Generation X Read Online Free PDF Page B

the system.
    pensating for fears about the
    You have to give up, as I did, your above-ground apartment and all of future by plunging headlong into
    the silly black matte objects inside as well as the meaningless rectangles a job or life-style seemingly
    unrelated to one's previous life
    of minimalist art above the oatmeal-colored sofa and the semidisposable interests; i.e., Amway sales,
    furniture from Sweden. Basement People rent basement suites; the air aerobics, the Republican party,
    above is too middle class.
    a career in law, cults, McJobs.
    . . .
    "I stopped cutting my hair. I began drinking too many little baby coffees as strong as heroin in small cafes where sixteen-year-old boys EARTH TONES: A youthful
    and girls with nose rings daily invented new salad dressings by selecting subgroup interested in
    vegetarianism, tie-dyed outfits,
    spices with the most exotic names ('Oooh! Cardamom! Let's try a tea-mild recreational drugs, and spoon of that !'). I developed new friends who yapped endlessly about good stereo equipment.
    South American novelists never getting enough attention. I ate lentils.
    Earnest, frequently lacking in
    humor.
    I wore llama motif serapes, smoked brave little cigarettes (Nazionali's, from Italy, I remember). In short, I was earnest.
    ETHNOMAGNETISM: The
    "Basement subculture was strictly codified: wardrobes consisted tendency of young people to live
    primarily of tie-dyed and faded T-shirts bearing images of Schopenhauer in emotionally demonstrative,
    more unrestrained ethnic
    or Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, all accessorized with Rasta doohickeys neighborhoods: "You wouldn't
    and badges. The girls all seemed to be ferocious dykey redheads, and understand it there, mother —the boys were untanned and sullen. No one ever seemed to have sex, they hug where I live now."
    saving their intensity instead for discussions of social work and gener-ating the best idea for the most obscure and politically correct travel destination (the Nama Valley in Namibia—but only to see the daisies).
    Movies were black and white and frequently Brazilian.
    "And after a while of living the Basement life -s t y l e , I b e g a n t o adopt more of its attitudes. I began occupational slumming: taking jobs so beneath my abilities that people would have to look at me and say,
    'Well of course he could do better.' I also got into cult employment, the

    best form of which was tree planting in the interior of British Columbia one summer in a not unpleasant blitz of pot and crab lice and drag races i n b e a t u p s p r a y p a i n t e d o l d C h e v e l l e s a n d B i s c a y n e s .
    "All of this was to try and shake the taint that marketing had given me, that had indulged my need for control too bloodlessly, that had, in some way, taught me to not really like myself. Marketing is essentially about feeding the poop back to diners fast enough to make them think MID-TWENTIES
    they're still getting real food. It's not creation, really, but theft, and no BREAKDOWN: A period of
    one ever feels good about stealing.
    mental collapse occurring in
    "But basically, my life -s t y l e e s c a p e w a s n ' t w o r k i n g . I w a s o n l y one's twenties, often caused by
    using the real Basement People to my own ends—no different than the an inability to function outside of
    school or structured
    way design people exploit artists for new design riffs. I was an imposter, environments coupled with a
    and in the end my situation got so bad that I finally had my Mid-twenties realization of one's essential
    Breakdown. That's when things got pharmaceutical, when they hit bot- aloneness in the world. Often
    marks induction into the ritual of
    tom, and when all voices of comfort began to fail."
    pharmaceutical usage.

    Ever notice how hard it is to talk after you've eaten lunch outside on a s u p e r-hot day? A real scorcher? Shimmying palm trees melt in the d i s t a n c e ; I a b s e n t m i n d e d l y s t a r e a t t h e r i d g e s i n m