The Times They Are A-Changin'
I was born in 1974, which means I was old enough to start thinking and acting as a semi-independent person right around 1980. There were lots of horrid things about the 1980s (skinny ties, white blazers over pastel T-shirts, the palpable fear of imminent nuclear destruction, that song by Starship, Ronald Reagan, the rise of the key-tar). But the 80s, for all the hair-product abuse and synthesized music, have one thing going for them: they weren't the 60s.

So far, the only decades better than the 1980s have been the 1990s (30 years after the 60s) and this decade (40 years after the 60s). I have high hopes for the 2010s.

As an avowed liberal I should have more sympathy for the 1960s ethos, but I just can't. As far as I can tell, the easy access to drugs and the ravages of sexually transmitted diseases has produced an entire generation of people who are mildly--but permanently and undeniably--brain damaged.

This thesis would explain alot of things, including the success of the redesigned VW Beetle. Without the support of hippies and their sorority-girl daughters, not a single one of those monstrosities would have been sold. We could also chalk up Earth Day, ponchos and the unwillingness of the Rolling Stones to just fucking go away already to their list of crimes against humanity.

And then just yesterday, I read this: a company in conjunction with Motorola has developed cell phones that grow into sunflowers when thrown away. I assume you have to bury and water them first.

How do I know it's the Hippie Cabal that's behind this? Because it can't just be that a new type of plastic is introduced that biodegrades, oh no, it has to grow into a goddamn sunflower. It might as well play Bob Dylan songs and distribute tabs of LSD.

This is really just another insidious example of tiresome, well-off former hippies uncomfortable with their own affluence, even as they revel in it like sows in shit.

I can hardly wait until the day all the Baby Boomers are retired or dead and my generation finally gets its day. We'll make cell-phones that not only don't grow sunflowers, not only will they not biodegrade, but when you plant them in the ground, they'll eventually grow another brand-new non-biodegradable cell phone; or maybe something else to take up space in landfills that piss hippies off, like baby diapers or refrigerators.

Maybe I'm being too harsh. It's possible that my reaction to this story is somewhat overwrought because of my own personal embarrassment. I've been composting old electronic equipement on my front lawn for years now, in direct violation of my home-owners' association guidelines, trying to grow porcini mushrooms. So far it hasn't grown a thing no matter how much I water it. It doesn't even draw flies.

The heap is up to six feet tall and has cost me over $800 in fines. Boy, do I feel like an ass now.

And to the guy from across the street who I threw the old DVD player at after you laughed at me and reported me to the HOA, I would like to say two things: 1) sorry, which I believe fulfills my court-mandated public apology and 2) I fucking told you so. Turns out I was just ahead of my time.

Again.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 6.1


Pops

- posted by Pops @ 10:09 AM