, because as this entry clearly shows, once the media has stuck a label on them, it'll follow them till the day they die.
Some people just can't take a joke.
And btw...when you pass 50 and begin to face your body failing you in ways you never imagined, please remember your remarks about trying to stay alive and attractive. I hope you live to regret them.
You had some excellent points in your article but you don't seem to realize that the people you hate for not voting are also not reading it. The people who have read it for the most part are not guilty of your sleazy accusations, and we don't take to it kindly. I never whined, fool. I accused, and I continue to: The Greatest Generation, The Boomers, Generation X, and the mythical Generation Y all have played key roles in our current sorrows. If only you had the brats you were addressing in front of you, your words would have been great, but you didn't, and thus the hostility.
Hey,
I just posted a piece about Cobain on my blog that I think you’ll be interested in.
Check it out:
http://krahn.blogspot.com/
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