I decided to dust off this sorely dated blog and decided I should re-introduce myself. I
guess you can tell with a name like Joe Cianciotto that I’m Italian American, and with
New York in my URL, I am definitely from New York. To put a finer point on it, I was born
in Brooklyn, reared in Elmont, and came of age in Garden City. It is definitely quite the
eclectic background of stickball, juvenile delinquency, and caddying for aspiring-to-be-
rich morons.
Probably just as important as where I am from is actually when I am from.
As a pure-blooded Gen-Xer I was born in the heart of the seventies, spent grade school
in the eighties, and graduated college in the mid-nineties. Can’t think of anything I am
prouder to be a part of than my generation.
While we may not be as tough as the Greatest Generation; we are a hardy bunch. We
literally spent our elementary years practicing monthly nuclear bomb drills where we
had to stick our heads between our legs in the hall, and then pretty much, skipped back
to the lunchroom and ate a PB&J like it wasn’t a thing. In Junior High (yes, before it was
a dumb name like middle school), we all saw the space shuttle blow-up on TV in our
classroom and still had to make it to the next period without being late. No mental health
day, no safe space and definitely no therapy cats…just good old-fashioned reality with a
sprinkle of Baby Boomer parenting indifference.
To be fair, it wasn’t all nuclear bombs and exploding space shuttles. We got to roam the
streets without an ounce of adult oversight. Literally every corner was a candy store,
and you could always count on finding a stack of nudey mags on garbage day. And
before iPhones, texting, and doomscrolling ruled people’s souls, we got to experience
digital when it was much kinder and called electronics. Back then it mostly went into
making the most incredible arcades, killer Sony Walkmans, and the VCR. By the time I
was 18, I did have a beeper, but that was just so my parents could beep me when I had
to come home, and I could pretend it was some hot chick. Ah, also, no caller-ID on the
phones, so you could prank the local Pizza place with reckless abandon. To be fair, the
rotary dial did blow.
And the music, probably the greatest music of any generation. After those very weird
toddler memories of brown clothing, shag rugs and disco, the world gave way to Punk
Rock, then Heavy Metal, then the explosion of Rap and its evolution into hip-hop and
right back at it with Alternative. I had a legendary bag of cassette tapes that spanned
‘Kill Em’ All’, ‘Fear Of A Black Planet’, ‘Appetite For Destruction’, ‘Slippery When Wet’
and ‘Disintegration’….and of course Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch. And just when we
were all rounding college, the greatest album of all time, ‘Nevermind’ changed the game
and music forever. The entirety of this time would be filled with selling our books to go
see, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against The Machine, Alice In Chains, Dr. Dre, Ministry, Sound Garden, Siouxsie and the Banshees…heck, even U2 brought the goods with ‘Achtung Baby’.
I get it…anyone reading this could confuse this as some unique to-me meandering trip
(excuse the pun) down memory lane, but these experiences are not mine alone; they
represent the collective formative years of an entire generation that got to experience
what life could be before the brain drain of social media, smartphone addiction, political
divineness and personal truths ruined it all.
So, what does this have to do with who I am? Everything.
These are my values, my origins, the greatest lessons ever learned, the place I go to
when I am utterly underwhelmed by the world today, and the thing I try to keep alive in
my generation, and if I’m lucky, spark a bit of rebellion in the next.
If you want to find out more about Joe Cianciotto – you can do so here:
Joe Cianciotto on LinkedIn
Joe Cianciotto on Twitter
Joe Cianciotto on Instagram
Joe Cianciotto on Creative Pool
Joe Cianciotto on WordPress
Joe Cianciotto on Slideshare
Joe Cianciotto on Crunchbase
Joe Cianciotto on Facebook
Joe Cianciotto on YouTube
Joe Cianciotto on his website