Dear Michele,
As a late X'er, on behalf of my generation -- and on behalf of ANY generation that has to listen to this kind of holier-than-thou garbage from its elders, over things that DON'T MATTER -- I cordially invite you to blow me, babe. You wanna know something? Your culture (and for the record, a good part of it has also been my culture) SUCKS.
Your MUSIC sucks -- American popular music was at its zenith during the '30s and '40s, and the dirty little secret about the rock 'n roll that followed is that 90% of ALL of it, in ALL its permutations, is atonal sludge "composed" by a sad bunch of long-haired dope-smoking maggot-infested FM types. Your LITERATURE sucks, unless you really want to tell me that Philip Roth and Stephen King have anything on Ernest Hemingway and H.P. Lovecraft. Your VIDEO GAMES suck -- nobody in his or her right mind would say with a straight face that your average Atari 2600 game even compares to the most sophisticated first-person shooters available for the latest platforms. Your TELEVISION sucks -- you can bitch about maintaining the integrity of "The Dukes of Hazzard" all you want; I'm more concerned that nobody in the last 40 years has managed to come close to the level of class and entertainment provided by Jack Benny. And yes, your cynical, angry, America-is-rotten deconstructionist MOVIES suck. The dirty little secret about the '60s and '70s is that they were completely wasted decades in EVERY respect. The dirty little secret about the '80s is that, culturally, much of it was spent trying to crawl out of the cesspool fostered during the '60s and '70s. If the point of your column is to define those who came of age in the '70s and '80s as a generation of overgrown children, then lady, have you ever succeeded. I feel sorry for your own kids, given the attitude you apparently have toward them.
So take solace in your "Return of the Jedi" Burger King glasses, Michele, if that's really the most you have to show for your pathetic life. My generation is going to be busy busting its collective ass to pay your Social Security, along with that of all the other 21st Century welfare queens whose priority is keeping "Galaga" all to themselves.
I just hope that, after having 75% of our paychecks taxed throughout our adult lives in order to meet the obligations your generation helped dump on us, we'll be left with enough money to bury you.
Meanwhile, I hope to God that my generation and those that follow end up understanding enough about what matters in life that we never end up sounding like you.
-Dan