Our Generation Is A Joke

WARNING: I'M ABOUT TO SOUND LIKE AN OLD COOT.

How did we go from "The Greatest Generation" to "The Do-It-For-Me Generation" in less than 60 years?

I think it's because our generation has single-handedly redefined the definition of "success".

In 1940, success was "putting food on the table and keeping your family warm". Now, success is something intangible; a vague inkling of a concept. Something frequently hypothetical.

Let's start with a very simple statement: things are easier today. Maybe it's just because I live in Los Angeles, but it seems like parents have made money for their kids; parental support at 20-something seems less like an exception and more like the rule.

What do kids spend that money on? Things like iPhones that tell them where to buy the food, how to cook it and who to serve it to (both metaphorically and literally). The act of doing something for yourself is no longer an act: it is information stored away in a tiny little microchip, easily accessible by a slight stroke of your index finger.

Learning a trade is now a laughably futile exercise. Perhaps the famous phrase will now be "Jack Of All Internet Search Engines". When things are this easy, we take them for granted. We expect them rather than work for them. Our entire lives revolve around discovering faster, lazier ways to do the things we should probably get off our asses and do ourselves.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as wiki-friendly as the next bloke, but there's a difference between "looking stuff up" and "using the technology as a crutch". My grandmother was the world's greatest cake baker, and she definitely didn't have allrecipies.com. She did a little thing called "trial and error" which, if I'm correct, will be an obsolete term by 2020.

I am constantly amazed at how easy it is for our generation to simply accept something for nothing (and your chicks for free). We sit around; fat and lethargic, picking dry the bones of yesterday's innovations. Regurgitating Googled insight instead of gaining insight. Technology has created a CliffsNotes civilization of impatient, narcissistic busybodies who have nothing better to do than to sit staring at a metallic box, figuring out faster ways to get nothing done .


Maybe our parents were too forgiving. Maybe they spent too much time in the shadow of "The Greatest Generation" : knowing that living up to unrealistic expectations causes pain and stress; so they told us that success lies in the ability to "do whatever we want". To figure it out...to be yourself.

Well, it turns out that we had to Google "how to be ourselves".

Maybe success has been redefined by our generation as "doing whatever we want, as long as you do it for us". Just a group of disaffected kids limping aimlessly through life, searching for a purpose. The problem is that search cannot be done on Google. Our grandparents found purpose in work and our parents found purpose in family. Now our purpose seems to be finding a purpose.

It's this notion of the hypothetical that is so distasteful for me. If you can't define what success is, you'll never be successful. If our grandparents could see us now, they'd tell us to shut the fuck up and get to work. Then again, maybe they'd be downloading the new "I'll do all the work for you" app for your iPhone. It does all your work for you AND gives you a handjob, cookies and a meanlingless sense of self-satistfaction.

Welcome to 2010.

PEOPLE IN LOS ANGELES SUCK

LA is filled with narcissistic, self-obsessed broken shells of half-people. The sort of people who wear sports blazers even if it's 90 degrees out. The sort of people who discuss the remotest hypothetical taste of success as success. The sort of people who have the encyclopedic knowledge of which production company is looking for what type of script, but have not even a remote understanding of the health care debate.

"Tort reform? Is that the new cop procedural on ABC?"

This is why I have almost no friends here. I'd like to pretend that I do; and yes, I do end up "hanging out" with people...but I'd say 9 out of 10 of them interest me slightly less than having my balls shaved clumsily by a rusty exacto knife. Seriously. (but not you)

What's worse is that I can feel my brain turning into a mushy porridgy type substance. Before I left for LA, I was able to have a basic conversation about a wide array of subjects; history, science, politics, hardcore pornography...but now? I'm about as verbose as an anxiety-ridden deaf-mute who speaks Taushiro, the rarest language in the world.

So what to do? Hire friends? Pay for intellectual discourse? Find an intelligence whore? I mean, it's gotten to the point that I read the comments for articles on nytimes.com while fondling myself and running a knife across my wrists. This isn't a life. This isn't a half-life. It's gotten to the point where I have to look up what a "half-life" means! I mean, I used to know, but the fact that Steve Levitan is the show runner on Modern Family has knocked that little tidbit out of my brain.

There is no solution. I fear that I must stay in Los Angeles in order to get to be successful enough so that I don't have to live in Los Angeles. It's the macabre realization that your life will be nothing but empty pleasantries about weather and your commute that pours the salt in the wound. Pours sulfuric acid into the wound. Rips the wound open and holds sex orgies in the wound. Rapes the wound and then claims it was "consensual". "Yo, wassup buddy! Can you believe the 101! Fucking bumper to bumper. Did I tell you that Paramount expressed interest in a treatment I wrote? I'm so fucking successful".

This is the end, my only friend.

The end.

I was a much better writerer then

I just wrote two blogs, but realized I couldn't publish them, because if anyone actually found this blog who knew me in the work sense (as opposed to "biblical sense") they might abuse me viscously with a pitchfork-like weapon.

So today, I don't update my blog.

I'll just attach a script of an unfinished scene for an unfinished script. It's about a brother and sister living together.

INT. JACKLYN'S BEDROOM - MORNING

Matt walks in, angry.

MATT

Could you please stop having loud sex in my house? I spent last night crying with earmuffs on.

JACKLYN

Yeah, fair enough.

MATT

Seriously?

JACKLYN

Yeah, bro. I'm sorry. There's probably nothing worse than hearing your sibling having sex.

MATT

Except when we heard mom and dad doing it.

CUT TO:

INT. APARTMENT (1994) - DAY

A YOUNG Matt (12) and an even YOUNGER Jacklyn (4) stick their ears up to a door to hear:

MOM (O.S.)

Bentsen's really helping shepherd Clinton's budget through congress.

DAD (O.S.)

I'm really concerned about NATFA's impact on industrial jobs.

Matt and Jacklyn open the door and come in...

CUT TO:

INT. PARENTS' BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS

They see their parents DOING IT...

Completely dispassionately...

Mom is reading the WALL STREET JOURNAL.

MOM

You're such an economic protectionist.

DAD

If your family worked in industry, you would be t...

He pauses for a second.

DAD (CONT'D)

(matter of factly)

I just came.

Little Matt looks on, confused by "came".

MATT

Where did dad go?

CUT TO:

INT. JACKLYN'S BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS

JACKLYN

Hard to believe they got divorced that very same day.

MATT

So no, sex...OK?

JACKLYN

Scout's honor!

CUT TO:

INT. MATT'S BEDROOM - NIGHT

Matt is WRITING on a notepad, when he hears...

JACKLYN (O.S.)

Fill me up!!!

He throws down his note pad and gets up.

CUT TO:

INT. JACKLYN'S BEDROOM - CONTINUOUS

Matt BURSTS in the door and sees:

The SHADOW of a hipster jumping out of the window.

Jacklyn, covering her NAKED SELF under the covers.

MATT

OK, that's it. Evacute your filth and leave!

JACKLYN

What? 

MATT

You were just having sex!

JACKLYN

No I wasn't!

MATT

You're naked!

JACKLYN

That's how I sleep.

Matt runs over to the CLOSET.

MATT

OK, fine. This little device will help...

He pulls out a BLACKLIGHT, plugs it in...

And turns off the lights.

MATT (CONT'D)

We're just going to see what sort of nastiness is on these sheets.

Nothing comes up...

JACKLYN

I'm innocent!

Matt moves the blacklight over to Jacklyn's face and sees:

HUGE WHITE STAINS.

MATT

Christ.

JACKLYN

What?

MATT

I just vomited a little bit in my mouth.

Road Rage

Yes, I'm updating for the first time in two months or so. Are you still checking the site, gentle reader? I hope so. I also hope you're gentle, otherwise I shouldn't be referring to you as gentle. Maybe a gentile? Either way, you probably aren't circumcised.

So, you uncircumcised bastard; you judge me and my lack of updates. Well, I've been busy. Busy as a busy bee on a particularly busy day at the honey factory.


One thing I about being busy is the fact that I am so frequently stuck in traffic...busy. This doesn't really bother me. Just like how "guns don't kill people, people kill people"...traffic doesn't get me angry, LA drivers do.

I don't know if it's because LA is filled with ego-centric, broken half-people caught in a narcissistic industry that slowly eats away at their already damaged souls; but people here drive like impatient lemmings, eager to commit vehicular suicide.

Yesterday, I went to get my laundry...usually not a life threatening task (unless you're smelling the crotch of my workout jammies), but yesterday was different. Yesterday two drivers attempted to kill me.

I was driving leisurely down La Cienega Boulevard, waiting for Beverly so I could make a left turn and head home. There I was, my precious laundry in the backseat and me waiting eagerly to change clothes that I've worn for 12 days straight.

I'm in the left hand lane, and of course, no one wants to stop, even after the light turns yellow. "Oh well!", I say to myself..."guess I'll just turn right after the light changes to red. That's almost legal!"...and that's what I did...

Barreling towards me at 45 miles per hour is "Guy who thinks approaching the light when its yellow means that he can accelerate and go through the light after it's turned red". He makes this decision even after the light was red and I was 90% through my turn; as if to say "our lives are but pittance compared to my desire to get to my destination 14 seconds earlier."

Surprisingly, I survived: his car stopped about 2 feet away from mine. He looked at me with a "hey, why didn't you let me go through the red light?" look. I looked at him with a "why did you want both of us to die?" look.





That was my first brush with death. You might be saying to yourself, "this blog is boring and I want to erase it from my web browser post-haste!", well you're impatient and deserve to be strung up by your floppy parts.

My second brush with death was more threatening and immediate, like an episode of "24".

About two minutes later, I was driving down Beverly in the right lane. In order to turn onto my street, I have to make a left; so about a block before...I signal left. Of course, the guy in the left lane speeds up so I can't get in. I wait until he's past...then I start to turn into the left lane.

I notice behind me is a guy in an 80,000 dollar Mercedes. He's gotta be about 3-4 car lengths away as I start to turn into his lane. He puts his FOOT TO THE PEDAL and speeds up to my backside, after I'm almost completely in the left lane.

After I've finished my turn he starts HONKING at me and HONKING at me. I did not cut him off; rather switched lanes, I suppose, at the point when he felt like going 45 in a 25 zone. He was never less than 1 car length away from me.

Anyway, he swerves into the right lane and pulls up next to me and starts SCREAMING and waving his fists. I flip him off and turn onto my street. He makes a left from the right lane to turn onto my block as well.

At this point, I'm wondering what this guy in an 80,000 dollar Mercedes wants from me, but I also remember I'm in the "Land o' the broken folk" AKA Hollywood, so I am cautious. He could be a music producer or athlete; and if so, there's gotta be at least an 85% chance he's carrying a gun.

I drive past my house and turn around the corner...and he follows me. He rolls down his window screaming and yelling furiously. I keep driving around in circles for about 5 minutes...with him following me...continuing to scream and yell furiously.

I manage to do some swift maneuvering and lose him for a moment. I figure I'm in the clear, so I head back to my block. That's when I notice him across the street, doing a U-Turn in the hopes of finding me.

At this point I'm wondering...what exactly causes this type of anger in people? I mean I scream and curse at passersby on a daily basis...well, not "me" per se, more the voices in my head, but either way I don't follow people even if I think they cut me off.  In fact, I cannot imagine a situation in which I would follow someone; perhaps if I see them hit a small child or if they've strapped a puppy to their roof...but beyond that, it's live and let live.

I mean, I admit I will occasionally carry on pretend races in my car with people who drive like assholes, but those are mere pipe dreams, idle reveries; like the idea of a functioning political mechanism or a dateable porn actress.

So why do people drive cray-cray...and why does it seem like all the cray-cray drivers live within a seven mile radius of Hollywood?

Something to chew on, I guess.

Anyway, I finally lost the guy by pulling in to my secluded local Wine Store, which was a great excuse to buy a Chardonnay from France and get tipsy at two in the afternoon.

So I guess alcoholism is the sweetest blessing from all of this...and the sweetest curse. Well, you know what they say; wine doesn't kill people, alcoholic Jews do.

BTW, if this harrowing story of potential death while traveling sounds slightly familiar to you, then you know me well...