400’s

When you find your way up to the 400’s on my cable TV, there are about twenty or thirty music channels. Normally I don’t bother with music on the TV because my city is well provided with a multitude of various radio stations. There is always iTunes on the computer which I can stream through the TV and of course I can go old school with CD’s, cassette tapes, records and I even have an eight track boom box with a couple of 8-tracks. I suppose in a pinch I could break out the guitar or uke and make my own music, but no one, not even me, wants to listen to that. Past the 400’s there are a bunch of stations that are geared to different ethnic programs or American programs that have been dubbed into other languages.

I have mentioned before that for the most part I view music as a background to my life. I have favourite musicians and there are many songs that I will stop what I am doing and listen to, but for the most part I just like to have music in the background. Perhaps it keeps the evil thoughts from creeping into my brain. Perhaps the music keeps the loneliness at bay for a few minutes or hours.

I went up into the 400’s today to get non stop music unbroken by weather reports, commercials promising me the love of my life if only I choose eHarmony or some used up radio announcers views on pretty much anything. I actually wouldn’t mind filling out the eHarmony form, just to see if they actually could find the love of my life. I would need to get Louise’s permission, but what would I do with two loves of my life? That just seems selfish and just a little cruel to my number two love.

I picked Contemporary Adult and realized that although I am an adult, I was no longer “contemporary” according to the cable company. Nor am I “Pop Adult”, “Greatest Hits”, “Maximum Party”, “Adult Alternative” or “Urban Beat”, well I don’t think I am anyways. It is possible that I am some of the “Classic Rock”, “Flashback 70’s” and “Jukebox Oldies”. I wish they had a station called “Old Fart” because I would be sure some of that would be appropriate.

This is kind of distressing to me. For all of my life I have been part of the generation that the advertisers, businesses and government leaders wanted to suck up to. I am a “Boomer” and proud of it. That means my mom and dad had sex between 1946 and 1964, but really anyone born after 1959 are just posers. We dictated musical trends, fashion, the arts, automotive design and God knows what else. Incidentally, we held the purse strings being the wealthiest generation the world had yet seen. We wielded incredible political power and I hope that our generation made some changes for the good.

Now?

We are a generation that needs to be dealt with. We are becoming a logistical problem for whatever generation the current one is. I think they are going to have difficulty solving this problem because a lot of them can’t seem to keep their pants up where they are supposed to be. They need to start building more old folks homes and train up a bunch of really tolerant young nurses that don’t mind hearing “Why when I was young…” fifty times a day.

I don’t think I will venture into the 400’s anymore, it is just too depressing. Nope, I’m sticking with my 8 track…