They go too far. Just when I got used to hearing our music used as pseudo-symbolic themes, marketing everything from cars to box stores, along comes Fidelity Funds--who are shameless enough to use In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, for Christ's sake, to convince us to hand over our money. At least the other brazen carpetbaggers pretend to try to tie the song into the product. The only thing the Iron Butterfly 'classic'evokes in me is an unpleasant acid flashback and an urge to wipe the drool from the corner of my mouth. Investments...stupid stoner song...what the hell dots are they trying to connect here? Unless it's those between companies who'll do anything to make a buck from Boomers and the advertising firms who'd sell their mothers to get the account. Oh wait..they sort of are selling their mothers.

We weren't the only ones shaking our collective Boomer heads - Karen Heller at Philly.com was wondering the same thing... "Utilizing "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" to sell retirement services is absurd, ironic and self-referential, which makes sense because these are the hallmarks of the group Fidelity is trying to land as clients." Read Keller's entire article here >

And for those of you wondering what ever happened to Philip Kramer, the one-time bassist for Iron Butterfly... no he didn't discover faster-than-light space travel, his minivan was found at the bottom of a 200 foot ravine in 1999. Get the facts here >

I of course never color and am completely totally absolutely utterly still the same redhead I was when I was six. But some of the most beautiful Boomers I know have magnificent heads of glorious white hair. If you've braved the going-gray issue and come out on the side of letting nature run its course, this Boomer writer would like to hear from you.

Calling all women with gray hair! If you are between the ages of 45 and 65 and have made the transition from coloring your hair to wearing it naturally gray, I'd love to hear from you!

If you would be willing to share your experience of this transition for the book and/or its corresponding website, as well as supply some before-and-after pictures of yourself, Please contact maggie@goinggraygracefully.com for the submission information.

It's not so much second childhoods many of us are after, it's more second hippie-hoods. Not that it's necessarily time to re-learn macrame, but maybe it's never too late to be a rock star. A friend sent us an article from the New York Times that's probably hitting a chord with aging hipsters and their loving groupies everywhere.

By the way, check out this ultimate Boomer band with a monomaniacal (albeit justified) attachment to Steely Dan.

You can read the article here

According to this release by Gary Pettis, Boomers who either must or want to continue working after so-called retirement age will need to be creative in carving out new roles. And it may not necessarily be Gen-X we're competing against, since GenX represents only 17% of the population. We're more likely to be competing against each other--with similar breadth and depth of experience.

Don't despair though--we've reinvented ourselves before and by gum, we can do it again. Says Pettis, "Soon, Baby Boomers will most likely discover that their competitors are fellow Baby Boomers and will be competing against them... In a society where many individuals share the same backgrounds, skills, abilities and trail of job descriptions, it is going to be the individuals that know how to position and market themselves and explain their unique set of skills and experiences to employers or customers that will gain the advantage."

We received a release about Newsweek's Boomer Files Style edition, on news stands today. That was a great thing about hippiedom: you could identify members of the pack by what they wore and what their houses looked like. If I saw bellbottoms, granny glasses, Batik, earth shoes, bead curtains, peace signs, or a tastefully placed bong on premises, I knew this person was 'one of us.' Not sure I would've ever called it 'design' or even 'style'-- I thought it more a matter of budget and altered states of consciousness than any kind of style statement. Our visual sense has been legitimized over the decades--witness the interest in 60's poster art and the kind of retro styles you see in teen catalogs like Urban Outfitters these days.

You can see the whole package at Newsweek or zero in on design, fashion, or graphic design.

Here's what the release has to say:

We're happy, we're high on life, we're generous, responsible, and basically fabulous. According to an article in the Washington Times , Pew Research conducted a broad survey of boomers, released in December 2005, that shows boomers are optimistic, pretty mature, and satisfied (obviously they didn't ask any questions about politics). The survey is loaded with boomer statistics--pretty interesting reading and probably great fodder for all those college kids writing term papers.

Over 50? Yearning for the open road? Here's your chance to change your 10-20, and find a new career - be a truck driver.

Facing a critical driver shortage, the trucking industry is actively recruiting us Boomers. We're safe, reliable and experienced. And here I thought an 80-year-old in a Lincoln Town Car was dangerous!

Read the whole story here.

A visitor posted a rave ,of this book, The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy, in the forum. I can hardly believe I haven't read it...OK, or even heard of it. But I'm rushing to Amazon right now to buy it.

While reading, Grandma Boomers, just the kind of well-written, edgy boomer blog I delight in, I came across a link to this from a thirty-something. She likes us, she really likes us. As used to boomer bashing as I am, it was delightful to find a Gen-Xette who actually admires us. OK--her web site uses funny colors and is really hard to read without enlarging the text--and she makes a few spelling errors--but I'll take being idealized over trashed any day.

Sometimes the news of the day and one more photo op of George W & Co. dismantling democracy is more than I can take. It drains the energy from my brain and makes me want to crawl under the covers until he's out of office. But we found someone who's as pissed off as we are and has the energy to write about it. Check out BooManTribune for your daily dose of articulate outrage. Not to mention, he's sponsored us for BlogAds, which means we may be able to pay for printer ink someday, or at least those love beads we found on E-bay.

Other blogs we like these days:
IsThatLegal
TheMahaBlog
DiscardedLies
MediaGirl

Blah, blah, blah..the first Boomers are turning sixty this year. What'd they think? We'd all die at 59? I defy you to find a news outlet that hasn't done a story on our pending senescence. But I did come across a list of the greats and near-greats who hit 60 this year, so any of you potentials codgers out there are in good company.

I'm not surprised that Dolly Parton is turning 60, but Patti Smith? How could the punk darling be sixty? On the other hand, there are some who seem to have been sixty years ago--like George W, who I have never wanted to claim as one of us anyway. And how about Pat Sajak and Donald Trump? "Youthful" isn't the first word that leaps to mind.

On the other hand, if some of these women are about to be sixty, then sixty must be the new 40---to paraphrase Gloria Steinem. Candice Bergen, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, and Linda Rondstadt for starters. Is it really all in the bone structure? Or perhaps beauty is as beauty does. Some of our cohort look like they've been rode hard and put away wet. The years have been downright cruel to Liza Minelli for instance, and Darryl Hall (reinforcing my theory that pretty boys just don't hold up to time).

I don't care how old Jimmy Buffett or Cheech Marin are--I'd smoke a joint with them any day. And speaking of joint, our very first Boomer president, Bill Clinton, will celebrate 60 this year.