That’s Life — Steve Bornfeld: Plastic Boomers go bust

Friday, April 7, 2000 | 8:55 a.m.

Steve Bornfeld is the Sun features editor. His column appears Fridays. Reach him at steveb@lasvegassun.com or 259-4081.

Check out the photo: Obviously, this Baby Boomer never succumbed to a plastic surgeon's knife. (Nor was I assaulted by a stunningly incompetent one.) My credo: For better or worse, till death do us part, what body and soul God has joined together let no skin jockey tear asunder.

But the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (or ASAPS -- note "SAPS") reports that Boomers now account for the most cosmetic procedures, at 43 percent. We've always been a vain, self-obsessed lot, even electing the current White House tenant and Epitome of Boomerhood -- twice, God help us -- to prove it.

There's nothing wrong with maximizing what nature gave us -- without carving, stitching, stapling, peeling and liposuctioning what nature gave us. But the generation that created The Youth Culture -- "don't trust anyone over 30!" -- refuses to relinquish it as it creeps into its 50s. While most generations mourn lost youth and move on, this one won't vacate the cosmic Lost-and-Found Department.

So we wonder, fellow Boomers: Why the rush to look like tucked-in, balloon-lipped, Saran-wrapped, skin-tightened-till-your-face-snaps wax facsimiles of your former selves? Does this obsession reach beyond yearning to make love, not war, without looking more like Nixon every day?

Try this explanation: We think we botched our youth and we desperately want one last whack at it -- even an illusory one. Well, a billion tummy tucks won't assuage our anxiety over failing to rid the world of hate, hunger, disease and war -- our modest agenda.

Try this remedy: GROW UP. Every generation changes the world in its own way. But it takes awesome ego to think you can save the world, as Boomers vowed in the '60s. We didn't. We bit off more than we could chew and swallowed the disappointment. We've been choking on it ever since as we toil in sterile offices in sterile office buildings in sterile office park complexes: not quite the vision of Woodstock.

Morally, we changed nothing -- maybe we're even worse off. And our bitterness shows: We've redefined cynicism, perfected sarcasm and worshipped irony (Poster Child: David Letterman). Yes, we changed the world technologically, creating a dot-com culture -- not quite what dreamily swaying to Joni Mitchell, Peter, Paul & Mary and Dylan was all about. And it's largely Boomer execs peddling a pop culture that celebrates the pimples-and-perky breasts set. Beyond profiteering, it smacks of vicarious yearning for yesterday.

For all its digitized/computerized/stock portfolio-ized superiority, in its soul this generation remains adrift, flailing to make youthful idealism line up with aging reality. Having invested our entire identity in our youth, we're now, sadly, stalled in it.

Maybe we don't want to look like adults -- wrinkles, sags, liver spots and all -- because we never learned how to be adults, which entails coming to terms with ourselves. Hey, maybe all we need is a snip here, a tuck there, a fat suction everywhere.

Or maybe you can't snip away a generation's disillusionment.

Or tuck in its ego.

Or suction off its immaturity.