Generation Rumble
The picture associated with this post is Chris Smiters, a wonderful acoustic guitar player and song write. To my knowledge, this picture has nothing to do with the subject of this post, but that is a trend for all these blogs posts so far.
Generation news has been in the news recently with the publication of the book, “The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America.” That is why people ask me all the time, “Mike, what is the essence of the Baby Boomers, and why should we care?”
I usually respond, “A boomer is an itinerant railroad worker back in the days when railroads defined America. Boomers were not rounders. A rounder was a bum. A boomer may ride the rails as a rounder, but a boomer always found work with one railroad or another. So, when Blind Willie McTell complains in “Delia” that his girlfriend is hanging around rounders instead of him, he is legitimately concerned. Had Delia been hanging around with boomers, she’d be okay. Blind Willie McTell knew the difference; we should too.”
Okay, I know I deflected the question. But seriously, Mike, what is the essence of the Boomers and why should we care?
Generally, they say Boomers are the people who have almost destroyed the earth by their obsessive status-driven consumption. They were interested in social causes such as stopping the Vietnam war, but after that they turned into old fart conservative dicks who elected Trump because they are terrified racial and sexual orientation minorities will seek economic justice. And they ain’t done yet. They demand increases in Social Security and other old age welfare programs even if it means younger people will have work until they are 101 years old to pay for aging Boomers.
Did the Boomers do anything worthwhile? No. Boomers say they invented sex, drugs, and rock and roll. As there were generations before the Boomers, one can assume some people knew about sex. As for drugs, ancient civilizations long prior to 1946 used and abused drugs.
And rock and roll? That is both problematic and false.
One of the leading candidates for the first rock and roll song is “Rocket 88” by Ike Turner in 1951. There were earlier candidates, but let’s stipulate “Rocket 88” was the first. Back then, Boomers would be all of 6 years old if my math be right. Boomers could have nothing whatsoever with the invention of rock and roll. That ship had sailed.
But let’s say the Boomers invented “classic” rock. That would be rock appearing out of nowhere with the Beatles. And the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Sam Cooke, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Creedence Clear Water Revival, Sly Stone, Aretha Franklin, and on and on ad nauseam. Guess what? They were all born before 1946. None of the classic rock personalities were Boomers.
A bit of trivia: A classic rock group, The Who, wrote and sang a classic rock song, “My Generation.” (See below) Most of the great unwashed Boomers thought they were singing about Boomers, but the “My” in “My Generation” technically was NOT the Boomers as neither the songwriter nor the singer were Boomers. Think about it. If more of these rockers were Baby Boomers, there would not be so many dead ones.
Many Boomers also believe they invented the word “generation” to describe themselves. Again, this is BS. The first popular use of “generation” was the Lost Generation. That included the multitudes of men (mostly) that died or were wounded in World War I. Millions of them. They were “lost” because so many of them were killed. Also lost were monogamy and heterosexuality as there were so few functioning cis men around after World War I that women had to seek out alternative objects of affection. Okay, that was a false Republican answer, but certainly the demographics encouraged experimentation. The white male patriarchy, despite decimation in terms of numbers, continued to thrive after both World Wars.
Thanks to the Boomers, this generation naming shit has gotten out of hand. After the Boomers, the next generation was so amorphous and lacking in anything worth remembering, that they are called Generation X. Everyone knows X can stand for both nothing. The next generation, the Millennials are named after a date. What does that tell you? Nothing. Suppose everyone born after December 31, 1999 were green. If we called them the Green Generation, that would mean something. But, no, all these green people are called Millennials. And, gee, things really get clear with Generation Z! WTF does that mean? Twenty-five dollars to whomever can explain what Z is about. At least the name Lost Generation has a sense of nostalgia about it. These letter generation designations don’t have diddly-squat.
I know some people who are members of these wispy amorphous meaningless named generations. They are opaque and alive. Some have personalities that are not well captured in the designations Xs, 2000-ials, and Zs. Many are nice, and many are talented. They deserve something better than a stupid letter.
A group of readers of this blog who are in one of those letter groups should get together and come up with a new name, or names, for being lumped together. Then write your Congressperson (see the prior blog) and have the new name(s) codified in law. Like the #MeToo Generation, or the Last Majority White People Generation, or the Hip Hop Generation or even the Kardashian Generation. Something warm and fuzzy so when members of those generations are grandparents, their grandchildren can ask them all the time, “Grandma, what was the essence of the Extinction Generation, and why should we care when we all died off?”
The song “My Generation”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjN5uHRIcjM