You start to wonder if it was like this in the mid-70s, the relentless barrage of terrible news every fucking day back then, it was the daily count of American boys being slaughtered in the Vietnam War, Nixon's latest idiocies, the OPEC embargoes, the gas lines, and economic stagflation. These days it's terrorism, a stock market gone to shit, a non-sensical war in Iraq, droughts, and a job market that has today's college graduates either prolonging their adolescence through grad school, or working the french fry timer at the mall McDonald's.
Every morning last week we had to set the alarm in order to make it to the IFP Market on time, and every morning the news station blared forth more horrors. This is what we heard each day:
Monday: "...officials said two children were killed in the uprising..."
Tuesday: "...was unbelievably bad, much worse than expected..."
Wednesday: "...suffered a long, protracted illness..."
Thursday: "...screams were heard from the lower floors of the apartment..."
Friday: "...and the long-term damage is believed to be irreversible..."
Fortunately, I have a very quick "snooze button" response, and managed to turn that shit off before we could hear what the hell they were talking about. I always forget to turn the radio alarm to the easy listening or country station, two genres guaranteed to bolt my ass out of bed every morning. Bad news just makes you more tired.
I remembering feeling pretty shat-upon back in 1990-91 or so, when we were at war with Iraq the first time, and the job market was terrible. Most of my friends and I totally opted out of the whole goddamn thing we stayed in Chapel Hill and got jobs driving pies, bussing tables, or doing scab temp work at IBM. We spent what little money we had on Jim Beam, started a lot of bands, and continued to marginalize ourselves until 1997 or so, when the diaspora to Real Life (New York, LA, San Fran) occcured.
I wonder how long this generation of kids (although technically, they're the last remnants of our generation) will do the same: decide the world is so fucked up that they might as well stay in the cocoon of the microcosmic college towns and hometowns, make digital movies, play techno at the local joints, and drink long, slow, bourbon & cokes while flirting with the restaurant hotties on a dilapidated porch. I wouldn't blame them a bit.
Posted by at October 6, 2002 8:49 PM