When your pop culture references lose their pop

One of the thorniest aspects of getting older is when nobody around you has heard of what you love.

Hi there! It’s Doug here, writing while Magda is on the road and before our son, who is home for Spring Break, emerges for his traditional 2pm breakfast.

The other day I had just left Trader Joe’s when I realized I’d forgotten to buy an onion. And when I went back in and paid for it, and the cashier asked me if I wanted the receipt, my mind went right to Mitch Hedberg’s “receipt for the doughnut” bit. Luckily, I stifled my instinct to say, “I just cannot imagine a scenario where I had to prove that I bought an onion,” because the cashier was younger than my fridge. So instead I just asked if she’d heard of Mitch Hedberg, and she shook her head.

Which is fine, really. I mean, it’s not like Mitch Hedberg was all that famous beyond a demimonde of comedy nerds. He wasn’t a two-time Oscar winner like, say, Gene Hackman, who is another of my favorite performers whom most young adults couldn’t pick out of a lineup. MAYBE as Lex Luthor. Or Senator Keeley. But Popeye Doyle? Pfft. Even Substack’s AI image generator thinks he looks like this:

Decidedly not Gene Hackman.

I don’t dwell much on how quickly my pop culture references are becoming more grandpop. But I’ve been thinking a bit more about them since I started doing some work with a group of younger bicycle advocates, who have young spouses and young kids and young perspectives and young knees. (Next week I’m posting a podcast interview with a woman who cycled 8,000 miles to honor her brother after he was killed on his bike by a distracted driver.) Most of the time I feel younger just drafting off all of that youth. (Cycling term!) But then I’ll mention Veruca Salt, and maybe one of them will remember “that girl with the squirrels” (instead of the golden geese), and dust will start pouring out of my pant legs.

This morning, while we were “meeting” in the chat, I actually wondered if they knew what Pig Latin is. They do, but it was touch-and-go during those several minutes before anyone responded.

This sensation isn’t new. When I was in my 40s and teaching high school, I was genuinely amused when a student said, “Wait. Paul McCartney was in a band?!?” It hit a little different a week later when one of the teachers said, “Wait. Sting was in a band?!?” But at least that saved me from an apoplectic rant about the horrors of “Don’t Stand So Close to Me ‘86.”

It’s not so bad now, but it’s getting worse. Recently, in a group of about eight people who call themselves adults, none of them knew who Keyser Söze was. They couldn’t place Thelma or Louise. A couple of them hadn’t even heard of The Dude. The Dude! How can anyone abide that?

Also not The Dude.

When our son got home last weekend, he mentioned a bit of a cultural disconnect at school because “you and I watch these films that none of my friends have seen.” So tonight we’re going to watch “The French Connection,” and not just because that was my nickname during my middling tenure on my high school basketball team. Every time he and I watch something classic together, I feel a little less dusty.