I’m 25, turning 26 in about 6 months. Why am I having thoughts on dreading old age?<\/p>\n
My first reaction was indignation: Et tu, Who? But that was an old reflex, grown feeble with the passing years. It\u2019s been a while since I could yell \u201cSellout\u201d with any real conviction. Anyway, The Who\u2019s days of overt rebellion are long gone.<\/strong> Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey were Kennedy Center honorees last month, standing alongside Barbra Streisand, George Jones, and George W. Bush, among others.
\nMy second reaction was a suspicion that maybe Townshend hasn\u2019t completely lost his subversive touch after all.<\/strong> Maybe he\u2019s just redirected it inward. \u201cHope I die before I get old\u201d<\/strong> a line included in the sixty-second version has a certain ironic, shamefaced piquancy now that the spokesmusicians for the sixties are in their sixties. That hope for a quick, Hendrix-like demise has been dashed, along with The Who\u2019s retirement portfolio,<\/strong> if theirs is like everybody else\u2019s. But renting out an antique anthem of rebellion isn\u2019t just a way to ensure that the money will be there to pay for an assisted living facility, it\u2019s also a subtly devastating comment on where and how our g-g-generation ended up. Good one, Pete
\nWho Knew?: Hendrik Hertzberg: Online Only: The New Yorker<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I’m 25, turning 26 in about 6 months. Why am I having thoughts on dreading old age? My first reaction was indignation: Et tu, Who? But that was an old reflex, grown feeble with the passing years. It\u2019s been a while since I could yell \u201cSellout\u201d with any real conviction. Anyway, The Who\u2019s days of … <\/p>\n