They don't make music/ movies/ books/ hamburgers like they used to

I'm listening to my Gaslight Anthem '59 Sound CD, which happens to be one of my favorites of all time. It came out in 2008.

Wait, 2008? Don't you mean 1968? or 1978? or 1888? That was when good music came out, nowadays all you get is people rapping about humping guns or whatever.

Says 2008 on the back of the CD.

Oh, well it must be crap then, I won't listen to it.

Don't we all know someone like that? Someone who insists that all great things were made in the past? Are human beings' glory days behind us? Do we produce anything of value anymore?

Of course!

It is unfair to compare the era we are in to any other in history because of one simple fact- this era is happening now. We get to see all of it- the good and the bad and the medium bad. What survives from every other single era?

Only the good stuff. Do we produce bad music, movies, and books nowadays? You bet we do. Have you ever read a book from the last century that just sucked? Probably not. But the reason for that isn't because sucky books didn't get written a hundred years ago, it's because sucky books don't last 100 years. There's a reason art sticks around for a hundred years, or even fifty years, or twenty five years.

Twenty five, fifty, one hundred years from now what will survive from this era? What will people think of the oughties and early 2010s then? Will the gems that are often overlooked now be the only things left?

I'd rather not wait twenty five, fifty, or a hundred years. Look for good music, good books and good movies that are being produced today. It's not as rare as you might think.

The Perfect Generation

I just finished the third draft of my second novel- The Perfect Generation.
Here are the first two pages,

       
 

Chapter 1

 

Tawny Tamblyn approached the three headed monster's lair. She puffed her chest out as if it was filled with the summons from the king in her hand. It didn't hurt that she had a beautiful chest. Even in her monster battling gut resistant plastic shoulder pads she was a sight worthy of the golden setting sun on her back. With her perfectly chiseled cheek bones, perfect light skin, perfect deep brown eyes and perfectly thin figure it was hard not to get big headed. And with only one head that was not something she could afford to do. With three heads the monster would be looking in all directions but one.

She studied the shadows along the cave bottom and waited until one of them moved. That one was the monster and now she knew where he was. One of his heads was pointed in her direction, one north, the third was behind the rest of the monster’s shadow. Was it to the south or to the east?

Tawny backed up behind the monster’s cave. She never lost her balance even when she was climbing backwards. She was as good on her size six feet as a girl mountain goat but she'd like to see a mountain goat attempt this in eight inch heels.

She scooted along the roof until she could kick one of the stones up there over the edge and to the east. Now she could bet he was looking east. She did a back flip off the cave to the south, landing on one foot into a pirouette and then sprinted to a clump of tall grass.

She ran gracefully, fast as a gazelle without making a sound, or breaking a sweat. She reached the grass stalks by the cave while the monster was still looking for the fallen stone.

The only thing more amazing than Tawny's cat woman abilities and drop dead gorgeous looks was her singing. Her voice sounded like an angel of a dove spreading its wings. She could sing the full range of soprano to tenor but for this lullaby she chose a soothing alto. The monster, she could tell, was getting sleepy.

BLEEP!

The alarm shook Tawny’s screen. What? She had just closed her eyes for a second, it was more like a long blink, really. In that instant the monster had grabbed her and chomped through her sim’s head.

“GAME OVER”

Ugh. She would have to wait to play again until her head grew back.

Tawny collected things. That was her hobby. It was a lame hobby she knew- nothing like her best friend Saran Singer’s skydiving hobby or Saran’s best friend Kereun Chung’s celebrity meeting hobby, but it was the best one her family could afford. Skydiving and Celebrity Mingling came only on the premium channel which her dad, who lived like he was as old as the twentieth century, said was a “premium waste of money.”

              Tawny made the most of it. She didn’t collect fake things like avatars or celebrity signatures. She was into real things and she was into all of them. She collected collections. She had a rock collection and a feather collection from the online beach. She had a bug collection- she got one bug whenever she won Bugs vs Humans and she had them embalmed in amber and hung from virtual pendants. She had seventy two. She collected diamonds- though those were much rarer. You got them at Piratecove.com but you had to find the treasure chest to get one and to find that you had to follow the enchanted treasure map which made Tawny's head ache just to look at. She only had four diamonds. She had a blooming collection of flowers though since there were virtual gardens everywhere. She had purple fuchsias, bright gold pixilated marigolds, red and yellow tulips, carnations, hot orange poppies, sunflowers bigger than the sun and zinnias bursting with more color than any real flower ever could.  Tawny’s flower collection was her biggest one with 1,181 flowers in it but her new collection was her favorite.

Lots of poor people collected things. It was the only thing you could do when your dad was a teacher or something equally lame. She couldn’t go to a party without running into at least one other collector which was why Tawny loved her new collection so much. She had never met anyone else who collected jello salad.

She had gotten the idea last week when her mom had bought a real jello salad from groceries.com and had sent it over through the screen drop. Tawny had thought it was a living thing at first the way it jiggled like it was breathing. She had stood watching it from a safe distance away in the hallway in case in tried to attack her but then it had stopped moving and Tawny had thought it looked more like a bowl that was upside down. But if it was a bowl it was the most colorful bowl she had ever seen- red with orange translucent polka dots. When she sneaked over and touched it it had grabbed her finger after all and half sucked her into the slime. She had been shocked when her mother told her they were going to eat it, not the other way around, but it had a sweet fruity taste that slid down her throat easy as warm ice cubes. She could mash the little bit on her plate into anything she wished. She had been re imagining Michelangelo’s David until her father had barked at her to “stop playing with your food!” There was no doubt about it- it was a great conversation piece. It could be just what she needed to finally get noticed at parties.

You didn’t get the jello salads easily. That was what Tawny had been doing in Jellyville- battling the three headed monster that had stolen the jello salad for today’s feast from the Jelly-ville vault. He did this every day and every day she visited the site the fat, peppered looking icon of the town king rushed out and begged Tawny's sim to help. Even though deep down she knew he would do this to anyone who logged into the site it was the highlight of her day. Tawny always wished at that moment, that she could live in Jelly-ville, where they had a feast every day and all she would have to do to be invited and be the hero in everyone’s eyes was defeat a three headed monster. That sounded easier than impressing people at parties sometimes.

              If she had the premium channel her sim's head would have grown back by now but she was stuck tapping her fingers, staring at the screen and waiting.

The thing she hated most about her sim not having a head was that now when she stared into her screen she could make out her own flabby, dark face reflected back at her.

“muffins,” Tawny cursed under her breath.