Originally Posted by Eric the Green

I don't know about Xers. They are innovative and practical, but their contribution to culture has been negative. But my point is not about them, but about the 3T. Xers may have been the dominant influence in music then, but all generations were responsible for the 3T being largely a waste of time, by no means just Xers.

1. Translation (a) "Xer's contribution to culture has been negative". OK, in which way?
2. "Waste of time" depends on the person. I ended college and had a successful career through the 3T. The 4T is when that ended, so I deem 4T's a waste of my time. Involuntary retirements can bring bad attitudes you know. I now work part time and literally waste more than there ain't no full time jobs.

Generation Y = Millennials; started in 1982. The cuspers should be called X/Yers.

Then Y did a Yer come up with a Y group that denoted the X/millie cusp as Y. Y, that could be strane.

So, they can tell people they can be wise (and did they do it before 1984?). Now if they could have put some good music with it, they would have had something.

They did for the target audience, silly.Ratt, JP, Cindarella, Helix, etc. were very popular on campus.

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

1. Translation (a) "Xer's contribution to culture has been negative". OK, in which way?
2. "Waste of time" depends on the person. I ended college and had a successful career through the 3T. The 4T is when that ended, so I deem 4T's a waste of my time. Involuntary retirements can bring bad attitudes you know. I now work part time and literally waste more than there ain't no full time jobs.


Then Y did a Yer come up with a Y group that denoted the X/millie cusp as Y. Y, that could be strane.



They did for the target audience, silly.Ratt, JP, Cindarella, Helix, etc. were very popular on campus.

You could have stopped at Judas Priest. Priest ruled. Ratt, Cindarella, Helix? Sorry man. I could go with some Maiden (as silly as they were), and some of the thrash stuff (early Metallica, Anthrax, DRI, SOD), but Cinderella?

Now, here's the difference. You could easily say the same for my stuff and we could both have that disagreement at the time it came out (I totally get why people just don't like Black Flag or Minor Threat). But when Eric's prefered music came out, there wasn't much in terms of variety. There was popular music, there was hippy stuff, and there was folk. Those were your choices.

It wasn't until the late 70's that you had the level income in music to support diversity and multiple scenes, and even then those scenes were heavily dependant on tourists and weekenders.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Did "pink-collar" women (working class hairdressers, waitresses, nurses, and beauticians) awaken at the same time as relatively affluent Berkeley students? Were there differences in the way the Awakening hit in San Francisco, Chicago, Omaha, and Newark? The West Coast, the Rustbelt, and the South?

Just some different images of what I think of the different areas when I think of the Awakening hitting them:

Pink Collar
New York City
San Francisco
Connecticut (I know not the "real" Connecticut, but hey...)
Chicago
The West Coast - can't find a good non-california example... there are a few, but they're not that great...
Indiana
Hawaii
Las Vegas
California
The Rustbelt
The South
Texas

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas

Well, I'd also throw the Shangri-Las as having influence on the Greaser with their hit single of "Leader of the Pack" in 1964, but that can be considered part of the "late 50s/early 60s" proper.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Good catch.

There are two reasons that I pick S.E. Hinton as kind of the beginning of the whole greaser thing:

The first is that she uses the term "greaser" explicitly without references to Italians, Mexicans, or Puerto Ricans. If you go back to that period, that was rare. Indeed, when Sha Na Na were reinventing the Fifties in the year or two after The Outsiders, they were worried that their references to "grease" and "greasers" might be interpreted as insensitive to Italians. Hinton, Sha Na Na, and Jacobs & Casey (the creators of Grease) all took the term "greaser" and emptied it of its ethnic connotations (at least partially).

The second is that she consciously deals with the idea that a golden age is passing. In The Outsiders, it's a personal and intimate thing (consider the use of Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay" and the classic line, "Stay gold, ponyboy."), but it's there, and it flows through her work as a whole. (Take a look at That Was Then, This Is Now--chronologically, it follows pretty close on the heels of The Outsiders and while the main characters' lives intersect with the lives of some of those from the earlier novel, but it might as well be a completely different world.)

I've always thought that the "dead teenager" genre of songs (which "Leader of the Pack" is most definitely a part of) came from a very different place that had more to do with young people trying to navigate a radically different style of dating. I also think that the biker, proper, might be a different type. I don't know. I'll have to think about this now that it's in front of me.

EtA: Oh, and to be clear, yes: I think that the "Fifties" ended right around 1963/1964. People seemed to recognize this intuitively, even without some kind of theory to guide them. "Where were you in '62?" "Oh what a night / Late December back in '63 / What a very special time for me" "We now know the 1950s ended in 1963. The fall of '63 was the end of an era; new voices were being heard." Even so, in individual works, you get dates as early as 1959 and as late as 1965.

Hey guys. I want to add something here if I may. Leader of the Pack was recorded by The Shangri-Las(who I love), but more importantly, was written and produced by George "Shadow" Morton[Note: he's one of my favorite producers and actually just passed-away about a week ago on Feb. 14 Valentine's Day(kinda cool, actually!)]. Anyway, one of the things that makes Morton's production is his inclusion of sound-effects in the songs
(eg: the rev of the motorcycle in LotP US #1, the sound of the seagulls in Remember(Walking in the Sand) US #5, or the "moi"-sound in Give Him A Great Big Kiss US #18,-plus the back-up "tell me more"-s later used in Grease's Summer Nights).[Of particular note i/r/t Morton specifically: He apparently played a major role in capturing the recorded performance of Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida!, but that's a whole different story!].

My point is that LotP was probably more about using the motorcyle sound-effect and crash!(lookout-lookout!) than it was about biker/greaser/fifties. Basically, I agree with Semo that it belongs under good-girl/bad-boy relationship ala Johnny Angel(1962).(FWIW, The Shangri-Las' GHAGBK also has that bad-boy thingy going-on).

I would think that the greaser-thing is about trying to tie-in with denim, leather, and motorcycles. Off the top of my head, it may all lead back to The Wild One(1953), IMO.(Outlaw Biker Film). Take out Motorcycles; Insert Hot-Rods as needed![Of Note IMO: The Beatles may have been partially influenced in choosing a name from Lee Marvin's gang: The Beetles in The Wild One. Consider The Beatles image when they played in Hamburg circa 1960-1962
(The Beatles in Hamburg Google-Images).

Eh? I'm rambling......


Prince

PS: Check out the very end of GHAGBK:

Girls: Well, how does he dance?
Mary: Close. Very, very, close!(Oh, that's so dirty! I love it!)

Originally Posted by Kepi

You could have stopped at Judas Priest. Priest ruled. Ratt, Cindarella, Helix? Sorry man. I could go with some Maiden (as silly as they were), and some of the thrash stuff (early Metallica, Anthrax, DRI, SOD), but Cinderella?

Now, here's the difference. You could easily say the same for my stuff and we could both have that disagreement at the time it came out (I totally get why people just don't like Black Flag or Minor Threat). But when Eric's prefered music came out, there wasn't much in terms of variety. There was popular music, there was hippy stuff, and there was folk. Those were your choices.

It wasn't until the late 70's that you had the level income in music to support diversity and multiple scenes, and even then those scenes were heavily dependant on tourists and weekenders.

Prince, shaking head

<giggle>

Prince

PS: I'm guessing you're not into blues-based rock. Too bad. Cinderella's Long Cold Winter(their second album),
is the shit! Bad Seamstress Blues/Fallin' Apart at the Seams. Fuck. Gypsy Road, The Last Mile, Coming Home.
Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)?

Oh, Nevermind....

Cinderella, and most of the hair bands, had drummers who were either bad or just told to be metronomes. I just never jived with that. I never went deeper with them than their singles, so there could be a track where their drummer knows how to manage pocket presence, and that their bassist really knows what he's doing, but on the whole groups like Ratt and Cinderella just had dull, dull rhythm sections, and really expected to be carried by their vocalists and a guitar solo.

Blues influenced rock, awesome. Let's bring on Clutch, or Kyuss, or Motorhead, or Led Zepplin. Nice warm bendy guitars, riffage on all sides, hell yeah. But if we're talking over polished guitar solos that just happen to be in the minor scale... We can leave that.

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

1. Translation (a) "Xer's contribution to culture has been negative". OK, in which way?
2. "Waste of time" depends on the person. I ended college and had a successful career through the 3T. The 4T is when that ended, so I deem 4T's a waste of my time. Involuntary retirements can bring bad attitudes you know. I now work part time and literally waste more than there ain't no full time jobs.

Sometimes I perceive that you look at social conditions from a personal point of view. I was not speaking of such.

Regarding a), I was not expecting you to agree. Take it from there.

Then Y did a Yer come up with a Y group that denoted the X/millie cusp as Y. Y, that could be strane.

I dunno, but such Yer was incorrect. Y in the larger world means Millennial. Yer is a term for cusp only here. I will correct it every time I see it. Generation X cannot have two letters. Cusps are not generations. Born in 1962, you are not a Joneser, you are of Generation X. Cusp is an astrological term; I know what it means. For example, if you were born on April 21, you are a Taurus. You are also born on the cusp of Aries, but the Aries-Taurus cusp is not a separate sign; nor are Jonesers, nor X/Yers, a separate generation.

They did for the target audience, silly.Ratt, JP, Cindarella, Helix, etc. were very popular on campus.

Yes indeed, they were. Very very very lousy music was very popular in the 3T. That sir, is the entire point. In the 3T, people did not have good taste in either music or politics.

Originally Posted by Kepi

@ Eric - Capitalism is a value system. And it was absolutely necessary for that value system to be placed above all others to distribute this technology to people. Remember, Clinton was bragging about never having sent an e-mail in his 92 campaign as a sign of his mainstream, downhome normalcy.

If self seeking spiritual revelation was what people was making people happy during the 3T, computers never would have sold enough to make them usable and available to consumers. What made it happen was people saying "you know what would make me happy? A video camera!" That's what the 3T was about and that's what allowed technology to develop. It wasn't just that it existed, it was the demand that drove it to get bigger, better, faster, smaller and more powerful. If we'd stuck with 2T values, a computer would still be a glorified type writer and spread sheet, videogames would still be kids stuff (keep in mind, games have driven the power end of computing, which in turn, is what gives us all this ability to make and edit video and audio and stream it online), and we'd all be sitting around trying to make our own sitars.

Your argument is plausible; I just don't think it's true from a factual viewpoint, given the fact that computer tech progressed in an unbroken line through the two turnings. Some tech, such as nuclear power and the SST, did slow down in the 2T, but it was mainly due to the concern over pollution, and to a lesser extent with depersonalization. Computers were seen in the early 2T as dehumanizing, but they proceeded to get more humanizing when they became personal in the 1970s.

I also disagree that 3T music was bad. Hip-hop was extremely creative and interesting.

Don't even get me started. I'll just say, no it wasn't.

And music that has been good, has mostly always been on the fringes. Even in the 2T, it was the folks pushing the limits of rock and roll, the fringe groups, that were progressing the genre. Counter culture in the 2T was even more fringe than punk rock or goth in the 3T.

You evidently don't know because you weren't there and didn't follow the scene as it happened. What made the height of the 2T so special was precisely that the fringe DID break through to the mainstream. But certainly the good music was on the fringe in the 3T. I'm not sure you could even say there WAS a fringe in the 1T and 4T that preceeded it.

By the late 90's punk rock was everywhere.

Yup, lousy music was everywhere.

I stand corrected on the Hoover Dam, but the overall point stands. We made huge infrastructural headway in the 1T.

Yes. Therefore more than one generation wanted it. Most of all, the president wanted it. He was a Nomad.

As for there only being one generation at the helm, there's always 1 generation predominantly at the helm of any (turning). And the only time where you get a mix is when the balance of power is shifting. That's just how it works.

Except that it doesn't. There's always two or three generations "at the helm." What does drive turnings, according to the theory at least, is that different archetypes of generations are at different stages of life in each turning. That does not mean that one is predominant; it means that they have somewhat different roles. Nomads as elders certainly are the leaders in a 1T, and civics are in middle management, and artists shape the youth culture and the tone of society. In the future, old prophets will also be more prominent in 1Ts than in the past, just as Silents will continue to be so as they are now. Generations drive turnings, but it's also true that the events of turnings drive generations.

You can't say, "Millennials have these such and such values, therefore a turning will reflect their wishes." Millennials will not all want what they want today. Boomers could not shape the 3T as they had envisioned in youth, and won't be totally in charge of the 4T either, unfortunately. People of other ages always have too much influence for one generation to predominate. These days, for example, Silents have all the money, and so they still run a lot of the show, and have for 20 or 30 years. Boomers haven't been able to do it. Besides, there's too much diversity within a generation. You can describe a general mood, but you can't say one generation makes all and uniform decisions.

Originally Posted by Kepi

Cinderella, and most of the hair bands, had drummers who were either bad or just told to be metronomes. I just never jived with that. I never went deeper with them than their singles, so there could be a track where their drummer knows how to manage pocket presence, and that their bassist really knows what he's doing, but on the whole groups like Ratt and Cinderella just had dull, dull rhythm sections, and really expected to be carried by their vocalists and a guitar solo.

Blues influenced rock, awesome. Let's bring on Clutch, or Kyuss, or Motorhead, or Led Zepplin. Nice warm bendy guitars, riffage on all sides, hell yeah. But if we're talking over polished guitar solos that just happen to be in the minor scale... We can leave that.

Prince, still shaking head.

Whatever, dude!

So, I'm guessing you can't get into some Winger: Madalaine(1988)!(LMAO!)
(Oh, that's some good shit!)


Prince

PS: Seriously though, you and I appear to view music differently; Nothing wrong with that.
"Whatever floats your boat".

Here's some "Fast" Eddie Clarke(Motorhead) from the
debut Fastway album(1983): We Become One.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

My point is that LotP was probably more about using the motorcyle sound-effect and crash!(lookout-lookout!) than it was about biker/greaser/fifties. Basically, I agree with Semo that it belongs under good-girl/bad-boy relationship ala Johnny Angel(1962).(FWIW, The Shangri-Las' GHAGBK also has that bad-boy thingy going-on).

I didn't say that though! I linked it to the "dead teenager" moment. I was thinking about tracks like "Last Kiss" (Wayne Cochran, although the J. Frank Wilson version is probably better known) and Mark Dinning's "Teen Angel", but there were a lot more. I'm too lazy to look up the dates, but I suspect that (like a lot of pop tracks from the era) it existed at the intersection of a bunch of different trends: the dead teenager song, the use of sound effects (I'm too lazy to look it up, but I think that "Leader of the Pack" came after Jan and Dean's "Dead Man's Curve"), the "bad boy" song, and the explosive popularity of girl groups. Like a lot of really good ideas, I suspect it got its start with a guy saying, "Dead teenager songs, girl groups, sound effects, and bad boys are all hot right now... If we did a song with all of those, it would have to be huge!"

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

I would think that the greaser-thing is about trying to tie-in with denim, leather, and motorcycles. Off the top of my head, it may all lead back to The Wild One(1953), IMO.(Outlaw Biker Film). Take out Motorcycles; Insert Hot-Rods as needed![Of Note IMO: The Beatles may have been partially influenced in choosing a name from Lee Marvin's gang: The Beetles in The Wild One. Consider The Beatles image when they played in Hamburg circa 1960-1962
(The Beatles in Hamburg Google-Images).

Well, the thing with bikers is that they occupied a very different place in the popular imagination during the Awakening than the greaser. Consider Easy Rider, or Hunter S. Thompson's naive entry into the orbit of the Hell's Angels, or the fateful decision to have the Hell's Angels do security for the Rolling Stones at Altamont. When you go back to 1953 to the Wild One, you get to that famous exchange: "Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?" "Whadya got?"

Was that the Fifties, or was that sort of thing a dress rehearsal for what was coming?

Fourteen years later:



The biker seems to have been put to different uses during the Awakening.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

I didn't say that though! I linked it to the "dead teenager" moment. I was thinking about tracks like "Last Kiss" (Wayne Cochran, although the J. Frank Wilson version is probably better known) and Mark Dinning's "Teen Angel", but there were a lot more. I'm too lazy to look up the dates, but I suspect that (like a lot of pop tracks from the era) it existed at the intersection of a bunch of different trends: the dead teenager song, the use of sound effects (I'm too lazy to look it up, but I think that "Leader of the Pack" came after Jan and Dean's "Dead Man's Curve"), the "bad boy" song, and the explosive popularity of girl groups. Like a lot of really good ideas, I suspect it got its start with a guy saying, "Dead teenager songs, girl groups, sound effects, and bad boys are all hot right now... If we did a song with all of those, it would have to be huge!"

Hey Semo.

Sorry if I implied that you were saying anything that you weren't; That certainly wasn't my intention. I definitely see what you're saying i/r/t Dead Teenager Songs. I think I was just saying that LotP probably didn't belong to the 1950's and was more in-line with the created image of The Fifties. I guess I was just pulling-back a little and riffing off of the concept of danger(ie: tough on the outside/soft on the inside, trouble-maker, bad-boy, etc.). There really seemed to be a lot of that between 1960-1965. Now I'm kinda thinking about Jim Stark and Buzz Gunderson from Rebel Without A Cause(1955). I think to some degree it's "... Life imitating Art imitating Life...", but I whole-heartedly agree that when a motif becomes hot, there's a mad-scramble by many art-creators(and marketers) to pick-up on the trend. But then again, somebody(first-wave Boomers 1945+, IMO) liked those movies and songs enough to make them popular(so much so that we're still talking about them here and now). IMO, that 1960-1965 period is really important but overshadowed by 1965+(I actually really wanted some input from some of the Boomers and Silents(The Grey Badger) on 1960-1965 when I created The Consciousness Revolution Thread awhile back, but...eh?). I'm rambling yet again ....

Originally Posted by Semo

Well, the thing with bikers is that they occupied a very different place in the popular imagination during the Awakening than the greaser. Consider Easy Rider, or Hunter S. Thompson's naive entry into the orbit of the Hell's Angels, or the fateful decision to have the Hell's Angels do security for the Rolling Stones at Altamont. When you go back to 1953 to the Wild One, you get to that famous exchange: "Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?" "Whadya got?"

Was that the Fifties, or was that sort of thing a dress rehearsal for what was coming?

Well, like I was saying above, if you pull way back, bikers and greasers(although very different) can get lumped-together into the lower-orders(ie: bad-boys, dangerous, earth-bound)[Note: Now that I think of it, I'd probably even throw some of the surfers in there] vs. the fine, young leaders of tomorrow(ie: dorks!). For me it's sort of an earthly vs spiritual-thingy(ie: dirty vs. clean). We can look back today and see 1960's surfers as being "clean", but they weren't portrayed as being responsible gentlemen back in the day, IMO. Shit. I don't know what I'm even trying to say here, but I'll post it anyway just because...!

Originally Posted by Semo

Fourteen years later:



The biker seems to have been put to different uses during the Awakening.

Oh yeah; Love it! I actually had to back-track to find Born Losers. Billy Jack(1971) was pretty big in my childhood, but they never showed Born Losers. Oh man, that song attributed to Coven was really popular:
One Tin Soldier(The Legend of Billy Jack); (and I know you have to be familiar with Jinx Dawson!). I think Dennis Hopper took-back the biker with Easy Rider(1969), though(and helped create a new villain, IMO).

ETA: I forgot to add this on the initial post. I'm glad you brought-up Easy Rider because it
reminded me of Electra Glide in Blue(1973); Too bad that movie never really got past cult-status, IMO.

Yet another ETA: Get this. Easy Rider was on TCM this evening. I had completely forgotten that the "escort" that was with Peter Fonda was Toni Basil(1943). People recognize her because of her hit Mickey, but she's really important i/r/t the last Awakening, IMO. Shit. I mean, The Lockers, plus all the dance-stuff she's done(eg: Talking Heads Once in a Lifetime vid choreography). I don't recall anyone ever even mentioning her before, and the only reason I bring her up here is b/c you're the only other person on the MB that I believe would even know her story.

Prince

PS: I'm not really trying to make any statements here; Just talking to myself to some degree, really. It's not something that I've fully put-together i/r/t Generations and Turnings or anything like that, but that dirty vs. clean-thingy is something that I see in art movements all the time.

Don't forget the Juvenile Delinquent B-Movie genre that was fairly "popular" in the 1950s:

So Young So Bad - 1950
Girls in the Night - 1953
Girl Gang - 1954
Teenage Devil Dolls - 1955
The Violent Years - 1956
Hot Rod Girl - 1956
The Delinquents - 1957
The Green-Eyed Blonde - 1957
Teenage Doll - 1957
Reform School Girl - 1957
Live Fast, Die Young - 1958
High School Confidential! - 1958
High School Hellcats - 1958
Young and Wild - 1958
The Cry Baby Killer - 1958 (Oh, look a young Jack Nicholson)
The Cool and the Crazy - 1958

There are a lot more, just some that are considered some of the "best". I of course kept Rebel Without a Cause and Blackboard Jungle off this list as they're not B-Movies IMO.

Admittedly some of these were very campy. Very typically the stories in these things involve a straight-laced kid (typically female) who falls in with the wrong sort at a new school she's attending, eventually becoming "one of the gang" in their Hot Rod, backseat gymnastics, Marijuana, Drinking, and thieving manners.

Hmm... this plot seems very familiar... I wonder where it could be? Maybe I should grease my wheels a bit.

There also were a lot of these films that have an older adult figure coming into the lives of these teenagers and trying to turn them around.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I was recently looking at some historical footage and news stories from the 1920s, which is what brought me back here. It just reinforced for me the fact that the 1990s were the modern equivalent. The flashy materialism, the explosion of new technology everywhere, the hubris and drunkenness. Nobody would ever talk about the "roaring 00s". In other words, if S&H's theory is valid, the 4T started in 2000/2001. Period.

This statement is so flawed, where does a person begin?

I mean you just described the 2000s, a 4T start in 2001 would invalidate their theory, both because it was just too early(generations had not aged into their different life phases yet) and 4T without a regeneracy. I think the man(Neil Howe) is more credible about his own theory than you are, he dates the start of our current 4T to September 2008 and that seems like very consistent with his theory.

@ Eric -

You could say that technology progressed fluidly through all 4 turnings, and honestly through the past 3 saeculum, from from the creation of the telegraph. It's not the creation of the technology, it's the distribution, proliferation, and integration of the technology that really matters.

The early PCs of the 1970's weren't proliferated. It was a tool for businesses and a toy to hobbists, and a rare, very fringe hobby at that. It wasn't until the money was distributed to the technology that we saw the proliferation and integration. The 2T way of thinking wouldn't have allowed that, because it's just not a harvest mentality. Because you're reaping, but you're also consuming more, too.

Hip-hop reinvented the way we think about music. It brough about brand new instruments. It completely changed the shape and scope of how music was made. Any piece of equipment you have to record music beyond a basic 4 or 8 track you have because of hip-hop. Any computer software you have to record or mix music is because of hip-hop. It's the jazz of this Saeculum. You might not like it, but it doesn't change the fact that hip-hop was innovative to the tune of putting holes in a tube to control note and pitch. That's just how different the instruments used to create it are.

Punk rock, again, extremely innovative and creative. It didn't change the tools, but it changed the way rock and roll was played, and it's influenced every single musical style since it's formation because of it. Adding in walking bass lines, breakdowns, changed time signatures, and stripping songs down to their most basic has kept punk rock alive and relevant for coming on 40 years now.

If it wasn't for punk there'd have been no rock, and it's questionable if there'd be hip-hop in the past 40 years. There'd be no pop or contemporary R&B, because there'd have been no hip-hop. Every style since 1975 all boil down to punk rock being essential for their developlent. Again, just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not creative or innovative or good.

And finally, there's always 2 or 3 generations who're adults and large enough to have a presence, but there's always one in command. While yes, not everyone in a generation is the same, you can still pretty much guarantee that the lowest common denominator of the dominant generation is what's going to go forward.

@ princeofcats -

Yeah, it's probably a different approach to music entirely. It's what allows music to change and grow.

One thing that doesn't match up with the 1920s until the 2000s is the Real Estate Boom crashes both happened in those decades, about 80 years apart (81 to be exact):

Florida Land Boom of the 1920s
--Boca Raton
----Strong storms such as the Okecheebee Hurricane, the Miami Hurricane of 1926, and the start of the Great Depression in 1929 kept the real estate boom from bouncing back after the crash
--Supposedly there are today empty lots left over from the 1920s land boom, with sidewalks and macadam roads paved to nowhere where future homes were supposed to be built...

Housing Bubble (1997 - 2006)
--Wasn't just limited to Florida but California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire being the worst offenders...

From this point forward, Florida is not allowed to have any more Land Booms--so sayeth the Chas. And if it goes under water than neither is Georgia or Alabama.

Sondheim has a musical about two Missionary Generation guys trying to make it big from the Yukon Gold Rush to the Florida Land Boom--only to lose it all. He keeps tweaking the show so it has about three names: Wise Guys (1999 Workshop Title), Road Show, and Bounce. In it there's a song called "Boca Raton" which unfortunately I can't seem to find on YouTube, but it would be very appropriate to put here at the end of this post.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

One thing that doesn't match up with the 1920s until the 2000s is the Real Estate Boom crashes both happened in those decades, about 80 years apart (81 to be exact):

Florida Land Boom of the 1920s
--Boca Raton
----Strong storms such as the Okecheebee Hurricane, the Miami Hurricane of 1926, and the start of the Great Depression in 1929 kept the real estate boom from bouncing back after the crash
--Supposedly there are today empty lots left over from the 1920s land boom, with sidewalks and macadam roads paved to nowhere where future homes were supposed to be built...

Housing Bubble (1997 - 2006)
--Wasn't just limited to Florida but California, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire being the worst offenders...

From this point forward, Florida is not allowed to have any more Land Booms--so sayeth the Chas. And if it goes under water than neither is Georgia or Alabama.

Sondheim has a musical about two Missionary Generation guys trying to make it big from the Yukon Gold Rush to the Florida Land Boom--only to lose it all. He keeps tweaking the show so it has about three names: Wise Guys (1999 Workshop Title), Road Show, and Bounce. In it there's a song called "Boca Raton" which unfortunately I can't seem to find on YouTube, but it would be very appropriate to put here at the end of this post.

~Chas'88

My family is in real estate, and I dunno about elsewhere, but the early 90's were bad for business. It wasn't a crash, but business was slow, houses sat on the market for long, long periods of time. It was like that for a good long while. Maybe until 95ish?

It may have been a localized phenomenon, but considering that it started with the recession and the DC metro area has always been last to fall first to recover because of the federal money that is in the area... I doubt it.

Also, the change in demographics from the 20's to the 90's explains a stagnation instead of a bubble and burst.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

Don't forget the Juvenile Delinquent B-Movie genre that was fairly "popular" in the 1950s:

So Young So Bad - 1950
Girls in the Night - 1953
Girl Gang - 1954
Teenage Devil Dolls - 1955
The Violent Years - 1956
Hot Rod Girl - 1956
The Delinquents - 1957
The Green-Eyed Blonde - 1957
Teenage Doll - 1957
Reform School Girl - 1957
Live Fast, Die Young - 1958
High School Confidential! - 1958
High School Hellcats - 1958
Young and Wild - 1958
The Cry Baby Killer - 1958 (Oh, look a young Jack Nicholson)
The Cool and the Crazy - 1958

There are a lot more, just some that are considered some of the "best". I of course kept Rebel Without a Cause and Blackboard Jungle off this list as they're not B-Movies IMO.

Admittedly some of these were very campy. Very typically the stories in these things involve a straight-laced kid (typically female) who falls in with the wrong sort at a new school she's attending, eventually becoming "one of the gang" in their Hot Rod, backseat gymnastics, Marijuana, Drinking, and thieving manners.

Hmm... this plot seems very familiar... I wonder where it could be? Maybe I should grease my wheels a bit.

There also were a lot of these films that have an older adult figure coming into the lives of these teenagers and trying to turn them around.

~Chas'88

Heh. Some of those are really funny. I'd have to think that the popularity of Blackboard Jungle
(and that damned, evil rock ' roll) was a catalyst. But, then again, gangs and such(delinquency)
had been around for quite awhile. The Bowery Boys/East End Kids/Dead End Kids sprung from
Our Gang/The Little Rascals, IIRC. It kinda ties-in with the whole outlaw-thingy, life of crime, etc., IMO.
I guess it all depends on who is framed as "the hero/heroes". I was just watching John Ford's Stagecoach(1939)
earlier today on TCM. I had forgotten how John Wayne's "The Ringo Kid" was kinda the "bad boy", but actually really responsible, and Claire Trevor's "Dallas" was the proverbial "hooker w/a golden heart"(you just gotta love 'em!).
Great movie, IMO.

I often just have to wonder to myself how much of what I believe to be true is "reality", or just some kind of marketed narrative of a certain time-period. Like in the case of Rock n' Roll, I believe that the first kids to get into it were what we would call War Babys(1940-1945-ish). To some degree those cusps are the previous Generation(eg: Artists), because there is a definite distinction between War Babys and The Boom Generation proper, IMO. But, there are also distinctions that link them with Boomers(eg: Prophets). I see the same thing with the Gen Jones and Gen Y cusps. I know for myself, I'm definitely more Boom than the stereotypes given of Gen-X(that fit closer to people born 1970+); In fact, I really don't fit many(if any) of those characterizations, but I definitely do fit into the Nomad Archetype(as I know it)...Yeah. I'm definitely a Nomad! !(with just enough Prophet to know what to avoid!).


Prince

PS: Chas, FWIW, I can drop out of this conversation between you and Semo if I'm screwing it up.

Originally Posted by princeofcats67

PS: Chas, FWIW, I can drop out of this conversation between you and Semo if I'm screwing it up.

You're not, I honestly think that I'm not adding much myself--but in small things here and there.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Semo '75

If American Graffiti was ahead of its time, it was only a few minutes ahead: Lucas' film was released in 1973, Happy Days went on the air in 1974, the same year that The Lords of Flatbush was released and Richard Price's The Wanderers hit bookstores. Cooley High (kind of an African-American Graffiti version of American Graffiti) came out the following year.

But American Graffiti wasn't really that far ahead of its time, I don't think. By the time it came out at the end of the summer of '73, Grease had been the hottest ticket on Broadway for a little over a year. "American Pie", Don McLean's lament for a lost golden age, had made it to number one nearly a year before that, and Sha Na Na had played Woodstock almost exactly two years before that. In fact, by the time American Graffiti came along, Sha Na Na's label was able to repackage their hit albums from the late 1960s to take advantage of the explosion of late 1950s/early 1960s nostalgia. Before Sha Na Na at Woodstock, there was Elvis Presley's '68 Comeback Special. Hell, if you're willing to include S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders as part of the trend (and I would, because she did more than anyone to create the archetype of the "greaser" that so many later works would trade on), then you could date the trend's beginnings as far back as 1967! Which means that people started pining for the Fabulous Fifties (or at least a certain reinvention or interpretation of it) about as soon as they looked around and realized it was over.

Of course, it wasn't the actual 1950s; it wasn't President Eisenhower and cool jazz and Jackson Pollock and Tailgunner Joe and Pat Boone and Doris Day. It was freewheeling greasers in leather jackets cavorting with beauty school dropouts. It was golden age R&B, rock'n'roll, and doo wop. It was motorcycles and hot rods. The blue collar Italian-American male became a symbol of American masculinity, which actually extended beyond the retro trend (Rocky, Saturday Night Fever, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II--and note that the last two films covered the period from 1945-1960. The Awakening was transforming even the recent past.

But if I were to go into that, then I'd have to start talking about the Blue-Collar Awakening, which is what the Little Fifties was really a manifestation of, and then I'd have to talk about the Redneck Renaissance (the Southern-fried Awakening), and that would open up the possibility that there wasn't just one Awakening (the one associated with upper-middle class types), but a series of staggered Awakenings that took place between about 1964 and 1984.

And there was some guy called Barry Goldwater and hardhat rioting and someone voted for Nixon twice. There were lots of stuff flying under the radar apparently, and not just in the United States (this lad for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP7fETsKYkA), but somehow none of it ever came close to the steering wheel or managed to influence the direction of the social dynamic. In other words, to avoid the risk of the word "Awakening" being so watered down it means nothing, I think we need to keep an eye on what the dominating tendencies shaping the effective, overriding mentality of an era were (by which I of course don't mean the psychological violence of mental conditioning, such as in today's political correctness).

The important question is, what is an Awakening and what is ending it? Well, what about an Awakening is an attempt to break free of the perceived shackles of convention in order to achieve a "genuine" existential ideal of some sort, as well as the conviction that such an ideal is attainable. An Awakening ends when those ideals are no longer taken seriously for some reason or other, when they lose their power of persuasion and impetus. Thus, the Awakening by inherent logic then gets replaced by the cynicism, irony and "shallowness" that Eric hates so much and which we might identify as Unraveling. And by and large, in western society, I say this change took place in the late 70's. Why?
To my mind a big reason was simply that by the mid 70's, the Awakening had ran out of convention to attack and things to liberate, so there was nothing left to feed its flame. It became redundant and keeping it up turned into the object of embarrassment and ridicule (and sometimes sheer hatred and reaction due to its unfortunate fall out, which in America nourished the religious right. The religious right is not a kind of Awakening, it's a form of anti-Awakening reaction). Other reasons might include the attempt at realizing the ideals of the Awakening were making an ass of themselves all the way from the killing fields of Cambodia to Los Angeles classrooms, or just sheer public boredom and a craving for pleasing aesthetics and fun.
The latter took place already at the end of the Puritan Awakening of 1621-1649, when increased support for Charles I and the cavaliers was not least generated by a 'preachiness fatigue' on part of the general public, who wanted a Merry England of drinking, dancing and carousing back, so it might be some kind of universal sign that the Awakening is ending or already has ceased to exist as a social force. We, of course, had disco, punk, new wave and on the other end of the dividing line, new romantics (like Ultravox shown previously) and high energy dance music.

While 50's nostalgia has a longer history than I recently stated, it might just be one of those gradual organic processes that begins growing already at Woodstock (back then as a joke actually), but gains momentum overtime and reaches a peak somewhere near the 2T/3T dividing line and then gradually recedes. As such, the phenomenon of nostalgia might also alter its essence during said development. In 1974, when Happy Days launched, it might be conceivable that it wasn't surrounded by the same sense of urgency that nostalgia in the form of the new romantics tended to manifest, which seems to bear witness not least of that hole in the soul and loss of meaning that the lost faith in the Awakening revealed, and which often is referred to as "malaise". During this time there was a certain realization that something essential had been lost that could only be found across the Awakening gulf, and that something was in this regard actually more a matter of aesthetics than ethics.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Sometimes I perceive that you look at social conditions from a personal point of view. I was not speaking of such.

Sure. Everyone has a unique worldview.

Regarding a), I was not expecting you to agree. Take it from there.

As you say, "nice dodge." It was a question asking specifically how Xer's had a negative affect on culture.

I dunno, but such Yer was incorrect. Y in the larger world means Millennial. Yer is a term for cusp only here. I will correct it every time I see it.

Yes it is used "here". The consensus here is that is the moniker of the X/Millie cusp.

Generation X cannot have two letters. Cusps are not generations.

GenX is a generation , "here".
Y is the designated moniker of the X/Millie cusp.

Born in 1962, you are not a Joneser, you are of Generation X. Cusp is an astrological term; I know what it means. For example, if you were born on April 21, you are a Taurus. You are also born on the cusp of Aries, but the Aries-Taurus cusp is not a separate sign; nor are Jonesers, nor X/Yers, a separate generation.

I know of nobody here that designates Jonesers or Y'er as a generation, but a transition or if you will , an inflection point where one generation transitions into another. It's all a POV. If one is of the mind that generations are discrete/binary entities, then yeah, no such thing as a Joneser or a Yer. OTOH, if one considers generations as analogue then cusps as defined ash such: (a transition/inflection) set of cohorts that mark the transition from one generation to another. Rationales: regional differences when turnings hit, upbringing, rural vs. urban, etc. Take the year set of (1952,1962,1972 ( obligatory winky for Vandal), 1982(oblgitory winky for JohnMc),1992) you get a nice core/cusp/core/cusp/core.

Yes indeed, they were. Very very very lousy music was very popular in the 3T. That sir, is the entire point. In the 3T, people did not have good taste in either music or politics.

I beg to differ. Here's an example of something quite prescient. Enjoy.

Originally Posted by Eric The Obtuse

Yes indeed, they were. Very very very lousy music was very popular in the 3T.

Originally Posted by Rags

I beg to differ. Here's an example of something quite prescient. Enjoy.

Krokus is not exactly my tastes bro, but its a lot better than any of the garbage coming out of the 2T with the possible exception of a few Rolling Stones songs. In fact I would go so far as there wasn't much in the way of good music until well into the 3T.

That said why are you arguing with someone who likes Justin Bieber and isn't a 14 year old girl Rags? That alone should tell you he has absolutely no taste.

Originally Posted by Kinser79

Krokus is not exactly my tastes bro, but its a lot better than any of the garbage coming out of the 2T with the possible exception of a few Rolling Stones songs. In fact I would go so far as there wasn't much in the way of good music until well into the 3T.

Yeah, and I'm cool with that. You don't go off evangelizing about <<<you know who>>> like Eric. He has a whole thread here for that purpose. Privoxy took care of that issue (along with chucking a bunch of bandwidth wasting ad junk) .

That said why are you arguing with someone who likes Ratt and isn't a 14 year old girl Rags? That alone should tell you he has absolutely no taste.

It allows me to stuff things like the thing below. "One Vice At a Time". So 3T and I'm sure it would make Eric's ears ache if he clicked on it. Introducing.... More Krokus. W00t. "We all know about 69..."

Originally Posted by Kinser79

Krokus is not exactly my tastes bro, but its a lot better than any of the garbage coming out of the 2T with the possible exception of a few Rolling Stones songs. In fact I would go so far as there wasn't much in the way of good music until well into the 3T.

That said why are you arguing with someone who likes Justin Bieber and isn't a 14 year old girl Rags? That alone should tell you he has absolutely no taste.

I have to enjoy the bizarre image of a core Boomer of the classic rock generation arguing music with a late Xer from the hip-hop generation, where the Jonser punk-rocker tries to mediate between them. Truly precious.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I have to enjoy the bizarre image of a core Boomer of the classic rock generation arguing music with a late Xer from the hip-hop generation, where the Jonser punk-rocker tries to mediate between them. Truly precious.

That would be amusing. However, we'd have to find a Boomer other then Eric for that. It would only be an interesting argument if all three actually had decent taste. Bieber is not classic rock, whatever he does is not even music, well unless you consider animals screeching in pain to be music.

This review should help expose what exactly my views on You-Know-Who (probably should call him that--its comparing Voldemort [who is sort of cool in a villain way] with a castrato) A real review of one of "his" songs.

Also I would say about hip-hop, that yes I do listen to hip-hop, but not anyone that has ever been signed on a major label. I actually happen to listen to a great deal more grunge and "alternative". Of course my music collection (except for underground rap) hasn't expanded since about 2002.

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Yeah, and I'm cool with that. You don't go off evangelizing about <<<you know who>>> like Eric. He has a whole thread here for that purpose. Privoxy took care of that issue (along with chucking a bunch of bandwidth wasting ad junk) .

No, but I have "evangelized" over various groups that I've found to be rather good.

It allows me to stuff things like the thing below. "One Vice At a Time". So 3T and I'm sure it would make Eric's ears ache if he clicked on it. Introducing.... More Krokus. W00t. "We all know about 69..."

Perhaps I should follow suit. I would love to torture Eric with some very good rap. For example...

http://youtu.be/kGjSq4HqP9Y