Retirement

When did retirement become an actual fucking concept? It's now practically an obligation and the barometer for most Americans' success in life, but only if you start investing in your early twenties in an IRA, 401K, RBA, LMB, SPA, etc.

Tell me, is being happy something you can only achieve after selling out for 40 years? Has Social Security convinced an entire generation that by the time they start to collect a federal check their time to work is over?

Social Security, initially a short-term concept, has become a psychological safety net for a generation that the FDR administration never even contemplated. Retirement was once only an option for the ante-bellum aristocracy, but somehow it's now been imputed to everybody--and when I say everybody, I mean the middle class.

Since Baby Boomers didn't realize their freedom in the Sixties, they decided to postpone it for forty years and call it retirement. They kept the stick, but made it longer and replaced that big carrot that actually grows in the ground with a bunch of those mini-carrots that come in a plastic bag. But it can only be realized if you avoid smoking, drinking, snorting cocaine, salt, car accidents and non-organic produce.

The feds are betting you won't make it, and once you do, the carrot probably isn't as orange as it once seemed.

Ken Lay

This guy is great. Man did he do it right. Sure, he's going straight to Hell, but damn he had a good run while he was with us here on Earth.

You've heard this before: born in the 40s, got his graduate degree at a time when that actually meant something and then went on to work for a giant company, Exxon, which, unbelievably enough, led to a government job.

Frankly, I have no idea how a job with Exxon would land you a job in Washington, but he somehow miraculously got involved in the private energy sector right before the feds deregulated it and then went on to form everybody's favorite bubble-bursting company, Enron. In 1999, he reportedly earned $42.4 million, which (after the footage I saw of some dude flying a winged jet pack over the English Channel) might be the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen or heard of. But don't leave! The best part of the story is yet to come!

After dumping all of his stock in Enron while simultaneously encouraging employees to buy more, he gets indicted on 11 counts by a federal grand jury and is later found guilty on ten of them. The really sad part is that at the tender age of 64, and only months away from starting to serve his sentence, he passed away from a heart attack while vacationing in the majestic sloping mountains of Colorado. Now that's justice.

Personally, I don't plan on living to 64 because I'm having a loan-related death. The Baby Boomers will have sucked up all of my health insurance, and I'd rather have my son be the beneficiary of my $100 monthly Social Security check so he can pay his $1,500 monthly student loan debt.

But I digress...basically, if there's a Hell, which I really don't hope or think there is, Ken Lay has got to be in it, right? Because if there isn't and he's not, then I'm really lost as to what the fuck this is all about.

Applebee's Neighborhood Bar & Grill

"Honey, can we go out for dinner tonight?"

"Yes, of course, darling."

"Something sit-down, faux-traditional and quick so I can make it back by seven o'clock for a five-millionth repeated episode of Law & Order?"

"Of course, dear! I know just the place!"

Yes, he's thinking of that family-owned corner restaurant that the Baby Boomers' parents patronized, minus the investments of time and money that Baby Boomers shun. The only thing neighborhoody about Applebee's is that there's one located in every neighborhood.

Apparently two dudes, Bill and T.J. Palmer, started the restaurant in 1980 under the name "T.J. Applebee's Rx for Edibles & Elixirs." Clearly Bill and T.J. were burned-out hippies that fell into some daddy-cash--and since it was originally named "T.J. Applebee's," I'm gonna assume it was T.J.'s daddy who had the bank roll. No doubt Bill was the "idea man".

After their second restaurant opened they sold it to a truly great American exploiter, W.R. Grace (anyone else bothered by the fact that the same company can operate a leather manufacturing plant and a restaurant at the same time?). Grace then sold it to IHOP, who will then sell it to some other giant company, who'll then divide that company up into other companies and then sell the "Apple's" but keep the "Bee's"--and then those two restaurants will compete for awhile and then Bee's will buy out Apple's and then in 50 years we'll all be eating at our neighborhood "Beeapple's."

Like the Baby Boomers, Applebee's figured out how to chew on the comforts of their parents' generation and spit out an exploited version to their kids' generation. They intentionally dupe their poor customers by having consultants (i.e., suits from corporate) fly in a week before each restaurant opening, copy some old high school football photos from the yearbooks they have stashed at the local library and then throw them up on the walls in Wal-Mart frames. Holy fucking lame.

In the end, Applebee's is just another example of how the Baby Boomers deify the little man, then conform to the big man. Because a hamburger and fries is so difficult to make that I wouldn't dare go to that new mom-and-pop joint a few blocks away. I demand crappy consistency!

Bill Clinton

Bill stormed onto the scene in 1992 as the personification of the Baby Boomers. Even to this day, if there were a face to the Baby Boomers, it would be his. Dragging an optimistic bag from the Sixties behind him, he espoused such sentiments as "I feel your pain" and "usually briefs."

Finally a guy with the same experiences as the voters! He grew up poor, dodged the draft, smoked doobies and now he's running for president. What a great story! And especially the contrast he offered against Bush 41, whom we can all presume was still having night-sweats about dodging kamikaze pilots and ending up in a Japanese POW camp.

But eight years after that election, Bill was blatantly lying to the public and feeding us such garbage as: "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." Sixteen years later, we almost fell for it again, as the Baby Boomer voting base nearly elected Bill Part 2, aka Hillary.

But the economy boomed during his administration, so what's the problem? Put some money in my wallet and I'll look the other way on all that other shit--it's the Baby Boomer creed! After all, it worked for Bill, right? That's why they ran wild in the Sixties and that's why they sold out in the Seventies. Hazy idealism was cool when they were young and wanted to get laid. But then they coveted that 8-track player that their rich buddy had, so it was: "Hey man, can you get me a job selling mutual funds?"

In "Audacity of Hope", Barack Obama writes: “In the back and forth between Clinton and Gingrich, and in the elections of 2000 and 2004, I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the baby boom generation--a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago--played out on the national stage.”

Personal politics at its core. Loyalty and rivalry above ideology. Bogus culture wars taken to the extreme. And great potential squandered by the ephemeral pleasure of a blow job from a near-teenager. Bill Clinton is not "a great man." Bill Clinton is a Baby Boomer.

Bud Selig

Oh, Bud--you douche bag of a commissioner. What happened to baseball being about the game? Wait, I know! Like your whole generation, you sold dignity down the river for cold, hard cash. Ding, ding, ding! And what do you get for sacrificing purity for money? A brand, spanking new contract through 2012, of course!

Yeah, sure you put your head in the sand when McGwire hit 70 steroid-induced home runs. Yeah, sure you force-fed an annual interleague Yankees-Mets series that 95% of the fan base couldn't care less about but now have to endure. Yeah, sure you created the Diamondbacks and Devil Rays*, two of the most unnecessary organizations in U.S. history, but as long as the owners are lining their pockets with luxury box money while across-the-board prices go up, hot dogs get steamed less and pitching goes down the tubes, then who cares?

And what's an even better way to increase revenue under the guise of competition? More games of course! Thanks for the wildcard playoff series, Bud. Absolutely fucking retarded. Remember in the old days when they played 154 games, two teams won the pennant (see "When Winning the Pennant Meant Something," by Your Grandfather), a World Series was played and all was said and done? No, of course you don't. Because that was before the Baby Boomers took over. So now it's 162 regular season games, two separate playoff series and THEN a World Series. It's December already. Bud, your cologne reeks like socialism.

The best part of your plan Bud is that even when it doesn't work, the money's still flowing. The worst part of your plan Bud is that when it doesn't work, you just throw up your hands and look like an idiot (see picture--Bud at tied 2002 All Star game). Who cares? No one, but the actual fan.

*Now "The Rays", because what better way to fix something that's broke but to do nothing but change the name and purify it by taking out "Devil". Bring back the Washington Bullets!