My Generation: Part 2, Verse 3, Chapter 4, Jackson 5, Nikki 6

“Do you get the impression that 20 years from now, when we look back on the summer of ’89, the only thing we are going to be able to reminisce about is how much we reminisced about the summer of ’69?”

So asked Todd Snider in this Youtube video introducing a song off of his 1994 album “Songs from a Daily Planet” called “My Generation, Part 2”

The song is a tongue and cheek defense of the “Me” Generation, written to counter the claims of ageing hippies lamenting that “You’re generation hasn’t done shit..(and Live Aid doesn’t count)” In the chorus, he sings wryly “Here’s to living off dad as long as you can and blending in with the crowd/Yeah, My generation should be proud…

I am not sure that I agree that my generation “hasn’t done shit” (Though I must admit that, as I write this, nothing comes to mind). I will admit, however, that the music of my 80’s youth is utterly forgettable. Twenty years on, I only have fond memories maybe 10 songs from the 80’s and have less than a handful in my CD and digital music collections. A quick survey of the songs on my Ipod finds that of 907 songs (pathetic I know, shut up), less than 25 of them (about 2.7%) were hits in the ‘80’s By contrast, my Ipod is littered with all kinds of music from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.

Part of the reason for this is because my dad still has his box of original 45’s from his teenage years in the 50’s (Don’t know what a 45 is? Google it). Every now and then when I was a kid, he would take them out and blast Elvis’s “Hound Dog”, Ricky Nelson’s “Hello, Mary Lou” or Ritchie Valens’ “La Bamba” through the house. I don’t care how old that music is, it’s impossible not to dance around like a happy go lucky fool when that stuff is playing full blast.

Also, I had a music teacher in middle school who introduced us all to 60’s and 70’s rock and pop. He wasn’t one of those “cool” teachers who wore jeans and said “man” a lot in order to “get down on our level.” He was the complete opposite. He dressed in a suit and tie every day, wore horn rimmed glasses and shiny leather soled shoes, and carried a briefcase. But within that Reaganesque conservative exterior was a rocker yearning to breath free.

He showed us the Chuck Berry concert film “Hail, Hail, Rock and Roll” on movie day. We spent an entire week dissecting Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”. He handed out the lyrics to Don McClean’s “American Pie” and took us through a lecture on the history of rock and roll, verse by verse. We spent an entire class period discussing Simon and Garfunkels “I am a Rock” More than anything else, he is the reason I love rock and roll.

But, on a generational level, in the 1980’s there was a sense, at least amongst white suburban teenagers, that as hard as our music rocked, it paled in comparison with that which had come before. For every Gun’s and Rose’s, who legitimately rocked for at least one earth shattering album, or Motley Crue, who did a lot of Smoking in the Boys Room with Girls, Girls, Girls there are 10 or 15 Warrant’s or Wingers, White Lions, Whitesnake’s or W.A.S.P. (what’s with all the W’s by the way?) who are utterly forgettable.

At school dances, the most popular slow song was Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” , released in1977, when we were three years old. During the schools battle of the bands the loudest applause were reserved for “Stairway to Heaven” from 1971 or “Sunshine of You’re Love” from 1968. You always knew that the long haired kid who sat on the playground playing guitar was a “serious artist” when he burst into Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” from 1975.

Its not that I dislike ‘80’s music. When it “Pour Some Sugar on Me” comes on the radio,I will turn in up, and for a moment reminisce about mullet’s, and summer days alternating between my friend’s pool and Legend of Zelda. But the feeling is fleeting, and I quickly pull up the Beatles or the Stones, or Tom Petty, or Ryan Adams on my Ipod, and free my soul, getting lost in that rock and roll and drifting away.

I can compare listening to the music of my youth to watching the TV shows of my youth. The advent of the DVD box set has made it possible to relive cherished TV memories, some of which are best left alone.

I was shocked when, after shelling out $40.00 bucks for the complete first season of the A-Team, I realized just how ridiculous the show was. I will only say this. If I ever find myself on the run from the Military Police for a crime I didn’t commit, I would not buy a van with a distinctive red stripe on the side, ride around, and blow up bad guys in every town I came to. I just doesn’t seem like a smart thing to do. But that’s just me.

Whether it be the A-Team or LA Guns, my inner voice asks “Why did I used to like this?”

There has been a resurgence of interest in ‘80’s music that is in part due to nostalgic Gen X’ers, it is also driven by the current crop of teenagers. Just like it was cool for us to like classic rock, it is cool for them (at least some of them) to like ‘80’s rock (at least some of it).

In a way it makes sense. For them, as for me, it was the music of their older brothers or sisters, the music of the cool high school kids they looked up to in grammar school, the kids wanted to be like. Maybe, a part of casting off the chains of the former generation is to revere it, even as you cast it aside. Maybe I am just an idiot who is writing this because he can’t sleep. Who knows?

One this is for sure though, at least in terms of music, my generation hasn’t done shit, (and Live Aid doesn’t count).

How I Learned...

A while back I was walking with a friend of mine in the woods I roamed as a child. He is about ten years younger than me, and though he lives closer to the woods than I did growing up, had never been back there. When we came to the old mill pond (I know that sounds all like Norman Rockwell, but can I help that it really is an old mill pond?). I stopped at the edge for a moment, next to the sandbag dam, looked out over the water said, “We used to ice skate back here.”

”What do you mean?” asked my friend, a bit confused.

“What do you mean what do I mean,” I said, “We used to ice skate back here in the winter, and play hockey”

“That’s insane!” he said, his jaw dropping to the floor.

“What?!” I asked, genuinely puzzled by his reaction.

“What if you fell in?”

“Well, we didn’t go ice skating in April, only in the dead of winter. My older brother and his friends would check the ice first, and mark off areas to stay away from, and then we just skated and played hockey”

“I would never do that!” he said, his mind still reeling. “That’s just insane”

This then seems to illustrate the main difference between his generation and mine. They think we are insane.

I don’t have any kids yet, so I am sure I don’t really have the right to comment on how they are raised these days. But I will anyway.

It seems that many parents are convinced that their children are on the verge of a violent bloody end at any given moment. In the interest of safety (and really who can argue with safety), we basically prevent them from doing anything that may be even the slightest bit dangerous. So, instead of teaching kids how to safely ice skate on a frozen pond, their parents tell them not to do it, because its safer that way.

They support this position with tales of all the horrific things that can possibly happen to anyone who attempts to skate on a frozen pond. You might fall in. If you fall in you will get stuck under the ice and drown. If you do manage to pull yourself out, you will freeze to death. I you manage not to freeze to death, you will almost certainly loose your legs, or your arms, or both. Then you will be a stump. A stump with no arms and no legs and you will never be able to go outside and play ever again. All because you didn’t listen to your mom and tried to skate on the pond. When the kids are sufficiently terrified, they drive them to the local rink, where you can ice skate year round for $7.00 an hour, because its safer that way. The thing is, isn't nearly EVERYTHING safer if you don't do it?

A friend of mine tells her kids to never open a can of soda all the way, to only just barely crack the seal. That way, a bee can’t fly into their soda, and sting them in the mouth. When they go to the shore, they are not allowed to go in the water, because they might drown. They are only allowed to ride their bikes around their small block, never on a main road, because they might get hit by a car. This is all well and good, until I remind her that a few years ago, in Florida, she kept trying to pet wild alligators.

“Now which do you think is more dangerous, riding a bike, or trying to pet a wild alligator who really doesn’t want you around? Hmmmmm……” I ask as she glares at me.

Its not that I am being critical so much as I just can’t relate to it. My dad did not raise me this way. To my dad, danger was not something to be avoided. Danger was just motivation. And the more you feared for your life, the more motivated you would become.

Take how I learned to ride a bike. I was a late bloomer in this arena as I was with most everything else. As I got bigger, my dad had to continually reinforce the training wheels on my bike with strips of metal he bolted on to the frame. After a while, not only was my bike stable, it weighed about 100 pounds.

I took the requisite ribbing from my friends willingly enough. But, by the age of 8 or 9, my dad decided that it was high time I learned to ride a bike. He took the training wheels off and refused to put them on ever again, no matter how much I begged.

“Come here” he said, “I am going to teach you how to ride a bike.”

I was reluctant, but didn’t seem to have much choice. He sat me on the bike and held me up for a moment. Pointing the bike towards the side of our barn (yes, we had a barn, get over it) he said “OK, on the count of three I am going to push you, and you will have two choices: You can crash into the side of the barn, or you can pedal and steer, and not crash into the barn”

I wasn’t liking this. My whole body trembled. I may have wet my pants. I really, really really, didn’t want to do this, but at the moment I had no say in the matter.

“One…two…..THREE!!!”

I froze. I heard a loud noise that I soon realized was the sound of myself screaming. The bike careened towards the barn. I tried to pedal, but my brain couldn’t seem communicate with my feet. Instead they got all tangled in the pedals as the barn got closer and closer. My survival instinct took over and a single word found its way into my terrified mind:

“Steer…”

“Steer!!!”

“Steer, God dammit!! Steer!!”

With every ounce on strength in my body, I forced my heretofore frozen hands to turn the handlebars just before I hit the barn. The bike swerved to the right and dumped me off onto the blacktop. I was in shock. My hands ached and there was a rather large road rash on my ankle.

“That was pretty good!” said my dad enthusiastically. “Lets try that again.”

The funny thing is, we did try it again, and I got better. The second time I actually was able to pedal a little bit. The third time, I swerved and rode halfway across the driveway before falling. The fourth time, I didn’t fall at all. Within about 10 minutes, I was riding around in circles whooping and hollering. The pain was numbed by the shear elation. I did it!! I could ride a bike!

This pattern repeated itself throughout my childhood. I learned to swim when my dad threw me off the boat without a life jacket and told me to swim back. I learned ski when he took me to the top of the bunny hill and skied away, telling me he would see me at the bottom.

Now you are probably expecting me to say how much I resent my father for doing such horrible things. How the memories of these events haunted me into my adult life. But the thing is, I don’t resent any of it. While I will admit there might be better, more organized, and less terrifying ways to learn such things, my dad never did any of these things out of anger. He simply felt that the best way to learn things was by doing them, and the best way to deal with fear is to face it head on. And in that sense, he is right. Absolutely right.

In each case, I found that the crippling fear that kept me from attempting these things was unfounded. In confronting my greatest fears and surviving, I was set free. My world widened, and new opportunities opened to me. I still find that true today. Do I have scars? Sure I do, both literally and figuratively. But they are simply memories of times when I faced my fears, and survived.

And OK, there is that one that I got from falling off my house after trying to scale it like Spiderman, but that’s another story…