” … m .. m .. m .. my generation …”
“Reginald! Are you OK?”
“Couldn’t be better, Syd. Just reminiscing.”
“By moaning like a stuck pig?”
“Don’t be harsh, Syd. Roger Daltrey could build his business empire on his, ah, singing voice. I had to use my wits.”
“Daltrey? Who’s that?”
“Precisely.”
“I am calling your doctor …”
“Surely you remember the rock group ‘The Who’?”
“If I have to. Now introduce me to ‘The Why’.”
“They sang about ‘my generation’. Our generation. We, the Baby Boomers. We, who pioneered the idea that the great and complex issues of the day can be resolved in our favor by screaming.”
“Ah, I get it. The petition drives, the marches, the sit-ins, all the tricks we used to gain power and keep it. Those do make for pleasant memories, mostly. Any particular occasion …?”
“Well, I heard that there’s an online petition circulating that’s trying to get Congress to cancel the sequestration act.”
“What? HR 900? That dead letter? Haven’t people figured out yet that, having used these jumping-up-and-down techniques to gain power, no one knows better than we do how to ignore, or if necessary, to negate them?”
“Do we want them to figure this out, Syd? After all, you sign a petition, you walk away feeling OK about yourself. You’ve said your piece, you’ve done your bit, and no risk of tear gas. And if it doesn’t work out, well, guess it wasn’t meant to be, go flame a congressman ’cause it’s obviously his fault, and cool off with a beer and something from Netflix. We carry on with the business of running things to suit us.”
“I must confess, Reg, that I love it when people blame Congress for their troubles, as if their representatives were appointed for them by the Russians instead of being their own choices for election to office. Mind you, if they ever got it into their heads to vote for real people who tell them the truth about the issues of the day and what they must do to address them, rather than for the puppets we set up for them with their glib and empty slogans and promises, we actually could be in a spot of bother.”
“That, my dear Sydney, is one of the reasons we invest so heavily in celebrities.”
“Squirrel!!”
“Well, I don’t think I would have resorted to cartoon dogs in an animated movie to make my point, but yes, you’re right.”
“Hey. I wasn’t the one who started this conversation off with a reference to long-haired rockers. Tell me, do any of the survivors have any hair left?”