Sunday Archive XIII: Ten Years Later

Here’s a draft of a rant from April of2006.  Again, another typical GS article from the period.

Where do you see yourself 70 years from now?

Something wicked this way… No, wait, something wicked has long been here.

It all began with my generation.  The children of the 80’s.  Now the 30-somethings who, quietly, play Talking Heads songs in the basement while chain smoking and searching for cancerous lumps.  This slow downfall of humanity  — the unfocused, the embittered, the jealous, the confused – is all right here with my people.  Hands across America.  Jesus fucking Christ, who are we?

And so the grey hairs wonder.  The dying Golden Generation along with our parents, the treacherous sell-out hippies and Silent Majority – weakness and hatred hand in hand – all wonder:  What are your goals, darlin’?  What is your ten year plan?  Asking a 30 year old that question?  Here’s the only possible reply:  Mom, dad, grandpa, auntie Violet – fuck you.

There are deep undercurrents of concern:  Has America come to an end?  Will all these people under 40 simply fade away and leave nothing of The Great Legacy?  By the time I was your age, I had a house, three bullet wounds that had poorly healed, and seven child.  By God’s grace, I was a man.  The forward thinking man.  I rode through Vietnam, I battled Korea, I crushed Japanese skulls, and your great grandpa, let me tell you, he urinated into a living German’s mouth and rallied his neighbors for the mine wars.

When I was your age…

Thirty-two rises on my horizon.  May 10th, rock-out, the dance through my 30’s continues and I am at the glass ceiling, unmotivated, downloading porn, uncaring, flippant, quick to anger.  My colleagues have post dot-coms, unique self employment opportunities, shuddering and exhausting mid-level management jobs.  Far more of them are serving me slices of apple pie at the local diner, whispering dreams in my ear, feet up at the night desk behind the hotel check-in counter.  The majority are spun out, but not in the traditional way.  The sense of hopelessness and apathy isn’t there.  Good is good enough.  Children of the 80’s?  The 90‘s?  No, we’re the children of Nike, Coca-Cola, Enron, Walmart.  Rise from the chair with a question mark on our brow and the hole is instantly filled by what we need.

Rise up and blaze a path?  Old man, the path is right here.  The big bad wolves have all been slain. Stop.  Don’t you fucking think for an instant that these lost generations won’t rise to the cause…if a true cause comes along.

Here’s the story:  America has succeeded.  The rush and tumble of the 19th is over.  The wars and fire of the 20th have been won.  Sure, they took the Towers.  Oh yeah, something wicked this way does come.  You can bet your failed gold dollar on that.  Yep, the war rages.  Okay, kids are dying.  Sigh, Mama Corporation has tainted out souls.  But, hey, is it a surprise?  Really? We made our bed.  We made it long ago.  We stuffed our mattress with money and short-sheeted the goddamn bed and crouched in the closet, guns and drugs and intolerance all ready for the night.  None of this has been as bad as it was.  There were days when this world rocked to the foundations, and this country shuddered and cried.  Can you show me on this doll where Germany touched you?  Can you point out Vietnam for us, Mr. Six Pack?  Is he in this courtroom?

We have succeeded not only in consuming this world, but in surviving through absolute horror.  A few little well-aimed planes will never match what we’ve seen and done.

The path is right here.  Blindly, we will follow it.  Happily, we will spin it out to the ultimate conclusion — your conclusion, old man.  When you were my age, you were destroying whatever independence I would be able to achieve.  When you were my age, you were selling out to Nixon.  Hey there, old one, when you were my age, you were swallowing whatever the machine told you.

What is your ten year plan?  Old man, I just want to get through today.  I just want to stumble my way back home where I can forget that I’m living the handicraft of your ignorance and betrayal.  There is no plan.  Around me is one huge cushion, Credit Card Class, the welcoming jaws of kindly crocodiles.  Fall back.  That’s all I want to do.  Maybe those younger folk will be the spring forward generation.  Maybe you should talk to them.  Me, I’m horrified.  I’m watching the grey hairs march us, resolutely, into repetition, repetition.  The constant playback of the ignorant sins of my parents, the misguided nostalgia of my grandparents.   Jesus Christ, you cheating, lying monsters.  My ten year plan is to run as far away as I can.  I’ve lost my stomach for the bodybags.  This habitual prejudice, so easily enforced, gives me a headache, even as I continue in the footsteps of Klansmen cousins.

My ten year plan is to not be like you.  But that’s common talk, isn’t it?  You said the same, didn’t you, old man?  You leaned against a car and smoked a cigarette and drank whiskey and you said it with all your heart.  So that leaves me no options.  If I refuse to follow the human error, then I have to step off the path.  Turn to the left, turn to the right, and start all over again.  Into that mighty jungle.  Ten years from now?  I want to be a night watchman.  Maybe a school janitor like that guy in The Breakfast Club.  I don’t want kids.  We need to stop that cycle right now.  This here used car is a dreamboat.  I don’t want to keep up with the Joneses.  I don’t like them.  Own instead of rent?  That’s a myth.  Church bells singing.  God doesn’t come into my house.  Not anymore.  Fool me once.