Whine & Roses

Really, when was it? One minute I’m trying to decode REM lyrics, the next minute I’m trying to figure out why in the hell kids today have to play their music so damn loudly. Bands I listened to in my youth are now featured on oldies stations. TV shows have decided that “Seriously riiight?” is a legitimate punch line. And the “Golden Girls” don’t look nearly as old as they used to.

Take Justin Bieber. (Seriously. Take him.) I suppose I get the appeal. He’s cute. He’s perfectly harmless. He can kind of sing if you have the Auto Tune turned up high enough. However, he’s turned into this THING that keeps showing up in US Weekly, frolicking on the beach and living a much grander lifestyle than most of us can ever hope for. He has a line of nail polish, for Pete’s sake. But I’m concerned because the boy can barely string a sentence together without uttering the word “Yo.” Take a recent interview I saw on the TV:

Random Reporter: So Justin, tell us about your new autobiography.

Justin: Yeroeks thswel blurgel swot shvwlfogh. Yo.

Or something like that. I tuned out pretty quickly.

By the way, he’s 17 and has an autobiography. Is it a pamphlet? A paragraph written on the back of an index card? What insights could he possibly have?

“Until three years ago, that’s what I thought a celebrity was – someone who got to ride around on a Zamboni.”

Well, ok.

I read a blurb from it. He does a lot of “reach for your dreams” crap, and other pearls like “don’t listen to the haters” and “never say never.” (I would hate to point out to him that he just did.) All nice sentiments, but not very meaningful coming from someone who struggled for about 6 seconds before becoming famous. But at least he kind of works for it. He purports to have a skill. Explain Kim Kardashian to me. Her talent is literally her ass. I mean, I have a generous sized one as well, but you don’t see “Entertainment Tonight” following me around.

So yeah, music. I will say that I teach in a middle school, and not one person I’ve asked actually likes Justin Bieber. (To be fair, my school is 95% Hispanic and African American, so I’m thinking that maybe his appeal doesn’t translate.) The kids like music with suggestive lyrics and a bass line that would make your pacemaker (literal or figurative) explode. On a few occasions they’ve asked me what kind of music I like.

“Well,” I said, “I like a lot of things.”

“Like what?”

Knowing they probably wouldn’t know any of the artists, I tried to go to the obvious.

“I’ve liked U2 for a long time.”

Shoulders are collectively shrugged.

“Ummm, ok…The Beatles?”

Nothing. But I knew that was a bit of a stretch.

I was going to try to press on and find someone they had heard of, but I knew it was a losing battle. (They thought Duran Duran was a boxer.)

This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened. I was doing some clinical observations a couple of years ago at a local high school. The teacher was showing “Cool Hand Luke.” Afterwards, he talked about the movie a bit. He asked if anyone knew who the lead actor was. No one raised a hand. He said, “It’s an actor named Paul Newman.” The class was silent for a moment, and then someone said, “You mean the guy from the salad dressing?” The teacher paused, and he and I momentarily locked eyes. “Yes,” he sighed. “The guy from the salad dressing.”

I’ll just let that sink in for a moment.

In addition to music, the current vernacular has also changed radically, and I’m not able to hold on. “Yo” has become ubiquitous, and it seems to be a word that means absolutely nothing. Formerly an attention-getter, (“Yo, Adrian…”) it is now almost a punctuation mark. Case in point: a promo for a new adventure-reality show. Two people walking in the desert. One exclaims, “We’re in the Sahara! We’re surrounded by sand, yo!” (Apparently, “yo” can also be used to point out the obvious.)

It comes up more than I would have expected.

“Yo, miss, do we have a test today?”

“I forgot my pencil, yo.”

“Oh, dude, you got it all up in there, yo!” (Ok, that was a two-fer, integrating “dude" as well. Bonus points for me.)

I fought against it for a while, but as long as they’re not saying to me, “You’re on fire, yo” I think I'm going swim with the tide. Besides, if you reverse the letters you’ve got “oy,” of which I’m very fond.

I actually like some of the new music today, but I’m rather selective. I will say that there are some newish songs I’m pleased are played out. I’m glad, for example, that the reign of Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister” is over, because after the first listening it made me want to stuff olives or erasers or my elbows into my ears just to make it stop. And there are other "artists" that I just don't get --  Lil’ Wayne makes me a lil’ nervous, for example, and I’m sorry, but that Ke$ha girl just looks like she needs a bath. It’s not just the radio, though. It's everywhere. Once a student of mine was singing the chorus to a Rhianna song…”I'll pop my bubble (Hey)/I'll pop my bubble (Hey, hey)/I'll pop my bubble (yeah)/I'll make my bubble pop.”

Good Lord.

This is what the young people listen to these days. So little creative imagery. So few interesting melodies. Just thump, thump, thump (or pop, pop, pop as the case may be). I'm not saying my heyday of the '80s was exactly a musical renaissance (hello, Culture Club) but at least it didn't all sound the same. I really just want to walk up to a kid one of these days and say, “Led Zeppelin. 'Black Dog.' It will change your life.”

Some days I’m I know grasping at straws to stay relevant. Has everything always been geared for the young, or am I just noticing it now that I’m no longer minty-fresh? Fashion is impossible, most movies are banal, and if I see one more ad for osteoporosis featuring a woman who looks five years younger than I am, I’m going to cry.

So what’s the answer? I don’t want to be one of those women who cling madly to their teen years, strapping themselves into skinny jeans that are, quite frankly, no longer so skinny and maintaining the same permed ‘do they had in 1989. But I’m also not ready to hang out with the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” lady. How do we find our own relevance in a society that seems ready to put us on a dusty shelf after age 40?

Maybe I’ll have to dig a little deeper into Justin Bieber’s book. He may be on to something. Never say never, yo. Don’t late the haters hate, yo. Reach for the stars, yo. Be your own sunshine, yo. (Or something like that.)

Yo, indeed, Mr. Bieber. Yo, indeed.