Hey Hey (My My): Get Your Own F#cking Sandwiches

<The clipping that launched a broadside...>

<Photo: The Reckoner>

Reckoner's Note: In keeping with our latest run of "blasts from the past," here's another one that made me think, "I wouldn't have to change a word. Or, at least, change most of them." I happened to read this column (above) from that shameless nostalgia peddler, Bob Greene, and ended up writing the following broadside (below) in response. 

There's no date here, which is unusual -- since I'm big on recordkeeping -- but my writing references the column date (11/20/98), so I'm assuming it came right on the heels of reading Greene's column. It also looks like I wrote two different intros, so I've marked them as such. (For more about Bob Greene himself, and the shameless nostalgia angle that earned him such disdain -- among other criticisms -- see the Wikipedia link below.)

At the time, I was planning to do a 'zine, which I envisioned as a mixture of music-related writing, and more personal messages from the floorboards, like this one. Let's face it -- the Baby Boomer generation, to which Bob so unabashedly nailed his mast, were every bit as overweening and annoying, as self-righteous and self-reverential, as tone deaf and tin-eared then, as they are now.

Ironically, the only saving grace is the unforgiving pace of current events. The spiraling toll of economic and social inequality, one largely shaped by Boomer-era politicians like Joe Biden, makes it harder and harder to paper over the groans and wheezes of an eroding empire. Or, to put another way, you wouldn't have heard anyone saying, "OK, Boomer?" in the Oh-So-Ironic '90s, when slacker and supervisor alike could pretend that everything was kinda, cool, man...or something...even as the skies above them continued to darken.

For various boring reasons, I put my 'zine plans on hold, though I'm finding myself tempted back into the game. At any rate, here is this piece, in all its scabrous unflinching glory...read it for yourself, as you ponder the scale of the social annoyance, and wonder... "Hey, why'd it take so long to say 'OK, Boomer,' anyway?" -- The Reckoner

HEY HEY, MY MY:

GET YOUR OWN F#CKING SANDWICHES

<Intro/Take I>

You know what the whipping boys 'n' gals look like now: pouty-lipped, rail-thin, overly-cynical attitude spouters. Yes, Generation X returns for ritual bloodying, this time at the hands of Bob Greene, that Chicago Tribune cash cow who used his fiftieth birthday as sufficient pretext to relive those "golden years" in Bexley, Ohio -- the Sixties.

As the Boomers never tire of reminding anyone stuck in an elevator with their gilded windbag pronouncements, the Xers don't get it. They don't know what they've got, runs the prevailing argument, because they don't know what hit them. So spouts Chairman Bob in an 11/20/98 column, in which he quoted a retail consultant (of all people) pontificating on why "members of Generation X don't make good flight attendants" (of all things). 

Why? Not optimistic enough. Too resentful. Too eager to pass up "ground floor" opportunities, even if they're wrapped in minimum wage clothing. Too cynical and self-conscious for their own good. 

Adding insult to injury, the retail flack said Generation X might best emulate those up and coming Generation Yers, or anybody decided those unwashed Xers aren't deep-pocketed enough to buy much more than Nirvana CDs. Our national paladins have essentially written them off.

<Intro/Take II>

We've all had brushes with serfdom, even the high 'n' mighty. So says former Led Zeppelin roadie Richard Cole, in his tatty, tell-all tome, Hammer Of The Gods (1985), in which he claims Robert Plant's frontman role was decidedly shaky on those maiden American tours (1969-70).

In Cole's mind, that apparently justified teasing the singer into fetching sandwiches for everyone. Not getting the punchline, Plant seethed... 

"Get 

your own 

f#cking sandwiches!" 

History does not record who finally ended up with the room service tray.

But Plant finally ascended the heavenly escalator to Pop God Nirvana: America's least-favored Dead End Kids won't get any closer than playing air guitar in the mirror. 

To Bob Greene's clueless 11/20/98 Chicago Tribune column, those pouty-lipped, rail-thin, "resentful" Generation Xers aren't good for anything but poaching pocketfuls of attitude.

Captain Clueless gives most of his column over to some retail consulting spokesman, who (apparently) wouldn't hire anyone born between 1965 and 1977 as a flight attendant. While Xers are too cynical about "entry-level" opportunities, whether they're couched in "living" or "minimum wage" clothing, those up 'n' coming Generation Yers (born after 1977) are only too happy to smile, "Coffee, tea or milk, sir?" 

For those who haven't noticed, Yers hold the corporate media's current endorsement, after its paladins us rail-thin Xers aren't deep-pocketed enough to buy more than recycled Nirvana CDs.

<Remainder>

To paraphrase the late William Burroughs, Captain Clueless and his cohort hold little more than "a thin tissue of horseshit." The avalanche of self-produced cartoons, CDs, films and 'zines? Just a fluke, they'd say. 

The Internet revolution, which nearly everyone but the Boomer windbags considers an Xer-driven phenomenon? Lightning strikes twice, but no more. The relatively flat participation rate after 1992's and 1994's oft-hyped "Rock The Vote" drives? Guess Mumblin' Michael Stipe was too busy touring with REM to lead his Xer flock to the polls, right?

It's no surprise that the media wolfpacks who tripped over each other to publish a phony "grunge dictionary" have blown their gig again. To them, Nirvana's late singer-guitarist served two convenient roles: "Grunge Generation spokesman," a label the man openly detested, and Halloween mask for his fandom's worst excesses. If they can't vote, or put one foot in front of the other, runs such reasoning, why listen to their nonstop "whining"?

Of all the Baby Boomers' revisionist lies, the Addled Xer stereotype ranks among their most offensive creations. Well, I'm not sitting on my hands on this one. To quote their heroic Rolling Stones, I've got resentment if you want it. 

Try living in Mayor Richard Daley's increasingly-gentrified Chicago, with meat going for $3-4 per pound, $60 city stickers that only spare you an endless stream of parking tickets (if you don't buy them), and a tax burden oppressive enough to embarrass the most predatory of lenders. On paper, my office flunky's salary nets me $17,000 annually. When Mayor Daley and Governor George Ryan finish rifling my pockets, I'm busted back to $11,000 per year.

Now, throw in my annual lunch expenses ($1,200 per year, based on $5 per day, $25 per week, $100 per month), and bus fares ($912 per year, or $18 per week, $72 per month), and it's easy to see the resentment, without even counting utilities (Chicagoans pay some of the highest nationwide). 

By contrast, I've only gotten 75 cents in raises over my last two years (from $9.00 to $9.75 an hour), yet my expenses have hardly held steady. Show me some hallowed small business hero running his office that way, and I'll show you somebody running themselves into the ground. Yet I only get five sick days; apparently, for my employer, that's good enough.

Whether Captain Bob and his fellow fiftysomething minions know it or not, this picture I've painted doesn't radically differ from a great majority of Xers (whose veins might betray a disappointing absence of track marks). I've been lucky on two counts: I've held numerous writing jobs related to my degree, and my current jobs allows our household a certain minimal standard of living. 

What's really scary, though, is seeing so many folks getting by on so much less, hoping somebody will toss them a lifeline...before they go under for a third time.

<Coda>

Of course...don't count on a Boomer for such assistance. Selflessness isn't their style, especially when they've three post-Sixties decades to conceal their loot in stocks, bonds and mutual funds. In such a ladder-pulling climate, it's hardly surprising to find Seventies nostalgia more prevalent than ever. The working stiff should certainly feel some fondness for 1973, the last (officially documented) across-the-board increase in wages.

What have we got to show for two decades of flattened paychecks? An increase among militia memberships and religious cults, among countless random acts of craziness. Where Captain Bob's generation benefited from the affluent Sixties, Cobain's so-called Xer Army struggled a softening late Eighties economy, one where low-paying service jobs multiplied faster than grasshoppers.

These are well-established facts among folks who don't have a major axe to grind, yet nuggets like Captain Bob's column indicate a deliberate misrepresentation of them. I have no illusions, in this lifetime, of coming near anywhere Bob's reported salary ($750,000, plus perks), but still, some sort of therapeutic cleansing seems appropriate. 

In that spirit, let me offer Bob and his consultant friend some basic advice, just so we don't misunderstand one another.

Next time, just get your own fucking sandwiches. And your own coffee, too. --The Reckoner

Links To Go:
Bob Greene: Wikipedia Biography:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Greene#Dismissal_from_the_Tribune