Sixty years ago, Star Trek began a journey I wasn't there to witness. I inherited it later, through reruns and a house full of nerds who had already fallen in love with the Enterprise. Only years later, after becoming a writer myself, did I understand what those 79 episodes had really given me. Beneath the aliens, cardboard rocks, strange new worlds, and occasional space hippies were writers willing to wrestle with racism, gender, power, faith, fascism, artificial intelligence, and what humanity might become. Star Trek didn't just give me a future to imagine. It gave me permission to ask, “What if?” 🖖

Some songs ask you to listen. “Shout” told us to do something. As rock splintered into new wave, punk, synth-pop, and all those strange musical islands Gen X was discovering, Tears for Fears arrived with a message hidden inside an irresistible song: open your eyes, question what you're given, and don't hold it in. From the monster Songs from the Big Chair to the psychedelic reinvention of The Seeds of Love, they kept changing while leaving their fingerprints on a generation. And for one shy Singer Angel, they offered something even more important: permission to use her voice.

Some songs don’t just bring back a memory. They bring back an entire movie. For Gen X, the opening notes of Simple Minds’ “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” are enough to summon five kids, one Saturday detention, and a fist raised over a football field. The Breakfast Club wasn’t a nostalgic look at our generation. We watched it while we were living it, and somewhere in that library, each of us could find ourselves. Forty-one years later, the song still plays, the fist still goes up, and one question remains: Which one were you? ✊🎶

are you currently in college? or recently graduated? this is my literal realization after just 2 weeks.

Freddie Mercury would have turned 80 today. For me, he was never simply the legendary voice of Queen. He was the gloriously different man who taught a frightened little girl that there might be power in being exactly who you are. From the records that gave me somewhere to escape to the day a hospital waiting room joined Wembley Stadium in singing back, Freddie’s voice became part of the soundtrack of my life. Decades after I thought that light had gone out, a new generation has discovered Queen, the world is still answering his call, and I am too. Happy birthday, Freddie.

Some songs take us back to a moment. Others open a door to an entire history. When Starship’s “We Built This City” exploded into the Gen X soundtrack, Grace Slick seemed perfectly at home in the neon world of 1985. But follow her backward and the road leads through Jefferson Starship, “Find Your Way Back,” Jefferson Airplane, and finally to “White Rabbit” and the psychedelic heart of San Francisco. For this San Francisco girl, discovering that history meant realizing something wonderful: I thought Grace Slick had entered my musical world. It turned out I had entered hers.

“overkill” isn't just about the number of posts anymore. By the end, it has become about taking something that was already beautiful and repeatedly insisting on its beauty until the insistence itself becomes conspicuous.

Some songs take you back to a moment. Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” takes me back to an entire time. The guitars start to sing, the air changes, and suddenly I’m surrounded by the sights, sounds, and freedom of growing up Gen X. But Boston’s story is as remarkable as their unmistakable sound: three extraordinary albums across ten years, battles with the music industry, years between records, and a voice in Brad Delp that seemed capable of soaring forever. Nearly fifty years later, Boston still stands among rock’s legends. Maybe legacy isn’t about how much you leave behind. Maybe it’s about what happens when someone presses play.

Sometimes the music that opens a new world isn't new at all. When “Owner of a Lonely Heart” led me to 90125, I thought I'd discovered an incredible contemporary band. Then I learned Yes had already been rock gods for years, realized the “Roundabout” I'd heard on classic-rock radio was them, and did what any curious young music lover had to do: I headed to Tower Records. What started with one killer album became the doorway to an entire musical past, and the beginning of my journey into classic rock.

Maybe I remember people unusually well. Maybe I'm unconsciously treating my own ability to recognize faces as the baseline and assuming everyone else experiences recognition the same way.

Before I knew anything about genres, musical movements, or the history behind the sounds I loved, Earth, Wind & Fire was already building worlds inside my imagination. Through my brother Rick’s record collection, a kalimba that sent him exploring, the wonder of “Fantasy,” the breathtaking vocals of Maurice White and Philip Bailey, and a band that seemed to move effortlessly through every musical era, they became part of the soundtrack of my childhood. Some bands have hits. Some become legends. But every once in a while, royalty walks into the room.

Sometimes music is love at first listen. Sometimes it takes another bite. My first taste of Depeche Mode came during a spontaneous college road trip, when a cute guy pulled a cassette from his pocket and introduced me to “People Are People.” What began as the soundtrack to a beautiful day became something much bigger: a band unafraid to question prejudice, power, faith, desire, truth and the complicated business of being human. Depeche Mode gave us a hell of a Gen X Reflex, but they also helped turn our generation’s most sacred rule into law: Don’t tell me what to do.

Devo was never just the strange band with the red hats and “Whip It.” For me, they began with a cool older brother, a ridiculously oversized birthday box and two concert tickets, then became part of a lifelong habit of digging deeper into the music that made Gen X wonderfully weird. Beneath the synths, jerky rhythms, bizarre imagery and songs that sometimes seemed almost deliberately wrong was a band that understood the rules well enough to break them. Devo didn't simply make weird music. They made weird special.

The distinction of harmful effects almost always boils down to personal intent. The real danger lies not in the plant itself, but in a lack of intention—when consumed mindfully as a targeted, natural band-aid, the outcome is drastically different from using it as a tool for mindless escape.

Tim Curry didn’t simply appear in the movies and television Gen X grew up with. He danced along the spine of it. From Annie and Clue to Legend, IT, Home Alone 2 and the gloriously fearless performance that made The Rocky Horror Picture Show a cultural phenomenon, Curry had a gift for making every character memorable. I became a fan almost without realizing it, following that unmistakable face, voice and wonderfully British wit across decades. As we say goodbye to another performer who has been part of our world for most of our lives, I’m remembering the man who made us laugh, gave us nightmares, embraced the weird and never seemed afraid to go all the way.

There are moments when a generation suddenly feels the passage of time, and losing Dolly Parton is one of them. I first knew her as the spectacular woman singing “Jolene” on television, then watched as she moved through 9 to 5, Hollywood, Dollywood, philanthropy and even the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, never allowing herself to be contained by a genre or an expectation. Dolly belonged to country music, but somehow she belonged to all of us. Her passing isn't simply the loss of an icon. It feels like another column from the world Gen X grew up in has fallen, leaving us to remember the extraordinary woman who spent a lifetime being unmistakably, unapologetically Dolly.

Before Joan Jett became a rock ’n’ roll icon and Lita Ford stood toe to toe with the guitar gods, they were teenage girls in one wild, short-lived band called The Runaways. I discovered them backward, first through Joan, then through Lita, and only later understood what that little band had helped set in motion. From “Cherry Bomb” to “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll,” “Kiss Me Deadly,” Vixen and the women who followed, this is about two very different rock legends, the doors they helped kick open, and what it meant for a Gen X girl falling in love with rock to see women holding the guitars too.

One song. One speed limit. One Red Rocker who refused to slow down. 🤘 “I Can’t Drive 55” sent me down a Sammy Hagar rabbit hole that led through Tower Records, Montrose, Heavy Metal, countless concerts and eventually Van Halen. But decades later, the song means something different. Sammy may not be a Gen Xer, but his determination to keep creating rather than live entirely on yesterday feels a whole lot like us. We’re not ready for the greatest-hits album. We’re still recording. Get on. Ride. And don’t let anybody else set your speed.

Star Trek premiered in 1966, making the iconic franchise something we may not have inherited after all. It grew up right alongside Gen X. From discovering Tribbles in a classroom and falling in love with Spock, to science, fan fiction, conventions, loss, reinvention, and eventually meeting the people who once lived inside my television, this is my deeply personal journey through nearly sixty years of Star Trek. It changed, stumbled, found its people, reinvented itself, and kept going. Kind of sounds like us, doesn’t it?

In 1985, a group of politically connected parents decided something had to be done about the sex, violence, drugs and occult imagery finding its way into popular music, and Gen X suddenly found itself at the center of a national battle over art, children and control. From Prince and the infamous Filthy Fifteen to Frank Zappa, John Denver, Dee Snider and the Senate hearing that helped usher in the Parental Advisory era, this Rock ’n’ Roll Angel deep dive explores the PMRC, the generations of musical moral panic that came before it, and the artists who kept pushing against the walls. Forty years later, the technology has changed, but the question hasn't disappeared: Where does protecting the next generation end and controlling what they can hear begin?