Wax To The Future

A few weeks ago, I was driving along when a car pulled out of a gas station in front of me. Normally, I wouldn't give such a thing a second thought, unless it pulled out right in front and was dangerous. This wasn't dangerous, but it was just annoying enough that I gave the car a second thought. In that second thought, I realized it was a Chevy Bolt, which is an electric car. Why would it have been in a gas station?

As I got closer, I could see the reason: it was covered in beads of water, despite this being a clear winter's day, and it was very clean, despite this being a Canadian winter. Evidently, it had been in the gas station's car wash.

I hadn't really thought of that before, but electric cars need washes too. Well, I'm sure Tesla is working on a system to remotely clean cars - maybe with a team of drones - but until then, it's car washes for everyone.

That must be really awkward:  To you, gas stations are fading monuments to carbon dominance, which you’re free to ignore. But now and then, you pull up at this archaic institution. No, you don't want to use this business's main purpose, you've moved beyond that. And while most customers silently use the pay-at-the-pump feature, you have to go inside and confront the employees. Tell them, no, I don't need gas; I'm one of the ones who will be the death of your industry. But before that, can you make my car shiny for me?

It's made odder by the way gas station car washes have a kind of retro-futuristic feel to them. With their many moving parts, these pseudo-robotic servants pamper your car while you wait. It's the Jetsons future Boomers imagined. Just like jetpacks and flying cars, but with way less casualties.

Drop one of your lithium-ion transit appliances in the middle of that fifties future, and it's a real anachronism. Like a Buck Rogers Subreddit, it's the future we imagined confronting the future we ended up with. And — don't tell the Boomers — but our future seems pretty dull in comparison. The inevitable jetpack accidents almost seem worth it.

Take My 5G, Please

Have you ever seen something that just seemed to contradict its own existence? I mean there are so many different aspects that it seems impossible that anyone could have created it. I’m thinking of something like this:

I took this photo almost a year ago, but I recently noticed that the graffiti is still there. And it’s still puzzling me.

First of all, it's got a 1950’s sense of humour. That's not something you usually see in graffiti. Henny Youngman must be <checks Wikipedia> rolling in his grave. Maybe graffiti was like that in the 1950's, but even then, I doubt you had graffiti written from the perspective of a married man.

On top of that, this is an anachronistic joke with a reference to modern technology in it. Even if it were in a less-strange context, that's weird. It's the joke Benny Hill would do if he'd made it to the twenty-first century. Is Andy Capp still going? Maybe it does jokes like this.

And now it's at least a year old, and neither the owner of the wall, nor other graffiti artists have covered it up in all that time. And did I mention that this is the parking lot for a sushi place? Lots of people have been staring at this, confused, for months. Probably feeling like they should blame a generation, but they have no idea which one.

Was it done by an abnormally young-at-heart Boomer, or an abnormally sexist Millennial? I'm wracking my brain to figure it out. At least, using whatever part of my brain is not currently trying to pun Banksy with an old comedian's name. Whatever Sherlock instincts I have left say that it was done by a Baby Boomer. Yes, it mentions Wi-fi, but it has that joke-referring-to-something-I've-heard-of-but-don't-understand style that launched a thousand late-night routines. So I feel safe blaming them. I'll just add it to the list.

Wake Up, You Need To Make Money

I read this interesting article about why the current generation of kids is so stressed. The main reason is that they have so much pressure to plan for their career. Teachers and parents make them keenly aware of how big a difference a career makes in the current environment. So from an early age, they know that their education is a make-or-break situation.

I can kind of relate to this feeling myself. When I was in high school, Teachers worked hard to communicate the idea that we were building our future. I remember one correcting people who talked about the world outside of school as “the real world.” He reminded us that school is part of the real world, since our actions in class would have real consequences.

But it was clear that our elders were fighting an ingrained perception that we’d be alright no matter what. I think everyone understood that life would be better if you got more education, but there wasn’t a sense of disaster if you failed to get it. But by the time I was in university, the manufacturing sector was shrinking, and people were really getting the idea that there wasn’t much of a Plan-B. That’s when the Millennials were starting to go through high school and college, so I’m assuming that was the message most of them were given as they grew up.

But a point from the article is that while Gen-X’ers and Millennials may have been exposed to threats of failure, we were at least promised a payoff. The message of study-or-you’ll-always-work-at-McDonald’s might have been stressful, but we were also assured that we could have a good life and feel good about Making A Difference if we got a good job and worked hard. In contrast, the article says that we no longer give that carrot along with the stick. Now we just present the message that you have to get everything just right or you’ll face disaster. So kids are growing up with the idea that you have to work hard just to get a middling existence, with any sort of good life out of the question.

This follows on a popular article in Buzzfeed (cited in the above article) about burnout among millennials. My reaction to that was to ask for some respect: we Gen-X’ers invented early burnout. This multigenerational freak-out is just confirming something I’ve suspected for a while: Though the media may talk about the different generations as though they are different, we really don’t have distinct generations anymore. It’s now just a slowly-changing set of circumstances. So we divide ourselves into Generation X, the Millennials, and Generation-Hurry-Up-And-Get-A-Name-Already, but really it’s just one long spectrum of angst. It seems like we’re having this societal conversation that goes like this:

Millennials: We sure hate adulting. We made a meme about it and everything.
Generation X: We hated adulting first! But seriously, great word, “adulting.” Wish we’d thought of that.
Post-Millennials: Adulting sounds terrible! We’re never leaving home!
Baby Boomers: The millennials are such wimps that they can’t stand adulting. And they keep inventing stupid words.

See, the media keeps telling us that the millennials are completely alien and can’t be understood, but really it’s the boomers are the only generation that don’t fit in and don’t make sense to the others. Indeed, it’s been them that have been the primary drivers behind making society as unforgiving as possible. And that brings us back to the central problem that the exceptional make plenty of money, but for everyone else, the effort-to-outcomes ratio doesn't seem very promising. It would be nice if there was something to reward the average person who works hard, even if they aren't a superstar.

But you know what they call a reward for doing your job even if you’re not the best? A participation trophy. Yes, the concept that's come to symbolize millennial-bashing, and the general point of view that we’re too forgiving of our young people. But if we were too nice to young people, we’d all be less stressed. Really, we've got it all backwards. We're so obsessed with the fear of rewarding people for doing nothing that we've created a world where almost nothing gets rewarded. As much as the world portrayed in the article seems alien to us, we also have to admit that it's the world we've spent the last four decades crafting: one in which there is as little help as possible.

Speaking Words Of Wisdom

So I recently stumbled across the fact that both Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles covered both "Let It Be" and "Eleanor Rigby." If you'd like to hear them, um, consult this handy chart:

	Let It Be	Eleanor Rigby
Ray Charles	here	here
Aretha Franklin	here	here

I don't know, I just feel like someone should have mentioned this.  Yes, I know, you Baby Boomers were busy telling us we were lazy and should stop doing drugs and playing video games.  But if you were sitting on some intriguing musical nugget like that, you could have slipped it in there.  Say, tell us that we should get a job and be a productive member of society, like when Franklin collaborated with Duane Allman to cover The Band's "The Weight."

I guess the entire cultural heritage produced by a generation is a lot to pass on the younger folks.  Despite all of our society's celebration of the Beatles, there were still many people who didn't put two and two together and realize that Paul McCartney used to play bass for the Beatles before his solo career.  It's like, whoops, did we forget to mention that?

So now I'm wondering what we in Generation X may have forgotten to mention.  It's not just weird covers necessarily, though if that's what you're looking for:

• Tori Amos covering Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
• Alanis Morissette covering Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees"
• R.E.M. covering U2's "One"
• AlexisOnFire covering Midnight Oil's "The Dead Heart"

Hmm, what else.  Well, the guy from Foo Fighters was the drummer from Nirvana.  Don't fall for the conspiracy theories passed around social media - they're just trying to make fun of you.  And if you haven't heard, you should really know about Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke's fathers, just so you get the full ironic appreciation of their careers that we've been treated to.  Oh, and we're really sorry that we almost erased "Under Pressure" and "Superfreak" from the musical cannon by making half-assed samples into hits.  Check out the originals if you haven't already.

Missouri

It was some time in the early 2000's that I first heard someone describe America's red/blue social dichotomy as an extension of the shifting morality of the 1960's. That concept was quite a shock to me.

I had first become conscious of recent history in the 1980's. While there was lots of sixties nostalgia then - as the Baby Boomers had reached many positions of power - it was mostly in a rather light-hearted way. The Boomers had grown up, gotten jobs, become boring, and started to look back on their sixties antics as something between an embarrassment and a fun anecdote. And even when they did try to put forward the idea that the sixties were a significant time that changed the world, it was hard to take them seriously given the conservative shift going on around me. Essentially, I was learning about the sixties with the knowledge that all those kids at Woodstock would go on to elect Reagan.

So I thought of the sixties as a self-contained moment of history that didn’t impact on anything I saw around me. Other than the conception of some people in my age range. Today’s political divide couldn’t be related - for one thing, Fox News’ geriatric audience is composed of a lot of Baby Boomers.

But the more I thought about it, the more I could see how there could be connections. A lot of that just came from getting to see a longer sample of cultural history. I’ve realized that there are long-running disputes that may not involve the same people, but are part of a continuous narrative.

This all came into focus this week during the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. I was thinking about how different aspects of American society see this differently. Every night on Twitter, my (largely liberal) feed erupts with shock and fury over the police treatment of demonstrators and the media. And yet, there’s a large constituency that is quite supportive of the police actions. It occurred to me that it was similar to the shootings at Kent State in 1970. Although that incident is now largely remembered as a tragedy, at the time there was a feeling among much of America that it was a reasonable action by the National Guard. It exposed a huge divide in American thought, and we seem to be seeing a similar division opened up by today’s events. Indeed, a number of those Tweets have been making explicit comparisons to sixties unrest.

So I get it. There is a continuous chain of societal conflict. And much as it pains me, I must apologize to the Baby Boomers; yes, you did have a profound impact on American society after all. 

Somehow, The Radio Star Is Still Alive

Over the last thirty years, any time a baby-boomer complained about the state of popular music, that rant just isn't complete without a claim that music videos have ruined music. The idea is that in turning music into a visual medium, it's become more about the image than the music, and more important that a musician look good than have talent.

It certainly is a believable argument, but it isn't born out in practice. Yes, there were plenty of good looking artists made it big during the Age Of Video. But there were plenty of artists made rich in previous eras on the strength of their looks, even if their fans only saw their idols on posters or Ed Sullivan. And don't forget that the most egregious examples of less-talented artists using their looks for success were motivated by racism, not video.

Really, I can't think of any examples of artists who made it big based purely on their video. There are examples of songs that used notable videos to get exposure they wouldn't otherwise get. I'm thinking of songs like "No Rain" or "Take On Me." But I wouldn't say those songs were undeserving. The "Nice Video, Shame About The Song" phenomena never really happened.

At least until now. The only artist I can think of that is known for videos first and music second is OK Go. And the strange part is that they did it after the end of the Age Of Video. Their latest video is one continuous shot, full of optical illusions, and is spreading across the Internet at beyond-viral speeds.

Their music is good, but their video skills are superior to their music skills. And this was the first of their videos where I've really found myself listening to the music - they didn't used to have that early New Order style to them, did they?

But I do have to give them credit for their willingness to embrace their place in pop-culture. So often we see musicians do things like storm out of interviews for being wrongly-portrayed, or refuse to play their big hits in concert. Most bands in OK Go's position would defiantly make a really dull concert-footage video at this point. But they seem happy to be "that band with the videos."

What Else Do I Have To Say?

I was surprised at the fiftieth anniversary of JFK's assassination. I wasn't looking forward to all the self-important reminiscing. Indeed is all seemed quite subdued. I'd even say Doctor Who won this weekend's battle of the incongruous fiftieth anniversaries. 

There was less of that usual "do you remember where you were when..." As there seemed a tacit acceptance that most of today's population wasn't anywhere. I actually felt sorry for the baby boomers for once.

But as a student of twentieth century history, I was disappointed in the superficial rehashing of Kennedy's life. According to today's media, there are two views of his legacy:

• He didn't really do much, and people's memories of him are just their projections of their own hopes and dreams.
• He did do something: he gave lots of speeches and gave people hope.

I'm sorry, am I the only person who remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis? It was one of the most difficult situations the U.S. has ever been in, and Kennedy managed to defend American interests while preserving the peace.  Moreover, the strategies recommended by virtually all other American politicians and military leaders would have been disastrous.  First, we all owe him a big thank you on that.  And second, it compares well with recent American actions which seem to be the opposite: failing to keep peace, and failing to make the country safer.