Fiber and Middle Age

Photo: infographiclist.com

Well, it happened. One of the most awesome songs by one of my favorite bands was used in a commercial. For FIBER. Well okay, for Fiber One cookies, but still. I know all about how advertisers work, how they choose songs and images to appeal to a target market. It can only mean one thing: MY generation is now the generation that needs fiber. Maybe I'm being silly (not unusual), but it seems MUCH too soon. I mean, I'm not an AARP member yet or anything (not that they aren't already starting to send me emails. *Sigh*).

Once upon a time, the Scorpions were considered edgy and bad*** (and in my opinion they still are), as were we leather-clad fans who liked to listen to their music at ear-shock decibels. Yes, I AM deaf as a post as a result of all my loud music and years of dancing in front of the speakers at my friends' gigs. But it was SO worth it.

I remember when I first got the single that they are using in the commercial (Rock You Like a Hurricane). Actually, my grandmother bought it for me at Ames store in Newport, Vermont. She saw the record (yes, a little 45) and saw that it was new. She knew I loved the band so she bought it for me. Nothing got past my grandmother, not even my raunchy taste in music ;-) I spent the rest of the afternoon laying on my bedroom floor with my head between my ginormous speakers (back then, bigger was better. Mine were about 3'x2', and about 1' deep), listening to the song over and over again until it was time to go feed my horses. Bliss!

And we were cool, I swear! We still are, dammit. Back then we actually were too busy DOING things to take pictures of ourselves (though we did look amazing;-). We had very little on the TV, no cell phones, no computers. We left the house and spent lots of time with our friends. Okay, sometimes the things we would get up to were naughty (like my sister setting someone on fire in a pile of leaves, but I digress...), but it was all genuine. There just wasn't the duality of who you were verses your online persona. We lacked the apparent narcissism of today's online world. Not a bad thing. It was a challenging thing to overcome when I first started needing to market myself over social media, but I'm still REALLY grateful that there aren't hundreds of posed pictures of me making weird faces posted all over the place.

From a musical standpoint, people HAD to have talent. I miss that. Everybody played instruments, everybody sang. It was all REAL, and so...organic. You could go to a concert and hear the abilities of the musicians coming through (and often get one hell of a contact high, but that's a whole n'other story). I like some of today's music, but not much. I feel like my mother when she used to say "That's AWFUL, turn that noise DOWN!" But of course, every generation has their music, and it's something that will always speak to them and bring them back to 'that' place. Now, my music is being used to sell me fiber. It was sort of inevitable, really. But it's still a great song, and hey, COOKIES!