The Latest Generation

Back with another episode of The Latest.

Prompt the 1st 1783 - Highlander and Ukraine

I flipped back and forth on "Ukraine" and "Crimea" in the episode: 1783 was annexing Crimea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_the_Crimean_Khanate_by_the_Russian_Empire

Prompt the 2nd - Can a Gen xer have an opinion on Olivia Rodrigo

On Olivia Rodrigo - bad idea right? Is 3'04" - a properly short radio single

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Idea_Right%3F

From the album Guts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guts_(Olivia_Rodrigo_album)

Vampire, the first single from the album - similar in type, very different in style.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_(Olivia_Rodrigo_song)

"This is supposed to be gen z's hayley williams/avril lavigne, there's truly no hope"

https://twitter.com/maryarchived/status/1700621540998488219

"Anyone over the age of 20 doesn't get to give their opinion on Olivia Rodrigo"

https://x.com/honestpapito/status/1701261920022512014?s=20

A search of "olivia rodrigo over 20"

https://twitter.com/search?q=olivia%20rodrigo%20over%2020&src=typed_query

I mentioned "late '80s glam" by which I really meant "late '80s glam metal" which maybe is better known as "hair metal" because how they wore their hair was seen as a big part of it. Guns n' Roses, that is, and often also represented by Poison, Cinderella, Warrant, Skid Row. (I avoid including Motley Crue because they were one of the first ones who took on such a look, when they started, while a lot of the others were following a style.)

Prompt the Third: October the 7th.

To start, here's what 40 years ago looked like

A civilian 747 shot down by air defense forces of the USSR after flying over restricted space, killing all 269 aboard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007

Military exercises two months later that may have brought the US and USSR very close to nuclear war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83

The Day After, a depiction of what such a nuclear war might have looked like, which ran a few weeks later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After

WarGames, released in June 1983

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames

Red Dawn, released about a year later, in 1984

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dawn

Tracing back through the Ottoman Empire is going to be a bit of a maze but here's some of my links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire

Treaty ending of the Greek War of Independence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Constantinople_(1832)

Austro-Russian–Turkish War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzimat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Ottomans

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Constitutional_Era

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks

The other day I flipped back to the Mapping HIstory episodes done in 2022, and thought they were worth revisiting. This is the first few episodes, which gives an idea of what the goal is, and gives 1492 as an example.

This is from a few years ago, right around this time of year, which is the time of year for football games and field shows, and post-game parties, and (back in the day, anyway) rewatches of Highlander and The Lost Boys.

I'm attempting to put more content in the feed, so it's more consistently available, and people can find other items that perhaps they missed. Hope you like this one.

=================

Considering whether Gen X views of life, death, and immortality were shaped by two mid-80s films: Highlander (1986) and The Lost Boys (1987)

Yes yes yes, I said Stewart Copeland at about 9:12 and realized just moments ago that I completely meant Douglas Coupland, who wrote Generation X: Tales For an Accelerated Culture in 1991

https://www.coupland.com/books/generation-x-tales-for-an-accelerated-culture

And my point there is that in 1987 the Lost Boys was certainly depicting Gen X characters with Gen X actors, but nobody called them Gen X at the time.

Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interview_with_the_Vampire

Its sequel, The Vampire Lestat, was 1985

The Mystery of Dracula's Castle - a scooby doo mystery in all but name, with inspiration from Christopher Lee's Dracula over and over.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068985/

The Hunger

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085701/

The Lost Boys - straight to the tagline

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093437/taglines

Highlander

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091203/

Cocoon

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088933/

Siskel and Ebert - Lost Boys starts at 9:44 -

https://siskelebert.org/?p=2948

Highlander is the first one here, about 1:30 - they both disliked it rather a lot

https://siskelebert.org/?p=1496

First chapter of The Golden Bough - Frazer calls the King a "murderer" rather than a "killer" so I'll randomly note that A) in the 1536 battler in Highlander, the Macleods are fighting the Frasers and B) "Matador" is literally "killer" in Spanish

The Spirit of Christmas, which spawned South Park, references Highlander's repeated line "There Can Be Only One"

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122264/

When talking about Reactives and the Awakening, probably worth looking at this previous entry on my blog

https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/01/reactiveness.html

Unrelated but it's a photo series called Lost Boys - millennials back at home after college or high school or whatever they decided they could do.

https://www.businessinsider.com/liz-calvi-lost-boys-photo-project-2014-9#calvi-started-with-her-good-group-of-guy-friends-but-eventually-branched-out-to-look-for-more-subjects-in-town-nolan-pictured-here-is-currently-studying-graphics-in-college-and-he-lives-with-his-parents-for-the-summer-2

Here's the archive she set up

https://seulementdanslereve.tumblr.com/archive

And her home page

https://www.lizcalvi.com/commissions

"Vampire of the Mists" (1991) was a few years later, so probably influenced by Anne Rice and The Lost Boys and everything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_of_the_Mists

Wikipedia sayeth that Peter Pan first appeared in a novel in 1902, while the play first appeared in 1904. He's very much of the Nomad archetype.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan

Completely unrelated, except insofar as Aiken Drum (the character) is much like Peter Pan and has other Nomad / Reactive archetype indicators

https://manycolored.fandom.com/wiki/Many-Colored_Wiki

Pogonip club house

http://deepbluemoon.com/misc/pogonip/

Other locations - the interiors were on a set at Warner Brothers

https://www.visitcalifornia.com/attraction/lost-boys-santa-cruz-tour

Gregory Widen, screenwriter for Highlander. Born in 1958, he's a late Boomer. He also wrote Backdraft.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0927074/

Russel Mulcahy - his director credits here include the music videos - which included Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles, which unfortunately I can't find, so here are some others.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0611683

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uxc9eFcZyM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyv905Q2omU

Max has mission style outdoor lamps - not too common at the time. (Although it was becoming popular again)

https://casetext.com/case/l-jg-stickley-inc-v-canal-dover-furn

Grandpas house is here (interiors were a set at Warner Bros.) - a very 1900s house

http://www.mobileranger.com/santacruz/pogonip-the-cowell-family-polo-and-a-poltergeist/

CSUN Queen show, 1989 - there will be another episode one day about why this matters….but I didn't even have a chance to get into, here, how I and Angela and 150 of our closest friends did a field show with two songs from Highlander, plus Bohemian Rhapsody

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjkHl0paHbM

• Author : N/A
• Episode Type : N/A
• Episode : N/A
• Rating : Clean
• File Info : audio/mpeg | mp3 | 33MB

• of1

Considering whether Gen X views of life, death, and immortality were shaped by two mid-80s films: Highlander (1986) and The Lost Boys (1987)

Yes yes yes, I said Steward Copeland at about 9:12 and realized just moments ago that I completely meant Douglas Coupland, who wrote Generation X: Tales For an Accelerated Culture in 1991

https://www.coupland.com/books/generation-x-tales-for-an-accelerated-culture

And my point there is that in 1987 the Lost Boys was certainly depicting Gen X characters with Gen X actors, but nobody called them Gen X at the time.

Interview with the Vampire was published in 1976 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interview_with_the_Vampire

Its sequel, The Vampire Lestat, was 1985

The Mystery of Dracula's Castle - a scooby doo mystery in all but name, with inspiration from Christopher Lee's Dracula over and over.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068985/

The Hunger

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085701/

The Lost Boys - straight to the tagline

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093437/taglines

Highlander

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091203/

Cocoon

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088933/

Siskel and Ebert - Lost Boys starts at 9:44 -

https://siskelebert.org/?p=2948

Highlander is the first one here, about 1:30 - they both disliked it rather a lot

https://siskelebert.org/?p=1496

First chapter of The Golden Bough - Frazer calls the King a "murderer" rather than a "killer" so I'll randomly note that A) in the 1536 battler in Highlander, the Macleods are fighting the Frasers and B) "Matador" is literally "killer" in Spanish

The Spirit of Christmas, which spawned South Park, references Highlander's repeated line "There Can Be Only One"

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122264/

When talking about Reactives and the Awakening, probably worth looking at this previous entry on my blog

https://crisis.generationalize.com/2014/01/reactiveness.html

Unrelated but it's a photo series called Lost Boys - millennials back at home after college or high school or whatever they decided they could do.

https://www.businessinsider.com/liz-calvi-lost-boys-photo-project-2014-9#calvi-started-with-her-good-group-of-guy-friends-but-eventually-branched-out-to-look-for-more-subjects-in-town-nolan-pictured-here-is-currently-studying-graphics-in-college-and-he-lives-with-his-parents-for-the-summer-2

Here's the archive she set up

https://seulementdanslereve.tumblr.com/archive

And her home page

https://www.lizcalvi.com/commissions

"Vampire of the Mists" (1991) was a few years later, so probably influenced by Anne Rice and The Lost Boys and everything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_of_the_Mists

Wikipedia sayeth that Peter Pan first appeared in a novel in 1902, while the play first appeared in 1904. He's very much of the Nomad archetype.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pan

Completely unrelated, except insofar as Aiken Drum (the character) is much like Peter Pan and has other Nomad / Reactive archetype indicators

https://manycolored.fandom.com/wiki/Many-Colored_Wiki

Pogonip club house

http://deepbluemoon.com/misc/pogonip/

Other locations - the interiors were on a set at Warner Brothers

https://www.visitcalifornia.com/attraction/lost-boys-santa-cruz-tour

Gregory Widen, screenwriter for Highlander. Born in 1958, he's a late Boomer. He also wrote Backdraft.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0927074/

Russel Mulcahy - his director credits here include the music videos - which included Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles, which unfortunately I can't find, so here are some others.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0611683

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uxc9eFcZyM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyv905Q2omU

Max has mission style outdoor lamps - not too common at the time. (Although it was becoming popular again)

https://casetext.com/case/l-jg-stickley-inc-v-canal-dover-furn

Grandpas house is here (interiors were a set at Warner Bros.) - a very 1900s house

http://www.mobileranger.com/santacruz/pogonip-the-cowell-family-polo-and-a-poltergeist/

CSUN Queen show, 1989 - there will be another episode one day about why this matters….but I didn't even have a chance to get into, here, how I and Angela and 150 of our closest friends did a field show with two songs from Highlander, plus Bohemian Rhapsody

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjkHl0paHbM

Prompt the First - Agreeing with Vivek Ramaswamy

Prompt the Second - The Spiritual Gen-Xer

Somehow I didn't include the actual inspiration for this prompt, which was the previous prompt on Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

And somehow didn't mention how in Pulp Fiction, Jules says he'll wander the Earth "...like Caine in Kung Fu."

Prompt the Third - The New Kids

Probably clear from context, but September 2 1945 at 8:15AM in Tokyo Bay was late afternoon on the 1st in Washington D.C.

The Latest for August 18, 2023.

Prompt 1 - Gen X Parenting

Original episode is : https://traffic.libsyn.com/latest/Ep._67__-_Gen-X_Parenting.mp3

Prompt 2: Disagreeing with Steve Bannon

The earlier episode referenced: https://traffic.libsyn.com/latest/Ep._14_Agreeing_with_Steve_Bannon_-_The_Latest_Generation.mp3

Prompt 3: More of The Fourth Turning is Here

Sorry No Ice Cream http://www.ussunderhill.org/html/sorryno.htm

USS Underhill was one of the last Allied ships sunk in World War II. USS Indianapolis, which brought Littly Boy to Tinian, was sunk in the same area, also by a submarine, a few days later; USS Bullhead, a submarine, did not respond to a call (sent to all submarines on August 13) to return to port. Based on Japanese records, it was almost certainly sunk by Japanese aircraft a week after USS Indianapolis, on August 6.

The Latest is a free-form, unscripted, generational view of current events and what happens and all that. It's not what this podcast has usually been but considering that it might be a better optoin.

This week's prompts:

• Intro - on alternatives to a scripted podcast and What Was I Thinking
• Prompt 1 - Twitter and how it relates to this specific idea, but also generationally
• Prompt 2 - Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and why it went to ubiquitous to ... not.

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_at_the_Greek

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Livingston_Seagull_(film)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Livingston_Seagull

• Prompt 3 - The Fourth Turning Is Here, the new book by Neil Howe

There isn't as much in common between Oppenheimer and The Monuments Men as might initially be expected, if one expected that Oppenheimer was a World War II movie. But looking at them through the generational story model shows some of what works for one and not for the other.

The Monuments Men

The Battle of Monte Cassino

The Madonna of Bruges

The Ghent Altarpiece

Oppenheimer

USS Indianapolis

Lewis Strauss

The Day After Trinity - 1981 documentary about Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb - about 40 years ago, itself about 35 years after Trinity, at a time when the Cold War had raised concerns about nuclear weapons. Temporarily available through Criterion

A look at perceptions of modern parenting, specifically how Generation X is seen to be parenting the Homeland generation and young Millennials in the Fourth Turning.

No Hard Feelings at IMDB

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15671028

Jennifer Lawrence

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2225369

Matthew Broderick, Ferris Beuller, and Wargames

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000111

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091042

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567

Andrew Barth Feldman

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10574081/

Free-Range Kids

And on twitter at: https://twitter.com/FreeRangeKids

A consolidation of the half-dozen Countdown episodes from 2020, starting in October and ending on Election Day, with an epilogue from Inauguration Day, 2021. There was a lot happening in those couple of weeks. The observations range from the implications of voting, to the elevation of Justice Barrett, the shockingly low number of school shootings that year, and whatever is next.

There's about a five second gap between most of the episodes, but because each episode ends with a few seconds of lead-out too, it can be a 10-20 second gap. Total time is not quite an hour.

Roger Waters recently performed The Wall in Berlin, but this time around he has managed to attract the attention of German police.

"The context of the clothing worn is deemed capable of approving, glorifying, or justifying the violent and arbitrary rule of the Nazi regime in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims and thereby disrupts public peace."

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1662231475687682048

The "clothing worn" is a costume that's part of the portrayal of Pink, a rock star who becomes - in his dreams or reality, it's not clear - a fascist leader, accepting adulation of the crowd and inviting them to choose violence in his name. As the CNN host there notes, the red armband is not a swastika, but two crossed hammers - iconography used going back to the original album.

The singer has posted a response on Twitter

https://twitter.com/rogerwaters/status/1662213373772328961

Re-posting this one in part because its timely, but also because it's a suggestion of the generational skew I see in Germany, which appeared to have been in a Second Turning during World War II, a Fourth Turning around the time The Wall came out (and the Berlin Wall came down) and is back in a Second Turning again. And might follow up with an episode specifically about that.

=============================================

Looking at Authoritarianism and Awakenings, but this time using Pink Floyd's 1979 album The Wall for further insights into how alienation feeds into it as well.

Follow up to the other boomer fascist stuff, w radio ga ha and the fall of the wall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall

Released 30 November 1979 - this recording is from ten years later1990, done at the site of the berlin wall, which had recently fallen after 28 years.

40 years after the invasion of Poland and the start of World War II. Roger water's father would die at Anzio, and the loss of his father has a notable impact on the ideas of alienation and loss that are the core of the wall.

Roger Waters was born 1943 .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Waters

Gilmour 1946

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gilmour

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Ga_Ga

Released 1984

CSUN Matador Band - The Wall

https://youtu.be/cyzWuzW0BMg

A short essay on the hammers

http://www.feelnumb.com/2012/11/16/pink-floyds-double-crossing-hammer-logo-from-the-wall/

Gohil's - the source of the Gohil's Boots referenced at the end of Nobody Home. (It's a leatherworking shop - they don't do boots anymore, though.)

http://www.gohils.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/notes/roger-waters/an-open-letter-from-roger-waters/688037331210720/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinhead

An interview with Roger Waters by Jim Ladd on the release of The Wall in 1980

http://www.pink-floyd.org/artint/119.htm

Roger Ebert liked the movie in 1982, and eventually (2010) even gave it a Great Movie review

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-pink-floyd-the-wall-1982

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Flesh_(Pink_Floyd_tour)

https://www.ign.com/articles/top-14-greatest-rock-operasconcept-albums-of-all-time

Couldn't find another listing, but this shows that number 11 is Jim Morrison, 38 is Live Aid, so 27 of them - fully half - are in the middle of the Awakening.

http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Rolling-Stone%27s-list-of-the-50-Moments-that-Changed-Rock-and-Roll

This version of Waiting for the Worms is from The Wall Live in Berlin, was also intended as a charity concert. Waters had intended to create The Fletcher Memorial Fund, named after his father, whose death in WWII had been a source of the alienation explored in the original album.

A random and unrelated item here: The Killing Star uses We Are The World, another supergroup single, as the first time that the human reace was reasonable unified.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Star

I'm on Twitter @generationalize and can be found also (sometimes) at the blogs Welcome to the Crisis & Stories of the Generations as well.

http://crisis.generationalize.com

http://stories.generationalize.com