I’ve been reliving my youth courtesy of YouTube. There are MTV Unplugged shows, vintage music videos — it’s awfully cool. YouTube hasn’t been on my radar until recently, but it’s a nice incorporation into my life. So, for nostalgia, I watched the Stone Temple Pilots MTV Unplugged show, and, as I will be transitioning from “thirty” to “thirtysomething” in a couple of weeks, I thought I would pause and reflect.
Here is “Plush” Unplugged.
Usually YouTube comments are impossibly inane. I, of course, am not the first person to note this:
But I was oddly heartened by an exchange on the comments page:
Wrestling BC: It sucks that I have to be in my 20s during this shitty decade. I would gladly give away anything good about this time period … which is basically only the advancements in technology, if it meant I could go back in time an see these guys and others in their prime.
Calicsta: I feel just the same. I would give everything to be a part of this x-generation.
Years ago, I saw a defense of people of my generation. The argument went like this: “We might not understand Woodstock, The British Invasion, free love, LSD. But there’s plenty of stuff Boomers don’t know about: Tina Yothers, TrapperKeepers, etc.”
And I thought: “Yeah. That’s not a very good trade.”
But that, of course, is not the real legacy of “Generation X”.
When “Generation Y” was first introduced some years back — I first encountered it in maybe 1995 — I thought it was kind of odd. It bins my brother and me into different generations. I’m at the tail-end of Gen X, he’s at the head of the subsequent generation, and that seemed somewhat ludicrous to me, even though it was reassuring to a teenager to be told there was a fundamental generational gap between you and your younger brother.
I was born in 1978. I went to college when I was 16, which put my classmates as 1976ers, and the upperclassmen more solidly into Gen X. Thirty is young to be reminiscing, but when I started college, we were one of the first classes to have email. We used pine on a DEC Alpha. Google? Hell, there was no Altavista. No one had heard of Amazon.com. Yahoo! was run by a staff of volunteers. Internet Explorer was but a gleam in a predatory company’s eye — I remember transitioning from Mosaic to Netscape Navigator. There were people sincerely wondering whether “The Internet” was better than AOL. Cell phones? Blackberries? Gah. But, no, that’s not the biggest generational gap, either.
I graduated college in 1999. My brother started college in — help, Dave? 2000? I was a working adult when 9/11 occurred. High school and college had been spent under Clinton, when American thought that a scandal was a blow job in the Oval Office. My brother — Generation Y, remember — was 19 when the Towers collapsed. His college days were drenched in Bush, in the worry of international terrorism, in illegal wars and unlawful presidencies and all the scary, scary shit that will take well into Generation Z++ to undo. And, of course, there’s instant messaging. There’s that.
So the X/Y division seemed oddly … prescient. If it wasn’t real at the beginning, it sure as hell was true when the inhabitants became adults. Dave, agree?
Back to music. I’ve wondered over the years if this weren’t generational bigotry, but my first year as a teenager, here is a partial list of albums that were released:
- Nirvana “Nevermind”
- Pearl Jam “Ten”
- Guns ‘n’ Roses, “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II”
- Metallica, “Black Album”
- REM, “Out of Time”
- Queensrÿche, “Empire”
- Tori Amos, “Little Earthquakes”
That’s. Partial. I’ve tried to convince myself that anyone’s albums when they were 13 would seem as seminal, but, no, sorry. This was different. These were seminal. And — oddly, utterly oddly — grunge was a fad, which brought celebrities with bipolar disorder into public consciousness more than at any time since, maybe, Chopin.
Rant, here. If you look back on grunge as a fad: bless you eternally. For real. You are truly blessed. I’m bipolar. I have been for lots of years — as usual, symptoms showed up when I was a teenager, years before it was diagnosed. If you listen to Nirvana’s “Lithium” and think, “cool bassline!” rather than “wow, Kurt, you fucking nailed what being on lithium is like”, seriously — utterly seriously — good for you. It really isn’t our fault that people with severe dopamine disregulation problems find that strong opiates work better to make us functional than anything that’s been approved by the FDA for treatment. If you listen to Stone Temple Pilots’ “Atlanta” and it doesn’t immediately occur to you that Scott has nailed what trying to stop opiates as a bipolar feels like — well, I’ve said it. Bless you. It’s a blessed accident that I didn’t become a heroin addict, and, frankly, it’s still something I have to be super-careful to not do.
I don’t think that intrusion of mental illness into popular culture has really been duplicated. Do people with rage disorders think, “wow, nu-metal legitimizes us”? Do despicable homophobes think Eminem (gods, that man is talented, I just wish I didn’t have to delouse after The Eminem Show) stands up for them? Well, maybe. I don’t really know.
So, I’m switching from 30 to 31. I just had my ten-year college reunion. I’ve been married, and been divorced. I watch the Unplugged shows and think, “Holy shit, I’m older than all of these guys, and, holy shit, I used to think their hair was long” (mine has now passed the middle of my back again). And — yes — I still look in the mirror in the morning, with somewhat-ratty long curly brown hair, jeans, a rock band t-shirt, and an open flannel, and think, “Hey, I look good”.
Hey, do you know what? I think I do. I may be stuck back in 1991. But, seriously, there are worse times be stuck. Grunge forever. Better bipolar medications now. I’ll shout both from the rooftops. I hope you’ll join me.
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It’s not really classy to say this, but I think that was a fucking awesome post.
I may be stuck back in 1991. But, seriously, there are worse times be stuck.
1991 was characterized by a recession and a war in Iraq. We’re all fucking stuck there.
Very, very clever, Mike.
On a more personal note, I have to say that the first half of the 90s were probably the worst years of my life. It was the combination of being old enough to be aware of other people but not experienced enough to know how to roll with the punches. There’s a certain amount of nostalgia that I get from thinking about it, because it’s probably the last time in my life when I can remember feeling that things desperately mattered (dear Gawd, there was a time when that schlocky “nothing is trivial” line from The Crow actually spoke to me), but it’s quickly overtaken by the memory that the reason that things mattered to me was because they hurt so fucking much.
I associate all but the very end of the 90s with a period of personal depression, and the music with which I surrounded myself probably played into that. It wasn’t until the millennial electronic resurgence (Play, In The Mode, Discovery and Rooty, all in short order) that I started to recover. So while I definitely acknowledge that the grunge era is a more authentic period in terms of music as a method of expressing human emotion, I also understand that my ability to avoid killing myself is due largely to remembering that feelings are boring, and kissing is awesome.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. You make this site better.
and the music with which I surrounded myself probably played into that.
Lots of people claim this kind of thing, but I frequently think this is getting the causality rather backwards — or, at the very least, fails to account properly for the feedback loop. I, of course, can’t negate your person experience, butI believe, at least upon cursory reflection, that my immersion in depressing music did far more good than harm.
But if — this is going to sound snarky, but I don’t mean it to — electronica and dinosaur comics give you a hand out of the water, that is very useful and very, very beneficial.
or, at the very least, fails to account properly for the feedback loop
Oh, there’s definitely a feedback loop. A few years ago, when Chelsea dumped me, I became increasingly morose, and it finally reached the point where I decided that I needed to get some help or I was going to become a suicide risk. I went to my roommate to discuss it, and he pointed out that my iTunes library had been playing nothing but Eels and Ben Folds for three weeks. I hadn’t even realized it. Changing my music selection didn’t entirely cause my turn-around, but it was a huge step.
this is going to sound snarky, but I don’t mean it to — electronica and dinosaur comics give you a hand out of the water, that is very useful and very, very beneficial.
Less snarky than I think you realize, since the full collection of things that I credit with saving me sounds even more preposterous: Electronica, street drugs and professional wrestling.
Generational difference is a weird thing for me to quantify, at least looking upwards. It’s easier looking down. And boy do I look down. These kids with their Facebooks and their Twitters. Gosh.
I work at a university in New York City, in the same building where I holed up on September 13th, 2001 as we all wondered if we were going to live out the week. This year’s Welcome Celebration happened on September 11th, and it just wasn’t on these kids’ radar. Of course it wasn’t. The freshmen were in fourth fucking grade when the towers fell; I was in fourth grade when the LA riots happened. The only reason I know those dates is because of a Sublime song.
But I’ve thought for years that the September 11th separation I feel isn’t generational, it’s locational. I feel like people who were here “understand” (gah, whatever that means) and people who weren’t “don’t”. Not sure if this is a sensible line to draw, and saying this at the risk of sounding like… a dick? or something? I’d say that I don’t particularly like talking about my experiences on September 11th to people who weren’t here (not that I ever really “like” talking about them to anyone, natch). Is that weird? It might be weird. Partially because as 9/11 experiences go, mine wasn’t that bad, but when I say “I’d actually rather not talk about it”, pleasantly and politely of course, it sounds like it must have been awful. ACH.
But this isn’t about that.
I didn’t really know where this was going when I started writing it, and it’s all rather heady, so pardon me if it sort of spins off semi-randomly. My lovely partner’s sister is seventeen: she and her peers don’t use email. They just don’t. Small-sample-set alert, but as far as I’ve been told, as far as I’ve seen, their entire online communication is through social network media. Everything is for everybody. All messages are consumed by all people. Nothing is private. The truth may be out there, as Mulder would have us believe, but we’re going to have wade through a fair swamp of off-the-top-of-the-head-bullshit to get to it.
And so while it’s difficult for me to discern the generation gap with people a little bit older than me — and that probably has A LOT to do with the fact that I had an elder brother (Caucasian) who included me in culture I probably wouldn’t have been aware of otherwise — it’s very easy for me to see it in these people for whom online privacy exists in the same mental space as, like, record stores and beepers. Sure, it’s something that they’ve heard of, but what’s the point? The new is the new. Every thought is for the world. Every action is broadcast. On every webpage, I’m the star.
Awkward transition:
Taylor Mac’s most recent show frequently cites (and actually includes as a character) Susan Stewart, author of the book on aesthetic theory On Longing (purchased be me, but not yet read). Stewart’s thesis is ostensibly that “nostalgia is longing without an object”. That strikes me as likely true.
But damn, do I still feel it.
I could reread this, but I’m not going to.
I could reread this, but I’m not going to.
That’s OK. I’ve reread it multiple times, and it holds up.
It’s like Johnson not proofing his periodical that at-least-one-time. There’s not proofing, and there’s not proofing when you’re fucking Samuel Johnson or Dave McGee. Anyway.
Not sure if this is a sensible line to draw, and saying this at the risk of sounding like… a dick? or something?
Maybe, maybe not. But people get to pull trumps once in a while. I did, above, when I implied that no one who is not bipolar can really understand grunge. Maybe we’re both wrong. I don’t think I have to be a necrophiliac in order to appreciate Poe, but I haven’t spent a lot of time talking about this belief to necrophiliacs (I do believe, however — maybe more on this later — that being bipolar helps). To really assess your claim, we’d have to have numerous interviews, maybe, with people who were both there and not-there on 9/11, which could be challenging (I am, by the way, reassured that you referred to the events as “9/11″ — I believe this was the first time I’ve used the bare cardinals to refer to “the tragic events of”, and I felt kind of awkward and yucky giving in to that.)
One thing I do know is that when racial minorities try to pull a trump card accusing me of not having any idea what racism and cultural oppression are like (because I’m a white man, natch), I chortle a bit and think/say, “Yeah, you’re going to lose that one.” I grew up in a culture even more viciously racist than the U.S.. I was chased by hordes of children screaming racial slurs, through department stores so that I feared for my safety. I was enticed into play equipment one time by racist classmates who proceeded to lock me inside and go on to class because I was a racial minority. And laughter is the healthier response, because the other is “Who the fuck do you think you are, assuming that I can’t understand racism because I’m white?!” But it’s not so much my experience that makes makes me think that. Rather, “I do understand it, but it’s really not all that fucking hard.” So the hairs on the back of my neck bristle a bit when other in-groups try to trump with unique experience.
But, like in other circumstances (Police brutality? Yes, I’ve called for help and then had a police officer proceed to lock me in handcuffs, but I can, for instance, still walk) I’ll (try to) err on the side of humility and recognize that I may not really understand right now, and that I may be blessed if I remain unable to understand.
All messages are consumed by all people. Nothing is private. The truth may be out there, as Mulder would have us believe, but we’re going to have wade through a fair swamp of off-the-top-of-the-head-bullshit to get to it.
I agree — it’s not the “public” that bothers me about social networking as much as the “inane”. I think person-to-person communication is a very useful invention, because I don’t fucking care if you want to tell a classmate that you wished he would “say it, not spray it” (actual sample point). My response is jointly “get over yourself” and “you’re crying wolf — if you ever say anything remotely interesting, you realize I’ll miss it, right?”
But — and this would be awesome — maybe the pupae really can process this information load appropriately. I’ve noted here, for instance, that I can’t read and listen to NPR at the same time, even though I think I should be able to. I can time-share, but I have to ignore one — I can’t multiplex. I read a reflection on a modern video game in which the screen is divided into quadrants, each with a different classic vg in it (Pong, Space Invaders, etc.) and the gameplay entails switching between the quadrants to play all four simultaneously. “I remember when these games were hard,” he wrote. Yeah, me too. So if the “I’ll read everything you write to everyone” people can actually process all of that, as kind of native intelligence: well, that’s fucking rad.
Yes, I realize I’m saying that as a blogger. But here are the two things that I’d say in defense of that:
Dave: Small-sample-set alert, but as far as I’ve been told, as far as I’ve seen…
Joshua: He would be the first to disclaim his own genius, to disclaim wisdom; (actual sample point)
Speaking of feedback loops, are we in one with our respective writing? We seem to both delight in parallelism, extreme self-attentiveness, sprawling coined hyphenates, and, at least online, adjectives describing our writing might include “conversational”, “confessional”, and “lovingoftheadverbs”. That last one’s not really an adjective, but when, in his introduction to the reissue of the early Dark Tower novels, Stephen King mentioned going through the text excising “hundreds of unnecessary adverbs”, I was a bit bewildered. I love adverbs. There is something to be said for starkness, and I embrace that more in my fiction writing than my blogging, but I’ve tried excising adverbs to see if I’m using them as a crutch, and I don’t like the resulting prose as much as when it’s adverb-laden. I know, surely, that your writing has influenced mine, but — the rest can’t all be that we’re both extensively cribbing from the same writers (Sorkin? Mitchell?), can it? This is post number 1827 for me in about nine years, and that works out to a higher frequency than one every-other-day. I’m writing more now, and more constantly, than I ever did in college. I haven’t counted the words I’ve written in the decade, but a lot of the 2k posts are long-form, and I think just writing a lot is some of the best exercise for writing well.