It's all a script, man

It's disorienting when you realize that you like the things you like not because they are inherently compatible with your soul (if you're under 30, read: vibe), but because they were fed to you or shown to you during your most impressionable years.

It's no coincidence that many people identify the music of their youth as the best of whatever that genre is.  Especially dumb people, who don't know/care that better things probably came earlier - but there I go!  Why do I think that?  When I was in late grade school, my mom's then-boyfriend tried a few times to draw me into arguments, saying that the music of his youth (he claimed the Beatles, but he was born in '62 or something so it's not like he was "there") was better than mine.  I liked the Beatles too, so I remember shrugging like, yeah, you're probably right, but more importantly, no one here cares what you think Joel.  

You get this from boomers all the time, the obsession with their youth and the way the world was then.  Just being 60 or older is a part time job in itself because you're obliged to wax poetic about your home and school and the country and the food and the music and cars and what the girls looked like and how tough the men were and how great the movies were.  Even if your home life sucked and you're not lying around sucking your thumb about how unwholesome everyone is now, there's definitely a major part of midcentury culture that you're unhealthily obsessed with.  If you're over 60.

And here's the problem: US, TOO.  

I finally, finally realized that the only reason I think that time was such a big deal, other than being a remarkably prosperous time in US history (which boomers can stop taking credit for because you don't influence the economy when you're fucking five, Jerry) is because all the boomers were in maximum creative mode when I was a kid.  All of these nostalgic period movies from the 80s and 90s, anything from Stand by Me to My Girl reinforced to me over and over that those days were the golden hour of the United States and life in general.  

This is an unfair thing to do to kids, because by implying that there was a time that was better, you begin to take away THEIR ability to be annoying in the future by moaning about their own childhoods.  And, ironically, so much of the quirky uniqueness that I recall from the early 90s of my childhood is because it was retro.  Pee Wee's Playhouse, the B52s (yes I realize they were cool in the 70s but I'm talking Love Shack on MTV 65 times per weekend), the clothes, the stylization was all some kind of distorted day-glo homage to the 50s and 60s.  Edward Scissorhands, Hairspray, even mainstream weird was all over it.  My fashion inspiration in middle school was Hayley Mills in the Parent Trap.  Do you see why it's unkind to make children live in the daydreams of middle aged people?  Do you realize that none of the other kids thought that look was cool?

Realizing that many of my aesthetic preferences and interests were only due to my environment as a child was interesting.  What would I have liked if I had grown up somewhere else?  Truly, who even am I?  Is this the root of my incompatibility with mainstream culture?  Because I didn't just get it from my dad bitching about what he paid for his first house or how actresses don't look anything like they used to, I was also raised by old women.  Multiple old women.  So not only am I part Ron Howard, I'm part Nana.

How DARE they do this to me.

In which I rebel:

Once, I dated someone briefly who, upon coming to my house, arrived at the slow realization that everything was "old".  "The furniture," he said.  "The pictures."  He shrugged awkwardly and pointed.  "Even the blanket on your bed! It's weird!"  I looked around and was like, "Literally what are you talking about/what is wrong with you."  At the time, I was still so entangled in my own tastes that I felt like the only reason other people didn't have the sort of belongings I did was because they just had no style or ability to source things.  Because who wouldn't have a Joan Crawford Hollywood Regency bedroom if they could?  Like what's your preference, Sears?  TJ Maxx?  Fucking dead souls, bro.  You want a blanket that's made of plastic and an art piece over the bed that looks like it was mass produced for hotels?  Cheap hotels?  If that's what people want, then their very lives are their punishment and I don't need to say a word.  That was my view then, anyway.

But realizing that so many of my tastes were prescribed to me has punctured the spell a bit.  Or my tastes have changed, at least such that I'm no longer obsessive about them.  I no longer want everything in my house to be from the same time period.  I don't want my living room to look like a display in an antique store.  Perhaps my tastes are adjusting to what they would have been organically.  That doesn't mean I want contemporary stuff, which is still just garbage. My interests are in the process of reorienting, all just because I realized that a bunch of other people had too much hand in forging my tastes.  I say that, then spend 30 minutes browsing the Instagram entitled "Vintage Wilton Cakes".  And I still unironically listen to the Hollies and Chad & Jeremy, so I guess I'm still a weird old boomer and fine with that.  I say boomer because I'm mad when my friends don't agree.

I used to be so interested in 19th century American Victoriana that I was convinced that I had lived a past life then.  While I thought midcentury America was a template to aspire to (and I think we can still agree that the objet are better and more attractive and made to last), I felt a deep longing when it came to thinking about the prior century.  I was fascinated, truly ga-ga about 19th century homes and clothes and things and cemeteries.  What the fuck was that about?  I still feel that way.  There was a lot of history in my house growing up, artifacts, photos, talk.  It was shared with me in an almost reverential way, but is that enough to make a 12 year old sit around drawing Gibson girls all night and collect hundred year old toys and tchotchkes?  I still have so much of that stuff and I don't know what to do with it, but I have to keep it.  Old black walnut hand mirrors and tea sets and art and portraits and clothes.  Much of this was given to me, but still.  Like talk about Nana.  I need a black scarf for my head so I can finally achieve my dream of dressing like a 75 year old rural Italian peasant.  Think widow, but make it Sofia Loren.  

I have a deep cynicism about things that are supposed to be cool, and also now about things I used to think were cool, so that I'm essentially Rob from High Fidelity now.  Brooding and bitchy but still into it.  The only things I enjoy are things that people must, ironically, be uncynical about.  Selena, Lil Nas X, British doom metal written by dads about medieval agricultural superstition.  If it's not any of that, then get it away from me.  Like, the fuck away.  Because extremes forever.