“We should have had a cooler name, but it’s too late now,” lamented P.J. O’Rourke over the term Baby Boomers on Wednesday night at City Winery. “We’re stuck with being described as exploding infants.”
The humorist added of those born between 1946 and 1964: “We’d be sad about getting old if we weren’t too busy remarrying younger wives, reviving careers that hit glass ceilings when children arrived, and renewing prescriptions for drugs that keep us from being sad.”
He closed out House of SpeakEasy’s annual literary gala with the generational ode from his book, “The Baby Boom,” in front of Uma Thurman, Dan Stevens, HarperCollins’ Jonathan Burnham, Daisy Soros, Mercedes Bass and Lady Sheila Lyall Grant.
“Whenever anything happens, somebody over 50 signs the bill for it,” O’Rourke said. “Generation X, Generation Y and the Millennials [are] all saying, ‘Check, please!’ ”
The rollicking night also included appearances by Simon Doonan, Susan Fales-Hill, Stephen Lang and Jim Dale.
But O’Rourke figures the world’s bound to improve as Boomer values catch on globally: “Two-bit dictatorships in the butt ends of the world . . . you’ll turn into Baby Boomers, too. It’ll rain on your Woodstock. You’ll spend all you’ve got on discos, cocaine and rehab. Your junk bonds’ll default and your dot-com bubble will burst. You’ll form overage garage bands and try to play ‘Margaritaville.’ Your third spouse shall acquire an American Express Black Card with a credit limit higher than the US deficit.”