DOS & DON'TS

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		NAPOLEON BONAPARTE The Vice Interview

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		ELECTRIC INDEPENDENCE My parents have always taught me that hon...

		SMASH THE SYSTEM Jackson Bends The Rules

		VICE COMICS IT’S A BOOMER’S LIFE

ALSO BY JUNE SPRIG

		RIGHTEOUS DAD Gary Higgins Ain't So Bad for a Boomer

		OUT THERE One Kiss Can Lead To Another is th...

		SILVER FOX Dave Berman Went and Got Shit On

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IN THE MAGAZINE


Photo by Tim Barber

RIGHTEOUS DAD

Gary Higgins Ain't So Bad for a Boomer

Gary Higgins is lucky that this whole SIX Organs of Admittance folky psychy thing came into vogue, but all these kids are also lucky that dudes like Gary existed because they wouldn’t have ideas without the hip dads like Gary here. It’s like the Grandfather Paradox, man. Or like the chicken and the egg. Or maybe not. I’m pretty high right now.

Gary went to jail in the 70s on a weed-possession rap, but right before he did he recorded this beautiful, smoky album full of soft and mellow and soulful jams. It was almost lost to the ages but this dude at Drag City found it and they put it back out. Now Gary is touring the country and young dudes with beards are loving it.

Vice: So tell me the truth—are you a real live baby boomer?

Gary: In the strictest sense, yes. But it’s a very large group of folks that in fact had and now have very different views of things. So I am, by virtue of birth date, if nothing else.

But you didn’t connect with that whole nostalgia thing that the boomers based their entire lives on in the 80s, did you? You seem cooler than that.

Yeah, I guess I missed the nostalgia bit. I did see The Big Chill and I liked the movie but never made the connection to an apparent (you said it) nostalgia movement. A very large portion of this group was way too busy trying to survive to get too teary-eyed.

Yeah, yeah. I’m just talking about the douches who were putting out movies and doing TV shows like thirtysomething. What do you see in the future for the boomers?

I see a great flourish of nursing homes... with no one available to work in them and to look after us since we sent all our children off to law school, where they will be litigating the neglect charges in the health-care system, clogging the courts. But of course, they will call frequently on their cell-phones promising a Christmas visit.

I plan on taking care of my parents way better than they took care of me. What are the best and worst the boomers have wrought?

The best things are rock ’n’ roll and its peripherals as the building blocks of pop future, and the civil rights movement. The worst? Disco and reality TV (or George W.), they’re about the same anyway, aren’t they?

JUNE SPRIG
Gary’s Red Hash is out now on Drag City.

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COMMENTS

Anonymous, on Jul 1, 2009 wrote: Genius!

Anonymous, on Jun 30, 2009 wrote: ps: gary higgins is probably a dickweed.

Anonymous, on Jun 30, 2009 wrote: guess what. your parents were probably assholes. i dont have the patience to read this diharrea, but that seems like its probably the case. the fact is not all baby boomers are pretentious dickweeds.

Didymus, on Apr 16, 2009 wrote: Why are you named after a supermarket?

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