From an email I recently sent to a friend.
I love doing character studies at the airport. You can really tell alot about a person in the three seconds it takes them to walk by. You can also learn that if you can't find the normal person in the room then it's because everyone else is normal and you are the weird one. I have been feeling this way alot lately. I suppose this is something all aging generations deal with. The change in fashion, attitude, music. I remember my parents having a passionate dislike for the rap music of the late 80's and early 90's. I tried to explain to them how it is music and it's social importance. Their reply was simple, "it just sounds like noise to me". I could provide little defense and almost less for the music of bands like metallica. Form the "noise' comments to the "you can't understand what they are saying" it just seemed that my parents would never get it. Sunday night I watched the grammys with the parents. They were indifferent towards most of the bands, but I was the major wrecker of the evening. I trashed just about every band that performed and most of the songs and artists who were up for awards. The only exception being the black keys. Even the tribute to Bob Marley, one of my favorite artists of all time, sucked in spite of collaboration with Sting. This tribute began with a song i have never heard before, that I can only assume is a Bruno mars tune and was finished with a bunch of artists I have never heard of butchering one of Bobs beloved tunes.
To sum up my major issue with the evening, all the new songs and artists sound the same and look the same. Maybe I am the modern day Danny Glover: too old for this shit.
I know alot of people who like this new music and like these artists. For the most part they are all high school or college age. I suppose that's to be expected, it's a youngsters game. Each generation has their moment in the sun. We had ours, and now they are having theirs. Maybe there is a bright side, all of the bands I grew up with are out on the casino circuit, todays generation isn't old enough to get in the casino, so in that world we are still the hipsters.
As I pulled my bag down from the overhead bin to make my way off the plane I had time for one final character study. Young male, 6 foot tall, hair shaved clipper short around the sides and back, modern day pompador sculpted in the finest of todays hair products, (way too)skinny jeans, brown leather shoes, Black Horn rimmed ray-bans, full tattoo sleeve left, half sleeve right, and a v-neck t-shirt. His cell phone rang. Ringtone.... Queen, "Bicycle Race". My faith in the future was temporarily restored and a new question enetered my head; would we all be better off if we just went on a big bike ride together?
