The Big Fuddy-Duddy

One of the dangers of devoting your life to being cool and hip is that the rules of that game inevitably change and you ain’t so cool anymore. This is particularly true of my Boomer generation, which is headed, such is human life, for fuddy-duddy status come Hell or High Bananas. And despite our hipness, we are not aging gracefully. Staying cool-at-all-costs is not easy and the harder you try, the harder it gets.

There is no greater example of this Boomer desperation than Oliver Stone, recently caught DUI in his dotage. Now, on the eve of directing a major studio 9/11 film, he again reminds us… ad tedium, ad nauseum, as if we didn’t know already… that he opposed the War in Iraq:

“There was an over-reaction after 9/11. Bush was given enormous powers and misused them. He created a war in Iraq that has further helped bust the economy, and has led to civil war there.

“He was the wrong leader at the wrong time. I always felt that. I wish I was wrong.”

This is, of course, BS. Stone doesn’t wish he was (or were) wrong. He wishes he was right. He wants the country to have made the wrong step in his view so that he can remain what he thinks is cutting edge. Oliver Stone NOT in opposition to a president is not Oliver Stone. He is just some guy who recently made a bunch of movies that tanked – in other words, anonymous. Never mind all those millions of real live Iraqis waving their purple fingers in support of democracy. We won’t talk about them – and certainly Oliver won’t.

Yes, being cool is really hard to keep up. You just grow old and turn into a, well, fuddy-duddy. Of course there are those few exceptions that prove the rule. Like Dennis Hopper. But as is well known, Dennis voted for Bush.