Abuse your elders (no fishsticks)

Every day now I check Twitter to see what the girls I stalk had for breakfast, and all I see is a bunch of people lamenting the fact that hip-hop doesn't have any respect for its elders. The fuck?

According to their logic, the Game shouldn't attack Jay-Z, because once an artist ascends to a certain level, they should be considered a legend, and you shouldn't take shots at legends. You don't see Panic! at the Disco taking shots at Radiohead, now do you?

Of course, I'm gonna have to agree. As far as I'm concerned, the fact that old people are treated like shit is one of the few things that's still right with hip-hop. If we could get past the notion that coonery should be accepted,if it helps lift people from poverty, we might actually be on to something.

Small steps...

I've been thinking about elder abuse a lot lately, both because some of my favorite pr0n actresses are getting on in years (late 20s, ick!), and because it occurred to me a few weeks ago that I might be the youngest guy who blogs for this site, even though I'm not as young as I used to be. I'm a little bit older than Noz, who used to blog here, but he couldn't bring himself to write anything people want to read, so he had to wave bye bye.

I'm surprised there isn't anyone who works here who's like 15. Even though everyone else who ever worked here has struggled to be as prolific as I am (my bad, colleagues), it's not like this is difficult work. I probably could have done it when I was 15, if there was such a job back in 1996. Back then, I was dealing with more or less the same set of concerns as I am now, though I didn't have the knowledge of pr0n and contentious political issues to flesh them out as well as I can now.

Maybe it's because I'm not really as old as my lifestyle has me feeling, but I do think I've been fortunate in that I haven't had to sweat some dumbass kid trying to be the next Bol. I can only imagine what it's like to be in the same position Jay-Z is in, where he hasn't done any good work in years, and now the public is finally starting to turn on him, and the Game seems more intent than ever to ether him, perhaps because he smells blood in the water. It must be devastating.

If I wasn't such a hater, I could almost sympathize with Jay-Z. I'm gonna be 39 one day too, a decade and some change from now. I'm sure the last thing I'll need is some 20 something punk making fun of the fact that I can no longer pop a rod. But hopefully I'll have the sense to just admit that I'm not as virile as I once was, rather than trying to suggest that I'm somehow above being dissed. What part of the game is that?

Yeah, you don't see artists in other genres of music blatantly disrespecting older artists. But just because other people aren't doing something doesn't mean it's a bad idea. Making fun of old people, beyond just being funny, helps keep hip-hop artistically vibrant. Just think, if we could have driven Jay-Z from hip-hop three years ago, we could have prevented "Run This Town."