Generation Jones

 

This week, I was starting my day like I usually do, reading The Bleat, the blog of James Lileks of The Minneapolis Star-Tribune. By the way, you really should too.

Me and Lileks share a couple of things. First, he enjoys the pop culture of the past and present. He has one child (a girl, while I have a boy). He was born on August 9th, a year before I was born.

Other than that, not much. He was born and raised in Fargo, North Dakota.  He has worked in "the media" all his adult life. He can also write like the dickens.

This week, he revealed that we have something else in common: we both are members of Generation Jones, a subgroup of the famous Baby Boomers you've heard so much about.  It is the generation born from 1955 to 1964.

Lileks says, "I learned today that I am not a Boomer. Never felt like one, but I figured I was doomed to be lumped in with them. It always seemed a rather large demographic, gathering up people with disparate culture references. The Summer of Love, the anti-war movement, the folkie movement when they were earnest tweens, black-and-white TV, and so on."

He notes that we (fellow members of Generation Jones) have been expected to romanticize Boomer nostalgia. Woodstock. JFK.  The New York Jets winning Super Bowl III.  You know the drill. 

Instead, he says we "were blissfully unaware through the 60s, which meant we had our anchors in overculture, not counterculture. We woke up in the craptacular 70s. We had money - well, some - and freedom in the 80s, which had their own set of anxieties the Boomers in the media saw through their lens."

Isn't that a great description of the years from 1970 to 1979? "The Craptacular '70s"? It was a time we watched super duper naked women on the movie screens but insisted on electing a Sunday School teacher as President of The United States because he said he would never lie to us. Of course, he never said anything about a recession, gas shortages, or Iranian hostages, but we got all three by the decade's end. 

I think the biggest difference between Generation Jones and The Baby Boomers is that Generation Jones is more pragmatic than the Boomers or the generations that followed: X, Millennial, and Z.  Generation Jones saw the landmines the Boomers stepped on and tried to avoid them. 

We would never ever go to San Francisco with flowers in our hair. We would go with mousse.

We saw what "free love" did.  It caused divorces and unhappiness with a lot of diseases only some of which penicillin could cure. 

We saw that having long hair might turn off an employer, so we cut our hair to make us look like big boys when we went to the office.  Of course, the Generation Jones Ladies had their hair piled on top of their heads and wore dresses that had shoulder pads like a linebacker.

Another thing, all of Generation Jones never knew what life was like before TV.   And we consumed TV like we did our instant snacks.

We talk about the good old days of television like "Gilligan's Island,"  which was about seven people on "a three-hour tour" (sing along with me) that was shipwrecked on a desert island.   They had enough wood to build huts on the island, but not enough to fix the dang boat.

We've even invented a parlor game:  Ginger or Mary Anne?  For the record, I'm Team Mary Anne all the way.

However, everything Generation Jones touched did not turn into gold.  We had a brief flirtation with something called "Disco," which was primarily a genre about dancing the night away. 

You either loved Disco, or you hated Disco.  I'm pretty much in the hated Disco column. In my old age, I will admit that "Stayin' Alive" is a good song as is "I Will Survive."  I refuse to count "September" by Earth, Wind, And Fire as a disco song because it is way too good.

There's an article about Generation Jones which says Bob Dylan was the generational poet of The Boomers and Bruce Springsteen was the generational poet of Generation Jones.  

Now before all of my fellow Generation Jones members get up in arms:  I like Bruce Springsteen,  he is an incredible performer, and tramps like us, baby, we were born to run.

However, I was a junior at Wheeler High School   (School motto:  Aren't You Glad You Don't Go To Sprayberry") when Springsteen was on the cover of Newsweek and Time (in the same week), and it didn't register a blip on the Wildcat scale of important things. (Number One:  Whose house got rolled last week?)

But other than that, this article rings true to me, and if you were born between 1955 and 1964, it will ring true to you too. https://medium.com/atta-girl/why-people-born-1955-1964-arent-baby-boomers-6afdebc5c3ba
 

By the way, why did the Howells carry all that money with them?

 

 

Tweet

 "Elon is trying to control how people think. That is our job” ~ Mika Brzezinski

The big news in The Twitter World is that Money-Bags Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter. Of course, it has all of the Twitter a-buzz because Musk says he believes in absolute free speech, and you know, we can't have that around here.

Why does Musk want to buy Twitter? He said, “My strong, intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization." That sounds a whole lot better than "because I want it." 

If you haven't been keeping up, over the past 15 years or so, "Social Media" has become, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, "a really freaking big deal."  While there are many different social media sites on the internet, the most important ones are Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook is the nicer of the two, believe it or not.  You see the name and photographs of your "friends,"  and you can post pictures of your supper for all your friends to admire so they can become jealous of you because you're eating something good and they are eating the same old crap.

Twitter was intended to capture comments throughout the day and is not interested in any of your daily meals.  On Twitter, you can follow anyone else who has a Twitter account and interact with them. For example, I sent a "tweet" ( the Twitter term for a comment) to Jimmy Fallon, and he answered me back and now get this, tagged Colin Quinn in his tweet to me, and then Colin Quinn tweeted back to the both of us.  It made my year.

However, Twitter has some problems. One is that you don't have to use your actual name on Twitter, and you can have as many accounts as you can tweet.  This allows people to say some harsh and nasty things to various people.  It also plays a part in the "Twitter mobs," in which Twitter acts as a forum to punish people.

As an example, there's a Presbyterian campus minister by the name of Sammy Rhodes who became Twitter famous for funny little tweets which, for the most part, were rephrasing of bits from stand-up comedians.  Somehow, Patton Oswalt became involved and called Rhodes a "thieving hack."  This caused Rhodes to leave Twitter for a while.  He's back now but doesn't seem quite as funny.

There are many other examples, but all have something in common: their meanness.  The level of vitriol that is unleashed daily on Twitter is simply a wonder to behold.

The past couple of years has not been good for the Social Media Giants.  Politicians have become involved and insist that Facebook and Twitter manage "disinformation" in their sites.  So Facebook and Twitter have tweaked their algorithms to ensure their "platforms" do not disseminate any incorrect information. The fact that the algorithms are Democrats shouldn't bother you at all.

All of us on Facebook remember the little square box that would appear if you mentioned "Covid-19"  in your post. But, heaven forbid if you posted, "This horse paste is real good, Yum! Yum! It got rid of my Covid".  Your post would have been tagged as misinformation.

Twitter took it a little further, of course. They began "shadow-banning" (blocking Tweets without the person's knowledge) conservatives. They also removed the link of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden, which they said contained "Russian disinformation" that just happened to fall in the middle of the 2020 Presidential campaign.

Well, it turns out, the story didn't contain "Russian Disinformation," but it simply made the algorithms uncomfortable.

A few weeks ago, Twitter banished the Satirical Evangelical site "The Babylon Bee" because it posted a story that awarded transgender government official Rachel Levine "Man of the Year," calling it "hateful speech."

Out of nowhere, Musk comes riding in, stating that Twitter's capricious and arbitrary standards are wrong. He said, “Twitter should match the laws of the country" He added, “If it’s a gray area, I would say let the tweet exist.” 

That made the heads of a lot of Blue Check Twitter people explode.  Max Boot, a Washington Post columnist, said, "I am frightened by the impact on society and politics if Elon Musk acquires Twitter. He seems to believe that on social media, anything goes. For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less."

I don't know how more content moderation would help democracy survive, but I don't work for The Washington Post.

All of this is about one word: control.  Who gets to control the most influential social media platform?  A better question is, what richy rich kid gets to control the most influential social media platform?

Twitter could have avoided all this by banning bots, using a little more discretion on what they ding for violations, and giving people an edit button for their tweets. In other words, use a little common sense. You can't ban The Babylon Bee and keep The Onion. It is inconsistent and hypocritical

For now, I will sit back and watch the circus. It is worth the price of admission to see the wrinkle in Mika's worried brow.

 

Slap Shot

 

 

First, I must apologize for being the zillioneth person to discuss the Will Smith-Chris Rock thing.  I know just about everybody is sick of it, but you got to admit it is not every day you see one millionaire smack another millionaire and then have a total and complete meltdown on live TV.

 

However, since I am a member of the Amalgamated Bloggers Union Local 77, I am compelled to comment even though:

1. It didn't involve me.
2. It doesn't affect me.
3. Nothing I say will change anyone's opinion about the event.
   

To give a quick recap, Will Smith was a nominee for best actor and had a primo seat at the front of the theatre.  Chris Rock was a presenter for the Best Documentary category.

Chris Rock was doing his Chris Rock bit and pointed out that Jada Pickett Smith (Will's wife) will star in "G.I Jane II".

Oh no, he didn't.

Pickett-Smith keeps her hair cut short because she has a condition called Alopecia which causes people to lose their hair.  Up until last Sunday night, I didn't know she had Alopecia.  I didn't know she had short hair.

Will Smith laughed. Moments later, however, he got up out of his seat, walked onto the stage, slapped Chris Rock, turned around and walked in a huff back to his seat. When Rock protested that it was just a "G.I. Jane" joke, the full psychosis exploded and Smith screamed, "Keep my wife's name out of your (word used only on premium cable and "Yellowstone") mouth".

My opinion.

It amazes me how thin-skinned some people can be. Do I think people with Alopecia should be made fun of?  It depends on your definition of "making fun."   There is something known as good-natured joshing or teasing.  Rock was smiling and laughing as he told the joke and prefaced it by saying, "You know I love you". 

 

There are some women that can rock the bald look.  Beautiful people tend to be beautiful no matter their hair style. 

If Pickett-Smith had cancer and lost her hair due to chemotherapy, I would agree with the people who thought Rock's joke was mean.  But she doesn't have cancer and people treat Alopecia by different methods.  Some wear wigs. Some cut their hair short. 

I don't tease anybody for any condition if I know about it.  We really don't know if Rock knew about Pickett-Smith's Alopecia. You can't expect a comedian to know the medical conditions of his audience.

I've read a lot of articles about "what all this meant".  There's been a lot of sociology, psychology, and political science added to this event. Unfortunately, a lot of it was hogwash.

 

I don't know if it has anything to do with the Smith's (cough) unconventional marriage.  I don't know if it has to do with race, religion, or the fact Smith is seen as a MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STAR, while Rock is still seen as a stand-up comedian, which is just one step up in the entertainment business ladder from  a radio morning zoo-crew host.

 

What is bad about all of this is that it destroys the carefully constructed image of Will Smith.  He was an actor that appealed to everyone of all ages.  While I wouldn't consider myself a fan, I've enjoyed every movie I've seen of his, and really that's all you can ask of an actor. 

But, looking back on it, I never entirely bought the whole Will Smith package. He was hip, and he was a nice guy. He was the street, and he was the boardroom.  It seemed that he was playing on both sides of the street.

As far as The Oscars are concerned, it was just freaky that they didn't escort Smith out of the auditorium.   Just like Smith, they doubled down on their error after Smith gave his speech apologizing to everyone but Rock for his behavior by giving Smith a standing ovation.

 

The person that should have received a standing ovation was Rock, who carried on with his job after the slap.  I would have curled up in a ball.

 

Smith is a person that needs to control his emotions. (Duh)  He needs to seek professional help and not a publicist. 

 

On the bright side, it is not the worst thing an actor has ever done during a show. That distinction is held by John Wilkes Booth and you know how that turned out.