On Chris Cornell killing himself, and generation X
OK, if you are not a Gen Xer, please hear this out, because even though CC might not have been your generations hero, his death says a lot about our era.
Cornell led Soundgarden, a band that was part of the whole "Seattle Grunge" thing, even though he was always more of a traditonal singer than a punk screamer. He had chops, as is shown in this clip:
Soundgarden was always considered more metal, whereas most of the grunge movements kept on saying "we aint metal, we're punk!" To some extent, that was noble, as they did not want to cash in on another era, but to some extent it showed that people wanted to follow easy labels and simply want to tell their boomer parents to fuck off. Cornell had fans, although they were never like the media anointed darlings/spokesmen of their generation, Nirvana, or their good friends Pearl Jam. You see, Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vetter, they knew how to sell the idea of being some tortured soul, so that they could cry all the way to the bank. The Generation X crowd , my group, was so eager to find some way of dealing with real angst, the idea that the last generation really did screw up the world, and left a life where the best chances had faded. Not like they were against all Boomers, indeed, Neil Young joined right in, but that came from the fact that Neil Young really did not care of people loved or hated him, and that is why his career has not died, despite changes in time.
But what happened is that generation X did not know, and indeed, DOES not know, how to deal with it's anger, however justified, in a productive way. That is why so many of the Generation X voices, from Cobain to Layne Stanley to Tupac to now Cornell lived short lives full of "what might have been." Worse, many of them turned conservative, part of that old punk rock "we wanna piss you off" attitude, an attitude that did rear it's ugly head last November when Trump actually used young people and Gen Xers to play Hillary off as the clueless greedy old Baby Boomer.
Now, I offer this to the Millenials and Gen Z. Millennials, you guys are getting a lot of crap, especially from the Boomers and Gen X; ignore it. You beat the Generation Xers are seeing that, unlike them, it is not enough to feel pain and rage, you have to DO something with it, and you are. The Boomers could have been leaders, but too many of them (and yeah Gloria Steinem and Erica Jong, I do include you) choose to demonize you because you would not step in lock, they refused to see that they had to talk TO you, not shout AT you. As far Gen Z, the you tube are already talking about you kids will supposedly be the most conservative geenration ever. All I say is, prove them wrong, because when soem gen Xers bought that from the GOP Boomers, they got screewed, royally, and you do not want to become like the generaion that X'd itself out.
RIP Chris..RIP way too many Gen Xers
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This one hit me pretty hard.
Pain is real. If you're hurting, don't be afraid to speak up. Life is the most precious thing you can lose. And in the end, it punishes those who care most about you.
Here's what I remember: In 1970 when my son was born, they didn't have the name "Generation X" yet, that wasn't in use until the 1990's.
But it was noticed that the birthrate suddenly spiked as we baby boomers hit our 20s and started marrying and having our own kids. This was happening around the late 1960's and early 70's, and it was being called the "echo boom". Nobody uses that term now because "Gen X" sounds way cooler. Your generation is defined by the music you listened to, just as ours was, and I guess it's also true for our parents and grandparents.
So when a new "generation" is born, how do you define it when nobody knows yet what the music trends will be? Also how do you define a generation when musical tastes are so diverse as we are in the USA? Our tastes are not only diverse but quickly changing, and it's hard to define a name that's widely accepted.
Be happy with the name Gen X, it's better than Baby Boomer.
I disagree with some of your generational generalizations, though. I think in terms of selling out and getting conservative, you have to look at the Boomers, first.
Gen X- of which I am a member as well- has been catching shit from all quarters from the get-go, and we've had that bullshit about us all being right-wing Alex Keaton clones floating around for decades, at least when we weren't all lazy, nose-ringed starbucks-working slackers.
It's bullshit. There is a strong progressive/activist streak in Gen X, and while many Boomers were nursing their 1970s bellbottom and cocaine hangovers by voting for Reagan in the 80s, a lot of us were active in groups like CISPES and listening to R.E.M. (the IRS years, thank you very much). It is Gen X combined with the Millennials who have brought societal sea changes on everything from marriage equality to cannabis legalization. Solid polling data tells us that.
We haven't always done things the way the Boomers wanted us to, mind you- there is a strong small-l libertarian streak in Gen X, I'll grant you that- which pisses some of them off, but that's the way it goes.
As for Gen Z, or the minecraft generation-- I wouldn't worry too much about them. The kids are more than alright.
And hey, Stephen Malkmus is still going strong. 
My first real political memory is hearing adults talking about "watergate"- I thought it had something to do with water, and a gate.
But statistically, there's certainly a good amount of evidence that large numbers of boomers, despite their self-proclaimed liberalism back in the days of Jimi Hendrix, tacked fairly conservative as they aged- and voted in Reagan, etc. to boot. (I mean, to hear it told on DU sometimes, Gen X is supposed to be to blame for Reagan- even though, if you take 1964 as the starting year, we weren't voting age in 1980 and most of us couldn't even vote in 1984.)
That's not all of you, nor is it some badge of shame on the entire cohort either. But in terms of where the polling lies, the fact is that by and large it is boomers- and older- who have been dragging their feet on things like marriage equality.
Gen X isn't perfect, mind you, really the credit for pushing those issues into the "yes" column goes mostly to the Millennials. But when Boomers try to pretend like they invented sex and weed while simultaneously by and large supporting granny state prohibitions on personal behavior pertaining to both, the hypocrisy is probably gonna get pointed out.
When I was in college, I lived in a house with a number of gay women. Many of them had not even come out to their own parents. I'd go to clubs with them, and it was made quite obvious to me that I was not ever to divulge that I'd seen some of the people there at the club (I was in a kind of public-facing job at the time, so many of them recognized me). Some of my co-workers knew I had gay roommates, but they'd ask in all seriousness, "but not SO AND SO, right?" and I'd always answer "of course not".
Things have shifted so dramatically that it's hard to believe that was in the 1980s. I was lucky that I lived in that situation because it put me way ahead of the curve on a lot of issues, but not everyone had that opportunity. Many of them probably had gay friends and didn't know it. In fact, I know several men who were all living a lie at the time, and have since come out to their friends and family.
Familiarity is essential to acceptance, IMO, for a lot of people. Once they realize that they are not, in fact, going to be "converted" (bad term, but it's what I can think of at the moment), and that their friend is the same person they always knew, it gets easier. I don't know what path everyone takes to acceptance but the important thing is that we are all getting there. Excoriating people for getting there a little later is unhelpful, IMO.
I like my Gen X friends. I just wish they'd quit de facto blaming me for things!!!
decided - for about, what, a year and a half? - that "grunge" was even a thing, or the thing.
Like the clothes, shit, in college in the 80s a lot of us just dressed like that. It wasn't a "style". And it bled over to those of us who considered ourselves latter day hippies, too. Same with the hair (not to mention the recreational drug use, which up until grunge no one seemed to realize that we Gen X'ers were enthusiastic participants in as well) .. I guess someone was surprised we didn't all wear pastel sport coats like Don Johnson, or something.
I think with a lot of it was, for whatever reason the LA-centric music media had been focused on these sucky (at least, I thought they sucked, but of course aesthetic appreciation is subjective) glam hair metal bands for so long, and then all of a sudden here was a bunch of music that was guitar-based, raw, "authentic", whatever. Wow! Except a lot of us had been listening to "authentic" music for years, it just was called "college rock" or it didn't even have a category, it was weird post-punk like the meat puppets or (god bless them) the Butthole Surfers.... But the narrative was presented like we heard "smells like teen spirit" on the radio one day and all of a sudden 50 million of us stopped listening to RATT and traded eye shadow for chuck taylors and a flannel.
I still like Eddie Vedder, he's done some good work over the years, and he's an outspoken progressive. I liked Nirvana but it's not usually what I want to listen to on my ipod on any given day. I do feel bad for folks like Kurt or Cornell who suffer, for whatever reason. But what do I know, I spent a good chunk of the 80s and early 90s going to Dead shows.
Because if the infection had taken, heh heh.. 
you'd know it.
Well, as Jerry once said, paraphrasing, they're like licorice.. not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like it, really like it. I think I made it to 100 or so shows, all over the midwest and west, before he died.
Far and away some of my most profound instances of personal growth, so if Im an asshole, blame those dudes.
Saw some mediocre ones, too, but when they were on it was like nothing else. Indescribable.
I've always been a big R.E.M. Fan, too, going back to Murmur. And I do like the Violent Femmes, Smiths etc. have some good stuff. For a few years I'd argue the Talking Heads were probably one of the best bands in the world, too.
The Cocteau Twins came up on my ipod shuffle today, good christ that's some psychedelic shit right there.
As for Bruce, he's just got such an amazing body of work. Even the relatively recent stuff- the album he did of Pete Seeger covers is great, and I would put Magic in as one of the top 5 albums of the Bush era.
being raised by a Depression survivor and a WWII survivor wasn't no picnic - these were people who didn't just THINK bad things could happen, they KNEW they could...
I don't trash other generations, because I know we all deal with issues
All my life I have loved chatting with the old folk, because OMG you can learn so much from the experience of others.
And I love working with younger folk - many of them, I think they must be born with a computer chip in their brain, the tech info flows so freely.....I pick their brains constantly for advice. 
Everything was actually going pretty damn good, Clinton in office as most of us graduating high school. Good jobs, not tied to our fucking smartphones we actually hung out with each other.
And some pretty damn good music. I guess you do have the goth crowd that wanted to be pissed about something but that was a pretty damn small group. They were too baked to figure it out anyway 
Welcome to the club! 
Those songs, that beautiful voice, the pure conviction in every word he sang.
Generalizations are just generalizations. Let's concentrate on celebrating Chris. We're all going to miss him.
