You're Too Old to Rule the World

CHORUS

Of course you never wanted to improve society

Never been so stressed that you questioned sobriety

Got sick at others’ happiness, you had to hurl

You’re too old to rule the world!

 

VERSE 1

You shit on my youth, yet every woman is your mother

Kick your kids out the door, yet you want to be smothered

The room in your nursing home is like a prison cell

Because the family you fucked wishes you were in hell

 

CHORUS

Of course you never wanted to improve society

Never been so stressed that you questioned sobriety

Got sick at others’ happiness, you had to hurl

You’re too old to rule the world!

 

VERSE 2

The world is a different place than centuries ago

If you studied history, then you already know

That we can’t go back to the days of torture

The only personality traits were following orders

You yearn for the past, because you would have thrived

In a country where the have-nots could be unalived

For looking at you funny or saying hi to your honey

For even dreaming of the days of disposable money

 

CHORUS

Of course you never wanted to improve society

Never been so stressed that you questioned sobriety

Got sick at others’ happiness, you had to hurl

You’re too old to rule the world!

 

BRIDGE

It was never about gray hair or sagging tits and skin

It was about all the good shit you considered a sin

If someone smiles too much or gets the love bug

You choke the life out of them with a grip so snug

You do it long enough and you become so smug

‘Cause bigotry and rage are more addictive than a drug

Get a little bit of power and you stomp on all the flowers

We’re keeping our bladders full for your final hour

 

OUTRO

You’re too old to rule the world!

Keep your country’s flag all furled!

You’re too old to fuck the young!

That’s why these lyrics must be sung!

No More

Your macho bullshit doesn’t work anymore

Check your massive ego at the front door

Before you tell anybody to suck it up

Take your own advice, then shut it up

The twentieth century is gone forever

The day you’ll get it back is fucking never

No more beatings with a leather strap

No more secretaries sitting on your lap

No more black people doing your chores

No more Indians getting killed in wars

No more drill instructors shouting in ears

No more suppressing our flooding tears

You can’t blame it all on a whole generation

Unless you yearn for the days of segregation

Unless you’re living in the Middle Ages

Unless cave paintings are your only pages

Self-esteem is what we need to survive

Happiness is what makes us feel alive

Just because you’re dead on the inside

Doesn’t mean you have to tan our hides

Just because you can’t use a computer

Doesn’t mean you can stop the future

If you’re really that angry and bitter

Maybe I should hire you a babysitter

Maybe that’s why your kind wears diapers

Not because you’ve eaten too much fiber

No more bigotry, no more agony

No more screaming, no more insanity!

Ground Control to Uncle Tom

(A parody of millennials who bash their own generation in the style of “Space Oddity” by David Bowie.)

Ground Control to Uncle Tom

Ground Control to Uncle Tom

Take your Viagra and put your Depends on

Ground Control to Uncle Tom

Commencing aging, glasses on

Check your prostate, and may grandma be with you

This is Ground Control to Uncle Tom

You’re inciting ageist hate

And the youngsters want to know whose loafers you wear

Now it’s time to leave the comfort of your rocking chair

This is Uncle Tom to Ground Control

I’m slipping on the floor

And I’m dizzy in a most peculiar way

And my head is in the clouds every day

For here

I am eating from a tin can

Disconnected from the world

Millennials are here

You can do nothing, my dear

I’m out of touch by a hundred thousand miles

I’m feeling very ill

And I think my scooter knows which way to go

Tell my grandkids I love them very much

They know

Ground Control to Uncle Tom

Your hearing aid’s dead, there’s something wrong

Can you hear me Uncle Tom?

Can you hear me Uncle Tom?

Can you hear me Uncle Tom?

Can you hear?

I am eating from a tin can

Disconnected from the world

Millennials are here

You can do nothing, my dear

Anti-Millennial Bigotry

***ANTI-MILLENNIAL BIGOTRY***

I’m not a confrontational person by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t talk about politics on a frequent basis and I dread getting in debates with people. However, as someone who was born in 1985, I feel like if I don’t write this blog entry, it’ll be a missed opportunity to put myself out there. This is a sensitive topic for me, so bear with me for a minute. I’m talking of course about ageism, particularly against people born in the 80’s and 90’s a.k.a. Millennials.

Being a Generation Y member should never be associated with laziness or selfishness. Those are stereotypes based on limited information. Some Millennials fit the stereotypes, some don’t, just like with any other group of people. It’s like saying all black people love fried chicken or all gay people think about sex 24/7. Again, those are stereotypes and they don’t apply to everyone. Yet ageism against young adults seems to slip through the cracks and is widely accepted by both liberals and conservatives of older generations. They see some of us texting on our phones and think the entire population is suddenly doomed.

No generation is without their own set of stereotypes. For example, I could easily label Generation X members as whiny drug addicts or Prozac chugging slackers, but I’m not going to say any of those things, because I’m not an asshole. I could also say Baby Boomers and Great Generation members are a bunch of boring storytellers who can’t shut up about walking 100 miles in the snow, but again, that would make me an asshole and that’s not who I am. So why would it be okay to say that every millennial on this planet is a self-important text-messaging queen? Every last one of them? Not just some? Not just a few? All of them?

As a millennial myself, I do admit to fitting in with at least SOME of the stereotypes against us, but not because my birth year was magically selected to be 1985. I’m open about the fact that I’m unemployed and live with my parents.

I’m not unemployed because I’m lazy and therefore don’t want a job. I’m unemployed because after sending my resume to a bunch of different work sites and doing countless interviews, the bosses still said no. It happens a lot, especially since millennials hit their pique during the Bush-era recession. Older people love to blame laziness, but that’s simply not true. Truth is, you can dress in your nicest clothes, you can work your hardest, you can give the most agreeable answers, and give 100% of yourself during an interview, but in the end, you, the Generation Y member, are not the one who makes the decisions in the workplace. Otherwise, unemployment wouldn’t be a major stereotype for my generation. If we could work, we would. We know full well that money isn’t everything, but it is something.

I don’t live with my parents because of financial worries. I live with them for two main reasons. One, I love being in their company. Two, we have a symbiotic relationship where we help each other. As Baby Boomers, my mom and step-dad can’t do as much physical labor as they could in their younger years. My mother has hip and knee problems that she can only find relief from on a temporary basis. My step-dad Dale has been battling a kidney stone since the last month. While I don’t enjoy heavy lifting or any other kind of strenuous labor, I do it because I love my parents and I don’t want them to get hurt. If you can’t take care of each other, who can you take care of? It’s natural to want to surround yourself with people who make you feel good and that’s something that spans all generations.

While I’ll always condemn people who unfairly criticize young adults for laziness and entitlement, there is one thing I will share common ground with them on: smart phones. I agree with the idea that being in real world company should trump text messaging or playing videogames on a smart phone. It’s a basic form of respect. Corey Taylor from Slipknot once smacked a phone out of someone’s hands during a performance because that audience member was texting instead of watching the show. I grinned from ear to ear at Mr. Taylor’s display.

I myself don’t need a smart phone for anything that my desktop computer can do better. I have a generic cell phone that I only use for emergencies, whether it’s bumming a ride or needing to know where a family member is. And before you criticize me for not having my own car and therefore being a lazy millennial, I should let you know that crashing on the highway and spreading one’s guts all over the tarmac isn’t a pleasant experience for any age group.

Millennials are just like any other group of people in this world. Some are good, some are evil. Some are smart, some are dumb. Some are happy, some are sad. There will always be standouts who defy stereotypes no matter what group of people you’re talking about. George Carlin, a member of the Great Generation, is definitely not a droning storyteller; he’s one of the funniest comedians of all time. The main cast of the new Ghostbusters movie are not a bunch of bikini-wearing sex machines; they’re normal women who do extraordinary things in their movie. Q-Tip, a born-again Muslim rapper, is not secretly plotting to blow up buildings with a suicide vest; he’s putting out kick-ass music and helping younger rappers get noticed.

While ageism should be recognized as being like any other form of bigotry, it somehow became normal along the way. Bill Maher, a liberal-libertarian pundit, once called ageism “The last acceptable prejudice” and then turned around and referred to Millennials as “Generation Ass” because he saw a picture on Twitter of a woman with a giant posterior. Ageism has become one of those things that spans many belief systems and cultures while no real progress is being made against it. There are even members of Generation Y who criticize their own age group.

I don’t know how young people ageism became acceptable, but I can assure you that it has nothing to do with all of this sweet technology and “free shit” we have. No generation wants to pass the torch to the next. I even had a hard time passing the torch to Generation Z because of all the Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez songs that were being published. Reina, my Generation Z niece, doesn’t fit those stereotypes because she’d rather listen to bands like Breaking Benjamin and 3 Doors Down. That’s right, folks. I used to be just another ignorant ageist myself. And then I posted a 2009 essay where I joked about ruling over teenagers with an iron fist if I ever became an English teacher. That didn’t go over too well with the Deviant Art community, because surprise, surprise, ageism is just as bad as any other form of prejudice. As we all know, prejudice isn’t just insulting, but it can hurt us on an even deeper level whether it’s with employment, police treatment, or social status.

I’m going to ask something that’s been asked many times before, but nobody gave a definitive answer to. Can’t we all just get along?

***JOKE OF THE DAY***

Q: What do you call it when a McDonald’s employee goes berserk?

A: Minimum rage.

Allegra Nation

The depression memoir “Prozac Nation” by Elizabeth Wurtzel was so much of a smash hit that Hollywood made a movie out of it. I suppose that should prompt me to write a memoir called “Risperdal Nation” since I’m legitimately schizophrenic. My life isn’t nearly as interesting as Elizabeth Wurtzel’s, so maybe I’ll have to hold off for a while. You know what else would make a weird memoir? “Allegra Nation”. Ever since having nasal surgery in 2006, I’ve been gagging on my own snot and blowing my nose like an elephant whenever I’m out in public. Allegra seems to be the only over-the-counter medication that works so far. If you managed to get this far in the blog post without falling asleep, kudos to you. The point I’m trying to make is Elizabeth Wurtzel is a one of a kind author with one of a kind skills. To try and duplicate her work would be next to impossible. You can’t just remove the word “Prozac” from the title of your memoir and replace it with another medication. Suppose you have chronic constipation and you tried to write a memoir called “Phillip’s Colon Health Nation”. Would that sell very many copies? “The diarrhea splatter looked like guts after the Vietnam war.” I’m sorry, but there’s simply no way to make diarrhea or constipation interesting. Same thing with “Yaz Nation”. I suppose a memoir about having lots of sex would prove to be spicy and hot, but we don’t need to hear that you constantly used Yaz as a birth control pill, especially now that women are having strokes because of it. Hehe! I said “strokes” in a sentence about sex. You know what else would make a weird memoir? “Pamprin Nation”. There’s simply no way to make periods sound readable. “After I bled all over the floor like a Saw character, I yelled at my boyfriend so loudly that he began bleeding out of his ears.” There’s simply no way a blogger with testicles can make that sound interesting without coming off as a sexist pig. I assure you I’m not a sexist. I’m merely trying to prove a point that if you try to write a memoir based on a random medication, you won’t get the results you want. Elizabeth Wurtzel is a Generation X icon with a lot to say, even after 1994, when Prozac Nation was published. Her memoir is more than just constant complaining about being sad. It’s social commentary. It’s psychology. It’s something you can’t write if you’re constantly ingesting Phillip’s Colon Health pills.

　

***CONCERT QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Keep your eyeballs wet! The tax collector is coming!”

-Marco Hietala from Nightwish-

"Prozac Nation" by Elizabeth Wurtzel

As someone who openly admits to being mentally ill whenever the topic comes up, this is going to sound hypocritical of me when I say it. I get very uncomfortable around people who are chronically sad. Whether it’s somebody crying a lot, threatening self-harm, or unnecessarily insulting themselves, I have to get up and leave the room whenever it happens. I never know what I can say or do that will make the person feel better, so I just walk away from the situation frustrated and angry. For Elizabeth Wurtzel, it took an entire decade for her to understand the gravity of her depression, starting in her pre-teenaged years. She would slice her legs in the bathroom while listening to punk rock, burst into tears and screaming fits at seemingly random times, stay in bed for long periods of time, etc. Throughout Prozac Nation, she tries to figure out what exactly is causing her to feel so miserable all the time. She describes how her parents never got along, how every boyfriend she’s had dumped her in her time of need, how her therapists weren’t connecting with her in the way she wanted, basically, it’s a whole myriad of fucked up experiences. She tries to rationalize her sadness with these things, but it doesn’t alleviate the pressure being put on her fragile mind by her depression. When she attempts suicide and fails, that’s when she finally starts taking Prozac and coming to her senses. She wasn’t just sad all the time; she actually had legitimate atypical depression, which is just as physical as it is psychological. Here’s where the debate begins. Ever since Prozac was on the market, there have been more diagnoses for depression among Generation X members (the book was published in 1994). The problem with this is that the doctors making these diagnoses are confusing moderate sadness with actual crippling depression. The ones who are just sad get the Prozac while the ones who are mentally broken down and on the brink of insanity go unnoticed. If you want to know just how screwed up this conclusion is, Jeffrey Dahmer was at one point on Prozac. He wasn’t depressed, he was just a serial killer. The point of this memoir is that if you’re in need of help of any kind, make sure you’re actually getting the right treatment for whatever ails you. Elizabeth Wurtzel needed a decade to understand this point and she’s better for it. The book drives that point home for a lot of people, including myself. I took my medicine (because I’m legitimately schizophrenic) and I’m a much more focused person than I was in 2002 when I was first mentally ill.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“And now I finally know what it feels like to risk everything and still survive. When you’re standing on the battlefield and all the pain is real, that’s when you realize that you must have done something right, ‘cause you never felt so alive.”

-Papa Roach singing “Leader of the Broken Hearts”-

"How Not to Write a Novel" by Howard Mittelmark & Sandra Newman

An unfortunate stereotype that comes with being a Generation Y member is that we suck at being grammatically correct, especially when it comes to text messaging and having conversations on the internet. We’d rather LOL at our BFF’s than write ten-page essays on nuclear physics. The thing about this stereotype is that it’s reinforced by the fact that more college and high school students these days are doing poorly on English exams, much worse than Baby Boomers and Generation X members before them. If you want a nonfiction book that will save you from the perils of being part of this statistic, I just may have the thing for you. Christians have the bible, Muslims have the Quran, and now young English students have “How Not to Write a Novel” by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman. Incorrect grammar is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all of the common mistakes this book documents. Stereotypical characters, hyperbolic descriptions, plot holes that can’t be pieced together easily, minimalism, this book does it all when it comes to pointing out faults in manuscripts the authors have received before. I’ll bet you my life savings that you as a writer have made at least one or two of these many mistakes sometime during your young writing career. When I was in my teens, I engaged in minimalism. In my mid-20’s, it was hyperbolic descriptions. I do my best to correct the mistakes I make, but this particular nonfiction book isn’t a substitute for a personal editor. The book is a general list of common errors while a personal editor gets to the root of what a budding author does specifically. If nothing else, you should at least get a kick out of reading some examples of the mistakes made. You want to hear a few of them? Here they are. No author, under any circumstances, should describe a piece of sausage as looking like a penis, especially when they’re trying to sell it as being delicious. And there definitely shouldn’t be anybody who would describe the flow of a waterfall as being comparable to drunken piss. Even in comedic novels, these are laughable for all the wrong reasons. Speaking of comparisons, it’s not necessary to pepper every other line with them as a way of showing instead of telling. Simply saying things like “raven black hair” and “rose red lips” to describe the beauty of a female character should be sufficient. It paints a picture and the reader is very happy. You know who else is going to be happy? The next budding author who buys this book. If you learn nothing else from it, you should at least get a few giggles out of the examples of bad writing. Giggling is the best medicine, never forget proverbs.

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“There are some large organizations out there whose names are a little mixed up. The Department of Water and Power. Well, water and power don’t really go together, you’ll get fucking electrocuted. The Food and Drug Administration. Well, with most drugs, you don’t have any food. Except for marijuana, but they shouldn’t be bothering people with marijuana in the first place. Then you have that really interesting organization The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Do I even have to talk about this one? Bad combination. Here’s what you do. You call the police The Department of Power and Firearms. Then you have the Food and Water Administration since those are two things you need to survive. Then you’re left with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Drugs, keep all the good shit in one place.”

-George Carlin-