The Revolution Has Turned 30
Here’s the truth, and it’s a sad truth for some. Turning thirty does not mark adulthood. In fact, life as a 30-something is simply an empowered childhood. And in this current America, that might be a good thing.
I’m white and I live in a condo in a gentrified neighborhood full of people who actually do call the cops if a “person of color” (as the chairman of the condo’s security committee says) is walking along the sidewalk. No kidding. Worse still – the cops show up and hassle that person of color.
Tell me you don’t feel that power. The eyes of cops everywhere just sliding off of you. People calling you sir even when you’re an obvious fuck-up. Nobody bothering to check your ID. High school kids clamming up and freezing when they’re assing around and you walk by. Women…trusting you. Looking for a mature man. Tired of the boys. Can’t stand the meat market scene anymore. Just looking to have fun. Want to settle down.
Really? Will you walk into my parlour?
Why I make such a point about being a white American is because everyone else in the world is disenfranchised. White Americans of my generation, upon turning 30, are all immature fucks who haven’t experienced a single day in their lives, have fought no battles and no real wars, have never truly known struggle or despair. Even if they went through a year of their lives being fisted by their cruel short-eyed uncle, the rest of the time in the lap of Zoloft Luxury has balanced that shit out. Even if your father put out his cigar in your eyeball while raping you, the extraordinary and absolutely disgusting level of privilege given to the white American makes your complaints nothing but the feeble tears of a big, soft, weeping pussy.
Think of it like being in Hitler’s favorite SS corps. That’s the best analogy, I think. It both illustrates the privilege and the problem with the world.
Most people I know – all of them, I think – hit 30 and give up. Oh dearest me, how old we are. How much my bones ache. Even though the opportunity is there to really be fucking crazy, they avoid it. Now, look, we can all be Caligula and get away with it. That’s how sick and demented this society is. But, at 30, everyone seems to want to struggle and be a part of that society. Pretend you’re grown up – time to settle down and get a wife, a house, a life, babies. Call the cops when you see a black man 500 miles away in Rhode Island through your high powered radio telescope. After the third call, they’ll helicopter in and shoot that black man if you want. Because you’re a family man! You own a house! Your fucking marmy little wife has two screeching babies in her arms. You’re a pencil neck. Yes, sir! Amen, sir! God bless America, sir! Protecting the civvies, sir!
That’s really what you want to become? To join this society? Or, worse, a waterhead, armchair liberal eating fistfuls of Wellbutrin and trying to pretend you care about shit from the nest of your 13 hours a day job? That’s even worse. In a time of fascism, everyone who says they’re a liberal and shows that fake indignation should be out there on the fucking street, should be gathering together and throwing a revolution. No, don’t turn your nose up at me, it’s your duty. Get out there and fucking put your face in the faces of the institution or shut the fuck up. Because what’s the white American liberal got to say? Don’t blame me. I didn’t vote for him. Passive excuses. I wash my hands of this Jesus Christ. Like you all think you can be innocent of the blood.
And the response, quick in coming: Well, what can we do? If you have to ask, you’re more demented than I thought. Aren’t you outraged? I mean, really outraged? Sickened? What can you do? Get off the pills and think about it for once in your pathetic life. You’re not a slave needing other people to tell you where to step.
We are living in a time of apathy and despair because we’ve been told that turning 30 is the final step in some sort of great plan. Because we need to be like our child-burning daddies and housebound mommies. Or maybe your mommy and daddy were hippies, right? That’s cool, right? They were worse than the child burners. It’s the hippies who turned their backs on us, who surrendered in the great revolution because they were too ignorant and disorganized. They betrayed us. Our parents sold us out so they could be happy and wealthy in the “Me Generation,” and then they turned around in fear of their youth and they told us to never do what they did. Never enjoy yourself, never try to fight for what is right. Even if the words are different, the lesson is the same.
No, I know, your daddy taught you right from wrong. But do as I do, that’s how our very basic core learns the lessons of life. We fought a war – both away and at home — that tore our souls out, and we didn’t learn a thing. We simply scared ourselves into a corner and our parents hysterically preached my generation to please, god, just be quiet and take it. Just be careful. Just be worried. Just be sad. With every strong bedroom talk and proud speech at a wedding, our parents are telling us in body language and through their personal history: Give up. Give up now and hunker down.
That darkness has never left us. Our souls never got out of the goddamn jungle. Maybe our souls simply died on the grounds of Kent State.
So here we stand, in our 30’s, a generation moaning and whining about how old we are. Boys and girls, we’re as young as we always were. And our youth has the power of this whole insane system that wants to think we’re all growed up and responsible. We can date multiple women and get away with it because, hell, what kind of 32 year old does that? We can smoke pot while walking briskly down a crowded street and people will say that’s a funny smelling cigarette. We can dance in the rain drunk and girls can go to a party without panties on and it all becomes acceptable. We can tell people to go to hell and…well, they just might fall through the Earth.
Oh, our hair is short now. Balding, maybe. Grey, maybe. We’re in suits and ties and always going or coming from the Great Machine. We have nice shoes, always. We have property. Things. We have a car that’s shiny. We put mail in the box and the UPS man waves when he sees us. We tut-tut when the kids skateboard past us, and we tip our hats to the beat cops, who nod right back at us. On dark and lonely nights, the mist of early spring gathering around us, the cops in the car give us a sparing glance, then move on in search of trouble. We are America. We are the blood and bones of this nation. The 30-somethings. We are America, and we are given this respect, because the revolution comes from us – not from the kids. Everyone who led the groups in the sixties – from Hoffman to the Black Panthers – were in their 30’s when they had no choice but to become active. Everyone who truly saw the evils of Vietnam and the sickness of society were 30-somethings. We are the head of the snake, and everyone in authority and everyone from our parent’s generation knows it.
So they whisper: Settle down. Wife, life. Responsibility. Let the job and debt crush you. Let life swallow you whole.
Behind us is a dark wall, doing everything it can to stop us from moving forward. It is a blind creature. There is no conspiracy, no true ignorance. It is a creature born of fear, because it saw hell. It witnessed Vietnam, and it witnessed the hatred on our streets simply exploding. As a blind creature, it doesn’t see that we now stand between it and the rolling freight train of autumn’s first thunderstorm. Those dark clouds rushing in from the north, lightning laced, raining blood down on us. Soon, the pills won’t keep the voices quiet. Soon, our houses won’t keep the rain out. It’s nighttime again in America.