TRIO Twenty-six: Raheem

G21 Staff Writer

SMAPPIES

OAKTOWN, CALI - They are in every major city now, no longer as arrogant as before, the men with protruding paunches, greying at the temples, the women with crows feet and widening derrieres. The Young Upwardly-mobile Urban Professionals (YUPPIES) who so dominated the 1980's, here at the End of the Century are Stagnant, Single, Middle-Aged Professionals(SMAPPIES) and they ain't coping with it very well, Home-boys and -girls.

The FASHION(S) ISSUE: STONEWALL VIEWS: PHIL MARTIN is back to talk about "A GIFT THAT NEVER GOES OUT OF FASHION - THE TRUTH" to inaugurate the new edition. TRIO: RAHEEM on how YUPPIES became SMAPPIES (Stagnating, Single, Middle-Aged Professionals.) DON'T READ ME FIRST! has our Editor & Publisher attempting to suss it all out. The DANGEROUS VISIONS ISSUE: GUEST EDITORIAL: ADAM SMITH, Associate Director of the Beltway's Drug Reform Coordination Network on personal sovereignty! TRIO: ROD AMIS has Dangerous Visions in "Lone Gunman 3." VOX POPULI, YOUR E-mail alternative to the Message Board is updated! TRIO: THOMAS HART talks about "THE POLICE." FLISS USSHER delivers a second Dangerous Vision! LONDON CALLING! "Stress." BARE KNUCKLES: JEFF WINBUSH kicks off the Dangerous Visions Issue with "REGGIE WHITE GOES DOWN." FLISS USSHER's G21 EUROPE column LONDON CALLING! has a Dangerous Vision of a generation in "PARABLE OF A GENERATION" G21 ASIA RAOUL TESLA reports from Angeles, the Philippines. ANOTHER Great Joke of the Day in THE HOUSE OF CARDS! JENNIFER BLUE's PLANETARY MADNESS looks at YOUR influences! Hello! Use The Message Board HOME

The Big Lie of the Reagan boom has caught up with these folks. They eschewed marriages, friendships, et alia for the almighty dollar, the Gordon Gecko "Greed is Good" scenario and now the movie is over. They have been down-sized and technodrone-ized, and the ranks of younger and cheaper troops have continued to swell behind their backs, itching to edge them the freak out of the way. The jobs that didn't go overseas don't go wanting for long, and the poor SMAPPIE is left to break out the Grecian Formula and the Clairol because the last thing you want to appear is "Over the Hill."

Having been born in that undefined middle trough, ten years to late to be part of the Baby Boom, ten years to early to be a Master of Slack, I look at the SMAPPIE thing with not a little bemusement. I still smart from the days when these folks tried to lord it over the rest of us. They got the last good educations, had the last good music, had the last opportunity to change the world, and the last gasoline for under a dollar, is the way they liked to tell it when I was coming up. They were using the world up with a vengeance, and all the likes of people in my non-generation could do was watch.

But, like the pool shark said before sinking the eight ball, "Watch and learn." Some of us did. And now it's our turn to say, "Har-de-har-har!"

We watched these folks roar through the `80s, the prime of most of their lives, getting divorces, buying junk bonds, and having their parents savings squandered by low-life grifters like Charles Keating and Michael Milken. "Greed is Good." Yeah, another okey-doke in sheep's clothing.

Now they are in their mid-forties and fifties. The party is over. The lucky ones still got they corporate task-masters or public sector Simon Legree's, but there ain't as much lilt in their steps as their used to be. They don't dare swagger anymore. They are having their gums worked on, working sixty hours a week, and spending the rest of the time in the gym trying to fight the effects of gravity. They are getting nipped and tucked just like Cher or Courtney Love. They are single and looking over the horizon at ending their days alone and unfulfilled.

I don't know about you, but I find something kindah off-kilter about a fifty year old man in the workplace using the word, "Cool."

I don't like women nearly old enough to be my Mama going out in skimpy cocktail dresses and trying to dance the Macarena.

And I sure don't wannah see Farrah Fawcett take her clothes off for Playboy ever again! Grow up, woman!

I have a shout out for all the SMAPPIES out there: Act your age!

We outtah here.