Slate's Bizbox
the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Robert Christgau and Danyel Smith

the breakfast table
entries
123456789101112131415
from: Robert Christgau

Hope I Don't Die Before I Get Old

Posted Tuesday, June 22, 1999, at 11:43 AM ET

Dear Mature Woman,

You're almost 34? Dang, Danyel. Maybe we're surprised because we don't see each other that often, or maybe music just puts a spring in one's prose style. Anyway, alternate pleasures for us older folks come in two varieties. Some are interpersonal. You get better at loving, especially but not exclusively if you have kids; and until the juices dry up, which isn't as soon as sourpusses claim, you get better at sex, too. This latter laps over into Category 2, which is the way tastes expand. I've always been a gourmand, but without turning into a gourmet (extreme refinement is against my aesthetic principles) I began actually to understand and appreciate food in my 30s. I keep liking more music as I get older, too--drives me crazy that I don't have enough time to listen to it all. That's why you should ignore your nascent case of rock-critic age anxiety, the why-am-I-listening-to-this-kid-stuff? syndrome, the only virtue of which is that it roots out phonies. I was spared it altogether by punk, which hit when I was 33, but have noticed that for most it disappears around 38 or 40, when they either throw it in or realize that a) popular music, as form if not commercial megasuccess, ain't all kid stuff (Chuck D's still got game, likewise Aretha, likewise the no longer young Sonic Youth), and b) they still love a lot of what is. Backstreet's back all right.

Another piece of age-based anxiety you might consider doing without is the what-happened-to-my-revolution? syndrome. You give off mixed signals on this one, correctly noting that the young expect far too much of their pop heroes in the way of social change, but then fretting because PE once made you think life would be different, only the forces of stasis and entrenched white capitalist power prevailed, so now you believe nothing will ever change boo hoo. I doubt I'm much more optimistic than you are about the end of racism in this country (although I note that I called your audience "biracial" when only "multiracial" will do anymore, a hopeful sign, which isn't to say it benefits African-Americans more than the usual smidgen). But I hope you're not as pessimistic as you claim. I wouldn't admire you as much as I do if I hadn't observed a number of what I can only regard as political agendas at work in Vibe , especially as regards sexual politics. Hip-hop culture can be sexist and virulently homophobic. Vibe is neither, which I believe has had a real (if probably small and by definition unmeasurable) positive effect on that culture. On the other hand, Vibe , even more than the rest of the hip hop press, has exacerbated a status-heavy brand-name consumerism I'm far too bohemian, cheap, and class-conscious to think is anything more than a necessary evil of the magazine business. If it's true, as a reliable magazine junkie I know just e-mailed me, that the average American spends $1,508 on clothes and the average inner-city African-American spends $2,440, is that supposed to make anybody but an ad rep happy?

Avuncularly,
Bob C

the breakfast table
entries
123456789101112131415
from: Robert Christgau

Hope I Don't Die Before I Get Old

Posted Tuesday, June 22, 1999, at 11:43 AM ET
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Robert Christgau is a senior editor and chief music critic of the Village Voice. His essay collection, Grown Up All Wrong (click here to buy the book), was published in 1998. Danyel Smith is the editor in chief of Vibe.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
The Great Debate
Marcus | Forget Biden. I'd like to see McCain face off against Palin.
Toles: Another McCain SurpriseStumped: Where's Palin's Baby?