YOWL Robert McLachlan (R.McLachlan@massey.ac.nz) found this in an old 80's issue of The New Republic, and was even nice enough to convert it to HTML himself! I suffered through the Reagan-happy years of the 1980's, and I think this is a pretty cool parody. YOWL On the 30th anniversary of "Howl." CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY PAUL SLANSKY D.C.-L.A.-D.C. 1986 For Jay McInerney I I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by stress frazzled overtired burnt-out jogging through suburban streets at dawn as suggested by the late James Fixx, career-minded yupsters burning for an Amstel Light watching Stupid Pet Tricks, who upwardly mobile and designer'd and bright-eyed and high sat up working in the track-lit glow of the Tribeca loft skimming through the Day Timer while padding the expense account, who passed through universities and saved their asses hallucinating Grateful Dead posters and eating Sara Lee while watching the war on TV, who were graduated and went on to law schools burning to save the world, who brewed decaffinated coffee doing their yoga in alligator shirts and listening to the latest Windham Hill Sampler, who ate chocolate croissants in outdoor café s and drank blush wine on Columbus Avenue washed down with a little Percodan with Dove bars with Diet coke with Lean Cuisine, stopping by on the way home for a pound of David's cookies telling each other of their fears on intimacy and their need for space and inability to commit - for now, who watched Mary Tyler Moore reruns and wept for Rhoda and worried about acid rain and the mercury in the swordfish while strung out on cyclamates faces flushed with MSG even after specifically making a point of mentioning to the waiter not to put it in, who prowled through uncertain money markets chewing Tums and doing lines with the Hispanics in the mail room sitting in the gents with baby-laxative runs while the boss buzzes and the secretary says you're on the phone to Bonn, who stayed up too late working out their relationships 'n' things feeling the gnawing rat-fear that they hadn't been communicating lately and the urgent pounding screaming need to think about their priorities, yacketayakking analyzing thinking it through making constructive suggestions as the easstern sky flamed in raw Ralph Lauren pastels, got to get away for a few days but the Hartmann luggage is being repaired oh, who needs this wandering through Needless-Markup wailing (inside) for the baby seals and the bunnies slaughtered for lipstick remembering all the unanswered anti-vivisection junk mail on the way to the appliances section to beg another blade for the Cuisinart, who subscribed to Gourmet and the American Lawyer and after an exhausting search found Jamaica time-shares in the classifieds for only $1200 a month coping as best they could with the Negro beach boys wanting to sell them ganja, paying outrageous sums for bottled water and having to complain about the maid service and the warm orange juice knowing they should have gone to Cape Cod instead where the Peugot mopeds fart carbon monoxide and the half-eaten lobster rolls rot in wax paper on the sidewalks and the Republican men in lime-green corduroys with little orange elephants bray as their wives buy overpriced scrimshaw, who nudged and nuzzled over margaritas and dreamed of endless throbbing hot sticky sex but Not tonite dear I have a yeast infection, running on spongy Reeboks to sublimate their lust then plunging into Bright Lights, Big City who upped their nightly hits of Valium from two to five mgs and worried if they were going to be groggy in the morning, who hollow-eyed and febrile read the theater reviews in unread issues of the New Yorker yes the New Yorker, who watched re-reruns of Mary Tyler Moore and decided they hated Rhoda, who skimmed the Banana Republic catalog with brain-dead gaze wondering if they really needed Ethiopian saddlebags, who padded back and forth to the john for endless glasses of water while worrying about refinancing at ten and an eighth and waited for the fiendish tweet of birds and the thud of the Wall Street Journal on the porch, who took a little tootsky after their Yoplait just to get going and buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzed along in the carpool yattering to the gray-flannelled bottisatvas in the backseat about rowing machines and Eddie Murphy's homo jokes, ah Jay while you are not safe I am not safe and now Ransom is remaindered at Waldenbooks and you're really in a bind - and who therefore drown in butter-flavored popcorn at the Cineplex as the answering machines cutely speak to strangers and Discover cards are mailed to the incorrect addresses while Mohawked clerks at Tower Records with little crucifixes in their ears play "Pillow Talk" and everything you want they only have in Beta. II Yuck! Gross! Eeewww! Buying crack from the zombies in the park! Closing out the trust fund! Checking into the rehab! III Jay McInerney! I'm with you at Area where the shark swims on the wall I'm with you David Letterman on the tower where you drop watermelons and TVs and bowling balls I'm with you Gary Hart in New Hampshire where you stammer and yammer about New Ideas I'm with you Don Johnson in Miami where you don't wear socks I'm with you Jerry Rubin on Wall Street where you only hear yippie when the Dow hits a high I'm with you Donald Trump on Fifth Avenue where Steven Spielberg has an apartment in your building I'm with you John McEnroe in England where you appear on world television treating people like scum I'm with you Maria Shriver in Hyannisport where a wedding gift from Kurt Waldheim has arrived I'm with you John Zaccaro at Middlebury where you pursue independent study projects I'm with you Doctor Ruth on cable where you giggle with your guests about orgasm I'm with you Ron Jr cavorting in your underwear on national television I'm with you Mike Deaver in Bitburg where your mind was on buying a car I'm with you Billy Crystal in too many places where your routines have not aged well I'm with you Brooke Shields at Princeton where you - but who cares? I'm with you on the Upper East Side pricing modems I'm with you on the Upper East Side stopping into the Food Emporium for a quart of lo-fat milk I'm with you on the Upper East Side eating sushi and Ecstacy I'm with you on the Upper East Side looking for myself in People magazine Literary Kicks