I know that the world didn’t grind to a halt, but in case you didn’t hear about it, Jerry Lewis did not host the Muscular Dystrophy telethon this year. So much for Jerry’s kids! It apparently was not an amicable breakup. From I was able to glean from those reliable entertainment news sites, someone in the MDA got a burr up his/her butt and unceremoniously fired him, except someone forgot to tell him. For awhile it looked like they would kiss and make up for another year, but that too collapsed as air time approached. Instead of an icon running the show, there was an amalgamation of stars in a truncated show after an announcement on air that Jerry Lewis had “retired.”
Time marches on, and change is inevitable. One of my pet peeves is old war horses that don’t know when to pack it in and move on. But this was different. Jerry Lewis was the Muscular Dystrophy telethon. Those WERE Jerry’s kids. He was so identified with the organization it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Maybe that was the problem.
Or maybe not!!! Why do I sense a thirty something smart ass in the wood pile? Not that I have any inside information or anything, but my experience with folks between the ages of 20 – 35 has not been good these past few years. This generation is the most narcissistic, arrogant, and self centered that the post war baby boom has produced to date. Raised on tech, they have no social skills and rely entirely on technology as a moral compass.
People this age have always elbowed their way into positions of authority in show business, espcially in television. I have had some interaction with show business types as of late, and I can tell you to watch out. It is a culture like none I have experienced before. No patience. No understanding. No social skills. No decorum. No loyalty. And everything centered on “me”. It is scary.
I have also experienced it in some of the locals around here. They’re not all that way, but more than a goodly portion of them have no respect for anyone or anything but themselves. I can’t tell you how many times I have bumped into young adults of that age group who don’t even have the social grace to say hello. They just stare at you, and when they speak, it usually turns into some kind of chronic whining. They are entitled. Unless you are there to serve them, they want no part of you.
I would like to think that sense of entitlement comes from the government, but mostly it comes from over indulgent parents who have given these kids everything they want when they wanted it. Now the kids want more. There is no working for the future. Everything in their life has to be instant gratification whether it is communication, houses, jobs, or sex. If it is not provided to them, watch out. And if they can’t get a job after college, Mom and Dad better get used to supporting them in the style to which they are accustomed.
Next year, mention Jerry Lewis around telethon time and you will get “Jerry who?” Fame is fleeting no matter how long you may have had it. But I can just see some smart 35 year old account executive sitting at an MDA meeting this past year saying “Time to get rid of the old goat. That senile dude is bringing us down, man.”
And if that’s case, shame on them. And if we don’t start to clean up our act with another generation of self absorbed, self centered tech junkies with no social skills coming down the pike, shame on us.
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