This had to be written.
After months of listening to what amounts to the Ned Flanders Show on AM 740 with its endlessly bland Neil Diamond and Natalie Cole and Roy Orbison, and commercials for cemeteries, prostate medicine and retirement homes, I attended the Zoomer Show at the Direct Energy Centre in an attempt to understand what had happened to My Generation and have only now sufficiently recovered to write this blog. And after spending 3 hours observing the timid, shuffling, scooter-riding, pain-ridden, gawking shower that is the Zoomers, I have come to a terrifying conclusion:
We have been co-opted.
A huge segment of the post World War II Baby Boomer generation has lost its way and believed The Big Lie.
And what exactly is The Big Lie? That aging by necessity consists of endless pain killers, difficulty getting on escalators, knee surgery, erectile disfunction, fascination with all things golf, walking sticks, walkers, wheelchairs and inevitably, scooters with cute little Canadian flags. We 're supposed to get every vaccine that's available, and listen to increasingly bland music because after all, we're old now. We should be out golfing in beige golf-shirts, and ludicrously pink or turquoise pants pulled too high, or wearing sandals with socks and Tilley hats studded with pins from all the wheelchair accessible adult retirement golf course communities we've visited. We're supposed to be learning challenging new things, like what an email is, or how to exercise by bouncing gently for 3 minutes in a swimming pool - because we shouldn't overdo it at our age...and don't forget that compulsory colonoscopy, denture adhesive and a box of incontinence pads. Every aisle of the Zoomer Show dripped with resignation, medication, premature aging and DEATH.
Well screw all that.
There are some of us left who have never lost the Spirit and Power of the '60s. We don't get flu shots, because we've done our homework and are able to follow the dollars, and the only needles that touch our skin contain ink. We look after our health by doing the research and eating right and taking supplements instead of drugs. We don't Aquacize or rebound because we're too busy teaching Jiu Jitsu and neck-cranking guys in their 20s. We grow organic food at home, shop at farmer's markets, educate ourselves on subjects beyond golf and retirement living and attend Black Label Society, Radiohead, and AC/DC concerts. We are Rockers who've never stopped rocking, and we don't need an appointment with Listen Up because we play our music so effing loud, Helen Keller could hear it. We live fully. We worship Glenn Gould AND Bon Scott, William Byrd AND Jimmy Page. We despise the beige and the bland, and choose Rory Block and Nick Cave over Norah Jones and Neil Diamond any day.
We don't fear dark alleys, because anyone stupid enough to tangle with us will spend a month in traction. We can cook like Julia Child, converse like Samuel Johnson and know wine and beer inside out. We don't give a rip about television, because we read everything from Marcel Proust to Keith Richards, AND J.D. Salinger to Margaret Atwood. We have no interest in Obama, Harper or Oprah. Our heroes are Allen Ginsberg, Hunter S. Thompson and John Lennon. We think Bob Marley is more significant than Nat King Cole, and we question EVERYTHING, especially what our doctors tell us.
We are Renaissance Buccaneers of all races and genders, and we sail under a Black Flag; the figurehead of Angus Young brandishing a Gibson SG at the bow of our dark corsair.
Closer to 60 than 50, we have no need to attempt to regain our youth.
We never lost it.
Mr. Znaimer, you have done a great job speaking for one segment of the aging population. But the lines are drawn. We are exhuming the prematurely buried body.
We are the Xoomers, and you don't speak for us.
