Anyone who's anyone here knows that I adore OPOL; I just do. I think he is one of the coolest cats on this website, full of opinions and history and generally loving testimony to an era that had a chance to make significant poitical changes, but did not fully succeed.
While OPOL is a Baby Boomer and a hippie, I am the opposite: I am a member of the Generation X crowd and a total fucking cynic. I am the result of what he and his generation could not accomplish, and I have something to say about that.
My ex-mother-in-law (who I am still rather close to) used to sprout all these talking points about how her generation was the "radical" one and the "liberated" one, and OMG! Do you not understand how scary it was for the hippies to go against the grain back then? Do you?!
Oh, yeah! It was a piece of fucking cake for us, June, without AIDS and Wall Street! Y'all are so special!
Except that you're not: no one generation is special - each has its own assets and disadvantages, and we all have our goddamned crosses to bear.
I'm sorry to inform you thusly, but OPOL and his age group are not the end-all and be-all on earth. That's not the way this happens or plays out. No way.
I'm sure the Millennials can attest to that.
Anyway: you have to understand that we took nothing you said seriously. I am not even kidding. Pretty much nothing.
The reason for this is because, most of the time, your actions didn't match your words. That tends to make a person cynical, honestly. So, ya know, you're talking about all of this "radicalness" and "liberation", but you don't seem to be paying a lot of attention to your children.
Ahem.
I mean, wtf, we were called latchkey kids for a reason. Both of our parents usually had to work, and we were usually stranded at home as a result. Of course, this was because the economic times of the day rendered homelife terrible unless both parents were working.
And, often, both parents wanted to work. There is certainly nothing wrong with that, but you have to understand that this brought a whole new structure to America that had never existed before. Sometimes men were the breadwinners, and sometimes women, but they often both needed to work outside the home to pay the bills.
That's just how it was.
Long before the days of Columbine, Pearl Jam was nothing but prescient. To wit:
The reason Gen X had a hard-on for grunge is because it spoke to us, in a way that no music (before or since) has been able to do. We loved our Pearl Jam and our Sound Garden and our Nirvana and our Stone Temple Pilots because, I mean, why the fuck wouldn't you like them? They got us!
I am not pretending to speak for people of color here; I honestly do not know what they went through during that period and what their experiences were like. I adored plenty of minority ideals and public sentiment and music espoused during that time period but, in all honesty, I deviated to white stuff because they were my kin.
On the other hand, from Wiki:
Compared with previous generations, Generation X represents a more apparently heterogeneous generation, openly acknowledging and embracing social diversity in terms of such characteristics as race, class, religion, ethnicity, culture, language, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
That was pretty much me and all of my friends, from the awesome and "radical" town of Green Bay, Wisfuckingconsin (LOL). Heh. It's not their way to just dismiss you out-of-hand, because you're black or gay or trans. Although Millennials are much more accepting of 2015 culture (just ask LittleShiz, and she'll affirm this), Gen X was not without our solid beliefs about civil and social rights.
That makes me both proud and happy. And that comes from you, Baby Boomers! Don't think I don't appreciate or recognize it. :)
Being that LGBTQ wasn't exactly in the mainstream during this time period, I looked to women's rights to achieve a sense of identity that I still hold today. The late 80s-early 90s saw an incredible number of white female artists speaking in a way that had never quite been heard before.
I'm sure you remember a few:
Given that I was a voice major in college, this was the first time I had EVER heard chicks repeat the kind of shit I was thinking about singing, but not exactly in a polite or sweet way. It was absolutely exciting! I mean, when you get a degree in Classical Performance, the parameters are clear: you must sing the way the writer intended, even if you don't want to. You must understand his thinking, especially if he hated women (which happened quite a lot, you don't even want to know), and you need to exert yourself to the fullest extent of your personal range and talent. You also must come to recognize and appreciate the lyrics and their full intent.
I am not without talent; in fact, my singing voice is quite awesome and unique, thank you very much.
I am no docile flower. I am no wilting violet. My voice is my own and, thanks to the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps generation I was raised in, I can appreciate all of this. It's pretty cool, actually - to know that I was inspired enough by someone else's post to write this one.
And I encourage all you Millennials out there to contradict me. I can tell you specifically that the reason I was such a helicopter mom with my daughter is because I was utilizing the other extreme: my parents were barely present for me, so I will ALWAYS! be there for my kid.
So so so many mistakes in that.
Ah, but that's the beauty of the imperfection of generations, isn't it? :)
Love to all!