The Besz Dispenser - This Week's Rant

For the week of July 26th, 1999

I Shot JFK

I remember the exact moment I stopped watching the news on TV. It was the O.J. Simpson trial, day one-trillion or so. Word spread like wildfire (I actually heard it from someone listening in on his walkman) when it actually ended. He was found innocent, and he walked away, and it only took five smart, scheming, high-priced lawyers and two inept, slow-thinking, high-priced lawyers. But there was such overkill on the media that I couldn't take it anymore, and wanted it to end, O.J. walking or not. I knew he would, in the end. There was no way he couldn't win. I'm sure now however, he makes a monthly payment to those lawyers that would rival a down payment on Disneyland, but who can put a price on freedom?

However, it was that day that did it for me. I was sick and tired of the media grasping onto a very sad but incredibly un-newsworthy story with the tenacity of Tom Arnold (who is still holding onto his fleeting-at-the-speed-of-light fame with vise-grips). Why? Because Americans who love to see their shining stars crash and burn faster than a DC-10 airplane want to see it. They want to see their rich and famous on trial. They want to see it because they the bulk of Americans (ie. the baby boomers) have nothing better to do with their time. Sad, but true.

Fast forward a few years. Nothing much has happened in the news, save Saddam being the crazy bastard we know and love, Serbia trying to kill everyone in their country except themselves, India and Pakistan aiming nuclear warheads through their windows at each other, and Sonny Bono making sure he'll never hit the slopes again. Now, we are in a time of world crisis: Y2K, Serbia, India/Pakistan, Iraq/Everyone, China/Every Asian country it borders, and North Korea/South Korea. Everything looks like we are at the very end of a quickly falling set of dominoes, and there is no end in sight to our problems, I turn on the news and what is the first and longest story going? John F. Kennedy Jr.

I know, I know, I'm a cold-hearted bastard who should feel more compassion for a family seemingly cursed. They are a reminder of a wonderful and innocent time in American history, who stood like King Arthur in Camelot. But I think it's time for the baby boomers to wake up and realise that their mental Camelot is gone, the heir to Arthur is dead, was never planning on even trying to be a politician, and that entire dream was dead when Robert Kennedy died. Are the American baby boomers so wrapped up in the 60s that everything to do with it must be drawn out ad nauseam? I'm sick and tired of hearing about how great the 60s were, flower power, free love, etc. It's the 90s now, almost the year 2000. The world is screwed, the waters are poisoned, the trees are disappearing, pollution is spreading, people are starving and the ones who claim to have made a difference in their time are the main cause of it all. Go figure.

Also, isn't it funny that the ones they were making a difference for are the ones they now don't trust, and are placing all the responsibility on: their kids, us. The twenty-somethings. Well, personally, I think that is outright garbage. I didn't make all the mess. You were the hippies, the earth-lovers who were going to fix it all. Where are you know? I don't care that you're almost at the age of Depends and Nursing Homes. Because guess who's going to run them, and pay your bills? Us. And if you don't grow up, get it through your skulls and your dreams are gone and you'd better be nice to us fast, we are going to kick your ass to the curb, and make you clean your mess, Depends undergarments and all.

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