Boomboomboomboom

The scariest fact I know is this: My g-g-g-g-generation is now in charge of the planet. That’s right, the Woodstock nation is here. Those of us who tuned in, turned on and dropped out now have to tune out, turn off and drop right back in. Be afraid. Be very afraid

That dashiki and bellbottom wearing, Afro-sheened, muttonchopped, Fu-Manchu mustachioed, granny glasses wearing, pot smoking (and don’t pretend you didn’t inhale, because you did) revolution spewing bulge in the gut of the great demographic Anaconda that is Baby Boom America is large and in charge and God help us all. We were going to live in solar powered underground dome homes and grow our own organic food and drive electric cars and clean up the environment and make love, not war. We actually used to greet each other by saying ”Peace, Brother”.

Barbara, my lovely wife (who is always right), says that I was merely affecting a style, just dressing the part, talking the talk while she was walking the walk. And walk the walk she did, protesting the war in Vietnam, racial injustice, the Bomb and other causes. I may not have been there marching but I did my part by scrambling my neurons to a fare thee well, and I’ve got the CAT scans to prove it.

And oh yeah, sex and drugs and rock and roll, man.

If we’d actually done that stuff, we might be a lot better off today. I don’t mean the clothes or the hair. Outside of giving our children a really good laugh in the photo album, no harm done. Our kids will someday look just as silly to their kids, except their youthful folly is etched into their skin and will require massive amounts of laser surgery to remove.

As for the music, well the whole point of popular music seems to be to make the last generation cringe. My parents listened to Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and their parents didn’t get it. I listened to Bob Dylan and acid rock and my parents didn’t get it. Our kids listened to grunge and we didn’t get it. Their kids listened to rap and so on and so forth. Whatever their kids listen to will be even worse. All parents have this in common: the phrase ”Turn that noise down!”

No, what I mean is, what if we had built those solar powered underground homes? What if we had converted to electric cars and committed to an Earth-friendly lifestyle? What if we had kept that commitment? As Elvis Costello put it, “What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding?”

Maybe if we had, we might not be hostage to OPEC today. We might not be involved in two wars half a world away, hemorrhaging billions of dollars and oceans of blood and untold goodwill around the world.

Once upon a time America was admired and emulated by emerging nations. Whatever good third world karma we had built up was severely depleted by the Vietnam War and now the members of this administration, most of whom managed to avoid serving in that war, has pissed the rest of it away.

As for sex and drugs and rock and roll? The sex is infrequent; the drugs keep us alive and frankly I’m bored to tears with the rock and roll.

* With apologies to John Lee Hooker