It's a little bit of a mixed bag for you in this edition of Gen-X Files, as I throw some odds and ends that have been rattling around in my brain at you. You have to be nice to me, though, because it's my birthday today, one I share with ... wait for it ... Julian Lennon. He's a bit older than I am, but I always thought it was a Gen-X bragging right to have the same birthday as him. It probably wasn't, yet here I am still bragging about it.
Anyway, I've got urban legends, Jesus Christ Superstar, and The Fixx on my mind today. Let's dive in.
SEE ALSO: Gen-X Files: Streaming Killed the Video Store, and Jenny Changes Her Number
Gen-X Files: Generation X – Built to Last (Like That Harvest Gold Refrigerator in Your Mom's House)
Urban Legends
I post a lot of Gen-X memes over at my Substack, and one of them sparked a conversation about Mikey from the infamous Life cereal commercial. And that made me think about the urban legend that somehow made it to playgrounds across the country a few years later: the actor who played Mikey had died after eating Pop Rocks and drinking Coke. His stomach had exploded, you all!
(How urban legends spread so far and wide back in those days is beyond me. Maybe they were in Mad Magazine and Tiger Beat?)
So, in case you need a good spook today or just a walk down memory lane, here are some other urban legends that plagued Generation X. Let me know which ones I missed.
"The Hook"
A teenage couple parked at Lover's Lane hears on the radio that a killer with a hook for a hand has escaped. When they get home, a hook is hanging from the car door handle. Gah!
"A Razor Blade in the Apple"
Parents were warned that strangers were hiding razor blades or poison in Halloween candy and apples. This was big in the 70s.
"The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs"
A babysitter keeps getting creepy phone calls, only to learn the calls are coming from inside the house. As a regular babysitter back in the day, this one creeped me the heck out.
"The Bermuda Triangle"
People believed ships and planes were mysteriously disappearing there due to paranormal forces. Ten-year-old me was convinced.
"Poisoned or Drug-Laced Temporary Tattoos/Stickers"
Parents and schools sometimes warned that dealers were handing out LSD-laced stickers or fake tattoos to children. These stickers never did make it to my school.
Jesus Christ Superstar
This question goes out to our cherished Boomers: what in the world??
My youngest daughter is obsessed with musical theater and often plays me soundtracks of her favorites when we're driving in the car together. It's usually the latest Broadway hit, but tracks from Jesus Christ Superstar started making their way into her playlist. This brought a wave of nostalgia for me because my uber-Catholic parents used to play the soundtrack on repeat on the stereo when the movie version came out in '73.
I hadn't heard these songs in decades, but I still knew them pretty well. It turns out that a bunch of godless celebrities had staged a version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical last year at The Hollywood Bowl, and that's why the show and its music had gotten onto my teen's radar. After listening to one of the songs from the 2025 show, I steered her toward the soundtrack from the movie, telling her it would be the grooviest thing she ever heard.
Fast forward to last week, and we decided to watch the movie for Good Friday. I had never seen it, and I don't think either one of us was prepared for how incredibly far out it was. If you haven't seen it – and I don't know if the stage version is similar or not – it's about a troupe of the grooviest Hippie performers you'll ever see descending on the Negev Desert to stage a performance of Jesus Christ Superstar.
I don't have the words to do the movie justice, so I'll just share a song instead.
It is something else. My husband and I had fun sharing with our daughter that this was the weird world we were born into and that the movie partially explains our bemusement at the generation ahead of us. We all agreed there were probably mind-bending substances involved, and left it at that.
We became so obsessed with the movie that we made some of our Easter guests watch it after we finished our meal on Sunday. It didn't make any more sense the second time around. So, again, I ask our Boomers: What in the world?
Earworm of the Week
Instead of a meme this time around, I'm sharing the earworm that plagued me for weeks before being supplanted by the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack. I give you ... Red Skies by The Fixx. You're welcome.
