Blessed Beatle Generation

Common folklore asserts that the Beatles rose to popularity, especially in America, after the JFK assassination threw the country into an inescapable funk.  The lads from Liverpool sparked the country with their boots and bangs and their irreverent energy and mirth.  Their musical talent and artistic creativity propelled them to such success that they could play any new chord in any key and get away with it.  For the next 8 years they put up Gretzky type record sales numbers as their imagination and adventure evolved and progressed, as most good artists and rule breakers should.  They reinvented pop music and set the tone for the sixties’ music, culture, politics and social norms.  They were in the right place at the right time.  We were ready.

I contend that the Beatles also emerged from a post war rebuilt England, where most of the generation before them were dead or suffering silently, as is the English way.  The Fab Four came out of Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields to storm the bars of Liverpool and Hamburg.  They were emboldened to do something different than the usual BBC blather and were inspired by Elvis and Dylan, Chuck Berry and The Big Bopper.  With good management , production and timing, they took it to the next level.  It was as much as an evolution as a revolution. Mix in peace and love, liberated women and a sexual revolution, 8 track recording with movies, videos and TV shows, Mozartian musicality and Andy Warhol artistry and they were unstoppable.  A phenomenon, waiting to happen. 

And so it is with our generation, the blessed Boomers they call us, the Hippies, Yuppies and the ‘Me Generation.’  Hached from thrifty parents that survived the Great Depression and World War II and thrust into the post war prosperity. we maintained that frugality but forgot the war amongst Hogan’s Heros reruns.  So we went straight to peace, love, sex, drugs, rock and roll and new math.  Whether the Beatles led this, or followed as the poster child of the generation, it makes no difference.  The times were a ‘changing. 

Nationally, we ended McCarthyism, The Cold War, Vietnam, and the draft, settling into an uneasy Industrial Military Complex peace, preferring to fight our battles, bolster our economy and dissipate international friction in Afghanistan, Isreal, Iran and Iraq.   We dumped Civil Rights Lyndon Johnson and crooked Richard Nixon and settled for Gerald Ford who would ‘Whip Inflation Now (WIN) or Jimmy Cardigan, who told us to slow down and turn the heat off.  Regan sold us on Bad Government and Trickle-Down Recessions while daddy Bush stopped short of Sadam in Baghdad, leaving it to Junior to clean up his mess, and that of 911.  The sins of the father were laid upon his son.  Clinton balanced the last budget at the cost of the Middle Class and Obama started Universal Health Care at the cost of his political capital.  Trump gave his buddies a tax break and Joe Biden saved the Climate and our Infrastructure.  With all our phones, computers, Ai and fake information, we are the best and the worst generation, knowing what was really going on and choosing to ignore it. 

Meanwhile back in Park City we were weathering local recessions and enjoying personal prosperity, buying low and selling high.  We were born in the black and white 50’s, grew up in the psychedelic, free-sex 60’s, partied in the 70’s, skied big pow in the 80’s, built houses in the 90’s, married in the 00’s, raised kids in the 10’s and retired in the 20’s. What a life.  We invented, fat skis, fast chair lifts, snowboards, mountain bikes, E bikes, and E Cars, Erogenous zones and flying drones, hip and knee replacements, vaccinations and extended vacations, just in time, as needed.  Salt Lake and Park City became real cities as people followed that Post Covid, Tele-Working, quality-of-life thing.  Houses and homes became commodities to buy and sell.  We became generationally rich on home equity but poor on the life-critical consumables, like air, water and shelter for all.  Living wages became a thing of the past while housing became unobtainable.  Ganja was legalized, validated and vindicated and we became the new gummy bear generation along with micro-doses, micro-breweries, designer tequila and single malt scotch.  We all picked our poison.   But we had a good run.  We had the best; they can have the rest.

Now we stand at the precipice of another grand funk where the middle class has been battered, and the country is divided by a team of Oligarchs that would make Putin blush.  We strive for sustainability but continue growing and consuming.  We brace ourselves for a future with pessimistic reticence to endure, instead of optimistic resolve and solutions. You say you want a revolution?  Perhaps it starts with the music.  All we are saying is ‘give peace a chance’.  I trust this generation will prevail like we did.  All you need is love.    Hopefully they will find the balance that eluded us.  In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.