I am not yet 50, but I got the letter already – the solicitation from AARP. Tossed it as fast as I could. But now I’m finding out just what being a member of the Biggest Generation really means. It means sales, profits and rock n’ roll, baby. Been doing a little research on this 37-million-strong group who is starting to crank up some ferocious fuzz box feedback.
Who’d have ever thought the AARP would be sponsoring the devil’s music? Yet here they are, cutting music and concert deals with James Taylor and Elton John, Earth, Wind and Fire — and more are coming. $750, anyone, to see Barbra sing and insult a fake George Bush on stage?
Baby Boomers won’t say bye-bye to their piece of the American Pie and they won’t let the marching band take the field, either. Old hippies aren’t truckin’ over like the dooda man into the right lane to let GenX, GenY and EchoBoomers pass. Marketers won’t let them. They’re carrying too much money in their Mercedes-Benzes with the upside-down peace signs for hood ornaments. Yeah, we just turned that old twisted symbol into a free bird pass to hang on forever.
Metallica, The Allman Brothers, The Rolling Stones – they’re all well into AARP territory. Heck, all the rock legends are way past Social Security time – Dylan, Eric Clapton, what’s left of The Doors, The Byrds, The Eagles and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I just saw a commercial for John Fogerty’s concert CD being sold by mail. That’s the new way to do it these days. Boomers buy that stuff like laxatives. Slim Whitman was a visionary. And it gets stranger than your grandmother wrenching her back while dancing to The Commodores on her iPod.
People my age are still the biggest music buyers in America, just like when James Taylor had hair and Alice Cooper was not Mr. Nice Guy. Who do you think is buying those CD’s at Starbucks? It’s not your teenagers; their music is free. We’re not talking piracy or iTunes here. We’re talking looney tunes. It’s crazy how the Age of Aquarius got so wrinkled, fat, bald, out of shape and surgically reconstructed, and still plays lead guitar on the big Stratocaster.
Our George Costanza wallets won’t fit in our old skin-tight Jim Morrison leather pants anymore, and our poochy girths are straining the slinky disco shirts, too. Maybe Mick Jagger can still strut a little on the odd years and Steven Tyler still looks like his face is running away from those lips, but you and me, pal, we’re not looking too hip or radical. Okay, we got the hip thing going – or rather the hip thing growing. Baby Boomers single-handedly created Dr. 90210 just to keep our faces, boobs and butts from mopping the floors. Google Jimmy Page and Robert Plant and tell me — did Lawrence Welk look better at their age?
It was cool and groovy when we were all living large in the Summer of Love and Keith was supposedly getting the drugs strained out of his system through blood transfusions and there was an overt (or backwardly played) message about love and peace and politics and rebellion. But what is the message now? Money, Money, Money, Money. How cool is it when we’re Rockin’ Rockin in the free world because we got the freebie from AARP? Open up the window, let some air into this room. I’m feel I’m almost choking’ from the smell of Icy Hot, Polygrip and Gold Bond Ointment? What’s after KY? WD-40?
As a Baby Boomer, will I be forced to listen to Don Henley and Glenn Fry singing about a girl in a flatbed Ford while being elevated onstage by a giant robotic Levitra logo? Are those AARP discounts, like cheaper car insurance, worth trading in our death grip on eternal youth? Are we going to rebel one more time before we hit the exit?
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.
