i'm glad the boomers haven't figured out how to leave comments

It's been a bizarre week. And I can't exactly grasp why. It could be that I've been going to bed a little earlier. It could be that I'm happily back to walking to work instead of biking. Maybe it's the Warhol documentary I watched the last 2 nights. Or the unexpected news that 3 poems are going to be published at unlikely stories. I'm also grappling with what I believe to be apathy regarding midterms and politics in general.

Last night was quite a change of pace. Instead of the usual Thursday night Burger Nite we traveled to the big city. Dinner at the Pita House (heeeaaaaveeennlllllyyyyy) and then a beer at Mulligans where we were joined by Nick and Brooke. Nice to see them, but difficult to truly chill out and relax as the realization that it was a school night was in the forefront of everyone's minds. A fall weekend bonfire evening (not to be started later than, say, 8 or 9pm) is in the works.

The Warhol documentary was frustrating. I've never been a fan of Pop Art (leaving one asking what I was doing watching it in the first place!) but I'm starting to realize that it's not necessarily the art that's the problem. It's the post modern theorists that make me want to claw my own eyes out. Or rather cut my ears from my head with a rusty spoon. It was interesting to learn about his early obsession with Capote. I'm fascinated with Edie Sedgwick.
I enjoyed watching the progression of his work--from commercial artist to the soup cans to the silk screening to the films--and his interest in celebrity and fame which eventually brought him back to the beginning. But sitting there listening to someone else talk about his work was unbelievably frustrating and obnoxious. I came to the realization that the 60's were a sham. I don't care about the drugs or the sex or the culture. I get angry when people claim that it changed the world. Because from here? From 2006? All the protesting and the dropping out and music festivals and the peace signs and pop art and the weed did nothing. That wasn't what J.F.K. had in mind when he talked about what you could do for your country. I can't imagine how it must have felt the day he was shot. How hope and optimism was ripped out of the psyche of the youth culture. It's too bad instead of channeling that rage and really making a difference you all went to Woodstock. Or wish you'd been to Woodstock. Because all that left us with was 2 really shitty Woodstock Anniversary concerts and Lollapalooza. I don't mean to be glib. And I certainly understand the importance of the Civil Rights Movement (though one could say that was just barely a success given the racial discrepancies that still exist let alone gender and sexuality issues). I'm just sick and tired of being told how seminal that decade was. I'll give you music, for what would the world be without the Beatles or Bob Dylan. I'm not giving you much else. Because I'm left standing here in 2006 with a burgeoning deficit, the occupation of 2 countries, a War on A Concept, a health care system that gets fixed by Walmart, a culture of business that believes pretexting is moral, a president who has taken the constitution of this country and perverted it for his own political benefit who happens to be of the very generation I'm talking about, 2 political parties that are essentially identically corrupt, and the most media savvy yet most easily manipulated electorate in the history of the U.S.A.

We've come a long way, baby.