First of all, watch this video of my questionably racist nephew being interviewed by one of the guys who my brother works with. Who happens to be black.
Second of all, Sonofabastard commented that I should check out this Christopher Buckley Book Doomsday. So I did. Son of a Bastard! Christopher Buckley totally stole my idea!
A week or two back I wrote this somewhat facetious diatribe aimed toward the stupid boomers on Mick LaSalle's blog:
Oh jesus christ, here come the boomers and their self obsessive love for their own generation. Why, I was just telling my grandmother this afternoon that all boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, should be euthanized when they turn 65 to ensure the future of Truth, Justice, The American Way. Oh, and stop buying so much crap, boomers! No one will feel sorry for you when you have not saved for your retirement and no longer have social security but bought brand new cars constantly throughout your 30's 40's 50's and beyond. And stop eating! You won't pay for my insulin but I'm going to have to pay for your heart disease medication and your five way bypasses! Son of a Bitch! I can't stand you all. Tell Oliver Stone to go crawl under a rock! Nobody's perfect indeed. You ruined this country!! My generation gave you the internet! What are you going to leave us? Credit Card debt and student loans for educations that in no way guarantee any kind of gainful employment!
Its true, I was telling my grandmother that and she and my uncle and both of my parents, who just barely miss the boomer starting date, all whole-heartedly agree with my assertion that they should all be killed when they turn 65. So here I am, a soon to be 29 year old blogger shooting off my mouth saying ridiculous things that I sort of actually believe and then stupid Christopher Buckley writes this book.
From Publishers Weekly[Signature] Reviewed by Jessica Cutler
It's the end of the world as we know it, especially if bloggers are setting the national agenda. In his latest novel, Buckley imagines a not-so-distant future when America teeters on the brink of economic disaster as the baby boomers start retiring. Buckley takes on such pressing (however boring) topics as Social Security reform and fiscal solvency, as does his protagonist. And get this: she's a blogger.Buckley's heroine is "a morally superior twenty-nine-year-old PR chick" who blogs at night about the impending Boomsday budget crisis. Of course, "she was young, she was pretty, she was blonde, she had something to say." She has a large, doting audience that eagerly awaits her every blog entry. And her name? Cassandra. And the name of her blog? Also Cassandra. Of course, Buckley doesn't let his allusion get by us:"She was a goddess of something," another character struggles to remember, which gives his heroine the opportunity to educate us about the significance of her namesake."Daughter of the king of Troy. She warned that the city would fall to the Greeks," she explains. "Cassandra is sort of a metaphor for catastrophe prediction. This is me. It's what I do." So Cassandra, doing what she does, starts by calling for "an economic Bastille Day" and her minions take to destroying golf courses in protest. Cassandra grabs headlines and magazine covers, and the president starts wringing his hands over what she might blog about next. Her follow-up: a radical but tantalizingly expedient solution to that most vexing of issues, the Social Security problem—Cassandra proposes that senior citizens kill themselves in exchange for tax breaks. Buckley, author of Thank You for Smoking, shows great imagination as he fires his pistol at the feet of his straw women and men. In 300-plus pages, though, it would be nice if he had found a way to endear us to at least one of his characters. Yes, we know that Washington is "an asshole-rich environment," as one puts it, but some Tom Wolfe–style self-loathing might be good for characters who use the word touché. Full disclosure: I'm a blogger of Cassandra's generation, and at times the totally over-the-top, relentlessly us-against-them scenario reminded me that I was reading a book written by someone not of the blogging generation, someone who Cassandra would want put down. Oh, the irony in these generationalist feelings. Then again, maybe that's exactly Buckley's point.
I think I'm going to sue. I just hope he doesn't sue me for actually being the embodiment of one of his characters.
2 comments:
Please don't kill me when I turn 65, Mndykns. I'll buy you some insulin if you promise not to kill me.
I was talking to gramma and gerry about that and I pointed out that only reily and tuney would have to die and gerry asked if they would get to choose who went first. I assume he wanted to kill you first. Oh, god. Kerri will probably read that and sue me. So sue me.
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