pandora

I was out for lunch recently with a half dozen forty to sixty year old teachers, when one of them, a mom of a soon-to-be college graduate, was lamenting how her son turned down two jobs. TWO JOBS! In this economy? The other forty to sixty somethings shook their heads in empathy. The mom then asked the question, "What's the deal with this generation? Are they lazy or do they just feel entitled?"

There was a 21 year old fella with us, the son of another teacher at the table, who was suddenly interrogated by the "adults," picked as the representative of his age bracket to explain the failings of his generation. He was polite, saying that many kids he knows do feel entitled and believe many jobs are below them. He added, "But, I'd take any job if I could," having recently been laid off.

Then, the attention was turned to me, when they realized, despite hiding behind my overgrown facial hair, that I'm probably a twenty something as well. They asked me the same question, "Is your generation just lazy or do they feel they are better than a lot of the jobs out there?"

I could have made a number of arguments against their assumptions, such as

1) growing up, you told us kids that we could be whatever we wanted to be, to follow our dreams, and to not settle for less, but now that we are picky about what we want to do, you tell us just to slut it up for any employer and spread it for any job offer
2) if we don't have kids, we have no one to support but ourselves and so we have the right to turn down jobs
3) most of the older folks who settled on a job when they were young complain about what they wish they had done if they had it to do all over again
4) if you as the parent are supporting your twenty something financially, you are giving him the okay to turn down jobs, and I'm sure if he were on his own, he'd take whatever job kept beer in his fridge and spray cheese on his generic triscuits.

But, I didn't make any of these points because I was busy eating happy hour nachos my friend Sarah got for me.

Maybe it's a natural biological phase all people go through; sometime between "puberty" and "menopause," homo sapiens go through a stage called "wistful," in which nothing current is quite as good as it was in the past. TV shows. Athletes. Music. Especially music.

I always wondered how old people stopped being aware of what was cool at the moment. You know why? Because most of them don't watch TV for 14hrs a day, and if they do, they are not watching the CW for 14hrs a day. So now Armin, who used to go to metal shows and laugh at all the old dudes wearing faded Iron Maiden tees from 1982, is now that old guy holding out hopes that White Zombie will reunite and Dimebag Darrell will return from the dead.

I'm fighting it, though, with the help of Pandora.com which lets me know what the young kids are listening to these days. Of course, as you get older, if you try to stay current, you risk being the old guy that's still trying to be cool, which, aside from rapping grannies, is horrible. Sometimes, you have to let nature happen to you. Let your hair grow grey and lecture kids today on how much more significant Debbie Gibson was to our global consciousness back in the 80's than Miley Cyrus is today.

Here's the first new band I've discovered since 2003: In Flames. That is, with the exception of this spunky, little act who put out the best song of 2007, though, to be honest, I didn't listen to much radio that year and, so she didn't have much competition in my book.

By the way, if you couldn't tell, I just figured out how all the other bloggers in the internet world put links into their text, so I'm putting links everywhere until this blog becomes a virtual pop-up book. Oooh! Look! A snail!

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Letters

J writes: Your heart of darkness is intimidating to behold. How long will you let it grow?

Until my girlfriend thinks its too scraggly and disgusting to look at.

Shana writes: whaaaat!? boy do we need to talk. i have news of a similar nature!!

Wait, you mean your mom also would rather liquify her food than try driving on roads posted at 55mph or more?

Maria writes: We'll have to have another AmeriCorps reunion... maybe in NYC... since you're making your way back to the East Coast.

Sounds good, let's round up the troops! but I don't think there's much to do in NYC.

Anelyn writes: we'll meet you there (pompton queen diner)! that's our favorite one, second only to park west diner.

I've only had Park West breakfasts, which are solid. But a diner really makes its mark during the midnight to 5am time slot, when they have to prove their dishes don't taste like used grease and pissed off waitress.

Tricia writes: makes me want a doughnut!

The point of that blog entry was to make you not want a doughnut because those damn plain donuts are so bland and dry and boring! Dammit! I've completely failed as a writer and now I'm getting worked up again about those plain donuts!