Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Gen-X, The Cold War, and G.I. Joe

It has been a long and wild ride for the generation labeled as “X”. We have suffered through war then peace then war again, all the while clinging to the false hope that we are different from the others and when we take the reins, things are going to change.

We have dealt with the false promises of the cold war’s world wide destruction, big hair bands of the eighties, and the creation and culmination of the internet. We have seen the wicked rise to power and have come to the realization that the meek shall not inherit the earth.

Most of us are well into our thirties and the rest of us have entered the downward spiral into bleakness that is the late twenties. For the majority of us life has not been what we were promised by the old G.I. Joe cartoons that helped to brainwash us as youngsters. Drugs are not all that bad, there is no such thing as a perfect marriage, and the Russians are not the evil baby-killers we once thought them to be.

Just about everything we were ever told was wrong. We are a generation that has been completely and totally marketed to death by the multi-national corporations who swear by the holy word that they only have our best interests in mind. Contrary to what the television says, you can not buy happiness.

But you can buy hookers. Hookers and enough legal anti-depression drugs to keep you sedated with a goofy smile on your face until the mighty Jesus comes from the sky to rip your face off along with the rest of the godless masses. That is, if the whole Jesus thing wasn’t of the same ilk as the terrible “Santa Claus” lies.

One thing has changed. Cynical nature has taken over where compassion used to make its home. The whole idea of helping your fellow man just for the sake of kindness has went the way of the dodo, long eaten by the pool of blood thirsty sharks that resides just outside your door in each and every neighborhood on this foul smelling planet we like to call earth.

So much for the past, the future is upon us. Sometime in the next ten years we will be handed the world and all its poverty, death, and war, to do with what we will. We will be given the keys to the universe and the power to destroy it as we see fit. It will finally be our turn up to bat.

Will we swing for the fences? Who knows, stranger things have happened. The Red Sox won the World Series not too long ago and that’s got to count for something. If the damned can rise above the curse of the dreaded Bambino, is it also possible for a lost generation to rise to the challenge of creating a brave new world?

Maybe, but first we got to put down the pills and leave the hookers alone. That is something we all know to be a fact and if there is one thing we have learned in the past thirty years, it’s that knowing is half the battle.

Shoutwire

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