Like a flash, it came to us! The truly Burning Spiritual Question of Our Time (meaning This Fleeting Moment in Autumn 2006): Does anyone play Shuffleboard anymore? Or, let's put that question another way: If we suddenly felt moved to reconnect with our Baby Boomer childhood in the Rec Rooms of the 1950s and 1960s, is there anywhere we can go to play a few games?
Now, before you Comment or Email, complaining that we at Spirit Scholars simply don't know what we're talking about: Sure, we know there are fancy-schmancy table-style games in many bars and clubs now that call themselves something like Shuffle-This or Shuffle-That or have exotic European names like Sjoelbak. NO! We're talking here about the actual Shuffleboard that came across the Atlantic Ocean from Britain on the decks of ocean liners a century or so ago -- and that happy suburban families in the 1950s laid into the colorful tile floors of their Rec Rooms?
In point of fact, we mean the Shuffleboard that actor, director and all-around Hollywood Wild Man Dennis Hopper is currently assuring Baby Boomers that they definitely DO NOT want to play in retirement. We mean that Shuffleboard!
Have you caught Hopper on TV? While watching the recent World Series, we caught him a half dozen times. The first time, he came on the screen while our 17-year-old son, who actually has seen "Easy Rider" on DVD, was sitting there watching the screen, too. But, as Hopper stepped up out of a bright red chair and began talking to us from the TV screen -- no lights came on in the lad's glazed eyes. And so, we asked: "Hey, do you know who this guy is -- or was?"
A blank look showed that he did not.
"That's Dennis Hopper! That's the guy with the floppy hat in 'Easy Rider'!"
Now the blank look slid into a puzzled tilt of the forehead. "Really? Are you sure?"
Yep, we're as sure as -- what? -- death and taxes, isn't that how that phrase goes? Dennis Hopper has become a pitchman for Ameriprise Financial, Inc., NYSE: AMP. He appears in TV ads placed mainly in sports programs, sitting in various natural locations on a 1960s-era red chair -- trying to evoke Baby Boomer nostalgia, yet at the same time, prompt Baby Boomers to worry enough about the future to start making some serious financial plans.
In one of the ads, he tries to conjure up all the fears that Baby Boomers might have about old age and death by half threatening and half joshing in this way: "You don't want to play Shuffleboard, do you?"
You may think we are kidding about all of this here at Spirit Scholars. We are most definitely not.
Here's part of the text of the actual corporate press release about the development of these ads for the financial-services firm: "The ads are set in a variety of locations including a beach, salt flats and field of wildflowers that convey the serenity many Boomers hope to achieve in retirement. Sitting within these tranquil settings on a 1960s-style red chair is Hopper. ... We are firmly focused on the positive aspects of 
retirement and our understanding that Boomers aren't going to spend this phase of life playing Shuffleboard. There is no better figure to personify our message than legendary actor Dennis Hopper who embodies the spirit of the generation. With his help we are speaking with Boomers not at them. In the broadcast ads, Hopper adopts a conversational style. In one version he asks: "You still have things to do, right? You have dreams. And there is no age limit on dreams." In another version he reminds Boomers that "the thing about dreams is – they don't retire."
Now, you may think we're getting overly obsessed with little details here at Spirit Scholars. This business of the Red Chair? Think we're kidding? Well, sadly, we are NOT. The chair was carefully chosen and -- according to the designers of this ad campaign -- it is freighted with enormous meaning. Again, from the same actual corporate press release, explaining the strategic choice of a nostalgic chair: "This red chair, used in both broadcast and print ads, symbolizes the launching pad for Boomers' retirement dreams. It is -- An Anti-Rocking Chair."
OK -- so this is clearly one confused mess of cultural markers heaped upon us -- but, what truly set our Spirit Scholars Seismograph into the red zone was that mess of cultural references -- coupled with an essay that starts on Page 11 of Sunday's New York Times Magazine, by Christopher Caldwell, headlined "Geezery Rider: Why is a symbol of youth and rebellion having a senior moment?"
To anyone truly studying the cultural landscape in recent years, there was no great news in Caldwell's piece -- except that he brings us up to date on this popular question: So, Just How Old ARE Those Pesky Harley Davidson Rebels These Days? Are you ready? Bracing yourself? The average motorcycle owner now is over 40 -- and, Caldwell reports, "not even 4 percent of bikers are under 18."
OK -- then, flip to the end of Caldwell's piece and there's this true glimmer of wisdom: "All advertising and classic-rock lyrics to the contrary, there is nothing 'youthful' about motorcycles, only about motorcyclists at certain times and places. The idea that products embody certain spiritual properties is probably a sociological mirage of the Baby Boom."
Did you catch the significance of that? Here is the bitter irony of our Baby Boom generation: We, who have never been afraid to raise our voices, who have served as America's balladiers, who have recast the very syllables of American cultural language from our molten yearnings -- have no language ready to talk about the last great chapter in our epic tale: Aging. We've clung to youth so vigorously -- selling the commodity back and forth to ourselves so successfully -- that we're left in our aging years with our greatest cultural gift -- the ability to talk, sing and scream honestly about what is happening to us -- trickling away between our fingers.
We've written a number of articles already in Spirit Scholars about Aging. Click on the Category at left or use our new Search box to read the others.
But, please -- Let's start by admitting that the search for spiritual understanding about aging is a crying need in our culture. And, let's start by cleaning up this most recent mess, shall we?
First, we've already said: Please, no more jokes about Shuffleboard! The cultural reference is confusing, at best. We're not terrified of it. We can barely remember it. And, if we can, it's only a vaguely nostalgic memory of a Rec Room floor.
And, second, Dennis Hopper is not a Baby Boomer! He was born May 17, 1936. He just LOOKED young in "Easy Rider." He was 33 at the time of its release! We should never have trusted the guy in the first place.
And, third, let's not allow anyone to redefine red chairs as "Anti-Rocking Chairs." That sounds like an idea conceived by some sniveling Gen-Y'er who's only working at an ad agency until he can move to Hollywood and direct gross-out comedies. The young guy who thought up this pitch probably can barely spell Shuffleboard, let alone calculate the proper vintage of his TV pitchman. C'mon, let's get a little revved up about this!
Frankly, we need to defend every inch of our cultural heritage, don't we? And, there's a long, proud heritage of red furniture in America. Heck, some enterprising high school or college student could write a terrific research paper on the phenomenology of red furniture. One could go back to Edward Hopper's famous red chair in his iconic painting of a New York City apartment -- to the group of writers and artists who hauled a Red Couch around the world in the 1980s -- to the Blogosphere gurus who are working on some kind of crazy Red Couch plan at the moment to create an online book manuscript. And this is truly puzzling: The Red Chair, at this moment, is associated both with Flamenco and neo-traditional Irish music!
One thing is certain (and here's the point of this part of our little screed): We are too restless and creative as Baby Boomers to sit still and let some advertising copywriter who's barely heard of Woody Allen and who thinks that Bob Dylan is a cool old geezer to jump in front of our cultural workbench and steal the metaphor of red furniture -- much less deconstruct it into a pitiful fear of aging: an Anti-Rocking Chair. We say: Bah!
And, do we really need more stories about the aging of motorcycle riders? We've been reading essentially that same news story for nearly a decade now. Perhaps, we could dispense with the more ponderous reporting and proudly accept the aging process. You know? Rather than more of these somber essays -- how about developing a tasteful, cheery little graphic device (with a Harley logo and an upwardly climbing median age) that would appear in the corner of page 3 in each issue of Modern Maturity? We say: Let's admit we're aging and just enjoy some aspects of this inevitable process! If some of us want to fire up loud bikes and roar around North America's back roads -- well, then, who cares what the youngsters are doing these days? Let's decide not to go quietly into this particular Good Night.
What else is there to say?
That truly is the question, you know: What else is there to say?
Help us, please, to start filling in the blanks. Where is our spiritual language for aging in this new age? If you feel so moved, post a Comment here, or send an Email to dcrumm@freepress.com with your thoughts. What else have you got to do? Daydream about the patterns in your Dad's Rec Room floor?
www.stpeteshuffle.com
or Google 'St Pete Shuffle'
Posted by: Chris | March 25, 2007 at 10:28 PM