YOWL

Robert McLachlan found this in an old 80's issue of The New Republic, and was even nice enough to convert it to HTML himself! I suffered through the Reagan-happy years of the 1980's, and I think this is a pretty cool parody.

YOWL
On the 30th anniversary of "Howl."

CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY
PAUL SLANSKY
D.C.-L.A.-D.C. 1986
For Jay McInerney

I

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by stress frazzled overtired burnt-out
jogging through suburban streets at dawn as suggested by the late James Fixx,
career-minded yupsters burning for an Amstel Light watching Stupid Pet Tricks,
who upwardly mobile and designer'd and bright-eyed and high sat up working in the track-lit glow of the Tribeca loft skimming through the Day Timer while padding the expense account,
who passed through universities and saved their asses hallucinating Grateful Dead posters and eating Sara Lee while watching the war on TV,
who were graduated and went on to law schools burning to save the world,
who brewed decaffinated coffee doing their yoga in alligator shirts and listening to the latest Windham Hill Sampler,
who ate chocolate croissants in outdoor café s and drank blush wine on Columbus Avenue washed down with a little Percodan with Dove bars with Diet coke with Lean Cuisine,
stopping by on the way home for a pound of David's cookies telling each other of their fears on intimacy and their need for space and inability to commit - for now,
who watched Mary Tyler Moore reruns and wept for Rhoda and worried about acid rain and the mercury in the swordfish while strung out on cyclamates faces flushed with MSG even after specifically making a point of mentioning to the waiter not to put it in,
who prowled through uncertain money markets chewing Tums and doing lines with the Hispanics in the mail room sitting in the gents with baby-laxative runs while the boss buzzes and the secretary says you're on the phone to Bonn,
who stayed up too late working out their relationships 'n' things feeling the gnawing rat-fear that they hadn't been communicating lately and the urgent pounding screaming need to think about their priorities,
yacketayakking analyzing thinking it through making constructive suggestions as the eastern sky flamed in raw Ralph Lauren pastels, ...

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