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Hey! Baby boomers! Hey there! Stop not understanding the internet for two seconds (just a single click will do on that link, homie) and look over here! I need to let you know something. Which is that we get it. We really fucking get it. You were young once, and at that time you attended (or didn't) a thing called Woodstock. Jimi Hendrix was there, and you wore a gourd instead of clothing and you got mud on your stuff. Everything was colorful, and you couldn't find your arm. Then the world changed. Forever.
I know my generation is supposed to be the world's foremost pack of drooling narcissists or whatever, but Jesus "David Crosby's Coke-Encrusted Mustache" Christ, boomers, you have got to be the most self-absorbed boring fucks since the first Thanksgiving (pass the appropriated corn!). I mean, Woodstock? Still? Woodstock in new, fictionalized formats? Surely we have the definitive Woodstock story already, called "all that footage we filmed at Woodstock." Surely you have done something since Woodstock that you would like to talk about. You are relevant. I believe in you.
Stranger Personals
At the very least, I can tell you what is not necessary, which is Ang Lee's new historicomedramaramedamedy, Taking Woodstock. Now, this Lee is a confusing fellow. He managed to bury any Hulk-fueled skepticism under an alp of goodwill thanks to Brokeback Mountain, a film with very few discernible flaws unless you are a raging homophobe (who might discern the homo-sex). But Taking Woodstock is just a big ball of bad ideas.
It's the story of Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin, peerlessly adorable), a shy, semicloseted aspiring interior designer trying to keep his parents' crumbling Catskills motel afloat. His mother (Imelda Staunton, all mesmerizing rage) is a money-grasping neurotic, and his father (Henry Goodman, defeat personified) is just waiting to die. Elliot, through circumstances involving paperwork, winds up inviting half a million beautiful and filthy hippies to his tiny town. And then the world changes. Forever.
I'm not saying that Woodstock-the-piece-of-cultural-history isn't
interesting. Or important. But Taking Woodstock—stilted,
artificial—certainly is neither. Lee's depiction expands even
beyond the typical Woodstock clichés (mud, VW vans, special
brownies) into an It's a Small World ride of everything that happened
in the '60s: As Elliot walks through the crowds, he passes a
draft-card-burning station, a brokebrained Vietnam vet, an SDS (or was
it SNCC?) float, a booth of bra-burners (not real, you guys! Not a real
thing!) screaming, "Burn 'em, sisters!" and much peace and jammin' and
buckskin-clad people just yelling, "You've gotta join in
demonstrations! Now!" Are you happy yet, baby boomers? ![]()
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Did someone piss in your Metamucil this morning?
It's really hard to become irrelevant, isn't it?
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Part of the draw of Woodstock and such was the unifying concept we had that is missing from pop culture now. We really believed we could change things! Since there were fewer choices, we all had many more shared experiences that created a sense of commonality.
The current corporate blight on music and the attendant consumerism has dulled the spirit of youth in the last 30 years.
It was a golden time, but yeah I am tired of the navel-gazing.
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Star Wars
Lord of the Rings
comic books
shitty tv shows
Twilight
pop kulture in general
EVERY generation is a huge fucking bore about shit they liked when they were 12-25 years old and the irritating hipster ones tend to revere the shit they were too young to participate in, ie stuff from just before they were born to puberty.
Get over it.
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Maybe a Forest Gump for the 90s? Or instead of the Doors, do The Shins? Or perhaps instead of Woodstock we can have a movie about the warehouse scene in Detroit, and HOW IT CHANGED THE ENTIRE WORLD.
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Excuse me?
You know who played Woodstock? Sha Na Na and Mickey Dolenz. Mickey Fuckin' Dolenz, who was in a goddamn fake fuckin' band. No wonder you failed at changing the world.
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And they accuse us of narcissism? Please. We grew up being forced into what Douglas Copeland called "legislated nostalgia" in Generation X:
To force a body of people to have memories they do not actually possess. "How can I be a part of the 1960s generation when I don't even remember any of it?"
We grew up being force-fed these memories by the previous generation as if they were the only memories that counted. Our own cultural memory is an echo of the generation the preceded us instead of our own created narrative, and I'm sick of the lot of them. Do we have to wait for them to die before they'll shut the fuck up about themselves?
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I know the feeling. Just imagine growing up remembering the Great Depression and then suddenly realizing one day that you weren't even born then. Oh...and World War II. It's like I lived through the whole damn thing. Multiple times. Before I was even a teenager.
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I also agree that they are an extremely narcissistic generation & so are we.
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Oh, honey, if necessitude was the criteria for making movies there would be what, three movies a year? And then what would you be doing with your time?
Plus it's an Ang fucking Lee movie. It's worth seeing even if it's a moldy, festering turd, just to figure out wtf happened.
Yes, already been covered. To death. You are right.
Dear Boomers,
I'd really like to find the importance of it now, but in your youth you decided that you were going to change the world and then did a 180 and created the greed and excess that was the 80s.
I'm sorry to have to say it, but can you seriously think of a more self obsessed load of bullshit. You all had the opportunity to change the western world, but when you got to your 30s, you went all "oh, fuck! I really do want corporations and money!!! I was just doing a shit load of drugs in my youth 'cause you know, the 60s!"
At least those who lived through the Great Depression and WWII were just trying to find a steady non-starving kind of life. They were uptight, racism of course was a fucking issue (love to give the credit to the boomers with the civil rights movement, but alas, you were too young), but they were trying to survive and make sure that you shits had all the opportunities that they did not have.
So, no we don't have FUCKING HEDONISTIC WOODSTOCK of our own. Don't even try to say that a music festival is going to do it. We're trying to clean up the fucking mess you made.
Thanks for being spineless!
Most of the commenters sound like crybabies. But Woodstock or not, we worked on, busting our butts. Got a problem with that?
Like it or not, Woodstock was an event most of us would have attended-if we'd only known. And had the gas money.
As it turned out the evening news reports made us smile. Not life changing, just a lot of fun. I'm glad you missed it.
The real joke is that the Woodstockers are being portrayed as the spokespersons of our generation when in fact they were the clueless children who never grew up and insist on living in the past.
And to top it off, there are a much larger percentage of them in today's generation. Reflect on the great, influential music being made now (I'll need your help here), Nazi-Killing fantasies and the coolness of a WW2 flick accompanied by Bowie's 'Cat People'.
Yawn.
I read your column while sitting at a counter in a small cafe staffed by heavily tattooed waitresses and felt moved to demonstrate my (I'm a baby boomer) internet skills with a brief response to your column. Look, I know that Dan Savage sets the juvenile snark bar very high there at The Stranger, and it must be difficult for a young writer like yourself to meet that standard every week, but I want to comment on your belief that we boomers view your generation as narcissists. Of course, I can speak only for myself. I do-sort of. I spend a lot of time on Capitol Hill. Here is what I see when I observe many individuals of your generation.
First I notice the smell. That week old dirty ashtray smell that permeates your hair and clothing. And then there are the tattoos. Already fading, losing detail, merging into a blob, and out of style they look like shit. The neck tattoos and the sleeves-wow! Perhaps you guys are so distracted by your ipods and cell phones that you didn't notice how older tattoos look on people. And I find it interesting that although you would likely never commit to wearing the same shirt everyday for the rest of your life, you are willing to inject grams of ink under your skin to remain there until you die.
And then there are the stretched ear lobes. Can you guys really think that looks good? And that it will look good when you are forty? I don't think that is narcissism. I think that is fucking stupidity. There is a lot about my boomer generation worthy of ridicule. But even stoned we knew better than to step into the street in front of a bus which is an intelligence that you can't claim for your constantly connected and distracted cell phone clinging generation. Life is passing you guys by; your culture is tattoo deep; but hey-you know how to use the internet.
The boomers, silly as they could be, were at least idealistic. We did try to make the world a better place for children and other living things; and many of us continue to work for that goal. We didn't think that snark was the highest value. And that everything and everyone was fair game for our personal enjoyment and career enhancement. Check this out.
http://tinyurl.com/dhye5k
I read your column while sitting at a counter in a small cafe staffed by heavily tattooed waitresses and felt moved to demonstrate my (I'm a baby boomer) internet skills with a brief response to your column. Look, I know that Dan Savage sets the juvenile snark bar very high there at The Stranger, and it must be difficult for a young writer like yourself to meet that standard every week, but I want to comment on your belief that we boomers view your generation as narcissists. Of course, I can speak only for myself. I do-sort of. I spend a lot of time on Capitol Hill. Here is what I see when I observe many individuals of your generation.
First I notice the smell. That week old dirty ashtray smell that permeates your hair and clothing. And then there are the tattoos. Already fading, losing detail, merging into a blob, and out of style they look like shit. The neck tattoos and the sleeves-wow! Perhaps you guys are so distracted by your ipods and cell phones that you didn't notice how older tattoos look on people. And I find it interesting that although you would likely never commit to wearing the same shirt everyday for the rest of your life, you are willing to inject grams of ink under your skin to remain there until you die.
And then there are the stretched ear lobes. Can you guys really think that looks good? And that it will look good when you are forty? I don't think that is narcissism. I think that is fucking stupidity. There is a lot about my boomer generation worthy of ridicule. But even stoned we knew better than to step into the street in front of a bus which is an intelligence that you can't claim for your constantly connected and distracted cell phone clinging generation. Life is passing you guys by; your culture is tattoo deep; but hey-you know how to use the internet.
The boomers, silly as they could be, were at least idealistic. We did try to make the world a better place for children and other living things; and many of us continue to work for that goal. We didn't think that snark was the highest value. And that everything and everyone was fair game for our personal enjoyment and career enhancement. Check this out.
http://tinyurl.com/dhye5k
I read your column while sitting at a counter in a small cafe staffed by heavily tattooed waitresses and felt moved to demonstrate my (I'm a baby boomer) internet skills with a brief response to your column. Look, I know that Dan Savage sets the juvenile snark bar very high there at The Stranger, and it must be difficult for a young writer like yourself to meet that standard every week, but I want to comment on your belief that we boomers view your generation as narcissists. Of course, I can speak only for myself. I do-sort of. I spend a lot of time on Capitol Hill. Here is what I see when I observe many individuals of your generation.
First I notice the smell. That week old dirty ashtray smell that permeates your hair and clothing. And then there are the tattoos. Already fading, losing detail, merging into a blob, and out of style they look like shit. The neck tattoos and the sleeves-wow! Perhaps you guys are so distracted by your ipods and cell phones that you didn't notice how older tattoos look on people. And I find it interesting that although you would likely never commit to wearing the same shirt everyday for the rest of your life, you are willing to inject grams of ink under your skin to remain there until you die.
And then there are the stretched ear lobes. Can you guys really think that looks good? And that it will look good when you are forty? I don't think that is narcissism. I think that is fucking stupidity. There is a lot about my boomer generation worthy of ridicule. But even stoned we knew better than to step into the street in front of a bus which is an intelligence that you can't claim for your constantly connected and distracted cell phone clinging generation. Life is passing you guys by; your culture is tattoo deep; but hey-you know how to use the internet.
The boomers, silly as they could be, were at least idealistic. We did try to make the world a better place for children and other living things; and many of us continue to work for that goal. We didn't think that snark was the highest value. And that everything and everyone was fair game for our personal enjoyment and career enhancement. Check this out.
http://tinyurl.com/dhye5k
Tens of thousands of your generation are being sent off to fight and die and be maimed in two illegal wars. Your government is torturing prisoners as a matter of policy. It is holding citizens in secret prisons without trial or access to lawyers. It is spying on you and constantly working to subvert your civil liberties.
All that, yet you don't give a shit. As long as you are entertained; as long as you have the latest gadget; you are just fine. You won't get off your complacent ass to say a word about your government's abuse; but you will find time to ridicule the few that do.
The best thing of all was then overhearing he and his co-worker discussing Heroes and Hell's Kitchen. I never heard what they thought of America's Top Model or Dancing With The Stars.













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