Aging Baby Boomers making us nuts...

Right before I married my wife, I had a big fixation with the Baby Boomer generation. I had just read the book '13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?' by Neil Howe and William Strauss and I was pretty obsessed with Baby Boomers.

If you don't know what Baby Boomers are, they are the generation of people born between 1946 - 1964. The authors of '13th Gen' separated the generations by 20 years, so they considered it 1941 to 1960. They listed Generation X as those born between 1961 to 1980. Until I read that book, I never really thought about generations and how others perceive them. It's a pretty interesting book. They basically laid out the realization that history dictates that one generation is given heaps of praise and expections while the one after or before that one is ignored and scorned. To that extent, this ran true for Gen Xers. The Baby Boomers were supposed to change the world and make it a better place. They sort of did, but the book lays out a lot of instances in which they make things a lot worse.

So I started noticing every time a newspaper article highlighted something that Baby Boomers tend to do. I would talk about it with my wife and she'd quickly get irritated because her parents are Baby Boomers and since she was in her early 20s, she never really gave it much thought. She would call me obsessed as I would rant about how much I hate the Baby Boomers.

One article talked about how a lot of women in their late 40s to early 50s are now dressing on the beach a lot more revealing than they used to. I guess they're making up for lost time. One woman is described as purring that it's very sexy. My question would be: to who? Certainly not to us younger people having to look at that. One article I just read said that Sophia Loren at 73 has curves that someone in their 20s would dream about and that people are still swooning over Paul Newman at 83. Who are these people that think this? Probably Boomers that are getting old themselves.

Another article I read talked about how Baby Boomers were going to change how retirement is done (even sexier!) and certainly current ads make you think that they are currently trying to do that.

As Boomers have gotten older, we've been overwhelmed by commercials that appeal to the Boomer lifestyle. They're easy to spot. Take this SUV commercial from a few years ago. We see a couple of Baby Boomers driving the larger model SUV through woods and forests. They are frantically trying to find something. At the end of the commercial, you get the pay off. The lady Boomer takes a snap shot of a wolf with her big telephoto lens. The message being that you deserve to own a big SUV because you have important things to do.

If you contrast that with a commercial from the same company aimed at Gen Xers, you see a different message. A Gen Xer couple is driving the smaller model SUV. They are arguing... about a hat. That's right. The woman hates the man's hat so she throws it out the window. He hightails after his hat in his SUV, jumps out, grabs the dusty hat and puts it on. The message? You're going to do stupid shit anyway because you're young, so why not do it in our sporty SUV?

Even to this day, the commercials aimed at Boomers are becoming more and more pointed that they are not just doing mindless pursuits. A current commercial shows a lady getting out of sporty vehicle and putting on a wet suit. The young hunks are checking her out. She then has three other girls, her daughters get out of the car. All four head to the beach with their surfboards. The message being that you're old, but still sexy even with three kids in tow. By the way, you still surf, so look how cool you've become! Nothing says sexy like young guys checking you out in front of your kids. Who's with me? Okay, that one isn't so annoying as wishful thinking. It wouldn't look so great to see how they probably use the vehicle: to get to work, go shopping, the movies and the golf course.

Every night we see commercials aimed at Boomers retiring, which is only natural because they're all getting old and the first crop of them just retired.

These commercials drive my wife nuts.

Rather than point out that they need to save money for retirement, the commercials again point out that being important people with important stuff to do, they shouldn't be happy just retiring. They need to open their own business! They need to build a sail boat out of scratch! They need to skydive! They need to ski!

One commercial even shows two aging couples flying to the middle of nowhere to go fishing. The guy then tells his buddy that they'll be able to do this whenever they want when they retire.

Isn't this supposed to be time when they're supposed to slow down a little? And does it always have to be overly complicated and dramatic?

Then again, it does make a little sense. After all, they were always labeled as the people that get things done. On the other hand, my generation is alway portrayed as the slackers that get by with minimal work, which I guess is sort of true. It's not that we don't like to work. We just don't want to work all the time.

But think about this, if you are going to retire, do you really want to start over in a new career like farming? Starting a small business is one thing, but these commercials have people launching major business investments when they are more likely to be complaining about their bad hips or the food poisoning on their latest cruise.

What I'm really looking forward to is when my generation gets near retirement age. The generations below mine are going to go nuts watching us take retirement to an extreme level. You'll see commercials where a skater is finally taking the next step and putting down the board. Then you'll see him opening a skate park or starting his own skate shop. You'll see old ladies partaking in roller derby just for kicks. You'll see old sky divers engaging in even more dangerous stunts because just because your life span is almost gone, doesn't mean your thrill of danger is, too. Instead of playing regular curling, seniors my age will be seen using themselves as the puck with their four buddies furiously sliding him or sweeping a path to knock out the other seniors. Instead of seeing us take trips to take pictures that no one will see, we'll take that trip so we can take stupid pictures or video of ourselves doing senseless stunts to post to You Tube.

I'm ready to start taking my extreme cruises where people my age climb the rock wall on deck, but rather slowly, which is fine. I can wait.

Lots of news: Sanjaya still alive. We get a cat. The Easter Bunny leaves an 'ipod' for Julia. Bill's still a jerk.

Sanjaya is still alive on American Idol after the vote tonight, which is infuriating my wife. She really, really hates that kid, but now there's another person in favor of him in our household

Last night, we were watching American Idol with our daughter, Julia. Normally, she doesn't watch what we watch because by the time Laura gets home when we watch our programs, Julia's already in bed. Tuesday night, Laura was home early, so we watched American Idol.

I documented how I'm firmly on board the vote for Sanjaya bandwagon. What's interesting in how popular he seems to be with little kids in an article I read. Sure enough, when Sanjaya hit the stage, Julia was fixated on him. She beamed, "He was good!" and declared, "The last guy was my favorite!" Keep in mind, she's never seen him before. I guess his smoldering, yet innocent looks eased her mind.

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We also have just gotten a cat today. As you know, our old cat, Moe, died a few weeks ago. Well, Laura couldn't take it any longer not have a cat that loved her and frankly, I couldn't take her not having one either because she seemed to openly resent any affection our other two cats, Murphy and Suzy, gave me.

So we picked out this cat tonight. He wasn't exactly our first choice (the one my wife was wanting was already gone), but it seemed like fate because he sprinted into our private room at the humane society. The volunteer said that the cat's sheet noted that he was a shy and timid cat. You could have fooled us. From the instant he was in the room, he was purring his heart out. While not the first choice, he definitely won Laura over, so it was homeward bound for him.

It was my duty to get the cat home, which turned out to be no easy feat. I placed his cardboard carrier box in the back seat with Julia. As soon as we started towards home, the cat was meowing and clawing at the box holes like crazy. Julia did her best at calming the poor thing, but he kept clawing. He managed to claw open a hole in the box and was starting to work on an escape when Julia grabbed one of her drawing notebooks and held it against the hole.

The cat stopped clawing while Julia held the notebook. Julia remarked, "Oh my gosh. This is the weirdest day of my life!"

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Speaking of Julia, the Easter bunny gave Julia an ipod. Well, it's not exactly an ipod. It's a Target-brand MP3 player, but it does the job.

We decided to get an MP3 player for Julia because she's been rather insistent that we listen to her music, which lately is a rotation of five songs played over and over. One of them is Queen's "Somebody to Love" that gets played on an continuous loop that drives you insane. So we got her the mp3 player to listen to. Now we get to hear her lovely singing, which makes us laugh as she mangles the lyrics to every song.

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Bill's still a jerk. For no reason... :)

Sanjaya on American Idol. I'm part of the problem...

Yes, I'll admit it. I watch American Idol, which isn't a far stretch since about 20 to 30 million people watch it every week.

I do remember that when I started watching it, I didn't really know if I would enjoy watching it, but I did. The singing coupled with the judges comments get you involved to the point where a person like me, who can't sing very well at all, is commenting during the show that someone is 'off key' or 'flat'.

In the past, I would watch in disgust as the least talented person in the competition would remain on the show while more talented people are voted off. Part of the reason for this happening is due to a site that sprung up four years ago called Vote For the Worst. Vote For the Worst's goal every week is to get all their readers to vote for the worst person and see how long they can keep them in the competition.

Initially, I was against this because I felt that it was unfair to those that were actually trying. Plus, it was keeping people that I hated to listen to around longer in the competition. This year, I'm embracing it.

Here's why. When I first started watching American Idol, I would be a little miffed when bad singers were chosen for the competition portion on the show. I would be even more annoyed when those singers continually made it through the competition while other, more talented singers went home.

Then I started to see the real picture. You see, American Idol really isn't about finding the most talented singer. If it was, they wouldn't subject you to the awful auditions during the audition weeks. If you do the math, it's literally impossible to hear every singer that shows up at the competition. They have thousands upon thousands of singers audition. Only a handful see the judges. It gets fishy when a lot of them suck really really bad, which means they are purposely chosen to sing for the judges, knowing that they are going to suck.

Sometimes, they take marginally talented people to go to the Hollywood tryouts. Then they take those marginally talented over more talented people for the real show (when it gets wittled down to the top 24) because they are prettier, more personable, or both. Why? Because they want variety. They want the bad singers. They want those with little range like a Sinatra-like singer trying to belt out Crocodile Rock or a Diva trying to sing a country song. They want the judges to wince and criticize because it adds variety.

Now that I've fully realized and accepted this I had a prediction when the show was whittling down singers to the final 12 that performs in front of the huge audience during the live show, that Sanjaya Malakar would make it to the top 12. Sure enough, to my wife's amazement, he did.

Why was I so sure? While he sucks, he has this very over the top charm that was sure to get him votes. Being half Indian doesn't hurt either as he gets the Indian vote. Getting a block of votes from an area or a segment of the population can take you far.

Two weeks ago, I started voting. We've voted in the past for certain contestants like Taylor Hicks (what were we thinking?), but never for the worst person. I decided to vote for him because of Vote For the Worst and for Howard Stern. Both want to see Sanjaya go far, which would be hilarious.

I voted about eight times that night for Sanjaya. My wife asked with a confused look, "Why are you doing this?"

I asked someone the next day at work if they watched American Idol. She said that she had and rattled off who she thought was good.

I proudly declared, "I voted for Sanjaya eight times."

A lady next to us whipped her head around so fast I thought she was going to pull a muscle.

"He's awful!" she said with a confused look.

"I know. It's funny."

That night, the results came and Sanjaya was safe. My wife looked over at me and in no polite terms threated me if I voted for him again. Normally, I don't take kindly to threats, but since I have to live with the threatener, I'm going to stop.

Besides, he's going to go far. This year, people are really fully embracing the vote for the worst guy mentality. He didn't even make the bottom three this week. Howard Stern had lots of his listeners calling in telling about how they voted hundreds of times for Sanjaya. Even Howard himself, who normally goes to bed at 9 pm stayed up late to vote for Sanjaya, all the while giggling.

Even my brother is voting for Sanjaya.

I think the time was right for someone like Sanjaya to get a movement behind him like this. It's not that people want mediocrity. I think that people are getting tired of the same formula that is American Idol. It's shaking things up.

They created this problem by purposely picking mediocre people amongst the two or three superior people. They alse created a problem wherein they ask people to vote for their favorite performer. This can splinter votes when a person that's like a superior performer gets voted off. Then the judges act shocked as if they can't believe that America did that.

Also, they don't show the voting numbers or ranks of the performers so you can't tell how well a person is doing. They want as many people to vote in each week, which isn't always possible.

If Sanjaya goes far, and I predict he will, you might expect some changes in American Idol. While the bad singers will still get in, I wouldn't be surprised if they started being more selective or even allowed people to vote for who they think should go home. That would solve part of the vote splintering problem