The Latest Generation

On the occasion of President Donald Trump's impeachment and trial, what if anything does the generational model tell us about why this is happening more often (which it is, compared to other past periods)

That the impeachments are happening during different turnings is simple enough to see. 

• Johnson 1868
• Nixon 1974
• Clinton 1998
• Trump 2019

Population over time

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

Initial tweet on the theory of the apportionment act being the reason for more impeachments

https://mobile.twitter.com/generationalize/status/1207339275907239937

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportionment_Act_of_1911

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929

Why does Star Wars matter so much to Generation X? How did it's release become such a world-changing event? Even if you were there at the time, understanding the difference between the world Before and the world After. 

This episode certainly won't have all the answers, but it will look at what was happening at that moment in movies. 

Space Con 4 - or IV or whatever

https://fanlore.org/wiki/Space-Con_(Star_Trek_and_Science_Fiction_convention)

I remember that program book - had a copy. Worked as a Gopher on the second day - no experience required, it was my first time at a con, they didn't care, they needed people.

An original Star Wars Trailer, to refresh your memory, if needed.

https://youtu.be/XHk5kCIiGoM

It was only ten years after the START of Star Trek, barely 8 after its last episode aired on NBC, and there was talk by the guests about What Might Happen Next - what these days is referred to as Phase II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Phase_II

It quickly turned into 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Motion_Picture

(No doubt, in part because of Star Wars.)

I could put an image or a link on here for the lobby book that we had, but I'll just say instead to do an internet search for "original star wars 1977 theater book"

And while we're at it, "fantasia psychedelic poster" will let you see what I saw in the foyer of that theater, a young boy who was very excited that there was a movie with dinosaurs in it. 

Star Wars actually made "highest grossing movie" a thing that mattered. That was probably because Gone With The Wind had been The Big One for nearly 40 years at that point - before Star Wars, well, who could feasibly dethrone the Biggest Movie Ever?

Anyway, if you want to play that game, here's a place to go

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_the_United_States_and_Canada#Adjusted_for_ticket-price_inflation

Hey, I messed up on Julia: It won 3 Oscars. And it's about fighting Nazis, but not the Holocaust itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_(1977_film)

Couldn't hurt to take a look at my previous analysis of The Force Awakens

http://stories.generationalize.com/2015/12/the-force-awakens-initial.html

There's a reason for this link to be included, but it would be too much work to explain why.

https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/what-we-lost-not-having-carrie-fisher-in-rise-of-skywalker.html

For all of those Disney family films, I'm going to point out Charley and the Angel because a)it has Harry Morgan as The Angel and b) the title appears to be the first thing like "Charlie's Angels" 

(I remember that I saw this movie at some point, probably thought it a decent one, but don't remember anything about it.)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069866

And my favorite of the Dexter Riley films, Now You See Him Now You Don't.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069031

And let's throw a bone to Arnold, since it's easily lost otherwise and it's a film I remember seeing and...yeah, I couldn't have been even a teenager at the time.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069732/

Oh heck - how did I miss The Bad News Bears, which came out a year before Star Wars and is the first time you really SEE Generation X in a movie?

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074174/

(I could've used Bugsy Malone but sadly I've never seen it, and it seems to be trying to be a kids movie itself.)

Here's a list of other Gen X films for comparison and edification.

http://stories.generationalize.com/2016/03/movies-of-generation-x.html

In addition to the Stories blog, I'm on Twitter at @generationalize. 

Opening fanfare from the original Star Wars soundtrack, as is the closing -  Princess Leia's theme.  (Which John Williams played at one of his Hollywood Bowl performances, and noted was originally intended as a love theme for, um, her and Luke, since, well, nobody really expected changes, and, um, yeah.)

What if my frequently-repeated no-problem scenario for this Fourth Turning - the Glorious Revolution redux, that is, mostly bloodless and quickly resolved - is an overly optimistic best-case? What else could happen here?

General assumptions:

* Peak is already arriving, so there aren't a lot of major flips or revelations happening 

* Direction of movement is related to generally known events, as that is what moves people along their paths

* No conspiracies that will reveal large numbers of people supporting or opposing actions beyond what can reasonably be foreseen.

Very roughly, there are 3 million square miles in the United States, so 3 million votes mean one extra vote fo every single square mile. If you want ed to compare how many people who voted for Clinton versus Trump there would be in a potential Civil War v2.

Jade Helm was a military exercise that inspired no end of conspiracy theories, which you can look into here if you like that sort of thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Helm_15_conspiracy_theories

"What's past is prologue" is from The Tempest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What%27s_past_is_prologue

It's also an opening quote from the Babylon 5 episode "Z'ha'dum" - here's the ending quote, which seems apropos as well:

All around us, it was as if the Universe were holding its breath, waiting. All of life can be broken down into moments of transition, or moments of revelation. This had the feeling of both. G’Quon wrote, “There is a greater darkness than the one we fight, it is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way." The war we fight is not against powers or principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sinking_of_the_Reuben_James?wprov=sfti1

Written by Woody Guthrie - published 1942 so hard on it. My assumption (which I was unable to confirm) is that "This machine kills fascists" Guthrie was paying attention to the actions of Nazi Germany and focusing attempt where he could.

https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/a_people_at_war/prelude_to_war/uss_reuben_james.html

Info about the song and the ship and entry into war

http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/ballads/PSAFB084.html

"Rueful memories of the U. S. entry into World War One, driven by the same drip-drip-drip of torpedoed ships sinking beneath the Atlantic waves, muted the public outcry for revenge. As with the Panay on the Yangtze, many Americans continued to fault their own nation for having placed American ships in harm's way."

Observing that the Crisis of 2020 appears to have begun, and what it might mean for the events and outcome of this Fourth Turning. 

Anzio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Anzio

Eric Fletcher Waters' body was never found, but the location of his death has been determined:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10371269/Found-the-spot-where-Pink-Floyd-musicians-father-died-in-battle.html

Everyone has discussed Turkey and the Kurds, so search it out.

The Glorious Revolution, Charles II and James II and all the rest, is also all out there, including frequent mentions on this podcast.

The “music at the Pentagon gym” tweet:

https://twitter.com/Msummerslowe/status/1188799181386850306

World War II in Real Time on Twitter - finished its first cycle in August 2017 with the surrender of Japan, then started up again two weeks later with the invasion of Poland in 1939

https://twitter.com/RealTimeWWII

FiveThirtyEight impeachment poll tracker.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/

And the Republican Strategy podcast episode

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fivethirtyeight-politics/id1077418457?i=1000455331767

“The Crisis of 2020 will be the time when the people of the United States decide what their values really are.” - end of the Crisis of 2020 podcast episode. Not sure if it's still applicable, but worth considering.

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

What is this actually about? What should you be getting out of this - what should I?

This article goes into some possibilities for previous speculation that there's a literal physical change around 44-50, one as notable as puberty if not quite so obvious.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/work-peak-professional-decline/590650/

Denis Leary released "No Cure for Cancer in 1993. It's in some ways a quintessential Baby Boomer view of the world, such as how his first memory starts "with a shooting on November 22 1963 and ends a few days later after a wake, a funeral, and another shooting." 

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

The title, he notes in the book of the stage play of the DVD of the film, is a swipe at Baby Boomers, who spent so much time in hedonistic pursuits that the big items - like a cure for cancer - were never as important as they should have been. 

Although I would also point out that I know several cancer survivors, and that even if a single absolute eternal cure for cancer hasn't been found, the Boom generation and its fellow cohorts are not doing as bad as it seemed 30 years ago, or so.

A companion of sorts to the Apollo 11 episode from a few weeks back, this quick look at the Damien Chazelle movie First Man examines its subject, story, and historical viewpoint through a generational perspective.

Fewer links this time around - most of what is discussed is easily found.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1213641/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Armstrong - 39 in 1969

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shatner - one year younger

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Kubrick - two years older than Armstrong

An initial look at characters in general, and a matrix for what sort of attributes different archetypes can be expected to have:

http://stories.generationalize.com/2016/01/the-force-awakens-characters.html

Some thoughts on the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing, looking forward and looking back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_plaque#/media/File:Apollo_11_plaque_closeup_on_Moon.jpg

We still have time…barely:

https://xkcd.com/893/

Some previous thoughts

https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/1151400733637431296

https://twitter.com/generationalize/status/1122948286359322624

And on Gingrich and his moon base

https://crisis.generationalize.com/2012/02/moonbase.html

An excursion to Northern Ireland, and how it ended up separate from the rest of Ireland, and how Derry Girls ended up in Londonderry in the middle of the Troubles.

Or, if you prefer, a look at how Ireland ended up Catholic, how Northern Ireland ended up Protestant, and how Derry ... Londonderry for Loyalists ... ended up in a Catholic outpost there.

The song at the end is Dreams by The Cranberries, used as the opening and closing of the Derry Girls pilot episode. The band's Irish, it was the mid-90s, it all fits.

(And of course that opening has local hooligans painting over the "London" part of "Londonderry" and yes I know that there's controversy over the name.)

De Courcy build Carrickfergus in 1177, so that’s about how long issues have been going on.

Henry VIII - Much of what I have, which isn't much I'll agree, came from here: 

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

Grace o’Malley is worth checking into more –  I heard about here on Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls – because she was supporting the rebellions in the 9 years war that led in part to the defeats causing the flight of the Earls that [deep breath] allowed James I to send settlers to Northern Ireland.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/grace-omalley-read-by-allison-mosshart/id1350594046?i=1000412035835

Turns out the red hand of Ulster was used by the O’Neills ….while fighting for a free Ireland.

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

And guess what, there’s no agreement on what it means, either, although it appears to go back to pagan times.