Happy New Year: Your World is Changing

I've been thinking about a quote I recently read in a news article about the now defunct James Dean Gallery in Gas City, Indiana. David Loehr, the owner of the museum devoted to the actor (also housing the largest private collection of James Dean artifacts), made a very telling point when he said, "Maybe it's just time to give up. And Jimmy is saying 'Enough is enough.'"

This fact hit me quite hard. I'm a devoted fan of the dead actor. Sure it began as adolescent hero worship, but I genuinely enjoy James Dean and everything about his James-Deanness. I've also relished my silent participation in a worldwide phenomenon. So to see the largest collector of James Dean artifacts (and I do mean artifacts such as actual movie costumes and hand-written postcards not just mugs, dolls, and clocks) fold up shop is a bit disheartening.

This closing came on the heels of the pitiful exhibition of Dean's three feature films' DVD release and the fiftieth anniversary of his death. When the news reports of low attendance, fortunes lost, lawsuits and every other depressing aspect hit the wires, Tom Griswold of the Bob and Tom show noted something to the effect of, "It's amazing. Every year he just keeps getting deader." That one really killed me.

Has it happened? Has James Dean lost his lock on the archetypical teenager? Is the epitome of post WWII cool actually passing away some fifty years after his first death? Moreover, would Dean even give a rip about any of this?

Dean's hometown of Fairmount, Indiana still trots out its Museum Days festival each September, but I haven't been since 1995. In fact, I only make a yearly pilgrimage each September 30 and when confronted by anthropologist/sociologist at Dean's gravesite in 2004 I strongly had to consider if I was merely phoning it in. The interesting conversation (we never exchanged names) brought me to very adult realizations about what the idea of James Dean means, and shockingly it had little to do with the guy six feet underneath me.

Perhaps Loehr is right and "Enough is enough." Time will tell whether or not teenage girls will fawn over Dean's looks and teenage boys will adopt his moody mantra, "Dream like you'll live forever. Live like you'll die tomorrow." Yet, if James Dean is to pass away from ethos to ether, who will take his spot? Are we seeing the dawning of an era where high schools will be full of River Phoenix tee-shirts? I don't get it.

Happy New Year.