Po
Boy Views
By
Phil
LaMancusa
The
Transitive Vampire
Or
Let’s
Eat Grandpa
OMG! WTF? Ask me if there’s anything scarier than two
lovers having a tiff and eventually breaking up with no other contact but their text messaging apparatus? Go ahead,
ask me: “Gt thF ot o my lfe u LSR! Cm gt yr fggn ct 2!!” Yeah, scary scenes;
what with VooDoo Festival and Halloween coming in fast and the English language
being reduced to bones picked over like the carrion of the X Generation.
“f u cn rd ths you cn gt a gd jb w hi pa!” was an
advertisement on the back of comic books when I was a kid that I thought was
stupid. Little did I think that it would become cmnplce (commonplace). Mark my words, Halloween will see a lot of kids
disguised as lapsed vowels, guys masquerading as QWERTYs, gals hussied up as
MILFs and some big bruiser with a shirt that proclaims MFIC! Maybe a NAB
telling you to MYOB and KYMS! LOL. LMAO.
A sci-fi Scrabbled world awaits us on our way to the quarter century. That’s not all that awaits us.
*******************************************************
So, I
bet you weren’t wondering who those not so young adults are, sporting tattoos,
wearing Betty Page era outfits, wheat bellys and going to 80’s night at One
Eyed Jack’s--and about to become (if
they’re not already) in charge of the planet’s policies and politics. Well, I’m going to tell you anyway. For your edification, they’re called
Generation Xers sometimes called Generation 13; age 30-50. Born between 1961
and 1981after the Baby Boomers and before the Echo Boomers (Generation Yers). A
generation raised facing an ill defined, uncertain (and perhaps hostile)
environment; a generation cynical and ego-autonomously resentful of Baby
Boomers for taking all the wealth and leaving only environmental and economic
destruction for them. SOL.
But, they’re ready to flex their muscles! And, if U ask me-- with attitude-- the product of Boomer parents. Xers are those latchkey
kid pioneers; children who spent formative years with video games instead of guardians
and experienced peer identity crises and social unrest marked by senseless violence
and destruction; drinking Slurpees, eating frozen pizzas and pills from the
medicine cabinet. Like to put a face on the collateral damage? Seriously? Want
to know exactly who the Baby Boomers
f**kd up?
Neil
Howe and Bill Strauss in their book “13th Gen” (1993 Vintage Press) described their plight: “Every day 2,500 American children witness divorce or separation of
parents; 90 a day are taken and committed to foster homes. Every day 13 of the 15-24 year old group commit suicide, 16 are
murdered, 3,610 are assaulted, 630 are raped. Every day the typical 14 year old watches 3 hours of television and
does 1 hour of homework. 2,200 drop out of school. Each day, 500 adolescents begin using drugs, 1,000 begin drinking
alcohol. Each day 100,000 High School
students bring guns to school. Each day
1,000 unwed teenage girls become mothers.” The mark of Cain; the scarlet letter; the red
badge of courage; MIA; DOA.
The
Xers were a generation that was the product of disintegrated families, working
mothers, failed schools, a no growth economy, minimum wage jobs and little to
no chance of buying houses or achieving financial security; it’s a wonder any
survived at all. This is The Breakfast Club of yesterday and the bipartisan
politicians of today that place a lot of value on their ‘because/now that-- I’ve got
mine’ theory of life. Who didn’t care to learn more than sandbox
mentalities and strategies for living. That makes their words distrustful. It
used to be that we didn’t trust anyone over thirty; now it seems that we can’t
trust anyone under fifty, or so prevailing feelings go. They’re not bad people;
except-- I truly believe that --with
any luck at all-- when you’re paying a little more attention to your life— at some point-- a thought is going to
struggle to the crest of your brainwave and whisper: “there’s more to life… there’s more to living”. And this-- doesn’t
seem to be happening.
Gen
Xers are not model parents and nor are the ‘Baby on Board’ generation (oh yes,
them) who had everything given to them. The Baby on Board-Gen Yers are just getting
settled into the workforce (and calling their Moms regularly) with a ‘fewer
hours, flexible schedule and a better work/life balance’ attitude; they’re also called the Echo Boomers (also
Millennial Gen) and live in a techno world created by Xers. They have high
expectations of their employers, seek out new challenges, not afraid to
question authority and are team players; they’ll be the next hope we have
before Gen Z takes over; you know, the ones who like Hannah Montana.
Watch
them on Halloween, GensX, Y and Z; the
grandma who once dressed as Cinderella giving slave harvested chocolate to a
kid dressed as a CEO (with a briefcase) that would rather have cash. Or the reveler
Xers and Y’s at the VD Fest (LOL) with a pint of JD in their back pocket, a Zapp’s
on their shoulder and their trash on the lawn.
The
main reason I’m pursuing this thread is because it occurs to me that these are
the generations that are taking charge of our futures and our country; I watch
our leaders not only to suss their individual attributes but also to question
what penchant the influences of their generations has had on their thought
processes. I think every generation revolts against their parent’s attitudes
and values until they make up some of their own (GR8); however, most of any one
generation will pull back from that uncertain abyss and become their parents. From their parents’ frightful dreams to their
children’s worst nightmare; Boo.
