21st Amendment

01 May 2006

"You Can Get Anything You Want..."

"At Alice's Restaurant."

That's how the song goes. I mentioned the song to a few of my friends and they had no idea what I was talking about. It got me thinking about differences in age and upbringing. I could hardly believe it. This crew had never heard of Arlo Guthrie and "Alice's Restaurant." Are you frickin' kidding me with this shit?

Now, since I've been back in school, most of my school friends are just out of college. I mean just out of college. They're great, but they've never done a damn thing in their lives. Am I really that different from them? "Alice's Restaurant" is one thing. I will chalk their utter lack of cultural literacy to upbringing and parents who clearly have forgotten their hippie backgrounds. Here's a better example: the Facebook.

Alright, the Facebook. Second day of school this year, a classmate tells me that another douche had "Facebooked" her. I immediately thought that the girl had rocks in her head since the facebook had not been published; in fact, they had only taken our pictures the previous day.

No, the Facebook is a lovely site that has the same basic premise but on a national scale. Take a look, it's the perfect way to put all your shit out there on-line for would-be stalkers to pick you out and wouldn't-be employers to see pictures of you with a beer-bong/spring-break lover and choose to not hire you.

I had no idea. And to think that I graduated from college a mere half-decade ago...

When I tell my friends that the first time I used the internet was as a freshman in college, they think that I am lying. It makes me appreciate the thousands of times I've heard by grandparents say, "it wasn't always like this..." or "back in the 30's we used to..." or "I remember the first time an airplane flew over the farm..." You can't look to the sky and not see an airliner cruising at 36,000 feet anymore.

My grandfather, well past 80, has kept up to date. He writes e-mail, uses a DVD player, and can name all five members of "The Simpsons." That's a talent. Let's up we all have it. If not, it could be a boring and uninteresting life.

2 Comments:

  • ......what is the most important thing?

    By Blogger Oberon, at 7:20 PM  

  • "You can lead Don Quixote's horse to water.....but you can't make it think."

    That's gotta be it, right?

    Funny...

    By Blogger Taft, at 7:31 PM  

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