Prescription Drugs

I often wonder what people with ADD were up to for the last 3,000 years without the properly prescribed medication.

What was the percentage of hobos in 1700 that had ADD? What famous people of old do we venerate today that had ADD? Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, John the Baptist. These guys totally had ADD.

I bet if you gave Mozart Adderall, he would have wound up writing bank notes for his father-in-law by the age of 20 while his piano collected dust in the attic. What if Emily Dickinson took Zoloft? What if Nietzsche dropped Diazapam? What would you set the egg timer to on Abraham being sent to an internist that bills on repeat treatments?

Now I'm not saying that no one needs medication, I just hate to think that the Baby Boomers are creating a world where the individual is artificially conformed through meds. The Baby Boomers loved being different when they were young -- and then they went out to make us all the same.

Pools In the Outfield

America's game, baseball, used to be played in America's temple, the ballpark. A diamond-shaped field surrounded by 40,000 seats, a few dozen latrines, more hot dog vendors than you could shake your wiener at and enough overpriced beer to make you forget about the heartburn. But not anymore.

Baby Boomers got their grubby tentacles on the American Temple and turned it into an Entertainment Complex. That's why Chase Field in Arizona has a swimming pool in a place that should have the most choice seats in the stadium -- the center field stands (see picture). That's why AT&T Park in San Francisco has the Old Navy Splash Landing, where the public is invited to paddle into the San Francisco Bay just outside the stadium -- not to watch the game, of course, but to catch a Barry Bonds baseball that can be monetized in minutes on eBay.

This is not a circus. This is not Nickelodeon. This is not Japan.

Here, baseball is holy, and although swimming pools might belong in cul-de-sacs in fake communities somewhere in the Arizona desert, they don't belong in the major league baseball stadium down the road.

Watch the game, kid. Pick up a scorecard. Watch the grass grow, and get the fuck out of the pool.

Internships

Internships, perhaps the most overlooked Baby Boomer scam. This is a prototypically fraudulent, bullshit way for Baby Boomers to secure free young labor with absolutely no promise of future employment, little or nothing in the way of wages and only passing cooperation from universities that sometimes force their students to actually pay to participate in internship programs.

Whatever happened to apprenticeships, with the cobbler passing on his skill to the next cobbler? What about spending time with a younger hire and passing one's knowledge to him or her? No longer. Now, the cobbler's apprentice makes double-binded photocopies of expense reports and just ends up getting a different job out of college with the benefit of having a lone skill -- organizing Microsoft Word documents alphabetically.

Thanks, Baby Boomers, for inheriting a system based on mutual appreciation and loyalty, exploiting what you could from your parents' careers, and hoarding it all for yourselves without leaving anything behind for those who came after you.

Thanks for leaving us as a generation with no substantive experience in any true skill, so all we're left to do is blog about how shitty you are.

And thanks, Bill Clinton, for cutting through all the euphemisms and literally ejaculating on an unpaid intern's clothing.

Now can you sign this form so I can get 3 credits?

Mega-Churches, a.k.a. "Happiness Companies"

Who can forget everyone's personal favorites: "Shout to the Lord! All the earth, let us sing!" and "This is the tiiiiiiiiiiiiime -- for woooooooooorship!" Yes, it's the classic three-disc, original recording, remastered, special edition "Songs 4 Worship."

If you want to feel good about yourself, it's between that, a Tony Robbins book-on-tape or some DVD where Suze Orman is yelling at you. But what if you could combine being individually happy with the self-satisfaction of belonging to a mass belief system?

Welcome to the mega-church.

I don't know if you've ever heard of the Crystal Cathedral, located in Garden Grove, California. This might be the most extreme example of the American mega-church, but Google the shit out of it because it's mind-bogglingly ridiculous. I grew up two towns away from Garbage Grove, and you can see this monstrocity from almost any freeway in Orange County. Frankly, I have no idea what actual religion this church even belongs to. Sure, it's Protestantism of some sort, but I suppose I'm missing the big picture by getting all bogged down in the details.

The second link on the Crystal Cathedral's website, after "Visitors," is the bolded "Support This Ministry." FYI, it's only $400 per month for a year to become a member of the Diamond Eagles Club, and you get a cool eagle statue--fucking sweet!

Let me quote the Rev. Robert A. Schuller, the former nepotistic leader of said Crystal Cathedral: "'Those who wait upon the Lord whall renew their strength, They shall mount up on wings as eagles, They shall RUN and NOT grow weary, They shall WALK and NOT fain.' This verse, in a few short and very concise sentences, sums up, in a powerful way, the strength that YOU provide to our ministry with your prayers and financial support."

"And financial support"--ahh, three little words that can make all the difference. When I read the above verse from Isaiah, I know financial support is the first powerful thing I think about...besides prayer, of course. I said besides prayer, right? God, I SAID BESIDES PRAYER! And this $400 per month goes to the support of the Hour of Power, a TV program of that week's I'm-Gonna-Ramble-For-An-Hour-And-This-Didn't-Cost-Me-A-Dime sermon whose tagline is "Confident Living=Creative Living." What is confidence? What is creative? Help me Rev. Schuller cuz I've got none of it!

It's one thing to praise Jesus, it's entirely another to set up an organization employing an army of the exact same moneychangers Jesus felt so compelled to overturn. I know evangelistic organizations have been around in the U.S. for a long, long time, but never have we seen such an influx of tax-empt cashish.

Just like the hippies, these religious Baby Boomers have taken the bag of ideology and filled it with crisp $100 bills. As for what these mega-churches are bringing in, there's a lot of figures floating around out there, so I'll pass on an exact number, but let's just say Governor Pilate's head would explode.

And don't forget, get your favorite Jesus-sponsored recipes today.

The High School Prom

If you're a guy, hopefully the man upstairs helped you the month before the high school prom, or whatever else it may have been called (in my school, the underclassmen prom was called the "winter formal" -- different name, same pressure, except you're a freshman and still counting pubes).

So where is this pressure coming from? First, from your other duder friends. They're freshmen at that point, too--and, in retrospect, they don't know shit. But in reality, they're still at an age where the information they're absorbing comes from their Baby Boomer dads and moms and the one guy at school who has an older brother who tells stories.

It's a no-brainer that the stereotypical high school prom didn't happen until the 1950s--we all saw "Grease" and "Back to the Future," and we know those prom-induced boy-ask-girl restrictions continue into adulthood. Gender equality and the high school prom are inherent contradictions. Why spend 12 years teaching children that they're all exactly the same, only to throw in "prom king" and "prom queen" at the end of it all?

This is the paradox of the Baby Boomers: they tried to reject society's conventions and then they instituted many of those same conventions when they grew up. Stop imposing antiquated roles justifying your own childhood while at the same time demanding gender equality. I don't want to ask this girl out. The only thing I know about this chick is that she has chemistry third period. If I liked her I would have asked her to the movies months ago.

In the end, what does the guy get out of putting his tiny balls on the line and playing some gendered part that hopefully involves underage drinking? An awkward slow dance and pathetically late discovery that the girl you just spent an emotionally-charged month around likes some random dude that you didn't even know that she knew. It just gets worse as you get older, but at age 15 it's just plain ridiculous.

Coming May 2020: The 5th grade Spring Fling! Everybody gets laid!