It's true: the superpower known as the USA is now being run... by Baby Boomers.
They dominate government, control corporations, steer society and culture. Boomers are in power. This is their time.
But who are they, really? What do they think? And most importantly, what have they done? What are they doing?
The Baby Boom generation is certainly well known, but rarely described or even revealed. BUSTED BOOM: THE BUMMER OF BEING A BOOMER takes a crack at it. A wild ride awaits. You'll need seat belts. And maybe air bags.
There are few myths about America's Baby Boom generation, though there are plenty of facts - and feelings. Every Boomer has them, and passions can run high.
As pioneers in the modern concepts of entitlement and privilege, Boomers usually wax defensive of their own kind. However, Brian Paul Bach, born in the mid-'50s, was compelled to emerge from the Boomer rank and file with his own facts, feelings - and a few myths - concerning his generation. A Boomer 'on the street', he is without portfolio, academic support, or corporate subsidy, but he is also without pretense.
BUSTED BOOM is an unflinching examination of Boomers, whose choices and behavior have deeply influenced our world today. Now that Boomers have come into their inheritance, their performance requires a measure of accountability.
Specifically, Bach's observations are made with the attentive eye of an artist and the critical force of a fellow traveler. BUSTED BOOM comes from a writer with a passion for exploring the culture that has surrounded him. Consequently, he now questions it with a unique perception, as sincere as it is trenchant.
White, middle-class Boomers - the book's primary focus - aren't noted for analyzing themselves as Boomers, per se. They are self-aware, but as a demographic group, Boomers who critique their own kind usually do so with detachment. Such inward-looking sensitivity has led to malfunctions in society, business, and politics. Because they are known for their self-absorption and feelings of entitlement, perhaps it's time that one of their own upset the status quo a bit.
No product of some opinionated blogger, media expert, or academic consultant, BUSTED BOOM relies on decades of witnessing Boomers in action and inaction, known and obscure, and plenty of known names are named.
While social, political, cultural and personal matters are considered, the book gets down to details. Boomer folkways are explored via the subjects of creativity, credibility, media, luck, limitations, film and TV, narcissism, Ayn Rand, consumerism, yuppiedom, greed, boredom, New Age, selective history, and 'Empire' phases, with casual lists of 'Exemplary' and 'Non-Exemplary' Boomers. Also, five appendices of related material, and updates. Included is 'Boomers Tend To Be...', a catalogue of Boomer quirks and foibles. As is the Boomer custom, Bach even has a few axes of his own to grind, in order to demonstrate Boomer technique and mentality. Detached he is not. A fully-engaged Boomer, he speaks from experience. He is an 'insider' - but from the outside, so to speak.
BUSTED BOOM is humorous, hard-hitting, satirical, even respectful. It is not sentimental or overly anecdotal. The emphasis is on criticism of Boomers and their choices in life, but with a fellow Boomer's insight as to why and how.
As a book that will both entertain and provoke discussion, BUSTED BOOM goes behind the usual bravado Boomers often display, not only publicly, but on a Boomer-to-Boomer level. Non-Boomers will find much of value, not just as a curiosity, but as a stimulant in observing the unprecedented societal group that now calls the shots in America.
If the Author infers that Boomers are representative of their nation's decline, then those Boomers who remain might yet do their best work in the future. But they'd better get cracking. If BUSTED BOOM is a report card of sorts, it is undeniably incomplete - which means there is still hope.
