Punks lost in time

Generation without a definition still remembers. Quietly

O'Connell, Joe.

Austin American Statesman; Austin, Tex. [Austin, Tex]. 12 Jan 1995

My signed Devo collectible.

Talk about a lost generation. At 34, I'm in a bracket the pop culture moguls forgot to define. I'm a baby boomer, you say? Technically, since I was born before that arbitrary cutoff line of 1964. But isn't that a group of '60s radicals who grew their hair long, popularized bell-bottoms and listened to the Beatles?

Sorry, the '60s opened with me in diapers and ended with me transformed into an avid collector of Monkees bubble gum cards. Sure, I listened to the Beatles. My sisters and I turned the transistor radio up loud and rocked until nap time. Groovy. As for protests, the closest I came was the third-grade play. My dead-on impersonation of President Lyndon Johnson got me the role of a lifetime: the commander-in-chief who died of air pollution. Ah-choo.

A member of Generation X? Those born in 1961 and later? I think not, dude. Douglas Copeland, the author who popularized this most annoying of terms, might be about my age, but just mentioning a transistor radio should disqualify me. That and not having a tatoo or a pierced nipple. And Xers did the unforgivable by glorifying the '60s, Boy George and disco (though they had to dub it "trash disco" to qualify it as kitsch).

My recent experience with a member of the angst-ridden group of twentysomethings should close the case. Here's the scene: I had a need only she could fill. Thirty minutes after phoning her, she knocked on my door. I welcomed her supple frame into my humble abode. God, she smelled spicy. Her eyes lit up as she spied the high-tech electronic gear in my living room. It was clear I had her attention. I waited for the adoration to flow from her lips. "A turntable?" she squeaked. "You have records? Cool. I've read about those." I was afraid she might report me to the MTV police, so I quickly ended our discussion. I gave her cash, took the pizza from her nubile hands and drowned my sorrow in pepperoni.

So, if I'm not a Boomer and not a Buster, what I am? This is the question that perplexes those of us caught in that hazy line between two generations of bell-bottoms wearers. Oh, we hide it well. Those of us who made it into corporate America with only nicks and bruises claim to be cash-hungry baby boomers and try to look enthusiastic when those Woodstock and Vietnam tales come up again and again ("Charlie let off a blast that tore my sergeant's head off. We just loaded up the bong again and grooved").

The hazy-liners who got caught in the crunch of tough economic times - recent studies show that all of the boomers EXCEPT those on the tail end of the generation are doing just fine financially, thank you - have learned to love grunge and have tried to hide the fact that those trendy flannel shirts we're wearing have been in the backs of our closets (where the button-downs are now) since high school. We pretend to welcome the disco revival and don't admit we only tolerated it the first time to get laid.

We've been living a lie, and it's time to come clean. We're not baby boomers and we're not Generation X. To both of you we have this to say: Jim Morrison bores us. We refuse to wear Birkenstock sandals. Eating a hamburger and fries occasionally is not a mortal sin. Your two generations combined gave us political correctness and Neil Young. Take it all; we're fed up.

My generation's problem is a lack of definition. We contain traits from both of our better-publicized cousins, but we are different. If music defines a generation, then call us the Wavers or the Punks. We came of age in the late '70s and early '80s listening to the Sex Pistols, Devo, Talking Heads, the B-52's, Elvis Costello, the Ramones, etc. Austin Punks still long for the days when the Huns, the Standing Waves and the Skunks drove us to a pogoing frenzy at Raul's and Club Foot. We took from our era's music an attitude, a swagger that said "authority sucks, but just a little."

The Kennedy assassination (sorry, I don't remember where I was then; probably getting potty-trained) defined the boomer youth; Xers' adolescence was indelibly marked by Reagan's colon surgery. Punks were weaned on Nixon and Watergate. Think about it.

Punks were sexually promiscuous before AIDS hit, then we calmed down and kept our mouths shut. We have no problem with the concept of making money, after all, most of us voted for Reagan (we were drunk at the time). But we want more meaning from life than a 40-hour-a-week grind can provide. We waited, and some still are waiting, to get married out of fear of repeating our parents' failures. We are artists and stock brokers. We're probably a lot more liberal or a little more conservative than you imagine us.

Who are the Punks? Woody Harrelson is a prime example. He made a career out of playing a dumb guy on Cheers, but it was all an act. George Stephanopoulos is a Punk, but you already knew that. Remember the Brat Pack: Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy? Punks one and all. Jerry Seinfeld is stretching the age limit, but his television show is 100 percent Punk: It's all about nothing. Ditto for Ellen DeGeneres. In fact, television in general is Punk, everything except The Brady Bunch, which the Generation Xers have stolen from us and turned into pop art.

Michael Jordan and Carl Lewis are the Punks of sports, but don't tell them I told you. Spike Lee brought our preteen years to the big screen in Crooklyn, and Austinite Richard Linklater glorified our late '70s high school days in Dazed and Confused, but Pulp Fiction's Quentin Tarantino is the Punk who really understands the way we talk and think.

Suddenly we're everywhere, and it is time for the Punks of the world to stand up and be counted. We demand a voice equal to that of the boardroom boomers and the bored Xers. It is time for a publicity campaign to define a generation that can hum the theme song to Room 222 and still worships the Frito Bandito. Soon every magazine and newspaper you read will be brimming with the trials and defining moments of our unique generation. It'll be enough to make you sick.

Joe O'Connell, a graduate student at SWT teaching freshman English, still thinks Pong was a cool video game.