I Should be Cynical, but I'm not

I, like my pal Tamilu, was born in 1961. I know I am naturally biased, but I feel that those of us born in that year and the ones around it have a much different perspective on life, music and authority figures than the generation prior or even after.

We are a lost generarion caught between the Baby Boomers before us and the Generation X-ers who came after. We really aren't children of the sixties as we weren't even teenagers when that decade ended and when the 80's rolled around we were hitting our young twenties.

A lot of people feel the music of the 70's doesn't compare with either the 60's or the 80's. While I like the music from both those decades, I think the 70's were better. It was far more diverse musically where bands like War and their song "Why Can't We Be Friends" along with 10cc and their hit "I'm Not in Love" could hit the top ten in the same year if not the same summer (1975, I believe). We had everything from the break-up of the Beatles in 1970 to hard rock to disco to punk to Supertramp's "Breakfast in America" in 1979.

With regards to authority figures, you need to understand what our first impressions were of a lot of culturally significant insitutions. To wit:

1) Our first big exposure to college was the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970

2) Our first big exposure to the Olympics was the 1972 Munich summer games and the terrorist attack on and murder of the Israeli team

3) Our first big exposure to the Presidency was Nixon's Watergate scandal and ensuing trial in 1973

After all that, we have every right to be cynical about life and those in authority, but we're not. There's a very different way of approaching things, and if you ever give us a chance, we'll show you.