GenX Steph Turns 40: The A-palooza Phenomenon

Something struck me the other day while I was writing my previous article, "Advice for the Aging GenX'er."

I admit that I keep the television on in the background while I work, I find that the T.V. ramblings help to drown out the noise of my 15- and 12 year olds "occupying" my household. I overheard a commercial that was being broadcast stating that it was time for a "Clearancepalooza" at whatever department store that was hocking it's overpriced slave-labor goods.

In that moment I realized that there was indeed something that the GenX'ers did in fact contribute to popular culture—The "a-palooza"—but I doubt that we ever intended it for commercialism.

To be fair, it was Jane's Addiction's outrageous front man Perry Farrell that coined the phrase for us. For those of you that are not familiar with the Lollapalooza music festival—Goggle it. For those of you that do know about it and perhaps even attended the early shows in the 1990s, ask yourself this, did you anticipate that the term would be introduced as ways to push products for major consumers?

I recognized that I have heard the "a-palooza" term attached to promote many things, but couldn't recall anything specific. What I then realized is that what was created as an alternative festival originally intended to celebrate alternative music and lifestyles has been hijacked by our very own generation to promote everyday household purchases.

It occurred to me that in good consciousness, we must reclaim the term "a-palooza" to be used for its original intention: To organize and motivate to action. Therefore, I suggest that we create an "Occupalooza Festival" in every city (especially Arizona), online and with every purchase that we make.

While I have been looking back at my own life and have been doing research about people's opinions of GenX'ers, I am finding that I am not having any luck finding opinions about GenX'ers FROM GenX'ers.

Sigh. Where the hell are we? I can not believe that with the economy in the sh!tter that we are content and complacent. We just can't be. If we can "shopalooza" we most certainly can "Occupalooza."

I realize that many of us are having trouble figuring out what the "Occupy" movement is about, but I think it's this simple: Things are bad. They have been bad for a long while. How much longer should we put up with it?

We cannot wait for big business to fix it and we sure as hell can't count on our politicians. As much as I would love to advocate refusal to pay our taxes, we all know that we would be f^cked over quite royally if we resorted to that.

I admit that I have nothing clever to say. I can't offer something profound that will automatically shed light on the solution. I wish I did, but am not the visionary that I desire to be.

So I leave it to all of you. If we can participate in "clearancepalooza," "shopalooza," "sexpalooza," "boozepalooza," and "forclosurepalooza"—can we actively support an "Occupalooza?" And how should we go about doing it?

Stephanie R. Woehrmann (GenX Steph) has been a struggling independent contractor since 2008 after being laid off from her newspaper job that she held for 15 years. GenX Steph welcomes comments and hopes to engage and motivate her readers to actively make positive changes in our global community. Follow her @GenXbitch on Twitter and Facebook.