If I were a kid today I’d probably be wearing bell bottoms and singing “Tom Sawyer”. The shameful truth is that’s what I did when I was about 13. Too bad I was about 5 years behind that trend, so I’m pretty much ruined to this day. There’s still the chance for me to be cool today if I step out on the streets of Provo confounding all the kids with dyed and ratted black hair, skinny jeans, and tickets to see Hannah Montana. One day I realized all we do in pop culture is rebel against whatever gets passed on to us. There are only so many (3 or 4) wild departures we can take, so in effect we cycle through a pretty limited set of variations: long hair, skinny ties, kempt, unkempt, smelly, hygienic. I hold my breath waiting for the foul trends to phase into the decent ones.

So how do bell bottoms fit into the phases. They’re the wide leg pants from the 70’s, I mean where they would rip the seams and sew in fabric entirely unrelated to denim. This was probably a big statement against short hair, skinny ties and taking showers every day. In the late 70’s there was disco with white suits, glitter, and John Travolta. Then came skinny ties and suits again. Punk – Hair bands. Bauhaus – Wilson Phillips. Duran Duran – Nirvana. Pee Wee Herman – Carrot Top. Wide – skinny – wide – skinny – baggy – tight – wide – skinny… I’m not sure, but can you make out a pattern there?

The part that infuriates me is that each group of ignorant kids believes they are original individuals. I guess someone who has not seen the same phases pass through a few cycles might be amazed to see “The Killers” totally blow away the guitar bands by wearing skinny suits and playing synthesizers, just like back in late 70’s new wave. The sad thing is that this evolution in trends is highly regulated and monetized by big business. I officially grew old when I saw the PBS Frontline report on “The Merchants of Cool“. Fresh ideas and individual expression do not sprout up from the ground, they are mass synthsized and saturated in the soil like a chemical assault on leafy green originality. The benefit of all this is I can map out on my calendar what trends will develop. Once “emo” has mercifully passed on we can look forward to a couple of years of decent, hygenic kids in public, but then watch out for hoodlums again after that.