Shirley Manson, Age 12I'm not going to lie: I used to own several flannel shirts.I earnestly awaited the release of an album with the title "Mellon-Collie and the Infinite Sadness."I wore a hemp choker.Perhaps the worst thing that you can say about the 90s is that most kids, for all their mouth game and Earth Day and ironic t-shirts, never actually had the balls to commit suicide. For all the big angry music fests, all the pot-leaf decals, and the big black boots, we were some pussies, that's for certain. In between mowing the lawn and going to school, we all had Nike swooshes on our feet and identified strongly with songs about violent revolution. We pretended that our suburban civil rights were at risk. Black Plastic frames with yellow lenses. Grunge music.When I was younger, I remember watching Peter, Paul & Mary or Sonny Bono PBS Soundstage corpsefests hosted by the likes of the Smothers Brothers and trying to understand my parents' perspective; I fell asleep more than once.Tonight, I happened upon this generation's version of Soundstage, and I'm seeing more of the same. Except this time, the bell is tolling for me.Highlights of tonight's episode featuring the rock band Garbage:???Crowd chorus on "Pour your misery down on me."???Bassist doing his best Old Townshend Lean???The grunge crowd sway (see: Homerpalooza)???Past pants-fodder Manson with an OhMyFuckingGodWeWillBeDoingReunionShowsUntilWeAre57 look on her face???Butch Vig conspicuously absentIf my class of 1996 even had a reunion planned, it would be hard to attend - and this for more reasons than bald spots, guts, and a full lost decade of bad moves; it's that we'd all have to live down our public, cornball involvement in our teenage culture
de facto and look past the fact that ephemera like Soundstage, version 90s, is most acurately and representatively cast than we'll ever let on. At least the 60s and 70s had Real Shit going down; movements that stood for substance and altered the course of American history. Hippies getting fucked up at the hands of fat, powder-blue clad Chicago policemen outside the Democratic Convention in the name of civil rights and war stoppage. The 90s (really, the 80s) gave us AIDS but we gave it RENT - the HAIR of our generation, minus Let The Sunshine In - and colorful dancing condoms. It that all there was? Socially speaking, what is our legacy? Where was our efficacious artistic and social outrage? Do The Right Thing (really, 1989) was not enough.This tells me: we are ALL going out like punks. We will all be remembered for our generations' materialism, corporately-sponsored rebellion, and false angst before its substance. That, or Ritalin dependancy. The adults pawned us from start to finish; our beloved teenage liberal activism was fully sponsored by Pepsi. Hell, even our Hip-Hop will be too watered down and irrelevant for our children's liking. Try explaining the phrase "A nickel bag of funk" to your teen. Good luck with that enterprise.Sheesh. The Generation That Spawned Candlebox has a lot to atone for, if it doesn't initially sprain its wrists on its safety razors.It could be worse, though: we could be the Oughts.
luck
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