Easy Marks

A number of TV critics have recently lamented how dreadful the portrayals of over-50 characters are in current television fare. These boomer characters dwell on flatulence, use vulgar language, share TMI about their digestive tract functions, and seem helpless when it comes to being able to use contemporary technology.

The saddest aspect of this trend is that these are some very fine actors who have been compromised into playing roles that make any sane baby boomer wince at the awfulness of the characters. Beau Bridges, Allison Janney, Ellen Barkin, Kathy Bates, Ed Asner, Stacy Keach and Robin Williams, to name a few.

I’m not suggesting that we go back to the day when every older character was the wise oracle (e.g. Marcus Welby or Father Knows Best), but I think the writers (some of whom may be baby boomers as well – traitors!) could scale back a bit on the cringe worthiness of these current characters.

Do I have any hope that this trend will fade? Nope. Quite the contrary. I think it’s going to get a whole lot worse. Face it…we’re easy marks. Bumbling idiots who share too much information about how our bodies are failing us and that we don’t know what a Tweet is or what Snapchat does.

As baby boomers mature, TV show writers seem determined to make us look immature. Some critics think that this trend is some sort of karmic payback by millennials tired of listening to baby boomer crap about our music, movies and cultural dominance. Honestly, I don’t think it’s that malevolent. As always, it comes down to the fact that we’re such a massive demographic that it’s easy to take us down a notch or two, or three or four.

In any case, we should get used to being the butt of the joke. Remember how we laughed at our parents when they didn’t know what marijuana was or that we were smoking it? How we were so with it and they were so out of it? How we knew who Jimi Hendrix was while they were stuck on Lawrence Welk? How we knew that the Vietnam war was a foolish quagmire when they were still on the fence about it?

Talk about karmic payback. If we thought our parents were such dummies, what do you think boomer offspring make of their parents? If you don’t want to be insulted by the portrayals of boomers on current TV, your best bet may be to use that Netflix streaming thingie (more proof that we know nothing) to watch All in the Family, MASH, Happy Days, Mork and Mindy and Taxi. That would be the same head-in-the-sand thinking that our parents used when they were clinging to their entertainment icons.

And we thought we could do better?

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.

How’s That Again?

We all have our favorite misheard lyrics – there are even websites devoted to cataloging them. This site takes its name from one of the most often repeated “misheards” --- “scuse me while I kiss this guy” is from Purple Haze and most of us know that the Jimi Hendrix was singing “kiss the sky.”

I’ve always been fond of hearing small children recite the pledge of allegiance (you do remember when we actually did that in grade school?). Especially the part where they say, “and to the republic, for Richard Stands.”

Or the Beatles “girl with colitis goes by” rather than “girl with kaleidoscope eyes.” If you remember Iron Butterfly’s totemic song, In-A-Gadda Da Vida, you may also recall that the first time you heard it played, it sounded like “In a glob of Velveeta, honey.” And some of us thought Elton John was singing “hold me closer, Tony Danza,” which may have made sense if Danza was gay, but “tiny dancer” won out on that one.

The lyrics that forever remain a mystery to me are from Steve Miller’s The Joker, recorded in 1973. Clearly, I’m not alone, because there’s even a movie titled with the same lyric and it revolves around four guys trying to figure out what the hell Steve Miller was talking about. To refresh your memory, the song starts out with this four-line opening:

Some people call me the space cowboy yeah

Some call me the gangster of love

Some people call me Maurice

Cause' I speak of the pompatus of love

The sheet music declares that it’s “pompitous,” the liner notes indicate that it’s “pompatus,” and there’s a contingent that believes the word is “puppetudes.” The characters in the movie try out “prophetess, profitless, impotence, pompous ass,” among others, but give up trying to find the one true answer.

And that’s the right thing to do. When a song’s lyrics contain a neologism that confounds so many people, perhaps it has fulfilled its mission. We play it over and over, desperate to make sense of it all, but finally just give in to the pleasure of hearing the words. I’m no song writer (trust me on that one), but if I wrote a song that mystified everyone for decades, I would be a very happy camper.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept and at BoomSpeak. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.