Generation Gap

There used to be this term, generation gap, which described how one generation didn't understand the next generation. Perhaps the biggest gap in the US (of recent years) occurred between those who had their formative years in the 40s and those who had them in the 60s.

The 60s, as a response to a war that seemed interminable and was, for the first time, letting reporters move with basically unfettered abandon, bringing images back to the US that had, for a long time, been greatly sanitized for the viewing public. This was a shattering of innocence of sorts and lead to the youth of American to rebel against war. They saw evil in the government, and sought alternatives to the stereotypical law and order society.

This meant communal living, drug use, free love. To be sure, only a small number actually experimented this way, but certainly not insignificant. And the parents, who were only just removed from the "greatest generation" were baffled. The kids wanted to grow their hair long, experiment with Hinduism, and hallucinogenics.

Even as subsequent generations have gone by, parents have often not understood their kids so well, their music, and so forth.

But I wonder if that's not changing some. In particular, the 90s ushered in an era of hip, of referential comments ("You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!") where clever writers sought to show how in tune they were in society by slipping phrases of topical concern ("wardrobe malfunction").

The first time I became aware of this phenomenon was listening to my boy, Tony Kornheiser. Kornheiser used to have a local DC area sports talk show. He went off the air so he could co-host Monday Night Football. Once a prize gig, the ABC team opted to switch the venerable MNF to Sunday night and swap it with their affiliate ESPN who took over Monday night.

But when his show was on the air, he, Andy Pollin, Nigel, and the other guy (strange how I can never remember the other guy) would entertain many a folk crawling on the Beltway, headed to work. He'd talk about American Idol, and be familiar with a few folks in the hip hop generation, even as he himself favored "Old Man Radio" (and Tony's knowledge of music from his era bordered on encyclopedic). Here was a guy, either through his son, or though hip pal, Mike Wilbon, that was, at the very least, trying to keep up with today's youth culture.

The most recent time I recognized this was a few days ago when I was chatting with Chris. Chris is, hmm, maybe twenty years my junior, enough that he's still a bit baby-faced, despite standing some six feet tall. A few weeks back, he told me about his adventures in getting a burr grinder. Ah, it warms the heart strings when you see a budding bobo, even as he lacks the actual income for one of the "bos".

To recount a bit, a few years back, I and an Indian friend would drink coffee at the university. Initially, we bought coffee ground at the local supermarket. Then, we realized that these grounds, much like pepper, lost their punch if they sat in the air too long (and they get particularly nasty if they sit years in the air). So, we got ourselves a cheap blade grinder, the kind you can buy for twenty bucks. From then on, freshly ground coffee.

But these grinders make a bit of a racket, and worse still, they cause an uneven grind. At least, so sayeth the experts. It made some sense. They were blades after all, and essentially they chopped beans every which way, so some were bound to be big, while others tinier. You want a coarse grind for every day coffee and a fine grind for, say, espresso (not EX-presso).

A few years ago, I did a little research on the Internet (god bless the Internet!), which of course is to say, I used a search engine that did a great job of indexing terms to relevant websites, and through this I obtained the information I wanted (the key being the indexing and something to index, whereby the Internet serves as the "information superhighway" by which I get this content in something short of driving to a library), or, in short, doing research on the Internet.

The reviews suggested that a burr grinder made by Solis (the "Maestro") was the one to get. But to give you an idea of dollar difference. A blade grinder is maybe twenty bucks. A typical burr grinder goes for about 40-80 dollars. A good burr grinder, at least, the one I was eyeing, goes for 150 dollars. So, clearly, for a long time, I did not buy one. However, one day, I was being impulsive, and there was the web, which not only made searching easy, it really makes impulse buying even easier, and all of a sudden, I had a burr grinder in my office.

And I also bought a portable filter, and a insulated container (Nissan or Zojirushi, I can't recall which) and a hot water heater and I was ready to make my own coffee. Indeed, the only step missing was actually finding high quality coffee beans which, sadly, at the time, I didn't even consider. But really, worse still, this stuff stayed in my office. And stayed. And stayed. And I moved out, and some of it moved with me to my house. And it stayed. And stayed. Then, a few months ago, mere years after I bought the grinder, my housemate, whose girlfriend enjoys a good cup of Joe, opened it up and started using it.

And that's where we get back to Chris, who apparently didn't go through this phase of waiting, had been getting his own coffee from Costa Rica, and his portable filter, and his hot water heater, and so forth, retracing the steps I had prepared up to, but never followed through.

But, then Chris is a precocious fella.

Flash forward to a day or two ago, and Chris was lamenting that Sufjan Stevens was performing at the Kennedy Center for free, and he had completely missed the event. Now, I have to say, I discovered Sufjan Stevens first, dammit, purely by accident. While searching for music on Amazon, I bumped into Sufjan, and said that sounds good, I'll get a CD. Then, another. Then, another. OK, to be fair, that was 2005, and at the time, Sufjan's album, Illinois was basically off the charts. Well, for an indie album. I'm sure fans of Jay-Zee and Fifty Cents probably never heard of the guy. I mean, for chrissakes (should that not be pronounced Chris' sakes?) the guy plays a banjo!

So here I am discussing music with a guy twenty years my junior, mostly because I'm listening to "bleeding edge" indie music. And perhaps a pop form of that to boot. (Meaning, I'm not heading to local clubs finding even more obscure music, like say, Seattle's Sea Navy).

I'm not saying there isn't still a generation gap, or possibly even a simple people gap. After all, Chris has his peeps, and I have my...laptop. The twain generally don't meet. Part of that is likely to be generational, though certainly, part of it could simply be different crowds, established crowds, and so forth (meaning, that if you have hung around a particular crowd for years, then it's hard for any newcomer to easily join that crowd--there's far too much history and inside knowledge for that to be ever comfortable).

But my point, if I can ever make it, is that with the web, with the desire (and ability) to keep up -to-date on everything that is new and happening, it's becoming increasingly likely that the older generation will at least fathom more of what the younger generation goes through, and possibly even partake in some of it themselves.

Each generation seeks to run away from the previous one. But the previous one is increasingly capable of keeping up, rather than stare agape at a receding view of their children with stunned disbelief, wondering where they're heading.