generation stuck

i quit coffee for a month last year. As a physical experiment i learned very little, but as a mental challenge i discovered i had self control. That knowledge satisfied me for about as long as it took me to make an espresso. I drink coffee as much as i used to, yet i really don't care about that anymore. i didn't start this blog to talk about coffee. But i did start it talking about coffee.

I'm 35. its a pretty fucked up age: talk about being right in the middle. I'm a production manager, so basically I'm responsible for about 30 staff,of which half would be older than me, and the others younger. the older guys think I'm an asshole, and so do the young guys. i get pretty upset about both generations. By upset i mean i just dont get them. Lets talk music. Most baby boomers still listen to the same music they listened to when they were in the 60's. i just cant have this. i do like a lot of the stuff from that era, some of the best music was made then, but i just don't think i could choose to listen to 'Whiter shade of pale' on a daily basis like guys who listen to Gold 104 everyday. how do they do this?

Gen Y kids listen to songs that have completely ripped off everything that has come before it, and they are too stupid to notice. i mean "Flo rida", i doubt we'll hear from this prick again, but apart from the most lame sexually suggestive lyrics, doesn't anyone else hear Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Around"? Both crap songs but at least one can claim to be original. These days bands get their music to the kids by major corporations offering them loads of cash to promote their product. Nobody cares that this is happening. I mean, i don't blame the artists. They don't sell the kind of volume of records these days like Brothers in Arms and Thriller. And to be fair, i don't know of anyone who actually pays for their music online. Its a bit rich for us to be up in arms when bands sell their tunes to Coke or IBM while googling our torrents. But kids, find your music, don't listen to the crap they pass off as new music on MTV and commercial radio. It will only lead to emptiness and depression, i can almost guarantee that.

thought: Pharmaceutical companies program commercial radio.

I watched Tom Waits on You Tube tonight. What a freak. He will die in 20 years or so and will get a small fanfare in the media. He has done so much more for music than Britney Spears or whoever the hell else. He played London about 5 years ago and Chris Martin was seen out the front desperate to get a ticket off a scalper. Possibly one the the most influential artists of the past 30 years. Raw, original, real. Saying that, it was odd to see him in Mystery Men. Anyway listen to his lyrics and you might get an idea why he has such a cult following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-pywHFUbGw
I went to the movies a while back. My partner and i now go solo due to the recent arrival of our darling daughter. We used to go every week. Our cinema is down the road from our apartment.

Have you ever been the only person in a cinema? i was, a truly surreal experience. The film was Anvil, the Story of Anvil. it was an amazing rock documentary about a shit metal band ( who i do vaguely remember from my teen years) who have refused to give up. They are in their late fifties now and as crap as ever. i mean, they can play but they just cant write a good song. There must be so many old guys from bands like that in the world. Just rubbish but oblivious to reality. their poor families. How do they cope when they work out they are no good? i sat their alone and thought about the number of people involved in me seeing the film. the ticket booth, projectionist, the usher. it was pretty special, if not intentional.

i don't know how much more Facebook i can handle. Although i cant bring myself to get off it. My "friends" are idiots. The more i think about it i think i will get off it. Only its such a great way to put photos up for friends overseas. But what is going on with status updates? if not a brag-fest status updates are the most inane natter ever written. i simply dont care what these idiots are doing and the more i read the less of these people i like. People really are idiots. They must be. Two and a Half Men is on every night on commercial TV and people love it. If people talk about this show at work they drop a notch of my respect. i was watching a show last year called Lead Balloon on the ABC. A really clever dry comedy with the English comedian Jack Dee. it was no "the Office, or "curb your .." but along the same lines. I mentioned to a guy at work about this show on the ABC and before i could finish he had already cut in with what he would watching on channel 9. He never watched ABC. Am i wrong to conclude the guy is an idiot? He's an o.k. bloke but i don't respect him and i think he's dim. He was talking about Beauty and the Geek this morning. He couldn't understand what the fuss was about with the blackface sketch on hey Hey. Enough said?

i will not just be blogging about music and Tv, but it is a great start in tackling the huge gap between Gex, Y and the boomers. My blog is about being born in 1974 and now being 35. My generation has seen more of the world than most of the Boomers and it cant help but make us feel smug. Gen Y'ers are happy to stay at home with their parents while writing personal diary entries online, with poor spelling. i don't get how there can be such a huge gap between us.

i hope my daughters generation look at these Y's in years to come and know they have their measure.

Tonight is friday night. my partner is out in town and i am home while my daughter sleeps. Sometimes she gurgles and wimpers. But mainly she sleeps.