“Immortality” for Baby Boomers
Newton, MA: From failing eyesight to failing marriages, thickening waistlines
to thinning hair, middle age may not feel like the best time of your life.
Experts predict that people born between 1946 and 1964, better known as
the Baby Boomer generation, will experience age-related problems in epic
proportions since some 76 million Americans were born during this period.
The oldest boomers of this often-pampered and self-indulgent generation
will turn 59 in 2005. By 2015, half of the boomer population will be 60.
Middle age can feel a lot better if you have a sense of humor. According
to authors, publishers and clinical psychologists, Sydney Altman and Zoe
Lazar, there’s plenty to laugh about, and that’s why they
founded BaBoom Press.
In their first book, Mother Goose Tells the Truth about Middle Age (BaBoom
Press, 2001, ISBN: 0-9707275-2-6, $16.95), Jack and Jill are now over
the hill and Mary has a lot of lamb and rushes to her diet support group.
Exploring a multitude of middle age issues, this book invites readers
to revisit their childhoods by using well known nursery rhymes as the
vehicle for its irreverent and brazen brand of humor. Poems like “This
Baby Boomer Plays the Market, “Oh Where, Oh Where has my Estrogen
Gone” and “What are Aging Boys Made of,” turn a wry
eye on middle age.
“Getting people to laugh at their struggles with aging, while appreciating
the poignancy of those struggles, was why we wrote and published this
book”, says Altman. “If anyone reading this book is able to
laugh out loud or smile with self-recognition, then we’ll have accomplished
what we set out to do.”
For their second publication, Victoria’s Rejects, Altman and Lazar
used themselves and three other brave women as models and produced a full-color,
hilarious spoof catalogue filled with “essential but unavailable
products” for women over 40.
Victoria’s Rejects (BaBoom Press, 2002, ISBN: 0-9707-275-1-8 $11.95)
is for “women who have achieved middle age”, and offers items
that exist only in the twisted minds of its authors. These two 50 something
women, best friends for over 40 years, have come up with solutions for
everything from excessive knee fat to finding where in the parking lot
you left your car. Celebrate the milestones of menopause with their “Ovulation
Farewell Party Kits”, and “Menopause Announcement Cards”.
For sagging skin, they offer “Skin Clips”, “Cellulite
Compound Filler” and “Alpha-Epoxy Cream”. These are
only a few of the inventive remedies mentioned.
The back cover of the catalogue cautions that “middle age can be
hazardous to your health. Victoria’s Rejects products have been
shown to alleviate the stress, pressure and general discomfort of this
phase of your life”.
Having laughed their way through many of life’s hurdles, Altman
and Lazar decided that the best way to approach the inevitability and
undesirability of aging was to keep laughing and get others to join in.
For more information, visit www.BaBoomPress.com.