Beer and Pavement

Slate¹ proclaimed that the oncoming Pavement reunion signaled “the end of baby boomer cultural hegemony” and I couldn’t be happier. We finally don’t have to be hit over the head with the British Invasion^TM, Woodstock^TM, Motown^TM, or Vietnam® at every cultural turn and Time/Life special offer² until our cerebrums are numb and too full to remember any of our own childhoods. Generation X is finally relevant.

I’ve felt like my entire childhood and a large part of my young adulthood has been hijacked by the Boomer Generation and resulting cultural output. I grew up thinking the Stones and Motown were the beginning and end of music³. Movies like Stand By Me and Mermaids⁴ dominated theaters. Rolling Stone was the cultural Bible, telling us what was hot and proclaiming the next Dylan⁵ or Scorsese at every turn. Boomer mainstays dominated pop culture. Boomer culture dominated society. It wasn’t my experiences that counted; it was the experiences of my parents which shaped my memories.

This appropriation of my experiences and interests has been confounded by the adoption of younger generations (including my own) of the Boomer aesthetic. I can’t go anywhere without running into a 20-year-old hippie⁶ or a hipster⁷ with a bushy mustache and afro a la 1973. And the music…Kids with iTunes libraries filled with Beatles, Doors, and Grateful Dead make me ill. All this may explain my distaste for hippies and hipsters. Watching younger generations lose their youth to Boomers frustrates the hell out of me.

So, when Slate made their proclamation, I could not fully express my relief in our culture’s escape from beneath the foot of the Boomer leviathan. Of course, with that release comes the inevitable takeover of custom by my own generation, X. While this is a good development for me and my escaping youth, it might not be very nice to those out there who are younger and trying to create their own culture and experiences⁸.

There has been a rash of eighties and nineties aesthetics popping up everywhere, completely ignoring any new or original thought. Besides Pavement’s reunion, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion⁹, Pearl Jam¹⁰, and Soundgarden are all reuniting this summer. Check the Tumblr blog Look at This Fucking Hipster for plenty of retro eighties looks. Movies like The Wackness or Clerks 2¹¹ inundate the young with Gen X with that 90’s flavor. We’re everywhere…much like the Boomers have been everywhere for the past three or so decades.

I don’t know if this is better or worse. I’m just happy that the Boomer’s stranglehold on our pop culture is over. Thank you Slate, but more importantly, thank you Pavement for ending this reign of tyranny at the hands of the Baby Boomer generation. Bring on the Generation X nostalgia¹²!

Notes:
¹Where I met my wife.
²Only four easy payments of $19.99 (+$19.99 s/h)!
³To some degree, this may be true, but we are so far removed from that era of music that I actually prefer more material from the past 15-20 years than I do from the 60’s.
⁴I could go on and on about movies from 1975 to 1995 that featured stories set in the 50’s or 60’s. It was as if the only worthwhile stories to be told happened when Boomers were kids.
⁵Granted, Dylan is a modern-day genius and living legend. I have no problem with him, except that the man now mumbles into a microphone and is handed three Grammies instantaneously just for showing up. I find him unwatchable and nearly unlistenable in recent years, meaning the last 20.
⁶ A distaste that has been well-documented.
⁷I am somewhat ambivalent about hipsters. They at least are often trying to do something new and unique. We often enjoy the same music as well. Generally, I find them quaint, even harmless.
⁸Primarily, my daughter. So, she will just have to grow up listening to Pavement and Guided By Voices while watching anything with Harvey Keitel’s penis or Werner Herzog eating a shoe. We Gen X’ers love that shit.
⁹ A Jehovah’s Witness came knockin’ on my door on a Saturday while I was laying in bed with my wife! OR Take a whiff of my pant-leg, Baby!
¹⁰Wait. Did Pearl Jam break up? They might as well have. It’s been so long since they mattered. I lost touch with them when they fought Ticketmaster…and still found a way to charge $30 a ticket for their shows.
¹¹To reveal my age, I saw the original in the theater. We had a great art house theater across the street from my college campus. I worked in the mail room over the winter break and saw a ton of movies over those two or three weeks.
¹²Actually, don’t. I think I’m tired of nostalgia all together.