Baby boomers are great!

I feel that I am in the minority when I say this: I think baby boomers are great! When I look at all the freedoms we have today in personal lifestyle and choices, I know my generation owes a huge debt of gratitude to yours. That being said, I must also say that having dealt with the fallout of AIDS, herpes and a whole host of other unpleasant facts of life since coming of age 20 years ago, I really resent the hell out of being called a "baby boomer" myself. I know, I know, I was born in 1964, and by today's measurements that qualifies me as a member of your generation, but I know better.

At best, you could call me an honorary boomer. Until I can say that I had sex with a pair of twin-sister, nymphomaniac, political-science majors in the back seat of a '77 Trans Am in the parking lot of the local disco with no fear, before or after, of the consequences -- then you could call me a "boomer." Until then, you can refer to me and my peers, the ones who were old enough to know what was going on during the Sexual Revolution, but too young to partake, as the Bitter Enders. Too young to be a bona fide baby boomer, too old to be part of Generation X. We're the "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"/"Risky Business" generation.

After living through the carnival of death that was the 1980s; watching what I thought was going to be one of the perks of being an adult turn into yet another way to die a horrible death, it really is adding insult to injury to now be lumped in with the baby boomers. You might as well say we were around for Woodstock or the moon landings! We're no more part of the baby boom generation than our parents were part of the World War II generation. That's like saying the baby boomers are actually part of that vaunted generation as well because they were alive during the Berlin Airlift.

That is not to say that the boomers haven't contributed to our well-being. You guys made things easier for us in terms of freedom to choose who and what we wanted to become and make of our lives. Thanks to you guys I didn't have to worry about the draft, unwanted pregnancy, life-without-parole marriages and/or bachelorhood being equated with closet homosexuality.

Of course I wish I could have taken part in the sexual revolution during the '70s, but hey, things change. After my parents' divorce, and all the bloody battles that preceeded it, I had made up my mind that serial monogamy was the way to go (you know, like in the Woody Allen movies, or the July 1978 Time cover story on Warren Beatty). Well, every generation has its problems. For the boomers it was getting drafted and coming back from Vietnam in a body bag (or worse). For my generation and the ones that have followed, it's wasting away from AIDS. It's always something, as Rosanne Rosannadana would say.

Don't worry about getting older or being perceived as old. Just do what your generation has always done best: reinvent yourself. Being older has its perks and thanks to your generation that means a lot more today than it did for your parents. Who wants to be in their 20s forever anyway? Simply redefine what it means to be in your 50s. Use Ron Shelton movies ("Bull Durham," "Tin Cup") as a guide for what attitude to shoot for and Woody Allen in his last three movies as the example of what not to become. All the while aspire to the mature sexuality of the Walter Matthau/Glenda Jackson flicks: "House Calls" and "Hopscotch." Stop worrying about what some kid in a goatee thinks. You guys made it possible for that kid to have that goatee (and a job) in the first place. Just don't grow one yourself.

-- James Martinez

What about Stonewall?

I am a 30-year-old gay guy, and I don't relate to any of what most of the other Gen-X'ers wrote. Nor can I even begin to comprehend the experience of the Boomers. I don't know any Led Zeppelin songs. I know some of the early Beatles, but not any of their annoying stuff that came later. I don't think I've ever heard a Grateful Dead song either, or at least I wouldn't know it if I heard it. The first pop idol I ever knew was after I came out, and that was Madonna.

I was raised in a cultish Pentacostal, dispensationalist tightly knit family/community. My parents might be "boomers" age-wise, but they were never hippies. My dad was stationed abroad during the Vietnam War, and my mom was here in the U.S. In my family women did not wear makeup or cut their hair or wear pants or even skirts that went higher than mid-calf. Men did not wear facial hair, or have long hair. We did not see movies or listen to popular music. We did not in general partake of the "world." During the Cold War we weren't worried about being nuked by the Russians, but the state of our souls when Jesus came back and the rapture took place. So, I grew up never having seen "Charlie's Angels," "CHiPs," countless bad '70s movies and bad '70s music.

In my teens my family became more secular: Lutheran. I came bursting out of the closet when I was 17 -- in the late '80s. With a father 20 years in the military and every single relative a Pentacostal, what was I thinking? Well, something had to give -- 13 years later and I don't understand the cynicism or apathy of my generation or any generation.

Every one of your young writers has mentioned AIDS. The first person I ever knew to die was a guy I had sex with when I was 19. He was 21. Yeah, it's a fact of life and it's been rammed down our throats whether we like it or not. Yeah, we watched Reagan and then Bush let millions die and listened to them spout the hypocrisy of "just say no" to a younger generation while the one before us hadn't even known the word "no." Yeah, things were a lot worse for gay people then -- prior to and even after the "sexual revolution" (and was anyone in your column going to give credit to the impact of Stonewall?), and it was a lot harder to come out then. But it wasn't a picnic to come out at age 17 in 1989, and I doubt it is even now. What is our choice? To become bitter and angry and asexual and to stop loving each other?

I have been in love, and I believe in love. But after my "first love" I realized that there was a lot more to life than just "being in love." Having that first love taught me that I had the capacity to be in love, and that it could happen. And love can be found in lots of different places. To the people who are wondering where are the normal, nice, functional people their own age to date, I say, "Get a life." Everyone comes with their baggage. Perhaps it's the arrogance of youth (of any generation) to expect that they have the right to a mate who is as perfect and as well-adjusted as they themselves. Good for them. Have a nice time writing melodramatic little odes to your lost youth.

I'm not afraid of sex. Nor am I afraid of commitment. But I don't want to settle for either because I am afraid of the other. Being a grown-up means making choices, and realizing that some choices preclude the possibility of others.

The thing I wish I could say to the boomers and to the Gen-X'ers is "Just get over yourself." You're not the first generation in history, and you won't be the last. And to be fair, I think the Gen-X'ers have not so much taken on any label as had it thrust on us by a group of corporate demographers trying to sell us VW Jettas and lattes. Most everyone I know, including myself, doesn't think too much about "finding love in the age of irony." We are just trying to do the best we can. I've got news for you. Guys have always tried to score and get as much action as they can. There've always been people pushing the edges, and people trying to repress them. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

You had your Vietnam, we had our Gulf War, and now another generation is getting their Gulf War Part II. Have fun with it.

-- Kelly Kinney

Too many of us are on antidepressants

I was born in 1980. There is a pronounced difference in how people receive you when they find out you were born in the '80s. I'm also from the South. In my house age was merit. My father would often say, "I've been on this earth 29 years longer than you have and I've learned a lot in this time."

Growing up, I felt like my parents and my teachers expected me to think I was wiser than I was. My parents' and teachers' generations had resisted authority the way no one had done for a long time. I suppose they expected that out of us. I have a bumper sticker that I got on a trip to Wyoming when I was 12: "Hire a Teenager While They Still Know It All." I learned in the '80s that youth is something to be ashamed of; that age inherently denotes wisdom.

On the other hand, I'm from a generation that wanted to be psychiatrists when we grew up. I read parenting articles in Reader's Digest when I was 8. I would think to myself, "My dad is just punishing me because he wants to feel powerful." I was right, but I think that those thoughts were unique to the pop psychology generation. Am I wrong?

Many people in my generation are sick and sad. Too many of us are on antidepressants who really just need love and a different life. "Issues," "complexes," "disorders" are not medical terms, but ways that people describe themselves. We are pretty pessimistic. Some of us are angry. Too many of us are trying to buy better lives, to buy our identity with overpriced cotton American Flag T-shirts. The counterculture is über-retro; they hate all the other people buying the American Flag T-shirts, but we all buy fake vintage reproductions. I think post-irony is the right word for our fashion. I think that this division, though, is not unique to this generation.

What is unique is our politics; we are incredibly fragmented. Maybe this is a reaction to being taught that color, sex, ethnicity, etc., don't matter. We learned that they do. Whereas my mother thought, "You're black, but you're just the same as me. Let's ignore our differences," I learned "You're black? Your life has been very different than mine. Tell me about it." We aren't seeking sameness, but understanding, and that is very slow going. Instead of NOW, we have the Transsexual Polynesian Scuba Diving Association. If there is one issue that we all hate, it is corporate America, but this is shared by most leftist political people today. Speaking at a demonstration can still, definitely, get you laid. Unless you're old.

I feel like the way my generation is political is almost retro in a way -- living simply. We don't have TVs or cars, and finding stuff in the trash is ridiculously exciting. We also have a profound respect for our grandparents. Not liking your grandparents is very uncool.

I love living right now because I have the advantage of living in a world that has less oppression than the world my parents grew up in. I'm glad that I get to have sex before marriage and nobody cares. I'm glad that I can get drunk and ride the bus home alone. I'm glad that it's now called "the n-word," instead of something people say under their breath at family dinners. The world is certainly still very troubled, but there are a lot of really great things about it too.

-- Susanna Williams

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