Busted Boom

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 Boomer 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.

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Baby Boomers are everywhere - for now.

The Author happens to be one of them.

We dominate government, control corporations, steer society and culture. We are in power.

Some of us, anyway.

This is our time. But who are we, really? What do we think? And most importantly, what have we done? What are we doing?

Did we 'drop the ball'? Are we to blame for, like, everything?

Not unreasonable questions, but it's... Well, it's kind of complicated.

Let's see what we can come up with. For starters, BUSTED BOOM: THE BUMMER OF BEING A BOOMER happens to be one Boomer's findings. You, the reader, will of course have your own. We can compare notes...

We of the Baby Boom generation are certainly well known, but other than demographic references to retirement issues, or some other general subject, as considered by the media of the moment, we're rarely described, or even revealed. BUSTED BOOM takes a crack at it. The results aren't exactly an 'extreme sport', as it were, but a wild ride awaits. Maybe you’ll need seat belts. Possibly air bags.

Hopefully, not air sickness bags.

On the surface, 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 incarnations 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 own generation.

As a Boomer ‘on the street’, he is without agenda, 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. Included is ‘Boomers Tend To Be…’, a catalogue of Boomer quirks and foibles.

Also, there are five appendices of related material, and updates. After all, the 'Boomer-ness' in American power intensifies day-by-day.

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 also humorous, hard-hitting, satirical, and 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.

With book design and illustrations by the Author.

IN ADDITION TO THE LINKS SHOWN ABOVE AND AT THE LEFT, BUSTED BOOM IS ALSO AVAILABLE AT MANY OTHER E-BOOK SITES: WEB-WIDE, NET-WIDE, WORLD-WIDE.

boomerbusted@gmail.com

http://bustedboom.blogspot.com/

Brian Paul Bach is a published writer, artist, filmmaker and traveler – in no particular order.

Additionally, and sometimes simultaneously, he has been a worker in the theatre, an academic library, and the music business. He is a student of film and its lore, a casual dramatic performer and voice impressionist, an appreciator of theatre architecture and operation, and an architectural writer.

Golden ages of film production, automotive design, and world architecture are of especial interest, as are music, social culture, and most things concerning the Indian subcontinent. As a youth he regularly read ‘Variety’, embraced teenage filmmaking, worked in fringe show business in Seattle, and later probed the filmic corners of Hollywood, London and India.

From these pursuits he has adopted cinematic thinking as a built-in facet of everyday life. As a young person he ran his own neighborhood theatre, for which he produced acts and short movies. He has been immersed in performance arts and associated activities all his life. Accompanying these efforts has been an ever-present production of drawings, paintings photographs, videos and designs that have added up to a very personal statement of style and expression.

A retrospective exhibition of his multi-media works appeared at a local gallery in 2014, along with a companion volume, BPB'S ARTPOURING: A REPRESENTATIVE RETROSPECTIVE CATALOGUE (Goth House, 2014), lavishly illustrated, including commentary.

At home and abroad, independent exploration has always been part of Bach’s milieu. Living for periods in Europe and Asia, as well as along the west coast of the US, the exposure to cultures, societies, physical environments, and life itself within such diversity has brought with it an expansion of outlooks, the promise of understanding, and a fulfillment through the riches encountered. His artistic response has been appropriately wide-reaching and purposeful.

In a more specific context, from this mixture, Bach has observed his own generation’s behavior, its choices and outlooks, its deeds and its misdeeds, its players and its followers, all with the attentive eye of an artist and the critical force of a fellow traveler.

Thus, BUSTED BOOM: THE BUMMER OF BEING A BOOMER is a logical outcome from a writer with a passion for exploring the culture and mindsets with which he grew up. Consequently, he now questions them with a unique perception, as sincere as it is trenchant.

Bach’s published works, illustrated with his photos, drawings, and maps, include: THE GRAND TRUNK ROAD FROM THE FRONT SEAT, in two editions, (HarperCollins 1993 and 2000) – the Author’s travels from Calcutta to the Afghan frontier; and CALCUTTA’S EDIFICE: THE BUILDINGS OF A GREAT CITY, (Rupa & Co. 2006) - a major examination of this under-known city’s architecture and culture in over 700 pages, with almost as many illustrations. In numerous libraries worldwide, the book has been presented to two successive Chief Ministers of West Bengal state, at the 2006 and 2012 Calcutta Book Fairs, the latter attended by the Author.

Soon to become available through Goth House, are Bach’s works of fiction: FORWARD TO GLORY, a four-part ‘epic noir satire’ that charts the rise of an actor from obscurity to the biggest stardom in the world, and LURID, a thriller set in Calcutta, in which the city is threatened with total destruction by an ancient demonic force. An epistolary novelette, CONFESSIONS IN THE GLOW OF A NEW MOON, deals with a group of eccentrics on a canal boat in southern India, 1905. Further works are in progress, such as THE ELECTRIC PUNKAH a large collection of short stories with South Asian settings and subjects, and CARSTAIRS or, FINITE AGONY: A NOVEL OF 1975, which links (and eviscerates) the worlds of used cars, radio, and the theatre.

He lives with his wife Sandra, an accomplished ceramicist and chef, faithful hound Hugo, and independent cat Perry in central Washington State, USA.