Look to the right of you. Now, look to the left. What do you see? Nouns.

There are people, places & things all over America, but for the life of me, I can't grasp what we're going for these days. What is our style? What is our attitude? What is our identity?

Look at the music of the 60s, 70s, 80s & 90s. There were definite trends. Attitudes were chosen. Jazz, rock, disco, punk, new wave, metal, rap, hip hop, grunge, ska and so forth. The DIY attitude persevered. Do It Yourself, since no one else was going to do it for you. New styles morphed out of the old school. New sounds revolutionized the way we expressed ourselves.

Look at the popular funny television shows over the years. "I Love Lucy," "Happy Days," "M*A*S*H," "Cheers," "Friends." The country would embrace (right or wrong) an ensemble of characters who would become their TV entertainers. Now we have more channels and options to focus on anything as a whole. What is the most popular show in America these days? A singing contest, where people do those songs from the 60s, 70s, 80s & 90s. Hmmmmm.

In the 50s, Valium was introduced to America. In the 60s, people discovered marijuana & acid. In the 70s, cocaine was introduced. In the 80s, crack blew up. In the 90s, heroin made a comeback and meth came around. In the new millennium, we're back to prescription drugs again.

This is what I'm wondering. Have we gone full circle since World War II? Are we out of fresh ideas? What is our identity these days?

When people want to be punks nowadays, they have to dress with that 1977 classic look or maybe that 80s street-core appearance. When people want to dress up (like on New Years' Eve), they wear mostly black like they're going to a hip funeral. Who died? We did.

What has the two-thousands brought us so far?

The best movie (in my eyes) was actually three movies called The Lord of the Rings, and that was an adaptation of a collection of fantasy stories published in the 1950s. It's not that there aren't good movies any more. There's always a few (Juno was the latest), but no one is really pushing the medium. Overwhelmingly, the best and worst movies came in the 1970s when filmmakers took risks. The Disneyfication of American movies is more prevalent than ever now. Happy endings only, please.

What have we done lately, America? The teen pop stars have grown up to be tabloid queens. The way for girls to get noticed is to have a sex tape. The way guys get noticed is to talk shit. Reality television has created a generation of posers. People act like they think they are supposed to act. Create conflicts, get drunk, sleep with each other and then regret all of it. I don't get it, and I don't watch it.

Our politics have been boiled down to two colors: red & blue. We may think we're sophisticated, rationale and passionate about our political system, but for eight years, it's been about two primary colors. A three year old can vote as well as anyone.

In 1991, I was seventeen year old, and like thousands of kids, I totally freaked out when I heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit." It expressed what so many of the kids were feeling at the time that it changed the entire musical scene practically overnight.

In 2001, I was twenty-seven years old, and like the rest of America, I totally freaked out when the Twin Towers fell. It killed what was left of my innocence, and what we got was years of being one or two steps away from our government declaring martial law on its own citizens (even though it wasn't our fault).

Safe & secure. That's what I've been hearing for almost seven years now. Are you safe? Are you secure? We have killed something in us these last few years. We used to have identities, then an identity crises, then a new identity. We used to be able to look back and laugh at the silly clothes we wore, the silly hairstyles, the silly songs, the silly attitudes we took so seriously. I'm looking back at the last eight years, and I can't laugh at it very much of it. When was the last time you really took a chance on something?

There's not a lot of sharing of ideas and attitudes going on these days. All I see are little clumps of people huddled in their little styles and attitudes of time long gone. We've gotten old, America. Old & tired. We are reusing old styles, old energy, old attitudes & old excuses.

We have lost our identity, and I don't think we even know it.

Chris Jungle is not easily impressed.