Shelf Life — Scott Dickensheets: Teen ambivalence, Woodstock madness explored in Spin

Friday, Sept. 10, 1999 | 9:18 a.m.

Scott Dickensheets' books and magazine column appears Fridays. Reach him at 990-2446 or dickens@vegas.com

Every new generation fancies itself lost. Some to drugs, some to money, some to media-numbed boredom, some to the tides of history, whatever the romantic indulgence of the times requires. It's probably too soon to diagnose exactly what's eating the current crop of teensomethings -- too early, anyway, for a humble books and magazine column -- but two stories in the latest issue of the music magazine Spin at least offer preliminary X-rays.

Now, I don't usually turn to Spin for dispatches from teenage wasteland; it's rare that I flip to its table of contents with hope of finding anything worth serious eyeball time. As far as I can tell, its of use mainly to people who want to catch the last 20 minutes of whatever trend was brewing when any particular issue was put to bed.

Fortunately, in the case of the September Spin, that trend was autopsying the riotous Woodstock concert, an assignment the hepcat publication is ideally suited to accomplish. How did three days of peace, love, overpriced water and cynical cashing-in on a venerable brand name end in flames, clashes with police and allegations of rape?

My own hobbies being somewhat different, I paid little attention to media handwringing in the aftermath; kids will be kids, and it happened in upstate New York, so far away ... Somehow, though, I drifted into Spin's lengthy recap, a team-effort blow-by-blow, and was immediately engaged by the depth and breadth of its reporting. It would have made grown-up magazines envious.

The story is, naturally, fully stocked with the usual crowd-pleasing elements: underprepared promoters, overwhelmed security, rapacious vendors, rowdy musicians, sonic youth, public nudity/sex, piles of garbage, lakes of raw sewage, a performance by Jewel -- all the ingredients for fun, fun, fun.

Yet, as the narrative progresses, bad vibes are obviously simmering beneath the music. The heat, filth, drugs and invisible security force create a consequence-free zone. Women are continually manhandled and worse, particularly in the mosh pits (although only a few rapes would be officially reported) -- their firsthand accounts make for some of the least-comfortable reading. "One guy put his hand inside my anus," one reports. People are beaten; revelers throw feces. It sounds like open-cage day at the monkey house.

All of this leads inexorably to Sunday's fiery conclusion, which the participants shrug off with pagan nonchalance. "Our generation ain't stupid," one kid boasts. "We're going to get our money's worth, then riot." "I'll tell you what, man," another says. "It's a generation of ambivalence ... older people will never get it ..."

One word for you, twerp: Altamont. Yet, he's right, of course. While we geezers here at Shelf Life are no strangers to crazed debauchery -- when we start mixing pinochle and blender drinks on a Saturday night, well, no one knows what might happen -- recreational rioting, sexual assault and mindless destruction are the sorts of things you're supposed to outgrow.

The generation of ambivalence is also on grim display in Mark Schone's absorbing first-person account of teenage coyotes in the redneck deserts of Southern California.

Coyotes, you'll recall, smuggle illegal aliens into the U.S. For the alienated youth in and around the economically doomed town of Niland (near the Salton Sea in the Imperial Valley), it's just another employment option, and they're doing brisk trade. As in most criminal enterprises these days, it has dawned on those in charge that underage drivers get light punishment if caught.

"Nobody really cared if they got arrested or not," one kid tells Schone. "They slapped us on our hand and told us, 'Don't do it again.' The next day, we did it again."

In contrast to the tribal raiders of Woodstock '99, the kids of Niland are licensed in their bad behavior less by a lack of consequences than a lack of opportunities. Some squat in un-air-conditioned trailers on a vast field of slabs left over from an old military operation. While a kid or two at least attempts to break from the coyote pack into legitimate work, most stick with it.

These stories bookend a queasy feeling you get about young people these days, as the millennium approaches and the culture fragments and class gap widens and racial lines remains heated and technology remakes the world daily and more families splinter and the whole pace of things seems to keep accelerating. Are the kids, really, truly, all right? Even those of us still on the young side of the old-fart divide are, well, worried.

At moments like this I'm comforted by the fact that I sound like my father. The punks and young toughs he was worried about didn't finish off the world, and maybe the latest generation of ambivalence won't either.

Footnotes

Mirabella, September 1999: You can tell it's the women's magazine's "25 Smartest Women in America" issue by the presence of cover girl Brooke Shields. Nothing says "brainy" like "Brenda Starr." The other 24 must be humdingers!

If the magazine really defined "smartest" as "most intelligent," its list wouldn't have a single recognizable face, unless you're current on scientists, professors and literary theorists. No, by "smartest," the magazine means the more People-magaziney "intriguing," guaranteeing the roster a little more star (even Brenda Starr) power. Some of the faces: editor Tina Brown, HBO exec Sheila Nevins, singer Lauryn Hill, actress Felicity Huffman, Clinton hater Lucianne Goldberg and Clinton lover Chelsea Clinton.

It is, in fact, a pretty good list, perky reading, a fine cross-section of achieving women, everything Esquire's annual "Women We Love" hasn't been lately.

Esquire, October 1999: Another fun-packed issue of the venerable men's magazine. Cover boy: George Clooney. Ehh, whatever. But lots of other good stuff: a searing essay on brotherhood by writer Scott Raab, a story about Nick Nolte described in the editor's note as "one of the oddest celebrity profiles ever written," and writer Tom Junod's meditation on why so many men hate Hillary Clinton with what my friend, the shadowy Mr. X -- himself a seasoned Hillary hater -- refers to as "the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns."

A Barnes raising: This just in -- Barnes and Noble has opened a new superstore on Maryland Parkway near Flamingo, adjacent to the soon-to-be-shuttered Bookstar.