More Than the Times Have Changed : Generation Gap: A reporter feels old at 40 as he watches the mindless members of a generation without hope, heart or joy at a heavy metal concert.

A recent assignment took me to San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium to cover a heavy-metal concert featuring bands with names that sounded like those of terrorist groups: Body Count. Metallica. Guns N’ Roses.

God, did I feel old.

It hadn’t helped that the night before I had driven to the San Diego Sports Arena to see a rocker I very much like--Bruce Springsteen--who at 43 showed more energy and raw intensity in 3 1/2 hours than many athletes do in a season.

That made me feel even older. “The Boss” is three years my senior.

Both shows were a grim revelation. Many in the Springsteen crowd at the Sports Arena looked my age or older. They also looked tired, somewhat weather-beaten, and, as the night wore on, increasingly nervous. I knew immediately what their looks suggested:

“It’s already 11:15, and the kids are home with a teen-age baby-sitter. And . . . this is a school night!”

But it took the heavy-metal show at the stadium to make me feel every bit like the suburban father of two I happen to be. I drove to the parking lot expecting to feel confused, alienated, even lost. I was not disappointed.

Upon leaving my car, I scanned the crowd to see which of the 43,000 customers I ought to interview first. My eyes settled on a black T-shirt that had stamped across its front, in giant block letters, the four-letter obscenity my Baptist mom used to say “is the absolute worst, bar none! Don’t ever use it!”

The body inside the shirt belonged to a 19-year-old man-child from Chula Vista. I asked the usual questions-- name, age, occupation, where he lived. He responded so loudly, and aggressively, that saliva shot out of his mouth like rounds from a Tommy gun.

“Do I work? Hey, I don’t do nothin’, dude! I live with my parents and get messed up every day. I’m here ‘cause Metallica is a (bleeping) kick-ass band, dude!”

One of his friends showed me the needle hole in his left arm. A ring of blood oozed from the sore. I looked nervously for a hypodermic. His friends crowded around me. A million thoughts crossed my mind.

“Are they going to stick me? Am I going to be HIV-positive? Am I moments away from a crippling addiction?” Settle down, I said to myself, you sound like Ward Cleaver.

Needle Hole gave me his name, age and city of residence, and with breath that could stagger a horse, pointed to the bleeding sore and shouted in my face: “The stuff I put in here is the best, man!”

As I backed away, smiling nervously, I thought of a line from a John Prine song, circa 1972: “There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm where all the money goes.” Look what Daddy begat.

The rest of the night was just as depressing, though not as threatening. A foursome from El Cajon--all jobless and appearing not to care--said they borrowed the $125 for four tickets and the money needed for T-shirts that ranged from $23 to $30.

“We’re not voting,” said a pale, thin, 20-year-old woman in a voice aching with desperation. “It wouldn’t help us anyway.”

“None of the choices are good,” echoed her 16-year-old friend, whose wispy hair was the same color of the Dallas Cowboys’ helmets--metallic blue. This, I thought to myself, is the future of America--blue-haired warriors fighting a multi trillion -dollar deficit.

Their companion, a 22-year-old weightlifter named Tripper, said he liked what he called the right-wing, anti-Communist message of Guns N’ Roses and lead singer Axl Rose. I immediately thought of Woodstock, summers of peace and love, and wondered where it all went.

“How serious a threat is Communism?” I asked.

“Whut?” he said, belching his beer.

“Never mind,” I said.

Just as suddenly, Ward Cleaver reappeared. Fifteen years from now, will my kids be sitting blue-haired and broke in some stadium parking lot, waiting for a screaming ninny whose first name sounds like an auto part?

These people appear just as disenfranchised as my Vietnam-era generation did, but am I mistaken in how I’m reading them? Are they as nakedly mindless as they appear? Wasn’t the ‘60s rebellion at least more thoughtful, more . . . full of heart?

Tripper went on and on, sounding like a public relations man for the tattooed evangelist, Axl Rose. “Yeah, right,” I thought. “Upstanding citizen, leader of our youth.” Just as quickly, I thought of one of my heroes--filmmaker Woody Allen--and had to concede that, in 1992, Axl’s headlines are far more desirable than his.

I left the stadium feeling troubled, as if I’d interviewed this enormous Dead End. My generation was at least more caring--wasn’t it? More hopeful? Yes, I have to believe it was. So what happened?

Tripper, whose mother is about my age, attempted to enlighten me.

“Our parents started something in the ‘60s, but they didn’t finish it off,” he said.

So . . . What happened?

“Don’t you know?” he said, as if the answer was obvious. “They got old, man. They got old.”