Is There a Doctorate in the House?

Yes I know things are falling apart and its all going to hell in a hand basket. Katie is still under Tom Cruise's power, and don't think I'm not concerned. I just don't care right now. Come with me and take a vacation for just a second, then return to your world. Things could be worse. YOU could be baby Suri.

I'll just say this one more time. Boomers have no excuse. Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever drugs you took, just understand: YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE. Excuse about what you may ask. Everything. I've always heard repetitively the following remarks in various situations from different boomers and they are dumbfounding-at least to me-please tell me if I'm being too traditional: "I'm just really tired,y'know, just tired man", "I'm not sure if there is a God, but do you want to go see a movie?", "Pot really does help. Really", "The Beatles made the best music of our time", "Clinton is the most intelligent man of our time", "Charles Dickens? Who's he?","the divorce didn't really affect the kids", "promiscuity, schomescuity!",owning an 'art tie' by Jerry Garcia or art 'art' by John Lennon, saying 'Ciao' instead of goodbye and of course any conversation taking wine really seriously because we can't talk about full-bodied marijuana, heroin or PCP. Apologies if I offend, however the madness must stop. Maybe it all began with taking Flicks off the market, voting Clinton into office, legitimizing Barbra Streisand, legitimizing the U.N., effects of Glasnost, bringing Hollywood into the 21st century and making it irretrievably worse than it ever conceivably could become, allowing their preteens to get tongue piercings, and for some of you, remaining bachelors because you "haven't found the right one" or because "the marriage and kids deal is pretty serious!(want to go to a movie?)". I look to one boomer that makes my day and who also happens to forgivably be a libertarian. Born in 1947, syndicated columnist Dave Barry wrote a book some years back called "Dave Barry Turns Fifty", I think he can help.He self-depreciates beautifully and I love him for this. Here are a few excerpts from an article credited to Mike Bellah, but if you can go to the library and loiter for a few hours, check out Barry's other stuff. For you bright bulbs but equally boomer embittered, see the Fran Leibowitz section and "Metropolitan Life", a dream come true.

P.S. if you happen to be a boomer and have ever said in all seriousness "life is good", you will not wake up to see the sunrise. This is actually a marketing catch phrase for a kayak company. The man I know that said this enjoys kayaks immensely, as do I, however, I would never actually say something like, oh I'don't know--"you've come a long way baby". Because you really haven't and its a shame.

Barry says that despite our whininess and self-absorption, the baby boom generation has many accomplishments. "Our parents' generation overcame the Great Depression, won World War II, and went on to build the greatest and most powerful nation this planet has ever seen," he writes. "But look at the many accomplishments that we baby boomers can point to: "Saturday Night Live," the New Age movement, call waiting." Like most older boomers, Barry remembers the early days of the atomic arms race and the nationally mandated nuclear-attack drills, "wherein the teachers had us kids practice protecting ourselves by crouching under our desks, which were apparently made out of some kind of atomic-bomb-proof wood." Barry says that he and a friend contributed to the national preparedness by assembling their own nuclear survival kit complete with flashlights and candy bars. "We waited for several days, but the attack (you never could trust the Russians) failed to come, so we went ahead and ate the candy bars." Some of Barry's best memories are of the TV shows of the era, including "The Lone Ranger" ("who we kids thought for years was the Long Ranger, and who was a good guy even though he wore a mask"), "Hopalong Cassidy" ("who was a good guy even though he wore a black outfit"), and "Lassie." According to Barry, "Lassie" was the story about a brilliant dog living with the world's stupidest farm family. "These people were so stupid that they hardly ever left the house. They just sat around the kitchen all day, looking out the window and wondering: 'How come all the neighbors have crops?'" If Lassie's family was moronic, Barry says that Perry Mason's peers were more so. "There was one murder per week in this community, so you'd think that, under the law of averages, the law-enforcement authorities, led by District Attorney Hamiliton Burger, would at least occasionally arrest a guilty person. But they never did." No account of the baby boom's youth would be complete without discussing its music, and Barry highlights both musical groups and their individual songs. "Louie Louie," he says, "was the song with the lyrics that nobody understood but everybody, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was convinced were dirty." On the other hand, "Wipe Out" by the Surfaris has a drum solo "that to this day touches the musical soul of all true Boomers, who sometimes play it with their hands on their office desks when their doors are closed and their co-workers think they're in there planning corporate strategy."
Barry's book includes more than nostalgia. There's a chapter detailing his alternative to joining AARP, some tips on staying young (Barry says that Rip Van Winkle taught us a valuable principle: one doesn't age as long as they are sleeping), and a list of 25 things he says he has learned in his 50 years. Among my favorites are: "The badness of a movie is directly proportional to the number of helicopters in it" (No. 1), "A penny saved is worthless" (No. 6) and myriad others. Dave Barry Dave Barry Turns 50 is published by Crown Publishers, Inc., New York.