Tag Archives: baby boomers

Asian America, social media and baby boomers

As a journalist, I’ve been really lucky. I started my career as a music critic and then a reporter, so I’ve always been able to write about pop culture – especially the pop culture of my generation, the baby boomers. Then when the Internet came along, I was able to move over to work almost […]

If today’s media covered the Moon landing — looking back at a baby boomer’s milestone

This is from Slate: a re-imagining of the coverage of the Moon landing on July 20, 1969 if today’s Internet- and cable-TV fueled media could have covered the event. I think it’s fabulous and funny, but I wonder if young people seeing this would go, “and your point is?” It’s wild to think most of […]

‘Sukiyaki,’ Kina Grannis’ music and the random magic of YouTube

Surfing YouTube videos can be like the early days of surfing the Internet. Following links to random Web pages is a leap of faith, a trust in kismet, that what you’re about to see is both somehow related to what you were seeking in the first place, and hopefully entertaining. In the midst of one […]

Peter Paul & Mary, the sweetest voices of the 1960s folk era

Although I covered pop music at a time when punk, hardcore, “alternative” rock, rap and hip hop were the coolest sounds, I always had a soft spot for the sweet sugar of pure pop. I once wrote an essay comparing Michael Jackson to Prince, as if Jackson were the Beatles and Prince were the Rolling […]

Slinky, a truly classic Baby Boomer toy

Betty James just passed away. Who’s that, you say? She’s the woman whose husband invented the Slinky, and the woman who headed the company that manufactured all the wacky variations of Slinky, from Slinky Dogs to Plastic Rainbow Slinkys, for decades. My friend Leland Rucker, with whom I co-authored “The Toy Book” in 1991, just […]