Generation X: Represent!

As a child of the 70s and teen of the 80s, I am fortunate -- no, fully stoked -- to have been influenced by two of the greatest pop culture decades in contemporary history. I'm the product of a Brady Bunch-like suburban Southern California upbringing, raised on a steady diet of waaaay too much tv, am/fm radio, cassette boomboxes, bike rides to the beach and corner store; block games of hide and seek and freeze tag; tri-feature matinees; bumper car arcades at the mall and multi-weekly patronage of the ice cream man.

These decades brought me my first best friends, my first slow-dance, my initial kiss, my first "meeting her families." It's when I learned to drive, when I made my first tackle for a loss, garnered my first academic awards and made my first trip without my parents. I learned to surf to the ocean; I was hip hop's first generation; I high-fived my way through my Lakers and Niners dynasties; watched eagerly as the sole Dodger fan away on college in upstate New York, my Dodgers beat the A's on Kirk Gibson's legendary home run. Here I learned to balance a check book; treat my parents to a posh dinner; made my broadcast TV debut. It's when an eerie but, beautiful tv commercial during the Super Bowl caused me to challenge my own belief structure. It . . . just was. And I wouldn't change it for anything. Damn. Can we rewind yet?