Generation GAP, Eddie Bauer, and Hot Topic, Too

As an Xer raised by a Boomer I was constantly fed rhetoric about how great the summer of love was, man, and how the people stood together against the man, man, and it was groovy, man. Of course, our parents were never home, man, because they were off looking for truth or Zen or some platform shoes or some such seventies pap that preceded the Yucky Yuppie era when they apparently found themselves (oh, there I am!) and discovered that ideology was a shit sandwich without a BMW and a nice big house in a gated community on the white side of town to wash it down with.

Groovy. Summer of love, peace, man, tune in, turn on and drop out; you were always a bunch of followers and will always be nothing but followers. My only curiosity now is what were you idiots smoking that made you all think that you were so originally profound and where can I get some? Or explain to me, if you will, why a group of people who said they didn't trust anyone over 30 is suddenly espousing how great it is to be 50, and why suddenly, they can't seem to hear anyone under 30 (or 40), or even let us voice our concerns in a legitimate venue.

God forbid that we aspire to career-track jobs while laboring under an opportunistic boomer who'll gladly use (read: steal) our creative outputs to bolster their flagging intellectual facilities, then toss us away faster than a BIC lighter at a crackhead's house. This is a generation that is so busy protecting their own self interests that they've never hesitated to annihilate anyone from the ranks who represented a threat to their continued existence on the top of their respective dunghills.

Generation "Me" brought us divorce; plastic surgery; air pollution; water shortages; Michael Jackson; rampant narcissism; pop music; drugs and wars on drugs; latchkey children; AIDS; herpes; Pac-man, prison culture; corporate logos on our clothes; savings and loan scandals; bad movies; worse TV; political correctness; Prozac; sobered-up soccer moms; SUV's; declining SAT scores; media blowjobs; Bill Clinton; a "C" student president who — quite frankly — has the IQ of a bush; cornball nostalgia; youth worship; and a flip-flop hypocrisy so blatant we are left with no doubt that Senator Kerry is, indeed, a Boomer. This is a generation that bridged the gap between Beat Intellectuals and Beavis and Butthead. Good going, man. Oh yeah, boomers were cool, still are. Like Joe Cool or James Dean. Imagine a whole generation that was so intent on looking cool they forgot how to be cool. Far out, man. Why don't you all go to a reunion rally and spit on some veterans for old times' sake, eh?

Article Author: Melisande Luna

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