April 16, 2002
From the desk of Jane Galt:Notes and Asides So part
Notes and Asides
So part of the reason that I haven't been posting as much is that we've moved at work, and I don't have a phone or anything where I can dial up at lunch. But I do have some tasty pictures of my new digs:
my new office
the view from what we are currently calling the Veranda, though there is a movement afoot to rename it the "sun porch".
closer look at the view
Anyway, so until this move, I had been sharing my office with a nineteen year old. Like most persons of that age, she likes to listen to the kind of radio station that plays the same song eighty-seven times in a row until you have to smack yourself repeatedly in the head with a small hammer in order to dislodge it from your memory banks. Today, in my new abode, as the blessed silence was intermittently broken by the sound of my classic musical selections, I had the opportunity to reflect on what we may learn of the youth of America from their music.
We can learn much. Most importantly, we can learn to fear for them. If their music is anything to go by, theirs is a lost generation.
This thought first occurred to me as I sat through a Saturday-morning Infinite Loop-A-Thon of a song that I think may have been rap, or hip-hop, or perhaps pop – I’m afraid that in these degenerate days, the formal distinctions that we drew between these genres are somewhat blurred, not to say slovenly. At any rate. The song in question concerned a young man with many issues in life, issues which he could apparently only verbalize through growling subaudible imprecations about his desire to party, interspersed with the oft-articulated assertion that he “got what it takes to rock the mike right”. How little they have learned from our experience, I thought. A generation that grew up with the national tragedy of Vanilla Ice safely behind it should know that if you indeed have what it takes to rock the mike right, it’s the sort of thing that should go without saying. No need to draw attention to yourself. People will notice if the mike is right when you rock it. And if it isn’t right – well, then their opinion of you will not be improved if you continue to insist that it is..
Perhaps my thoughts would have stopped there if we had not had several more hours to go before we could switch to another song I’d already subliminally memorized. There is something of the camp sing-a-long flavor to listening to these top forty stations, except of course that I am forbidden to sing because the nineteen-year old somehow feels that my caterwauling is worse than that which is emerging from the radio.
Well, there I sat, continuing to muse upon this bard of the Bronx, thinking, “ahh, teenagers. He’ll soon learn not to allow his mouth to write checks that his ass can’t cash.” Upon saying as much to the aforementioned nineteen year old, however, I was informed that this particular hipster is not only on the downhill side of twenty, but also has several children to his credit. I think we can all agree that while a certain lingering in the golden tides of youth is acceptable, by the time you have fathered children with two separate women, one’s ability to charm with braggadocio has worn thin.
But no wonder they fail to learn from our experience. Their horizon of available emotions, to judge from their music, runs the gamut from A to B.
While even in those long-fled days when I was in the first flower of my youth, there was a somewhat limited repertoire of things which inspired our rock stars to burst into song, yet these children are narrower still, apparently incapable of imagining things outside a few, oft-repeated, tropes:
1) I like to party, and I’m going to do a lot of it.
2) I love some person who doesn’t know I’m alive, and my life would be perfect if only they would “get wi’ me”
3) Now that you’ve gotten wi’ me, my life is perfect, and I’m going to hold onto you forever.
4) I can’t believe things didn’t work out when I was so certain that everything was perfect and I was going to hold on to you forever.
5) You and that trashy thing you’re dating now can go to hell, because I wouldn’t take you back if you were hand-crafted in genuine fourteen carat gold by master craftsman at the Franklin Mint. I’m going to party!
6) I’ve met someone new, so you can just turn right around and walk out the door, because now that I have this new person, my life is perfect and I’m going to hold onto them forever.
From this, one can predict some dire things about the divorce and illegitimacy statistics in years to come. Not to mention the number of forty-something paunchy people wearing too much spandex who will someday be found trying to force their way into the hot new clubs with the tired claim that they’ve got what it takes to rock the mike right.
I can only assume that this lack of emotional depth in their music is the explanation for the latest song stuck in my head (honestly – don’t the DJ’s have enough space for more than five singles at a time on their shelves? Is there some charity to which we can donate in order to rectify the situation?). Its subject is a young man trapped at Stage 4 of the above emotional ouroboros, wandering the streets in an unhappy daze. Its catchy chorus line, which the nineteen year olds like to chime in on for a sort of harmonic stereo effect, is “Can’t believe that this is real/Do I really feel the way I feel?”
What have we done to our youth, dear readers? This am-I-hip-hop-am-I-rap? music has clearly stunted their spiritual and intellectual growth until they are unfit to become the leaders of the free world. I mean to say, how can we remain the world’s only superpower if these are the sorts of questions that occupy their minds? Look at the songs of a generation ago, grappling with issues of war, peace, inter-generational conflict, deep metaphysical questions, and the distressing aftereffects of poor quality control in the peyote factory. Two generations ago, singers not only faced down Hitler with a smile on their face and a song in their heart, but also attacked grammar, spelling, and the future of the transcontinental rail network, all while forcing anyone who wanted to dance to learn complicated partners routines. Compare this now to the newest generation. If their minds are unable to come to a definite decision as to whether what they are feeling is, yes, what they are actually feeling, how can we expect them to address complex balance-of-trade issues, much less create a really satisfactory low-calorie dessert? I tell you, reader, I have seen the future, and we should be afraid. If you have any doubts about the eventual collapse of the social security system, I invite you to spend ten minutes listening to your local teenybopper station. Then I advise you to get in your car and head for the hills.
Posted by Jane Galt at April 16, 2002 08:48 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links