me: why am i so obsessed with rick owens lately?

my brain: i know why you're so obsessed with rick owens lately

Adam asked me, "Have you ever known anybody who was like, really into KISS," in a dubious way that implied this hypothetical person was more of a cryptid to him, and I was like, are you kidding? I can name multiples. Abundant friends and acquaintances. He looked at me like I had sprouted three heads. And I said, dude, come on. I am an honorary gen Xer at this point. A gen Xer by association. You know the company I keep. Any guy who listens to guitar bands and was exposed to "Detroit Rock City" at the tender age of 13 very likely underwent a permanent spiritual conversion. KISS is to a whole cohort of suburban American dads what Taylor Swift is to a terrifying swath of fanatical young women. Their loyalty is unwavering.

There's something i need to get off my chest, dear followers (and random people & tech savvy cryptids that stumble upon this blog of wonders blindly).

So, I'm about to turn 35 which puts me in the oldest couple years of the notorious & dreaded millenial generation. We are a generation that has watched the rise of the internet & cellphone tech (we got dial up in on our family shared home computer when I was 12 & I got my first cell, a nokia brick, when I was 16 because I had a job & could pay for it). I was 16 when the attack on the twin towers happened. We are a generation that has just accepted that the generations before us ruined things just enough to leave us shafted when it comes to employment, wages, and housing while complaining that we aren't thanking them for giving us the opportunity to be alive. We've come to terms with the fact that it's just how it is. Those are the card we were dealt & we try to work with them to scrape by. Some do better than others, but most of us are & always have lived paycheck to paycheck with considerable debt, constantly terrified of a major unexpected event that could ruin us at any moment.

Some of us are the ones raising gen z (some of the gen xers are, too, but this isn't about them). I personally have a gen z kid, The Spawn, who turns 16 this weekend. Now, being the type of approachable, laid back, open parent I am has afforded me some privileges that other parents might not be so lucky to have. I am introduced to all the friends. They all add me on snap or Instagram, send me memes & funny stuff, and casually talk to me about their lives, problems, thoughts, & views. I'm included in the social circle as an honorary member & they gather at my house regularly & often spur of the moment.

I love this because it gives me an inside look at their thought process, values, attitudes, and code of ethics. I've gotta say, guys, they give me hope for the future. This group of young people is so fascinating, funny, and outright brilliant that I'm 100% sure they will do amazing things, big things, as adults.

Because they've had easy, fast internet access from the start & most have had it in the palm of their hand since middle school (11 yrs old) if not earlier, they've had constant access to all that it offers, including information. They are always up on current events, news, & issues society is facing. They feel very strongly about things.

This generation is kind, compassionate, empathetic, and has a strong sense of social justice. They won't bully someone having a panic attack or going through a depressive episode, chosing instead to go out of their way to try to help them through it. I can't tell you the number of times middle school aged The Spawn popped into my room when her phone curfew was approaching to ask for an extension because a friend was considering self harm & she wanted to keep talking to them to make sure they stayed safe. They help each other, even when they don't know each other well. (Obviously there are exceptions to this, and everything I've said/am saying here but this is my overall generalized view of these kids based on my experiences interacting/observing them at home, online, & in public.)

But they are also witty, funny, & surprisingly nihilistic. They are all convinced that the world as we know it, humanity, will end in their lifetime so... fuck it. If they feel someone is doing harm or has wronged society, they seek justice but in a way that amuses them. At least half of what these kids do is for their amusement. For the LOLs. The best example I can think of currently that is widely known is the incident recently where a bunch of teens got together & obtained thousands of tickets for a Trump rally in Oklahoma. They knew he wouldn't be able to resist bragging about the projected attendance numbers based on tickets given out/sold. They also knew he would be a laughingstock when a significantly smaller number of people turned up. So they said "Fuck it. This will be hilarious & he has ruined our country."

And they were right. He bragged about the 100k+ tickets distributed for the rally. A little over 6k people actually attended. It was shared across the internet.

Multiple groups of these kids in my area coordinated corona relief efforts, mask creation & donation, food & supply drives, peaceful marches for BLM (just as they did for gay rights prior to Texas' legalization of gay marriage). I overheard them on a group call talking about using their fresh driver's licenses to help people get out to polling stations to vote out here in November. The Spawn & her friends have discussed accessibility issues for those this disabilities multiple times.

The kids aren't content to do what my generation has done & just accept how things are & manage. They want change and they are already willing (& attempting) to do something about it before they've even reached adulthood because they are already so aware of the issues within our society & our government.

So, in summary, I have hope for the future because gen z is full of kind, compassionate, empathetic, socially conscious, driven, brilliant, tech savvy kids who dole out their own form of very entertaining justice and don't give a single fuck if they piss of the people they feel have wronged them, or their community as a whole.

I couldn't be more proud of them or more hopeful for the future.

Friendly reminder that there’s a whole generation that happened between the Baby Boom and the start of the Millennial cohort. Millennials, y’all used to be called “Generation Y” because you were too young for anyone to have figured out yet what characteristic or event defined you well enough to name you after. The placeholder for Millennials was “Generation Y” because they were the generation after “Generation X”. Guess which of us never even got the courtesy of an actual descriptive name? Forgetting that Generation X exists perpetuates our defining generational trauma. Please don’t do that. Telling a Gen Xer that we’re cool enough you think of us as “honorary Millennials” implies that our actual generational identity is so insignificant -- or shameful -- that merely distinguishing us from everyone else our age in your minds is a compliment. Please don’t do that. There are 65 million Gen Xers, all of whom are neither Boomers -- they outnumbered us and screwed up our lives long before we started giving birth to the middle onward of the Millennial generation, and we resent them every bit as much as you do and have about 20 years’ more practice at it -- OR Millennials -- who tend to treat things we lived through as ancient history, or get chunks of it wrong because the educational system teaches revisionist history. Before the housing market crash you’re still trying to survive, there was a boom; before that boom, there was another housing crisis. In 2008, the New York Times commented that “Economic distress signals are not nearly as widespread as they were in the early 1990s...” but also warned that “Although the local job market has not been battered by widespread layoffs as it was in the early 1990s... the housing market [c]ould suffer more this time because of the reckless lending practices that allowed so many people to buy homes with little or no money down.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/nyregion/03property.html) Not only is this our second housing crisis, it’s the third unemployment/economic recession/crisis we’ve lived through. And the most recent housing crash? Those “reckless lending practices” (predatory lending practices) were the first opportunity a lot of Gen Xers had to buy a home instead of renting apartments for another decade or two while our Boomer parents called us “irresponsible”, and we lost our homes in the crash, too -- except a lot of us had families by then. I fully support taking a look around you and saying, “This shit is fucked up and we are not the ones who fucked it,” but I won’t stand by and let you think you’re the first generation still living to have gone through this bullshit. There are 65 million people who aren’t Boomers and weren’t around to start this tire-fire (but have been living through it right alongside you) and yet aren’t Millenials and have seen it before and fought it before. Please, for fuck’s sake, stop forgetting we exist, or erasing our existence to declare us “honorary” allies or enemies, and see us for what we are -- our own generation, already experienced in surviving being screwed over by Boomers, well-versed in their tactics, and with decades of tricks up our sleeves to survive and resist it. And this thing about being the first generation to rely on the Internet, the first generation to struggle in the post-Boomer economy, and so on? That’s erasure. You aren’t. Gen X is. These are facts. Those are our lives you’re saying didn’t happen. Sixty-five million lives. You outnumber us four-to-three. Our parents outnumbered us, too, and that’s part of what left us all in this mess -- the generation immediately ahead of you didn’t have the numeric strength, quickly enough, to prevent the damage before it was already entrenched in our government, our laws, and our political discourse. There simply weren’t enough of us, even once we were all of voting age -- and that means right up to the year before the earliest Millennials were able to vote -- to vote down the Boomers’ toxic policies based on warped worldviews. You outnumber us even more than they did. If you insist on lumping us in with the Boomers just because you don’t like “middle-aged people”, we can’t stop you. If you insist on redefining us as “honorary Millennials” because you don’t dislike us, we can’t stop you from -- again -- painting our entire generation as the unlikeable bad guys you’ve decided to single out the few good ones from. You outnumber us about four-to-three. You outnumber us more than the Boomers did when we were unable to keep them from fucking the economy, the planet, the government, and the global political environment to make themselves comfortable. If you want to erase us completely to make yourselves comfortable, we probably can’t stop you from doing that, either. But please don’t. That’s a very Boomer thing to do.

INTERVIEW: School’s in Session for Generation X’s New Class

This April, Marvel Comics launches its ResurrXion line of books, which will find most of the X-Men going back to the dream their founder, Charles Xavier, had for them. However, there are some mutants whose powers and personalities disqualify them from being ambassadors between mutantkind and humanity. These misfit mutants — Quentin Quire, Eye-Boy, Benjamin Deeds, Bling, Nature Girl and new character named Nathanial Carver — take center stage in May’s “Generation X,” by writer Christina Strain and artist Amilcar Pinna.

RELATED: Generation X-Plained – Who’s Who At The X-Men’s New School

In addition to following the adventures of these new and fan favorite teenage mutants, “Generation X” will also feature a connection to the original volume of the series from the ‘90s in the form of former mutant, current vampire and single mom Jubilee, who will serve as a mentor to the Xavier Institute’s special class. We spoke with Strain about how her cast will relate to the Xavier Institute’s other classes, the types of adventures they’ll have, and the role Jubilee’s former Gen-X teammate Chamber will play in the series.

CBR: One of the most interesting things I about your cast is that it’s sort of the misfit class of the new Xavier Institute. Is this series sort of an underdog tale? What kind of relationship will your characters have with the students on the tracks to become the next generation of X-Men or next generation of mutant ambassadors?

Christina Strain: I dunno if it’s so much of an underdog tale as… an ensemble identity tale? It’s way more “The Breakfast Club” than it is “Bad News Bears.” And my emotional touchstone for this book has been that feeling you get in college, after you’ve switched majors one or two times, when you suddenly realize that adulthood isn’t just looming, it’s all up in your face. As for rivalries, this division is new for everyone, so it’s not like there’s already some pre-established nerd/jock pecking order within the classes — and I don’t plan on developing one. I’m just not interested in it. I’d rather explore what this development means for our characters and how they feel about it rather than spend too much time on what’s going on with tertiary characters.

EXCLUSIVE: A look at “Generation X” #1 by artist Amilcar Pinna

Jubilee is your team leader/mentor figure. Can you talk a little more about what that means, what her duties are, and how she views them? Is she the team’s sole instructor?

Jubilee’s not their sole instructor, but she’s their primary, so she feels entirely responsible for them. She’s moved past being the plucky sidekick to become a mom, a teacher, a therapist and a guidance counselor. She’s basically got a baby and six teens she’s responsible for — that’s seven human beings she’s gotta keep alive and well. Seven. All with their own agendas that don’t always align with hers. It’s a lot to handle.

What’s your team’s overall dynamic? And what’s it like bouncing your various cast members off of each other and Jubilee? Are there any character interactions that are proving to be especially fun to write?

Most of them know each other (some better than others), but they’re far from a tight knit crew. As you’d expect, they’ll start bonding over time. And honestly, they’re all fun to write, so I don’t really have a clear-cut favorite yet. Off the top of my head, three friendships that I’ve really enjoyed exploring are Quentin Quire and Benjamin Deeds, Lin (Nature Girl) and Trevor (Eye-Boy), and Jubilee and Jono (Chamber).

Quentin’s so garbage at expressing himself that it’s been super entertaining coming up with “nice” things for Quentin to do for his roomie, “Benji.” It’s like watching a feral cat trying to strike up a friendship with a confused alpaca. And then with Trevor and Lin, she’s the only person he can’t see through and he’s the only human who’s ever tried this hard to understand her, so they have this fascination with each other that’s interesting. And Jubilee and Chamber just have this familiarity with each other that no other relationship has because they’ve been through so much together. They don’t have to try to understand each other, they just do.

EXCLUSIVE: A look at “Generation X” #1 by artist Amilcar Pinna

What’s it like juggling your cast of characters? Who are some cast members that will step into the spotlight in your initial issues?

Oh, it’s been a pleasure juggling this batch of weirdos. They’re all so different that I just have a really good time bouncing them off of each other. Some of the relationships sing, and others are walking disasters. I love it.

Initially, as I’m sure most people can guess, Jubilee and Quentin get a lot of panel time. The first two issues focus on them but after that, we sort of round robin through the rest of the group. Issue 4 has a nice Roxy (Bling) storyline that I like and issue 5 has a bit of focus on Trevor. Basically, everyone’s gonna get their moment to sparkle.

What else can you tell us about the tone, scope, scale, and sort of genres of your cast’s initial adventures?

Oh man. I have such a hard time with these sorts of questions… Tonally, I mean, the easiest book for me to compare it to is “Runaways.” But I’m not half the writer Brian [K. Vaughan] is, so… let’s not compare them too closely? Basically, it’s a misfit teen book with a bit of heart, a lot of weird, and a tongue-and-cheek sense of humor.

What kind of antagonists will “Generation X” initially be up against? Is this a series where supervillains will play a regular and significant role?

It’s going to vary. Right off the bat you’ll see some Purifiers and then — that’s all I’m going to say, because I reeeeeallly don’t want to spoil too much. Some villains will be more significant than others, and you will see some recognizable faces. There may even be some problems erupting internally. You’ll just have to wait and see.

Fair enough. What can you tell us about the settings you’ll play with in “Generation X?”

EXCLUSIVE: A look at “Generation X” #1 by artist Amilcar Pinna

We’re doing a lot on school grounds, in Central Park, and NYC. As of right now, I don’t really see them straying too far from the school because they don’t need to go too far for things to go pear-shaped, but we’ll see. Some of of their locations are going to be dictated by story and we’re still in early days. I do have one arc planned that’ll definitely take Jubilee and Chamber away from the school, but that’s all I’m going to say about that for now.

I first became aware of Amilcar Pinna via his work on “All-New Ultimates,” and I really enjoy the expressiveness of his characters, his design work, and his ability to convey a tone. What’s it like working with Amilcar? What do you enjoy most about his style?

Amilcar’s a dream. He’s nice and so enthusiastic about the book and it really comes through in the pages. Seriously, issue one looks so good. He makes me want to be a better writer. And beyond Amilcar’s expressive and dynamic style, he’s easy to work with. He’s receptive and eager for notes and I could seriously just hug him to bits.

The weirdest part about writing comics for me has been giving notes to pencilers. As a former colorist, of course I have thoughts on what does and doesn’t make the storytelling on a page successful — but it was never my place to give those notes before now. So when Amilcar turns in these amazing thumbs and I have notes, I always wonder if I’m being weirdly nit picky, but he’s so open to hearing them that he calms me right down. I love him.

Finally, the Xavier Institute gives you the opportunity to have a number of X-Men make guest and cameo appearances in “Generation X.” But what about the rest of the Marvel Universe? Any interest in or plans for guest star appearances by other Marvel characters?

The school will be populated, you will get weird little snippets of what’s going on in other student’s lives, and there will be cameos/guest appearances by other mutants. Especially the younger mutants and previous Gen Xers. In the first issue alone, you’ll see Chamber, (who honestly might as well be the honorary eighth member of Gen X) Broo, Pixie, Glob Herman, Genesis, Graymalkin, Anole, and several others running around. As as for what’s going on in the rest of the Marvel Universe, I really want it to be a book newer readers could pick up and enjoy so I’d like to keep “Generation X” as self contained as possible. But who knows? I haven’t written the whole thing yet!

EXCLUSIVE: A look at “Generation X” #1 by artist Amilcar Pinna

EXCLUSIVE: A look at “Generation X” #1 by artist Amilcar Pinna

The post INTERVIEW: School’s in Session for Generation X’s New Class appeared first on CBR.com.

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Welcome to Chapter 8 of my blog-to-book project: Life After High School: Secrets To A Successful Life By Those Who Have Had Twenty Years To Think About It (or) What They Didn’t Teach Us Gen Xers In High School. This chapter is called The Apartment. If you missed the last post, click here, otherwise, you can start at the beginning here.

I decided to get out of the dorm and get my own place. The Apartment was on 43rd and Brooklyn in the University District. It was a fantastic top floor condo with a view of downtown. I lived there for something like thirteen years, with all kinds of roommates on and off. At one point my “sister” (cousin) Stacie was a roommate. She was doing well at the time with a great job but partied a bit hard at night. I did what I could to be supportive. At another point, I had five roommates in the one-bedroom apartment. I lived in the closet, all in the name of saving money and helping friends out. Scott stayed there during our monk years, where he prayed all day, and I measured all my food for the Zone diet and studied. We did not talk and we did not party for a year.

The funniest time at the apartment could fill another few chapters with stories. Scott’s brother Jon was a roommate, but we never saw him. He had a pair of shoes that lived in the corner of the room, with jeans and a shirt folded on the top. That represented Jon. Their younger brother Ryan was our butler, and literally had a list of chores to do every day in exchange for rent. When you have five guys with drunk friends coming over it was an endless job. The toilet alone required a Hazmat suit and a set of three-foot prongs to clean it without being exposed to the nuclear filth. Luke Pinnow lived there and worked at Trader Joe’s and for a short time the gym I worked in. He graduated high school the year after us. Luke was later a minority partner and employee of the gym I opened up in 2005, which probably ruined our relationship. One of my friends from the dance department, Michael Bilikas, who also majored in a bunch of science stuff and Greek, and took nearly as long as Scott McKinstry to graduate, used to run big events at the Show Box downtown, and the crazy nightlife kept him on his cell phone late into the night. He used to fall asleep sitting up with the TV blaring. He later went to NYU dental school. Of all the roommates over the years, 9-Ball was the funniest roommate by far.

Formally John “9-Ball” Angus, who later legally changed his name to “Jawn” Angus, was in a phase of his life that one might call the partying years. To me, he was just full of life and living every moment. Others might call him a drunk. To me, he was a friend and a very interesting roommate. One day, he invited the homeless man who sat out on University Way Northeast, colloquially known as The Ave. The man went by the name of Bear and had a hook for a hand. He had a cardboard sign he would proudly display next to his can (pun intended) as he sat with the other Ave Rats waiting for a handout. His cheeky sign read, “It’s For Beer.” At least he was an honest bum.

Now, I prefer to view 9-Ball’s invitation an act of generosity, charity, and as philanthropic humanitarianism. One could also make an argument that he was just doing it for a laugh or as a bizarre social experiment, perhaps to see if the man could out drink him.

Upon arriving back home that day, I was surprised to see 9-Ball and Bear hosting a poker party. I can’t remember for sure, as many of those parties were a little hazy in my memory banks, but I seem to recall cigars and several other gentlemen from our usual crowd. The apartment had become an episode of Cheers, but Norm sitting at the end of the bar had been replaced by a homeless derelict who indeed could drink everyone else under the table… And he did.

After that, Bear became an honorary member of the Stoddard Tenement House, and his hook became our crest.

It was an amazing time. There were women in the place here and there (I am so sorry for those poor souls), but the primary players were a motley crew of young men somehow loosely connected to one of the tenants. In addition to those formally paying rent, there was a cast of characters that rounded out the mix.

My childhood friend Gary Hunter, a math genius who went to Whitman college, would come over and help organize the poker parties and bring exotic liqueurs, food, and cigars. He was on his way to becoming a successful bond trader and highly sought-after analyst of some kind. He worked for Washington Mutual Capital Corporation before the crash. I would go and visit him when I was working at the 5th Avenue Theater on our lunch break. Gary always has at least two computer monitors in front of him at all times. There is a legal statute somewhere that says that whatever is on the monitors must be at least three years ahead of everyone else and at least thirty IQ points above my head. Gary is one of those people who saw the crash coming and warned me, but I bought swamp land in Florida anyway (literally and figuratively) and lost my shirt. Years later, real estate investment trusts and really smart people in California pay Gary a lot of money to be smarter for them as he sits in his underwear in his living room. To be honest, no one really knows what Gary did or does. From what I have been able to deduce, Gary creates Excel spreadsheets that other people use to try to figure out other spreadsheets, that analyze things that other people try to figure out using spreadsheets that Gary made. There is then a bunch of smart people who ask Gary when they should jump and how high, and then somehow at the end of it all some guy in Rhode Island ends up owning twelve apartment buildings for a nickel.

Another friend I met at the gym, Nick Lacy, was an African-American singer and club hopper who I loved dearly and somehow ended up at the club Neighbors with. I did not know what Neighbors was when I went, and it made it that much more interesting. I grew up very fast in those years. I dated Tania, who’s family was from Mexico and was an exceptional Salsa dancer that I met at the University of Washington Ballroom Dance Club. We went out dancing all the time for several years. The culmination of our relationship was a bronze in the Seattle ballroom dance competition. We tried for a while, but it wasn’t meant to be. That was that and she moved to Australia.

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Nick’s buddy (who I shall not name to protect the innocent), would come over already high and looking to get more stoned. He had completed a master’s degree in a very competitive program at the UW, and now was doing nothing with it. One time, at the end of a long drawn-out soirée, he couldn’t find any more beer in my fridge. He looked at a half-empty (which he saw as half-full) glass of beer that someone had put a cigar out in, and with only a brief pause, shrugged his shoulders and chugged it down, ashes and all. These were lengths to which one would go to keep the party going at the Stoddard Tenement House.

Those years ended abruptly when the owner of the condo, an airline pilot with a stressful life, suddenly passed away from a heart attack. His wife and daughter were in shock and mourning, and I knew they wanted the daughter to be able to stay there, as she was a college student too. I decided it would be for the best if I just moved out to get out of their way. I had a deposit all wrapped up in a new building up the street that was already past the opening deadline and kept postponing. I had nowhere to put my stuff, so I stored some of it downstairs in the laundry room and some of it out in the alley behind the building in our garage space that was not at all secure.

What seemed like an act of courtesy turned into very bad timing. A few hours before I was to move out, we were all having one last little get-together. 9-Ball noticed some young punks in the alleyway four stories below who were mouthing off and throwing insults at us through the window. 9-Ball very correctly set the young hooligans straight and they fled the scene, not knowing that they would throw something much worse than insults in a matter of hours. We left the apartment to finish our work (I literally had to go work at University Fitness) and I came back later that evening to find splattered egg all over the walls of the living room. Somehow, he had insulted the next pitcher for the mariners or something, because that kid had an arm like a cannon. Either that or they had some kind of deadly accurate egg gun. I realized we had left the windows open on that hot evening and from four stories below, these kids had managed to launch those eggs through our windows and all over our walls, destroying the paint.

The others were gone, and all I had with me was the newest roommate on the scene, Andrew from the dance department. Andrew had just moved in and never even knew any of the other guys and yet from the goodness of his heart, he stayed with me that evening to paint the entire living room and clean up the mess. He lasted most of the night, and I pulled the rest of the all-nighter and finished the job. I turned the keys in and went to the gym the next morning. Without a home, the backroom at the gym became my new living space. I worked during the day, and then pleaded with Fahreed, who started at eleven, not to tell the boss that I was sleeping there. I am not sure if the boss would have cared, but I felt ashamed. Fahreed’s shift would end at five in the morning and I would start. It was a strange time.

Years later, after acquiring a well-paying oil refinery job, no doubt with help of his sheer charisma, 9-Ball began to travel to exotic locales in order to help with the expensive process of the winding down of refineries. On location in a tropical setting, he was a major car accident that should have taken his life. Swearing to become changed man, he swore off his previous lifestyle, including all drinking, purchased a race bike, and became an avid marathon runner and tri-athlete. I visited him once when he lived on Alki in Seattle, to see his many ribbons and accolades lining his wall when he was running an average of one marathon per month. He was lean and sinewy and truly embodied a new man. He legally changed his name to Jawn Angus.

Farewell 9-Ball, your memory shall forever be cherished and worshiped by the suppliant Ave Rats and Bums of University Way North East. Thus is the tale told by descendants on the Ave who’s cardboards signs now read, “It’s For 9-Ball,” and who wear pendants and various pieces of flair, all with the image of a hook on them.

In the next post, I will continue with more interesting interviews.

Are you from Generation X? I want to hear what you think! Please comment below and participate in the conversation about What They Didn’t Teach Us Gen Xers In High School. What do you wish someone told you when you were eighteen?

Life After High School: Chapter 8 The Apartment Welcome to Chapter 8 of my blog-to-book project: Life After High School: Secrets To A Successful Life By Those Who Have Had Twenty Years To Think About It