McWorld

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

I am supposed to go to Nik and Jaymee’s Garlic Poetry Festival Saturday night but my son’s sister Amanda is in town to meet us for the very first time. Nik and Jaymee’s E-vite politely specifies no kids, and I’m not sure at what age my 15-year-old son will be no-kids, and so we search for something we can all do together. I’m not a very fun hostess—there is something off and crackly about me all this week—but at least I won’t make Amanda, in Los Angeles for a few days from Oregon, sit at my house on Saturday night watching old Laws & Order while I traipse off for garlic and poetry. My brother John has a suggestion, and it’s as excellent an idea as always: his friends the Magic Johnson are playing at McWorld, at Adams and LaBrea, and it’s an art party, and we will have fun!

Amanda was fostered out before Jimmy was born; she was adopted at six by Seventh Day Adventists, and though she deviates from the denomination’s mores by dancing and wearing jewelry, she has clearly been well-brought-up. In the days she is with us, not even a mild oath passes her lips, while the rest of us—including my teenage son—are all “fuckin’ this” and “fuckin’ that” and I note that she is a lady, and I’m embarrassed that I’m not. But she has true manners, and never betrays any shock or disgust with our constant, incessant vulgarity. She is a lovely young woman. My son Jimmy—her younger brother—has made her a Valentine. “I love you, Sis,” he’s written on it before they ever have met.

When we first walk into McWorld, we realize why everyone has clustered out front. The music is fucking ear-splitting, and there is no reason beyond adolescent brattiness for it to be that loud. (You know what they always say: If it’s too loud ... turn it down.) Jimmy and Amanda look traumatized, and I remember the beautiful summer day I took Jimmy to the Hootenanny (he was three maybe, or four?) and plopped him down in front of a ten-foot-high speaker so I could dance right at the front of the stage. He burst into immediate tears, and an attentive and goodhearted friend came up to the front, picked him up in her arms, and carried him to the back of the crowd, as far from the speaker as they could get. “Oh,” I thought to myself then. “Right.” From then on I only put him next to the speaker if he was actually on the stage. Which happened rather a lot.

There is some studenty-looking art work on the high white walls, and I am enjoying it because it gives me something to focus on besides the insultingly pointless music. John gets us a McMosa—orange juice and Colt 45, which tastes intriguingly like Tang.

photo: Paul Takizawa

There are many hipsters, in their 20s, and a few of them are wearing animal-eared furry headgear, because they are madcap and zany, I guess. Amanda and Jimmy want to get gone so badly, their faces frozen in despair, but we will wait and see if the next band is better, because I am open-minded and the future is bright and tra la la, tomorrow is another day. The liquor store across Adams Boulevard holds a grab-bag of humanity. The clerk stands behind bulletproof glass.

Eventually the Magic Johnson get started—they are friends of my little brother’s, and he is proud to know them—and they warm up with ten minutes repeating the same notes, loud and slow. A/C, C/A, A/C, C/A. And I erupt in fury, making angry faces at my brother, shaking my head and mouthing NO. We are leaving NOW. This is HORRIBLE. We are LEAVING. Why am I so mad? Why not just giggle and sneak out? I am actually offended, and stomp off! John follows us outside. “They’re just really antisocial!” he tells me. “They’re shy! They’re trying to make everyone leave, so they can play to an empty room!” They’ve succeeded, we are leaving, I am spitting with how-dare-they. How dare they accost my ears like that? How dare they be so self-in-love that their atonal bullshit squiggling should be inflicted on actual people? “That’s just their warmup!” my brother pleads. “They turn into music!” If so, they turn into music too late.

I think about Nik and Jaymee’s party, which I have not attended despite my RSVP. Back in Long Beach, in The Day, they were high-school-art-teachers-in-residence at The Space, a massive warehouse down by the port. Once a month, the musicians who lived at The Space threw a party—always decadently themed—to pay for rent and a fridge full of Newcastle. Nik and Jaymee and a crew of dedicated oddballs decorated the 10,000-square-foot building extravagantly each time; there was art, and three or four separate stages, and up to 40 musical acts all through the night. People came in handcrafted costumes, and even brushed and possibly washed their hair. There might have been a few bands doing Art Noise, but even so very few of them droned self-indulgently, at least before 4 am. I bet Nik and Jaymee’s party, where I am not, is awesome and drunken and all-grown-up.

And I am so mad at these kids! My Gen X cohort made an effort for their parties. The studios and safehouses they set up were ridiculously artistic. And my Gen X musicians knew how to play. They might be earnest and polished, like the Dibs, or misogynistic and retarded like Shave, or poppy lo fi punk like Lo Fi Champion, or tight perfect funk by sexy prettyboys Mention. But they worked and worked and worked. They practiced—at actual rehearsals!—and did their best not to drive people from the room. Don’t worry: they still managed to find time to do plenty of drugs and all Long Beach’s ladies. And even so: they didn’t suck.

Ask any HR professional: the Gen Y kids, as a rule, refuse to start in entry-level jobs. They refuse any dues. The self-esteem racket has each of them thinking they are special no matter what they do or don’t do, no matter what atonal farting they burp out. They get out of college and think they know more than the boss, and they should start at $70 thousand a year. At my last paper, we had one intern who was a terrific self-starter, always full of ideas on ways she could contribute—but she also yelled at her supervisor, almost every day, telling him he was stupid and demanding he listen to her. There was I, trying to calmly conflict-resolve, and explaining to her, over and over again, that even if her supervisor was stupid and didn’t listen to her, he was her boss, and she needed to learn not to yell at him.

John is sad that I am so old and bitter and judgey, and doubtless embarrassed him by storming out, glaring, in front of his friends. Amanda and Jimmy are sad that we went to such a terrible party instead of hanging out looking for famous people at the Grove. My boyfriend Paul is sad because he actually really likes atonal NoiseCore, and I made us leave. I am sad because I don’t throw great parties like I did when I was younger, and I’ve gone and missed what was surely a bohemian feast at Nik & Jaymee’s.

I did like the McMosa, though. I really did.

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